Bishop Williamson's Eleison Comments: Lefebvre-Post 1988: Part I

'A liberal is a wolf, dressed like a sheep. Judge by the fruits – sheep corpses in a heap.'

Lefebvre-Post 1988: Part I

A liberal is a wolf, dressed like a sheep. Judge by the fruits – sheep corpses in a heap.

Original publication date: September 14, 2024

After consecrating four bishops in June of 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre saw more clearly than ever that the Conciliar Romans are no servants of the Catholic Faith. In 1989 he gave a long interview in France, summarized below. For the complete original, see here.

Why the consecrations?

For several years I had been trying to get Rome to understand that as I was advancing in age, I had to ensure my succession. They were afraid that I would consecrate bishops, so they alluded to the possibility of our having a bishop who would be my successor.

I went to Rome for conversations, but without any confidence in their success. I wished to go as far as possible to show what good will we had. Very soon, however, we realized that we were dealing with people who are not honest. Rome brought up the question of the Council, which we did not want to hear of. A formula for an agreement was found which was at the very limits of what we could accept. I obtained only one bishop, whereas I was asking for three. That was already virtually unacceptable. And, when, even before signing the protocol, we asked when we could have this bishop, the answer was evasive or null.

The accumulation of distrust and reticence impelled me to demand the nomination of a bishop for the 30th June. Either that, or I would go ahead and consecrate. Faced with such a choice, Cardinal Ratzinger said, “If that’s how it is, the protocol is over. It’s finished, and there is no more protocol. You are breaking off relations.” It’s he who said it, not I.

Lefebvre should have stayed in the Church

What Church are we talking about? If you mean the Conciliar Church, then we who have struggled against the Council for twenty years, because we want the Catholic Church, would have to re-enter this Conciliar Church in order, supposedly, to make it Catholic. That is a complete illusion.

Danger of schism?

To say that we are not the “visible Church,” that we are quitting the “visible Church,” which is infallible, all that is just words which do not correspond to reality. It is incredible that anyone can talk of the “visible Church,” meaning the Conciliar Church, as opposed to the Catholic Church which we are trying to represent and continue. We are against the Conciliar Church which is virtually schismatic, even if they deny it. In practice, it is a Church virtually excommunicated because it is a Modernist Church. We are not making a parallel Church. We are what we have always been – Catholics carrying on. That is all.

Each of these recent popes is truly two popes in one. It was John XXIII who launched the opening of the Church to the world. From that point on, we were framed within ambiguity and duplicity, i.e. the two-faced way of acting proper to the liberal.

We are not against the pope insofar as he represents the values of the Apostolic See which are unchanging. But we are against the pope insofar as he is a modernist who does not believe in his own infallibility, who practices ecumenism. So long as in Rome they stay attached to the ideas of the Council: religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality, they are going the wrong way.

Reconciliation?

I do not think it is opportune to try contacting Rome. I think we must still wait. Wait, alas, for the situation to get still worse on their side. But up till now, they do not want to recognize that fact.

Kyrie eleison.