The SSPX continued as if the Pope had never said a thing. In a way, to the members' minds, he hadn't. Lefebvre was convinced the Roman Curia was misleading Paul VI.... So life at Econe continued as usual.
This, of course, meant preparing seminarians to receive the sacrament of holy orders, with the first class set for ordination during the summer of 1976... "despite the letter from Pope Paul dated 29 June 1975, the entire legal process taken against [the SSPX] had been so irregular that it could not be considered as having been legally suppressed" (Davies, p. 202).
The Vatican disagreed. "You should, at the same time, inform Msgr. Marcel Archbishop Lefebvre that, de mandato special Summa Pontificis, in the present circumstances — and according to the prescriptions of Canon 2373, 1 °, of the [Pio-Benedictine] Code of Canon Law, he must strictly abstain from conferring orders from the moment he receives the present injunction" (Secretariat of State, Prot. N. 307, 554, 12 June 1976, trans. in M. Davies, p. 194).
Lefebvre wrote a public letter beseeching the Pope to have a change of heart. The Pope directed that the archbishop be informed his mind had not changed and reminded Lefebvre that he could not ordain his seminarians.
Lefebvre refused submission to the Pope's order: He ordained the seminarians to the priesthood. The Vatican suspended him. The Holy See also declared that, "those who have been ordained are ipso facto suspended from the order received, and, if they were to exercise it, they would be in an irregular and criminal situation" (R. Panciroli, press conference, July 1, 1976, trans. in M. Davies, p. 216).
On July 29, 1976, the Pope suspended Lefebvre a divines. According to canonist Peter Vere, this meant Lefebvre was "now forbidden by the Holy See from the exercise of holy orders, a prohibition reserved to the Holy Father personally. In other words, his suspension was now perpetual until its absolution and applicable to more than simply the ordination of seminarians to major orders" (Vere and Woestman, op. cit.). Lefebvre said, "This conciliar church is schismatic because it has taken as the basis for its updating principles opposed to those of the Catholic Church . . . The church that affirms errors like these is both schismatic and heretical. This conciliar church is just not Catholic."
Things were relatively quiet after this, if you can call "quiet" the intemperate things the archbishop was saying about the Pope and the Church. On August 4, 1976, for instance, Lefebvre said, "All those who cooperate in the application of this upheaval, accept and adhere to this new conciliar church . . . enter into schism" (Fr. Noel Barbara, Econe Full Stop, Fortes in Fides [www. the-pope. com /econefs. html]). This is the height of irony when one considers the definition of schism: The refusal of submission to the Roman pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2089, cf. CIC, can. 751).
Peter Vere?
That same former Satanist who butchered his first born child?
The pope is not a god. He cannot order the destruction of God's Church. His whim is not the law of the Church. In fact, its laws and precepts are the reason for his authority in the first place. He is given power precisely to sustain them and to protect the deposit of faith. He cannot do as he wishes with his subordinates, without just cause. In this he is subject to Church canons, as is anyone else, since they are based on Divine Law. He must therefore act justly, not as a tyrant.
We say the pope is supreme. But what does that mean? We say the Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land also. But we don't believe the Supreme Court has a right to act as it pleases, to depart from its own limitations, to act as chief executive, for instance. We recognize in the word "supreme" certain limits. So too with the pope. There are limits to his authority. He abuses his power when he exceeds these limits--as he would if he acted unjustly.
Here is the rest of the Davies quote:
"It would be possible to devote endless pages to discussing the merits of each position but even it if is conceded, for the sake of argument, that the Vatican had the law upon its side it did not follow that the Archbishop was necessarily in the wrong. There are many orthodox Catholics who evade the necessity of considering the Archbishop's case on its merits by reducing the entire question to one of legality. 'Archbishop Lefebvre is in breach of Canon Law,' they argue, 'therefore he is wrong.'
"At the risk of laboring a point which has probably been made sufficiently clear already, the Law is at the service of the Faith. It is intended to uphold the Faith and not to undermine it. Given that the manner in which the case against the Archbishop was conducted constituted an abuse of power, then he was entitled to resist.
"Archbishop Lefebvre decided that he could best serve the Church by ordaining his seminarians and incardinating them into the Society of St. Pius x. The question which no Cathodic of integrity can evade trying to answer honestly, is whether this decision constitutes inexcusable defiance of papal authority or a legitimate act of resistance to an abuse of power. The subsequent action taken against the Archbishop must be assessed in the light of the answer given to this question. Sanctions were imposed upon him by the Vatican; they will be detailed in their chronological sequence. Once again, the Archbishop decided to ignore them as they were simply a consequence of his refusal to accept the original command to close his Seminary. Even his worst enemies can-not accuse Mgr .Lefebvre of a lack of logic or consistency. His position is based upon one fundamental axiom: the action taken against him violates either Ecclesiastical or Natural Law, possibly both. If he is correct then his subsequent actions can be justified and the legality or illegality of subsequent Vatican decisions is irrelevant. Those who condemn the Archbishop invariably ignore this fundamental axiom and concentrate upon the legal minutiae of the subsequent sanctions. Those who support the Archbishop will do so most effectively by continually redirecting attention to this axiom rather than allowing themselves to be diverted into futile and endless discussion on these legal minutiae. It is also essential to cite the controversy within the context of the entire "Conciliar Church " where not simply any and every ecclesiastical law can be defied with impunity by Liberals but any and every article of the Catholic Faith can be denied with equal impunity .Reduced to its simplest terms, the true problem posed by the drama of Econe is not whether Archbishop Lefebvre is right to defy the Vatican and continue ordaining priests but whether the Vatican is right to order the most orthodox and flourishing Seminary in the West to close."