A visit to Econe

After the Credo Holy Year Pilgrimage I returned to Ecône with the seminarians, travelling on the all-night train from Rome and arriving on the morning of Tuesday, 27 May. The account which follows is my personal impression of Ecône. It will, I hope, convey however inadequately something of the spirit of the Seminary. The train in which we were travelling continued on to France with large numbers of French pilgrims on board.

The train stops at about 10:00 a. m. The whole platform is soon full of seminarians in their long black soutanes. Their fellow pilgrims lean from every window in the train laughing, talking, shouting, gesticulating - some are weeping and smiling at the same time. Everyone seems in the best of good humor - and what a lot of young girls there are! One might imagine that there was a pop-group on the platform! The train begins to move. The passengers lean even further out. "Adieu! Au revoir!" They wave. They smile. They weep. "Merci pour tout - Thank you for everything!" cries one of the girls. "Merci pour tout!" Her farewell is echoed from other windows. Some of the seminarians watch the train as it vanishes from sight; others begin stacking the luggage. I have the feeling I am back in the army again and have just piled out of a troop train; the atmosphere is almost identical. There is a great deal of laughter, and a tremendous atmosphere of comradeship; but, unlike the army, there is no one giving orders. In fact, no one ever appears to give any orders. The seminarians and their professors seem to form a corporate entity - an impression that will be strengthened throughout my stay at the Seminary. Everyone knows what he should be doing, how he should be doing it, and when.

"Come along, we've been invited for a beer." We all troop out of the station to a local restaurant. The seminarians are tremendously popular wherever they go. We can't all fit inside. There are more than a hundred seminarians, about twenty priests, myself, and a young American who will be entering the Seminary in September. Some of us sit at the tables on the pavement. Everything is "on the house."

It is soon time to take another train along the branch line to Riddes; then follows a walk of several kilometers to the Seminary at Ecône. Fortunately a Volkswagen bus is available to take the luggage. We approach the Seminary through extensive vineyards which belong to it and are tended by the students. Manual work forms an important item in their training. Ecône is situated among scenes of breath-taking natural beauty. Great snow-capped mountains rise up on eCred side. A gigantic waterfall tumbles down the mountainside behind the Seminary. The buildings themselves consist, firstly, of a large and very Swiss-looking house - formerly belonging to the Canons of St. Bernard and about three hundred years old. Archbishop Lefebvre had begun his work of priestly formation with a few students in Fribourg. The numbers expanded immediately and this building with the surrounding land was put at his disposal. The influx of new seminarians was soon so great that it was inadequate almost at once. New wings stretch off in all directions and their effect upon the visitor, the British visitor at least, is staggering. I would not have believed that any Catholic institution could be so ultra-modern. Truly, where the buildings are concerned, it is the space-age seminary. But there is no time to look around; lunch is being served immediately. I am taken to the bursar together with my American friend and we are shown to guest rooms in the old house. The rooms are furnished comfortably but simply; nothing useful is missing and everything works perfectly - and what a view from the window! We are asked to come down for lunch at once. The refectory is a huge room, clean, cheerful, and full of light; for there are large windows looking out onto the mountains on one side, and the other wall, alongside which there is a corridor, is made entirely of great glass bricks. I am astonished to find a case for my table-napkin with my name typed on a card inserted into a plastic socket - and I can scarcely have been in the building for five minutes! When I return to my room after lunch there is an identical card >

Every meal begins with a short grace (in Latin, naturally). There is reading from the Bible (which is always in French) and this is heard throughout the refectory by means of a superb amplification system which functions faultlessly. The same is true of a loudspeaker system which reaches every part of the building and the grounds. This is all operated by nuns in the most traditional habits who sit in a room surrounded by the most sophisticated electronic equipment, from which they summon "Monsieur the Abbé This" to answer a telephone call from Germany or "Monsieur the Abbé That" to come to Parlor Number Two where a visitor awaits him. The same system is used to rouse the community each morning in a very gentle manner with a series of soothing chimes. Similar chimes indicate the beginning or end of a lecture, a service in the chapel, or a mealtime.

The meals are simple but nourishing. The food is cooked by brothers of the order in a kitchen that looks like something out of the twenty-first century. It is served by the seminarians, who take it in turns to wait at table. Almost all the work in the Seminary is carried out by the seminarians, including such tasks as cleaning the corridors and stairs; but as these are all covered in thick hard - wearing carpet it is easily done.

When lunch is over it is announced that the community Mass will be at 17:00. In view of the exacting pilgrimage they have just completed, the afternoon will be free. During this time I am shown around the Seminary. My stock of superlatives is inadequate to express the impression it makes on me. The light and airy lecture rooms, the large and comfortable study-bedrooms for the students (the professors have a study, a separate bedroom, and a private bathroom). The library in the newest wing is already well stocked but with row after row of new and empty shelves to allow for expansion. There is a music room with the latest stereo equipment and an extensive collection of religious and classical music: I am pleased to see that someone has been playing Byrd's Mass for Five Voices. There is no television and the students are not allowed radios; nor is smoking permitted in the Seminary.

There are a good number of chapels and oratories but the main chapel is a recently converted barn - a massive structure with walls at least three feet thick. It is divided into two sections, one for the community and one for visitors. The number of visitors wishing to attend the Seminary Masses had grown so much that this new chapel was necessary - the previous one could hardly accommodate the seminarians. At least one hundred and fifty visitors had been attending the community Mass each Sunday. On 9 May, the Swiss bishops had withdrawn their canonical authorization from the Seminary. Canonically it had ceased to exist - in the language of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four it could now be described as an "unseminary." The announcement had appeared in the Swiss press on Saturday, 10 May. The bishops had said that, as a result of their decision, no faithful Catholic could continue to support the Seminary ("aucun fidèle n 'a plus le droit de lui accorder son appui"). There was some speculation in the Seminary as to how many, if any, visitors would come for the Mass on Sunday, 11 May. Over three hundred crammed themselves into the chapel - double the normal number and this figure increased the next week.

Just before 17:00 the seminarians file in for their community Mass. I have already referred to my impression of their forming a corporate entity: it is during the liturgy that this impression becomes most manifest. All stand as the celebrant and servers enter. As the Mass begins a sharp tap is heard. All kneel as if one person. Introibo ad altare Dei - Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam - it is as if one person is responding, half speaking, half chanting. I soon discover that Ecône has a liturgical style of its own. Judica me Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta...It is impossible not to apply these words to those who are persecuting the Seminary; to those who will allow practically any abomination to take place during the celebration of Mass, but who are adamant that to begin it with Psalm 42 is a crime crying out to heaven for vengeance! (As the celebrant is now encouraged to add some words of his own at the beginning of Mass, why should he not choose Psalm 42? and if the congregation wishes to say some of the verses, is this not a dialogue? and surely nothing is more praiseworthy than a dialogue in the renewed Church?)

It is not simply the seminarians who seem to be an entity - everything in the chapel blends into an organic whole: the dignified and beautiful altar; the priest with his quiet words, his slow and deliberate gestures; the acolytes whose movements must surely be synchronized, the words of the Mass, the seminarians who have been absorbed into the liturgy, who are simply part of what is happening. And what is happening? The Sacrifice of Calvary is being rendered present in our midst. There is indeed but one entity here - and that entity is Christ. Hoc est enim Corpus Meum. Christ is present upon the altar, present physically, present in person. The priest raises Christ's true Body for our adoration - the same Body Which was born of the Virgin, Which hung on the Cross as an offering for the salvation of the world, and Which is seated at the right hand of the Father. The priest who elevates the Host is also Christ, and how easy it is to believe this at Mass at Ecône. And the Congregation is Christ too, His Body on earth to build up His kingdom and, when they receive Holy Communion, they are united with Him and with each other as fully and perfectly as it is possible to be. This then is the secret of Ecône, this is the aim and the effect of the formation given there, the complete incorporation into Christ of these young men whose vocation it is to bring Christ to others.

In the pew in front of me there is a young couple with three children. The older girls use their missals with complete facility and make the responses with scarcely a glance at the page. The youngest child, about six years old, has a little book with a simple text and pictures of the action of the Mass. From time to time her sister checks to see that the picture corresponds with what the priest is doing at the altar.

Ite Missa Est says the priest. Deo Gratias comes the response; and what grace and blessings those who have been present at the Mass have to thank God for. Yet this is the Seminary which the French bishops, the Swiss bishops, and now the Vatican are trying to suppress. In principio erat Verbum....Once again the reason why is clear. We are in the midst of a "renewal" - which forbids the reading of the Last Gospel of St. John. Et tux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. Ecône is a light, a light shining in the darkness that is now enveloping the Church, a light which reveals the hollowness of a renewal about which much is spoken but of which nothing is seen, a light which must be extinguished if the shallowness of this renewal is to remain hidden.

Today I am to follow the seminarians throughout their normal program. They rise at 6:00. At 6:30 there is Prime followed by meditation. The Community Mass takes place at 7:15 and breakfast is at 8:00. Lectures begin at 9:00. The next is at 10:00 and the third at 11:00. Each lasts about forty-five minutes. They begin and end with prayer, they are very intensive and demand a high degree of attention. A large proportion of the students are graduates of secular universities and are able to cope with the demanding curriculum without great difficulty. Some of the younger seminarians find it requires an enormous effort - particularly those whose French is not too good when they arrive, as the teaching is conducted through this medium. There are several dozen students whose mother tongue is not French - Germans, Italians, Spaniards, English, Scottish, Australian, and above all American. There are also students from Africa and Asia. The title "International Seminary of St. Pius X" is well merited. I notice that an English student sitting next to me, now in his second year, makes his notes in French. In the Canon Law lecture the subject is that of the Oath. There is a great deal to condense into one lecture and the professor expounds the subject at great speed. The students open their Latin Codes of Canon Law at Canon 316. The difference between an oath and a vow is explained. We soon learn the difference between a iuramentum assertorium and a iuramentum promissorium. Canon follows canon as information is given on witnesses worthy of confidence, when oaths are binding on heirs, licitness, validity, obligation, annulment, dispensation, commutation, complications arising from possible conflicts with civil law. From time to time my eyes wander to the window through which I can see the great waterfall gleaming and shimmering in the bright sun. Soon the sun becomes too bright and the curtains are drawn. The loud-speaker summons an Abbé with a German name to the telephone. The professor is explaining how two apparently contradictory canons are not contradictory at all. Then chimes are heard over the loudspeaker announcing the end of the lecture. After the lecture the students crowd round the professor in friendly and animated conversation. During the lecture the atmosphere was formal and businesslike - afterwards it is all friendliness and informality.

At 12:10 there is Sext and the Angelus followed by lunch. Lunch is followed by recreation and the manual work - which can be synonymous if necessary. All students are asked to report to the vigneron, who has some urgent tasks to be done in the vineyard. There must have been some who when they answered a call to become laborers in the vineyard of the Lord had not expected to do so in quite such a literal manner. But the work is done with a great deal of gusto and a great deal of laughter, and the vigneron seems well pleased as he reappears with wine for those who want it.

Manual work is followed by two hours private study by the students in their rooms or the library - and study they do and study they must. If there is any feeling of anxiety among the seminarians during my visit it concerns their forthcoming examinations rather than the campaign to have the Seminary closed.

At 16:00 Goûter is available for those who want it - a cup of tea or coffee and a piece of bread and jam. Every weekday there is a plainchant practice at 18:00 - which explains the exceptionally high standard of chant in the Seminary. This is followed at 18:30 by a spiritual conference and at 19:00 by one of a variety of spiritual exercises, the Rosary, Benediction, Way of the Cross. Dinner is at 19:30, after which a period of recreation follows until Compline at 20:45. At 22:00 hours lights must be put out and strict silence observed.

It is impossible in any written account even to begin to convey any adequate impression of the atmosphere of Ecône. Serenity is perhaps the best word to describe it. This serenity derives in part from order and from discipline, but it is a discipline which comes from within, a discipline that is freely and consciously accepted, but which is practiced unconsciously and naturally. Above all, the atmosphere comes from the spirit of prayer which pervades the community. If asked to describe Ecône in one phrase there could be no other answer but "a community of prayer." This prayer springs from and is fostered by the deep spirituality evoked by the sublime liturgical worship which permeates the life of the Seminary. Whenever there are no lectures, there are students praying in the chapel or one of the many oratories. Look from any window in the Seminary and you will see soutane-clad figures walking in the vineyards and along the mountain paths saying the rosary. In the long corridors of the Seminary there are some very fine examples of baroque statuary - Our Lady, St. Joseph, the Sacred Heart. Strangely enough they appear in complete harmony with their very modern setting. Votive lights burn before them continually and in the evening there is almost invariably one young man kneeling in prayer before each statue. There is a particularly strong devotion to St. Pius X - the patron of the Seminary - before whose picture, beneath which there is a relic in the wall, a stream of prayers is offered for his intercession. However, although the atmosphere of Ecône is one of sanctity it is certainly not sanctimonious; there is no affectation, no conscious attempt to appear pious. The spirituality is natural and spontaneous and certainly accounts for the cheerfulness, the feeling of joy, which is equally evident and a real indication of true holiness.

Thursday, 29 May, is the Feast of Corpus Christi which is prepared for by solemn Vespers on the Wednesday evening. I will not even attempt to describe the beauty, the dignity, the perfection of this service. There is all-night exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and, during the night, I have the good fortune to make a visit to the chapel just before Matins are sung. I am not normally at my most receptive at 3:00 a. m., but I can state in all honesty that the only question I ask myself is not, "When will it end?" but, "Why must it end?" At about 4:00 a. m. I go outside for a few minutes to see the dawn appearing. The mountains are clearly visible, their snow-capped peaks turning red with the first rays of the sun. A chorus of innumerable birds has burst into its own version of Matins, almost drowning the rush of the great waterfall and blending with the sound of the eternal chant which filters through the windows of the chapel. At that moment, the brave new Church of Vatican II seems quite remote, quite unreal, and quite irrelevant with its dialogues and discussions, its committees and commissions, its political priests and emancipated nuns, its smiles and goodwill to all who are not of the Household of the Faith, its harshness and vindictiveness towards any Catholic who is less than enthusiastic about being updated. The great renewal with all its works and pomps seems no more than a memory now of a distant and unpleasant dream. Here is the eternal and unchanging Church. I turn to the ancient house of the Canons of St. Bernard. I would not be surprised to see one or more of them come down the steps at any moment; and should any do so and enter the chapel, then, no matter whether they had returned from fifty, a hundred, two hundred or three hundred years before, they could take their places beside the seminarians and begin singing Matins just as they had done when they lived at the foot of these same mountains.

At about 8:30 on the Feast of Corpus Christi we all leave for the parish church at Riddes. The parish priest has invited all the seminarians to take part in his Corpus Christi procession - a courageous gesture as the Swiss bishops have said there can no longer be any support for the Society of St. Pius X. Fr. Épiney, the Curé, is a very dynamic young priest. He has just built a very large and very modern church constructed of grey concrete. I must confess that I do not much like it, either the exterior or the interior. The church is packed to the doors for Mass with one empty section of seats reserved for the seminarians and their professors. Outside there is an atmosphere of great excitement and anticipation. Two bands are waiting - the Socialist band in blue uniforms and the Fanfare independante in crimson: this, I am told, is the "Radical" band and has Masonic ties. Both are anti-clerical and the Fanfaristes manifest this by remaining outside the church. But virtually everyone in Riddes is devoted to the Curé - and the bandsmen will manifest this devotion by playing in his procession. My friends at the Seminary told me I was in for a surprise. They were correct. The young Curé celebrates a Solemn High Tridentine Mass. The deacon and sub-deacon are seminarians who will be ordained on June 29th. The seminarians sing the Proper - many of the congregation join in. I notice that a good number of the young people present have very new missals - the Daily Missal which is on sale at the Seminary. The Curé gives a passionate sermon on devotion to the Blessed Sacrament which is listened to with rapt attention. He deplores the fact that there are even those who call themselves Catholics but do not kneel to receive their Lord and some who have the temerity to hold out their hands for the Host. The Blessed Sacrament is God; there is no honor, no devotion, no praise too great to offer to Him. We must be prepared to endure any humiliation, persecution even, rather than diminish our reverence for the Blessed Sacrament by one iota. In this sermon and in another when the procession halts for Benediction in the Town Square, he expresses his complete solidarity with the Seminary. He and the people of Riddes know what value to put on the calumnies used against it, no matter from what level they come. Our religion is a religion of love, and in the service of love malice and calumny have no part. There are reporters present. Cameras flash. I learn later that informed opinion is certain that the revenge of the bishops will be swift and severe. The Curé may not even last a week - he will certainly be out within a month. It is a humbling experience to see a young man prepared to make any sacrifice for a matter of principle, a young man who considers that truth takes priority over expediency. My mind immediately turns to another young man who took such a stand nearly 2,000 years ago; and it is this very Man, God the Son made Man, whom the Curé elevates in the Monstrance for our adoration at the start of the procession. Truly, here is Christ carried in the arms of an alter Christus.

The procession is a never to be forgotten event. There were clouds in the sky before Mass; these have vanished now and the sun is blazing down. The Pange Lingua surges upwards. The procession seems to go on for ever. There are the two bands. There are this year's first communicants - the little boys in their long white robes looking as charming as the girls. There is another group of children with baskets of rose petals which they scatter on the road along which God the Son will pass. The children of the village are present in their different age groups. A Marian group carries a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. The seminarians file past together with their professors; their number seems almost endless. An elderly and very poor lady is overcome with emotion. She begins to ask me something. I explain that I am only a visitor. She is delighted to learn that Ecône is known in Britain and that there are five British seminarians there now; and even more delighted to know that this number will be increased in the autumn. "Monsieur," she says, "Monsieur, the seminarians. How they sang at Mass. It was heaven come down to earth." "Heaven come down to earth" - this is it precisely. That is what Ecône is.

Behind the Blessed Sacrament walk the civic dignitaries - they are all there including the Socialist mayor whose devotion to the Curé equals that of any of the Catholic parishioners. Then come the ordinary Faithful - first the men and then the women; thousand upon thousand of them. Many must have come from outside this little town. All ages and all social classes walk together reciting the Rosary as they pass along the streets between houses decorated in honor of the Feast while the bands play and the sun shines. There are practically no spectators - almost everyone is walking in the procession. My American friend and I decide that it is about time we do so too and we join the men. He is a young convert who, after graduating at an American University, has been working for a doctorate in Spain. He must return that night to defend his thesis. He will be entering the Seminary in September. He has only one regret and that is that he cannot enter now.

Eventually the procession returns to the church. There is Benediction yet again. The service ends with the Te Deum during which the seminarians file out. The great hymn of praise continues with almost undiminished vigor. I have to follow it from my missal (to my shame). I notice that most of the congregation know it by heart and sing it from their hearts. Salvum fac populum tuum Domine, et benedic baereditati tuae....We all go out to where the bands are playing and an unlimited supply of wine is available to all. The Curé moves among his people, a true father in God, laughing, smiling, joking, listening. The seminarians are surrounded by admirers and well-wishers. This has been a revelation of what Catholicism can be - how Belloc would have approved! And not least of the laughter and the wine.

I must leave the Seminary after Compline that night to take the train for London. The thought of leaving is painful. My own spiritual life has not simply been deepened and strengthened; it seems to have only just begun. I am just beginning to learn the true meaning of prayer and worship. Compline draws to an end. The lights are extinguished for the Salve Regina. The chant rises effortlessly up to the Blessed Lady who will certainly act as the gracious advocate for the hundred and more young men who are placing their hope in her - exsules filii Evae. Exiles indeed, exiles because their hopes and their beliefs are anathema to the forces holding effective power in the Church today. If they belonged to any of a thousand and one heretical sects they would be smiled upon; if they professed Judaism, the Islamic or the Hindu faith they would be welcomed with open arms; if they were Marxist politicians, then red carpets would be laid before their feet. But they are young men who believe in the traditional and unchanging Catholic Faith; they are young men filled with a burning love for Our Lord and Our Lady; they are young men who have no other desire in life than to bring Christ upon the altar in the sublime setting of the Mass codified by St. Pius V and which has nourished the Faith of so many saints and countless millions of faithful Catholics throughout the centuries. But this rite of Mass is inimical to Protestants. It enshrines and proclaims so clearly the doctrines of the Real Presence and the Real Sacrifice which they do not believe in and will not accept. The Tridentine Mass is an obstacle to Ecumenism. Ecumenism is the new god of the new Church and Ecumenism is a jealous god. The young men who kneel in the shadows before me, pouring out their prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, evoke the memory of St. Ignatius and his tiny band of followers, who eventually grew into a great army of soldiers of Christ who not only halted the progress of the Protestant heresy but won back millions of souls to God. The forces of Modernism realize too clearly that unless something can be done to prevent these young men from being ordained and going out into the world then the victory of Modernism, which had seemed so secure for a time, will be in serious doubt. The Faithful will rally to these young men, the young in particular, and there will indeed be a renewal; but a Catholic renewal built on the sound basis of the traditional liturgy, traditional teaching, and traditional spirituality of the Church.

Calumny is the weapon which will be used in an attempt to destroy it. More often than not the Society of St. Pius X will be unable to refute these calumnies, but truth is great and must prevail. For those who might be tempted to believe the calumnies I know that every member of this Society, from Archbishop Lefebvre to the youngest seminarians, would have only one answer: "Come and see." Ecône has no secrets, as any visitor will soon find out. If there is anything to be discovered there it is the secret of holiness. I would be surprised to learn of any man of good will who could visit the Seminary and think otherwise.

Here is what the Archbishop said of Econe and the attempt to suppress it. His words are as true today as they were back then:

"If we consider the facts from a purely material point of view, it is a trifling matter: the suppression of a Society which has barely come into existence, with no more than a few dozen members, the closing down of a Seminary - how little it is in reality, hardly worth anyone's attention.

"On the other hand if for a moment we heed the reactions stirred up in Catholic and even Protestant, Orthodox and atheist circles, moreover throughout the entire world, the countless articles in the world press, reactions of enthusiasm and true hope, reactions of spite and opposition, reactions of mere curiosity, we cannot help thinking, even against our will, that Ecône is posing a problem reaching far beyond the modest confines of the Society and its Seminary, a deep and unavoidable problem that cannot be pushed to one side with a sweep of the hand, nor solved by any formal order, from whatever authority it may come. For the problem of Ecône is the problem of thousands and millions of Christian consciences, distressed, divided and torn for the past ten years by the agonizing dilemma: whether to obey and risk losing one's faith, or disobey and keep one's faith intact; whether to obey and join in the destruction of the Church, whether to accept the reformed Liberal Church, or to go on belonging to the Catholic Church.

"It is because Ecône is at the heart of this crucial problem, seldom till now posed with such fullness or gravity, that so many people are looking to this house which has resolutely made its choice of belonging to the eternal Church and of refusing to belong to the reformed Liberal Church."

Cardinal Tabera: According to you, the [conciliar] Reformation derives from liberalism. It is completely poisoned. But if one cannot accept the doctrine of the Church at a particular moment, as in the present case, it is all over with the magisterium.
Cardinal Garrone: If this (the manifesto) represents your real state of mind, it cannot serve as the basis for either a seminary or a confraternity. It is impossible, for it would mean admitting that one can build on the foundations of a radical contestation of the Magisterium of the Church. This is the state that things have come to. If you see liberalism everywhere, I for my part must tell you that I cannot find a worse variety than this (that of the manifesto).
Monsignor Lefebvre: On certain points of the Council, one can express… reservations.
Cardinal Garrone: But you write: "The whole Council". You do not accuse the Council of simply being a little tendentious, but of being fundamentally orientated in a modernist and protestant direction. What impression can a seminarian reading your "manifesto" draw from it? It will be the source of the orientations which will inform his conscience. Will this young man be formed in the Catholic Church? I say no! He will not be a Catholic but a sectarian. He will follow Mgr Lefebvre and not the Pope.
Monsignor Lefebvre: No, that is an exaggeration. I do not say that one must follow me, but the Magisterium.
Cardinal Garrone: But this (the manifesto) says the opposite!
Monsignor Lefebvre: It is not so!
Cardinal Garrone: You recognise the Magisterium of yesterday, but not that of today.
Monsignor Lefebvre: The Church is thus: she keeps her tradition and cannot break with; it is not possible.
Cardinal Garrone: Who then is the judge of fidelity to tradition? Who then is the judge? Not you, nor I! It is the Council, it is the Pope!
Monsignor Lefebvre: The Pope himself draws distinctions in the Council, whereas you accuse me of…
Cardinal Garrone: There is absolutely no relationship between the observations you are making, observations which might be justified, and the crass statements contained in your document.
Monsignor Lefebvre: I recognise that my "declaration" is an exaggeration, but I believe that it is no less of an exaggeration to wish at all costs to give the impression that no crisis exists, that there is nothing to reform, that all the difficulties can be explained away through the general situation of the world and our materialist society, and that one does not know exactly where the current crisis of the Church originates from.
Cardinal Garrone: In any event, the causes are [not] located39 where you put them.
Monsignor Lefebvre: But how can one find a remedy to these things, to this crisis?
Cardinal Garrone: Certainly not by diminishing the authority of the Pope in the minds of your young people.
Monsignor Lefebvre: That is not what I am trying to do.
Cardinal Garrone: No? You write that if you came to discover in the words or the writings of the Pope something that contradicted tradition, it would be necessary to stick to tradition and to abandon the Pope. That is what you say.
Monsignor Lefebvre: No. I said this in relation to communion in the hand. In that case…
Cardinal Garrone: That is not what you have written. But anyway, communion in the hand has been prescribed by the Pope. One cannot condemn a custom practised in the Church for centuries. It makes no sense. One may consider it inopportune, but not as something to be condemned. As for whether it is opportune or not, the Pope has left this matter to the judgement of the bishops. What is serious, is the presumption of those who claim that the Pope has no right to change anything in the liturgy.
We agree with you about various things; for example, about the existence of a profound crisis, a crisis in which the Church finds herself. But we take issue over the causes through which you attempt to explain the said crisis. One should not try to find these in that Magisterium which you are so critical of. According to you, the culprit is the Magisterium. And that is the worst species of liberalism.
Monsignor Lefebvre: Nevertheless, in the Magisterium there are things that are contradictory.
Cardinal Garrone: That is what you say and it is the worst form of liberalism. One cannot say that contradictions exist in the heart of the Magisterium.

1. First of all, it is interesting that the press was given a copy of this heavily-edited transcript--but not the actual audio tape. Archbishop Lefebvre was promised a copy of the tape, as was his right. This later was switched to the promise of a transcript, when it was obvious from the tape that the promised "cordial meeting" had actually become a tribunal that had gone balistic, with a cardinal at one point even calling the Archbishop a "lunatic". All this was edited-out in the transcript--and even this was never given to him.

2. What was the Archbishop's high crime? --That he opposed a pastoral council? What was so earth-shattering about this?How did it in any way challenge the Magisterium itself--at a time when most of the world's bishops were routinely denying Humanae Vitae, including seminary professors across the globe? Now THAT was challenging the teachings of the Church, not the Archbishop's criticism of the Council--which was, if anything, prescient and deserving. Even Cardinal Ratzinger has criticized the Council publicly--and harshly. Nobody calumniates him or goes after him--because he is not a traditionalist.

3. The cardinals make no mention of the visitors from Rome to the Econe which precipitated the Archbishop's Declaration. Instead the cardinals seized upon the Declaration he wrote after they left as proof of the Archbishop's uncooperative spirit. But the Declaration was made after the visitors from Rome--sent specifically to find fault with the Econe--openly scandalized the seminarians in their colloquies with them by doubting the Virgin birth and the Resurrection and by pronouncing that all truth was relative. It was this which precipitated the Archbishop's Declaration. The Declaration itself was a private paper to seminarians warning them not to heed emissaries from Rome who spread such heretical errors.

4. So the linchpin of the cardinals' case was this Declaration of orthodox belief intended to affirm the faith of his seminarians. It was never a "Manifesto"--which was what the Vatican Secretary of State called it when the Declaration was leaked to the press. It was made to look like a challenge to Roman authority, although it was not. Significantly, portions of the Declaration which openly confess allegiance and loyalty to the Successors of Peter, were deliberately left out of the published versions by the Catholic press. Clearly an unjustifiable charge of schism was intended by the leak--and so these vital assertions of support for the papacy were excluded. Lefebvre admitted he wrote the declaration in a fit of pique, that its tone is emotional and hot, but not that it was wrong in substance.

5. Furthermore, why, if the Archbishop was the target of Rome, was the Econe itself targeted for destruction as well? Why wasn't the archbishop simply replaced? The Econe Seminary itself had received high praise from the evaluators from Rome, despite themselves, and their report could find no fault with the seminary or seminarians in any way. The report itself therefore never even came up at the "tribunal"--which was itself a bizarre injustice. Tell me, why was the entire seminary ear-marked for destruction, the one seminary in Europe free of dissent and heterodoxy? Was it not precisely because of its orthodoxy? Yet notwithstanding the Archbishop's plea to punish him alone and not the entire seminary, it was targeted for destruction. In fact, that was the intention all along. The Archbishop's so-called Declaration was the pretext. Since the report by the visitors was positive, it couldn't be used--so they did the next best thing and tried to use the Declaration to shut down the seminary.

7. Even here they fail. The Declaration, while angrily stated, contains nothing that opposes the faith or the Magisterium. Nothing. It faults Vatican II and its aftermath, that is all. In this the Archbishop was prescient. In every instance in which the Council sought to institute change and improvement, it instituted instead a collapse. It was this truth that the Archbishop was highlighting--and he deserved a hearing. Instead he was pilloried and calumniated mercilessly.

8. All avenues of appeal were denied the Archbishop. He could not meet with the Pope--who routinely met with movie stars and petty diplomats--and he could not appeal to the Congregation whose appropriate jurisdiction was involved. All attempts at justice were blocked. And when the seminary was supposedly suppressed--it was done illegally, not according to Canon Law which specified that only the Pope might withdraw a jurisdiction once established. This was not done.

It is a fact that Cardinal Castillo Lara, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of Canon Law, admitted to an Italian newspaper, La Reppublica, that 'The act of consecrating a bishop (without a papal mandate) is not in itself a schismatic act…'[2]

The Cardinal later back-tracked by claiming that Lefebvre was guilty of schism BEFORE the 1988 consecrations. But he offered not a shred of proof--which was why I posted what I did, to show there is no proof. What there is instead is a classic abuse of power--illegitimate from start to finish.

So you can stash your phony charges of schism--they are part and parcel of the deception put out by those intending to impose the new religion. They ear-marked the Econe for destruction solely because it was fully and traditionally Catholic, for no other reason. It calumniated the Archbishop--then JPII got into the act and attempted to finish him off.

But Cardinal Lara got part of it right--there was no schism due to the consecrations. What he got wrong was the claim that what happened before was schismatic--but there is not a scintilla of evidence to show this, none whatsoever, just lies and slander.

By the way, where's the slippery trick? This is background information of the sort most Catholics haven't got a clue about. It's necessary to understand how Lefebvre was being railroaded from day one simply for being faithful to his Catholic faith and not getting with the modernist agenda.

If anybody was slippery, it was the Vatican. Here is the letter which was sent to Lefebvre, inviting him to meet for a "discussion." The "discussion" turned out to be a kangaroo court--later described as a "tribunal", to which he was offered no counsel, no documentary evidence, no transcript of proceedings, no appeal. Anyhow, here's the letter:

_________________________________________

Your Excellency,

Their Excellencies Cardinal Wright, Cardinal Tabera and I have studied the result of the visit to the Ecône Seminary by His Excellency Mgr. Descamps. We are grateful to you for having given him every facility to accomplish the mission on behalf of the Holy See.

We would now like to discuss with you some points which leave us somewhat bewildered following his visit, and concerning which, among others, we must report to the Holy Father.

Can you arrange to be free for this meeting at 10:00 a.m.6 on the morning of 13 February next in the premises of our Congregation?

Thanking you in anticipation in the name of the three Cardinals entrusted with this question and assuring you of my respectful and fraternal sentiments.

_______________________________________________

Notice the lie--the purported reason for the meeting was to discuss the result of the visitation to the Econe by Rome's representatives. But the report--which was positive--never came up! It was a mere pretext for a meeting that was later called a "tribunal", though it was illegal and broke the conditions for a tribunal set by Canon Law.

If you folk were one tenth as angry at Benedict XV and Paul VI as you are at JP II, then you might have a shred of credibility. I don't care a whit for Clintonian parsing of every word of every minor pipsqueak in Rome. Lefebvre and the Econe Four (and unfortunately the aged Castro de Mayer) were properly excommunicated whether you like it or not. The pope has that inherent power and the right to use it whether you like it or not. SSPX was declared a schism whether you like it or not. The pope and NOT YOU or the other SSPX schismatics makes the decisions in the Church whether you like it or not.

If you SSPX folk were half as upset with the AmChurch termites as you are with the excellent pope who excommunicated your heroes and called your schism what it is: a schism, you might have some smidgeon of credibility.

If you did not engage in an endless campaign of opportunistic lies, lies by omission, lies by twisted interpretations of Vatican nobodies, and just plain lies, then you might have some smidgeon of respectability and credibility.

When this or any successor pope changes the decisions against ecclesiastical revolutionaries like Lefebvre and his smarmy cultists, please get back to actual Catholics. Until then you are braying in the wilderness OUTSIDE the Church.

Your last paragraph is not even consistent with Cardinal Lara's quoted language. "Consecrating a bishop (without papal mandate) is not in itself a schismatic act.." does not equate to the proposition that consecrating defiant and revolutionary anti-papal bishops illicitly in direct defiance of papal orders and after pledging in writing to the pope that the excommunicatus will NOT so consecrate is nt a schismatic act. Of course, the pope is also the ultimate legislator of Canon Law and may amend it without the by your leave of actual Catholics much less of those cancerously schismatic as he sees fit.

Pope bashing and pope hatred and hatred of the institutional Church and rejection of the promises of Christ and the elevation of personal taste above the unity of Christ's own Church, and by implication, sedevacantism, are NOT traditionalism. Never were and never will be. Marcel and Company have reaped what they had sowed and they have justly been and are excluded from the Church.

1. You state, "The pope has that inherent power and the right to use it whether you like it or not. SSPX was declared a schism whether you like it or not."

But you are wrong. While the pope has the inherent power to denounce a schism, he can't make one up out of thin air. It is something people have to DO--not something a pope says happened. If the Pope doesn't know what a schism is--whose fault is that? Not all the tea in China can make the Pope's unjust statement a true one.

2. You state, "If you SSPX folk were half as upset with the AmChurch termites as you are with the excellent pope who excommunicated your heroes and called your schism what it is: a schism, you might have some smidgeon of credibility."

But who put the "AmChurch termites" in their places? Who elevates them and garnishes them with praise? Who covers up for their cover-ups? In your blindness you don't see the real problem--Rome and the AmChurch are one and the same. It was Rome who okayed every one of their rubrical deviations designed to destroy Catholic tradition. The Pope pretends to be helpless--except if traditionalists step out of line. But he knows what's going on. It's going on in France and Germany and Spain and Ireland and England and Australia and everywhere else on the planet as well. So what is the point of aiming our shots at AmChurch when the Pope and his bureaucrats are the real problem?

3. You state, "When this or any successor pope changes the decisions against ecclesiastical revolutionaries like Lefebvre and his smarmy cultists, please get back to actual Catholics. Until then you are braying in the wilderness OUTSIDE the Church."

In fact, the movement to restore Catholic Tradition IS the true Catholicism. We're not outside the Church because we never left it. We've stayed put--even in the face of a pope who brazenly defies all his preconciliar predecessors and their councils. But he cannot be above the Magisterium he has inherited. No pope can be. All popes, while supreme, are limited even in their supremacy. Nor can they ever legitimately oppose divine law--which means they must always command justly. If they make unjust demands, their demands lack legitimacy and ought properly to be disobeyed. This is because the first duty of every good Catholic is to preserve the faith and resist its destruction by anyone--even the Pope.

4. You state, "Of course, the pope is also the ultimate legislator of Canon Law and may amend it without the by your leave of actual Catholics much less of those cancerously schismatic as he sees fit."

But this is absurd on the surface. No pope rules by whim. The meaning of the canons involved says nothing about papal interpretation. It is the way the SUBJECT understood the canons that is paramount--since a latae sententiae excommunication is automatic and dependent upon the subject's own mentality, not something imposed by any superior. But the penalty took effect ONLY if the subject intended malice and was culpable. It all depends on the Archbishop's state of conscience, not on anything the Pope says. The Pope himself, in fact, had nothing to do with with the latae sententiae! If he had wanted to condemn the Archbishop by tribunal, that course was open to him and he might thereby have made his case. He chose not to do this--because the Archbishop could not be condemned in justice. No honest charges have ever been lodged against the Archbishop by Rome. It has been a railroad-job from the beginning--which was why I posted those pieces going back to 1979--to show precisely how dishonest the modernists cardinals were right from the beginning. Lefebvre's only crime from the outset was his determination to defend the traditional Catholic faith.

5. You state, "Pope bashing and pope hatred and hatred of the institutional Church and rejection of the promises of Christ and the elevation of personal taste above the unity of Christ's own Church, and by implication, sedevacantism, are NOT traditionalism."

But there is no pope-bashing going on. These are the facts. To say the Pope was wrong, to say that he acted unjustly, and to give the reasons why, is not pope-bashing. In fact, it's the other way around--it was this Pope who accused the SSPX bishops of schism--and so precipitated among Catholics the kinds of vicious and ignorant attacks people like you indulge in. The Pope steadfastly refused to take notice of the real problem--that he was pushing an anti-Catholic agenda that was an affront--and continues to be an affront--to Catholic consciences all around the world. That is not pope-bashing, it is an honest description of the current situation.

Nor is it a matter of personal taste. Traditionalists obey the time-worn teachings of the Magisterium of the Church going back two thousand years. They simply will not accept novelties as Catholic doctrines when these oppose previous teachings. That is not a matter of personal taste. It is a matter of faith.

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