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A short history of
the SSPX
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A presentation given by Fr.
Ramon Angles in Kansas City, MO, on the 25th Anniversary of the founding
of the SSPX and reprinted from the January 1996 issue of The
Angelus.
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Part 1
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| The history of the Society of St. Pius X
begins, of course, in the mind of God. But do not believe that
its temporal origin is to be found solely at the time of the
post-conciliar crisis. The Society of St.
Pius X was made possible by the providential foresight of an
extraordinary man, Fr. Le Floch, superior of the French Seminary in
Rome, who in the 1920’s formed a group of future prelates and priests
who, having been warned by him of the dangers of the Modernist
infiltration in the Church, remained faithfully attached to her
traditions in
the neo-Protestant Revolution. Fr. Le Floch announced in 1926: |
Marcel Lefebvre with fellow seminarians
at the French Seminary in Rome in the
1920's: bottom row,
second from the right |
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The heresy which is now being
born will become the most dangerous of all; the exaggeration of the respect
due to the pope and the illegitimate extension of his infallibility.
A grateful
Archbishop Lefebvre often spoke of his great teacher, and we will see how in
this historical recollection appear again and again figures of ecclesiastics
close to the Society of St. Pius X who studied with our founder under the
exemplary guide and example of Fr. Le Floch.
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Archbishop Lefebvre with
Marcel Pedroni, one of
the businessmen who helped
to buy the chapel of Econe |
1968
April
11, 1968, Maundy Thursday. In the little Swiss village of Saxon, Alfonse Pedroni is in the town’s cafe. He hears a pompous business man
bragging that in a few months he will be able to dynamite the chapel and
old farm of Econe. The contract is going to be signed shortly. Before
the day is over, Alfonse and Marcel Pedroni and their friends, Gratien
Rausis, Roger Lovey and Guy Genoud, decide to buy the property, once
owned by the Canons of St. Bernard, and containing the shrine of Our
Lady of the Fields. They visit Bishop Adam of Sion to let him know of
their intentions. |
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The bishop
congratulates them but says that the Church is in crisis of
vocations and there is no hope for Econe to be saved and
used as they would like as a house of formation. During the week
that follows, these Catholic gentlemen learn that the
businessman intends to build in Econe a complex of nightclub,
restaurant and motel.
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| On May 31st, Feast of the Queenship of Mary,
the canons sell Econe, not to the disappointed developer but to
Alphonse and his friends, who have obtained an emergency loan
from the bank. They are happy, but they do not know exactly what
they are going to do with the property they have saved from
desecration.
Also in 1968, the General Chapter
of the Fathers of the Holy Ghost revises its Constitutions in the spirit of the
Council. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Superior General, protests before the
Sacred Congregation of Religious in Rome and he is invited to take a break and
to go on vacation. He presents his resignation and retires as chaplain to a
convent in Rome. |
The former residence of the Canons of St. Bernard, as it
appeared when it was
given to the SSPX. In the
background
can be seen the magnificent Swiss Alps |
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In May 1968, in the
French Seminary of Rome, the Communist flag hangs from the main balcony in
support of the revolutionary students in Paris. A minuscule group of
seminarians, still dressed in their cassocks and being shunned by the rest of
their comrades and teachers, turn for help to Archbishop Lefebvre. He directs
them to the still conservative University of Fribourg in Switzerland, encouraged
by the Abbot of Hauterive and the Dominican theologian, Fr. Philippe. The
Archbishop told us about this early endeavor:
I said to
these gentlemen that wanted to force me to do something for the seminarians,
asking me to take care of them personally, "I’m going to see Bishop Charriere; if he tells me,
'go ahead,' then I will see in it a sign of
the will of God." I said this because I really didn’t want to; I felt
old and I was sure that I could not undertake such a work. When you are 65
years old you do not undertake a work like the one of the Society. Had
somebody told me the number of priests and what the Society would be today I
would just have smiled sweetly. So I didn’t want to, but Bishop Charriere
insisted, "Il faut, il faut, you must, you must; faites, faites, do
it, do it! Do something, rent a house, don’t abandon these seminarians. You
know what’s going on in the Church. We need absolutely to keep the good
traditions." This was the sign. The Society is
therefore not a personal work; it would never have been blessed by God as it
has been. It was definitely a work of God.
1970
And then, as a
supplementary proof that the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg wanted us
to exist, on November 1, 1970, he approves and confirms the
constitutions and proceeds to the canonical foundation of the International
Priestly Society of St. Pius X in his diocese. (See The Angelus, November
1995)
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Archbishop
Lefebvre moved his seminarians from the Don Bosco
House to the St.
Pius X House in Fribourg, which is pictured above |
Meanwhile, the
Swiss laymen offer the property of Econe to Archbishop
Lefebvre via a local parish priest, Fr. Bonvin, confrere of the
Archbishop in the French Seminary at Rome. The seminarians leave the
rented 12 rooms of the Don Bosco House in Fribourg and in September
1970, the first year starts at Econe with the warm approval of Bishop
Adam of Sion.
1971 - 1976 |
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The Archbishop expected to wait a
long time before the second canonical step, the approval of Rome, was effected.
Only 4 months elapse until February 18, 1971, when Cardinal Wright, prefect
for the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy,
officially approves and encourages
the Society. The Roman document recognizes the Society’s international character
and the fact that many bishops from the world praise and approve it. The
cardinal is happy that the Society will contribute to the distribution of the
Catholic clergy in the world.
Much to the surprise of our
founder, his small work of faith receives a further encouragement. When a few
priests from the outside wish to join him in the Society’s work, the Archbishop
submits the case to Rome, and the Roman Curia, anticipating his desires,
detaches totally these priests from their bishops and even from their religious
orders to make them depend exclusively from the Society of St. Pius X. This
official act of Rome recognizes the right of the Society of St. Pius X to
incardinate
its members.
In the vicissitudes
of the years to come the Modernist Rome will publicly disapprove our Society,
its fruits, and its spirit. It matters little when we know that the Rome
faithful to tradition approved the Society and sent it in official mission to
maintain the Catholic priesthood. Ultimately, this mandate of the Church
constitutes the main reason and necessity for the episcopal consecrations of
1988.
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| On April 3,
1969, the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum
presented a new order of the Mass. Archbishop Lefebvre gathered together a
group of 12 theologians who wrote under his direction,
A Short
Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae often called the Ottaviani
Intervention. Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci wrote indeed an
introduction and presented the study to Paul VI. Since no response came
from the Vatican, the Archbishop announces to his small group of
seminarians, June 10, 1971, that he refuses to accept this new
protestantized liturgy: |
Archbishop Bugnini,
architect
of the New Mass |
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How can I agree to
abandon the Mass of all ages or to admit to place it at the same level
as the Novus Ordo, created by Annibal Bugnini, with the participation
of Protestants to make of it an equivocal supper that eliminates
totally the Offertory, and touches the very words of the Consecration.
In 1971, 24
candidates enter the seminary of Econe. 32 more will join them
in October 1972. But during the Christmas vacation, trouble starts. The
French bishops, eager accomplices of the Modernist conspirators, are
watching closely every step of the expansion of the young Society.
Cardinal Lefebvre, his cousin, had already warned the Archbishop "the
French episcopate will never forgive you for what you did in the
Council." Jealous and worried by the unexpected success, they
start a campaign of discredit. The Archbishop knew about those
jealousies and he had already proposed Cardinal Marty to meet the
bishops at the coming episcopal conference at Lourdes to explain to them
the situation of Econe. The cardinal insisted that there was going to
be no question of Econe at this meeting. But the episcopal conference
in Lourdes labels Econe as "the wildcat seminary," as
if they didn’t know that its canonical situation was perfectly regular
and that the seminary did not depend on their jurisdiction.
In 1973, an ephemeral
pre-seminary is opened in Fribourg, but only for a few months, to be closed
because of the worsening conditions in the university.
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It is probably at this point that
Cardinal Villot persuades Paul VI
to
believe that our seminarians must take an oath against the pope. Villot will say to Cardinal Etchegaray who repeated it widely, "In
six months Econe will not exist."
November 11, 1974:
After breakfast, the Archbishop assembles the community to
announce the arrival the same day of two apostolic visitors from
Rome. They speak to the seminarians and professors, maintaining
scandalous opinions such as: the ordination of married men will
soon be a normal thing, truth changes with the times, and the
traditional conception of the Resurrection of our Lord is open to
discussion. These remarks prompt Archbishop Lefebvre to
write his famous
Declaration
of November 21st. While Paul VI
speaks openly about the
auto-demolition of the Church, Archbishop Lefebvre proclaims his
adhesion to the eternal Rome and his refusal of the
neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant Rome of Vatican II:
To insure our salvation the only attitude of fidelity to
the Church and to Catholic doctrine is a categorical refusal
to accept the Reformation. We will pursue our work of the
formation of priests under the star of the age-old magisterium
in the conviction that we can thus do no greater service to
the Church, to the pope, and to future generations.
1975
starts with a large-scale press campaign against the Archbishop.
Vandalism thickens the atmosphere around the seminary; graffiti,
nocturnal phone calls, shooting of the windows, night
trespassing. On February 13th, 3 cardinals interrogate
Archbishop Lefebvre, and one of them, French Cardinal Garrone,
calls him "a fool." Against the provisions of
canon law, the Society is invalidly suppressed May 6,
1975.
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French Cardinal Villot, forces Cardinal Staffa to refuse the
Archbishop’s rightful canonical appeal to the Supreme
Apostolic Signature, the higher instance tribunal in the
Church. The Secretary of State writes all the
bishops of the world, asking them to refuse
incardination to the members of the Society.
The trap is now set: Without incardination there will be
no priestly work, and since the Society is supposedly
suppressed Archbishop Lefebvre can no longer ordain
priests for our institute. He answers this illegal
condemnation with a pilgrimage of the whole Society to
gain the indulgences of the Holy Year, 1975. |
Archbishop Lefebvre
leads the Credo Pilgrimage
to Rome in May 1975 through St. Peter's
Square |
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Paul VI, in the consistory of
May, 1976, denounces the Archbishop as "disobedient to the
new liturgy." Cardinal Benelli asks the Archbishop to celebrate the New
Mass at least once, promising in the name of the pope that this gesture will
suffice to solve the difficulties. The Archbishop refuses and on June 29th, he
ordains publicly in the field of Econe 12 priests for the Society. The 23rd of
July, a suspensio a divinis forbids him to celebrate the New Mass, as the
Archbishop says with humor, and also to ordain priests because the Society doesn’t
exist any more.
The weeks that
follow the condemnation are the opportunity for thousands of faithful to
manifest publicly their attachment to Archbishop Lefebvre. More than 10,000
assemble in Lille, in the middle of summer, to show their support. (See The
Angelus, November 1995 - Ed.)
Instead of the
excommunication joyfully announced by the media, on September 11th, Pope Paul VI
receives the Archbishop privately at Castel Gandolfo. During this meeting it
becomes obvious that the pope is being deliberately misinformed by dishonest
collaborators.
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