Marcel Lefebvre: Why was he the only Archbishop to disagree?

[Pax_et_Caritas]

First of I’d like a source and the whole context. I’ve noticed SSPX likes to take things apart. things and take one phrase and use it out of context against people.

I didn’t get the statement from the SSPX. I either heard it, or read it, myself. I say “heard it” because it may have come from a recorded interview with the Cardinal that I listened to a few weeks ago. The interview was recorded within the past few months…

I don’t think even a perfectly done NO holds a candle to TLM.

Now that we agree on

I’d be careful calling the Pope a heretic. Read a couple of those before my eyes just glazed over. Frankly most of that is context less snippets and conjecture based on fairly vague statements. There is nothing wrong with taking someone that disagree with you and then finding a common ground and building form there.

If you notice, I deleted that part from my last post. I am not interested in pointing out any error of the Pope. That being said, the errors are extremely serious and are rooted in the “new ecclesiology” of John Paul II. It is not a matter of starting with what is agreed on and working from there to arrive at unity. The errors are more serious. They explicitly deny that the heretics need to accept the faith. They claim that a heretic (someone who knowingly rejects dogmas of the faith), is nevertheless part of the one true Church and does not need to accept all of the dogmas of the faith. In fact, they claim that the Orthodox heretics, who deny 13 infallible councils of the Church and the Primacy of the Pope, are part of the true Church. The heretical Orthodox are said to be a “sister Church”, and a “true particular Church” That is what the new ecclesiology teaches. There is a sliding scale of unity. Some “Christians” are more united to the Church of Christ, some less, but each has a certain amount of unity.

The truth of the matter is that there is only one Church and neither heretics nor schismatics are part of it. And what’s more their heresy and schism in no way affects the unity of the Church. The Church is perfectly one - with no divisions. When a group falls into heresy or schism, they separate themselves from the One True Church, while the unity of the one true Church remains intact. It is just a little smaller than it was before they separated themselves from it.

The “old ecclesiology” (what the Church has always taught and infallibly defined), has been abandoned for the new ecclesiology.

 

[LJN21]

I didn’t get the statement from the SSPX. I either heard it, or read it, myself. I say “heard it” because it may have come from a recorded interview with the Cardinal that I listened to a few weeks ago. The interview was recorded within the past few months…

You understand why I’m not likely to act that as a source Not I think your misleading anyone, just that I like to see exactly what was said and how it was phrased. In this context it is really just hearsay.

If you notice, I deleted that part from my last post. I am not interested in pointing out any error of the Pope. That being said, the errors are extremely serious and are rooted in the “new ecclesiology” of John Paul II. It is not a matter of starting with what is agreed on and working from there to arrive at unity. The errors are more serious. They explicitly deny that the heretics need to accept the faith. They claim that a heretic (someone who knowingly rejects dogmas of the faith), is nevertheless part of the one true Church and does not need to accept all of the dogmas of the faith. In fact, they claim that the Orthodox heretics, who deny 13 infallible councils of the Church and the Primacy of the Pope, are part of the true Church. The heretical Orthodox are said to be a “sister Church”, and a “true particular Church” That is what the new ecclesiology teaches. There is a sliding scale of unity. Some “Christians” are more united to the Church of Christ, some less, but each has a certain amount of unity.

Heres the problem with your statement. As you said a heretic is someone who knowingly rejects a dogma of the faith. To knowingly reject something you have to actually know what the true teaching is and teach something contrary to dogma. Someone that is not a member of the Church can not be a heretic by definition. Yes,the person (or persons) that originally broke away Church is a heretic but the people he drug down with him, not so much. The idea that some faiths have “certain amounts of unity” is not false, some faiths more or less agree with what the Church teaches in those things there is a degree of unity. Any idea that they don’t need to be converted is of course wrong.

The truth of the matter is that there is only one Church and neither heretics nor schismatics are part of it. And what’s more their heresy and schism in no way affects the unity of the Church. The Church is perfectly one - with no divisions. When a group falls into heresy or schism, they separate themselves from the One True Church, while the unity of the one true Church remains intact. It is just a little smaller than it was before they separated themselves from it.

I couldn’t agree more.

The “old ecclesiology” (what the Church has always taught and infallibly defined), has been abandoned for the new ecclesiology.

I don’t think, when you get right down too the original intent, they disagree as much as you think they do. The problem like everything out of V2 it has been completely subverted in to modernist nonsense.

 

[ProVobis]

That statement doesn’t make since. So if your could only get excommunicated for disobedience (which of course isn’t the only way) there would be MORE excommunications?

You mean sense. I mean a ton disobey but don’t get excommunicated. How many bishops obedied Pope John Paul’s DECREE to make the Latin Mass wide and generous, for example?

The Anglican Church is not protected by the Holy Spirit obviously, the example does not apply.

I didn’t realize you were talking about the Holy Spirit. (Although you may want to try to pursuade the ecumenists that the Holy Spirit is not there with the Anglicans. Good luck.)

I was making a point about bishops disobeying their recognized leaders and how outsiders might look at us. But never mind, I don’t want to belabor the point.

He and then Cardinal Ratzinger signed it on May 5th. Did our future Pope who has done so much for TLM then lie?

Nice try. Who said anything about lying? Maybe just a lack of proper communication? Maybe too much meddling by outsiders?

I’m no traditionalist and I didn’t know Lefebrve nor any TLM movement around that time but I do recognize malicious gossip when I hear it. And this is red hot gossip if not slander. I find myself increasingly guilty for even participating, so I’m outa this thread.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

Heres the problem with your statement. As you said a heretic is someone who knowingly rejects a dogma of the faith. To knowingly reject something you have to actually know what the true teaching is and teach something contrary to dogma. Someone that is not a member of the Church can not be a heretic by definition. Yes,the person (or persons) that originally broke away Church is a heretic but the people he drug down with him, not so much.

You really need to avoid reading modern “theology”. I don’t want to insult you, but what you wrote above is completely non-sense. I think you may attend an FSSP Church; and if so, that is great. Soon, hopefully, any modernist garbage you have inadvertenly absorbed will be purged.

Let’s take a typlical American Protestant, for example. Every single one of them is a heretic objectively. They belong to a heretical sect, and therefore they are objetively heretics.

Subjectively (on the level of guilt), they are heretics when they knowingly reject a dogma of the faith. The subjective level (the level of guilt) is the area for God. We are unable to judge on that level since we cannot read hearts.

But to say (as many do today), that a Protestant is not a heretic simply because they did not personally leave the Catholic Church is complete non-sene. Even to say that a Protestant is not subjectively guilty of heresy is non sense. There may well be (and probably are) Protestants who are not formal heretics, but we are unable to know this, unless we can read hearts.

In the following quote from St. Athanasius, he

St. Alphonsus: “We were so fortunate to be born in the bosom of the Roman Church, in Christian and Catholic kingdoms, a grace that has not been granted to the greater part of men, who are born among idolaters, Mohammedans, or heretics. …] How thankful we ought to be, then, to Jesus Christ for the gift of faith! What would have become of us if we had been born in Asia, in Africa, in America, or in the midsts of heretics and schismatics? He who does not believe is lost. He who does not believe shall be condemned. And thus, probably, we also would have been lost”.

A member of a heretical sect who is not subjectively guilty of heresy is a rare exception to the rule.

St. Alphonsus: "The greater number of men still say to God: Lord we will not serve Thee; we would rather be slaves of the devil, and condemned to Hell, than be Thy servants. Alas! The greatest number, my Jesus - we may say nearly all - not only do not love Thee, but offend Thee and despise **Thee. How many countries there are in which there are scarcely any Catholics, and all the rest either infidels or heretics! And all of them are certainly on the way to being lost. **

Notice, he is referring to people who were born in a land of heretics, with nscarecely any Catholics; yet he does not hesitate to say they are “certainly” on their way to being lost.

The idea that some faiths have “certain amounts of unity” is not false, some faiths more or less agree with what the Church teaches in those things there is a degree of unity.

But it doesn’t matter if this or that false religion agrees with us on some points. Even Satanists agree with on on some points of doctrine.

The Church is one, and the unity is supernatural. Supernatural unity does not allow for degrees. Supernatural unity is black or white. Either unity exists, or it does not. It is the same with the state of grace. Either a person is in the state of grace, or they are not. A person may not have committed every mortal sin, and a Protestant may not have rejected every dogma, but the fact that they do reject some dogmas means there is no supernatural unity at all.

There can be, what would appear to be, “gray areas” on an individual case by case basis, but not on the corporate level. But even the individual cases, which seem gray on the surface, are actually not gray when the fine details are explained, as Pope Pius X does in his catechism.

 

[LJN21]

Wow… I didn’t know the Baltimore Catechism is modern theology.
BC No 2:

Question 167: What do we mean when we say, “there is no Salvation out side of the Church.”

When we say, “Outside the church there is no salvation,” we mean that Christ made the Catholic Church a necessary means of salvation and commanded all to enter it, so that a person must be connect with the Church in some way to be saved.

No one can be saved except by bing united to the Catholic Church. It is like Noe’s Ark which saved men form the flood. Only through Christ and His Mystical Body can men be saved. They must be either in the ark of the Church or at least hanging on to the ropes which trail form its sides.

168: How can persons who are not members of the Catholic church be saved?

Persons who are not members of the Catholic Church can be saved if, through no fault of their own they do not know that the Catholic Church is the true Church, but they love God and try to do His will, for in this way they are connected with the Church by desire.

Through this whole thread you’ve made sure to define well known terms, now I’d thank you to stop talking down and insulting me. Your assumption of what I read is utterly false.

Now we can argue reality of invisible ignorance, in todays world, all day long, but that is not the point of this thread.

 

[LJN21]

If you want the Catechism of St. Pius X

29 Q. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved?
A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God’s will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation

 

[PrayforMallory]

There is zero chance that history will condemn Archbishop Lefebvre. He preserved the traditional Mass, and even if he was wrong, he thought he was preserving the faith as it had been handed down to him. He was right at least about the Mass not being abrogated, and I’m sorry, SSPX priests teach Humanae Vitae, and virtually every other Orthodox moral teaching.

Given the fact that he was condemned in an age in which a good number of parish priests don’t teach basic Catholic morality, all these polemics won’t amount to a hill of beans.

The Archbishop of San Francisco gave communion to two transvestite nuns in a drag habit. Nothing happened to him. Canon Law doesn’t really mean a whole lot to me, given the things that go on.

History is not going to look kindly on those opposed to Lefebvre. Teachings on religious liberty aren’t going to be this great issue, when we look back and see photos of Wiccan priestesses presiding over the Eucharist.

Then seeing as how the excommunications are bound to be lifted, and the SSPX regularized, just like Campos, just like the Transalpine Redemptorists, it’s common sense.All these complaints about the SSPX. Read something that comes out of Papa Stronsay, who are in full communion with the Supreme Pontiff, and tell me the SSPX are outside the Church.

This statement was made by a man in perfect communion with Rome:

“Now, 37 years after the Novus Ordo’s arrival on 30 November, 1969, when 98% of the entire world’s churches have had their altars pulled down and their insides gutted; when countless billions of dollars have been spent worldwide on Vatican II revamping precisely so that the priest could “face the people,” we are told that in the Pope’s mind the whole facing the people exercise was built on bad scholarship and bad theology! This has been a diabolical disorientation beyond the make of man alone: years of priests facing the people like television announcers, robbing the Mass of its sense of holiness and causing thereby countless Catholics to abandon their faith; and probably lose their souls! But there is a sign of hope when the Pope sees it, with God’s grace he can change it.”

There’s going to be a different climate soon.

 

[Pax_et_Caritas]

Wow… I didn’t know the Baltimore Catechism is modern theology.

The Baltimore Catechism, and the quote you gave from the Catechism of Pius X, is what I was referring to when I said this:
Pax et Caritas:

There can be, what would appear to be, “gray areas” on an individual case by case basis, but not on the corporate level. But even the individual cases, which seem gray on the surface, are actually not gray when the fine details are explained, as Pope Pius X does in his catechism.

LJN21:

Through this whole thread you’ve made sure to define well known terms, now I’d thank you to stop talking down and insulting me.

You shouldn’t have been insulted. I was simply pointing out that you have inadvertently absorbed some modernist theology. That is not an insult in this day and time since we are surrounded by it. For all I know, I may have absorbed some modernist theology myself.

Rather than being insulted, you should try to find out if I was correct. My “criticism” was actually an opportunity for you to refine your understanding on that point theology and purge out any modernist thinking.

The modern error in your thinking was expressed when you said that only the person who actually broke away from the Church is a heretic, and not those who later follow his error.