Pope Paul VI, now canonized - whom many Vaticanistas called Hamlet-like in his tortured decision-making and ambiguity, and had reportedly worried John XXIII himself because
the latter thought the Archbishop of Milan was 'a bit too Hamlet-like' - is revealed in the following episode as the exact opposite when it came to dealing with Mons. Marcel Lefebvre.
I feel terrible about the intransigence he demonstrated towards Lefebvre - above all, the simple demand Lefebvre made for the FSSPX to be treated in the spirit of pluralism that
other Catholic entities or groupings were being treated, i.e., tolerated (including frankly dissident episcopates like those of Germany and the Netherlands). But then, Lefebvre
apparently never agreed either to retract criticisms he had made of Vatican II and the pope, as Paul VI demanded. (I do believe, however, that even if Lefebvre had made specific
retractions, that the pope would never have allowed the FSSPX to go on training priests in the traditional way, thus taking away the society's raison d'etre.)
Whatever Montini's faults may have been, at least he did have the courage to confront a critic and denounce him in the harshest way possible - calling him an anti-pope to his face.
A courage completely lacking from the reigning pope who snipes at his opponents without naming names from a very safe distance, shielded from them by a Praetorian-guard phalanx
of sycophants and apologists who do all the dirty work and heavy lifting.
The 'September 11' of Paul VI and Mons. Lefebvre
Translated from
November 7, 2018
- “You are in a terrible position – you are an anti-Pope!”
- “That’s not true. I seek only to form priests according to the faith and in the faith”.
Let us imagine the scene. On the one hand, Pope Paul VI, 79, he who had led Vatican-II towards its conclusion. On the other hand, Mons. Marcel Lefebvre, 71, the archbishop [and former African missionary] who had refused to accept Vatican II (although he was a participant) and went on to found the Fraternal Society of St. Pius X (FSSPX).
The confrontation took place at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. The date: Sept. 11, 1976. The two old men seemed divided on everything, but both on them felt each was acting in the service of Holy Mother Church. They sought to come to an agreement. Which would never come.
On July 22, 1976, the Vatican imposed the grave penalty of suspension
a divinis [prohibition from exercising his priestly functions] on Mons. Lefebvre as a consequence of priestly ordinations he had carried out in Econe, Switzerland, headquarters of the FSSPX. But Lefebvre who was strenuously opposed to the reforms that had been carried out in the name of Vatican II would not give up.
“We are with a Church that is two thousand years old, not with a 12-year-old ‘new church’, the conciliar church,” he said in a homily on August 22, Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, citing the letter in which Mons. Giovanni Benelli, then Deputy Secretary of State for Internal Affairs (‘Sostituto’), had asked for his obedience to the Vatican.
He coninued:
“I do not recognize this ‘concliar church. I only know and recognize the Catholic Church. So we must remain firm in our position. In the name of our faith, we must accept anything, any violation, even if they scorn us, even if they excommunicate us, even if they inflict penalties, even if they persecute us”.
The moment was dramatic. Some commentators did not hesitate to speak of an imminent schism, since the margins for maneuvering on both sides now seemed very much reduced.
Nonetheless it was in that context that the meeting between Paul VI and Lefebvre took place – that conversation in Castel Gandolfo in September 11, 1976 of which now, thanks to the book
La barca di Paolo (Paul’s barque) by Fr. Leonardo Sapienza, we have a complete transcript – eight typewritten pages, complete with the time of the encounter (from 10:27 to 11:05), and written by an exceptional witness, the same Mons. Benelli who a few months later would become Archbishop of Florence and a cardinal.
[He was in the same ‘class’ of five cardinals including Joseph Ratzinger, who were Paul VI’s last cardinal appointees.]
Conducted in Italian and French, in the presence of one other than Benelli – namely Fr. Pasquale Maccho, Paul VI’s private secretary – the conversation opened with what Lefebvre, describing it later to some of his seminarians, described as ‘a tempest’.
The pope and the French bishop had known each other for some time, and in the past, as Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Montini had expressed his praise many times for Lefebvre [……]. They also met again during the preparatory phase for Vatican II.
But on that day in September 1962, Paul VI did not intend to make any concessions. He started out by saying:
“You have condemned me – syaing I am a modernist, a protestant. That is unacceptable. You have behaved badly!... I expected to meet with a brother, a son, a friend… Unfortunately, the position you have taken is that of an anti-pope. You have been intemperate in your words, your acts, your behavior”.
He went on to say that what was at stake was not his person but the figure of the pope:
“You have judged the pope unfaithful to the Faith of which he is the supreme guarantor. Perhaps this is the first time this has happened in history. You have told the whole world that the pope does not have the faith, that he does not believe, that he is a modernist, etc. Yes, I ought to be humble, but you are in a terrible position, You have been committing acts of extreme gravity before the whole world.”
Monsignor Lefebvre replied in softer tones but with the same firmness in substance. While admitting that perhaps some of his words may have been inopportune, he explained that
it was never his intention to attack the pope and that his initiatives were simply his reponse to the demands made of him by his followers who only wish to be faithful to the Church as it always was:
“It is not I who wished to create a movement. It is those persons lacerated by their sorrow at some situations after Vatican II that they cannot accept. I do not consider myself a leader of the traditionalists. I am a bishop who, lacerated with pain myself at what is happening, have been seeking to form priests as the Church has done before Vatican II. I am behaving exactly as I did before Vatican II. But I do not understand why all of a sudden I am being condemned for training priests in obedience to the healthy Tradition of the Holy Church”.
At this point, Paul VI asks Mons. Lefebvre to continue with his explanation, which he does:
“Many priests and faithful think it is difficult to accept the tendencies made evident after the Council, especially on liturgy, religious freedom, relations between the Church and Catholic states and relations of the Church with Protestants. They do not see how what is now being affirmed conforms to the healthy Tradition of the Church. I repeat – it is not just I who think this. There are so many people who do – people who get hold of me, and urge me, sometimes against my own will, not to yield. I do not know what to do. All I seek is to form priests according to the faith and in the faith. When I look at other seminaries, I suffer terribly – I find unimaginable situations. Moreover, priests who wear cassocks these days are condemned and scorned by their bishops, who instead appreciate those who lead a secular life and behave like men of the world”.
[One must remember that at this point, Lefebvre is talking about the situation he is experiencing in France and Switzerland.]
Paul VI concedes that the Council has opened the way to ‘abuses’ and explains that he is working to eliminate them, but he reprimands Mons. Lefebvre for not trying to understand the reasoning of the pope who is seeking to assure loyalty to Tradition in the Church while at the same time, responding to ‘new demands’. [Is that at all possible? In this respect, Bergoglio is at least honest: to respond to new demands, he will not let Tradition get in the way because it means nothing to him.]
“We are the first to deplore the excesses. We are the first and the most concerned to find a remedy. But this remedy cannot be found in a challenge to the authority of the Church, as I have written to you repeatedly. But you have not taken my words into consideration”.
Mons. Lefebvre replies that
the battle he has undertaken is in defense of the faith, whereas what one reads in some of the Vatican II texts is contrary to what previous popes have said, and therefore unacceptable.
The pope said that
specific arguments could not be discussed in an audience, but that which is being discussed now was “your attitude against the Council”. At this point, the confrontation takes on the character of a classic dialog between two deaf men.
Monsignor Lefebvre: «I am not against the Council, but against some of its actions.”
Paul VI:
“If you are not against the Council, then you must adhere to it – and all its documents”.
Mons. Lefebvre:
“One must choose between what the Council says and what your predecessors have said”.
Paul VI: “I have said that I have taken note of your objections”.
At this point, Lefbevre, taking the opportunity to address the pope directly on something concfrete, expresses a ‘prayer’ in behalf of all the faithful who do not wish to distance themselves from Tradition:
“Would it not be possible for bishops to reserve a chapel in their churches where people can pray as they did before Vatican II? Today, everything is allowed to everyone. Why can’t we be allowed something too?”
The pope replies:
“We are a community. We cannot allow autonomous behavior to various people”.
Lefbevre:
“But the Council speaks of pluralism and accepts it. We only ask that this principle be applied to us. If Your Holiness would simply do this, everything would be resolved. There will be an increase in vocations – especially among those who aspire to the priesthood but wish to be formed in genuine piety.
Your Holiness has in your hands the solution to the problem that torments so many Catholics in the present situation. As far as I am concerned, I am ready to do anything for the good of the Church:
- that someone from the Congregation for the religious be assigned to supervise my seminaries;
- that I will stop giving lectures and conferences; and
- I will stay put in my seminary. I promise I shall never go out again.
- We can have agreements with the dioesan bishops to place our seminarians in the service of the diocese.
- Eventually, a Vatican commission to our seminary could be appointed, in agreement with Mons. Adam [Nestor Adam, at the time Bishop of Sion in whose diocese the FSSPX seminary in Econe is located].
Paul VI tells Lefebvre that Mons Adam
“came to speak to me in the name of the Swiss bishops’ conference, to tell me that he could no longer tolrate your activities. What should I do?... Try to get back in line. How can you consider yourself in communion with Us, when you take positions publicly accusing us of infidelity and wanting to destroy the Church?”
“I never had the intention…” Lefebvre began, but Paul VI cut him off.
“You have said so and you have written so. That I am a modernist Pope. That in applying what Vatican II taught, I would be betraying the Church. You understand that if that were so, then I should resign, and ask you to take my place in governing the Church.”
Lefebvre:
Nonethless there is a crisis in the Church.
Paul VI:
Of which I am suffering profoundly. But you have contributed to aggravate it, with your solemn disobedience, with your open challenge against the pope.
Lefbevre:
I am not being judged as I ought to be.
Paul VI:
Canon law judges you. Are you aware of the scandal and the bad things you have done to the Church? Are you aware of that? Do you feel you can go before God this way? Why don’t you diagnose the situation, then examine your conscience, and then ask God, what should I do?
Lefebvre:
I think that simply by opening up a little the spectrum of opportunity for some faithful to to do today what they did in the past would adjust everything. This would be an immediate solution.
As I said, I am not the leader of a movement. I am ready to stay put from here on in my seminary. People will remain in touch with my priests and they will continue to be edified in their faith. My priests are young men who have the sense of the Church – they are respected on the streets, in the metro, everywhere. Other priests no longer wear the cassock, they no longer hear confessions, they probably don’t even pray anymore. But some faithful have chosen and say [of FSSPX priests], ‘These are the priests we want’…. Does the pope know that in France, there are at least 14 Canons used for the Eucharistic Prayer?
The pope:
Not just 14 but hundreds! There are abuses. But the Council has brought forth much that is good. I do not wish to justify everything. As I said, I am trying to correct wherever it is necessary.
But at the same time, it is the duty of Catholics to recognize that there are signs, thanks to the Council, of a vigorous spiritual renewal among the young, and an increase in the sense of responsibility among the faithful, priests and bishops.
[Really? What wishful thinking! Yet this was 1976, four years after this very pope had lamented that the fumes of Satan had somehow slipped into the Church!]
Lefebvre:
“I have not said that everything is negative. I too wish to contribute to the edification of the Church.
Paul VI:
“But you do not contribute to such edification by your behavior. Are you aware of what you are doing? Are you aware that you are directly going against the Church, the Pope and the Vatican Council? How can you arrogate the right to judge a Council? [CANON 212!!!!] A council, after all, whose documents were, in large part, signed even by you.
Let us pray and reflect, subordinating everything to Chirst and his Church. Even I will reflect. I accept your reproaches with humility. I am nearing the end of my life. Your severity provides me with an occasion for reflection… I am sure that you too will reflect. You know that I had great esteem for you, that I recognized all your merits, that even at the Council, we agreed on many points…
Lefebvre: That is true.
The pope concluded:
“You understand that I cannot allow, not even for reasons I shall call personal, that you will be found to have caused a schism. Make a public declaration to retract your recent statements and behavior, of which the whole world has taken note, that these are acts committed not to edify the Church but to divide her and cause her harm… We must find unity in prayer and reflection”.
[I frankly do not understand Paul VI's rationale in his relentless intransigence towards Lefebvre. Surely, to take just the most obvious example, the dissidents who attacked him mercilessly for Humanae Vitae did far worse to 'divide the church and cause her much harm'.]
The audience ended, and Mons Benelli makes the notation that “The Holy Father asked Mons Lefebvre to recite with him the Pater Noster, an Ave Maria, and Veni Sancte Spiritus”.
There would be no other meetings after that.
On September 14, interviewed on French TV, Mons. Lefebvre sounded confident: “The ice has been broken – a new climate is setting in”. And two days later, he wrote the pope to thank him for the audience:
“A common point unites us: the ardent desire to see an end to all the abuses that are disfiguring the Church”. [Paul VI had less than a year to live at that point– and some Vaticanista can probably review what he did in the next 11 months before he died to curb such abuses and how succesful he was or not. The fact is he hardly did anything to curb liturgical abuses made possible by the Novus Ordo he decreed, nor could he do anything about the fact that practically all Catholic women in the Western world simply ignored what he taught in Humanae Vitae, and worse vis-a-vis the FSSPX, he presided over the greatest exodus of priests who left the Church in tens of thousands in order to get married.
But there was to be no easing up. On October 11, the pope replied:
“You write as if you have forgotten the scandalous words and actions against ecclesial communion that you have never retracted. You do not even show repentance for that which led to your suspension a divinis. You do not explicitly express your adherence to the authority of Vatican II and of the Holy See – which is the essence of the problem – and carry on with your own work which legitimate authority has expressly asked you to stop”.
As Fr Christian Thouvenot writes in
La Tradizione Cattolica (no. 2, 2018, pag. 33), Fr. Sapienza’s book now gives us two sources on the September 11, 1976 meeting. The first had been the account that Mons. Lefebvre himself made to his seminarians in Econe in two lectures which were tape-recorded, which was the basis for the reconstruction made by Mons. Tissier de Mallerais [one of the four bishops consecrated by Lefebvre] in his book
Marcel Lefebvre. Une vie. (Marcel Lefebre: a life).
The transcript presented by Benelli, says Thouvenot, mirrors Lefebvre’s accounts in its essential elements, but with one difference.
Benelli’s transcript does not make any mention at all of the reproach which, Lefebvre claims, Paul VI made for a supposed oath against the pope that seminarians at Econe were allegedly made to swear.
Here is what Lefebvre's account:
Paul VI: You do not have the right to oppose the Council. You are a scandal to the Church. You are destroying it. It is!terrible. You are causing Christians to rise up against the Pope and against the Council! Don’t you feel anything in your conscience that condemns you for this?
Lefbevre: Absolutely none.
Paul VI: Then you are without a conscience.
Lefebvre: I am conscious of continuing in the Church and of forming good priests…
Paul VI: That’s not true. You form priests who are against the pope. You make them sign an oath against the pope.
Lefebvre: Me? How is it possible, Holy Father, that you could accuse me of such a thing! To make anyone sign an oath against the pope! Could you show me a copy of this supposed oath?
Paul VI: You have condemned the pope. Now you give me orders? What should I do? Must I resign so you can take my place?
According to Lefebvre, the Pope appeared stunned when he denied that Econe seminarians were made to take this oath:
“He seemed truly convinced that the information was true – it was probably given to him by Cardinal Villot”. [A Frenchman, who was then Secretary of State.]
In any case, that conversation on September 11, 1976, brought no results. Paul VI hoped for a public declaration by Lefebvre retracting his statements against the Council, while Lefebvre hoped for a papal gesture towards Catholic ‘traditionalists’. Neither got what he wanted.
The episode certainly gives us an eye-opening picture of Paul VI none of us probably ever imagined!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 09/11/2018 00:40]