Introductory remarks from the translator
This is an excerpt from a long article in “La Tradizione Cattolica”( Year XXXIV – n°2 (124) – 2023). It is the transcript of an address the Archbishop gave in Trent on June 17th 1979. It was difficult to translate because as the Archbishop himself says in his introductory remarks: ‘First of all, please excuse my Italian, as I do not have complete command of the language, but I think it will be easier to speak [ directly] to you myself – even if I make mistakes - rather than have someone translate for me.’
I believe this is one of the reasons that this particular speech has not been translated into English [ it may be in a book in English – but I couldn’t find a trace of it online]– as the Archbishop is not speaking from a prepared speech – but speaks from the heart - ‘off the cuff.’ So the Italian is repetitive, colloquial and delightfully to the point, without a trace of malice. The Archbishop speaks with the piercing sincerity of a man of God who loves Holy Mother Church – and is not afraid to call ‘a spade a spade’ when he speaks of how the Church [i.e. the administration of the visible institution] has been taken over by men who are devoid of the Catholic Faith. (‘They are really not good Catholics. They are really not true Churchmen’). He even names the men bent on the demolition of the Church (as a visible institution). And this is in 1979 – who knows what he’d say now.
Reading this
article, because of the simplicity of
the language and the saintliness and
naturalness of the speaker - the broken heart of the Archbishop is quite
evident. His heart is broken at the state
of the Church, Post-Vatican II. At least
this is my opinion and I did my best to keep that sincere spirit in my
translation. Others are perfectly entitled
to disagree with me.
A propos
internal disagreement or downright spiteful fighting in the Church, the once
dependable ‘La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana’ is at present on a nasty campaign against the
FSSPX - running a series of articles filled
with animosity and untruths about the canonical state of the Fraternity. (In my view it is because literally hundreds of people
have been flocking to the Society in Italy after the Covid lockdowns imposed by dioceses on
the churches).
So rather than
get into a futile discussion (if they have no eyes to see and read and no ears
to hear and listen! ) I present this translation as a further proof of the good Archbishop’s sincerity and why he
did what he did - whether one agrees with his decisions or not.
The words in
straight brackets were added to the text to make it more readable in English
without any change to the meaning.
Finally, if any
reader knows of a full translation of this 1979 conference in Trent, please let
us know. If it doesn’t exist I will
translate the whole speech.
Francesca Romana
The extract from Archbishop Lefebvre’s discourse held in Trent in June
1979 and entitled:
“The Second
Vatican Council: What would the Fathers
of the Council of Trent say about it?”
“Seeing the present state of the Church is a cause of
great grief to us – and I am sure it is
the same for all of you. How can it be
that we have received official documents from Rome that are not in favor of the
Catholic Religion? That do not go
along with the Tradition and the Catholic Faith? The answer is easy – the
Church has been taken over; yes, it has been taken over; taken over by
Modernists who defend [their] errors condemned by Pius X, who said: “The
enemy is now inside the Church - it is
no longer on the outside – it is inside the Church.”
This enemy is found in the seminaries; in these
seminaries the enemy of the Church will become a priest, a bishop, a cardinal with
ideas that are not Catholic but modernist, laden with naturalism, rationalism,
evolutionism and relativism in doctrine and morality. This is Modernism.
Men with these ideas became bishops and
cardinals. Then the Second Vatican Council
was ushered in and the Modernists wanted to have this Council to spread their
ideas. And they held this Council with weak Popes. Pope John XXIII was not a very strong man and
even if he was a traditionalist at heart, he didn’t want to give the impression
of not being up-to-date with modern ideas.
Under the influence of these cardinals he opened the
Council, and, in my opinion, the poor Pope died of grief when he saw where the
Council was heading. That was my
impression anyway.
I knew Pope John well when he was Monsignor Roncalli in
Paris, where, as Apostolic Delegate in
Africa, I went to see him many times. We spoke a lot. He had the heart of a traditionalist – and when
he saw how this Council was ruining the Church – it is said he uttered before he died: “Stop
the Council. Stop the Council!”
Regrettably, the Modernists who took over the Church are
still there, and have driven out all the traditionalists and now every great
city in the world has a modernist bishop as cardinal: Milan, Madrid, Amsterdam,
Paris and Chicago.
When Monsignor Bernardin, the newly appointed Cardinal
of Chicago, was Bishop of Cincinnati, he was involved in a pacifist campaign
and led a peace march. [Subsequently he was made Archbishop of Chicago].
When I visited Chicago [some time before the actual
appointment], I read in the newspapers that the press was not in favour of this
Bishop becoming Archbishop of Chicago - the second most important city in
America. This was the opinion of both
the leftist and the conservative-right newspapers – in short – all the newspapers.
And what happened? Monsignor Bernardin was duly nominated Archbishop of
Chicago! How can this be accounted for?
There was someone behind it all -
one of the modernist Cardinals in Rome:
Casaroli, Baggio, Pironio, Poletti – they are
all modernists.
In the past the modernists and the liberals were
driven out of the Church, by Pius IX, Leo XIII and St. Pius X. Popes always drove out the liberals and the
modernists because they were against the
good of the Church. But, even the Popes
in their encyclicals slowly but surely admitted “We have condemned these
people; we have done everything in our power to stop them having an influence
in the Church, but nobody is listening to us, nobody is obeying us..” The Popes wrote in their encyclicals that this
error [ of Modernism] was becoming increasingly more organized, increasingly
stronger. Then the Second Vatican Council came along and the Modernists took
advantage of it to seize power in the Vatican.
Now they tell me : “You are being disobedient.” For sure I am disobedient to Modernism and
since they are Modernists, I do not want to obey them. I want to obey Catholics while they want to
wreck the Church and I want no part of that.
I want to build the Church not demolish it. Paul VI himself said: “It is the auto-demolition of the
Church.” Who is demolishing the
Church? Somebody is certainly doing it –
the Church cannot demolish by Herself.
These men are doing it. For this reason I have said that there are
different Rome[s] and [at present] there is a Modernist Rome which is the most
powerful.
Let us pray, hope and make sacrifices, asking God to
make these men leave. They really are not good Catholics. They really are not
true Churchmen. There are others who are good and want the best for the Church
but are hindered because the Modernists are stronger. These [men] have been busy
organizing themselves for 15 years and have all the power now. Even the
Pope can’t do anything. They say to the
Pope: “You mustn’t do this and you mustn’t do that.” They are powerful and present in all of the
offices - all over Rome.
When I went for an audience with Pope Paul VI, I
didn’t go through Cardinal Villot who at that time had all the power [as
Secretary of State]. Indeed he had enforced regulations whereby nobody in the Curia could make a move without his
permission; he was more powerful than the Pope and he didn’t want me to see the
Pontiff. Afterwards I understood
why. He had spoken calumnies against me to the Pope. He had told him: “This
Bishop, Monsignor Lefebvre, makes his
seminarians sign statements against you,
against the Pope.” Paul VI had replied: “This seems impossible to me. That a bishop would make his seminarians
sign something against the Pope.” Then Cardinal Villot asked for permission to
take action against the seminary, against all of my work. [The Pope said] “Certainly. You must
follow [what’s happening at] the seminary and this work must disappear – it
must not continue.” Consequently Villot
cooked up a scheme against my seminary; a false scheme - also against Canon Law - and he was sure that
after four months the Ecòne Seminary would have been closed and all the
seminarians sent back home.
When I found out about all this I refused to accept it.
Subsequently, when I went to see Pope Paul VI, Cardinal
Villot only knew about it a couple of hours beforehand and he sent Cardinal
Benelli saying: “You must go with Monsignor Lefebvre to the audience with the
Pope” and he came. Who knows whether he came to keep an eye on me or the Pope,
as he never said a word during the meeting but only took notes.
At first the Pope was upset and angry: “It is not true
that you have great respect for the Pope because you make your seminarians sign
statements against the Pope! [I responded] “Would I be able to do such a
thing? I have been a Servant of the Pope all my life! If it is true, let me see a copy of these statements!” The Pope looked
at me…then he softened and was kinder. [The cause of his anger] had been the
calumny by Cardinal Villot. It was an
incredible lie. But that’s what
happened.
These people are not Churchmen. Villot was not a
Churchman. Baggio is not a Churchman. Casaroli is not a Churchman. They are not Churchmen because
their principles are not the principles of the Church. So we are being targeted
because we want to maintain Tradition
while they no longer want it and say: “If the Pope gives permission for the
traditionalists to have the Mass of St. Pius V, everything we have done after
the Council is gone – it is over.”
The [present] Pope does not agree with this. In fact,
he would be disposed to allowing the Old Mass.
Pope John Paul II said to me during an audience that it was ridiculous: “This Mass that we ourselves had celebrated for
many years, the Mass of the Church, why prohibit it? Then Cardinal Seper (Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith - 1968-1981) stepped
in saying to the Pope: “No, no, Holiness, don’t give this faculty to Monsignor
Lefebvre because he will make a banner of it.”
A banner? The Mass is the Mass I have always
celebrated and it is a banner – in the sense that it is the Cross of Jesus
Christ. For me it is the banner of Catholicism; it is the cross, but it is not
a banner in the sense to go to war with. Well, the Pope was then
perplexed and did nothing – but he had been disposed to signing.
This is the situation in Rome and all of you must know
about it, because if you don’t, you might think that all goes well in Rome,
that everything coming from Rome is holy and in accordance with Catholic
Tradition; that all is well, that there is nothing bad there, that Rome is
holy. Honestly it is not that way
anymore. Not now.
There was a time it was like that.
When I was in the Roman seminary and then when I was
Apostolic Delegate I used to go to all the Roman Congregations and to the
Secretary of State. I met Cardinal
Tardini for example – now there was a true Churchman! Also I knew, Cardinal Ottaviani, Cardinal
Brown and Cardinal Antonuitti all of whom were real Churchmen – who gave
everything to the Church – and nothing else – nothing to politics! Not the men now though – there are some still good men – but not the ones that
have all the power. When they took power in Rome – they changed everything: the
liturgy, the seminaries, theology, morality – leaving all of it to – liberty! And with liberty, things fall apart.
These people have real hatred for traditionalists –real
hatred. Everyone is now welcome in the Vatican: Buddhists, Muslims, the Trilateral
(I know these Freemasons) even Arafat and all the revolutionaries but not
Catholics! We are Catholics and we cannot have an audience with the Pope.
Once at a conference held in France, I said: “Perhaps
a day will come when the Devil will ask to be received in the Vatican and they
will say to him: you are a very cultured person, very intelligent and powerful –
and we have these human rights – so we are obliged to receive you; on the other
hand, we know that you are in a somewhat difficult situation which we still don’t
know how long will last …but who knows? Perhaps one day God …. And we also know
that you have had some difficulty with Jesus Christ and the Holy Virgin - but perhaps the responsibility lies on
both sides…” Perhaps…
This is the situation now: for the Church, each has to own responsibility, and so their mea culpa[s],
their mea culpa[s] for the sins of the Church to the Protestants and so on. The Church made mistakes – so even now the demon will be welcomed. We – on the other hand –
cannot have an audience.
The situation in Rome is extremely serious and we must
pray; we must pray especially to the Blessed Virgin since She is the strongest
against the demon. She is always in battle with the demon and with those who do not want the Kingdom of Her Son. The
Blessed Virgin, The Immaculate Conception holds only one name in Her heart:
Jesus. Only one name in Her thoughts: Jesus.
We too, must do what we can to be like Her – to have
only one name in our hearts and thoughts – the name of Jesus., the Reign of
Jesus for all men, the eternal Kingdom for all men – all of them! The Reign of beatitude , joy, peace and eternity – our final desitination at the end of our earthly life.
We need to pray about this difficult situation in the Church; we
need to pray like the little children of Fatima did; they were shown a vision
of Hell by Our Lady, into which souls fell like leaves from trees in Autumn.
We need to pray and do penance, asking with all our
hearts [the capacity] to pray; getting
the children to pray: pleading with God to change the situation – for the
salvation of our souls and the souls of all people. "
Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre
Year XXXIV – n°2 (124) - 2023
