ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE: IN HIS OWN WORDS
What follows is a Sermon which Archbishop Lefebvre gave in Lille, France in 1976; a video of which is linked below
By way of introduction, the following account is quite revealing about what was happening in Rome at this same time:
At a Confirmation which took place in Ridgefield, CT in the early 1980's, Archbishop Lefebvre shared during the sermon how he and Pope John Paul II were together at a gathering in Rome (perhaps an ad limina visit).
In the midst of this gathering of Bishops and Cardinals, Archbishop Lefebvre took the opportunity to engage the Holy Father on the question of the Traditional Mass.
Pope John Paul II asked what it was that Archbishop Lefebvre was seeking for Tradition, and Archbishop Lefebvre explained that he hoped to "free" the Traditional Mass once again so that all Priests might be permitted to offer it if they wished to at any time.
Pope John Paul II listened to the Archbishop's wishes graciously and expressed his willingness to further discuss this possibility in the future with Archbishop Lefebvre.
At that very moment, a Cardinal nearby who had overheard what was being discussed immediately interrupted the exchange and declared "No Your Holiness! It must not be permitted. They will use the Mass as a battle flag...!"
Upon hearing this Cardinal's objection, Pope John Paul II put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and deference to the Cardinal, turned and walked away without saying another word. And that is where the discussion ended.
Archbishop Lefebvre shared this as a example of the ceaseless Modernist intrigue and pressure on the Holy Father in Rome to suppress Tradition and to shut down any possibility of discussion in this matter with the Holy Father.
Lefebvre said of this occasion that he believed the Holy Father was a good man, but not willing (able?) to stand up to these Modernists.
As can be seen from this example -- which is Rome in microcosm -- Archbishop Lefebvre was well aware that the Holy Father was not a free agent, nor free to objectively and personally deliberate the concerns of SSPX.
But rather, Pope John Paul II's freedom to decide anything at all in this matter as the Supreme Pontiff was constrained, making him the object of widespread political and Modernist pressure and intrigue to bury the Church's Tradition forever.
Archbishop Lefebvre's first-hand knowledge of this treachery in Rome undoubtedly informed his ultimate decision to proceed with the 1988 Consecrations, which was further precipitated by what Archbishop Lefebvre considered to be the public blasphemy of the Prayer Meeting in Assisi and the sacrileges which took place there.
Archbishop Lefebvre openly declared that this scandalous abasement of the Catholic Faith before "the pantheon of all religions" was the culminating proof of the ever-deepening crisis and necessity which confirmed him in his duty as an Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church to proceed:
"Never has history seen the Pope turning himself into some kind of guardian of the pantheon of all religions, as I have brought it to mind, making himself the pontiff of liberalism.
"Let anyone tell me whether such a situation has ever existed in the Church. What should we do in the face of such a reality? Weep, without a doubt. Oh, we mourn and our heart is broken and sorrowful.
"We would give our life, our blood, for the situation to change. But the situation is such, the work which the Good Lord has put into our hands is such, that in face of this darkness of Rome, this stubbornness of the Roman authorities in their error, this refusal to return to the Truth and to Tradition, it seems to me that the Good Lord is asking that the Church continue.
"This is why it is likely that I should, before rendering an account of my life to the Good Lord, perform some episcopal consecrations."
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Archbishop Lefebvre explains in the following sermon the unspeakably painful confrontation in which he found himself with the Modernists, for simply doing what he had already done for 30 years as a Priest, Bishop and Archbishop -- i.e. for his entire Priestly vocation....only to suddenly be threatened with suspension and excommunication for doing what he had always done.
VIDEO LINK TO SERMON AT LILLE, FRANCE 1976:
Archbishop Lefebvre Sermon at Lille, France - 1976
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A transcript of this sermon is also provided below:
"To go against the highest authorities in the Church. to be suspended a divinis is for a bishop a serious matter, a very painful situation.
"How could one bear something like that if not for exceedingly serious reasons?
"The reason for our position and for your position is a serious reason: the defense of our Faith.
"And now when I am doing the same thing, exactly the same thing I have done for 30 years, all of a sudden I am suspended a divinis, and perhaps I shall soon be excommunicated.
"Separated from the Church, a renegade, or what have you! How can that be?
"Am I also at risk for being suspended a divinis because of the work I did [before] for 30 years?
"I think, on the contrary, that if then I have been forming seminarians as they are being formed now in the new seminaries; if then I had taught the catechism which is being taught in the schools, I should have been called a heretic.
"And if I had said Mass as it is now said, I should have been called suspect of heresy and outside the Church. It is beyond my understanding.
"It means something has changed in the Church...
"At the hour of my death, when Our Lord asks me: “What have you done with your Episcopate, what have you done with your Episcopal and Priestly Grace?”
"I do not want to hear from His lips the terrible words: "You have helped to destroy the Church along with the rest of them.”
