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The first might surprise you a little, as it did me.
Yesterday evening, a visitor came, sent from the nunciature in Berne, with an
envelope containing an appeal from our Holy Father the Pope, who was putting at
my disposal a car which was supposed to take me to Rome yesterday evening, so
that I would not be able to perform these consecrations today. I was told
neither for what reason, nor where I had to go! I leave you to judge for
yourselves the timeliness and wisdom of such a request.
I went to Rome for many, many days during the past year,
even for weeks; the Holy Father did not invite me to come and see him. I would
certainly have been glad to see him if some agreement would have been finalized.
So here you have the information. I give it to you simply, as I myself came to
know it, through the letter from the nunciature.
Now, some indications concerning
the ceremony and some relevant documents regarding its significance.
The future bishops have already sworn in my hands the oath
which you find in the little booklet on the ceremony of consecration which some
of you have. Thus, this oath has already been pronounced, plus the
Anti-Modernist Oath, as it was formerly prescribed for the consecration of
bishops, plus the Profession of Faith. They have already taken these oaths and
this profession in my hands after the retreat which took place at Sierre during
these last days. Do not, therefore, be surprised if the ceremony begins with the
interrogations on the Faith, the Faith which the Church asks from those to be
consecrated.
I also want to let you know that,
after the ceremony, you will be able to ask the blessing of the bishops and kiss
their rings. It is not the custom in the Church to kiss the hands of a bishop,
as one kisses the hands of a newly-ordained priest, as you did yesterday. But
the faithful may ask for their blessing and kiss their ring.
Lastly, you have at your disposal at the bookstall some
books and flyers which contain all the elements necessary to help you better
understand why this ceremony, which is apparently done against the will of Rome,
is in no way a schism. We are not schismatics! If an excommunication was
pronounced against the bishops of China, who separated themselves from Rome and
put themselves under the Chinese government, one very easily understands why
Pope Pius XII excommunicated them.[1] There is no
question of us separating ourselves from Rome, nor of putting ourselves under a
foreign government, nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops
of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a
college of cardinals… It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far
from us be this miserable thought of separating ourselves from Rome!
On the contrary, it is in order
to manifest our attachment to Rome that we are performing this ceremony. It is
in order to manifest our attachment to the Eternal Rome, to the pope, and to all
those who have preceded these last popes who, unfortunately since the Second
Vatican Council, have thought it their duty to adhere to grievous errors which
are demolishing the Church and the Catholic priesthood.
Thus you will find among these flyers which are put at
your disposal, an admirable study done by Professor Georg May, President of the
Seminary of Canon Law in the University of Mayence in Germany, who marvelously
explains why we are in a case of necessity:[2]
necessity to come and help your souls, to help you! Your applause a while ago
was, I think, not a purely temporal manifestation; it was rather a spiritual
manifestation, expressing your joy to have at last Catholic bishops and priests
who are dedicated to the salvation of your souls, to giving to your souls the
Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, through good doctrine, through the Sacraments,
through the Faith, through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. You need this Life of
Our Lord Jesus Christ to go to heaven. This Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ is
disappearing everywhere in the Conciliar Church. They are following roads which
are not Catholic roads: they simply lead to apostasy.
This is why we do this ceremony. Far be it from me to set
myself up as pope! I am simply a bishop of the Catholic Church who is continuing
to transmit Catholic doctrine. I think, and this will certainly not be too far
off, that you will be able to engrave on my tombstone these words of St. Paul:
"Tradidi quod et accepi - I have transmitted to you what I have
received," nothing else. I am just the postman bringing you a letter. I
did not write the letter, the message, this Word of God. God Himself wrote it;
Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself gave it to us. As for us, we just handed it down,
through these dear priests here present and through all those who have chosen to
resist this wave of apostasy in the Church, by keeping the Eternal Faith and
giving it to the faithful. We are just carriers of this Good News, of this
Gospel which Our Lord Jesus Christ gave to us, as well as of the means of
sanctification: the Holy Mass, the true Holy Mass, the true Sacraments which
truly give the spiritual life.
It seems to me, my dear brethren,
that I am hearing the voices of all these popes - since Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo
XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII —telling us:
Please, we beseech you, what are you
going to do with our teachings, with our preaching, with the Catholic Faith?
Are you going to abandon it? Are you going to let it disappear from this
earth? Please, please, continue to keep this treasure which we have given you.
Do not abandon the faithful, do not abandon the Church! Continue the Church!
Indeed, since the Council, what we condemned in the past the present Roman
authorities have embraced and are professing. How is it possible? We have
condemned them: Liberalism, Communism, Socialism, Modernism, Sillonism.[3] All the errors which we have condemned are now professed, adopted and
supported by the authorities of the Church. Is it possible? Unless you do
something to continue this Tradition of the Church which we have given to you,
all of it shall disappear. Souls shall be lost.
Thus, we find ourselves in a case of necessity. We have
done all we could, trying to help Rome to understand that they had to come back
to the attitudes of the holy Pius XII and of all his predecessors. Bishop de
Castro Mayer and myself have gone to Rome, we have spoken, we have sent letters,
several times to Rome. We have tried by these talks, by all these means, to
succeed in making Rome understand that, since the Council and since aggiornamento,
this change which has occurred in the Church is not Catholic, is not in
conformity to the doctrine of all times. This ecumenism and all these errors,
this collegiality - all this is contrary to the Faith of the Church, and is in
the process of destroying the Church.
This is why we are convinced
that, by the act of these consecrations today, we are obeying the call of these
popes and as a consequence the call of God, since they represent Our Lord Jesus
Christ in the Church.
"And why, Archbishop, have you stopped these
discussions which seemed to have had a certain degree of success?" Well, precisely because, at the same time that I gave my signature to the Protocol,
the envoy of Cardinal Ratzinger gave me a note in which I was asked to beg
pardon for my errors. But if I am in error, if I teach error, it is clear that I
must be brought back to the truth in the minds of those who sent me this note to
sign. "That I might recognize my errors" means that, "if
you recognize your errors we will help you to return to the truth."
What is this truth for them, if not the truth of Vatican II, the truth of the
Conciliar Church? Consequently, it is clear that the only truth that exists
today for the Vatican is the conciliar truth, the spirit of the Council, the
spirit of Assisi. That is the truth of today. But we will have nothing to do
with this for anything in the world!
That is why, taking into account the strong will of the
present Roman authorities to reduce Tradition to nought, to gather the world to
the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi, we have preferred to withdraw
ourselves and to say that we could not continue. It was not possible. We would
have evidently been under the authority of Cardinal Ratzinger, President of the
Roman Commission, which would have directed us; we were putting ourselves into
his hands, and consequently putting ourselves into the hands of those who wish
to draw us into the spirit of the Council and the spirit of Assisi. This was
simply not possible.
This is why I sent a letter to the
pope, saying to him
very clearly: "We simply cannot (accept
this spirit and proposals), despite all the desires which we have to
be in full union with you. Given this new spirit which now rules in Rome and
which you wish to communicate to us, we prefer to continue in Tradition; to keep
Tradition while waiting for Tradition to regain its place at Rome, while waiting
for Tradition to re-assume its place in the Roman authorities, in their
minds." This will last for as long as the Good Lord has foreseen.
It is not for me to know when Tradition will regain its
rights at Rome, but I think it is my duty to provide the means of doing that
which I shall call "Operation Survival," operation survival for
Tradition. Today, this day, is "Operation Survival". If I had made this
deal with Rome, by continuing with the agreements we had signed, and by putting
them into practice, I would have performed "Operation Suicide."
There was no choice, we must live! That is why today, by consecrating these
bishops, I am convinced that I am continuing to keep Tradition alive, that is to
say, the Catholic Church.
You well know, my dear brethren, that there can be no
priests without bishops. When God calls me - this will certainly not be long
- from whom would these seminarians receive the Sacrament of [Holy] Orders? From conciliar bishops, who, due to their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful
sacraments? This is not possible. Who are the bishops who have truly kept
Tradition and the Sacraments such as the Church has conferred them for 20
centuries until Vatican II? They are Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself. I cannot
change that. That is how it is. Hence, many seminarians have entrusted
themselves to us, they sensed that here was the continuity of the Church, the
continuity of Tradition. And they came to our seminaries, despite all the
difficulties that they have encountered, in order to receive a true ordination
to the priesthood, to say the true Sacrifice of Calvary, the true Sacrifice of
the Mass, and to give you the true Sacraments, true doctrine, the true
catechism. This is the goal of these seminaries.
So I cannot, in good conscience,
leave these seminarians orphaned. Neither can I leave you orphans by dying
without providing for the future. That is not possible. It would be contrary to
my duty.
This is why we have chosen, with the grace of God, priests
from our Society who have seemed to us to be the most apt, whilst being in
circumstances and in functions which permit them more easily to fulfill their episcopal ministry, to give Confirmation to your children, and to be able to
confer ordinations in our various seminaries. Thus I believe that with the grace
of God, we, Bishop de Castro Mayer and myself, by these consecrations, will have
given to Tradition the means to continue, given the means to Catholics who
desire to remain within the Church of their parents, their grandparents, of
their ancestors. They built churches with beautiful altars, often destroyed and
replaced by a table, thus manifesting the radical change which has come about
since the Council regarding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which is the heart of
the Church and the purpose of the priesthood. Thus we wish to thank you for
having come in such numbers to support us in the accomplishment of this
ceremony.
We turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary. You well know, my dear
brethren, you must have been told of Leo XIII's prophetic vision revealing that
one day "the See of Peter would become the seat of iniquity." He said
it in one of his exorcisms, called "The Exorcism of Leo XIII."
Has it come about today? Is it tomorrow? I do not know. But in any case it has
been foretold. Iniquity may quite simply be error. Error is iniquity: to no
longer profess the Faith of all time, the Catholic Faith, is a grave error. If
there ever was an iniquity, it is this. And I really believe that there has
never been a greater iniquity in the Church than Assisi, which is contrary to
the First Commandment of God and the First Article of the Creed. It is
incredible that something like that could have ever taken place in the Church,
in the eyes of the whole Church —how humiliating! We have never undergone such
a humiliation! You will be able to find all of this in Fr. LeRoux's booklet
[Peter,
Lovest Thou Me? —webmaster] which has been especially published in order to give you information on the
present situation in Rome.
It was not only the good Pope Leo XIII who said these
things, but Our Lady prophesied them as well. Just recently, the priest who
takes care of the Society's priory in Bogota, Colombia, brought me a book
concerning the apparition of Our Lady of "Buen Suceso,"
- of "Good Fortune," to whom a large church in Quito, Ecuador,
was dedicated. They were received by a nun shortly after the Council of Trent,
so you see, quite a few centuries ago. This apparition is thoroughly recognized
by Rome and the ecclesiastical authorities; a magnificent church was built for
the Blessed Virgin Mary wherein the faithful of Ecuador venerate with great
devotion a picture of Our Lady, whose face was made miraculously. The artist was
in the process of painting it when he found the face of the Holy Virgin
miraculously formed. And Our Lady prophesied for the 20th century, saying
explicitly that during the 19th century and most of the 20th century,
errors would become more and more widespread in Holy Church, placing the Church
in a catastrophic situation. Morals would become corrupt and the Faith would
disappear. It seems impossible not to see it happening today.
I excuse myself for continuing
this account of the apparition, but she speaks of a prelate who will absolutely
oppose this wave of apostasy and impiety - saving the priesthood by forming good
priests. I do not say that prophecy refers to me. You may draw your own
conclusions. I was stupefied when reading these lines but I cannot deny them,
since they are recorded and deposited in the archives of this apparition.
Of course, you well know the apparitions of Our Lady at La Salette, where she says that Rome will lose the Faith, that there will be an
"eclipse"
at Rome; an eclipse, see what Our Lady means by this.
And finally, closer to us, the secret of Fatima. Without a
doubt, the Third Secret of Fatima must have made an allusion to this darkness
which has invaded Rome, this darkness which has invaded the world since the
Council. And surely it is because of this, without a doubt, that John XXIII
judged it better not to publish the Secret: it would have been necessary to take
measures, such steps as he possibly felt himself incapable of doing, e.g.,
completely changing the orientations which he was beginning to take in view of
the Council, and for the Council.
There are the facts upon which, I
think, we can lean.
We place ourselves in God's providence. We are convinced
that God knows what He is doing. Cardinal Gagnon visited us 12 years after
the suspension: after 12 years of being spoken of as outside of the
communion of Rome, as rebels and dissenters against the pope, his visit took
place. He himself recognized that what we have been doing is just what is
necessary for the reconstruction of the Church. The cardinal even assisted
pontifically at the Mass which I celebrated on December 8, 1987, for the renewal
of the promises of our seminarians. I was supposedly suspended and, yet, after
12 years, I was practically given a clean slate. They said we have done
well. Thus we did well to resist! I am convinced that we are in the same
circumstances today. We are performing an act which apparently… - and
unfortunately the media will not assist us in the good sense. The headlines
will, of course, be "Schism," "Excommunication!"
to their heart's content - and, yet, we are convinced that all these
accusations of which we are the object, all penalties of which we are the
object, are null, absolutely null and void, and of which we will take no
account. Just as I took no account of the suspension, and ended up by being
congratulated by the Church and by progressive churchmen, so likewise in several
years - I do not know how many, only the Good Lord knows how many years it will
take for Tradition to find its rights in Rome - we will be embraced by the
Roman authorities, who will thank us for having maintained the Faith in our
seminaries, in our families, in civil societies, in our countries, and in our
monasteries and our religious houses, for the greater glory of God and the
salvation of souls.
In the Name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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