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The Example of the Angers Martyrs Part 2

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The Example of the Angers Martyrs

On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom

by Etienne Muret

from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024

(continued)

The “Real” Mass

For our martyrs, this attachment to the Catholic faith was most often expressed in their unwavering support for the Mass of non-juring priests known as “refractory” priests. 

“Refractory” priests. This is the motive most often cited in condemnations. They were condemned because they had refused to attend the Masses of sworn-in priests, i.e. constitutional priests – the “intruders”, as they were then called – and because they had attended the clandestine Masses of refractory priests[1] . For atheist revolutionaries, this question of Mass was crucial, because it is extremely revealing. The refusal of Mass by schismatic priests who had rallied to the Revolution signified their rejection of the Republic and the new order of things it intended to establish. Examples could be multiplied; here are just a few.

First, the Grillard sisters. When the judge asks Renée if she went to Mass with the priests who took the oath, she replies:

  • No, never!
  • Why didn’t you go?
  • Because I didn’t trust them.

On the other hand, she and her sister Marie replied that they had gone to Masses, sermons and processions organized by the refractory priests, and even to confession! The court declared them “suspected of never having attended the Mass of the sworn priests they detested” and guilty of “the most pronounced fanaticism”, and condemned them to be shot .[2]

The same applies to Marie Cassin[3] and Victoire Beauduceau[4] , shot on February 1, 1794.

The first courageously confesses to the Cholet revolutionary committee:

  • Have you been to the Mass for refractory priests?
  • Yes.
  • Have you been to your constitutional priest’s Mass?
  • No.

Sent to Angers and re-interrogated by the sinister Vacheron, one of the cruelest members of the military commission, she was condemned because “she hated sworn priests, whose Mass she didn’t go to; she gave preference to non-sworn priests; she’s a fanatic”.

As for Victoire Beauduceau, she was accused of being “as guilty as a person of her sex could be” and of having “fanaticized half of Cholet before and during the Vendée war”, because she refused to call on the sworn priests she knew to marry her daughter, and never went to their Mass. Her sentence of condemnation states without batting an eyelid “that she held secret meetings at night in her home, had masses said or seemed to say masses herself [sic]”, and ends with this peremptory declaration: “The Republic needs to purge itself!”

This was also the case for the three sisters Gabrielle, Suzanne and Perrine Androuin[5] . They had the misfortune to have a brother who was a refractory priest, and they attended his Masses several times. What’s more, they have lodged refractory priests in their homes. In the margin of their interrogation, the clerk drew the fateful “F”: to be shot! This was done on February 1, 1794.

Even more lamentable: although the mother of three young children locked up with her at Calvaire, Marie Pichery[6] did not escape the shooting. Her only crime was refusing to attend “the republican Mass”. She was therefore “very fanatical”. We don’t know what happened to the children.[7]

Perrine Bourigault[8] , for her part, is “fanatical to a fault” because she “likes the old priests better than the new ones, and wants them back”.

Let’s end with a pitiful case that illustrates the savagery of judges: Perrine Laurent, nicknamed “Gourdinette”, is a humble girl, simple-minded, but a friend of the good Lord, who loudly displays her religious convictions. Denounced and arrested, she is condemned. Her sentence is curt and hurtful: “Perrine Laurent, Gourdinette, daughter of Segré aged 48, arrested eight days ago, has never been to the sworn Mass, is a stupid fanatic, with no response”. [9] Margin: “F”.

Let’s face it: it’s not for reasons aestheticism or sentimental attachment that these women are so faithful to the Catholic Mass that they would die for it; it’s for what the true Mass means to them, and that’s a matter of faith. For the Mass of swearing priests, materially speaking, is strictly the same as that of the refractory ones – it’s not a new Mass! – but its source is poisoned: it is said by schismatic priests who have rallied to the revolutionary regime.

The Christian Spirit and the Meaning of Sacrifice

It’s also worth highlighting the virtues of our martyrs that reveal their profound Christian spirit. They are not worldly. They are “Gospel Christians”.

They accept their fate, because they have been trained from childhood in the spirit of sacrifice, accustomed to carrying the cross, and for them, loyalty is not an empty word.

This doesn’t mean they’re resigned sheep. They react. They resist vice and, as their attitude shows. And their reaction is not limited to simple refusal. Their loyalty is expressed positively, in deeds: they commit themselves.

In this way, the laity not only reject the “intruder” (the constitutional priest), but also help the good priests, hide them and provide for their sustenance. They apply what Dom Guéranger says about the true faithful in the note in his Année liturgique dedicated to Saint Cyril of Alexandria:

It can happen that pastors remain silent, for one cause or another, in certain circumstances where religion itself is at stake. The truly faithful are the men who, in such circumstances, draw inspiration a course of action from their baptism alone; not the pusillanimous who, under the specious pretext of submission to the established powers, wait to run to the enemy or oppose his undertakings, for a program which is not necessary and which should not be given to them.[10]

As for priests, it’s not enough for them to refuse the oath of allegiance to the civil constitution of the clergy. Following the example of Noël Pinot, they explain to their faithful why it is not possible to accept it without betraying faith and mission entrusted to them by the Church[11] . They instruct and comfort souls, we saw with Abbé Ledoyen. And that’s why, even though they’ve been hunted down, they don’t want to abandon their parish and continue their ministry clandestinely, risking their lives in the process.

The story of the Lego brothers is a remarkable illustration of this spirit of self-sacrifice in the service of souls. In 1791, René Lego was a young curate in Plessis-Grammoire. His brother, Jean-Baptiste, was still only a seminarian. As developments made his ordination highly unlikely, he decided to travel with René to Rome to be ordained a priest. Once this was done, the two brothers could very well have stayed behind and quietly waited out the Revolution. But they realized that they were needed in the Angers diocese, and returned to minister there for several months. On Christmas Eve 1793, they were caught in hiding with two other priests and arrested. Eight days later, on the day of Our Lord’s circumcision, they were guillotined.[12]

However, this wandering life, full of danger and suffering[13] , did not prevent these priests from being joyful.

Such is the case of Abbé François Chartier, vicar of Sœurdres, condemned for having “celebrated counter-revolutionary Masses in order incite listeners to the most criminal revolt against the Republic, and to annihilation of the sovereignty of the French people [sic][14] “. On his way to the scaffold on March 22, 1794, writes Abbé Gruget,

joy was painted on his face, as well as on that of those who were to share his crown. At the foot of scaffold, he gave absolution to them all, while a priest in a nearby house gave it to him. He remained prostrate on the ground until it was his turn to go to the execution. He went up there with the tranquillity that only pure consciences can have.[15]

This was also the case for Abbé Joseph Moreau, vicar of Saint-Laurent-de-la-Plaine. During his interrogation, he humorously refuted the grotesque slander he had been subjected to about the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the sanctuary of Notre-Dame de Charité.

In fact, when the Revolution broke out, the Virgin Mary had begun to appear in an old oak tree located near the Notre-Dame de Charité chapel, a kilometer from the village of Saint-Laurent. In the wake of these apparitions, which were accompanied by numerous miracles, processions and pilgrimages multiplied and aroused the fury of the revolutionaries. On August 29, 1791, a battalion of sixty-three armed men destroyed the chapel and felled the oak tree. But the pilgrimages continued.

Abbé Moreau refused to take the oath and went underground. By night, he confered the sacraments and celebrated M

ass. He then crossed the Loire with the Vendée army, following them as chaplain on their way to Gran Ville. On the return journey, unable to cross the Loire again, he remained in the Craon region. He was arrested in Combrée on the night of April 11-12, 1794. He was transferred to Angers and, on April 17, appeared before the military commission. To the extravagant and hateful questions of his judges, he counters with a subtle irony[16]:

Question. – He observed that he was imposing by saying that he never attended these processions, since it was he and others of his clique who hid in the tree to make a former good Virgin mouver [move].

Answer. – That he has never been there by day or by night, and that furthermore he couldn’t have put himself in it it [the tree] wasn’t big enough.

Q. – A him observed that if he didn’t go as a man, he went as a woman, so as not to be recognized.

R. – That he has never been there under any disguise. […]

Q. – How many rosaries and Sacred Hearts did he bless, and how many blessings did he sell?

R. – That he only blessed Sacred Hearts and even then for free.

Q. – A observed that he is becoming more and more an impudent liar, since after having said that he did not sharpen the daggers of the Vendée, it follows from his last confession that he blessed the Sacré-Coeur, which were the real daggers used by the scoundrels of the priests.

R. – That he we were talking about ordinary daggers. […]

Q. – Asked if, since he had not seen the miracles of the Blessed Virgin, he had seen the famous miracle of the resurrection of the robbers.

R. – That no, that those who were killed did not want to be resurrected for fear that the same thing would happen to them again.

Q. – How many times has he actually riden the mule of that mitred animal they call the pope?

R. – That it too far to undertake this journey.

On February 21, 1794, Noël Pinot, parish priest of Le Louroux-Béconnais, climbed the scaffold wearing his alb and stole, immolating himself to Christ the High Priest. On Good Friday, April 18, 1794, Joseph Moreau, vicar of Saint Laurent-de-la-Plaine, offered himself on the scaffold, a generous victim of his devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

The Love of Purity and the Refusal of Dishonor

A final aspect of the lives of our martyrs, particularly remarkable in the case of women, is their great love of purity. They would rather die than profane their souls through a dubious alliance, or see their virtue withered.

We see this, for example, in the story of Marie-Louise Verdier de la Sorinière, a twenty-eight-year-old girl whose family called her “la belle Lisette”, she was so beautiful and cheerful. During her first interrogation, she had had a moment of weakness in terror. But she pulled herself together. Condemned, she went to her execution with a cheerful face, singing the beautiful canticle of Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, “Je mets ma confiance, Vierge en votre secours” (“I place my trust, Virgin, in your help”). Just as she was about to be shot, an officer approached her with the intention of seducing her:

“Be my wife and I’ll save your life”. But she proudly replied:

“Let me die. I prefer martyrdom to your love.” And she fell to the bullets with her sister Catherine, on February 10, 1794.[17]

The same thing happened to Mlle Perrine Ledoyen, from La Haye-Longue, near Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné. The story is reported by Abbé Gruget. While she was incarcerated at Calvaire, awaiting death, one of her neighbors came to her and offered to save her, on condition that she marry him. If it’s on this condition,” she replied, “I won’go out, and if I have to die, I’ll know how to die. I want no other husband than the one I serve, I have put my trust in him and I hope he will not abandon me[18].”

Abbé Gruget also recounts how Mme Sailland d’Épinatz protected her three daughters, Perrine, Jeanne and Madeleine, just as they were about to be massacred at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794. This mother, worthy of the mother of the Machabees, exhorted her daughters to remain firm in their faith and not to fear the death that would open heaven to them. But the youngest was frightened. She even fell into a kind of fury when she was sought in her prison to be led to her death. When she arrived at the place of her executionone of the executioners, struck by her youth (she 23), took her by the arm and pushed her aside from those who were to be shot. But she, “sensing the danger of falling into the hands of these tigers and the risks she had to run for her innocence”, quickly returned to stand beside her mother and sisters. Then Mme Sailland, pulling from her hair a roll of gold coins she kept for her family’s use, detaching her bracelets and earrings, offered them to her executioners, asking that her daughters be shot before her, so she could witness their fidelity and be assured that they would suffer no outrage. She got her wish. Her daughters were shot before her eyes, and she was shot immediately afterwards.[19]

There were worse things. Some prisoners had to defend their chastity against dishonest actions of their executioners. Such the case with young Rose Quenion. After condemning her to death on January 24, 1794, “because she did not attend the services of sworn priests”, the sinister Vacheron nevertheless added in the margin of her interrogation: “to be examined”. Rose then attempted to escape by jumping from the third floor of her Calvaire prison, “to go and see her mother, a prisoner at the Bon-Pasteur”. Caught by the concierge, she was put in solitary confinement and finally shot on February 1st. The truth came out later: Vacheron wanted to take advantage of this girl and came to solicit her at night, but when she refused, he had her shot.

A year later, when an investigation was launched by Judge Myonnet against the Anjou terrorists, former inmates of the Calvaire prison testified. Among them, Hortense de Regnon declared that she had “heard that, on various occasions, the military commission or revolutionary committee had women, including Vacheron, brought up at night; that it was even widely rumored that they had had Rose Quenion shot only because she had resisted their solicitations”. The same judge’s report specified that “scheming women granted their favors [to members of the military commission] and, by this means, escaped and were not prosecuted […], and thus adroitly won their freedom”.[20]

Lessons for Today

Reading these accounts, how could we fail to be touched by the sufferings of all these poor people, and above all, edified by the firmness of their faith and the ardor of their love for Jesus Christ and his Church?

Each and every one of them can truly apply these words of Scripture:

Domine Deus, in simplicitate cordis mei laetus obtuli universa – Lord God, in the simplicity of my heart, joyfully, I offered everything.

Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi – I have fought the good fight, I have completed my course, I have kept the faith.[21]

But it’s not enough to evoke the sacrifice of these martyrs, to unite with their suffering and admire their courage. Above all, we must imitate them.

Saint Augustine recounted in his Confessions how he struggled, before his baptism, to rid himself once and for all of his old sinful habits – his “old friends”, as he put it, who were slyly pulling at him through his garment of flesh. The sight of faithful Christians all around was a great help in this struggle.

So many children, so many girls, so many young people of all ages, so many respectable widows, so many virgins in their old age. […] I thought they were saying to me: “Can you not do what these young men and women have done? […] Throw yourself into God, don’t be afraid, he won withdraw, he won’t let you fall.[22]

Shouldn’t we do the same, imitating the example of the Angers martyrs, striving to be like them?

For if they have been faithful, with God’s grace, at the hour of the great sacrifice, it is they were faithful first in the little things, and got into the habit of renouncing themselves day after day, from their earliest childhood.

So if, in our daily lives, we happen to wonder whether it might not be clever or advantageous, at times, to make doctrinal or practical concessions, to seek accommodations with the world, to aim for the easy way out, let’s think of these martyrs.

After all, let’s face it: having to travel miles to go to Mass; having to recite the rosary every day and learn about religion; having to bear the weight and monotony of daily duty without complaint; having to endure ostracism or misunderstanding from work colleagues, friends and family you’re a traditional Catholic; not enjoying the same facilities and worldly pleasures as all those around us; being singled out and ridiculed you dress Christianly, don’t indulge in the turpitudes that everyone else commits, and don’t consent to the general sloppiness; in short, rowing against the current, constantly fighting against the spirit of the world, error, evil…. it’s difficult, tiring, painful…

Yes, no doubt, but it’s the wages of sin and the way to prove our love for God. Our martyrs did all this, and much more, in the revolutionary context in which they lived. “Will you not be able to do what these young men and women were able to do?”

And you, ladies and girls, when you are tempted to dress like the women and girls of the world, to be like the others, dressed so short and so tight, when you find that your priests exaggerate in reminding you of the rules of Christian modesty, think, too, of all those holy martyrs, who were, like you, mothers of families, wives or unmarried daughters, living in the world. What would they do or say in your place? What would they think of today’s practices and customs? No doubt fashions change, and they have changed over the last two centuries, no one disputes that, but the Christian spirit never changes, and it’s this spirit that we’ve lost and that we need to rediscover.

If our martyrs had wanted an easy, mundane life, to go with the flow, to enjoy the comforts of life, to lead an existence without history or struggle, they would never have been martyrs. We wouldn’t even talk about them. Their memory would be forgotten.

So let’s go and renew our souls them. Let us pray to them to obtain for us the same faith and fidelity as they had. In this year when we remember their triumph, let us not hesitate to draw them, in the place they rest, the faith, strength, holiness and fidelity we need to fight the battles today, until we meet them again in heaven.

✵

Brief Bibliography

  • Andegaven. Beatificationis seu declarationis martyrii servorum Dei GUILLELMI REPIN et XCVIII sociorum in odium fidei, uti fertur, annis 1793-1794 interfecto- rum POSITIO super introductione causæ et martyrio ex officio concinnata. Romæ, Typis polyglottis Vaticanis, 1969, XCIX + 660 p.
  • Abbé Simon GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, memoir written in 1816, published by E. Queruau-Lamerie, Angers, Germain et Grassin, 1893, 129 p. (This is the manuscript that Abbé Gruget sent to Mgr Mon- tault, to which he gave the following title: Recueil des faits qui ont eu lieu à l’occasion des victimes massacrées en haine de Dieu et de la royauté et dont les corps ont été déposés dans le champ dit des martyrs, dans les mois de janvier et février 1794).
  • Victor GODARD-FAULTRIER, Le Champ-des-martyrs, Angers, Lachèse et Cie 1899 (republished by Par Hérault-éditions, 1984, 125 p.).
  • Chanoine François-Constant UZUREAU, Histoire du Champ-des-martyrs, Angers, 1905 (republished 1999), 227 p.
  • Abbé Thimotée-Louis HOUDEBINE, Le Champ-des-martyrs d’Avrillé, Angers, 1923, X-226 p., plans and illustrations (reprinted by Le Livre d’His- toire, Paris, 2012.)
  • Raymond PERRIN DU ROUVRAY, L’Église d’Angers pendant la Révolution, Éditions du Choletais, 1986, t. 1 and 2, 328 p.
  • Philippe EVANNO, Dominique LAMBERT DE LA DOUASNERIE and Jean DE VIGUERIE, Les Martyrs d’Avrillé. Catholicisme et Révolution, Chambray-lès- Tours, CLD, 1983, 109 p.
  • Yves DAOUDAL, Guillaume Repin et ses 98 compagnons, Grez-en-Bouère, DMM, “Nouveaux actes des martyrs”, 1984, 123 p.
  • Job DE ROINCÉ, Mémorial des martyrs d’Avrillé, Rennes, 1979, 109 p.
  • Le Livre d’Or des martyrs d’Avrillé, nomenclature, and the cause of beatification: Guillaume Repin and 98 companions, L’enlumineur du Roi René, Angers.
  • Jean-François COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur (1793-1794), La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre vendéen de recherches historiques, 2021, 400 p.
  • Nicolas DELAHAYE and Pierre-Marie GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, Éditions Pays et Terroirs, 1995, 159 p.
  • Mgr Francis TROCHU, Vie du bienheureux Noël Pinot, martyr, curé du Lou- roux-Béconnais (1747-1794), Angers, H. Siraudeau, 1955 – republished by ANP, 1998, 170 p. (Review in Le Sel de la terre 88, p. 143-151).

Stained glass window from the Champ-des-martyrs chapel (Avrillé).

  1. – Among the eighty-four martyrs of the cause, twenty-eight were condemned for refusing to attend “republican Masses” and twenty-one for attending the Masses of refractory priests. ↑
  2. – Positio, pp. 266-268. ↑
  3. – Positio, p. 237-238. ↑
  4. – Positio, pp. 222-224. ↑
  5. – Positio, p. 217-218. ↑
  6. – Positio, p. 286-288. ↑
  7. – There were certainly children among the victims of the shootings. Mgr Géraud, postulator of the Repin cause, saw the jawbone of a five-year-old child among the bones collected at the Champ-des-martyrs (see Positio, p. 287). ↑
  8. – Positio, p. 347. ↑
  9. – Positio, p. 355. The same contempt can be found in Renée Martin’s sentence: “Renée Martin […], fanatical and a bit of an imbecile, she has two children, has always gone to Mass with the refractory priests and never with the constitutional ones” (Positio, p. 282). ↑
  10. – Liturgical year to February 9 ↑
  11. – See Mgr Francis TROCHU, Vie du bienheureux Noël Pinot, martyr, curé du Louroux- Béconnais (1747-1794), Angers, H. Siraudeau, 1955 – reprinted by ANP, 1998, 170 p. ↑
  12. – Positio, pp. 18-29. ↑
  13. – One example among many: to avoid compromising the good people who received him and in whose homes he risked arrest, Abbé André Fardeau had built an ancient underground passageway in the middle of the Soucelles woods, closed by a trapdoor hidden under the undergrowth. He hid there for several months being discovered and arrested on the morning of August 21, 1794. ↑
  14. – Positio, p. 108-109. ↑
  15. – Positio, p. 395. The priest who gave absolution was Abbé Gruget himself, hiding in a house with a window overlooking the guillotine. ↑
  16. Positio, p. 120-129. ↑
  17. – Their mother, Marie de la Dive, widow of Henri du Verdier de la Sorinière, had been guillotined on January 26, and their aunt, sister Rosalie du Verdier de la Sorinière, on January 27.On the martyrdom of the de la Sorinière family, see Positio, pp. 181-208. ↑
  18. – Abbé Simon GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 61. ↑
  19. – Abbé Simon GRUGET, ibid. p. 43 ff. See also Positio, pp. 406-407. ↑
  20. – Positio, pp. 288-292. ↑
  21. – Offertory of the Dedication Mass and 1 Tim 4:7-8. ↑
  22. – Confessions, Book VIII, chap. 11. ↑

The Example of the Angers Martyrs

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The Example of the Angers Martyrs

On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom

by Etienne Muret
from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024

THE YEAR 2024 is the 230th anniversary of the Champ-des-martyrs shootings in Avrillé. Around two thousand people were shot in this enclosure[1], both men and women. Even if, in many cases, history has only preserved the names of these victims of the Terror[2], we can affirm without fear of error that it was in hatred of the Catholic faith that all these people were massacred. For whenever the revolutionary clerk noted the reasons for condemnation – or the sham that took the place of it – behind the qualifiers of “fanaticism” or “complicity with brigands”, what was always targeted was attachment and fidelity to traditional religion. The monsters who judged these unfortunate people sometimes tried to hide their hatred of true religion under political motives, but there’s no mistaking it. The arsenal of defamatory invectives and the outrageousness of the words used failed to disguise the real motive behind the condemnations.

This anniversary is therefore an opportunity to recall these glorious events, and to draw from them lessons of faith, strength and fidelity for our struggles today. For the story of the martyrs of Angers and Avrillé offers many analogies with the present situation, and is in some ways a model for the battles we must wage today to preserve the Christian faith and spirit in the midst of general apostasy.

What’s more, this story took place just a stone’s throw from the Haye-aux-Bonshommes site: the ground we walk on was sprinkled with the blood of these martyrs.

It’s part of our heritage. We don’t have the right to ignore it or let it be forgotten.

✵

On nine occasions[3] from January 12 to April 16, 1794, columns of victims took to the road leading to the Champ-des-martyrs, a field that was then part of the Cloux farm estate, one of the farms that depended, until the Revolution, on the Grandmontain priory of La Haye-aux-Bonshommes[4]. At the time of the sale of national property, this estate was bought by one of Angers’ revolutionaries, Sieur Desvallois, who himself offered his field for shooting: “It will make manure!” he cynically declared.

Among these victims, the Church retained eighty-four, those for whom there was enough information to be able to affirm the religious character of their condemnation and initiate a beatification process. The vast majority were common women – wives, mothers and daughters of peasants, craftsmen, workers and merchants – with a few squires and two nuns. Only four men appear in this list, although a large number of others fell under the bullets at the Champ-des-martyrs. But these men had almost all served in the Catholic army and, as former Vendée soldiers, their condemnation could appear to have been inspired by political rather than religious motives. This is why the prudent diocesan tribunal in charge of the ordinary trial (in 1905-1919) thought it was right not to consider them as genuine martyrs, even if, in this context of religious persecution, the accusation of sympathy for the “brigands” – who were fighting for God and the King – could be qualified as a religious motive. This was also the case in the trials of the Laval and Noël Pinot martyrs.

To these eighty-four martyrs by shooting, we must add fifteen or sixteen who were guillotined in Angers, Place du Ralliement, including thirteen priests (counting Blessed Noël Pinot who was beatified before the others, under Pius XI), one nun and two women.[5]

The deeds of these one hundred martyrs constitute one of the most beautiful pages in the religious history of Anjou, a page worthy of the martyrdom accounts of the Christians of the early Church.

✵

As everyone knows, the Revolutionary Terror used the most atrocious means in its war against the Catholic populations of the West. 1794 was the year of the infernal columns and the great massacres of the Vendéens. Arrests multiplied, and prisons overflowed with inmates. And yet, these prisons were very numerous. In Angers, prisoners were incarcerated not only in the National Prison (Place des Halles, now Place Louis-Imbach) and the Château, but also in convents and churches that had been converted into prisons: Le Calvaire, Le Bon-Pasteur, Les Pénitentes, Le Carmel, Saint-Aubin, Les Petits-Pères (Lazaristes) in the Cathedral, Saint-Aubin, the two seminaries, La Rossignolerie (school of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine) and many other places.

But what can be done? There are too many prisoners, and the guillotine is no longer enough[6]. The guillotine is a spectacular punishment, particularly appreciated by revolutionaries, with its theatrical staging to impress the spirits, but it’s too slow and too expensive. Each execution cost the nation fifty-nine pounds.

The lack of hygiene and food, coupled with the cold – the thermometer fell to 17° below zero that winter – did cause deadly epidemics, and in less than a year, a good thousand prisoners died on their rotting straw beds[7]. But even that couldn’t empty the prisons.

In Nantes, prisoners were drowned in the Loire; in Angers, they were shot en masse. The shootings began in December 1793, on the banks of the Maine, at Port-de-1’Ancre, then at Sainte-Gemmes and Les Ponts-de-Cé. The bodies were thrown into the river Maine, but this soon gave rise to hygiene problems. Another location had to be found.

This is why the most massive shootings finally took place at the Champ-des-martyrs, in Avrillé. To speed things up, the judges from the military commission visited the prisons. Put in the presence of the suspects, they proceeded to a semblance of interrogation, which the clerk noted down in a few words: “… Did you go to the masses of the refractory priests? – Why didn’t you go to the masses of the sworn priests? …”. The minutes take up one or two lines, almost always punctuated by the word “fanatic”, “pronounced fanatic”, “superlative fanatic”, “invincible fanatic” or “fieffé aristocrate”, which, in revolutionary parlance, means: faithful Catholic, irredeemable, attached to traditional religion and the old order. In the margin, the clerk added “F”: to be shot, or, more rarely, “G”: to be guillotined.

Terrorists surrounded executions with sinister ceremony. The military commission – the most ferocious of the two revolutionary tribunals, and a major purveyor of guillotines and shootings – was based in the former Dominican convent, next to the cathedral, while the revolutionary committee was housed in the bishop’s palace. This is where the chain of victims was formed, tied up two by two. Those unable to walk were thrown into a cart, and the column moved off, flanked by a double row of gendarmes. Crossing the main branch of the Maine at what is now the Pont de Verdun, they crossed the Doutre district, and the chain lengthened as they stoped in front of each “prison”. Then they took the path that climbs towards Avrillé, “the path of silence”, as it was known in those days. The contrast between the prisoners – mostly common men and women, with a few nobles and bourgeois, admirable Christians calmly walking to their deaths, murmuring the rosary or singing hymns to the Virgin – and the vociferous troupe of “sans-culottes”, flanked by shrews reeking of alcohol and vice, hurled insults at the condemned. The judges, girded in their tricolor scarves and swaddling in their robes, followed the procession, with the military band alternating between the revolutionary songs “Ça ira” and the “Marseillaise” (now national anthem of France!)

Arriving at the Champ-des-martyrs, the chain was undone and the condemned lined up in front of the prepared pits. The gendarmes fired a salvo, the bodies fell. The wounded and dying were “finished” off with sabers and bayonets. A little earth was thrown in, and the pit was ready for the next batch.

 

Love of Truth and Hatred of Lies

It would take hours to recount in detail the marvels contained in the deeds of all these martyrs. Let’s just pick a few pearls from this treasure trove and try to apply their lessons.

One of the first testimonies these martyrs give us is their refusal to lie or make shameful compromises. Even to save their own lives, our martyrs refused to compromise. Preserved accounts provide us with several examples. Here are three of them.

The first is that of Perrine-Renée Potier, wife Turpault, mother of five children. Arrested in Les Aubiers, she was taken to Cholet “kicked and sabered”, and three days later gave birth to a son who died immediately after his baptism. Taken to Angers on January 16, 1794, she appeared before the military commission on the 24th, and let it be known that she was still pregnant. Thanks to this, she avoided being shot. Full of remorse for what she called her “fault”, she was interrogated again on February 9 and April 2 in the Calvaire prison.

  • “But you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” One of the judges asked.
  • “No, I’m not, and you can judge me”, she replied.

Back in her cell, her companions asked her:

  • “But why didn’t you say yes? You were saved!”
  • “I know that”, she replied, “but I’d rather die than tell a lie.”

And she prepared herself for death with constant prayer. She was shot on Holy Wednesday, April 16, 1794.[8]

The other example is that of Sister Marie-Anne, one of the two Daughters of Charity (Congregation founded by saint Vincent-de-Paul) who were shot on February 1st, 1794 along with four hundred other victims, because they had refused the oath of “Liberté, Égalité” (Freedom and Equality). Entering the Champ-des-martyrs enclosure, Sister Marie-Anne intones the litanies of the Blessed Virgin; all the condemned women respond: “Ora pro nobis”. The chain was transformed into a Marian procession. One of the soldiers was distraught at the sight: “It hurts to see such women die!” The commander was also moved and wanted to save the two nuns:

  • Citizens, there is still time to escape the death that threatens you. You have rendered services to humanity. Why, for the sake of an oath asked of you, would you give up your life and discontinue the good works you have always done? Let it not be so, return to your home, continue to render the services you have always rendered. Do not take the oath, for it is repugnant and upsetting to you. I take it upon myself to say that you have taken it, and I give you my word that nothing will be done to you or your companions.

Sister Marie-Anne’s response is admirable:

  • Citizen, not only do we not want to take the oath you’re talking about, we don’t even want to be seen to have taken it. Do not believe us cowardly enough and attached enough to a miserable life to believe us capable of soiling our soul and sacrificing it for an oath we have always hated and still hate. God will not ask us to account for the services we could render to our fellow human beings only by taking an oath that he hates and condemns, and if we can only preserve our lives on this condition, we declare to you that we would rather die than do anything contrary to the love we have sworn to our God.[9]

In the same vein, we should mention the heroic attitude of Abbé Laigneau de Langellerie. He was chaplain to the Angers Carmelite convent. Interned at the major seminary in 1792, condemned to deportation, but detained in Nantes due to his state of health, he escaped from prison, disguised as a peasant, on July 27, 1793, and returned clandestinely to Angers. Arrested on October 11, 1794 as he was about to perform extreme unction on a sick woman, he was taken amidst boos to the bishop’s palace, where the revolutionary committee was sitting. During his interrogation, the judge told him that if he stopped opposing the oath and rallied to the Republic, he would be in a better position:

  • You know that there are many priests who are now in society and who live there peacefully, that the Republic gives them protection. Because they are subject to the law, they have taken the required oath. They are not hiding. So you must have conspired against the Republic?

But in the face of this tempting offer, Abbé de Langellerie remained imperturbable and faithful to his duty.

  • My conscience and my science have never allowed me to take the required oath.
  • What did you find in the oath that could hurt your conscience?
  • It was to approve by an oath your French Republic, which has destroyed the religion of Jesus Christ who is the God of my heart, Deus cordis mei. [… j
  • So you’re convinced that the Republic can’t survive and that the Catholic religion must be re-established?
  • With regard to the French Republic, I think that it is an enemy of the religion of Jesus Christ, but that a republican government must protect the Christian religion. […] I stand by my answers, which contain the truth, but I do not wish to sign, […as] I generally refuse my signature in matters of the Republic.[10]

Transferred to the Angers criminal court[11] (by this date, the military commission no longer existed), Abbé de Langellerie was condemned as a refractory priest and enemy of the Republic. He was guillotined on October 14, 1794, during the first vespers of Saint Teresa of Avila, founder of the Carmelite nuns of which he was chaplain. He was the last victim of the guillotine in Anjou.

 

Defending Faith and True Religion

Another witness given by these exemplary Christians is their faith and their spirit of faith.

This is particularly true of priests.

Abbé Ledoyen, vicar of Contigné, remained in his parish to exercise his ministry. Taking refuge with Mme Déan de Luigné, who was hiding refractory priests in her château de la Bossivière, he was discovered and arrested with his benefactress and her three daughters[12] on December 17, 1793. Taken to Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe, he was interrogated at length on December 23. The last words of his interrogation were a resounding profession of faith. To his judges, who accused him of having “abused the weakness and simplicity of country folk to lead them into the cruellest errors”, he replied:

That he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, that he tried to prevent them from falling into the errors of the innovators

That he sincerely professed such maxims.

That he had always urged them to follow the apostolic and Roman Catholic religion, outside of which there is no salvation, and that they should always be firm and faithful to it.

Similarly, Guillaume Repin, parish priest of Martigné-Briand – then a venerable old man of eighty-four – was accused by the municipal officers of Martigné of having “gangrened his parish”. Arrested and imprisoned on December 24, 1793, he told the judges who questioned him on Christmas Day that he had not taken the oath because “he had his faith and religion to preserve“. Sentenced to death, he was guillotined on January 2, 1794.[13]

But faithfulness to the faith of their baptism is also a matter for the laity.

Charlotte Lucas, a schoolteacher and, as such, subject to the oath of “Liberté, Égalité”, did not want to take it. She “believes that something has changed in religion, which prevented her from doing so”, she explained to the Chalonnes Justice of the Peace on January 4, 1794. Taken to Angers and detained at Le Calvaire, she first appeared before the Revolutionary Committee. Then, on January 18, the military commission sent her to her death, without even questioning her, because she looked like a “God-eater”.[14]

Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont, was a good Catholic woman who defended her faith valiantly. Her convictions, which she made no secret of, attracted the attention of patriots. To those who urged her to be more cautious, she replied: “Why shouldn’t there be martyrs today as there were in the past?” Arrested in Angers, she was interned at the château. When she appeared in court on March 18, 1794, the judges of the Revolutionary Committee accused her of having shouted “Long live religion and long live the King” when the Vendéens had occupied Angers the previous June. In her defense, she simply proclaimed that she “would rather die than renounce her religion“. She admitted to having met refractory priests, attended their mass and spoken with them, “particularly about religion“. In the sentence drawn up by the military commission, she was accused of having “encouraged the fanaticism of the rebellious priests […] and taken sacred vases and ornaments from the Republic, which she had taken to hidden places where these scoundrels of priests celebrated their bloodthirsty and murderous cult”. She was guillotined on March 28, in Place du Ralliement.[15]

Antoine Fournier, father of a refractory priest and former soldier in the Vendée army, was one of the one hundred and five victims of the first shoot-out on January 12, 1794. He defended the clandestine priests and declared that he blamed the conduct of those who attacked the Catholic religion.

  • “Do you disapprove of the monstrous priests who slit our brothers’ throats?” The judge asked.
  • “I don’t think priests were capable of giving bad advice.”
  • “You are accused of having criticized the conduct of the Republicans, saying that they were profaning holy sacred vessels, destroying mission crosses,” etc., etc., etc.
  • “Yes, I have blamed and continue to blame the conduct of those who throw away mission crosses and desecrate sacred vessels.”
  • “So you would suffer death to defend your religion?”
  • “Yes.”[16]

He was condemned as “father of a refractory priest and worthy of being one, an outraged fanatic.”

 

To be continued.

 

  1. The exact number of victims is difficult to establish. Abbé Houdebine estimates the total number of victims of the Terror in Angers at around 3,000, and the number shot at the Champ-des-martyrs at around 2,000 (Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire [Célestin PORT], 1.1, new ed. 1965, p. 39a). See also N. DELAHAYE and P.-M. GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, and J.-F. COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur, 1793-1794. For full bibliographical references, see the bibliography at the end of this article. ↑
  2. Sometimes names are even missing, as revolutionaries didn’t always take the trouble to note the names of victims and keep up-to-date registers. ↑
  3. Here are the dates of the nine shootings at the Champ-des-Martyrs: January 12, 1794 (105 men shot); January 15 (300 victims); January 18 (250 people); January 20 (408 victims – this was when Turreau’s infernal columns began to operate); January 21 (70 men and 80 women); January 22 (80 women); February 1 (400 people); February 10 (200 people); April 16 (99 people). The eighty-four “martyrs of Angers” shot belonged to the five shootings of January 12 and 18, February 1 and 10 and April 16. ↑
  4. “It was a deserted field, located in the enclosure of the former Haye-aux-Bonshommes.Bonshommes, west of Angers, two kilometers from the city walls.” (Positio, p. 164.) ↑
  5. They are Sister Rosalie de la Sorinière (a Calvary nun), Marie de la Dive, wife of Henri de la Sorinière and sister-in-law of the former, and Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont. ↑
  6. In Angers, the guillotine was erected from late October 1793 to mid-October 1794 on Place du Ralliement (then known as Place de la Guillotine), a square created in 1791 after the demolition of three churches. The death machine had been erected on the site of the high altar of the former Saint-Pierre church. The guillotine claimed 285 victims, including 31 clergymen. ↑
  7. On February 18, 1794, the doctors on duty at the Calvaire prison wrote to the Revolutionary Committee: “Pregnant women and nursing mothers are exposed to terrible misery, their children dying at birth or languishing perched between the emaciated arms of those who gave birth to them. Some mothers have seen five or six of their children perish in their arms, without being able to provide the slightest relief. There’s not a day goes by when six or eight unfortunates die on Calvary alone. If we don’t remedy the abuses a little, we’ll see diseases spread from one to the next, and into the very heart of the city.” ↑
  8. See Positio, pp. 364-371 and Yves DAOUD AL, Guillaume Repin…, p. 103-104. The eldest son of Perrine Turpault, François-Joseph-Paul, later wrote to the mayor of Cholet: “As the son of a mother who bore the greatest testimony to the truth, since she preferred death to the most innocent lie under the reign of terror, this lesson has always been engraved in my memory.” (Positio, p. 587). ↑
  9. Abbé GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 31-32. Quoted in the Positio, p. 402-403. Abbé Gruget concludes his account as follows: “[The commander] might have wanted to save them, but that would have meant compromising himself with the revolutionary court. He preferred, like Pilate, to act and pronounce against his conscience. He gave the order to shoot…”. ↑
  10. Positio, p. 152-154. ↑
  11. In the transfer note sent by the Revolutionary Committee to the President of the Criminal Court, the signatories write: “We are sending you, brother and friend, an interrogation of Langellerie, an ex-refractory priest. We are counting on your zeal to speed up his trial. Bread is scarce. Greetings and brotherhood.” (Positio, p. 155.) ↑
  12. They were arrested on the denunciation of a certain Maillard, whom Mme de Luigné had once charitably raised. Imprisoned at Calvaire, Mme de Luigné and her daughter Louise-Aimée were shot at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794, but Catherine and Françoise, although condemned to death, were spared and settled after the Revolution in Abbé Gruget’s parish (La Trinité d’Angers). See Positio, p. 246 ff. ↑
  13. Positio, p. 29 ff. ↑
  14. Positio, p. 177-178. ↑
  15. Positio, pp. 322-333. ↑
  16. Interrogation of A Fournier by the Cholet revolutionary committee, December 29, 1793 (Positio, p. 168-169). ↑

Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé June 27th, 2024: A new priest for the Friary! No. 39:

admin In defense of our convent, Our seminary, The Convent, The Fight for the Faith


Letter from the Dominicans of Avrillé

June 27th, 2024: A new priest for the Friary!

No. 39: September 2024

The War Against Religious (II)

This fictional dialogue between an angel and a pilgrim at Lourdes is taken from a book by Father Marie-Antoine de Lavaur, a Capuchin (1825-1907), one of the founders of the Lourdes pilgrimage, who died in the odor of sanctity. In this book, written in 1879, he describes the wounds from which society suffers. A few months later, on March 29, 1880, the decrees against religious orders were published, which led to the expulsion of religious throughout France (261 establishments, from October 14 to November 8). This text has not aged a bit in almost a century and a half. Here he exposes the greatness of the religious life, as the antidote to modern errors:

[THE ANGEL:] The world feeds on the smoke of pride; the religious soul is passionate about sublime humility, desirous of free, noble and holy obedience.

The world is devoured by the fever of gold, which the religious soul despises and tramples it underfoot.

The world rolls in the mire of its baseness; the religious soul has the wings of an angel to fly far away, and to blossom like a lily in the azure of the skies.

So the greatest wonder is not that there are religious on earth, but that there are still people living the secular life. How can the son of Christ, bearing the royal and priestly seal of Baptism on his forehead (Peter I, 2), still resign himself to being a slave, a slave to idols!

[THE PILGRIM:] What a delight!… and now I am trembling, as a man trembles who suddenly wakes up on the edge of a horrible abyss ready to swallow him, in front of a monster ready to devour him. I, who am not religious, am going to perish, and all those who, like me, live in the world, will perish like me?

[THE ANGEL:] Listen: What Jesus calls “the world” is not this material globe, nor the common life of Christians. This earth is God’s creature, so it is not cursed. In this common life there can be saints, so it is not cursed. Jesus calls “the world” the society of the wicked, and He calls those who make up this society, “men of the world.” You will recognize them by this: they think, speak, and act in a way diametrically opposed to that of Jesus. This “world”, in fact, is cursed.

Thus, there can be no agreement between this world and Jesus. And those who want to stand between the two, by the mere fact, are already lost. Jesus no longer recognizes them as His own: he who is not with me is against me! How many Christians are deluded in this respect and wake up in hell! Here is the terrible danger for those who are not religious: the monster is always there, he covers himself with flowers to better deceive them and, just when they do not think of it, he makes them his victims.

[PILGRIM:] So everyone must embrace the religious life?

[THE ANGEL:] At least everyone must have the spirit, since the religious life is nothing other than the Christian life in its sublime perfection. It is necessary that everyone show consideration for it, and it is necessary that all those who have not had the grace and courage to embrace it, regret it and come as close as possible to it by truly Christian morals. By their perfect obedience to the commandments of God, the Church and the duties of their state, they imitate the religious who obeys. By their detachment from the goods of this world and their horror of pomp and luxury, they imitate the poverty of religious. By their chastity and respect for the great Sacrament of Marriage, they imitate the angelic religious purity. It was to facilitate the practice of these great virtues that Jesus inspired the seraphic Francis to establish the Third Order, glorified by so many saints and recommended by so many pontiffs.

[THE PILGRIM:] So everyone can content himself with this means of sanctification, and remain in the world, without entering religion?

[THE ANGEL:] God forbid! This is only a concession of mercy, but not the triumph of love. The Third Order is only an anchor lent to the poor ship and thrown in the middle of the storm to prevent it from sinking. Religious life is the port!

The Third Order is the ray of sunshine that comes to console and rejoice the poor prisoner in his captivity. Religious life is the full sun of freedom in the pure sky amid blooming flowers!

These flowers, this freedom, this harbor, this sun, Jesus offers them to you, dear Pilgrim, if you are not chained in the bonds of marriage and therefore necessarily captive, necessarily tossed by the storm. You have only to will it, because Jesus calls to religious life all souls of generous good will, and He places no other condition on this sublime vocation. He offers it to all, as he says, pointing to His Heart, His Wounds, His Cross and heaven: if anyone wants to come, let him come.

The future priest and two future deacons prostrate during the Litany of the Saints.

Many hesitate for a long time, and they put themselves in inexpressible anguish to know if they are called. Likewise, those who advise them too often hesitate as well, like them. They believe that one can never reflect long enough! “Error! Illusion!” exclaims the great doctor St. Thomas after many other Saints and Doctors (II-II, q. 186). It is not their vocation that is in doubt; rather it is their good will! Do you want to save yourselves seriously, serve God generously and return love for love to Jesus? You are called. Moreover, “By the very fact,” adds St. Thomas, “that you are thinking of the religious life, and that this thought pursues you, know that it is God who calls you and that it is He who pursues you, because neither the world nor the devil will ever give you this thought. And if the devil, transforming himself into an angel of light, were to give it to you, you would have to listen to him, for it could only be by God that he would have done so” (Opuscule against those who prevent entry into religion, c. 10).

“There is no greater, more praiseworthy, more meritorious work,” concludes the illustrious Doctor, “than to defend the religious life, encourage vocations and assist religious.” (II-II, q. 186) All the great Doctors and masters of the spiritual life conclude that when a confessor is consulted about a vocation, he should always lean towards the religious life and, in case of doubt, decide in its favor.

[Excerpt from Social Plagues and the Mission of Bernadette, ch. 8: The War on Religious]

Pope Pius IX on voting

Pius IX on May 5, 1874: “I bless all those who cooperate in the resurrection of France. I bless them in the hope that they will take up a difficult but necessary task, that of eliminating or reducing a horrible plague afflicting contemporary society, known as universal suffrage. To leave the decision of the most serious questions to the necessarily unintelligent and passionate multitudes, is it not to surrender oneself to random chance and to run voluntarily into the abyss? Yes, universal suffrage would be more deserving of the name of ‘universal madness;’ and when secret societies get hold of it, as happens all too often, that of ‘universal lie.’ “

Chronicle:

April 7th, 2023: Fr. Angelico, at the request of H.E. Bishop Zendejas, departs for the U.S. to celebrate the Holy Week ceremonies in Houston Texas.

April 24th, 2023: Passing by the Friary, H.E. Bishop Thomas Aquinas gives a conference to the community, relating his memories of Archbishop Lefebvre.

May 7th, 2023: Fr. Marie-Laurent accompanies a group of the Knights of Our Lady on a pilgrimage to Pontmain.

June 24th, 2023: Ordination of Fr. Eymeric Blanchet, SAJM, who is now serving in the US, under the obedience of H.E. Bishop Zendejas.

June 29th, 2023: H.E. Bishop Faure is present to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the ordination of Fr. Pierre-Marie (Prior), and the 10th anniversary of the ordinations of Frs. Hyacinthe-Marie and Terence.

July 2023: Summer camps; 30th General Chapter of the Knights of Our Lady; Fr. Marie-Laurent and Br. Pie-Marie are in Prague for a recollection and pilgrimage for our tertiaries.

August 2023: Annual retreat preached by Fr. Picot; solemn vows of Br. Augustin-Marie; Fr. Marie-Dominique is at Holy Cross Benedictine Monastery in Brazil for the priestly ordination of Br. John of the Cross, who accomplished his theological studies at the Friary; on the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, first vows of Sr. Catherine-Marie (Kansas) as a teaching Dominican of Avrillé.

November 3rd, 2023: Inaugural reception in our newly constructed Parish Hall and school cafeteria.

December 24th, 2023: Fr. Marie-Laurent leaves for the U.S. for a two-week tour of retreats (New York, Kansas, Texas). He returns to the U.S. again in March.

January 10th, 2024: Gregorian chant session for the community.

March 2024: Fr. Emmanuel-Marie is down in Bartrès (Lourdes) to help Fr. Innocent-Marie for Holy Week.

April 8th, 2024: Our postulant Maxence Blanchet (brother of Fr. Blanchet) receives the habit, and the new name of Br. Michel-Marie.

June 27th, 2024: H.E. Bishop Faure ordains our Br. Augustin-Marie to the priesthood, whereas Br. Pie-Marie and Mr. Paul Renoult are ordained deacons for the Holy Church. DEO GRATIAS!

July 2024: Fr. Marie-Laurent is in Moscow for the final step of the Fatima-Moscow pilgrimage to obtain the Consecration of Russia through prayer and penance. The Russian people seem very receptive to the message of Our Lady, and many booklets and medals were distributed.

News from our worksites

The new Parish Hall is finished! We now have a school cafeteria in full conformity with regulations, and we’re able to organize large conferences and study sessions in a dignified setting. Thank you to all our benefactors who made this project come to fruition!

We still need to pave the parking lot, which for the moment resembles a warzone. We are also in the process of obtaining the necessary authorizations to restore the West wing of the Friary (severely damaged by rainwater), as well as two buildings of the Priory, necessary for study halls for the numerous boys.

Restoration work at St. Dominic’s Hostel, Bartrès (Lourdes)






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Couvent de la Haye-aux-Bonshommes

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HOLINESS IN THE FAMILY

admin FEATURED POSTS - Articles and Texts section, Writings of the Dominican Fathers


HOLINESS IN THE FAMILY

Shaping Hearts That Are Sensitive and Strong1

by Brother François-Marie, O.P.

Dear parents,

The feasts of the saints throughout the liturgical year remind us of the great work God has called you to do, making you co-workers to populate Paradise with saints. Human procreation and education have no other purpose than to fill the void left in heaven by the rebellious angels.

“Education”, recalls Father Charmot2, “consists in bringing up a being who has received supernatural life, i.e., training him to overcome natural appetites by the principles of grace.”

In his encyclical on Christian education, Pope Pius XI states:

Christian education embraces human life in all its forms: sensive, spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, certainly not to diminish it in any way, but to elevate it, regulate it, perfect it according to the examples and doctrine of Christ.3

Let’s turn our attention, if you will, to one aspect of our being: the heart, insofar as it signifies intimate, emotional, and moral life, love. Depending on whether it is well or poorly formed, it is capable of the best or the worst.

We refer mainly to Abbé Bethléem, Catéchisme de l‘‘Education4.

For a heart to be well-formed, it must be sensitive and strong.

The Heart Must be Sensitive

What does it mean? Quite simply, a pure, delicate heart, open to noble sentiments, generous, capable of devotion and charity.

“To be open to these noble sentiments and virtues,” says Abbé Berto, “child has to be happy.”

An unhappy child closes his heart, and then you can always try to get in. Neither blows nor caresses will open it.

A child is not happy if we spoil him, if we give in to his whims, if we prove him right when he’s wrong. A child is happy when he is absolutely sure that he is loved, quite simply; but that he is loved for himself, for his infinite worth before God, without fail, without weakness, without caprice but with equality, constancy of action, patience, and untiring firmness.

It’s easy to see that such a heart will need a special environment, just as a plant needs to grow in a garden to develop all its best qualities. This special environment for a child’s heart is the family.

But not just any family! The Christian family, where vigilance, affection, and tenderness reign.

In such a family, the child’s heart can develop sheltered from contagion, indifference, and jealousy.

However, even in “good families” there are two important dangers to avoid:

  • pampering,sentimentality.


  • Pampering


The danger is perhaps greater today than in the past, because we live in a society of comfort, where we try to banish all suffering.

Bringing up a child “in his mother’s skirts” or “in absorbent cotton”, nurturing his taste for sweets, giving in easily to his whims, cuddling him too often, protecting him from the slightest suffering, runs the risk of turning him into an effeminate child who will later find it hard to correct himself and courageously face up to the trials of life.

We have a fine example of this in the life of Saint John Baptist de la Salle. His background, the high nobility of Reims, had given him highly refined nutritional habits. When he founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools, it took him years to be able to tolerate the simple, rustic, yet very healthy food of the Brothers.

Don’t hesitate to banish cozy beds, hot-water showers in the morning, and heating as soon as the temperature drops a little in autumn. Don’t make sweets (cakes, candies) an ordinary treat, but reserve them for important events (holidays, birthdays).


  • Sentimentality


Sentimentality is an exaggeration or deviation of sensitivity. This can be seen in children’s attitudes to animals. Naturally, they tend to become emotionally attached to pets. We need to give them a Christian education in this area, explaining the Creator’s intention: either to make animals useful helpers in our daily lives (house guards, mouse catchers, vehicles), or food (milk, eggs, meat). While we mustn’t mistreat them or make them suffer, we mustn’t treat them like human beings either.

We have an example of this misguided sentimentality in the existence of dog cemeteries, or in people who take in abandoned pets and turn their homes into veritable menageries that make family life impossible.

What can we do? For one don’t tolerate a child crying over the loss of a bird, dog, or cat.

Children need to be taught to fight back tears when a toy or object breaks.

The Heart Must be Strong.

Sensitivity is strengthened if trained from an early age to maintain freedom, fidelity and serenity.

Freedom of heart. This is self-control, the subordination of affections to the principles of reason and faith. Children must be taught to control their passions.

In Savoy, at the Château de Sales where the young Francis lived, there were vestibules, galleries, and staircases lit at night by flickering oil lamps, leaving large spaces in half-light or complete darkness.

Young François was extremely reluctant to venture out alone, fearing the spirits.

When he became a bishop, he told a nun how he was cured of this fear.

“When I was young, I was touched by this fantasy, and to get rid of it, I gradually forced myself to go alone, with my heart armed with trust in God, to those places where my imagination threatened me with fear; and finally I have become so firm, that the darkness and solitude of the night are a delight to me, because of this all-presence of God which one enjoys more fully in this solitude.”

Note the saint’s Christian reaction to overcome this fear.

Faithfulness of heart. The child must be helped to maintain with constancy the legitimate and orderly affections he has accepted.

Serenity of heart. In times of hardship (illness, bereavement), we must help the child to keep the peace by living in faith and charity.

The bereavement of loved ones, whether parents or friends, is an opportunity to put into practice what children have learned about the end of life: death is simply the separation of soul and body. We shouldn’t be afraid to show the dead, especially if they “died a good death”, that is, if they died in faith, hope, and charity, equipped with the sacraments of the Church. Such people often have a peaceful countenance. Don’t hesitate to have him touch the dead body, so that he realizes that it is cold because the soul, the principle of life, has left and no longer animates it.

Of course, it’s a good idea to have the child practice the communion of saints, praying for the deceased, who is probably in purgatory to be purified of the remains of sin. This is an opportunity to explain to children that they can, through their small sacrifices and prayers, help to shorten the suffering of those souls in purgatory who can no longer do anything for themselves.

Le Sel de la terre

No 124, Spring 2023

1Le Sel de la terre 120, p. 118-124; 121, p. 60; 123, p. 102.

2P. François CHARMOT S.J., Esquisse d’une pédagogie familiale, Etampes, Clovis, 368 p.

3Pius XI, Divini illius Magistri, On the Christian Education of Youth, December 31, 1929.

4Abbé René BETHLEEM, Catechisme de l’Education (1919), Ed. Saint-Rémi, 2009, 512pp.

Sanctity in the Family

admin Spirituality, Writings of the Dominican Fathers


Sanctity in the Family:

The Love of the Cross

by Brother François-Marie, O. P.

From Le Sel de la Terre 123 (Winter 2022/2023)

The cross is the mandatory passageway into glory. Children are no exception: they too have to live this journey: baptized, redeemed by the blood and death redeemed by the blood and death of Our Lord, they have to conform themselves to Jesus just as much as we do. So how can we awaken a love of the cross in their hearts? It has to start at an early age, following the stages of their development.

To do this, we have to start in childhood. So let’s ask ourselves: How can we awaken a love of the Cross in our children’s hearts?

Familiarizing Children with the Cross

There’s a progression to be observed. The first step is to use gestures, which the child will gradually understand as he grows up, when we explain them to him.

From the cradle onward, the little cross on his forehead, drawn with his finger, will be a constant reminder that he has been baptized and belongs to God. When he’s a little older, we’ll explain: “I entrust you to God because you are His child.”

For Catholics, the cross isn’t bare like it is for Protestants; it has Jesus on it, which is why it’s called “The Crucifix.”

At the end of evening prayer, when the little child is still unable to recite the prayers, we can have him kiss the crucifix and say: “Jesus, I love you with all my heart.” Then, as soon as he can, teach him to make the sign of the cross with great respect and love.

The Next Step is to Create Compassion in Their Heart

From the age of two, with a crucifix in hand, we can have him touch the crown of thorns, the place of the nails, and express for him the feelings this should arouse: “How Jesus must have hurt! Jesus hurt so much for you, so that you could go to heaven;” then have the child kiss Jesus’ sacred wounds.

Contrition

Around the age of three or four, you need to start making the connection between Jesus’ sufferings and himself: when he’s been naughty with his brothers and sisters, or when he’s had a tantrum or acted capriciously, you need to get him to say, taking the crucifix: “Forgive me, Jesus! When I’m mean, I’m like those who hurt you on the cross. You hurt so much for me. You died to help me be good, so that I could go to heaven.”

Around the age of four or five, we continue to awaken his responsibility for the sufferings of the Crucified One, leading him to the beginnings of an act of contrition.

For example, if the child has been particularly “naughty” in a particular act, we need to tell him that by doing so, he caused Jesus to suffer on the cross, even if he didn’t mean to, and that now that he knows it, he certainly doesn’t want to cause him any more suffering. He needs to be encouraged not to do it again, and to do this, we ask Jesus, who is present in his heart through his grace, to give him a lot of strength to be better and not do it again. We finish by having him kiss the crucifix to ask for forgiveness.

Meditation on the Passion

Around the age of 5 or 6, he still doesn’t know, so you need to tell him the story of the Passion. To do this, you need to use beautiful engravings, if possible, expressing the sacred, and read sober narratives that are always close to the sacred text, such as La Bible d’une Grand-Mère by La Comtesse de Ségur. The reading should be done in a soft, collected, interior tone, punctuated by a few silences to facilitate meditation.

There’s also the Stations of the Cross: age-appropriate commentaries can be used to encourage children to make amends for wicked people’s contempt for Jesus, and to join in St. Veronica’s gesture of gentleness, the Cyrenian’s assistance, and Our Lady’s sorrow, by showing their love for Jesus in their prayers, and offering their little misfortunes in union with Jesus’ sufferings.

This awakening of the children to the cross of Jesus prepares the soil of their hearts for the generous practice of sacrifice required by the Christian life. This is the way that the Angel of Portugal and Our Lady of Fatima taught the three children to make them saints.

Let’s ask Our Lady of Compassion for the graces needed to put this into practice in our children’s daily education.

HOLINESS IN THE FAMILY

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HOLINESS IN THE FAMILY

Effort and Last Ends

by Brother François-Marie O.P. (Avrillé, France)

The Effort

THE DEVELOPMENT of supernatural life follows the same pattern as that of natural life: the mother, in giving birth to her child, rejoices in the fact that she has brought a man into the world, but to achieve the goal of forming an adult man, she and her husband will need a whole succession of generous efforts, labors, trials, and sufferings. That’s what education is all about.

Today’s society in which we live doesn’t make this work any easier, not only because of all the evil in it, but also because of the technical developments designed to make life easy. Why make the effort when, apparently, everything can be done so easily, so painlessly?

At a time when education is putting computers everywhere, it’s worth pondering this quote from Georges Duhamel’s Défense des lettres:

The day when teachers, who are our precious allies in this defense of civilization, stop teaching children the religion of the book, our world will be ripe for a new barbarism.

For decades, the law of convenience has governed all educational reforms. In the 1970’s-1980’s, for example, we saw the emergence of a method for learning lessons in one’s sleep! All you had to do was listen to the recorded lesson a certain number of times in your sleep, and your memory would retain it effortlessly. The lazy schoolboy’s dream had come true!

Historians have observed that, in the history of peoples, if the comfort brought by progress is not accompanied by a high moral ideal, it does not bring the flourishing of civilization, but its agony. In your families, in Catholic schools, you and your children’s teachers strive to give children the highest moral ideal possible: holiness. But, whether we like it or not, we are immersed in today’s society, and children are contaminated: we generally see a certain lightness, carelessness, superficiality, immaturity, and difficulty in taking charge of their own lives.

The important question is: how can we give children a taste for effort in education and school instruction?

It’s a long subject to cover! Let’s just highlight a few important points from Comment former des hommes by Henri Pradel (the quotations are taken from this author).

  1. Teach children that effort is necessary for a successful life, both natural and supernatural, and that it is always possible and relatively easy.

All spiritual writers agree in teaching that obedience, by identifying our will with that of God, makes us all-powerful over ourselves and makes us participants in the divine power to overcome evil. This is what made Lacordaire say:

Our will, which seems so weak to us, is capable of amazing things when it relies on obedience to accomplish God’s will in our various duties of state.

I want to! It’s the rarest word in the world, though the most frequently usurped. But when a man has the terrible secret of it, be he poor today of everything, be sure that one day you’ll find him higher than anything.

This confirms the saying: “Nothing is impossible to a valiant heart.” Often, it’s only the first step that costs. That’s why we need to inspire children with a benevolent optimism in the face of difficulties, and not accustom them to moaning.

  1. The joy of effort.

We need to show them in concrete terms that every effort is rewarded with satisfaction, and that the struggle more than makes up for the effort.

Effort is capable of producing something beautiful: a neat assignment, a well-understood and well-learned lesson.

  1. Develop initiative.

It’s important to get children to work on their own.

At first, when the child is young, you have to want to do things for him, then, little by little, you have to obtain his cooperation by proceeding in stages:

  • Suggest a homework assignment.
  • Point out the difficulties.
  • Explain how to overcome difficulties and that victory will bring honor and joy.
  • Appeal to his valor, his taste for fighting.
  • Making sure it’s done right.
  • Encouraging success.
  • Show the shortcomings of the execution.
  1. Instilling a love of work well done.

As Goethe said, “Knowing and doing a single thing well leads to higher development than half-doing a hundred things.”

The love of a job well done is a powerful source of effort, which is why we must banish sloppy, incomplete, superficial, neglected work.

  1. Supernatural help

We have said that Catholic parents and educators strive to give the children God has entrusted to them the greatest moral ideal of all: holiness. Children are enthusiastic about this ideal, which is concretely embodied in the lives of the saints. They understand that if the saints succeeded in living well according to God and deserved to go to heaven, it’s because they believed in the truths revealed by God and summarized in the Creed, observed the commandments in an increasingly perfect manner, and succeeded in striving to overcome all obstacles. But what was the principle of their efforts? God’s grace, obtained through prayer and the sacraments.

Children, much more than adults, are aware of their weakness, and therefore of the need for prayer to ask divine omnipotence for the help they need to make the efforts required of them. They readily turn to the sacraments, especially confession and Holy Communion, to replenish their strength. For without God, nothing can be done in the supernatural order.

That’s why, our author concludes, education of effort will find in Christian faith and practice the indispensable help without which it will be doomed to failure.

The coming year is a good time for effort, so let’s encourage children to meditate on the example of Jesus and to turn to Him for the graces they need, so as to make and keep good, concrete resolutions in relation to their duty as students. We can help them do this by reading the lives of saints who have been model pupils, or by mottoes such as:

  • “Nothing is impossible to a valiant heart” (Jacques Cartier).
  • “Your life will be short, it must be full” (Jacques d’Arnoux).
  • “You can only reach the summits by long and hard paths.”

The Last Ends

November is the month dedicated to the dead. It’s an excellent educational opportunity to get children thinking about the seriousness of life, all oriented towards our final ends, and to get them exercising the Christian virtues.

  1. Reflections on the seriousness of life and the last ends.

Nature itself helps us to reflect: at this time of year: vegetation loses its beautiful summer finery and seems to die; the days grow shorter, fog and bad weather envelop everything in grayness. So everything inclines us to go inward, to remember, to reflect. So it’s the perfect time to push open the door to the cemetery and enter.

There are the modest cemeteries of our villages, squeezed around the church, but there are also the cemeteries of our cities. If you haven’t yet been to your local cemetery, take your children! It’s a little town within a town, but what a difference! No traffic, no noise, no fuss. In this haven for the dead, only the monuments speak to us of the lives of people who, not so long ago, were alive like us.

Gravestones themselves are highly instructive. They provide information on the foliage of families, the circumstances of death, the profession of the deceased, the affection of the family of the deceased, etc. Children should be made to read the inscriptions.

After these observation “exercises,” the findings and questions will come naturally. Yes, like them, we all die one day. Where are they now? In hell? In purgatory? In heaven? Can we help them with our prayers? This is an opportunity to remind ourselves of the truths we learned in catechism. Indeed, in such a context, these truths will penetrate children’s minds more deeply.

  1. Practicing the Christian virtues.

Let’s remind our children that charity is not only exercised towards those we come into contact with, but also towards the whole Mystical Body. Yes, we can help our deceased, and they are waiting for us to do so!

St. Augustine says: “To show to the deceased, by the faithful who are dear to them, a love that remembers and prays is certainly profitable to those who, during their corporeal life, have merited such things to be useful to them after this life.“

Let us take action by reciting a De profundis or a decade of the rosary for the relief of the souls of those remembered at the grave.

In the cemetery, let’s show them the “corner of remembrance,” saying nothing, waiting for the questions to come: why isn’t there a monument? What are those little squares?

This is an excellent opportunity to talk to them about the respect due to the body, the duty to bury the dead with dignity, and therefore the virtue of gratitude as well as the virtue of faith, as Saint Augustine teaches us:

We must not despise or abandon the bodies of the deceased, especially those of the righteous and faithful, whose spirit has made holy use of them, as organs and instruments for every kind of good work.

For if the garment, the father’s ring and other such objects are all the more dear to descendants the greater their filial love, we absolutely cannot disdain the bodies themselves, united to us more intimately and more closely than any garment. They are not ornaments or instruments that we add to ourselves from the outside, but the very nature of man. [“¦]

Everything we devote to burying a body is a duty of humanity imposed by the love that forbids hating one’s own flesh.

This is why we must be as concerned as possible for the flesh of our loved one, when the one who bore it is gone. And if those who do not believe in the resurrection do so, how much more must those who do believe in it do so: so that this duty, rendered to the body which is dead, but called to rise again and dwell eternally, may be like a testimony to this faith.

These are some excellent arguments to make those who choose cremation think again.

Perhaps a child will ask you how the dead will rise, or with what body. Answer him with these words of Saint Paul, who takes the comparison of seeds:

What you sow is not the future body, but a simple seed, for example of wheat or some other plant. But God gives this seed a body as he wills, and each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but the flesh of men is different, the flesh of cattle is different […], the flesh of heavenly bodies is different, the flesh of earthly bodies is different […]. The body sown in corruption will rise incorruptible; sown in ignominy, it will rise in glory; sown in infirmity, it will rise in power; sown an animal body, it will rise a spiritual body (1 Co 15, 37-44).

After all these reflections, it will be easy to show children that the goal of life is to achieve this blessed resurrection. So we can’t let ourselves go. Our future depends on the conduct of our present life, and this life is passing quickly; we are not sure of tomorrow! That’s why we need to pray constantly for the graces we need to put Jesus’ teachings into practice, so that we can live truly Christian lives.

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The Synod On Synodality

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The Synod on Synodality

The Synod of Bishops: a change in the government of the Church

1. A New Feature of Vatican II

1.Establishment of a council of bishops by Pope Paul VI

The Synod of Bishops is a new institution, established during the Council by Pope Paul VI in the Motu Proprio Apostolica Sollicitudo of September 15, 1965.

What is it? It is a “permanent council of bishops for the universal Church, subject directly and immediately to the authority of the Supreme Pontiff”.

Its members are the patriarchs, the major archbishops and metropolitan bishops, the presidents of the episcopal conferences and a specific number of bishops elected by their peers within these conferences.

On the following October 28th, the conciliar decree Christus Dominus on the pastoral office of bishops in the Church confirmed the existence of this assembly of “bishops chosen from the various regions of the world to provide the Supreme Shepherd of the Church with more effective assistance within a council which has received the name of Synod of Bishops” (no. 5).

Its function is only consultative. It has no decision-making power unless, in specific cases, it has received this power from the Roman Pontiff, who must then ratify the Synod’s decisions.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law (C. 342-348) places this new structure just after the Pope and before the Cardinals.

2.Increasing openness to non-bishops

As early as 1965, Paul VI made provision in his Motu Proprio for the possible participation of non-bishops, limited to 15% of the membership. Those concerned were only clerics, or representatives of religious institutes, or experts appointed by the Pope.

In 2006, Benedict XVI opened the synod to lay people, but without the right to vote (Ordo Synodi episcoporum).

However, on April 26, 2023, Cardinal Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, and Cardinal Hollerich, General Reporter, announced that the percentage of lay people had risen to 21% and that they would have the right to vote. The following should be noted:

– the novelty of having provisions contrary to the law currently in force announced by members of the Synod and not by the Pope – even if he obviously consents. But Pope Francis is not very scrupulous when it comes to laws, even those of the conciliar Church; clearly, it was necessary to ‘act fast’.

– We should also note the oddity of having lay people vote in an assembly of bishops: is this still a “Synod of Bishops”?

– Finally, it should be noted that the proportion of new voters (21%) is not insignificant in an assembly that can adopt its final document by a two-thirds majority.

In addition, the Synod is mixed: 50% of the laity will be women. Many young people have also been invited 1.

All these people, no doubt hand-picked, are supposed to represent the Christian people. There is room for doubt.

3.A consultative body transformed into a governing body

It should be borne in mind that the Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis communio of September 15, 2018, restructured the Synod of Bishops.

It considerably increases the role and competences of the Secretary General of the Synod, who becomes the real driving force behind synodal activity by mandate and under the direct guidance of the Supreme Pontiff, who is no longer content to receive synodal work passively, as has been the case until now, but actively promotes, coordinates and directs it.

This raises the question of whether the Synod of Bishops remains a merely consultative body for the Pope, or whether it has become an organ of government, independent of the Curia 2.

2. The Revolution in Progress

On June 20, 2023, the Vatican presented the Instrumentum laboris – working instrument – a preparatory document for a “Synod on Synodality”, which is due to bring together 364 participants in Rome from October 4 to 29, 2023.

The document was drawn up on the basis of diocesan synods organized around the world over the last two years to consult the “people of God” on their wishes regarding the life of the Church. Summaries have been drawn up for each country and then for each continent.

So much time, energy and money wasted on talking, and this will continue for almost a month at the Vatican (think of the money it costs: travel from abroad, meals, accommodation). Meanwhile, souls are falling into Hell through ignorance of the truths that need to be believed in order to be saved.

  1. Destruction of authority

The central question posed by the Instrumentum laboris, which is present in numerous technical sheets, is: “Who decides in the Church, and how?”

The document raises the following question:

Is authority a form of power derived from models offered by the world, or is it a genuine service? […] The continental assemblies have denounced the phenomena of appropriation of power and decision-making processes that have led to the various forms of abuse – sexual, financial, spiritual and of power – that have come to light in the Church in recent decades. Is responsibility for dealing with abuse individual or systemic?

The document suggests that responsibility for “abuse” may lie with the system itself, i.e. the way in which the exercise of authority has been organised in the Church up to the present day. We can see the direction in which the Instrumentum laboris intends to steer the debate.

We will therefore have to discuss:

the manner in which the ministry of the bishop is exercised; […] on the degree of authority to be attributed to episcopal conferences. […] Changes may need to be made to Canon Law.

The following should be considered:

cases where the authority feels unable to confirm the conclusions of a community discernment process, and takes a decision in a different direction; […] in which cases a bishop might feel obliged to take a decision that differs from the considered opinion offered by the consultative bodies.

Note the qualifier “considered” given to the opinion of the consultative bodies, which discredits the bishop’s opposition in advance.

But the Synod will not only question the authority of the bishops. It must examine:

the understanding of authority in the Church at different levels, including that of the Bishop of Rome.

The Instrumentum laboris raises the (foreseeable) case of “local Churches taking different directions”. What is to be done? The Pope is asked to examine “the possible scope for a diversity of orientations in different regions”. One wonders what will remain of the unity of the Church.

* A look back at the Sauvé Report

It will be recalled that in November 2018, the French Bishops’ Conference entrusted an “independent” commission chaired by former senior civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé with the task of resolving the “questions raised by the sexual abuse committed by French ecclesiastics”.

It is interesting to note that Jean-Marc Sauvé, a progressive Christian by family tradition, had been vice-president of the Conseil d’Etat, a member of the Socialist Party and an adviser to Badinter. Among the members of the commission he had chosen: Nathalie Bajos, director of INSERM where she is in charge of the “Gender, sexual and reproductive health” team; Sadek Belouci, chairman of the advisory board of the Fondation de l’Islam de France; Antoine Garapon, a progressive Christian judge who called for a vote for Macron in 2017; Christine Lazerges, a Protestant with a law degree and a former Socialist MP, and so on.

The commission found only 35 files on clerics convicted between 1950 and 2020 – still too many, but still not many. As the abused children or their parents did not always denounce the facts, the commission tried to survey the faithful: posters on parish doors, surveys, etc. The result was a sample of 171 victims from which, by statistical extrapolation, the commission arrived at a figure of 330,000 people abused.

However, INSEE immediately reacted, saying that the sample was not representative, while the Catholic Academy of France protested, pointing out “the implausibility of the figures and the ideological spirit that governed this work”, resulting in a “profoundly inaccurate, even erroneous” result. Jean-Marc Sauvé, a member of the said Académie, immediately resigned, as did Mgr de Moulins-Beaufort, President of the French Bishops’ Conference (also a member).

The bishops of France nevertheless took note of the “Sauvé Report” as if they were eager to humiliate themselves publicly, but they humiliated the Church: Bishop de Moulins-Beaufort asked for forgiveness on his knees in front of journalists at the annual episcopal assembly in Lourdes.

What is interesting to note here is that, in its conclusion, the Report refers to abuse as a “systemic phenomenon”, thereby accusing the system, i.e. the institution of the Church itself, of being responsible for failing to curb the crimes of its clergy 3.

However, in the Instrumentum laboris of the Synod of 2023, we note the following question, mentioned above:

Are responsibilities for dealing with abuse individual or systemic?

Everything fits together.

2.The Synodal Church’s way of proceeding:
a conversation in the Spirit

Note that the conciliar Church has changed its title. It is now called the “Synodal Church”. Archbishop Benelli had invited Archbishop Lefebvre’s seminarians to be faithful to the “Conciliar Church” 4. Are we now going to be asked, in order to be Catholics, to be faithful to the “synodal Church”? In fact, even the Pope and the bishops will be required to do so, if we refer to the guidelines set out in the Instrumentum laboris (see above).

But let’s continue reading the document:

The term “conversation in the Spirit” does not indicate a simple exchange of ideas, but that dynamic in which the word spoken and listened to generates a familiarity that enables the participants to become intimate with one another.

The precision “in the Spirit” identifies the authentic protagonist. […] Conversation between brothers and sisters in the faith opens up the space for listening to the Spirit together. […] In the final documents of the continental assemblies, this practice is described as a Pentecostal moment.

The “conversation in the Spirit” will take place in three stages:

  • First stage:

The first stage is devoted to each person speaking from his or her own personal experience. The others listen in silence.

This is the height of modernist subjectivism.

  • Second stage:

Each member of the group then takes the floor, not to react or counter what has been heard by reaffirming his or her own position, but to express what, in the course of listening, has touched him or her most deeply, and what he or she feels most challenged by.

The fact that there may be a truth, and therefore an error if we deviate from it, is of no interest here. What counts is the “feeling”.

  • Third stage:

The third stage consists of identifying the key points that have emerged, and reaching a consensus on the fruits of the joint work. […] We need to be discerning, paying attention to the marginal voices, and not overlooking the importance of the points on which we disagree.

To ensure that this process runs as smoothly as possible, it is important to have well-trained facilitators:

Given the importance of conversation in the Spirit in animating the life of the synodal Church, training in this method, and in particular the challenge of having people capable of accompanying communities in this practice, is seen as a priority at all levels of church life.

Suitable premises will also be needed:

On June 20, 2023, in the Vatican Press Room, Father Giacomo Costa S.J., consultant to the General Secretariat of the Synod, announced that the assembly would be held in the Paul VI Audience Hall:

the room can be set up with round tables around which working groups of ten or so people can be seated.

3.The icing on the cake: a discussion on the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the diaconate for women.

The Instrumentum laboris invites Synod participants to:

reflect on the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the ordination of women to the diaconate.

  • We recall that the ordination of married men is a project that Pope Francis wanted to implement on the occasion of the Amazon Synod. It seems that the work on priestly celibacy 5 published at the same time by Cardinal Sarah and co-signed by Benedict XVI temporarily halted the process.

In a book entitled “Rien d’autre que la vérité. Ma vie aux côtés de Benoît XVI” 6, published by Arthège in 2023 after the death of Benedict XVI, Archbishop Gänswein, who was Benedict XVI’s private secretary, explains that Benedict XVI had sent Cardinal Sarah seven pages on the priesthood, which he had written without considering publishing them, but allowing him to “use them as he wished”. Cardinal Sarah quoted them, but it is inaccurate to say that the work was as if co-authored by Cardinal Sarah and Benedict XVI, as the publisher has taken the liberty of presenting it.

Now that Benedict XVI is dead, it is not surprising to see Pope Francis bringing out the dossier again.

In any case, the candidates are ready-made: the married deacons who have been officiating every Saturday evening in parishes without priests for many years are the perfect candidates for the conciliar Church… except that they will not have done any priestly studies worthy of the name.

  • As for the “ordination of women to the diaconate”, the term is inappropriate and misleading. The diaconate is a sacrament that is a participation in the sacrament of Holy Orders, which women cannot validly receive. They cannot therefore be validly ordained deacons. At most, they can only receive a kind of blessing to distribute communion, bring it to the sick, celebrate funerals and preach, which they have been doing for a long time. But this will give them an official status that will put it in people’s minds that one day perhaps they will be able to accede to the priesthood.

We cannot object to the deaconesses of the primitive Church. Their functions were to care for the poor and sick of their own sex; to act as intermediaries between women and the leaders of the Christian community; to visit pagan families where the entry of a deacon or priest would have been difficult or inappropriate; to be present at women’s meetings with the bishop, priests or deacons; to assist the bishop in administering baptism to women, and so on. But they were expressly forbidden to perform any liturgical function such as serving at the altar or preaching 7.

In short, for this Synod, faith is now just a question of experience – which means respecting the experience of other religions – and it is the “people of God” that now takes the place of the teaching Church.

Permanent democracy, a new Protestant Pentecost, these are the characteristics of this “sSynodal Church”, which has little to do with the Catholic Church instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ, opposing its divine constitution, which gives authority to the Pope and, through him, to the bishops, successors of the Apostles, and not to the people.

The consequence can only be, in the long run, the dissolution of this conciliar Church, and its fragmentation into so many diocesan synods opposed to each other.

3. Everything Started
With the Second Vatican Council

It should be noted, however, that this outcome is not an innovation of Pope Francis. It all started with the Second Vatican Council.

The Constitution Lumen Gentium of November 21, 1964 introduced a new definition of the Church, now called the “People of God”.

The expression came from the new theology condemned by Pope Pius XII in the encyclical Humani Generis, represented in particular by the Dominican fathers Chenu and Congar, whom Pope John XXIII had appointed as experts at the Council.

Archbishop Lefebvre considered this new conception to be extremely serious:

There is a new ecclesiology, that’s clear. […] In my opinion, it is exceptionally serious: just to be able to say that there could be a new ecclesiology. We are not the ones who make the Church, we did not make her, not the Pope, not the bishops, not history, not the councils. It was made by Our Lord. […] It does not depend on us. So how can we suddenly say: “Now, since Vatican II, there is a new ecclesiology”, and this is said by the Pope himself. It’s unbelievable 8.

The Constitution Lumen Gentium also insisted on the common priesthood of priests and faithful, a notion emphasised in the New Mass; while the rites of ordination of priests and consecration of bishops were modified to make it clearer that these ceremonies transmit a particular power 9.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law promulgated by John Paul II put all this into law, inverting the pyramid of the Church by placing lay people before clerics, and even allowing them – men and women – to enter the sanctuary during liturgical ceremonies:

The new Code of Canon Law, continued Archbishop Lefebvre, is an enterprise aimed at destroying the distinction between the priest and the layman. […] This is extremely serious. It is the ruin of the Church 10.

4. Reductive Groups and Governing Cores

Is the Holy Ghost really at work in this kind of synod? We may well doubt it. Not only because He cannot be present in an undertaking that seeks to overturn the divine structure of the Church, but also because his modus operandi bears a striking resemblance to the techniques of manipulation perfected by the Revolution and analysed in the 19th century by Augustin Cochin.

Adrien Loubier wrote a book about them in 1975, with a preface by Marcel de Corte, entitled Groupes réducteurs et noyaux dirigeants (Reductive groups and governing cores) 11. The book is useful for studying methods of revolutionary action in any environment (political, trade union, religious, etc.).

For example, get twelve people around a table to understand the need for change in the structure to which they belong.

Two basic principles will guide the discussions:

  • firstly, absolute freedom for the participants to say and think what they want. To each his own truth, his own convictions, his own opinion.

  • secondly is the equality of the deliberators. If one of them could impose his idea, his point of view or his experience, there would be no more freedom. It follows that there is no objective truth, only opinions.

The meeting naturally becomes a series of divergent presentations, of contradictory statements. This is generally referred to as a “round table” discussion.

How are we going to get through this jumble? It will be the role of the (experienced) facilitator to convince the group, in the name of fraternity, of the need to unite to form an average opinion, the result of opinions that are all equal. To achieve this, everyone must be prepared to give up something of their personal opinion. But if everyone has the common will to unite around this common opinion, the group will be that much stronger.

Around the table, the deliberators are now united by the (fictitious) need to draft their joint motion. The result is a mishmash of ideas and differing opinions, leading to a great deal of confusion. But unity is the order of the day. It is therefore necessary to agree on a basis that is likely to attract votes. Given the differences of opinion, the joint motion can only be a common minimum. This is what Augustin Cochin calls “the law of reduction”.

The participants are then led to abandon convictions that they now relegate to the rank of opinions.

And the process continues.

At the next meeting, some of the participants pointed out that certain points needed to be reconsidered, posing difficulties of application that complicate the problem. The confusion continued to grow. While further cuts were being made, a selection process was beginning to take place among the men:

  • the weakest personalities – the most numerous – will be completely disorientated, and ready for any reform or questioning, as long as a leader makes them believe that they are the expression of the general will; or else, disgusted, they will take refuge in absolute relativism. They are recycled.

  • a strong personality may refuse to get involved, defending the truth. If they don’t leave by slamming the door – a departure that the moderator will then comment on with scorn or mockery – they will be asked more or less politely to leave the group if they persist in staying and defending their position.

Rid of those who might block the system, the presenter will leave the floor to the servile talkers, devoid of convictions and doctrine, who will inevitably come forward. The system has its hacks. Together with the moderator, they will form the core group, the governing core, that will drive the group forward in the direction decided by the organisers from the outset. The final motion will be unproblematic and met with enthusiasm.

The system will have performed a veritable sociological brainwashing.

Is this how the Synodal discussions went?

In any case, we will see that the conclusions of the Synod were exactly what the Instrumentum laboris wanted them to be. The moderators worked well.

The democratic aspect seems to be nothing more than an appearance to make it easier to accept the revolutionary reforms decided in advance by Pope Francis.

5. Review of the October 2023 Synod

At the end of the Synod, a “Summary Report” was published. The various proposals that make up this Report were voted on by the members.

The ordination of married men and the diaconate of women did not attract enough votes for the moment.

But it is important to understand that the current text is not final. It will serve as a working instrument (Instrumentum laboris) for the Synod of October 2024, which itself will still need papal approval to have authority.

The text of the Report allows us to see where we are in the transformation of the Church.

  1. Changing structures

During the Synod, there was constant talk of “changing” structures.

This can be seen, for example, in proposal I, 1, e, which states that we must “tackle the structural conditions that have allowed abuses to occur“. This is mainly an allusion to pedophilia, which is used as a pretext to attack the hierarchical constitution of the Church as if it had something to do with it.

Let us quote II, 9, g:

The synodal process shows that it is necessary to renew relationships and make structural changes to welcome the participation and contribution of all.

It is the dissolution of the hierarchy in the “people of God”. The rest makes this clear.

2.Distribute the powers of the hierarchy
among all the members of the Church
3. Necessary reminder of Catholic doctrine

We quote from the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an expression of the centuries-old wisdom of the Church assisted by the Holy Spirit 12.

4.Divine origin of a clergy distinct from the laity (C. 107)

Of divine institution, there are clerics in the Church who are distinct from the laity, even if not all the ranks of the clergy are of divine institution.

5.Definition of clerkship (C. 108)

Those vowed to the sacred functions, at least by the first tonsure, are called clerics.

The word cleric comes from the Greek “cleros”, which means first “lot” and then “share obtained by lot, inheritance”. Clerics are so called because they are “the Lord’s portion”, or because “the Lord is their portion”. At the tonsure ceremony, the psalm “Dominus pars hereditatis meae” is sung.

6.Notion of the sacred hierarchy (C. 108 § 3)

Of divine institution, the sacred hierarchy:

– as founded on the power of order, is composed of bishops, priests and ministers;

– as founded on the power of jurisdiction, is made up of all those who have received the power to govern the faithful. It comprises the supreme pontificate and the subordinate episcopate. Other levels have been added to the ecclesiastical institution.

The hierarchy of order is made up of all the clerics who are vested with the power to celebrate the holy mysteries of religion.

The hierarchy of jurisdiction is made up of all those who have been given the power to govern the faithful, either by teaching them or by enacting or applying laws or precepts.

Magisterium is a part of jurisdiction because it is founded not only on knowledge of doctrine, but also on the authority to teach, which is not possessed by all indiscriminately, but was given by Our Lord to the Apostles and their successors: “Go and teach all nations” (Mt 28:19); “O Timothy, guard the deposit” (I Tim 6:20).

7.Differences between the power to order and the power of jurisdiction
8.Purpose

– The power of order is primarily a sacramental power.

Its object is above all the sacrament of the Eucharist, then the other sacraments by way of consequence; secondarily it refers to the acts of worship themselves and to the sacramentals (Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, II-II q. 39, a. 3).

– The power of jurisdiction is concerned with government and teaching.

9.Origin

– The power of order comes from God.

– The power of jurisdiction comes from the ecclesiastical superior (except the power of the Supreme Pontiff).

10.Method of conferral

– Order is conferred by ordination.

– Except for the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff, which comes from Our Lord, jurisdiction comes from the ecclesiastical superior. This is known as the ‘canonical mission’. By canonical mission we mean the deputation given to govern the faithful, in the name of the authority, with the assignment of specific flocks and territory. This is known as ordinary jurisdiction.

In the current crisis, because of the state of necessity in which souls find themselves, there is a jurisdiction without an assigned territory, which is given by the Code on a case-by-case basis according to the needs of the souls of the faithful. This is known as “supplied jurisdiction”. It is based on the General Norms of Canon Law, which state that the first law in the Church, to which all other laws are ordered, is the salvation of souls.

In order to acquire ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it is necessary 1) by divine law to be baptised; 2) by ecclesiastical law, to be of the male sex, enrolled in the clergy, at least as a general rule, and not to be subject to any censure by the Church.

It is not impossible for the Supreme Pontiff to entrust some ecclesiastical jurisdiction to a lay person. However, it is certain that today women cannot validly acquire ecclesiastical jurisdiction, as the Pope never grants such a dispensation. This incapacity is at least of ecclesiastical law; several authors maintain that it is of divine law.

11.Extension

The power of order cannot, in substance, be taken away or limited (a priest always remains a priest, even in Hell, because his soul has received an indelible character); but in its exercise it can be suspended or limited by the ecclesiastical authorities.

12.Communicability

– The power of order can never be communicated to another person in its substance (C. 210): one must have been ordained to be a priest!

– Jurisdiction can be communicated to another, either in its exercise, or sometimes even in its initial grant.

13.Admission to the hierarchy (C. 109)

Those who are admitted to the ecclesiastical hierarchy are not admitted by the people or by civil authority, but by sacred ordination for the power of order, and by canonical mission for the power of jurisdiction.

14.The Bergoglian revolution, the culmination of Vatican II

Let us now look at the conclusions of the Synod 13:

  1. Magisterial power

The consensus of the faithful constitutes a sure criterion for determining whether a particular doctrine or practice belongs to the apostolic faith (I, 3, c).

This is the “people of God” that becomes the teaching Church.

In his address to the Synod on October 26th, during the 18th General Congregation, Pope Francis made a point of expressing his full support for this proposal:

I like to think of the Church as that simple and humble people who walk in the presence of the Lord, the faithful people of God. […] One of the characteristics of this faithful people is its infallibility; yes, it is infallible in credendo, (“In credendo falli nequit”, says Lumen Gentium nr. 12) infaillibilitas in credendo. […]

An image comes to mind: the faithful people gathered at the entrance to Ephesus Cathedral. History, or legend, tells us that the people on either side of the street towards the cathedral, as the bishops entered in procession, repeated in chorus ‘Mother of God’, asking the hierarchy to declare dogma this truth that they already possessed as the people of God. Some say that they had sticks in their hands and showed them to the bishops. I don’t know if this is a story or a legend, but the image is good. […] We, members of the hierarchy, come from this people and have received the faith of this people, generally from their mothers and grandmothers, “your mother and your grandmother”, says Paul to Timothy, a faith transmitted in the female dialect 14.

Pope Francis is rewriting history to suit him. It was not before the proclamation of the dogma of the divine motherhood that the people of Ephesus went to the cathedral to persuade the bishops (with sticks?) to define this article of faith; but after they had learned the definition, and to acclaim them. This can be found in any history of the Church. There is no shortage of books in the Vatican 15.

As for the sense of faith, sensus fidei, it does exist in the faithful, caused both by the light of faith itself (II-II q. 1, a. 4, ad. 3) and by the Holy Ghost, by the gift of knowledge, when the faithful are in a state of grace (II-II q. 9, a. 1, ad. 1). This sense of faith enables him to recognise whether or not a doctrine conforms to the teaching of the magisterium. But it is not he who dictates to the magisterium what it should teach!

2.Power of jurisdiction

During the Synod, clericalism was repeatedly presented as the cause of all the evil that is happening in the Church. Pope Francis condemned it in his address on 26 October 26th:

When ministers exaggerate in their service and mistreat the people of God, they disfigure the face of the Church with macho and dictatorial behaviour. […] Clericalism is a scourge, it is a plague, it is a form of worldliness that soils and damages the face of the Lord’s spouse.

The Synod makes it responsible for “abuses” (II, 9, f and II, 11, c). The remedy, for him, is therefore co-responsibility:

Co-responsibility is an essential element for synodality at all levels of the Church. […]

Structures and processes must be put in place, in forms to be legally defined, for the regular verification of the work of the bishop, with regard to the style of his authority, the financial administration of the goods of the diocese, the functioning of participative bodies and protection against all types of abuse (II, 12, j).

Usually, a bishop reports only to the Pope, or to the Superior General of a priestly institute that includes bishops (such as the Congregation of the Fathers of the Holy Spirit: Archbishop Lefebvre had 60 bishops under his authority).

But even the Pope must be controlled:

An in-depth study is needed of how a renewed understanding of episcopacy within a synodal Church affects the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the role of the Roman Curia. This question has significant implications for the way in which co-responsibility is lived in the Church (II, 12, j).

As the Synod included women, the following claim is made in the final document:

There is an urgent need to ensure that women are able to participate in the decision-making process, and to take on roles of responsibility in pastoral work and ministry (II, 9, m).

We propose that properly trained women should be able to serve as judges in all canonical processes’ (II, 9, r) 16.

3.Order Power: new encroachments

+ The new Code of Canon Law had already limited the exercise of the power of Order 17:

– tonsure, minor orders and the subdiaconate have been abolished, the minor orders having been replaced by ‘ministries’ that lay people can exercise;

– lay men and women may preach in churches and distribute Holy Communion, and women may serve Mass.

+ But the Synod still limits the power of Order, within the jurisdiction hitherto attributed to it by the Church. It was normal for the power of government and teaching to be entrusted to those who, through the clerical state and above all the priesthood, are placed above the faithful. From then on, everything changed:

“Baptism is the principle of synodality” (1, 7, b), which means that “all the baptised are co-responsible for the mission, each according to his or her vocation, experience and competence: all therefore contribute to imagining and deciding the stages of reform of Christian communities and of the Church as a whole” (III, 18, a), “even non-Catholics” [i.e. Protestants!] (1, 7, b).

This is the consequence of the confusion between clerics and laity, the promotion of the laity, and indifferentist ecumenism, introduced by the Council and enacted by the 1983 Code.

Conclusion

It is no more and no less than a “reformation” of the Catholic Church in the Protestant way which is a destruction of the divine constitution of the Church.

1 – ORLF, 27 April 2023, p. 1.

2 РFather R̩ginald-Marie Rivoire, Le motu proprio Traditionis custodes, Poitiers, DMM, 2022, p. 93.

3 – A very well-documented study of this affair, with all the sources and references, appeared in Rivarol, n° 3499 to 3503, article by T-A Lechevalier.

4 – “If the seminarians at Ecône are of good will and seriously prepared for a priestly ministry in true fidelity to the conciliar Church, we will then find the best solution for them” (Letter to Archbishop Lefebvre, 25 June 1976).

5 – ‘Des profondeurs de nos cÅ“urs ‘, published by Fayard in January 2020.

6 – Nothing but the truth. My life with Benedict XVI.

7 – See the article “Deaconesses” in the Dictionary of Catholic Theology.

8 – Archbishop Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference of 17 March 1986 at Ecône (in CD no. 2 “La sainte Eglise“, published by Ecône. See the article ‘ Vatican II mis en code de lois: le nouveau Code de 1983 ‘ published in Le Sel de la terre 120, Spring 2022, in particular pages 39 to 49.

9 – See the article “La validité des sacrements réformés par Paul VI”, in Sel de la terre 124, Spring 2023, especially pages 133 to 136.

10 – Archbishop Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference at Ecône, 4 March 1984. You can read the article “Vatican II mis en code de lois : le nouveau Code de 1983” published in two parts in Le Sel de la terre 120, spring 2022, and 123, winter 2022-2023.

11 – The book is published by Editions Sainte-Jeanne d’Arc, and has been reprinted several times.

12 – See Raoul Naz’s Traité de Droit canonique, Paris, Letouzey et Ané, 1946, vol. 1, pp. 260 ff.

13 – We have consulted the references given by fsspx.news on 14 November 2023.

14 – ORLF 44, of Tuesday 31 October 2023, p. 4.

15 – An account of the popular enthusiasm can be found in Dom Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique, on 9 February 9th, the feast of Saint Cyril of Alexandria.

16 – Compare this with the traditional canonical discipline referred to above.

17 – For further details, see the article “Vatican II put into a code of laws, The new Code of Canon Law (1983)”, Le Sel de la terre 124, Spring 2023, p. 66 ff.

Validity of the Sacraments Reformed by Paul VI

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Validity of the Sacraments Reformed by Paul VI

Article published in Le Sel de la Terre 124, Spring 2033

Dominicans of Avrillé

 

On June 30, 1988, in his episcopal consecration sermon, Archbishop Lefebvre pronounced these words:

“All these seminarians here present, if tomorrow the good Lord calls me back, from whom will they receive the sacrament of Holy Orders? Conciliar bishops whose sacraments are all dubious because we don’t know exactly what their intentions are? This is not possible. […] So I cannot in good conscience leave these seminarians orphans by disappearing without doing anything for the future.”1

These are serious remarks. They beg the question: on what grounds does Archbishop Lefebvre base his assertion that the sacraments of modernist bishops and priests are all dubious?

A letter written to an American correspondent on the following October 28 gives us some clues to the answer. Archbishop Lefebvre spoke of priests ordained according to the new rite:

“I agree with your desire to conditionally reorder these priests, and I have done so many times. All the sacraments of modernist bishops and priests are dubious now, because the rites are more and more modified and their intentions are no longer Catholic. We are in the age of the great apostasy.”2

 

General Considerations:

The Danger of Changing the Law

Even if it could be shown that the changes introduced into the sacraments are a better formula in themselves, this would not justify their introduction.

Saint Thomas Aquinas notes the danger of change in any law:

The mere modification of the law is in itself a kind of detriment to the common good. The reason for this is that, to ensure the observance of laws, habituation plays a key role. […] This is why, when there is a change in the law, the force of constraint diminishes to the very extent that custom has disappeared (I-II, q. 97, a. 2).

Saint Thomas concludes that the law should only be changed in cases of “very great and obvious utility”, or “extreme necessity”. This was definitely not the case.

Here, we’re dealing with immemorial rites, and their modification necessarily introduces disorder and disquiet.

Such changes would only be beneficial if the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages.

But, in fact the modifications are disadvantageous, because they were made under the influence of modernism, introducing ambiguities and finally doubts about their validity.

 

Rites Have Been Modified Under the Influence of Modernism

The rites of all the sacraments have in fact been changed in an ecumenical spirit, so that they no longer clearly express what the Church intends to do in administering them. Thus, the master builder of the new Mass, Father Bugnini, wrote:

The Church has been guided by the love of souls and the desire to do everything possible to facilitate the path of union for our separated brothers and sisters, removing any stone that could constitute even the shadow of a risk of stumbling or displeasure.3

Six Protestant pastors were then invited to participate in the drafting of the new Mass. It has been argued that they were merely observers, and did not participate in the drafting. This is not true. Bishop Baume, responsible for ecumenical affairs of the Mexican bishops’ conference, in an interview published by the Detroit News on June 27, 1967, said of the pastors:

They are here not just as observers, but also as experts. They participate fully in discussions on Catholic liturgical renewal. It wouldn’t make much sense if they just listened. But they contribute.4

The resulting ambiguity is considerable. Cardinals Ottaviani (former secretary of the Holy Office) and Bacci, for example, were able to write about the new Mass:

The new Ordo Missae […] departs impressively, both overall and in detail, from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass as formulated at the XXth session of the Council of Trent, which, in definitively fixing the “canons” of the rite, raised an insurmountable barrier against any heresy that might undermine the integrity of the mystery.5

In the newspaper Le Monde of October 3, 1984, Pastor Viot wrote, following the relative permission to celebrate the traditional Mass granted by Pope John Paul II:

The reintroduction of the Pius V Mass is much more than a matter of language: it’s a doctrinal issue of the utmost importance. Many of our ancestors in the Reformed faith, according to the Word of God, preferred to be burnt at the stake than to hear this type of Mass. Therefore, we were pleased with the decisions of Vatican II on this matter and with Rome’s firmness toward those who would not submit to the Council and continued to use a Mass that we considered contrary to the Gospel.

The result was that Protestants didn’t convert, most Catholics stopped practicing, and many of those who continued to practice now have a Protestant mentality, if they haven’t lost their faith. The same can be said of priests and bishops.

 

Doubtful Intentions Due to Ambiguous Rites

Before the conciliar reforms, the (subjective and difficult to discern) question of the intention of sacramental ministers was never asked. The traditional rites expressed the Church’s doctrine so clearly that the mere fact that they were used did not cast doubt on the validity of the sacraments:

When someone, in order to confer or administer a sacrament, seriously and regularly uses the required matter and form, it is considered, by this very fact, that he has manifestly wished to do what the Church does. This principle underpins the doctrine that there is a real sacrament even when it is conferred by the ministry of a heretic or a non-baptized Catholic, provided it is according to the Catholic rite.6

Saint Thomas Aquinas, examining this question, adds the following clarification: “provided that neither the minister nor the subject outwardly manifest a contrary intention” (III, q. 64, a. 8, ad 2 in fine).

Since the reformed rites express an ambiguous doctrine open to misinterpretation, there is now doubt as to the validity of their administration, insofar as the ministers, imbued with the new ecclesiology of Vatican II, may have an intention formally opposed to that of the Catholic Church. We might add that we are now 35 years on from the judgment formulated by Archbishop Lefebvre, and that the situation in the Church has deteriorated even further since then.

Even if doubt grows with time, it cannot be asserted that the Reformed sacraments are per se invalid. Archbishop Lefebvre never said this, and even fought against this conclusion, which has no theological foundation.

Let’s take a quick look at each of the seven sacraments.

 

The Seven Sacraments

Baptism

Material and form remain unchanged.

However, the exorcisms have been abolished. This does not invalidate baptism, but it does deprive the child of the protection against the devil that the Church still deems necessary.

It is therefore necessary to complete baptisms with exorcisms, especially for children.

However, there are more and more invalid baptisms, not because the priest doesn’t have the faith – let’s repeat that – but because many priests don’t think that the rubrics must be fulfilled seriously for the sacrament to be valid: most priests no longer baptize on the forehead but on the head, but sometimes the water does not touch the skin when the hair is abundant; some say the words and ask the godmother to pour the water; others change the form by saying “we baptize you”, because they think that it is the community that baptizes (many cases have been discovered, and declared invalid by today’s Rome), etc. It has become necessary to question people coming from the conciliar Church about their baptism.

Confirmation

The form of the sacrament has been changed, taken from a valid Eastern rite. It’s unusual, but doesn’t change anything in terms of validity. However, there may be some doubt about the translation of these words into the vernacular. They must express the grace of the sacrament sufficiently for it to be valid. This is not always the case.

The material for the sacrament of Confirmation is olive oil, blessed by the bishop. The 1917 Code of Canon Law refers only to this oil (C. 734 § 2). Our Lord, in his agony in the Garden of Olives, sanctified these olive trees with the sweat of his blood. Moreover, olive oil is the true substance that corresponds to the character of oil. All other oils are substitutes. However, Pope Paul VI and the new Code of Canon Law (C. 847 § 1) allow the use of oils from “other plants”, which was always considered a cause of invalidity by all theologians until Vatican II:

The use of olive oil is not only an ecclesiastical precept, but is required for the value of the sacrament. Everyone teaches this. So, confirmation would be invalid if petroleum oil, walnut oil, etc. were used.7

Since we cannot know which oil has been used, it is legitimate and necessary to conditionally reconfirm those who have received confirmation in the new rite.

The Eucharist

As the ambiguity of the new rite is extreme (see above), the number of Masses invalidated by formal opposition to the Church’s intention continues to grow. To this must be added the deficient training of future priests in the new seminaries. Archbishop Lefebvre said that even Rome today is incapable of training Catholic priests.

Penance

Instead of: ” I absolve you of your sins “, the new form (in French) is: ” I forgive you your sins “. The word “ absolve “, which means “to remit sins, to give absolution” is the correct term: to forgive is too broad, since one man can forgive another man, only God can absolve (and the priest who acts in his name). But this probably has no effect on validity, since priests who confess use the word “forgive” in the sense of “absolve”.

In addition, most conciliar priests have lost the true notion of sin, so that they confess less and less, and don’t know how to give the necessary advice. They have received no serious training in moral theology in the new seminaries.

As for the practice of collective absolutions, which became widespread after the Council, it only obtains the erasure of venial sins.

Extreme Unction

For validity, the material is the same as for confirmation: olive oil blessed by the bishop. The same remarks can be made here as above.

While the new form still signifies the strength given to the sick and the remission of sins effected by this sacrament, the liturgy of Extreme Unction has been considerably reworked. In particular, the anointing of the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth and feet has been abolished. Only the forehead and hands remain. This does not affect validity, since anointing the forehead is sufficient (for example, in an emergency), but it does remove the significance of anointing to obtain remission of sins caused by the senses.

More serious is the now-general custom of conferring the sacrament of Extreme Unction on all elderly people in the parish or in retirement homes who are not in imminent danger of death. The 1917 Code of Canon Law states the following about this sacrament:

Extreme Unction may only be administered to the faithful who, having had the use of reason, find themselves in peril of death as a result of illness or old age (C. 940).

If there is not at least one doubt about the peril of death, the sacrament is invalidly conferred. Collective absolution would only be permissible in the event of imminent peril of death: shipwreck, soldiers mounting an assault, and so on.

Marriage

For there to be matrimonial consent, the contracting parties must at least be aware that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman, which serves to procreate children (C. 1082 § 1, 1917 Code).

As it is the spouses who are the ministers of the sacrament, and no specific formula is required on their side to exchange their consents, it is sufficient that in expressing it, they intend to contract a true marriage, for it to be valid; provided, of course, that they have no impediments.

Orders

a. The new ritual for the ordination of priests

+ Changes of form

The two changes affecting the form are (in the original Latin text)8:

1. – Deleting a “ut”.

This gives: “Pour into their souls the spirit of holiness, may they obtain from you the office of second merit“. (i.e. priestly character); instead of: “Pour into their souls the spirit of holiness in order that they may obtain from you the office of second merit” (translation of the traditional formula). The new expression better expresses the power given, which is distinct from the spirit of holiness.

2. The second change consists in a dative his famulis instead of an accusative in hos famulos. Priestly grace is given to the ordinands, rather than in them. However, it should be noted that in the editions of the Roman Pontifical published by the Vatican presses (the typical 1968 edition and the second of 1990), we find the old formula “in hos famulos“, the correction being made both in the text of the Constitution Pontificalis Romani printed at the head of the Pontifical and in the texts of the prayers to be sung or recited.9

The new Latin form is almost identical to the old one, especially in the edited Pontifical, so we see no reason to doubt the validity of the form.

However, it would be necessary to verify how the ceremony is actually performed, generally in the vernacular, with varying degrees of fantasy.

+ Removal of Rites Signifying the Effect of the Sacrament

On the other hand, although the words essential to validity remain, they have unfortunately been removed:

1. for the anointing of the hands of the new priest with the Holy Oils, the words “consecration” and “sanctification“;

2. the rite of porrection (touching) of the chalice and paten with mention of the power to celebrate Mass for the living and for the dead;

3. the rite of unfolding the chasuble towards the end of the ceremony, with the words: “Sins will be forgiven to those to whom you forgive them“.

These deletions cannot be innocent. They betray the desire not to offend Protestants by manifesting too clearly the powers of the priest. They also reflect the new conception of the priesthood, stemming from the new ecclesiology of Vatican II, where the distinction between the priesthood of the priest and that of the faithful is very blurred. The new rites therefore tend to avoid references to the transmission of personal powers, and insist on the notions of presidency and principality over the ecclesiastical community, hence the above deletions.

In 1990, Mgr Vilnet, then President of the French Episcopal Conference, wrote in the Bulletin des vocations du diocèse de Paris (no. 233): “Priestly ordination does not transmit the priesthood, but simply the transmission of the mission“. We can seriously question the validity of ordinations conferred with such an intention, formally opposed to that of the Church.

b. The New Ritual for the Consecration of Bishops

+ Probably A Valid Rite

In a study published in the Spanish edition of the journal Si Si No No, Father Alvaro Calderón (SSPX), professor of theology at the Seminary of La Reja (Argentina), concludes that the new rite is very probably valid10. Although its authors based their reform on the Traditio Apostolica, an ancient document that does not belong to any particular Eastern or Western liturgical tradition, it is essentially identical with the rites of the Coptic Catholic and Syrian Maronite Churches, which have given the Church great saints: St. Athanasius and St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom and St. Jerome. We can also add Saint Maroun, Saint Charbel and various others.

+ A Certainly Illegitimate Rite

In the same study, however, Father Calderón notes that the new rite of episcopal consecration cannot have the force of law in the Church (which is what is meant by the word “illegitimate”):

The new rite that Paul VI intended to promulgate with his apostolic constitution Pontificalis Romani is certainly illegitimate for two reasons: firstly, because no pope has the authority to abrogate the Roman liturgical tradition, and even less to invent a rite at odds with the entire Catholic tradition; secondly, because the contagion of modernist doctrines renders it harmful to the faith, and a determination contrary to the common good of the Church cannot have the force of law.

+ A Rite Without the Guarantees of Either the Ordinary or the Extraordinary Magisterium

This new rite does not have the guarantee of the Church’s universal ordinary magisterium, since it is based on the Traditio apostolica (supra), which does not belong to any particular liturgical tradition. And it does not have the guarantee of the extraordinary magisterium. Although Paul VI took up the expression “supreme apostolic authority” used by Pius XII in his constitution Sacramentum ordinis (DS 3859), Abbé Calderón makes the following remark:

Since the Council and Ecclesiam suam, this expression no longer has the same meaning as it did for Pius XII, and hierarchical acts no longer offer us the assurance of divine authority. What’s more, the new Roman liturgical prescriptions are no more than a framework to be taken into account for liturgical inculturation in each place. If we wanted complete peace of conscience, we’d have to ask the Pope for an infallible declaration for each of the vernacular versions of the sacramental forms (p. 5).

CONCLUSION

Necessity of Conditional Re-ordinations and Re-Consecrations

Let’s quote Father Calderón’s conclusion, which seems self-evident:

The positive and objective defects from which this rite suffers, which prevent us from being certain of its validity [since it is only probably valid] seem to us – until a Roman sentence, by which many things should change – to justify and make necessary the conditional re-ordination of priests consecrated by new bishops and, if necessary, the conditional re-consecration of these bishops. It is not possible to suffer such uncertainties at the very root of the sacraments (p. 6-7).

 

 

 

1 Msgr LEFEBVRE, Extract from the episcopal consecration sermon of 30 June 1988, Fideliter, July/August 1988, p. 6).

2 Msgr LEFEBVRE, Letter of 28 October 1988 to Mr Wilson. Published in Le Sel de la terre 98, p. 216-217.

3 D C 1445 (1965), col. 604.

4 The same was true during the Second Vatican Council. For example, Pastor Wilhem Schmidt claimed authorship of the expression susbistit in [the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church] in the Lumen gentium constitution on the Church. He had suggested it to Cardinal Frings through Abbé Ratzinger (Catéchisme catholique de la crise dans l’Église, by Abbé Gaudron, no. 29, Editions du Sel, 2014).

5 Preface to: A Brief Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae.

6 LÉO XIII, Lettre Apostolicae curae caritatis of 13 September 1896, on the invalidity of Anglican ordi-nations, DS 3318.

7 P. Prümmer O.P., Manuale Theologiae Moralis, Friburgi Brisgoviae, Herder, 1933, vol. III, no. 154.

8 Da, quaesumus, omnipotens Pater, his famulis tuis Presbyterii dignitatem; innova in visceribus eorum Spiritum sanctitatis; acceptum a te, Deus, secundi meriti munus obtineant, censuramque morum exemplo suae conversationis insinuent. According to the Constitution Pontificalis Romani of 18 June 1968, published in AAS 1968, p. 373, and in Notitiæ July-August 1968, p. 212.

9 So we have two versions (!!!) of the Constitution Pontificalis Romani: the one published in the AAS and the Notitiæ, and the one published in the Pontifical. The same cacophony was observed with the publication of the new Mass.

10 Fr. Calderón, « Si las consagraciones episcopales reformadas por Pablo VI son válidas », Si Si No No 267, november 2014.

Sermon of Bishop Gerardo Zendejas for the Priestly Ordination of Fr. Eymeric Blanchet SAJM

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Dear Superior General of the Society of the Apostles of Jesus and Mary, Your Excellency Bishop Faure,

Your Excellency Bishop Williamson,

My dear confreres in the priesthood, dear religious,

My dear friends…

All of us have come here, to Avrillé, to witness today this Catholic ceremony for the continuation of the true, royal and propitiatory priesthood that Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His Apostles to transmit to their apostolic successors, under the Primacy of Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ, throughout the centuries until the consummation of the world. “And the eleven disciples – says Saint Matthew – went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing him they adored: but SOME DOUBTED. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (St. Mathew,  28, 16- 20)

Indeed, we are here to honor Archbishop Lefebvre, our venerable Founder, for the great example he left us in preserving the Catholic priesthood expressed in the Roman Rite, in spite of the sinister darkness spread by the churchmen of the Second Vatican Council. These leaders are still waging a bitter war against Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, and against anybody who wants to be a soldier of Christ and fight for the Kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven.

In fact, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, as successor of the Apostles did not fail to do what he was commanded to do – Archbishop Lefebvre is, PAR EXCELLENCE, THE PRELATE who preserved the essential magnitude of the Catholic priesthood at the end of the twentieth century, not only by transmitting the authentic mark of  Apostolicity in the Catholic Church by the Episcopal Consecrations of June 30th 1988, but also for keeping the complete integrity in the Deposit of the Faith, expressed in the doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by the propitiatory element of atonement for the remission of sins, which Our Lord Jesus Christ offered to His eternal Father by His crown of thorns from the Cross as conquering throne. 

So, my simple words today mean to sound like an echo of reverberations through a valley, so that they might bring back to our mind the heroic testimony left by Archbishop Lefebvre. I would like to recall in particular the words of three of his sermons:

The first, on that occasion the 1976 Ordinations in which Archbishop Lefebvre spoke about how a priest participates in the grace of Union in Our Lord Jesus Christ and why the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass must be monarchical and not democratic. 

The second, on the celebration of his golden priestly jubilee in 1979, when he launched a Crusade for clergy and laity for the purpose to continue the Holy the Mass of always.

The third, on the occasion of the Mass in Lille on August 29, 1976, when Archbishop Lefebvre declared, not only that the devil is the Father of Lies – the Father of Error – but also that Error and truth are not compatible. He also mentioned three errors of the conciliar church, namely: the fact that it engaged in a dialogue with Protestants to produce the bastard new mass and bastards sacraments; the fact that it promoted an abominable dialogue with Freemasons and Communists, to build a bastard union of confusion; the fact that it rejected the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the pretext that it is no longer possible.

In addition, we are here today to congratulate His Excellency Bishop Richard Williamson on the 35th anniversary of his episcopal consecration, and wish him more years to come – Ad Multos Annos! Thank you for sharing that marvelous gift of knowledge composed in master strokes of the pen that, when read, sound like a harmonious melody running in a natural waterfall. Thank you for transmitting your tremendous conviction in eternal Truth, for your love to the only Savior of the world – Our Lord Jesus Christ, when speaking with eloquence throughout your conferences, speeches, and sermons… Perhaps for certain people your words might sound as “a scandal,” for others they might seem “foolish”, but for many, very many others your words are a voice crying out in the wilderness of the modern ungodly world… May the Mother of God, the Madonna who watched over you from above the gate of Winchester School in England, keep you always under her maternal mantle to preserve you from any attack of evil-doers. So, we are glad to be here with Your Excellency for this celebration – Deo Gratias! As Saint Paul said: “Let a man so look upon us as the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among the dispensers that a man be found faithful.” (1Cor. 4, 1- 2)

And last but not the least, we are here – my dear abbé Blanchet, to rejoice with all your family, and to congratulate your dearly beloved Father and Mother for their perseverance in saying the evening prayers every night together at home. In truth, “a family that prays together, stays together.” Doubtless to say that the presence of many relatives and friends, who have come to attend your priestly ordination, is a demonstration of trust and a charitable support they have shown you throughout your way to the Catholic priesthood: all those teachers that Divine Providence has placed on your life, like your music teacher who will enhance this ceremony, and all the members of the Dominican Community here… all want to thank God for the merciful gift of your priestly vocation. May you be found faithful to it until the last breath of your life…

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So, my dear friends, just as before the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven “some [bishops] doubted,” and since then, many other bishops have also doubted in their duties throughout the centuries. Even more, today’s bishops have lost their grip on reality and objective Faith, so that they live an electronic-subjective way of life  in the atheist modern world, with all materialistic comforts and with a gnostic understanding of life and death.

 That’s why there are many Christians torn apart in their families, in their homes, among their children. Many of us are torn in our heart by the divisions in the Church, provoked by this new religion being taught and practiced since Vatican II… Indeed, charity has grown cold, and people have lost the love of Truth. The whole world believes more in the Internet than in the Bible, which is why Saint Paul said: “…and in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish: because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying.” (2 Thessal,  2, 10)

Living in a convulsive world of war, famine and pests, it is unbelievable to hear that the Synodal Church is preaching a “new evangelization” about everything, but not about the Holocaust of Christ on Calvary. One might ask to oneself, when will the day that the Vicar of Christ will turn back to lead all nations to Tradition as it has always been believed everywhere, and by all?

When Archbishop Lefebvre was asked this question, he responded: “[…] when Rome crowns Our Lord Jesus Christ as King, once again. We cannot have an agreement with those who have uncrowned Our Lord. The day when they will once again recognize and acknowledge Our Lord to be King of all peoples and nations, then it will not be we whom they have joined, but rather the Catholic Church, in which we have been dwelling and remaining.” (AL, Flavigny, December 1988, Fideliter #68, p 16)

While waiting for the conversion of the modern pagan Rome and the abolition of human slavery which is the fruit of the Globalist Agenda, in today’s world, what can a Catholic priest do?

In this perspective, let us listen to the preaching of the Eminence of Poitiers, the venerable Cardinal Pie, who is well-known for having taught the perennial doctrine of Jesus Christ’s rights to govern individuals, families and nations, and for having proclaimed His royal rights over the international laws of nations. We should read and re-read the abundant wisdom contained in the writings of Cardinal Pie, who is the Master and Doctor in the doctrine of the Kingship of Christ:

“The main benefit to draw from error, heresy and from all oppositions which Truth will meet among men, is that the very same point that is particularly being denied and fought against, soon after there will be a light shed upon it and then it will be glorified.[…] Upon which topics religious writers – and most especially spiritual counselors and spiritual doctors of the nations – must concentrate their discussions, demonstrations and teachings? […] Well, observe from which side error is directing their attacks, its negations, its blasphemies. So, whatever is being attacked, denied, and blasphemed in each century or age, it is precisely in which it must be defended, affirmed, and repaired. Where sin abounds, grace most necessarily super-abound. So, against the darkening of spirits, against the increase of coldness in hearts, we must oppose an overflow of light, a fresh outbreak of love.” (Cardinal Pie, Third synodal instruction on the principal errors of the present age, July 1862 – August 1863, Complete Works, V, pages 36-37)

It is evident that, in attacking Our Lord Jesus Christ and Christendom, the enemies of God have concentrated their strategies to fight against Truth, against Authority, and against the Priesthood. Hence, let us summarize what a priest can do to defend Truth against Error, to uphold Authority in the face of anarchy and chaos, and to preserve the sacred priesthood against the profane ministry promoted by the Second Vatican Council.

Needless to say that a Catholic Priest is a principle of Order. A good Priest recapitulates everything in Christ the King. In so doing, he fosters the spiritual and temporal common good of families and of countries, because he is the salt of the earth, and the light of the world. But when a Priest fails in his duties, then he compromises with the three enemies of the soul: the world, the lust and the devil. As a matter of fact,  Corruptio optimi, pessima! (The corruption of the best, is the worst!) That’s why Don Bosco used to say that when a priest dies, he never goes alone, but with many people, either to heaven or to hell.

Therefore, on the day of his Ordination the Catholic Priest receives the power to become a principle of order in Spiritus Veritatis (in the Spirit of Truth), as Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded the Apostles to do. So, here are some words concerning this triple power.

The first is the power of teaching – potestas docendi. This power commands an unity in doctrine to learn and to practice the same Catholic religion among the clergy and laity. It is an unity in that Faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all: “quod ubique, semper, et ab omnibus” (Communitorium, St. Vincent Lerin).

The second is the power of governing – potestas regendi. This power requires unity in hierarchy: Jesus Christ is Head of the Church, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ,  Bishops are the apostolic successors, Priests are other Christs, and faithfuls are the witnesses of eternal salvation. In this hierarchy, all power comes from God, as Saint Paul says, “Omnis potestas a Deo.”  (Rom. 13, 1)

The third is the power of sanctifying – potestas sanctificandi. This power is linked to an unity in Liturgy as the official way of Church worship by clergy and faithful. The law of prayer is indeed the law of Faith: lex credendi, lex orandi.

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1. The Power of Teaching: the Faith that has always been believed everywhere and by all

“The lips of the priest – says the prophet Malachias – shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord.“ (Malach. 2, 7)

“Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to Me,” said the prophet Osee. ( 4, 6)

Almighty God wants men to help Him save souls. He could have done this by other means. However Jesus Christ became man Himself , and He willed that some men become priests through the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, like His Apostles who were ready to convert the whole world, or like anyone of the priests here present, who are willing to convert the modern world for the greater glory of God and the eternal salvation of souls.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders constitutes the imposition of the bishop’s hands upon the head of the deacon as the Matter of the sacrament. For the sacramental Form are required the words of the Preface in the Rite of Ordination, which clearly express the bishop’s intention to do what has always been done in the Catholic Church, to  believe everywhere and by all.

Among his functions, a priest must faithfully teach the very Word of God to those who wish to be the children of God, instructing them through the Church Magisterium. Hence, he must believe in the two sources of divine Revelation, namely, the Holy Scripture and the Oral Tradition transmitted by the Apostles to their apostolic successors.

As the meaning of the word “apostle” requires, the priest must be sent to preach under the authority of a bishop. Archbishop Lefebvre said that “In consecrating his life to the apostolic ministry and since he continues the mission which Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled on earth, he is essentially sent as missionary.” (AL, June 29 1978). So, the priest is sent by God, under the authority of the Catholic Church in order to preach the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Seven Sacraments, the Our Father and other prayers, in order to lead his flock for their  eternal salvation.

During this ceremony, the Catholic Church says through the mouth of the bishop: “Agnosce quod agis, imita quod tractas,” that is, “Realize what you are doing. Imitate what you operate”. The priest must therefore believe that he dispenses God’s graces through the Sacraments which are the ordinary channels, instituted for that purpose by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It is the priest’s duty to provide the proper MATTER, the correct FORM, and the right INTENTION of the sacraments, in order to validly administer them to his flock, and when needed to receive them himself alike. It would be a serious negligence, if a priest would not provide all that is needed for such a purpose, as it would be a negligence for a bishop who would not provide to his priests all what is needed for them to properly administer the sacraments to the faithful.

The most important duty is to re-actualize by his priestly ministry the same Sacrifice that Our Lord Jesus Christ made on the Cross at Calvary, in an un-bloody manner, under the species of bread and wine, so that he is bringing God from heaven down onto the altar for the eternal salvation of souls.

It is imperative to meditate on the grace in which this young priest is going to participate in the Catholic priesthood. It is not by the sanctifying grace which Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us through Baptism. It is by the grace of union – that grace of union unique to Our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is by His grace of union with the divinity of God, with the divinity of the Word, that Our Lord Jesus Christ became Priest, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is King, and by that Our Lord Jesus Christ is Judge. Truly, Our Lord Jesus Christ ought to be adored by all men because of this grace of union, which is a sublime grace! This grace from the divinity Itself, in a unique manner descended into His humanity in the fullness of time, anointing Our Lord Jesus Christ in a special manner, as the holy Oil descending on the head of the recipient, anoints the one who receives its unction. Our Lord Jesus Christ’s humanity was penetrated by the divinity of the Word of God, and thus He was made Priest and became Mediator between God and men.

Participating in that grace, the priest is a real mediator between God and men. In receiving the priestly ordination, a priest is not any longer like any other man; he is consecrated for God and separated from men. At Mass, for example, before turning to say “Dominus vobiscum“, the priest must kiss the altar in order to express his function of mediator between God and men, as a bridge between heaven and earth, uniting the prayers of the faithful to the sacrifice of the altar.

Also, it is important to note some of the accessory ceremonies of the priestly ordination in the Roman Rite:

Firstly, the bishop clothes the priest with a stole, crossing it over his chest to remind him of the Cross of Our Lord, and with a chasuble which symbolizes the submission a priest must have to the binding yoke of God’s Law through a life of sanctity and purity. 

Secondly, the bishop anoints the priest’s hands with the holy Oil of catechumens, binds them together, and in presenting him the chalice and paten, he says these words: “receive the power to offer to God the Sacrifice, and to celebrate Mass for both the living and the dead.”

Thirdly, at the end of the ceremony, the bishop confers on the new priest the divine power to forgive sins when saying: “Receive the Holy Ghost, the sins you forgive they will be forgiven, and the sins you retain, they will be retained.“

The above said priestly ceremonies are not contained in the new Rite of Ordination implemented after the Second Vatican Council. Perhaps these blessings are not by themselves necessary for the validity of the new Rite of Ordination, but their omission and the absence of any other liturgical expression do not clearly manifest the intention by which the bishop is ordaining the priest. Otherwise, the functions assigned to the priest in the new Rite could signify the bishop’s intentions, namely, to preside at the assembly of the people of God; to face the people when saying the New Mass; to remove the tabernacle from the center of the altar; to give Communion on the hand… These expressions are absolutely consistent with the fundamental mentality of modern man. The New Mass is not a hierarchical Mass instituted from above; on the contrary, it is a democratic Mass instituted from below, by the people, for the people and with the people. It is the expression of a man-centered cult, created by man who wants to make himself god.

Archbishop Lefebvre said concerning the New Mass: “The ideology of modern man has been brought into our most sacred Rites. This is why we think that we cannot accept the new Rite, which is the work of another ideology, or a new ideology.” (AL, June 29, 1976).

And again: “May seminarians, priests and bishops find the understanding of their priesthood in these few fundamental truths about the grace of union in Our Lord, and appreciate the sublimity of the heritage bequeathed to them, which must be the source of their sanctification and the source of their apostolate: the act of sacrifice.

Our Lord’s act of Sacrifice being the act which constitutes the Sacrament of the Eucharist – the life of Christ, Priest and Victim – must be the foundation of our interior life as well as of our ministry in giving Jesus to souls. This indissoluble union of the Sacrifice and the Sacrament which the Word Incarnate in His wisdom willed, is precisely what the Protestants reject and the innovators of Vatican II have in practice made it disappear by Ecumenism!” (AL, Spiritual Journey, p. 35)

“It must be understood immediately that we do not hold to the absurd idea that if the New Mass is valid, we are then free to assist at it. The Church has always forbidden the faithful to assist at the Masses of heretics and schismatics, even when they are valid. It is clear that no one can assist at sacrilegious Masses or at Masses which endanger our faith.“ (AL, November 8, 1979)

God never abandons His Church; and so the number of priests will be always sufficient for the needs of the faithful, provided that the worthy priests remain faithful to the deposit of the Faith, and that those who profess heresy and who un-repentantly transgress the moral laws are removed from the ministry. As the fourth Ecumenical Lateran Council said, should it ever become impossible to maintain the present number of priests “it is better to have a few good priests than a multitude of bad ones.” (decree 27, De instructione ordinarum).

Therefore, dear abbé Blanchet:

Always, celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, knowing what Mass is and how to say it, following Archbishop Lefebvre’s example.

Never say Mass in a hurry, in less than 20 minutes, because it would scandalize the faithful, as Father Prümer says, then it would be a matter to go to confession.

Never say the New Mass.

Be faithful to the recitation of the Breviary everyday.

Preach the evangelical counsels of chastity, obedience, and poverty.

Be faithful to your total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray your daily rosary and beware of private revelations.

Because the priest is a principle of order, when preaching the Truth always, he should be supported by his Bishop and he will be faithful to his priesthood. Saint John says, “And this is eternal life that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ that Thou has sent.” (St John 17, 3)

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2. The power of governing: all power comes from God.

There cannot be priests without bishops, and no bishops without apostolic succession, and no Vicar of Christ without a successor of Saint Peter, and no Catholic Church without Jesus Christ, true God and true Man. “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God.” (Rom. 13,1) The superiors must provide for the doctrinal formation of their subjects, and not otherwise. How can priest pretend to hold authority in himself, if he would break the chain of command? At his ordination, the priest becomes “the lieutenant of Christ the King” for the purpose to establish the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Is the traditional movement a rebellion to Authority? Was Archbishop Lefebvre against Church Authority? 

Resisting in the spirit of Truth, Archbishop Lefebvre preserved the Deposit of the Faith including the Papacy itself from the destructive danger formulated by the innovations of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Lefebvre himself explained the reasons for which one should resist a higher authority. ” […] What is the first principle to know what we must do in this circumstance, in this crisis in the Church? What is the principle?

This doctrine is expounded by Saint Thomas Aquinas. So what does Saint Thomas Aquinas say about the authority in the Church? When can we refuse something from the authority of the Church? PRINCIPLE: ‘Only when the Faith is in question.’ Only in this case. Not in other cases… Only when the Faith is in question… and that is found in the Summa Theologica (II II Q.33, a.4, ad 2m) […].” (AL, St. Them Aquinas Seminary, Ridgefield, 1983)

“We resist and shall continue to resist, not in a spirit of contradiction or rebellion, but in a spirit of fidelity to the Church, of fidelity to God, to our Lord Jesus Christ, to all those who taught us our holy religion; by a spirit of fidelity to all the Popes who maintained Tradition. That is why we are determined quite simply to continue, to persevere in the Tradition which sanctified the saints who are rendering an immense service to all the faithful who wish to keep the faith and truly to receive the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (AL, Écône November 1, 1980)

Certainly, most traditional Priests and Bishops might agree on many doctrinal points. Perhaps we might have the same doctrine about the Catholic Church, about moral theology; and we might be ready to follow Saint Thomas Aquinas in his objective philosophy and in dogmatic theology… But when it comes to interpreting the present crisis in the Church today, and the future collapsing of the world… we might not have the same interpretation, the same thinking and understanding… Indeed, it is a big problem in which Divine Providence wants us to survive, as it was in that time when three Popes at the same time claimed to be THE REGNANT POPE, and whom Kings, Bishops, Priests and Faithful did defended and believed… and Christendom was divided. The history of Tradition today is a history of divisions! And today we Catholics are in the risk to fall into error, either by heresy or by schism. But as Archbishop Lefebvre said, we do not want to be heretic nor schismatic!

On the other hand, the Father of Lies is at work, coming again and again to divide in order to conquer. That’s why Pope Pius IX, wanting to warn us, allowed the publication of a book entitled The Roman Church and the Revolution, written by Crétineau-Joly (on February 25, 1861). Here is an interesting excerpt recording a conversation between two Freemason leaders: “…You want to establish the kingdom of the elects on the throne of the prostitute Babylon, in which the clergy follows under your standards, believing always that they walk under the standard of the apostolic keys… If you do not precipitate, we promise a catch more miraculous than his.’ The fisher man who catches fish becomes a fisher man to catch men. You will be surrounded by friends of the Apostolic Chair. You will preach a revolution by [Papal] Tiara and Cope walking under the banner and the standard of the cross, a revolution that needs nothing else but a spark to kindle a fire throughout the four corners of the world.“

Under the same circumstances, let us remember the words of Our Lord to Saint Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.” (St Luke, 22, 31-32)

On this subject, Archbishop Lefebvre enlightened us with some wisdom: “In reality it is an extraordinary gift that God has made us in giving us the Pope, in giving us the successors of Peter, giving us precisely this perpetuity in truth communicated to us through the successors of Peter, that just be communicated to us through them. And it seems inconceivable that a successor of Peter could fail in any way to transmit the truth that he is obliged to transmit. Indeed, without virtually disappearing from the line of succession he cannot fail to communicate that which the Popes have always transmitted – the Deposit of the Faith which does not belong to him alone.

[…] And we cannot follow error nor change truth, just because the one, who is in charge of transmitting it, is weak and allows error to spread around him. We don’t want the darkness to encroach on us. We want to live in the light of truth. We remain faithful to that which has been taught for two thousand years. The same things that have been taught for two thousand years, and which is inconceivable, that what is part of eternity could be changed!

Because it is eternity which has been taught to us. It is eternal God, Jesus Christ eternal God, and everything which is centered on God is centered on eternity. The Blessed Trinity can NEVER be changed. The Redemptive work of Christ through the Cross can NEVER be changed, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can NEVER be changed. These things are eternal. They belong to God. How can someone her below change those things? Who is the priest who feels he has the right to change those things, to modify them? It is impossible!” (AL, Écône, September 1977)

Dear Abbé Blanchet, when you say the Mass of Always, some people might ask you: “Do you take care of all rubrics of 1962 Roman Missal with which you are being Ordained priest?”  You should respond: YES.

Some people might ask you: “Do you name Pope Francis in the Roman Canon of Mass?”  You should respond: YES.

As a Catholic Priest is a principle of monarchical order, he is the Lieutenant of our Lord Jesus Christ’s Royal Kingdom on earth, and according to his rank of authority, a Priest is sent by his bishop to proclaim the Kingship of Christ to his flock. Otherwise, it would be like a democratic priest, who chooses to say or not, to preach or not, his own personal kingdom.

So, the reason of these and other questions is because in following the 1955 Liturgical books, there are some priests who omit the rubric “una-cum-Francisco” at the Roman Canon of the Mass, or at the celebration of the Holy Week ceremonies. What one might think about purposely omitting the Pope’s name, as the schismatic and Protestant ministries do?

Indeed, all we Catholics must pray more than ever to the Good Shepherd, Our Lord Jesus Christ, asking Him to have mercy on His flock, on those sheep who want to believe with integrity in His evangelical message of eternal salvation, in the Mystery of Redemption through Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world, in the ark of salvation outside of which there is no salvation, the Catholic Church, which is the Ark of Saint Peter.

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3. The power of sanctifying: the law of prayer is the law of belief.

“We know the axiom, the law of belief is fundamental to the law of prayer. In order to comprehend the dogma, it is important to keep the words and deeds performed by the Liturgy throughout all times. It is through the Liturgy that the Spirit who inspired the Holy Scripture, still works. The Liturgy is Tradition to its highest degree in power and solemnity in the Church.” (Dom Guéranger, Institution Liturgiques, part I, chapter 1, p.18)

It is very important to follow a principle of public and official prayer approved by the Tradition of the Catholic Church. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the recitation of the Divine Office (Breviary) are not private personal prayers for a priest because they are codified. The deliberate omission to pray the Breviary incurs the penalty of mortal sin(Canon 135). When a Catholic Priest prays the Breviary, as Dom Marmion says, by his lips he continues the praising of Our Lord Jesus Christ to His heavenly Father. We know that Our Lord constantly recited the 150 psalms attributed to King David, because it was the official prayer, under the Law of Moses, before the coming of the Messiah. Following that Tradition in the Catholic Church, we continue to recite the 150 Psalms as well as other prayers which commemorate the dogmas and mysteries of our Faith: These prayers were put together in particular by Saint Gregory the Great.

Nevertheless, There are some discrepancies among Traditional priests and faithful in regards to the law of praying and the law of believing, since the 1960s. From the very beginning, Archbishop Lefebvre took his decision in installing the 1962 Liturgy at Écône. The rejection of the 1962 Liturgical books has been the occasion of separations within the Society of Saint Pius X: three times these separations occurred in Écône (1975, 1979, 1981), twice in the USA (1983, 1984), once in Germany (1984), and once in Argentina (1989). And there are stil several separations due to lack of unity on the official public prayer of the Traditional Church.

Here are some words from Archbishop Lefebvre on this subject:

“The liturgy of Écône is the liturgy that I myself have been using now for 20 years. It is a liturgy we use, more or less, everywhere in the Society. […]

So, these priests condemned it… and they condemned me… and they condemned Écône… How is this possible? […] That they condemned the bishop who gave them their ordination? When these priests were at Écône they accepted this liturgy; when they were ordained, they accepted during the years they were at Écône. When they left, they changed, and took another orientation. […]

Now, not only they dispute the liturgy but also about the Pope. They are in their hearts, against the fact that there is a Pope in Rome. […]

Certainly, we agree on many doctrinal points, these priests and I. We have the same doctrine about the Church, about theology, we follow Saint Thomas Aquinas in philosophy, in theology… But to interpret the situation of the Church now, we have not the same meaning, not the same thinking… This is very dangerous. […]

We must now do an application of the principle. For me I think that the liturgical reform of Pope John XXIII has nothing against the Faith. You can take the Pontifical, the Rituale, the Breviary, the Roman Missale, and what is in these books of Pope John XXIII against the Faith? Nothing! […]

In reality, this reform was done by Pope Pius XII, not Pope John XXIII. When I was Apostolic Delegate in Rome, they asked me to have Episcopal Conferences in Madagascar, in Cameroon, and in French speaking Africa, to ask the bishops about the reform of the breviary. […]

But these seven young priests said that seven men did this reform, and they were the same who did the reform of Paul VI. That is not true! Perhaps in the commission, it is possible that some of these men were there… Perhaps Bugnini was a member of this commission of Pius XII.

But you know that during the Pontificate of John XXIII, this Pope removed Msgr. Bugnini from his teaching post in the University of the Lateran. Pope John XXIII was against Bugnini. I knew the president of the Commission who did this reform, it was Msgr. De Matto, who was the Abbot of St. Paul outside the Walls… I know him very well and I spoke with him many times. He was the president of the Commission of reforming the liturgy under the Pontificate of John XXIII. It was under Paul VI that he was removed because he was traditionalist, and they replaced him by Msgr. Bugnini… that is true. But it is not true to say that this reform of Pope John XXIII is the beginning of the reform of Pope Paul VI. […]

So, I have said concerning this reform [1962] we must obey the Pope, especially since we have no reason to refuse it!” 

(AL, April 24, 1983, at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, in Ridgefield, CT)

After many discrepancies and departures of several priests from the Society of Saint Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre required that all the candidates to Holy Orders should sign The Declaration of Fidelity, from April 11, 1981 until his death. In addition to the Declaration, there were required to say the Anti-modernist Oath and the Profession of Faith declared by Pius IX. Certainly, I myself signed and complied with these requirements throughout the reception of the major orders of subdiaconate, diaconate, and priesthood. 

The Declaration of Fidelity contains the UNITY OF THE THREE POWERS  which a Priest receives on the day of his Ordination: it affirms one Faith, one Head, one Liturgy – it confirms the Truth, the Authority and Public priestly Liturgical Prayer under which the candidate is ordained priest in the Catholic Church.

Here is the Declaration of Fidelity in its entirety:

“[For unity of government]

I, the undersigned, __N.N._______ recognize _Pope’s name_ as Pope of the Holy Catholic Church. That is why I am ready to pray publicly for him as Sovereign Pontiff. 

[For unity of faith ]

I refuse to follow him when he departs from the Catholic Tradition, especially in the questions of religious liberty and ecumenism, as also in the reforms which are harmful to the Church.

I grant that Masses celebrated according to the New Rite are not all invalid. However, considering the bad translations of the Novus Ordo Missae, its ambiguity favoring its being interpreted in a Protestant sense, and the plurality of ways in which it can be celebrated, I recognize that the danger of invalidity is very great. I affirm that the New Rite of Mass does not, it is true, formulate any heresy in an explicit manner, but that it departs “in a striking manner overall as well as in detail, from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass”, and for this reason the New Rite is in itself bad. That is why I shall never celebrate the Holy Mass according to this New Rite, even if I am threatened with ecclesiastical sanctions; and I shall never advise anyone in a positive manner to take an active part in such a Mass.

[For unity of Liturgy]

Finally, I admit as being legitimate the liturgical reform of John XXIII. Hence, I take all the (1962) liturgical books from it to be Catholic: the Roman Missale, the Breviary, the Pontificale and the Rituale; and I bind myself to make exclusive use of them according to their calendar and rubrics, in particular for the celebration of Mass and for the recitation in common of the Breviary. In doing this I desire to show the obedience binding me to my superiors, as also the obedience binding me to the Roman Pontiff in all his legitimate acts.“

CONCLUSION

Dear Abbé Blanchet, if you celebrated Mass and prayed your Breviary, according to the rubrics of 1955, it would certainly be a valid Mass and you would conform to the recitation of the Breviary, but you would most certainly be moving away from the spirit and attitude of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre concerning his understanding of the crisis within the Catholic Church, as well as for his purpose to Ordain Priests for the perpetuation of the Latin Mass along with the calling for his Crusade. May the Blessed Lord give you the grace of the interior life, and to be a principle of order in the public prayer of the Catholic Church.

Indeed, we are not schismatics. We are not heretics. We are not rebels. We are resisting that wave of modernism, of secularism, of progressivism, which has invaded the Church since the Vatican II Council, formulating a conciliar church to destroy everything sacred, supernatural, divine, and reduce it to human dimensions.

May Our Lady intercede for us so that we may keep up the Crusade launched by Archbishop Lefebvre for the continuation of Tradition, for the glory of the Holy Trinity and the exaltation of the Catholic Church by recapitulating all things in Christ so that all Christendom should again proclaim, “He must reign”. 

AMEN.

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) In Pictures

admin Dominican Saints

 

 

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