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STROJIE LETTER NO. 14
August 15, 1976
ECONE
Having noticed the growing controversy about Archbishop Lefebvre and Econe, now comes the new of the June 29 ordinations. Until the June 29 ordinations I had not looked closely at Econe, thinking that whatever mistakes or irregularities might exist in Archbishop Lefebvre's position could be justified by the difficult circumstances of our time. Briefly, I was inclined to trust him and write of other matters.
But even the doubts I expressed brought some disagreements, and I received copies of the Archbishop's Letter No. 9 as evidence of the soundness of his position. But this Letter No. 9 does not satisfy me. On the contrary it makes it much more difficult to put my trust in the Archbishop and Econe. So for those disposed to consider unemotionally further comments of mine on this subject, I present the following:
From the Society of St. Pius X Letter No. 9 to Friends and Benefactors, page 10: Referring to Paul VI, the Archbishop says this-- "We are the keenest defenders of his authority as Peter's successor." How then does the Archbishop explain his defiance of Paul's order to close down his seminary: How can he justify the ordinations of 29 June, forbidden by Paul VI? How can he tell 1500 persons in attendance that "the Pope has no right to stop these ordinations?" Remember that is Archbishop Lefebvre who professes his loyalty and obedience to the person of Paul 6 as pope.
But even if Archbishop Lefebvre were to believe as many of us do that Paul 6 is a false pope subverting the Church; even so, how can he assume jurisdiction, which he does not have as a non-residential Bishop, for these ordinations?
But, it will be said-is being said--that the Archbishop is a holy man and the only bishop defending the Mass. But this in no way gives him the required jurisdiction, the necessary authority. The Catholic Church has never been rules through a spiritual elite, but by authority passed down from and by those who received it from others--from the Popes, starting with St. Peter who received it from Christ Himself.
In the Catholic Church authority is not presumed. No authority, no jurisdiction, no action which requires jurisdiction. Canon 209 applies to cases in which jurisdiction is doubtful, in cases of common error, for those who are in serious need of a sacrament. It surely does not provide justification for ordinations independent of the papal office.
There seems to exist confused notions that Archbishop Lefebvre is taking a lawful stand on Canon Law against Paul 6. He has no standing whatever on Canon Law. If his Society had any approval from Paul 6 (which appears from certain Vatican correspondence not to be the case), Paul 6 can withdraw that approval at any time. Again I remind the reader that it is Archbishop Lefebvre who protests his loyalty to Paul 6 as true pope.
Paul's order to close Econe, to cease all ordinations there, has nothing in it intrinsically wrong; it is clearly within the authority of a pope to so order this closing. But if Paul be a false pope--false to his office, a heretic or apostate, invalidly elected--I still do not see where Archbishop Lefebvre gets his authority to operate a seminary, ordain young men to the priesthood, and turn them loose to minister in a strong of chapels without canonical authorization.
As already mentioned, there are good Catholics who think the Archbishop's holiness and right intentions are a sufficient mandate for his operations. This is understandable in the very simple faithful. It is quite another matter to find this notion expressed by Archbishop Lefebvre himself, page 11 of his Letter No. 9, as follows: "Therefore we must save the true Church and Peter's successor from this diabolical assault..."
Well, a bishop needs no special divine mandate to do what he lawfully can to save the true Church. In fact it is his grave obligation to do what he can in every way lawful. As to saving Peter's successor, if he means Paul 6, Paul made it quite plain in his recent consistory that he doesn't want saving by Archbishop Lefebvre or anyone else. He made it clear that he wants Econe closed, the ordinations there stopped, and the Tridentine Mass stopped also. That ws plain, straight from the horse's mouth, for all the world to hear. It is the Moderates' habit of closing their minds to this kind of plain evidence of Paul's enmity that has led them and others into this absurd position.
The truth of the matter seems to be that Archbishop Lefebvre and the other Moderates have caught themselves in a net of their own weaving. Years of double-think about Paul has ended in an absurdity, and in defiance of the Pope the Moderates right along defended. Had these Moderates remained loyal to the true popes, they would not be so confused--they would not have so deceived themselves, to put the best possible light on the matter.
For those who are disposed to heed my advice, I say follow no one in Religion who has not the right to command you. In the Catholic Church it is only the pope who has the right of command over all and each of the faithful. The rights of command of others, including all bishops, are limited.
So there is not today a true pope? God is not unaware of this, yet we may be certain that He commissions no one directly (since St. Peter) to set up an organization for dispensing the Sacraments, conferring orders, etc. The Keys were given to Peter and were passed on to his successors. There is no authority to be had from any other source.
Something has been made of the report that Paul's emissaries tried repeatedly to get the Archbishop to call off the June ordinations. This in no way serves to justify the Archbishop's refusal to desist from ordaining young men--the Archbishop's refusal to obey. Paul 6 has his own reasons for not wanting these ordinations now. And strange as it may seem, this is one time he is in the right as pope.
I say that because outwardly everything looks so good about Econe that it might be, regardless of the Archbishop's generally good intention and of those who support him, the ultimate trap. St. John of the Cross teaches that "the devil destroys the spiritual with the spiritual." He does not ordinarily offer to the high-minded base temptations, but appeals to weaknesses of character in such people.
The fact of a false pope in no way sets aside the Divine Plan for governing and sanctifying the Church's members. No bishop may say to himself, "the pope is not doing his job so I will do it."
I have before me a copy of Archbishop Lefebvre's address of 29 June, on the occasion of his recent ordinations. He tells his audience that the authorities from Rome put the new Missal into his hands, saying, "Here is the Mass that you must celebrate and that you shall celebrate henceforth in all your houses." And the Archbishop asks, "Are we wrong in obstinately wanting to keep the rite of all time? We have, of course, prayed, we have consulted, we have reflected, we have meditated to discover if it is not indeed we who are in error, or if we do not have a sufficient reason not to submit ourselves to the new rite. And in fac, the very insistence of those who were sent from Rome to ask us to change the rite makes us wonder."
But at this point it is not for Archbishop Lefebvre a question of the rite of the Mass, but of simple obedience. The Archbishop has been directed by Paul 6, whom the Archbishop upholds as true pope, to not ordain priests without the required jurisdiction and in disobedience to him who has been consistently upheld by the Archbishop as true pope. That is elementary.
At the end of his June 29 sermon Archbishop Lefebvre says this: "And that is why we are persuaded that, in maintaining these traditions, we are manifesting our love, our docility, our obedience to the Successor of Peter." Such is the double-think of our time.
Other than that last sentence and the part about the pope having no right to stop the ordinations, there is nothing in this sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre's that I need take exception to. He defends the Mass and he quotes Pope Pius IX as saying that the Pope has received the Holy Ghost, not to make new truths, but to maintain us in the faith of all time. All very true but it does not justify the Archbishop's insistence on ordaining eleven young men in defiance of the one Archbishop Lefebvre upholds as true pope. And if he should decide that Paul is a false pope, this does not, as already mentioned, give authority to ordain, to send these new priests of his out to various parts of the world, to thus save the Church. To do this is surely to set oneself up as true pope against
Paul VI.
Speaking of the Traditions, the primary trdition is obedience to Peter's successors in all that is not wrong in itself. When the papal office lacks a visible head or a true vicar of Christ there yet remains the Church's laws which all are bound to obey. And we must bear in mind that, according to excellent authorities on the papal authority, Christ
will sustain the jurisdiction of a heretical pope in commands not against the law.
Would Archbishop Lefebvre be obliged to obey if Paul VI ordered him to stop offering the Tridentine Mass? No, but not because the Archbishop is carrying on a glorious cause, the saving of the Church and the Mass, as he sees it. The Archbishop would be right in refusing to obey this order because it is not lawful. He would be in this matter uphold by the law of Quo Primum.
For what it is worth, a few sentences on my own position opposed to the counterchurch of Paul 6. I hae never attended the Novus Ordo, the so-called Mass of Paul VI. When our parish priest began to receite the loud narrative "consecration" we went elsewhere to Mass, for as long as it lasted there. As I see it we are on perfectly safe ground when we withdraw from the parishes with their heretical worship service and instructional manuals. It is when we take the initiative, join in with those who are trying to set up a substitute for a canonically authorized parish that we find ourselves in a doubtful position. One lawful initiative remains open to us, that of speaking the truth about the papal usurper and his servile bishops. For the bishops it is surely a grave sin to be silent about this man. Defense of the Faith, yes, evasion, no.
Who truly believes in the authority given to Peter will defend that authority openly against the false pope, but will scrupulously obey the Church's laws. We should also bear in mind that Christ who is the invisible Head of the Church may very well sustain the jurisdiction, as well as all lawful orders, of even a false pope. So here is my own rule, which I derive from Catholic teachings: speak out against the demolitionists, reject their works, and leave the rest to God. Avoid all who profess to have the mission of saving the Church.
From the first the "traditionalists" have cried for a Leader, and many "leaders" have come forth from all quarters. The traditionalists too have their cult of man. Here and in connection with all the foregoing is this quotation from St. Augustine's First Catechetical Instruction, which I think is pertinent to this search for the Great Leader: "Nor yet should you place your hope even in the good themselves who either go before you or accompany you on the way to God--since you ought not to place it in yourself, however much progress you have made, but in Him who by justifying both them and you makes of you such as you are. For of God you are sure, because he changes not; but of man no one can be prudently sure. But if we are to love those who are not yet just, that they may become so, how much more ardently ought they to be loved who are so already. But it is one thing to love man, another to put your trust in man; and so great is the difference that God commands the former but forbids the latter." (emphasis added)
I like to think and feel favorably about Archbishop Lefebvre, but as a Catholic I am bound by greater considerations. I have Catholic principles to guide me, at lest one of which the Archbishop appears to gloss over.
From the beginning of Montini's pontificate the Catholic conservatives and most of those who think of themselves as traditionalists have put their trust in man, the man Montini rather than in that Tradition they rather clamorously professed. Not for them the principles, laws and doctrines of the true popes, but trust in Paul VI. But now after confidence in Montini has gradually oozed out, they pursue the same tactics of evasion, putting their trust in another man, the Archbishop Lefebvre.
Not having succeeded in winning over Archbishop Lefebvre as Paul 6 would have preferred to do, the wily politician Montini makes the most of the Archbishop's own initiative to trap him. This surely is the meaning of Paul's public and prolonged castigation of Archbishop Lefebvre at the recent consistory. There he is, says Paul 6, the great traditionalist leader who defies the pope...who says that the pope has no right to order him to desist from ordaining eleven young men. There is nothing of chagrin, of defeat, in Montini's charges against Archbishop Lefebvre on this occasion. If there were he would not have made so much of it publicly. Paul cares little or nothing about the ordinations, and by making the most of the Archbishop's open defiance he has gained points among those of the Clergy who have been in a state of doubt about Paul and his counter church.
As I see it, there is only one right course of action in the present confusion, that of plain speaking about the words and works of chief demolitionist Montini. Had Archbishop Lefebvre refrained from his Econe venture, an attempt to circumvent the papal chair by providing priests and sacraments himself; had he spoken out instead, consistently and clearly, against the papal usurper, he would have won a far greater number of good priests than he has now in the immature young men he sends into the midst of wolves-wolves of the left and right, without the proper support from mature priests. I think much of this comes from listening to stuff-shirt operators of the kind we once called conservatives.
As of this writing I have received a dozen or so "cancel my subscription" notes; and several "How dare you speak against the Archbishop and his ordinations!" which emotionalism is a bad sign in itself. But for those who have kept their Catholic sense of balance, one last word: Econe is in no way a matter of conscience for those who are not alredy implicated in it. As mentioned above, the individual Catholic outside this Society has no obligation towards Archbishop Lefebvre and Econe. Personally, I intend to stand clear of Econe and all its works.
It is not a valid argument against what I am saying to point out that The Wanderer editors have spoken out against Archbishop Lefebvre. Of course the silly Wanderer (as its name implies) would get it all wrong-except that they do use the Archbishop's own stated reason, defense of the Rite of Trent, as basis for their criticism. But while rightly setting aside Wanderer fallacies, what true Catholics must bear in mind is that however selectively Paul 6 speaks the Law, it is the standing law of the Church, not the Law of Montini, that he spoke against the independent ordinations at Econe.
What the Archbishop was long ago morally bound to do, speak the truth publicly against the usurper for all to hear, he did not do. He spoke only as much as expedient to keep the confidence and support of his close followers, who re mainly concerned to get the Sacraments.
The road of false obedience was certain to end in some such fiasco. It is disturbing, though, to see many one-time uncompromising Catholics hastening to defend this indefensible move to assume the Church's fundamental authority.
W. F. STROJIE
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