12-14-2020, 07:44 AM
July 1987 Angelus
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We present to you this beautiful Conference of Archbishop Lefebvre, which he gave to the priests of the District of France, at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, Paris, 13 December 1984. Though it is addressed to priests, we thought it of great value for the laity. It reveals the spirit in which His Excellency has trained his priests; the lessons on our dependence upon God are valuable for all Catholics; and the necessity of preserving the Faith is also well stressed!
I am very happy to be able to meet with you on the occasion of a meeting of the District of France, and I have to admit to you that I am also encouraged by this. It is a great satisfaction for me to report that, fourteen years from the foundation of the Society, its organization, its purpose—particularly sacerdotal—of forming priests shaped in the spirit of Our Lord, in the spirit of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—is finding its realization in the ministry, in the practice of the priestly life that you lead now, each one, in your place, in your function, in the mission assigned to you, and that thanks to this spirit that you have received, and that you hold on to and keep holding on to, you are profiting from an organization, a framework, a support from these meetings, thanks to the District, which shows also your concern to keep up and to perfect your desire for holiness. This is our outstanding importance.
You see, I think that if difficulties have arisen, which we know, in the priesthood, and in the sphere of secular priests in particular, since the Council, and these difficulties have been a painful verification of something that was lacking in the formation of these priests, it is without doubt that they had lost at the same time the true notion of the priesthood in which they were clothed, and that they had not taken the means of keeping this desire to maintain their faith and their fervor. Of course there were meetings in the dioceses, there were contacts between priests; but they were very formal contacts, unfortunately very administrative and not truly pastoral, and not made in a spirit of prayer, in a spirit of piety.
I think, then, that in meetings like these you find yourselves with the desire to examine together your cares as pastors, in order to find a better way to fulfill your apostolate and at the same time to pray together so that the graces of the Good Lord help you to accomplish this apostolate and to keep yourselves in fervor, in piety, in holiness. I think that this is a very beautiful and consoling thing which certainly should please God. You should be able to verify yourselves that in the way of this fervor, this desire of holiness and of perfection, there are some obstacles which perhaps you did not suspect when you left the seminary.
There can obviously be many of these…at first a certain weariness; there are those who are nearing ten years in the priesthood, there are some who have passed this, but ten years….Then there can be a kind of weariness, a type of familiarity, a certain habit, I would say, which brings it about that assueta vilescunt: what a person has done in a habitual manner winds up by not having any more embossment, not having any more value in a way. It becomes a sort of automatism, so that you can have here an obstacle.
There can likewise be a disappearance of sensible fervor, sensible consolations, in the union with God, in the ministry, in the accomplishment of the sacred acts that we have to accomplish each day.
There can also be a certain lack of success in the apostolate. One was hoping that the apostolate that he would have to do would have produced fruits much more important, much more numerous, much more profound; and after a few years, he realizes that it is very limited, it is not as deep as he had wanted—souls are not being sanctified as quickly and as perfectly as he had hoped. Then perhaps a certain disillusionment could lead to a kind of apathy, a certain lukewarmness in the accomplishment of the apostolate, in the exercise of the priesthood.
There are difficulties too in the daily life, in the organization of your daily life. When leaving the seminary, you had hoped to be able to have your time for prayer absolutely respected; not only respected but perhaps even able to add to it another half-hour now and then, finally a little more contemplation, a little more means of union with God. And lo, not only can you not add anything, you have often to shorten it! You are taken right and left by the demands of the faithful, by the necessities of organization and the apostolate; then the fact of seeing this life of prayer and this community life very often difficult to bring about can also become an obstacle to your sanctification and the cause of a certain uneasiness. You say to yourself, "But if I continue like this, where am I going to get to? What will be the result in four years, five years, six years, if I continue to live with so little possibility of collecting my thoughts, and of really leading a life of prayer and of union with God?"
Then some suggestions come, which can be as well from the Holy Ghost as from the demon: "Oh, maybe I would do better to go into a contemplative congregation; perhaps I had better ask for another position, change, go somewhere else, to an assignment less important, less mixed up with the world; find something, and at least be a little in the country, not in the city!" Oh yes, there are temptations like those. Personally I think that they come more from the devil than from the Holy Ghost. And then there are other trials, for example, changes of assignment. On the contrary, you were comfortable in that place, you thought that there, "I could really actualize my priestly life, my little program of life that I had made and planned during my seminary days. I found that it was good, I had a regular life, a community life that was rather pleasant; my brother priest and I understood each other, in short my apostolate was not too absorbing and as a result allowed me to have a priestly life such as I had dreamed of while in the seminary. But now I have been stationed somewhere that does not please me at all. I am not used to this kind of apostolate, and I will certainly have difficulties in realizing my priestly ideal such as I have anticipated it, etc."
Then you feel your heart being upset, your mind also; and it is a trial. And then it is another great trial that we all suffer: the trial of the Church, because we finally have to recognize it, the exterior situation and in a certain way the juridical situation(at last juridical in the sense of purely literal law), well, now it is not normal, that is true. Thus we are not in a normal relation with the bishops, with the priests who are around us and who also have an apostolate—what apostolate?—but in the end, they are priests who are still in the parishes; the relations with them are obviously not the relations which we normally should have had in the holy Church. So, no normal relations with the bishops, no normal relations with the priests who are around us, no normal relations with men religious or sisters, with a good part of the faithful, with Rome itself. It is an appalling, horrible trial, because it is abnormal. But the anomaly does not come from us. It is from them that it comes, from all those who have not followed the Tradition of the Church, who have themselves put themselves permanently outside all legality, outside the Faith, yes—even outside the Faith! But however it may be, we are convinced of this, it is they who are wrong, who have changed course, who have broken with the Tradition of the Church, who have rushed into novelties, we are convinced of this. That is why we do not rejoin them and why we cannot work with them; we cannot collaborate with the people who depart from the spirit of the Church, from the Tradition of the Church. But that puts us in a very critical situation of breaking with that mass of Church people who are departing from the Tradition of the Church. That makes thus for an unlikely situation, assuredly unbelievable, that is at times for us a cause for sorrow, for a desire to see the Church rediscover her way, that is to say, her Tradition—at least not the Church, but the people of the Church—for a desire that the Church not be torn anymore as it is right now, and finally that her passion in some way end.
Thus there are so many obstacles to our sanctification, to our union with God, to our serenity, to our peace in the apostolate, in the work which we have to do. So what should be the deep remedy, the essential remedy? You see, I think that if you take a glance at the history of the Church—the history of the Church is a great teacher, a teacher of truth—well, what is the spirit in which all those people worked who sanctified the Church, the world, who have been apostles? The fundamental idea, the essential idea of the Christian, of him who has the Faith, but also very simply of the wise man, of the sensible man, of the man who has the wisdom of philosophy and theology, this directing idea is dependence upon God, to live in dependence upon God. I believe that it is that that separates us from all those who do not want to live in dependence upon God, to live in total, complete, entire, perfect dependence upon God. We always have to come back to this fundamental principle, essential principle, in the light of faith.
The light of faith teaches us first of all this: I am nothing, not any thing, I am nothing without God! I cannot do anything without God. I possess all from God, I possess all from Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God. The fundamental conviction, the basic disposition is there: recognition of our nothingness before God and of our continual dependence with respect to God in our existence and in our activity.
The Faith teaches me next that I am a sinner, that I am a sick person, very sick. Even after the grace of baptism, I am always very sick, I am blind. I am tempted not to give to God what is due Him and not to give my neighbor what is due him. I am weak and in short I have the love of the things of the earth, I am tempted by the love of the things of here below: those are the four great sicknesses of which St. Thomas speaks to us and which form this fames peccati, this tendency towards sin that we have in us, even after the grace of baptism. We should never forget that, we should preach it to the people and say to them: "You are sick people." And therefore we have need of a Doctor. We have need all the time of being redeemed by the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The hour of redemption is not ended for us personally; it continues.
The Faith then teaches us that we cannot do anything that is meritorious without the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ; without the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ everything that we do is worth nothing. That is what St. Paul says when he speaks of charity, which is nothing but the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His blood: "Even if I gave my body to be burned, even if I gave everything that I am, even if I gave myself entirely for any purpose whatever that could appear to be a charity, all that does nothing for me." Nothing, no merit; that does not merit heaven for us, because there is no love of God, because there is no charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in us.
Then behold the real state in which we are, behold the state that all the wisdom of philosophy and theology teaches us: on the one hand, the wisdom of philosophy teaches us that we are nothing, that we depend totally on God. Let us read, let us re-read our theodicea and the conclusions are there, irresistible, of an unappeasable logic: man is nothing, is nothing. He is constantly in the hands of God. So now let us not believe that we can do anything by ourselves; we can do nothing. On the other hand, theology teaches us that we are sinners, that Jesus came to redeem us, that He shed His blood on the Cross, and that without Him we can do nothing to gain heaven. Nothing, nothing!
So we are really in a state of dependence: dependence in our existence, dependence in our salvation.And it is this dependence which characterizes Christian civilization. The Christian civilization of ten centuries has been characterized by this dependence upon God, dependence of the clergy, dependence of the kings, of families, of individuals: all was under submission to God. At least that was the principle; the principle was there; and if obviously sin was certainly everywhere, at least in principle all depended upon God, all depended upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ was truly King—the King accepted officially, publicly, by everyone, by the whole of society, publicly! Then there was this dependence, this spirit of dependence, of simplicity, of discretion, of humility in the homes, in the families, vocations in considerable numbers, because the people felt the need of going to the Doctor of Souls, of going to Our Lord Jesus Christ, of being dependent upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. There was this constant summons in the souls.
Now this dependence stirs up in us the desire precisely to set up the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere. "Instaurare omnia in Christo—to restore all things in Christ," this is indeed the motto of our Saint Pius X. "Recapitulare omnia in Christo—to recapitulate all things in Christ": this is still another term, an expression from the Holy Scriptures, of St. Paul: "recapitulare," a magnificent term! In Greek, "ανακεφαλαιωσασ θαι": all is brought back to the head, which is Our Lord Jesus Christ; nothing apart from Him! Of that, we have to be convinced, truly convinced. I think that we should often meditate on that, that it be truly the object, I would say almost the main object, of our meditations, because it is the principal reality.
It is the great reality, it is the reality which will be laid bare in heaven for us. I think that that is what is going to strike us at the moment of our death: "I did not know that I was so dependent on God, that all depended on Our Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation; I did not realize that; now I discover, I discover the reality, I discover that God is all, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is all for my salvation, He is all for my redemption." And we will regret at that moment that we did not spend our lives in this total dependence on God, in this total dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation and for the salvation of souls.
Thus we should think about this not only for ourselves, but also for others, in our actions, in our apostolate. Our apostolate should not have any goal other than putting people into this dependence, saying to them: "O, but listen! Meditate on God; you can do nothing without God, so think of God, pray to Him, unite yourselves to Him. You can do nothing without Our Lord Jesus Christ, so think of Him! You will not be able to have the least merit for heaven without the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, without His charity, without His grace." "Nihil mihi prodest," this is the conclusion of St. Paul. It will not help me at all that I give my body to be burned for any love whatever, if it is not by charity. If I do not have charity, true charity, "nihil mihi prodest": that does me no good at all. And Our Lord Jesus Christ repeated it: "You can do nothing without Me." "Nihil": nothing! "Sine me nihil potestis facere," nothing! It is clear, it is plain. We have to be so convinced of this that, in our apostolate, we will be in this complete dependence upon God. That is very important because, you see, you are all full of zeal, you have only one desire—to convert all the people around you, to bring them all back to Our Lord, certainly. But there can be a great part of zeal that is purely human, zeal that is completely natural; take care!
Why? For my part, I will soon have been a priest sixty years. I see that I have also been, surely, perhaps in my zeal—I recognize it—sometimes more human than supernatural. Thus, by dint of reflection and prayers, it seems to me that now, and as the Society has been brought into being,I have always followed Providence; I do not want to anticipate it. I think that it is a great danger to want to anticipate Providence, to say, "Well, as for me, I am going to do that, I am going to accomplish that, I have to do that, I absolutely have to do that." Then one dashes recklessly, with all the zeal that he can have, to accomplish things; and he does not say sufficiently to himself, "Does the Good Lord want this? It is that the Good Lord wants? Does He want it at that moment? Does He want it in that manner? Does He will it with that quickness? In that time? Does He not want me to think a little more on it or even wait a little, in order that it be His will more than mine; because if I do my will, I run the risk of not doing God's will or of not doing God's will as the Good Lord wants it." And then later we should not be surprised that God's will is not brought about as well as we wished.
On the contrary, if truly at the moment when we accomplish such and such an objective of our apostolate, in the full measure in which it is possible for us to realize it, we can say, "I believe very sincerely that it is the moment, that the moment has come; the Good Lord wants me to do that, everything shows me objectively that it is the Good Lord's will: my superiors are not opposed; on the contrary, they are encouraging me, the Church encourages me, my Faith encourages me. Objectively I believe it is the will of the Good Lord that I do that," then there is a full guarantee that my undertaking is of God. Otherwise it comes from subjectivism: you end by persuading yourself that the desire you have is truly the desire of the Good Lord. But all the same, be careful! That has to be objectively true. There have to be objective proofs of this will of God and not only subjective proofs. That is to say, "I think that I am doing God's will," in such a way that they will wind up being opposed to the superior, saying, "My superior does not understand; it is no use talking to him, he does not comprehend." He does not comprehend? Certainly! It is not the Good Lord's will that you want to do, it is your will! Now the Good Lord's will comes through the superiors, if it is clear that evidently they are not openly opposing things of Faith, as unfortunately we are witnessing nowadays in the Church. Therefore you have a danger there, you see. I believe that this subjectivism is, precisely, Protestantism. Let us take care!
Protestants have the habit of acting like that. For them, their will, what is going on in their own interior being—the forging of their project—the movement of their will, is God speaking to them. Therefore, what the Good Lord wants is really their own wills. Look how dangerous that is. I have observed that sometimes with people converted from Protestantism, they keep the subjective idea that the Good Lord's will is their own will, and that consequently when they want something, it is the Good Lord Who wills it. Therefore when someone is opposed to this will, he is opposed to the will of the Good Lord. "If my superior is opposed to this will, he is opposed to the Good Lord's will and to providence." This is very serious. It is very easy to substitute one's will for the will of the Good Lord! Therefore pay close attention; that can be a defect, a defect that is natural to you, which is to want to make "my will" decisive. We think that we want to do the Good Lord's will, but, in fact, we do our own will. It is necessary really to have objective proofs, signs that it is truly the Good Lord's will. Now all the same, one of these signs is that at least the superior wills it! At least that the superior is not himself losing his way in a very evident manner from the truth and from objectivity. Therefore, the first sign is if the superior wills it.
Next we have to examine whether the external circumstances, outside ourselves, show this. Here are the circumstances that showed me that I should do something when I began the Society in Fribourg: I said to these gentlemen who positively wanted to push me to do something for the seminarians and who were asking me to take care of them. Well, I said to them, "I am going to see Bishop Charrière. I want to see the bishops I know. If the bishops say, 'Undertake it,' truly, I will see in that a sign of the Good Lord's will." And this was in spite of the fact that I did not have the desire to do so because I found that I was already aged and that I could not undertake a work of this type at my age. At age sixty-five, one no longer begins a work like that of the Society! I said, "Well, if Bishop Charrière really encourages me, then I have to plunge into it nonetheless, with the help of God's grace." And still I did not know what was going to happen afterwards. I certainly could not think that today I would be meeting with you fourteen years later with such a number of priests, and that the Society would be what it is now. If someone had said that to me, I would have smiled. That is why I say that it is the good Lord who has accomplished everything, it is not I; I did not want it even at that moment, but Bishop Charrière said to me, "You have to. Do it, do it. Take something, rent a house in town. Take care of your seminarians, do not abandon them. It is absolutely necessary for you know the situation of the Church now, on the situation in the seminaries; the good traditions absolutely have to be kept." He was completely in agreement, he encouraged me ardently. That was the objective sign that I should act; I believe that it was very important. I think that if I had said at that moment, "I want to begin a seminary, I want a seminary, and I will bring it about, because I think it will be useful, that the moment has come in the Church," but if I had not consulted, not asked, some bishops whom I knew, whose good dispositions I knew, the basic dispositions of a man of the Church, well, I do not think that the Society would have been brought into reality as it has been because it would have been a personal work, a work which perhaps would not have been blessed by God. Maybe it would have been good, but not blessed as it has been blessed by God.
So I think that in your apostolate it is the same thing. I give you this advice: see the objective, and not the subjective, will of God. Do not anticipate the will of Providence, but follow it. See when things really are ready; someone asks us to open a place here; someone says to you, "Oh, come, Father, you know there are many of us here; we would like you to come." Now you are already overburdened, so that rationally you should not do it because it is too much, that it is going to be too much. But there are some circumstances that come up, showing you some possible vocations; and then your superior comes, saying, "Perhaps that would be good." Very gently, the objective circumstances beyond your will—almost against your will—really push you to do something in this realm. So finally you make your decision. Well, that will be blessed by the Good Lord because it is not your personal will. It is really, objectively, the Good Lord who has shown you that it is His will to do that; and, even if your health has to suffer, well, the Good Lord will give you health. Have confidence, and if it is really the Good Lord who asks it of you, He will give you the means.
But if it is our will, it is much more dangerous; for then one is going to force things. Now he does not have the means to bring them about, or the means of health, or the means of organization of this apostolate. So this apostolate is going to end up probably by failing, and that will be worse, not better, because these people who had confidence are going to lose confidence. That is not working. Oh, he wanted to do his own will! It is not always like that, but there is a danger. I think that you really have to pay strict attention to that. You really have to be sure what is the Good Lord's will, even from the simple, material point of view. Without the material conditions, it is absolutely unthinkable to want to bring something about, when you do not have the means! It will be said, "But the Good Lord wants it"? "Because I feel that, because I feel that the Good Lord wants it." Who feels? Who feels that the Good Lord wants it? You—it is you who feel that; therefore it is your will finally that you want to do! "I am sure about that, I am sure." Who tells you that you are sure, show me the proofs! You do not have any! Good! You rush into it, but do you have the money to do it? "No, but St. Joseph will give it to me." It is not as certain as that! And then, all of a sudden, it is not working, it is not happening because you wanted to do your own will. Whereas if really all the objective circumstances, if everything convinces you that you should do it, then, in that case, yes. The Good Lord will give you what is necessary; the money will come if it is truly a necessary thing. If the Good Lord absolutely wills it, He will give the means. Therefore you have to be prudent; it is a question of prudence in the apostolate, but above all, it is a question of dependence upon the Good Lord.
This dependence upon the Good Lord is absolutely indispensable. If one no longer depends on the Good Lord, if one does not do that in total dependence, then it is no longer the Good Lord who acts through us. It will not be St. Paul's motto any more, "mihi vivere Christus est," it is Christ who acts in us. Therefore, it has to be He who acts, it does not have to be we. It is necessary that we be in dependence on Him, that we be an instrument, that we follow Him, that we have first of all the objective conviction that it is He who tells us, "Do that. You should do it." Then our desire will be precisely to put ourselves, by ourselves, into dependence upon God, to place the families there, to put souls there.
The souls that we will have to direct, to teach this dependence upon God, this dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sacraments, by the grace of the Good Lord, that is holiness. That is not sentiment, that is not because we feel full of fervor that we are truly charitable for so many. The test of charity is the accomplishment of the Good Lord's will. Therefore total dependence upon the Good Lord—that is charity. Our Lord Himself says, "You are My disciples if you fulfil My commandments. If you fulfil My commandments, We will come to you and will in you Our abode." It is very clear. It is dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ.
After this outline of our apostolate, of our interior life, of our behavior towards God, towards Our Lord, towards our apostolate, let us turn now to those who profess independence in regard to God. And we will see precisely that our current situation in the history of the Church, in the current epoch of the Church, is the true situation in which we should be and we should stay, because our adversaries are precisely those who proclaim independence and revolution against God and who wage war against all dependence on God, against all the laws of the Good Lord, against all the laws, supernatural and natural. They want to destroy everything. By the mere fact that something has been made by God, it is to be destroyed! The natural laws of marriage, all the natural laws even of simple material nature, even the ways of cultivating the earth, even the manners of behaving oneself everywhere, everything that recalls God, all that reminds us of a dependence upon God must be broken, must be changed. The revolution must be carried out in all domains: liberation—liberty! liberty! liberty!—to free oneself from God, to free oneself from dependence upon God in all domains, that is the revolution. Now that is the spirit of Satan. That is hell. Hell is independence in regard to God. "Non serviam!" "Nolimus hunc regnare super nos—we do not want this One to rule over us!" This is the cry of hell!
Then we see all that being brought about before our eyes: the struggle for the secular school, this is the struggle against God, against dependence upon God. All those bad laws that have been passed: abortion, contraception, divorce, are the destruction of the laws of God and, therefore, destruction of dependence upon God. Now, since Protestantism, and particularly since the French Revolution, we have been present at this war, now an open war, against dependence upon God, and particularly against dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, since there is no other God than Our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom dwell the Father and the Holy Ghost. "He who does not have Jesus Christ," says St. John, "does not have the Father." This war inaugurated by the Jews and continuing through Freemasonry is directed by Satan, by all the means.
Now, we arrive at the betrayal, at the betrayal of Catholics by liberalism. The liberals are those who make compromises with those people, with those who proclaim liberty and independence from God, in the name of the "rights" of man. Indeed, religious liberty is none other than one of the articles of the Constitution of the Rights of Man, of the proclamation of the rights of man; and even ecumenism is only a consequence of religious liberty, of "equality," of the equality which ruins all of a nature such as the Good Lord has made it. We are born unequal. Beyond a doubt, we are equal by our nature, but the Good Lord has willed that we be unequal in our talents, in the abilities that He has given us for the organization of society, among ourselves, so that there be a Christian order, a Christian hierarchy. This inequality is basically in nature as intended by God; likewise private property, which necessarily gives rise to inequalities, is willed by God; all those things are willed by God; all those things are willed by God. Now liberalism makes a pact with the satanic ideas of the world, in revolt against God, and against all the laws that the Good Lord has made, natural and supernatural. Liberalism wants to join forces with those people and therefore admits these principles. So we who want to save and reorganize this dependence upon God and on Our Lord Jesus Christ in ourselves, around us, by the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, with the reign of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, well, we rebel against those who do not want dependence upon God, dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, and against those who are ruining the dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this is what the men of the Church are doing right now! We see it before our eyes; it is clear, everywhere. Since the Council, liberalism has taken over the most important positions in the Church, from the Pope to the cardinals of Rome, down to the Curia. Liberalism has taken root in the Church; therefore the moral compromise of the men of the Church with the men of Satan—not an open agreement—no more struggle, no more struggle against Satan, no more war against those who proclaim independence in regard to God—that is finished. And this pact was signed openly on the occasion of the Council, publicly, with the Freemasons, with the Protestants, with the Communists. We were present at this marriage, at this adulterous, abominable union, between the men of the Church and the revolution and the ideas which go against God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, against His reign. This is abominable!
This has been proven recently, too, by the interview of Cardinal Ratzinger which was published in fourteen pages. A book is going to appear soon about this interview, which lasted several days. The person who conducted the interview is going to edit a book. I think that the phrase which is here reported by this person (it is a conversation with Cardinal Ratzinger) is certainly going to be reported there, in the book. It is of outstanding importance. If there are some very good things in the interview, there are some things radically wrong in Cardinal Ratzinger's words, which show us the seriousness of the present situation when you think that the Cardinal is all the same, he who is at the head of the Congregation called "For the Doctrine of the Faith." Unfortunately, it is no longer the Holy Office! Here is the phrase which is found on page 72 of the Italian magazine:
It is done, it is finished, for him. It is an affair completed, ended. The Church, in the course of the 1960's, thus during the Council, acquired values that have come from outside the Church, from the liberal culture—due secoli—from two centuries of liberal culture. It is clear: these are the "rights" of man, it is religious freedom, it is ecumenism. It is Satanic.
Next the Cardinal says:
He does not say that it is necessary to remove these principles, these values which come from liberal culture, but that it is necessary to try to discover a new balance. This new balance is Opus Dei. The balance of Opus Dei is an exterior of traditionalism, an exterior of piety, an exterior of religious discipline, with liberal ideas. The liberal ideas are kept. There is no question of taking away the liberal ideas. There is no question of fighting against the rights of man, against ecumenism, and against religious freedom, which is an essential right of man for sure, even if it entails bringing him an exterior disposition.
I think we have to judge all the acts of Rome nowadays in that perspective, in the perspective of Cardinal Ratzinger, since he is the spokesman: keep the liberal ideas; there is no question of changing the new fundamental principles which we acquired during the 1960's, which are now an accomplished fact for the Church. The liberal ideas, certain liberal ideas, can be a part of the vision which the Church has of the world; but all the same we have to look for a certain balance. Now for this balance, we have to hit a little at the theology of liberation, we have to hit the French bishops a little bit on the subject of the catechism, we have to give, to those who really have nostalgia for the ancient Mass, a small satisfaction, on occasion, occasionally, and look!
It is the same thing for the theology of liberation; they do not abandon the principle, for they say in their document:
We find ourselves right now in that situation. It is very clear in this interview with Cardinal Ratzinger. I think that it is that outlook that should guide us in our present situation. Let us not deceive ourselves by believing that by these little braking actions that are given on the right and on the left, in the excesses of the present situation, that we are seeing a complete return to Tradition. That is not true, that is not true. They remain always liberal minds. It is always the liberals who rule Rome, and they remain liberal. But, as the Cardinal says, they have gone a bit too far, they have to find a little balance. That is of primary importance, because the more we meditate on the dependence on God, the more we meditate on dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ, the more we have the desire to put ourselves under the gentle reign of Christ and of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. We have only one desire, and that is to see Christ and the Holy Virgin Mary reign. Now the more one thinks about that, the more horror he has—a gut horror, I would say—an instinctive horror of liberalism, because it is against the grace that we have received and particularly against the grace of the priesthood. Thus we have an abhorrence for this independence from God.
Now I will conclude with this: What is the act of the Church that truly places us in dependence upon God, in dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ? It is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is the heart of the Church, there is the most beautiful, the deepest, the most real expression of our dependence upon God. When we kneel down before the Cross, when we kneel down before the Holy Eucharist, we profess our dependence upon God. "I can do nothing without Thee, I cannot save myself without Thee. Deign to save me. Be the physician of my soul—et sanabitur anima mea—say the word and my soul will be healed." That is what we say to Him before receiving Him, and so we have to have this conviction of our need of a remedy. We speak of this conviction in the prayer before receiving Communion: "ad medelam percipiendam—give me Thy remedy." It is propitiation. That is the propitiatory act of Our Lord renewed every day.
And it is that that the Protestants do not want any more, and it is that that the liberals do not want any more. They have made an agreement to take away this propitiation. They are now making of the Eucharist an almost purely human ceremony of sharing, of communion, of human solidarity, of Christian solidarity, if you will, and still in remembrance of Our Lord. And they do not even refuse the Real Presence: without doubt there is still a presence; they have not wanted to destroy everything. But finally it is that: it is no more the propitiatory sacrifice, the Blood of Our Lord still flows; the proof is that they have taken the cross down from all the altars and, if they have kept it, they have put it to one side. They no longer want it to be a propitiatory sacrifice. So that should be our liet motiv, our theme—we have to come back always to that-we must always put the people back under the cross, under the Sacrifice of Our Lord. It is a sacrifice. There is a sacrificial action that is brought about, and it is in the Victim that we participate. This is not the "shared bread," this is not a "sharing of the Word."
But they do not want to receive the Blood of Our Lord in order to be saved: "One can be saved by anything. He saves himself by himself, by the confidence that he has in God; because I have confidence in God, therefore I save myself." Therefore, all religions save. Supposedly, the Holy Ghost acts in all religions and so one no longer needs or wants the Church. From this comes Pentecostalism, from this comes the charismatic movement, because in them one receives the Spirit directly, without needing the hierarchy, without needing the framework that the Good Lord has imposed on us, which put us precisely into dependence. One wants no more of this dependence. The charismatic movement is still another form of independence, of Protestantism. In practice, one does not need the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments; he takes them, it is understood, because it is the custom to take them, but he does not need them. One does not go to confession any more. All that is part of the same spirit: one no longer wants to depend on God.
Liberalism has made the pact with the independents, and this likewise proceeds to independence and to this revolt against God. This spirit of independence is truly diabolical. So we then, we, should, on the contrary, have the desire to show forth in everything, dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that this is the best apostolate that we could have: the apostolate of the Holy Mass and the apostolate of everything that displays our dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, whether it be even by processions of the Blessed Sacrament, whether it be by acts of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. What do I know? That all this is what the Church herself has suggested to holy souls and what shows forth on the contrary our dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why the struggle for the school? The stakes are such that this struggle must be kept up strenuously. You still see the liberalism which frees the states from Our Lord Jesus Christ, this liberalism of the Vatican! It is the Vatican that has asked for the independence of the states with regard to Our Lord Jesus Christ. The men in the Vatican do not have the Catholic spirit. The last concordat to be signed, that of Italy, is an obvious proof of that! The Pope and Cardinal Casaroli have congratulated each other on the separation of Church and State, and the laicization of the Italian state. Now, therefore, Christian, Catholic teaching is no longer obligatory in the schools. It was obligatory up to that point; obligatory catechism in the schools of Italy. That is finished. Likewise, independence of the Holy City in regard to Our Lord. The City of Rome is no longer a sacred city. This is evident. They have fallen under the thumb of Masonry, of all those liberal ideas—"two centuries" as Cardinal Ratzinger said—and now they are supplying water for the mill of the revolution against Our Lord Jesus Christ.
My journey during the course of the past few months, in South America, shows that, in a general way, the episcopate is rushing likewise into "liberation," without even knowing where they are going. They are obviously going towards revolution and the communist empire everywhere. Cardinal Ratzinger himself recognizes that the bishops, since the Council, have been chosen for their liberal ideas, for "progress," while now they are going to make an effort all the same to find bishops who are a little more moderate. A clear admission; it is not surprising that we have bishops like that now.
With that I think that I have said what I wanted to say to you, and given you a certain line of conduct in the present events which perhaps are going to go even faster. There will be possibly other manifestations of putting the brakes on by the Vatican; and it is very, very dangerous for us to "rally" ourselves now. No rallying, no rallying to the liberals; no rallying to the ecclesiastics who are governing in the Church now and who are liberals; there is no rallying to these people. From the moment when we rally ourselves, this rallying will be the acceptance of the liberal principles. We cannot do this, even if certain appeasements are given us on the Mass of St. Pius V—certain satisfactions, certain recognitions, certain incardinations, which could even be offered to you eventually.
A bishop could say to you, "I will incardinate you into my diocese. I will give you the Mass of St. Pius V; you will say it, but obviously, in your new parish, the New Mass will be said also. Well, you will also have to be willing to give Communion in the hand; what you need now is just a little practice. You will have to say the Mass facing the people because the people are used to that. You understand, you cannot do otherwise. And then, lastly, and above all, you have to accept the Council, do you not, with all the consequences that that represents, with its ideas." That is not possible! One cannot come to terms like that! That they give us back everything. That they give up their liberalism, that they come back to the real truth of the Church, to the faith of the Church, to the basic principles of the Church, of this total dependence of society, of families, of individuals on Our Lord Jesus Christ! At that moment when they give us the Mass of all times, very well, then, we are completely in agreement. Then there will be a perfect understanding, we will be able to be recognized, and we will have no more scruples.
But as long as one is dealing with people who have made this agreement with the Devil, with liberal ideas, we cannot have any confidence. They will string us along little by little, they will try to catch us in their traps, as long as they have not let go of these false ideas. So, from my point of view, it is not a question of doing whatever one can. Those who would have a tendency to want to accept that, will end up being recycled. We have verified it with the seminarians and those who have left us, and who have gone off to Rome and to whom beautiful promises have been made: "We will keep for you the Mass of St. Pius V." Little by little they have been lined up, they have been recycled. They had to take it or leave it. They accepted all the novelties.
We find ourselves now in a new period, in a new phase, and they would like to entice us also with certain traditional appearances, whereas in reality they put us in the margin, as they say, by the Decree! We are not concerned with this, since we are among those who do not accept the Council without reserve, who do not accept the New Mass. Therefore this is not for us! But that makes no difference, they seek and they have already succeeded in alluring some of our people, like Father Normandin of Canada, who has accepted the principle of the New Mass. By this means, he has been given the Mass of St. Pius V, he has been given a parish, so there! There are also Fathers Bleue and Le Pivain, and several others, who are lured by the bishops. The bishops are very happy to be able to have some of the priests who formerly were traditionalists and who agree to make this little contract which is moreover apparently very restrained but which at last puts them into the surroundings, in the bath, with those who have liberal ideas and who say the New Mass.
So then we have to warn our faithful strongly, so that they do not let themselves be deceived, or be captured by an exterior of traditional reform which would lead them inevitably to the adoption of liberalism and liberal ideas.
Let us confide ourselves to the Holy Virgin Mary. If there is a creature who has been dependent upon Our Lord and upon God, it is certainly the Most Holy Virgin Mary. She had that almost by nature, since she did not have original sin. Therefore let us ask her to grant us this understanding and this will so that we will not let ourselves be seduced by the sirens of the world.
In Conformity to God's Will
We present to you this beautiful Conference of Archbishop Lefebvre, which he gave to the priests of the District of France, at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet, Paris, 13 December 1984. Though it is addressed to priests, we thought it of great value for the laity. It reveals the spirit in which His Excellency has trained his priests; the lessons on our dependence upon God are valuable for all Catholics; and the necessity of preserving the Faith is also well stressed!
I am very happy to be able to meet with you on the occasion of a meeting of the District of France, and I have to admit to you that I am also encouraged by this. It is a great satisfaction for me to report that, fourteen years from the foundation of the Society, its organization, its purpose—particularly sacerdotal—of forming priests shaped in the spirit of Our Lord, in the spirit of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—is finding its realization in the ministry, in the practice of the priestly life that you lead now, each one, in your place, in your function, in the mission assigned to you, and that thanks to this spirit that you have received, and that you hold on to and keep holding on to, you are profiting from an organization, a framework, a support from these meetings, thanks to the District, which shows also your concern to keep up and to perfect your desire for holiness. This is our outstanding importance.
You see, I think that if difficulties have arisen, which we know, in the priesthood, and in the sphere of secular priests in particular, since the Council, and these difficulties have been a painful verification of something that was lacking in the formation of these priests, it is without doubt that they had lost at the same time the true notion of the priesthood in which they were clothed, and that they had not taken the means of keeping this desire to maintain their faith and their fervor. Of course there were meetings in the dioceses, there were contacts between priests; but they were very formal contacts, unfortunately very administrative and not truly pastoral, and not made in a spirit of prayer, in a spirit of piety.
I think, then, that in meetings like these you find yourselves with the desire to examine together your cares as pastors, in order to find a better way to fulfill your apostolate and at the same time to pray together so that the graces of the Good Lord help you to accomplish this apostolate and to keep yourselves in fervor, in piety, in holiness. I think that this is a very beautiful and consoling thing which certainly should please God. You should be able to verify yourselves that in the way of this fervor, this desire of holiness and of perfection, there are some obstacles which perhaps you did not suspect when you left the seminary.
There can obviously be many of these…at first a certain weariness; there are those who are nearing ten years in the priesthood, there are some who have passed this, but ten years….Then there can be a kind of weariness, a type of familiarity, a certain habit, I would say, which brings it about that assueta vilescunt: what a person has done in a habitual manner winds up by not having any more embossment, not having any more value in a way. It becomes a sort of automatism, so that you can have here an obstacle.
There can likewise be a disappearance of sensible fervor, sensible consolations, in the union with God, in the ministry, in the accomplishment of the sacred acts that we have to accomplish each day.
There can also be a certain lack of success in the apostolate. One was hoping that the apostolate that he would have to do would have produced fruits much more important, much more numerous, much more profound; and after a few years, he realizes that it is very limited, it is not as deep as he had wanted—souls are not being sanctified as quickly and as perfectly as he had hoped. Then perhaps a certain disillusionment could lead to a kind of apathy, a certain lukewarmness in the accomplishment of the apostolate, in the exercise of the priesthood.
There are difficulties too in the daily life, in the organization of your daily life. When leaving the seminary, you had hoped to be able to have your time for prayer absolutely respected; not only respected but perhaps even able to add to it another half-hour now and then, finally a little more contemplation, a little more means of union with God. And lo, not only can you not add anything, you have often to shorten it! You are taken right and left by the demands of the faithful, by the necessities of organization and the apostolate; then the fact of seeing this life of prayer and this community life very often difficult to bring about can also become an obstacle to your sanctification and the cause of a certain uneasiness. You say to yourself, "But if I continue like this, where am I going to get to? What will be the result in four years, five years, six years, if I continue to live with so little possibility of collecting my thoughts, and of really leading a life of prayer and of union with God?"
Then some suggestions come, which can be as well from the Holy Ghost as from the demon: "Oh, maybe I would do better to go into a contemplative congregation; perhaps I had better ask for another position, change, go somewhere else, to an assignment less important, less mixed up with the world; find something, and at least be a little in the country, not in the city!" Oh yes, there are temptations like those. Personally I think that they come more from the devil than from the Holy Ghost. And then there are other trials, for example, changes of assignment. On the contrary, you were comfortable in that place, you thought that there, "I could really actualize my priestly life, my little program of life that I had made and planned during my seminary days. I found that it was good, I had a regular life, a community life that was rather pleasant; my brother priest and I understood each other, in short my apostolate was not too absorbing and as a result allowed me to have a priestly life such as I had dreamed of while in the seminary. But now I have been stationed somewhere that does not please me at all. I am not used to this kind of apostolate, and I will certainly have difficulties in realizing my priestly ideal such as I have anticipated it, etc."
Then you feel your heart being upset, your mind also; and it is a trial. And then it is another great trial that we all suffer: the trial of the Church, because we finally have to recognize it, the exterior situation and in a certain way the juridical situation(at last juridical in the sense of purely literal law), well, now it is not normal, that is true. Thus we are not in a normal relation with the bishops, with the priests who are around us and who also have an apostolate—what apostolate?—but in the end, they are priests who are still in the parishes; the relations with them are obviously not the relations which we normally should have had in the holy Church. So, no normal relations with the bishops, no normal relations with the priests who are around us, no normal relations with men religious or sisters, with a good part of the faithful, with Rome itself. It is an appalling, horrible trial, because it is abnormal. But the anomaly does not come from us. It is from them that it comes, from all those who have not followed the Tradition of the Church, who have themselves put themselves permanently outside all legality, outside the Faith, yes—even outside the Faith! But however it may be, we are convinced of this, it is they who are wrong, who have changed course, who have broken with the Tradition of the Church, who have rushed into novelties, we are convinced of this. That is why we do not rejoin them and why we cannot work with them; we cannot collaborate with the people who depart from the spirit of the Church, from the Tradition of the Church. But that puts us in a very critical situation of breaking with that mass of Church people who are departing from the Tradition of the Church. That makes thus for an unlikely situation, assuredly unbelievable, that is at times for us a cause for sorrow, for a desire to see the Church rediscover her way, that is to say, her Tradition—at least not the Church, but the people of the Church—for a desire that the Church not be torn anymore as it is right now, and finally that her passion in some way end.
Thus there are so many obstacles to our sanctification, to our union with God, to our serenity, to our peace in the apostolate, in the work which we have to do. So what should be the deep remedy, the essential remedy? You see, I think that if you take a glance at the history of the Church—the history of the Church is a great teacher, a teacher of truth—well, what is the spirit in which all those people worked who sanctified the Church, the world, who have been apostles? The fundamental idea, the essential idea of the Christian, of him who has the Faith, but also very simply of the wise man, of the sensible man, of the man who has the wisdom of philosophy and theology, this directing idea is dependence upon God, to live in dependence upon God. I believe that it is that that separates us from all those who do not want to live in dependence upon God, to live in total, complete, entire, perfect dependence upon God. We always have to come back to this fundamental principle, essential principle, in the light of faith.
The light of faith teaches us first of all this: I am nothing, not any thing, I am nothing without God! I cannot do anything without God. I possess all from God, I possess all from Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God. The fundamental conviction, the basic disposition is there: recognition of our nothingness before God and of our continual dependence with respect to God in our existence and in our activity.
The Faith teaches me next that I am a sinner, that I am a sick person, very sick. Even after the grace of baptism, I am always very sick, I am blind. I am tempted not to give to God what is due Him and not to give my neighbor what is due him. I am weak and in short I have the love of the things of the earth, I am tempted by the love of the things of here below: those are the four great sicknesses of which St. Thomas speaks to us and which form this fames peccati, this tendency towards sin that we have in us, even after the grace of baptism. We should never forget that, we should preach it to the people and say to them: "You are sick people." And therefore we have need of a Doctor. We have need all the time of being redeemed by the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The hour of redemption is not ended for us personally; it continues.
The Faith then teaches us that we cannot do anything that is meritorious without the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ; without the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ everything that we do is worth nothing. That is what St. Paul says when he speaks of charity, which is nothing but the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of His blood: "Even if I gave my body to be burned, even if I gave everything that I am, even if I gave myself entirely for any purpose whatever that could appear to be a charity, all that does nothing for me." Nothing, no merit; that does not merit heaven for us, because there is no love of God, because there is no charity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in us.
Then behold the real state in which we are, behold the state that all the wisdom of philosophy and theology teaches us: on the one hand, the wisdom of philosophy teaches us that we are nothing, that we depend totally on God. Let us read, let us re-read our theodicea and the conclusions are there, irresistible, of an unappeasable logic: man is nothing, is nothing. He is constantly in the hands of God. So now let us not believe that we can do anything by ourselves; we can do nothing. On the other hand, theology teaches us that we are sinners, that Jesus came to redeem us, that He shed His blood on the Cross, and that without Him we can do nothing to gain heaven. Nothing, nothing!
So we are really in a state of dependence: dependence in our existence, dependence in our salvation.And it is this dependence which characterizes Christian civilization. The Christian civilization of ten centuries has been characterized by this dependence upon God, dependence of the clergy, dependence of the kings, of families, of individuals: all was under submission to God. At least that was the principle; the principle was there; and if obviously sin was certainly everywhere, at least in principle all depended upon God, all depended upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ was truly King—the King accepted officially, publicly, by everyone, by the whole of society, publicly! Then there was this dependence, this spirit of dependence, of simplicity, of discretion, of humility in the homes, in the families, vocations in considerable numbers, because the people felt the need of going to the Doctor of Souls, of going to Our Lord Jesus Christ, of being dependent upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. There was this constant summons in the souls.
Now this dependence stirs up in us the desire precisely to set up the Kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ everywhere. "Instaurare omnia in Christo—to restore all things in Christ," this is indeed the motto of our Saint Pius X. "Recapitulare omnia in Christo—to recapitulate all things in Christ": this is still another term, an expression from the Holy Scriptures, of St. Paul: "recapitulare," a magnificent term! In Greek, "ανακεφαλαιωσασ θαι": all is brought back to the head, which is Our Lord Jesus Christ; nothing apart from Him! Of that, we have to be convinced, truly convinced. I think that we should often meditate on that, that it be truly the object, I would say almost the main object, of our meditations, because it is the principal reality.
It is the great reality, it is the reality which will be laid bare in heaven for us. I think that that is what is going to strike us at the moment of our death: "I did not know that I was so dependent on God, that all depended on Our Lord Jesus Christ for my salvation; I did not realize that; now I discover, I discover the reality, I discover that God is all, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is all for my salvation, He is all for my redemption." And we will regret at that moment that we did not spend our lives in this total dependence on God, in this total dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation and for the salvation of souls.
Thus we should think about this not only for ourselves, but also for others, in our actions, in our apostolate. Our apostolate should not have any goal other than putting people into this dependence, saying to them: "O, but listen! Meditate on God; you can do nothing without God, so think of God, pray to Him, unite yourselves to Him. You can do nothing without Our Lord Jesus Christ, so think of Him! You will not be able to have the least merit for heaven without the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, without His charity, without His grace." "Nihil mihi prodest," this is the conclusion of St. Paul. It will not help me at all that I give my body to be burned for any love whatever, if it is not by charity. If I do not have charity, true charity, "nihil mihi prodest": that does me no good at all. And Our Lord Jesus Christ repeated it: "You can do nothing without Me." "Nihil": nothing! "Sine me nihil potestis facere," nothing! It is clear, it is plain. We have to be so convinced of this that, in our apostolate, we will be in this complete dependence upon God. That is very important because, you see, you are all full of zeal, you have only one desire—to convert all the people around you, to bring them all back to Our Lord, certainly. But there can be a great part of zeal that is purely human, zeal that is completely natural; take care!
Why? For my part, I will soon have been a priest sixty years. I see that I have also been, surely, perhaps in my zeal—I recognize it—sometimes more human than supernatural. Thus, by dint of reflection and prayers, it seems to me that now, and as the Society has been brought into being,I have always followed Providence; I do not want to anticipate it. I think that it is a great danger to want to anticipate Providence, to say, "Well, as for me, I am going to do that, I am going to accomplish that, I have to do that, I absolutely have to do that." Then one dashes recklessly, with all the zeal that he can have, to accomplish things; and he does not say sufficiently to himself, "Does the Good Lord want this? It is that the Good Lord wants? Does He want it at that moment? Does He want it in that manner? Does He will it with that quickness? In that time? Does He not want me to think a little more on it or even wait a little, in order that it be His will more than mine; because if I do my will, I run the risk of not doing God's will or of not doing God's will as the Good Lord wants it." And then later we should not be surprised that God's will is not brought about as well as we wished.
On the contrary, if truly at the moment when we accomplish such and such an objective of our apostolate, in the full measure in which it is possible for us to realize it, we can say, "I believe very sincerely that it is the moment, that the moment has come; the Good Lord wants me to do that, everything shows me objectively that it is the Good Lord's will: my superiors are not opposed; on the contrary, they are encouraging me, the Church encourages me, my Faith encourages me. Objectively I believe it is the will of the Good Lord that I do that," then there is a full guarantee that my undertaking is of God. Otherwise it comes from subjectivism: you end by persuading yourself that the desire you have is truly the desire of the Good Lord. But all the same, be careful! That has to be objectively true. There have to be objective proofs of this will of God and not only subjective proofs. That is to say, "I think that I am doing God's will," in such a way that they will wind up being opposed to the superior, saying, "My superior does not understand; it is no use talking to him, he does not comprehend." He does not comprehend? Certainly! It is not the Good Lord's will that you want to do, it is your will! Now the Good Lord's will comes through the superiors, if it is clear that evidently they are not openly opposing things of Faith, as unfortunately we are witnessing nowadays in the Church. Therefore you have a danger there, you see. I believe that this subjectivism is, precisely, Protestantism. Let us take care!
Protestants have the habit of acting like that. For them, their will, what is going on in their own interior being—the forging of their project—the movement of their will, is God speaking to them. Therefore, what the Good Lord wants is really their own wills. Look how dangerous that is. I have observed that sometimes with people converted from Protestantism, they keep the subjective idea that the Good Lord's will is their own will, and that consequently when they want something, it is the Good Lord Who wills it. Therefore when someone is opposed to this will, he is opposed to the will of the Good Lord. "If my superior is opposed to this will, he is opposed to the Good Lord's will and to providence." This is very serious. It is very easy to substitute one's will for the will of the Good Lord! Therefore pay close attention; that can be a defect, a defect that is natural to you, which is to want to make "my will" decisive. We think that we want to do the Good Lord's will, but, in fact, we do our own will. It is necessary really to have objective proofs, signs that it is truly the Good Lord's will. Now all the same, one of these signs is that at least the superior wills it! At least that the superior is not himself losing his way in a very evident manner from the truth and from objectivity. Therefore, the first sign is if the superior wills it.
Next we have to examine whether the external circumstances, outside ourselves, show this. Here are the circumstances that showed me that I should do something when I began the Society in Fribourg: I said to these gentlemen who positively wanted to push me to do something for the seminarians and who were asking me to take care of them. Well, I said to them, "I am going to see Bishop Charrière. I want to see the bishops I know. If the bishops say, 'Undertake it,' truly, I will see in that a sign of the Good Lord's will." And this was in spite of the fact that I did not have the desire to do so because I found that I was already aged and that I could not undertake a work of this type at my age. At age sixty-five, one no longer begins a work like that of the Society! I said, "Well, if Bishop Charrière really encourages me, then I have to plunge into it nonetheless, with the help of God's grace." And still I did not know what was going to happen afterwards. I certainly could not think that today I would be meeting with you fourteen years later with such a number of priests, and that the Society would be what it is now. If someone had said that to me, I would have smiled. That is why I say that it is the good Lord who has accomplished everything, it is not I; I did not want it even at that moment, but Bishop Charrière said to me, "You have to. Do it, do it. Take something, rent a house in town. Take care of your seminarians, do not abandon them. It is absolutely necessary for you know the situation of the Church now, on the situation in the seminaries; the good traditions absolutely have to be kept." He was completely in agreement, he encouraged me ardently. That was the objective sign that I should act; I believe that it was very important. I think that if I had said at that moment, "I want to begin a seminary, I want a seminary, and I will bring it about, because I think it will be useful, that the moment has come in the Church," but if I had not consulted, not asked, some bishops whom I knew, whose good dispositions I knew, the basic dispositions of a man of the Church, well, I do not think that the Society would have been brought into reality as it has been because it would have been a personal work, a work which perhaps would not have been blessed by God. Maybe it would have been good, but not blessed as it has been blessed by God.
So I think that in your apostolate it is the same thing. I give you this advice: see the objective, and not the subjective, will of God. Do not anticipate the will of Providence, but follow it. See when things really are ready; someone asks us to open a place here; someone says to you, "Oh, come, Father, you know there are many of us here; we would like you to come." Now you are already overburdened, so that rationally you should not do it because it is too much, that it is going to be too much. But there are some circumstances that come up, showing you some possible vocations; and then your superior comes, saying, "Perhaps that would be good." Very gently, the objective circumstances beyond your will—almost against your will—really push you to do something in this realm. So finally you make your decision. Well, that will be blessed by the Good Lord because it is not your personal will. It is really, objectively, the Good Lord who has shown you that it is His will to do that; and, even if your health has to suffer, well, the Good Lord will give you health. Have confidence, and if it is really the Good Lord who asks it of you, He will give you the means.
But if it is our will, it is much more dangerous; for then one is going to force things. Now he does not have the means to bring them about, or the means of health, or the means of organization of this apostolate. So this apostolate is going to end up probably by failing, and that will be worse, not better, because these people who had confidence are going to lose confidence. That is not working. Oh, he wanted to do his own will! It is not always like that, but there is a danger. I think that you really have to pay strict attention to that. You really have to be sure what is the Good Lord's will, even from the simple, material point of view. Without the material conditions, it is absolutely unthinkable to want to bring something about, when you do not have the means! It will be said, "But the Good Lord wants it"? "Because I feel that, because I feel that the Good Lord wants it." Who feels? Who feels that the Good Lord wants it? You—it is you who feel that; therefore it is your will finally that you want to do! "I am sure about that, I am sure." Who tells you that you are sure, show me the proofs! You do not have any! Good! You rush into it, but do you have the money to do it? "No, but St. Joseph will give it to me." It is not as certain as that! And then, all of a sudden, it is not working, it is not happening because you wanted to do your own will. Whereas if really all the objective circumstances, if everything convinces you that you should do it, then, in that case, yes. The Good Lord will give you what is necessary; the money will come if it is truly a necessary thing. If the Good Lord absolutely wills it, He will give the means. Therefore you have to be prudent; it is a question of prudence in the apostolate, but above all, it is a question of dependence upon the Good Lord.
This dependence upon the Good Lord is absolutely indispensable. If one no longer depends on the Good Lord, if one does not do that in total dependence, then it is no longer the Good Lord who acts through us. It will not be St. Paul's motto any more, "mihi vivere Christus est," it is Christ who acts in us. Therefore, it has to be He who acts, it does not have to be we. It is necessary that we be in dependence on Him, that we be an instrument, that we follow Him, that we have first of all the objective conviction that it is He who tells us, "Do that. You should do it." Then our desire will be precisely to put ourselves, by ourselves, into dependence upon God, to place the families there, to put souls there.
The souls that we will have to direct, to teach this dependence upon God, this dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the sacraments, by the grace of the Good Lord, that is holiness. That is not sentiment, that is not because we feel full of fervor that we are truly charitable for so many. The test of charity is the accomplishment of the Good Lord's will. Therefore total dependence upon the Good Lord—that is charity. Our Lord Himself says, "You are My disciples if you fulfil My commandments. If you fulfil My commandments, We will come to you and will in you Our abode." It is very clear. It is dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ.
After this outline of our apostolate, of our interior life, of our behavior towards God, towards Our Lord, towards our apostolate, let us turn now to those who profess independence in regard to God. And we will see precisely that our current situation in the history of the Church, in the current epoch of the Church, is the true situation in which we should be and we should stay, because our adversaries are precisely those who proclaim independence and revolution against God and who wage war against all dependence on God, against all the laws of the Good Lord, against all the laws, supernatural and natural. They want to destroy everything. By the mere fact that something has been made by God, it is to be destroyed! The natural laws of marriage, all the natural laws even of simple material nature, even the ways of cultivating the earth, even the manners of behaving oneself everywhere, everything that recalls God, all that reminds us of a dependence upon God must be broken, must be changed. The revolution must be carried out in all domains: liberation—liberty! liberty! liberty!—to free oneself from God, to free oneself from dependence upon God in all domains, that is the revolution. Now that is the spirit of Satan. That is hell. Hell is independence in regard to God. "Non serviam!" "Nolimus hunc regnare super nos—we do not want this One to rule over us!" This is the cry of hell!
Then we see all that being brought about before our eyes: the struggle for the secular school, this is the struggle against God, against dependence upon God. All those bad laws that have been passed: abortion, contraception, divorce, are the destruction of the laws of God and, therefore, destruction of dependence upon God. Now, since Protestantism, and particularly since the French Revolution, we have been present at this war, now an open war, against dependence upon God, and particularly against dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, since there is no other God than Our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom dwell the Father and the Holy Ghost. "He who does not have Jesus Christ," says St. John, "does not have the Father." This war inaugurated by the Jews and continuing through Freemasonry is directed by Satan, by all the means.
Now, we arrive at the betrayal, at the betrayal of Catholics by liberalism. The liberals are those who make compromises with those people, with those who proclaim liberty and independence from God, in the name of the "rights" of man. Indeed, religious liberty is none other than one of the articles of the Constitution of the Rights of Man, of the proclamation of the rights of man; and even ecumenism is only a consequence of religious liberty, of "equality," of the equality which ruins all of a nature such as the Good Lord has made it. We are born unequal. Beyond a doubt, we are equal by our nature, but the Good Lord has willed that we be unequal in our talents, in the abilities that He has given us for the organization of society, among ourselves, so that there be a Christian order, a Christian hierarchy. This inequality is basically in nature as intended by God; likewise private property, which necessarily gives rise to inequalities, is willed by God; all those things are willed by God; all those things are willed by God. Now liberalism makes a pact with the satanic ideas of the world, in revolt against God, and against all the laws that the Good Lord has made, natural and supernatural. Liberalism wants to join forces with those people and therefore admits these principles. So we who want to save and reorganize this dependence upon God and on Our Lord Jesus Christ in ourselves, around us, by the intercession of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, with the reign of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, well, we rebel against those who do not want dependence upon God, dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, and against those who are ruining the dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this is what the men of the Church are doing right now! We see it before our eyes; it is clear, everywhere. Since the Council, liberalism has taken over the most important positions in the Church, from the Pope to the cardinals of Rome, down to the Curia. Liberalism has taken root in the Church; therefore the moral compromise of the men of the Church with the men of Satan—not an open agreement—no more struggle, no more struggle against Satan, no more war against those who proclaim independence in regard to God—that is finished. And this pact was signed openly on the occasion of the Council, publicly, with the Freemasons, with the Protestants, with the Communists. We were present at this marriage, at this adulterous, abominable union, between the men of the Church and the revolution and the ideas which go against God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, against His reign. This is abominable!
This has been proven recently, too, by the interview of Cardinal Ratzinger which was published in fourteen pages. A book is going to appear soon about this interview, which lasted several days. The person who conducted the interview is going to edit a book. I think that the phrase which is here reported by this person (it is a conversation with Cardinal Ratzinger) is certainly going to be reported there, in the book. It is of outstanding importance. If there are some very good things in the interview, there are some things radically wrong in Cardinal Ratzinger's words, which show us the seriousness of the present situation when you think that the Cardinal is all the same, he who is at the head of the Congregation called "For the Doctrine of the Faith." Unfortunately, it is no longer the Holy Office! Here is the phrase which is found on page 72 of the Italian magazine:
Quote:"Then, a little disturbed," I said to the Cardinal [said the person questioning him], "is the situation in the Church really going to be changed?"
"Yes." [The response is solemn.] "Yes, the problem of the 1960's was to obtain the best expressed values of two centuries of liberal culture. [So that was the problem of the 1960's!] And indeed, there are values which, even though they are born outside the Church [appalling, such foolishness: which are born outside the Church!], can find their place provided mat they be depurati et correcti [what does that mean?] in the vision that the Church has of the world. [This is appalling, appalling!] And that has been done."
It is done, it is finished, for him. It is an affair completed, ended. The Church, in the course of the 1960's, thus during the Council, acquired values that have come from outside the Church, from the liberal culture—due secoli—from two centuries of liberal culture. It is clear: these are the "rights" of man, it is religious freedom, it is ecumenism. It is Satanic.
Next the Cardinal says:
Quote: "Questo si e fatto," that is done, it is an accomplished fact. "But," he adds, "the climate is a little different, it has gotten a lot worse." "E molto peggiorato rispetto a quello che giustificava un ottimismo forse ingenue"—but now the climate is less good, "peggiorato," made worse in comparison with the time when we could have a true optimism rather unsophisticated. So, now, "Bisogna quindi cercare nuovi equilibri—now we have to look for a new balance."
He does not say that it is necessary to remove these principles, these values which come from liberal culture, but that it is necessary to try to discover a new balance. This new balance is Opus Dei. The balance of Opus Dei is an exterior of traditionalism, an exterior of piety, an exterior of religious discipline, with liberal ideas. The liberal ideas are kept. There is no question of taking away the liberal ideas. There is no question of fighting against the rights of man, against ecumenism, and against religious freedom, which is an essential right of man for sure, even if it entails bringing him an exterior disposition.
I think we have to judge all the acts of Rome nowadays in that perspective, in the perspective of Cardinal Ratzinger, since he is the spokesman: keep the liberal ideas; there is no question of changing the new fundamental principles which we acquired during the 1960's, which are now an accomplished fact for the Church. The liberal ideas, certain liberal ideas, can be a part of the vision which the Church has of the world; but all the same we have to look for a certain balance. Now for this balance, we have to hit a little at the theology of liberation, we have to hit the French bishops a little bit on the subject of the catechism, we have to give, to those who really have nostalgia for the ancient Mass, a small satisfaction, on occasion, occasionally, and look!
It is the same thing for the theology of liberation; they do not abandon the principle, for they say in their document:
Quote:"There is a theology of liberation which is possible, there is a theology of liberation for the poor, which is neither more nor less than the Marxist solution of liberation. But we must not arrive at the Marxist solution of liberation."They are inevitably full of contradiction. They cannot not be a continual contradiction. Finally, they give an impression of wanting to return to Tradition, but they do not have the will to do so; they do not want to. And finally, they accept the conclusions of all those false theologians and of all the bishops who are revolutionaries, who manage the revolution.
We find ourselves right now in that situation. It is very clear in this interview with Cardinal Ratzinger. I think that it is that outlook that should guide us in our present situation. Let us not deceive ourselves by believing that by these little braking actions that are given on the right and on the left, in the excesses of the present situation, that we are seeing a complete return to Tradition. That is not true, that is not true. They remain always liberal minds. It is always the liberals who rule Rome, and they remain liberal. But, as the Cardinal says, they have gone a bit too far, they have to find a little balance. That is of primary importance, because the more we meditate on the dependence on God, the more we meditate on dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ, the more we have the desire to put ourselves under the gentle reign of Christ and of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. We have only one desire, and that is to see Christ and the Holy Virgin Mary reign. Now the more one thinks about that, the more horror he has—a gut horror, I would say—an instinctive horror of liberalism, because it is against the grace that we have received and particularly against the grace of the priesthood. Thus we have an abhorrence for this independence from God.
Now I will conclude with this: What is the act of the Church that truly places us in dependence upon God, in dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ? It is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is the heart of the Church, there is the most beautiful, the deepest, the most real expression of our dependence upon God. When we kneel down before the Cross, when we kneel down before the Holy Eucharist, we profess our dependence upon God. "I can do nothing without Thee, I cannot save myself without Thee. Deign to save me. Be the physician of my soul—et sanabitur anima mea—say the word and my soul will be healed." That is what we say to Him before receiving Him, and so we have to have this conviction of our need of a remedy. We speak of this conviction in the prayer before receiving Communion: "ad medelam percipiendam—give me Thy remedy." It is propitiation. That is the propitiatory act of Our Lord renewed every day.
And it is that that the Protestants do not want any more, and it is that that the liberals do not want any more. They have made an agreement to take away this propitiation. They are now making of the Eucharist an almost purely human ceremony of sharing, of communion, of human solidarity, of Christian solidarity, if you will, and still in remembrance of Our Lord. And they do not even refuse the Real Presence: without doubt there is still a presence; they have not wanted to destroy everything. But finally it is that: it is no more the propitiatory sacrifice, the Blood of Our Lord still flows; the proof is that they have taken the cross down from all the altars and, if they have kept it, they have put it to one side. They no longer want it to be a propitiatory sacrifice. So that should be our liet motiv, our theme—we have to come back always to that-we must always put the people back under the cross, under the Sacrifice of Our Lord. It is a sacrifice. There is a sacrificial action that is brought about, and it is in the Victim that we participate. This is not the "shared bread," this is not a "sharing of the Word."
But they do not want to receive the Blood of Our Lord in order to be saved: "One can be saved by anything. He saves himself by himself, by the confidence that he has in God; because I have confidence in God, therefore I save myself." Therefore, all religions save. Supposedly, the Holy Ghost acts in all religions and so one no longer needs or wants the Church. From this comes Pentecostalism, from this comes the charismatic movement, because in them one receives the Spirit directly, without needing the hierarchy, without needing the framework that the Good Lord has imposed on us, which put us precisely into dependence. One wants no more of this dependence. The charismatic movement is still another form of independence, of Protestantism. In practice, one does not need the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments; he takes them, it is understood, because it is the custom to take them, but he does not need them. One does not go to confession any more. All that is part of the same spirit: one no longer wants to depend on God.
Liberalism has made the pact with the independents, and this likewise proceeds to independence and to this revolt against God. This spirit of independence is truly diabolical. So we then, we, should, on the contrary, have the desire to show forth in everything, dependence on Our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that this is the best apostolate that we could have: the apostolate of the Holy Mass and the apostolate of everything that displays our dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ, whether it be even by processions of the Blessed Sacrament, whether it be by acts of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. What do I know? That all this is what the Church herself has suggested to holy souls and what shows forth on the contrary our dependence upon Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why the struggle for the school? The stakes are such that this struggle must be kept up strenuously. You still see the liberalism which frees the states from Our Lord Jesus Christ, this liberalism of the Vatican! It is the Vatican that has asked for the independence of the states with regard to Our Lord Jesus Christ. The men in the Vatican do not have the Catholic spirit. The last concordat to be signed, that of Italy, is an obvious proof of that! The Pope and Cardinal Casaroli have congratulated each other on the separation of Church and State, and the laicization of the Italian state. Now, therefore, Christian, Catholic teaching is no longer obligatory in the schools. It was obligatory up to that point; obligatory catechism in the schools of Italy. That is finished. Likewise, independence of the Holy City in regard to Our Lord. The City of Rome is no longer a sacred city. This is evident. They have fallen under the thumb of Masonry, of all those liberal ideas—"two centuries" as Cardinal Ratzinger said—and now they are supplying water for the mill of the revolution against Our Lord Jesus Christ.
My journey during the course of the past few months, in South America, shows that, in a general way, the episcopate is rushing likewise into "liberation," without even knowing where they are going. They are obviously going towards revolution and the communist empire everywhere. Cardinal Ratzinger himself recognizes that the bishops, since the Council, have been chosen for their liberal ideas, for "progress," while now they are going to make an effort all the same to find bishops who are a little more moderate. A clear admission; it is not surprising that we have bishops like that now.
With that I think that I have said what I wanted to say to you, and given you a certain line of conduct in the present events which perhaps are going to go even faster. There will be possibly other manifestations of putting the brakes on by the Vatican; and it is very, very dangerous for us to "rally" ourselves now. No rallying, no rallying to the liberals; no rallying to the ecclesiastics who are governing in the Church now and who are liberals; there is no rallying to these people. From the moment when we rally ourselves, this rallying will be the acceptance of the liberal principles. We cannot do this, even if certain appeasements are given us on the Mass of St. Pius V—certain satisfactions, certain recognitions, certain incardinations, which could even be offered to you eventually.
A bishop could say to you, "I will incardinate you into my diocese. I will give you the Mass of St. Pius V; you will say it, but obviously, in your new parish, the New Mass will be said also. Well, you will also have to be willing to give Communion in the hand; what you need now is just a little practice. You will have to say the Mass facing the people because the people are used to that. You understand, you cannot do otherwise. And then, lastly, and above all, you have to accept the Council, do you not, with all the consequences that that represents, with its ideas." That is not possible! One cannot come to terms like that! That they give us back everything. That they give up their liberalism, that they come back to the real truth of the Church, to the faith of the Church, to the basic principles of the Church, of this total dependence of society, of families, of individuals on Our Lord Jesus Christ! At that moment when they give us the Mass of all times, very well, then, we are completely in agreement. Then there will be a perfect understanding, we will be able to be recognized, and we will have no more scruples.
But as long as one is dealing with people who have made this agreement with the Devil, with liberal ideas, we cannot have any confidence. They will string us along little by little, they will try to catch us in their traps, as long as they have not let go of these false ideas. So, from my point of view, it is not a question of doing whatever one can. Those who would have a tendency to want to accept that, will end up being recycled. We have verified it with the seminarians and those who have left us, and who have gone off to Rome and to whom beautiful promises have been made: "We will keep for you the Mass of St. Pius V." Little by little they have been lined up, they have been recycled. They had to take it or leave it. They accepted all the novelties.
We find ourselves now in a new period, in a new phase, and they would like to entice us also with certain traditional appearances, whereas in reality they put us in the margin, as they say, by the Decree! We are not concerned with this, since we are among those who do not accept the Council without reserve, who do not accept the New Mass. Therefore this is not for us! But that makes no difference, they seek and they have already succeeded in alluring some of our people, like Father Normandin of Canada, who has accepted the principle of the New Mass. By this means, he has been given the Mass of St. Pius V, he has been given a parish, so there! There are also Fathers Bleue and Le Pivain, and several others, who are lured by the bishops. The bishops are very happy to be able to have some of the priests who formerly were traditionalists and who agree to make this little contract which is moreover apparently very restrained but which at last puts them into the surroundings, in the bath, with those who have liberal ideas and who say the New Mass.
So then we have to warn our faithful strongly, so that they do not let themselves be deceived, or be captured by an exterior of traditional reform which would lead them inevitably to the adoption of liberalism and liberal ideas.
Let us confide ourselves to the Holy Virgin Mary. If there is a creature who has been dependent upon Our Lord and upon God, it is certainly the Most Holy Virgin Mary. She had that almost by nature, since she did not have original sin. Therefore let us ask her to grant us this understanding and this will so that we will not let ourselves be seduced by the sirens of the world.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre