Taken from Open letter to confused Catholics by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 1986 edition, pages 134 to141. Unedited. Indiscipline is everywhere in the Church. Committees of priests send demands to their bishops, bishops disregard pontifical exhortations, even the recommendations and decisions of the Council are not respected and yet one never hears uttered the word "disobedience", except as applied to Catholics who wish to remain faithful to Tradition and just simply keep the Faith. Obedience is a serious matter; to remain united to the Church's Magisterium and particularly to the Supreme Pontiff is one of the conditions of salvation. We are deeply aware of this and nobody is more attached to the present reigning successor of Peter, or has been more attached to his predecessors, than we are. I am speaking here of myself and of the many faithful driven out of the churches, and also of the priests who are obliged to celebrate Mass in barns as in the French Revolution, and to organise alternative catechism classes in town and country. We are attached to the Pope for as long as he echoes the apostolic traditions and the teachings of all his predecessors. It is the very definition of the successor of Peter that he is the keeper of this deposit. Pius IX teaches us in Pastor Aeternus: "The Holy Spirit has not in fact been promised to the successors of Peter to permit them to proclaim new doctrine according to His revelations, but to keep strictly and to expound faithfully, with His help, the revelations transmitted by the Apostles, in other words the Deposit of Faith". The authority delegated by Our Lord to the Pope, the Bishops and the priesthood in general is for the service of faith. To make use of law, institutions and authority to annihilate the Catholic Faith and no longer to transmit life, is to practise spiritual abortion or contraception. This is why we are submissive and ready to accept everything that is in conformity with our Catholic Faith, as it has been taught for two thousand years, but we reject everything that is opposed to it. For the fact is that a grave problem confronted the conscience and the faith of all Catholics during the Pontificate of Paul VI. How could a Pope, true successor of Peter, assured of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, preside over the most vast and extensive destruction of the Church in her history within so short a space of time, something that no heresiarch has ever succeeded in doing? One day this question will have to be answered. continued......PART 2 “Some are prepared to sacrifice the fight for the faith by saying: ‘Let us first re-enter the Church! by ServusSpiritusSancti Archbishop Lefebvre St. Augustine Fathers of the Church
They will put you out of the synagogues . . . Augustine, Tr, 93, 2 continued: But what harm was it that the Apostles should be put out of the Synagogues of the Jews; for were they not about to cut themselves off from them even if no one should put them out of them? But by this He wished to warn them that the Jews would not receive Christ, Whom they themselves would not abandon. For as there was no other people of God than this seed of Abraham, if they should acknowledge Christ, we should not have here the Churches of Christ, there the Synagogues of the Jews. But since they would not, what is left but that continuing apart from Christ they should put out of the Synagogues those who would not abandon Christ? And then, after He had said this to them, He added: Yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God. These words He added as though to console those who would be driven out from the Synagogues. Would it be that this sundering from the Synagogues would so trouble them that they would prefer to die rather than linger on in this life outside the congregations of the Jews? Be it far from us to think they should be so troubled who sought, not the glory of men, but the glory of God. This then is the meaning of the words, They will put you out of the Synagogues: Have no fear of this isolation. Though cut off from their congregations, you shall bring together so many in My Name, that they, in fear lest the Temple and the mysteries of the Old Law be forsaken, shall kill you, and think that in doing so they render a service to God; having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Rom. x. 2). Chrysostom: Then He added for their consolation: And these things will they do to you; because they have not known the Father, nor me ... As if to say: For your consolation it is enough that you suffer these things for My Father and Me. Augustine, Tr. 93: Lest however these evils, which were however speedily to pass away, should come of a sudden upon souls which were unaware and unprepared, He for this reason foretells them when He goes on to say: But these things I have told you, that when the hour cometh . . . Augustine, Tr. 94 in John: But the other three Evangelists show that He foretold these things before the time of the Supper; whereas, according to John, it was when this was over that He spoke of them. Perhaps the question is answered in this way: that they also relate that He was close to His Passion when He spoke of these things. Not, therefore, from the beginning, when He was with them. But Matthew records that these things were foretold, not alone on the eve of the Passion, but from the beginning (Mt. x. 17). .........But now that He was about to leave them, it was necessary that He should tell them that He was to come by Whose means it would be that charity would be poured out into their hearts, and they would with confidence preach the Word of God. |
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