Marcel Lefebvre Quotes

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God does not punish, just as the Church no longer condemns, except those who stay faithful to Tradition. (p. 61)
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
This is why I persist, and if you wish to know the real reason for my persistence, it is this. At the hour of my death, when Our Lord asks me: "What have you done with your episcopate, what have you done with your episcopal and priestly grace?" I do not want to hear from his lips the terrible words "You have helped to destroy the Church along with the rest of them." (p. 163)
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
From such an extravegent summary, we can draw only one conclusion: either we must condemn the Second Vatican Council which authorized it, or we must condemn the Council of Trent and all the Popes who, since the sixteenth century, have declared Protestantism heretical and schismatic.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
La foi s’établissait sur des certitudes. En ébranlant celles-ci, on a semé la perplexité.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
Tous les papes ont refusé le mariage de l’Eglise avec la révolution, qui est une union adultère et d’une union adultère ne peuvent venir que des bâtards.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
La Vérité, d’ailleurs, ne se fait pas dans le nombre, le nombre ne fait pas la Vérité.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
It is imperative then to return to the traditions of the Church, to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of all times, to the Sacraments of all times, and to the adoration and love of our Lord Jesus Christ who is the only way to salvation.
Marcel Lefebvre (Luther's Reform and the Modern Mass)
I want to be and to stay Catholic. So why am I required to suppress our seminary? Why am I required to suppress our Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X? Why am I required not to perform these ordinations? There is only one reason: to bring me into line with this policy. They want me to lend a hand in this destruction of the Church, to join in this communion which, for the Church, is adultery. I will not be an adulterer. I will Keep my Catholic Faith! That is why I refuse. I refuse to collaborate in the destruction of the Church. I refuse to collaborate in loss of faith, in the general apostasy. I know perfectly well that if I do not perform these ordinations, if I stop, I shall be given nothing. Ordination sermon of June 29, 1977
Marcel Lefebvre
I accept the Rome of all time with its doctrine and with its Faith. That is the Rome we are following, but the Modernist Rome which is changing religion? I refuse it and I reject it. And that is the Rome which was introduced into the Council and which is in the process of destroying the Church. I refuse that Church.
Marcel Lefebvre
I will limit my enumeration of the errors to these: I do not say that everything is bad in this Council, that there are not some fine texts to meditate on. Contrarily, I assert, with the evidence in my hands, that there are some documents that are dangerous and even erroneous, which show liberal tendencies, and modernist tendencies, which afterwards inspired the reforms which are now bringing the Church down to the ground.
Marcel Lefebvre (They Have Uncrowned Him)
The Archbishop of Cincinnati said that, in Rome itself during the Synod: "It is clear that the priest has lost his identity." What does that mean? The priest no longer knows what he is. So then, we want to form priests who know what they are, who know that they are made for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to carry the Gospel and proclaim the Gospel, that is to say, to proclaim the catechism which we all learned, which our parents learned, and our grandparents and our ancestors; that is, Faith in the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ and in His reign. (ordination sermon of June 29, 1977)
Marcel Lefebvre
It is fashionable today to praise the Church of the first four centuries, to extol primative practice. How would the Church of the first four centuries have regarded Archbishop Whealon? Anyone who is remotely acquainted with Church history can give one answer and one answer only. Archbishop Whealon would have been regarded as an apostate; he would have been anathemized, and every true Catholic bishop would have broken off communion with him. I believe that the Church of the first four centuries was right. I believe that Archbishop Whealon is at least a de facto apostate. It seems a harsh thing to say. It may make me appear harsh and intolerant - but nonetheless it is the truth. Cardinal Newman has a magnificent sermon upon this very point, "Tolerance of Religious Error". He castigates those who concern us not to uphold truth but to avoid the appearance of being intolerant. Once again I must repeat, those who possess the truth, those who love the truth, cannot tolerate error . . . Furthermore, I submit that Archbishop Whealon's conduct would have been considered incompatible with Catholicism not only by the Church of the first four centuries - it would have resulted in his immediate excommunication by every Roman Pontiff up to and including Pope John XXIII. I accept that what I am saying will make me appear singular, intemperate, and extreme in the ecumenical climate of the Conciliar Church but the viewpoint I am putting forward would have been accepted by 99% of Catholics up to Vatican II. Read the encyclical Mortalium Animos of Pope Pius XI, read the relevant encyclicals of Pope Pius XII. If Archbishop Whealon is right, the the Church has been wrong for 2,000 years. (chapter 8)
Michael Treharne Davies (Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre: Volume Three)
As the Old Testament also insisted on the handing down of a message which was the coming of the Messiah, so they awaited this Messiah. Since that time it is no longer a promise which we have to transmit - it is Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and we have to hand down this admirable treasure - a treasure so extraordinary that it transcends our capabilities. It is our duty to hand down this message faithfully, in imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Pius X, our patrons. If there is anyone who has handed down Our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully in this world, it is the Blessed Virgin Mary. She received Him by the grace of the Holy Ghost; she who was immaculate in her conception, which great privilege we celebrate today. Our Lord Jesus Christ was truly handed down to humanity by the Blessed Virgin Mary, until His last breath on the Cross, when she too was present; she fulfilled her role perfectly. And that is why she can truly be called Virgo Fidelis - Virgin Most Faithful. She was faithful to all the details of her duties as mother, of her duty to hand down Jesus to us for our redemption. In the midst of the upheavals of history, in the midst of the errors which appeared right at the beginning of this century, and which had their roots in the century which came before, a Pope also arose. God gave us an admirable Pope i the person of St. Pius X, the last Pope to be canonized. St. Pius, too, was faithful; he, too, wanted to transmit the message which Our Lord entrusted to him. And he expressed it in a wonderful manner in these words: "Instaurare omnia in Christo - Restore all things in Christ." This is the message handed down to us by Pope St. Pius X and with these examples before you - the Blessed Virgin Mary and Pope St. Pius X - you, too, will be faithful. (Sermon of December 8, 1979)
Marcel Lefebvre
Now this is exactly the same battle we are presently fighting. Why are we being persecuted? Why am I being persecuted today? And why are you, and all of us who are in Tradition, being persecuted? Because we affirm the truth and condemn error; we condemn liberalism; we condemn modernism. This is inadmissible for the Conciliar Church. The Council has changed all this; now we are supposed to be on good terms with the liberals, with the modernists, with the Freemasons, with the Communists, with everyone; we are supposed to be ecumenical with everyone. We are opposed to this; therefore we are against the Council, we are against the Pope, and so we are condemned! Yes, it is true, condemned! The reasons are the same; the combat is the same.
Marcel Lefebvre (The Little Story of My Long Life: The Life of Archbishop Lefebvre as Told by Himself)
You will recall from the Catechism that the Sacrifice of the alter is truly a Sacrifice, and that it differs from that of the cross only insofar as the Sacrifice of the Cross is a bloody Sacrifice, while the Sacrifice of the alter is an unbloody one. That is the only difference between the Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Altar, and it is for this reason that as Catholics we venerate the Sacrifice of the alter. It is the essence, the heart of our Faith. Because there is a Sacrifice, the presence of a victim is necessary. There is no sacrifice without a victim. Thus our Lord is present, since He offers Himself as a Sacrifice. To deny this sacrificial presence and to claim the Sacrifice of the Mass is simply a memorial meal, a mere recalling of what our Lord accomplished at the Last Supper is nothing less than a blasphemy against the doctrine of the Church, against all that Our Lord Jesus Christ performed and wished to be continued.
Marcel Lefebvre (I. The Catholic Mass II. Luther's Mass III. The Essentials of our Faith)
I am asked how it is that I can refuse orders which come from Rome. Indeed, these orders do come from Rome, but which Rome? I believe in the Eternal Rome, the Rome of the Sovereign Pontiffs, the Rome which dispenses the very life of the Church, the Rome which transmits the true Tradition of the Church. I am considered disobedient, but I am moved to ask, why have those who are issuing orders which in themselves are blameworthy been given their authority? The Pope, the cardinals, the bishops, the priests have been given their authority for the purpose of transmitting life, the spiritual life, the supernatural life, eternal life, just as parents and society as a whole have been given their authority to transmit and protect life. The word "authority" itself is from the Latin, "auctoritas', and "auctor" which means "author", author of life. We have authority insofar as we transmit and sustain life. We are not authorized to transmit death, society is not permitted to pass laws which authorize abortion, because abortion is death. In like manner, the Pope, the cardinals, the bishops, and the priests exist as such to transmit and sustain spiritual life. Unfortunately, it is apparent that many of them today no longer transmit or sustain life, but rather authorize spiritual abortion.
Marcel Lefebvre (I. The Catholic Mass II. Luther's Mass III. The Essentials of our Faith)
This, of course, is very simple for us who are Catholics. This is our Faith, the Faith we have always been taught, and yet, in our own time, how many Catholics still accept this truth, that salvation comes to all men through Jesus Christ, that outside of Christ there is no salvation? I find it extraordinary that Catholics should question the age old adage, "no salvation outside the Church". This is precisely the most important question facing mankind today, just as it has been in every age. Indeed there is nothing more vital to man than for him to know how he is to be saved, by whom he is to be saved, and in what manner he is to be saved. Can there possibly be a question of greater moment for those who inhabit the earth? Now it is quite certain that when we proclaim today that there is "no salvation outside the Church", many Catholics rise up incredulously and affirm that this is nonsense, that otherwise those not in the Church must be condemned to Hell. The fact is, however, that this remains a crucial tenant to all mankind. As Catholics we are bound to affirm what the Church has always affirmed, because the Church is the repository of all truth; the Sone of God was made man to be crucified for the salvation of all men. Can there possibly be any other source of salvation outside of the Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ? Can we as Catholics accept that Luther, Buddha, or Mohammed are also means of eternal salvation? Are they also in Heaven seated at the right hand of God? Yet today, despite the absurdity, many Catholics no longer accept that there is "no salvation outside the Church".
Marcel Lefebvre (I. The Catholic Mass II. Luther's Mass III. The Essentials of our Faith)
I owe it to truth to say and affirm without fear of error that the Mass codified by St. Pius V - and not invented by him, as some often say - expresses clearly these three realities: sacrifice, Real Presence, and the priesthood of the clergy . . . The established customs have not been made at random, they cannot be overthrown abruptly abolished with impunity.
Marcel Lefebvre
Our Lord said “Go, teach all nations and convert them.” He did not say “Hold dialogue with them but don’t try to convert them.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
Religious Liberty as spoken of by the Popes was liberty of religion, not religions; these two concepts are not at all the same. The Popes have always affirmed that there must be liberty of religion, but not of all religions without distinction. There was tolerance of error and thus of other religions, but not at all the same rights for both truth and error. Pius VII treated this question very clearly. he protested to King Louis XVIII over the establishment in France of liberty of cults or religions, which had not existed before. "Insofar even as on decrees the liberty of every cult without distinction, one confounds truth and error and places at the same level with sects and faithless Judaism the holy and immaculate Bride of Christ, outside of which there is no salvation." So spoke Pius VII, and so have spoken all the Popes. One cannot put all religions on the same footing.
Marcel Lefebvre (Liberalism)
This is why I persist, and if you wish to know the real reason for my persistence, it is this. At the hour of my death, when Our Lord asks me: “What have you done with your episcopate, what have you done with your episcopal and priestly grace?” I do not want to hear from His lips the terrible words “You have helped to destroy the Church along with the rest of them.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
The devil’s greatest victory is to have undertaken the destruction of the Church without making any martyrs.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
We ought to remember during this entire contemplation of God that we must apply all that is said of God to Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God. We cannot separate Jesus Christ from God. We cannot separate the Christian religion from Jesus Christ, who is God, and we must affirm and believe that only the Catholic religion is the Christian religion. These affirmations have, as a result, inescapable conclusions that no ecclesiastical authority can contest: outside of Jesus Christ and the Catholic religion, that is, outside the Church, there is no salvation, no eternal life. Whoever is saved attains to everlasting life by his adhesion to the Mystical Body of Christ. Another consequence: all of the societies Our Lord created must necessarily work together, in accordance with their entire purpose, to make souls Catholic and to keep them Catholic, in order to procure their eternal salvation, which is the end of all Creation, of the Incarnation, and of the Redemption.
Marcel Lefebvre (Spiritual Journey)
Desirous of placing those who aspire to sanctity - and especially to priestly sanctity - in the best conditions for arriving there, it seemed to me indispensable to evoke the particular action which the Virgin Mary has by the will of God in this effort to attain holiness, and this even before considering the elements and essential steps towards sanctity. If the Word Incarnate who had absolutely no need of a mother to come among us to accomplish the Redemption, wished that His divine person should receive a body and a soul in the bosom of Mary and that, during thirty out of thirty-three years, He should remain subject to His Mother and be, in a certain way, formed by Mary, how can we imagine that we, poor sinful creatures, have no need of the effective aid of Mary to form us into Christians, and priests?
Marcel Lefebvre (Spiritual Journey)
Obedience is a virtue intended to direct us toward good, not toward evil. To pretend not to see evil in order not to appear disobedient, is a betrayal of truth and a betrayal of our own selves.
Marcel Lefebvre
I can hear them say: "You exaggerate! There are many good bishops who pray, who have the Faith, who are edifying . . ." They may have been saints, but as soon as they accept the false religious liberty, hence the secular State; false ecumenism, and hence the admission of many ways of salvation; liturgical reform, and hence the practical negation of the Sacrifice of the Mass; the catechism with all their errors and heresies - they are officially contributing to the revolution within the Church and to its destruction! The current Pope and bishops no longer hand down Our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather a sentimental superficial, charismatic religiosity, through which, as a general rule, the true grace of the Holy Ghost no longer passes. This new religion is not the Catholic religion; it is sterile, incapable of sanctifying society and the family.
Marcel Lefebvre (Spiritual Journey)
It is obvious that if many bishops had acted like Msgr. de Castro Mayer, Bishop of Campos in Brazil, the ideological revolution within the Church could have been limited, because we must not be afraid to affirm that the current Roman authorities, since John XXIII and Paul VI, have made themselves active collaborators of international Freemasonry and of world socialism. John Paul II is above all a communist-loving politician at the service of a world communism retaining a hint of religion. He openly attacks all of the anti-communist governments and does not bring, by his travels, any Catholic revival. These conciliar Roman authorities cannot but oppose savagely and violently any reaffirmation of the traditional Magisterium. The errors of the Council and its reforms remain the official standard consecrated by the Profession of Faith of Cardinal Ratzinger in March 1989.
Marcel Lefebvre (Spiritual Journey)
We will not extricate ourselves from this dead-end unless we return to the Faith pure and integral. The Faith is one and undiluted; it allows of no compromise with error. The Faith cannot be updated. We cannot change the teaching of the Church such as it has been taught for twenty centuries . . . What is Tradition if not the teaching of the Church for twenty centuries?
Marcel Lefebvre (Luther's Reform and the Modern Mass)
It was intended that Catholics and Protestants draw closer together, but it is evident that Catholics have become Protestants, rather than the reverse. The New Mass itself was a Protestant conception and leads to Protestantism, and it is for that reason that we cannot conceive the possibility of using it in our seminaries. The definition of the Mass as given in the Introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae is clearly a Protestant one, and this, in itself, is inadmissible and inconceivable! Henceforth, the emphasis will be on the Supper, the Meal, and no longer on the Sacrifice. This shift of emphasis must of necessity lead - and is already leading - to the destruction of Catholic Doctrine which rests upon the Sacrifice of the Cross continued on the altar. It will lead to loss of faith in the Real Presence, and to the ruin of the Catholic priesthood. This alone would suffice to justify our emphatic rejection of the Reform. This means that no compromise whatever can be consented to in this regard. It means also that those who have taken the Mass along that road bear a heavy burden of responsibility.
Marcel Lefebvre (Luther's Reform and the Modern Mass)
p. 8, line 33: It is said: The Holy Ghost does not refuse to make use of those churches and communities. This statement contains an error: A community, insofar as it is a separated community, cannot enjoy the assistance of the Holy Ghost. He can only act directly upon souls or use such means as, of themselves, bear no signs of separation.
Marcel Lefebvre (I Accuse the Council)
We can never show enough reverence, nor ever worship the Eucharist with adequately heartfelt veneration. That is why throughout the ages it has been the custom in the Church to receive the Holy Eucharist kneeling. We should receive the Holy Eucharist prostrate and not standing. Are we the equals of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Is it not He who will come upon the clouds of heaven to be our Judge? When we see Our Lord Jesus Christ, shall we not do as did the Apostles on Thabor when they prostrated themselves on the ground in terror and wonder at the greatness and splendor of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Let us keep in our hearts and souls that spirit of worship, that spirit of profound reverence for Him who created us, for Him who redeemed us, for Him who died on the Cross for our sins.
Marcel Lefebvre (The Mass of All Time)
L’obéissance aveugle n’est pas catholique ; nul n’est exempt de responsabilité pour avoir obéi aux hommes plutôt qu’à Dieu, en acceptant des ordres d’une autorité supérieure, fût-ce du pape, s’ils se révèlent contraires à la volonté de Dieu telle que la Tradition nous la fait connaître avec certitude.
Marcel Lefebvre (Open Letter to Confused Catholics)
Certainly, I am taken as a reactionary, as an "ultra-traditionalist", as someone who impedes reform - and it is true! I am hindering reform. Yes, indeed, for I do not accept it! I consider this reform a reform to destroy the Church. I think that I have showed you this. It is, therefore, clear that it is for this that I am attacked by Rome, by this power of subversion that is found there. I have been asked to close my seminary; I have been asked to send away all my seminarians. In conscience, however, I think that I must say that I will not collaborate in the destruction of the Church; I cannot collaborate in the destruction of the Church!
Marcel Lefebvre (Liberalism)
The Church has been accused of claiming religious freedom when se is in the minority and refusing it when she is in the majority. The reply is easy. Truth is the source of virtue and justice, and of peace. Where Truth is, these benefits are visible in society. The Church asks that it should be recognized that she brings these precious gifts to States and that she should therefore be allowed freedom to dispense them. Wise statesmen, concerned for the welfare of their fellow-citizens, willingly admit the value of the cultural and social benefits brought by the Catholic Church and freely grant her a liberty sometimes refused to others. The Church has the right to claim this liberty of existence and action because it brings with it the precious gifts which flow from the Truth of which in its fullness, she is the sole custodian.
Marcel Lefebvre (A bishop speaks)
One of the most horrifying practical applications of these liberal principles is the laying of the Church open to all errors, particularly the most monstrous error ever thought up by Satan - communism. Communism now has official access to the Vatican and its world revolution is made markedly easier by the official non-resistance of the Church, nay, by her regular support of the revolution, despite the despairing warnings of cardinals who have been through communist jails. The refusal by this pastoral Council to issue any official condemnation of communism alone suffices to disgrace it for all time, when one remembers the tens of millions of martyrs, of people having their personalities scientifically destroyed in psychiatric hospitals, serving as guinea pigs for all sorts of experiments. And the pastoral Council which brought together 2,350 Bishops said not a word, in spite of the 450 signatures of Fathers demanding a condemnation, which I myself took to Mgr. Felici, secretary of the Council, together with Mgr. Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina.
Marcel Lefebvre (A bishop speaks)
We should like to reply to the objection that will certainly be leveed against it on the matter of obedience, and of the jurisdiction by those who seek to impose their liberalization on us. Our reply is - In the Church, law and jurisdiction are at the service of the Faith, the chief end of the Church. There is no law, no jurisdiction which can impose on us a lessening of our Faith. We accept this jurisdiction and this law when they are at the service of the Faith. But who can be the judge of that? The Tradition, the Faith taught for 2,000 years. Every Catholic can and must resist anyone in the Church who lays hands on his Faith, the Faith of the eternal Church, upheld by his childhood catechism. The defense of his Faith is the first duty of every Christian, more especially of every priest and bishop. Wherever an order carries with it the danger of corrupting Faith and morals, "disobedience" becomes a grave duty. It is because we believe that our whole faith is endangered by the post-conciliar reforms and changes that it is our duty to "disobey", and to maintain Tradition. The greatest service we can render the Catholic Church, the successor of Peter, the salvation of souls and of our own, is to say no to the reformed liberal Church, because we believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, who is neither liberal nor reformable.
Marcel Lefebvre (A bishop speaks)
Our Lord Jesus Christ willed to be born into a home. He could have chosen another means than that of coming to earth to save us. That is the way He chose. He willed to have a mother and He willed that mother to have a spouse, St. Joseph. He willed to be born into that home. He willed to live in that home for thirty years out of the thirty-three which He spent here below. What could be the meaning of our Lord's staying such a long time in a family? It is not because He needed it. He is the one who gave all of the qualities to the home of Mary and Joseph. He was God; He had nothing to receive from them. But He willed to remain in that home precisely in order to show the importance of the family, because it is from the family that children are born and that is where they prepare for the mission which they are going to have to carry out in the world; just as Jesus willed to prepare Himself for His mission in the midst of His family. What a great lesson!
Marcel Lefebvre