Theological Study Part 1,2

Ten years ago, 83-year-old Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, sensing that he was approaching the hour of his death, consecrated four bishops without waiting for the pontifical mandate (promised in exhausting negotiations, but always postponed or subjected to destabilizing conditions) in order to provide for the survival of the Society of Saint Pius X. The Society had been founded by him in November 1970 at the request of a group of French seminarians who asked his assistance to maintain sound Catholic doctrine, to preserve the Catholic seminaries imbued with that faith, and to celebrate the Holy Mass of the so-called Tridentine rite. As a consequence of these episcopal consecrations, Archbishop Lefebvre, already considered "rebellious" for refusing to do away with the Society as the local Ordinary [H.E. Bishop Mamie] had arbitrarily ordered him to do and suspended a divinis for having ordained priests, was excommunicated ipso facto and doubly accused of being disobedient to the Pope and schismatic.

By this excommunication, the Holy See sent Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society founded by him [with Rome's canonical approval and blessing --Ed.] into exile. The so-called "Lefebvrists," a label applied to clerics and laity, were made unpopular. We say "so-called" Lefebvrists because a "Lefebvrism" does not exist and never existed. A "doctrine" of Archbishop Lefebvre, in fact, does not exist. His enemies have tried to write him off as "schismatic" or even "heretical," but as anyone knows who has studied the facts, these accusations are false.

Archbishop Lefebvre is not the head of a sect. He never wished to establish one. He is not to be considered the head of "traditionalists" in general. His religious thought, which is known from his sermons and various exegetic and homiletic writings, is absolutely orthodox and permeated with zeal for Catholic Truth. He has been marginalized and persecuted because he wished to remain loyal in faith and work to the constant teaching of the Church, without respect of persons. The so-called "Lefebvrists" are nothing but Catholics faithful to what the Church has taught for almost 20 centuries up to the Second Vatican Council. Strictly speaking, therefore, it is not correct to call them "traditionalists." It is better said that they are faithful to Catholic Tradition. The Tradition in Catholicism is precisely fidelity to the dogma consecrated by the Magisterium of the Church.

Anyone who wishes to be faithful to dogma must be obedient to the principle of salvation proclaimed by our risen Lord, "Be you faithful until death and I will give you the crown of life" (Apoc. 2:10). The novelties which have emerged from Vatican II are disturbing and cannot be accepted.

Here is a council of the Church held with the express purpose of opening the Church up to the world [i.e., aggiornamento], an intention unlike any other in the history of the Church. It declared itself only a pastoral council and not a dogmatic one, hence a trustee of a spurious magisterium. It is responsible for disseminating grave ambiguities in doctrine. It gave a new "ecumenical" definition of the Catholic Church, promoted a "collegiality" of a democratic or semi-conciliarist sort, and advertised freedom of conscience of the liberal-Jacobean variety. The "spirit" of this council conceived the Novus Ordo Missae, that is, the "Mass of Paul VI," with its idea of a table in order to be theologically agreeable to the protestant heretics of which six participated in its very formulation. There is a question whether this Mass is theologically dubious and necessarily an ambiguous rite since it was supposed to please the heretics.

It is true that corrections were made to the scandalous first edition of the New Mass (1969). These were instigated by the indignant and documented criticisms of theologians and scholars headed by Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani. But one notes the presence of all the same protestant heretical concepts in the definitive text of 1970.

The first of these protestant concepts is to equate the ordained priesthood with the faithful by speaking of the faithful’s participation in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice in a new manner. There is ground for a new mentality believing the Mass is a "concelebration" of priest and people. This idea was condemned with great clarity by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei.(1) As a consequence of this, the priest is no longer considered the exclusive minister of the Holy Eucharist, a Catholic teaching defined by the Magisterium. The minister becomes, on the contrary, the "people of God," which "has to send the prayers of the whole human family up to God," as if it exercised a sort of priestly mediation in behalf of all humanity which is understood to include, therefore, non-believers, non-Catholics, and atheists.(2)

As a consequence of Vatican II, the Holy Mass -- the "sacerdotal" prayer of the "people of God" -- has acquired an ecumenical significance and, therefore, the stamp of heterodoxy. The "people of God" is identified with humanity, a realization of the unity of the human race, of which unity the Holy Mass becomes a signal moment.(3)

The new rite expresses a depreciation of the ministry of the priest and an erroneous concept of the common priesthood of the faithful because the expiatory sacrifice celebrated by the presider is conceived as celebrated by the people, which "alone...enjoys a true priestly power, while the priest acts merely through the office entrusted to him by the community," a thesis condemned by Pius XII in Mediator Dei (Dz.2300). This new definition of the Sacrifice of the Mass appears in the clearest fashion in the notorious Article 7 of the Instruction of the Novus Ordo Missae 1970, in which it is dared to be written:

In Missa seu Cena dominica populus Dei in unum convocatur, sacerdote praeside personamque Christi gerente, ad memoriale Domini seu sacrificium eucharisticum celebrandum -- In the Mass or the Lord's Supper the People of God are called together in one place where the priest presides over them and acts in the person of Christ. They assemble to celebrate the Memorial of the Lord, which is the sacrifice of the Eucharistic.

Notice three things: 1) the celebrant, even if representing the person of Christ, is only the president of the Assembly, as if he were a Protestant minister; 2) it is the assembly that is gathered together in order to "celebrate" the memorial of the Lord; and 3) the memorial of the Lord is called a "eucharistic sacrifice," but not a propitiatory one. This distinction would not have pleased the protestants. The text ineffectively expresses the idea of expiatory sacrifice required by the Faith. [It should be mentioned that the 1970 version of the Instruction of the Novus Ordo Missae was a revision under pressure from more traditional bishops of the 1969 version which is theologically worse than the 1970! (See Pope Paul's New Mass, "Revisions to the Instructio Generalis," by Michael Davies. Price: $19.95 from Angelus Press) --Ed.]

One would think the rest of Article 7 (1970) would recall the dogma of transubstantiation. On the contrary, it is never mentioned. Instead, we find it replaced by an ambiguous "Real Presence," acceptable to protestants who reject transubstantiation. The 1970 text continues:

Hence the promise of Christ: "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt. 18:20) applies in a special way to this gathering of the local church.

For in the celebration of the Mass whereby the Sacrifice of the Mass is perpetuated, Christ is really present in the very community which is gathered in His name, in the person of His minister and also substantially and continuously under the eucharistic species.(4)

This definition speaks as if the "Real Presence" is no longer reserved to the unique presence that results from transubstantiation, but is extended to the presence (non-sacramental) of Christ in the "assembly," in the "person of the minister," and in His Word. This same presence, which is "in a substantial and permanent manner" under the Eucharistic species, depends, according to the text, not on transubstantiation, about which it does not speak, but on the assembly being gathered together "in the name" of Christ.

Doesn't all this recall the consubstantiation of the Lutheran heretics, who deny, as has been noted, that Holy Mass really renews the expiatory sacrifice of our Lord on Calvary?(5) The lack of reference to transubstantiation helps us understand why all the traditional signs of faith [e.g., interior gold-plating of the sacred vessels, kneeling for Holy Communion, etc. --Ed.] have been taken away.(6)

Except for the Creed, mention of the Holy Trinity has disappeared from the invocations and prayers of Holy Mass. Liberal protestants do not like it; Jews and Muslims detest it. The Holy Trinity has been replaced by an anonymous "God of the universe." It is true that the celebrant may bring up such a subject matter in his homily, but it is so vast it is frequently skipped.

As Archbishop Lefebvre insisted, the new rite is a "corruption" of the Catholic Mass. How can a rite which pleases heretics and non-Christians be suitable for Catholics? It represents for the priests that celebrate it the faith which was taught to them in seminaries drenched with liberalism and modernism. This is a new type of faith. It is ecumenical, and, even if preserving vestiges of the old Catholic faith, is syncretistic and poisoned with heresy. It is the cult of Humanity and dialogue with error placed side by side with the adoration owed to the Holy Trinity, while not yet taking its place.

A corrupt liturgical rite is a grave danger to the souls of those who assist at it. The new Mass has been one of the most bitter fruits of Vatican II. And all official Catholicism that somehow has survived the ambiguity and repeated infidelity shows signs of a seriously diseased body. Once Catholic societies and nations are suffering declines in birthrate, rebellion, vice and corruption, false religions, a variety of sects, and invasion without reprieve by Muslims.

Having thought it put Archbishop Lefebvre out in the cold with its arbitrary excommunication of him, the Vatican might have thought it succeeded dissolving the bastion of fidelity to dogma represented by the Society of Saint Pius X. But this is not the case. Despite material difficulties of every kind, the Society today numbers over 400 priests, has 180 seminarians in training, 120 sisters, 65 oblates, and 55 brothers. It maintains five international seminaries. It is alive and kicking, for which it thanks the Lord. A few years ago, Cardinal Ratzinger admitted his astonishment regarding the extension and apostolate of the Society.

Catholics faithful to dogma relish being able to assist at the Mass of All Times in the churches and chapels of the Society of Saint Pius X to the great and inestimable benefit of their souls. They are not constrained to recognize -- against their conscience -- "the legitimacy and the doctrinal correctness" of the missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI,(7) as happens on the contrary to whomever frequents the Tridentine Mass conceded by the Indult of Pope John Paul II, in which Indult, for the record, this condition is found formulated. It is a matter of a recognition, which, even if implicit, is dangerous for the salvation of souls, given that the "doctrinal correctness" of the Mass of Paul VI is, as has been seen, doubtful.

We do not know if the lack of doctrinal correctness is such as to have to consider the new rite invalid a priori. We don't have the authority to make a definitive judgment in the matter. We know, however, that if we hold to the salvation of our soul, we must avoid the new rite at all costs, with its hyper-politicized priests and the secularized ambience that engulfs it. We are aware of owing the inestimable benefit of being able to attend the truly Catholic Mass to the persevering defense of the Faith undertaken in their times by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, the only two Bishops who forthrightly defended it, and by the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X founded by Archbishop Lefebvre. We await with unchangeable faith in the work of God for the day when the Holy See, having returned to the sound doctrine of all time, will wipe away the unjust condemnations.

In the meantime, we thank our Lord also for saving us from the seductions laid by Rome to lead back into the "flock" those of us who persist in preferring the true Catholic Mass to that of Pope Paul VI. We make reference to the Motu proprio Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, issued by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the invalidly applied excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre. It is the tenth anniversary of that document, the anniversary that some have made the object of triumphant declarations in light of the success of the so-called "Ecclesia Dei Latin Mass communities," established according to the directives and the promises contained in the papal motu proprio. It is true that over the last ten years since Ecclesia Dei Adflicta was released, some 15 priests and 30 seminarians have left the Society of Saint Pius X. But it has held its ground for ten years, please God, even though the competition of the "Ecclesia Dei" communities has invariably moved in nearby.

Why do we say this motu proprio has given life to an illusion? Consider the facts. Issued on July 2, 1988, as if for a comment on the excommunication applied against Archbishop Lefebvre, the document warned all those who until that moment "had been tied in some way to the movement created by Archbishop Lefebvre" to recognize their duty to not support the named "movement."(8) At the same time they held out their hand. How?

In paragraph five of the document, the Pope manifested his will, to which he asked all the Bishops and those invested with the pastoral ministry of the Church to associate themselves, that "ecclesial communion" for the sake of the faithful who are "bound to former liturgical and disciplinary forms in the Latin tradition," by establishing measures that would guarantee their "just aspirations."(9) Therefore, the Pope established the beginnings of a commission [i.e., the Ecclesia Dei Commission --Ed.] presided over by an appointed cardinal and composed of members of the Curia charged with collaborating with the competent organs and interested parties on all sides in order to facilitate "full ecclesial communion" of priests, seminarians, religious communities and individuals up till now affiliated with the Society of Saint Pius X, who desired to remain united to the Successor of Peter "preserving their spiritual and liturgical tradition, in light of the Protocol signed on May 5, 1988 by Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Lefebvre."(10) [For the text of this Protocol of Accord and the archive of all the documents exchanged between Rome and Archbishop Lefebvre in the time leading up to and immediately following his consecration of the four bishops, see Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican available from Angelus Press. Price: $12.45 --Ed.]

This famous Protocol of Accord, though not taking effect at the time, constituted the juridical base for organizing those structures which have since been called "Ecclesia Dei communities." These are generally societies of apostolic life composed initially of refugees from the Society of Saint Pius X to whom the privilege of celebrating the aforesaid Mass of St. Pius V and of maintaining "the previous liturgical and disciplinary forms" is granted. Among the first and more notable of these communities are the Benedictine Abbey of St. Madeleine of Le Barroux, France, and the Fraternity of St. Peter.

In various aspects the autonomy accorded to these institutions, however, is rather limited.(11) An important point must be recalled here. In the Protocol of Accord of May 5, 1988, the Holy See acknowledged

for practical and psychological reasons, the consecration of a member of the Society as a bishop appears useful. This is why, in the framework of the doctrinal and canonical solution of reconciliation, we suggest to the Holy Father that he name a bishop chosen from within the Society, presented by Archbishop Lefebvre...(Protocol of Accord, II,5.2)

This means that Rome had in principle accepted the consecration of a bishop faithful to Tradition. Upon reflection, Archbishop Lefebvre doubted Rome's sincerity. In any case, having maintained the Protocol of Accord as the basis for the recognition of the "Ecclesia Dei communities," the official promise of a future bishop was understood. By now, such a consecration for these communities is long overdue. But, up to now there has not been even a hint. In other words, the promise has not been kept.(12)

We turn now to the text of the motu proprio. In concluding his instruction, the Pope affirmed that there was a need to respect the "spiritual desire" of the faithful "who feel attached to the Latin liturgy, by applying in a broad and generous way the directives adopted some time ago by the Apostolic See for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962."(13) To what was the Pope referring? -- Answer: To his indult Quattuor Abhinc Annos, issued on March 10, 1984 and already cited by us, which established, for priests and faithful who had applied to their bishop for it, the possibility of receiving the privilege of celebrating and assisting at the so-called Tridentine Mass. Naturally, the granting of the privilege was subject to some conditions among which were that the petitioners would accept "the legitimacy and the doctrinal correctness of the Roman Missal promulgated in 1970 by the Roman Pontiff, Paul VI" and that such a celebration would take place "only for the use of whoever asked for it" and in the places of worship and under the conditions established by the local ordinary. Parish churches were excluded from concession of the privilege, save extraordinary cases.(14) The exercise of the privilege was subjected to notable limitations and the bishops showed themselves quite deaf to the requests of the faithful for it.(15) The faithful bound in conscience to Tradition continued to assist in great number at the Masses celebrated by the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X.

In 1986, the Pope established a commission of eight cardinals of the Curia with the task of examining the situation and of preparing norms which would establish a new regulatory form for the Indult, valid for the whole Church. These norms, however, were never promulgated.(16)

Perhaps the most important work of this commission [which included Alfonse Cardinal Stickler --Ed.] concerned the question of the suppression or non-suppression on the part of Pope Paul VI of the so-called Tridentine Mass. According to these cardinals Pope Paul VI never formally suppressed this Mass on which account "no bishop has the right to prohibit a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentine Mass."(17)

Though it wasn’t its express purpose to do so, the conclusion of this commission, which holds up under canonical scrutiny, deprives the Indult of any significant necessity. If the Tridentine Mass has never been formally suppressed and continues therefore to exist as a perfectly valid liturgy of Holy Church, celebrating it and assisting at it is a right, not a privilege, and the Indult of Pope John Paul II, which concedes the privilege for it is canonically superfluous.

However it may be, the invitation extended to the bishops by the Pope to be "generous" in conceding the permission to celebrate the Tridentine Mass has not been welcomed. The evidence is extremely clear. The bishops turn a deaf ear. At the same time, the demand for that Mass seems to increase, perhaps because the faithful are fed up with the "liturgical anarchy" which, thanks to the Mass of Pope Paul VI, reigns in almost all the parishes universally, though degree and intensity may vary, especially in France.(18)

The attitude of the bishops, however, contradicts that of the Holy See only in appearance. This is the point. The Holy See has made promises, for example, the appointment of a "traditional" bishop, which it has not kept. It established the aforementioned commission of cardinals but its norms, valid for the whole Church and which contain a new regulatory form, have never been promulgated. We give here the first three of the six norms cited in the commission’s summary:

1) In the offices of the Roman Rite, there ought to be accorded to the Latin language the honor due to it. The bishops must try to have at least one Mass in the Latin language in every important locality of their diocese on Sundays and Holy Days. Nevertheless, the readings of the Mass will be able to be done in the vernacular.

2) All priests are able to say, at any time, their private Masses in Latin.

3) For every Mass said in Latin -- be the faithful present or not -- the celebrant has the right of freely choosing between the Missal of Pope Paul VI (1970) and that of Pope John XXIII (1962).(19)

Norm No.3 makes it possible to celebrate the Mass named from Pope St. Pius V, overstepping the limits of the Indult! It is obvious why a norm of this kind has never been promulgated. It would have demonstrated plainly the failure of the liturgical reform by officially putting the "spirit of the Council" in crisis.

On October 13, 1993, the then President of Una Voce, Dr. Eric de Saventhem, asked the Pope to command the authorization of the Mass and the Sacraments according to the ancient rite to be freely accessible throughout the whole Church and thereby bypass the passive resistance of the bishops. He was answered January 17, 1994 by the deputy in charge of general affairs for the Secretary of State, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Re, who wrote that the Ecclesia Dei Commission had conceded the use of the Roman Missal...

...under certain conditions. The diverse dispositions taken after 1984 aim at facilitating the ecclesial life of a certain number of faithful, without however rendering perpetual the previous liturgical forms [i.e., the Tridentine rite and the traditional Sacraments --Ed.]. The general law is that of using the rite revised after the Council, on account of which the use of the previous rite must be understood as being in the order of a privilege which has an exceptional character.

This is the writing on the wall. The purpose of the Ecclesia Dei Commission was only that of "facilitating ecclesial life" for the faithful attracted to the Tradition, but it was not allowed to "render (the ancient rite) perpetual." This phrase means that the ancient rite was being temporarily tolerated so as not to offend the sensibilities of certain faithful, but it was not to be considered a rite destined to remain. The conclusion of the letter was extremely clear in its intention. After having paid formal homage to the "safeguarding of the values which constitute a precious patrimony for the liturgical tradition of the Church," Msgr. Giovanni Battista Re continued by declaring with forceful clarity that...

...the first duty of all the faithful is that of welcoming and probing the wealth of the meanings which are found in the liturgy in force, and of doing it in the spirit of faith and obedience to the Magisterium, by avoiding all opposition harmful to ecclesial communion.(20)

The letter concludes by reminding Dr. de Saventhem that the Holy Father hopes Una Voce [whose current international president is Mr. Michael Davies --Ed.] will contribute to this end.

By the way, Dr. de Saventhem replied to Msgr. Re with two follow-up letters which remained however without an answer. In the first of these letters he wrote:

That at which the faithful assist is nothing other than the innumerable different forms of eucharistic embellishments which have multiplied in the Church for 25 years, appealing to the legitimacy more or less well-grounded of the different editions of the Roman Missal of Paul VI and to the multiple options provided there...In the majority of parishes these celebrations have been simply imposed. That's why the faithful, discouraged, had no other way of avoiding them except the silent exodus...Finally, it is shown by the polls of the last 25 years that a progressive erosion of the faith, even among those who still frequent churches, must be taken into account. Since lex credendi follows lex orandi [i.e., the law of belief follows on the law of prayer --Ed.], is there no need to conclude, then, that the Faith is no longer nourished by the reformed liturgy or even that this latter has accelerated the loss of faith?(21)

The text of Msgr. Re should be taken as an authentic interpretation of the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei. The commission born of this document has not in the least intended to genuinely restore the ancient rite or to even put it on a level of parity with the new rite. It was only a case of being a "pastoral gesture" of Pope John Paul II when faced with the sensibilities of certain faithful "anchored to the past." It is a "parenthesis of tolerance"(22) which does not aim at "rendering perpetual" the ancient rite within the official liturgy of the Church. On the contrary, the clear mandate from Rome is that all the faithful fulfill their duty to follow uncritically the new rite since this is and remains the will of the Pope.

The importance of this letter, of this official interpretation of the motu proprio, is confirmed by the fact that the bishops often cite it in refusing to concede the Mass by means of the Indult.(23) The overwhelming mentality of the present hierarchy is that the Indult to celebrate the Tridentine Mass is nothing other than a parenthesis destined to be closed one day. On account of this we say Ecclesia Dei itself is an illusory carrot which many have bitten, hoping that the present Pontiff would effectively command the full restoration of the ancient rite of Holy Mass with equal dignity in respect to the new.

But the day of a rude awakening is drawing nigh. The recent demands sent to the "Ecclesia Dei communities" by the Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, Msgr. Camille Perl, demonstrate this. In a document he issued in the summer of 1998 (perhaps in anticipation of celebrations commemorating the Commission's tenth anniversary), Msgr. Perl mandated that: 1) in the Tridentine Masses celebrated by reason of the Indult, the celebrant from now on be seated during the reading of the Epistle; 2) that the Prologue of St. John's Gospel read at the end of Mass [i.e., the Last Gospel --Ed.] be abolished; and 3) that the so-called "universal prayer" begin to be recited during the Mass.(24)

We judge this an attempt to mutilate the Tridentine Rite and to contaminate it with the new rite of Pope Paul VI. For what reason would the priest have to sit while the Epistle is read? Where else is this type of thing generally seen? It is the priest-presider of the protestant Novus Ordo Mass who remains seated while laity of various sort read the passages of the Old and New Testament inserted into the so-called "Liturgy of the Word." To demand the celebrant to sit during readings that he has traditionally stood to read himself is to make necessary the presence of someone else other than the celebrant to do the reading. A nun? A layperson? You see the groundwork being laid.

Why is the cutting out of the Last Gospel wanted? What's the problem? It is very clear. On five counts, the Last Gospel is radically un-ecumenical and not politically correct because: 1) it reaffirms the divine nature of Christ; 2) it recalls that the world and those of "its household," namely the Jews, "received Him not"; 3) it reminds us that the world is inimical to Christ and must be converted; 4) it is a bitter yet pitiful reminder to the Jews of their sin against the Holy Ghost; and 5) it proclaims Christians superior to the sons of Abraham because, thanks to faith in Christ, they have become the chosen "sons of God."

The so-called "universal prayer," finally, is a prayer worded according to various formulas, in accordance with which the "ecumenical" spirit is introduced explicitly into the Mass, as the "conciliar Church" born from Vatican II understands it.(25)

This letter of Msgr. Perl shows that the Holy See has decided to pick up the pace. The "restoration" is done for. Unless they appease the authorities by further compromises, hard times are around the corner for the "Ecclesia Dei communities." Their superiors will perhaps attempt to resist and defend the Mass of All Time from the excisions and the corruptions. But will they succeed? For how long? They will learn that, in retrospect, they should not have let themselves be seduced in 1988. They should have taken exception to the manifest invalidity of the condemnation of Archbishop Lefebvre. This has been officially proposed by the American priest, Rev. Fr. Gerald Murray, in his "thesis for a licentiate" in Canon Law, argued and approved with the highest mark (July 1995) at the Pontifical Gregorian University. We will discuss this thesis in the next installment of this canonical study of the 1988 episcopal consecrations of Archbishop Lefebvre. Our work hopes to make a contribution to the truth by doing our part, God willing, in dispelling the cloud of lies and false interpretations which surround the person and work of Archbishop Lefebvre.

1 Cf. A.A.S. 1947, p.553, cited in Arnaldo Xavier da Silveire, La nouvelle Messe de Paul VI: Qu’en penser? translated from the Portuguese of C. Salagnac, Chireen-Nontreuil, 1975, p.103. This work, which develops a fundamental analysis of the Novus Ordo Missae 1969 & 1970, contains in an improved translation three studies having appeared in 1970 & 1971. The analysis of the Novus Ordo of 1970 is on pp.100-124. We have abundantly availed ourselves of this essay. We have likewise availed ourselves of Romano Amerio’s Iota Unum. Studio sulle variazioni della Chiesa cattolica nel secolo XX Milano-Napoli 1986 2nd ed., Chapters XXXVII;XXXVIII, pp.496-548. [Available in its English translation from Angelus Press. Price: $24.95-Ed.]
2 La nouvelle Messe de Paul VI, cit., pp. 103-105. The text of the Novus Ordo in question is in Article 5 of the Prologo of the same.
3 On the idea of the unity of the human race as an end of the Catholic Church coming from Vatican II, see P. Pasqua-lucci Un’intrusione laica nel Vaticano II: il concetto di unita del genere umano in Italian edition of SiSiNoNo, 1998 (XXIV) n.11.
4 Quare de huiusmodi sanctae Ecclesiae coadunatione locali eminenter valet promissio Christi: “Ubi sunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo, ibi sum in medio eorum” (Mt. 18:20). In Missae enim celebratione, in qua sacrificium Crucis perpetuatur, Christus realiter praesens adest in ipso coetu in suo nomine congregato, in persona ministri, in verbo suo, et quidem substantialiter et continenter sub speciebus eucharisticis.- The 1969 and 1970 Latin texts of Article 7 are reported in Pope Paul’s New Mass, pp.285-287.
5 La nouvelle Messe de Paul VI, loc. cit., and ch. V: Le nouvel ordinaire de la Messe et le repas protestant.
6 For a detailed list, see Breve esame critico del Novus Ordo Missae, pp.20-21.
7 The Indult Quattuor abhinc annos of March 10, 1984 (text in the appendix to Enquete sur la Messe traditionelle, 1988-1998 in the article, “Dixieme anniver-saire du Motu proprio Ecclesia Dei,” special issue of La Nef, 1988, edited by Christopher Geffroy and Philip Maxence
8 We cite the text published in Enquete, cit., Appendix, pp.373-374.
9 Op. cit., p. 74
10 Ibid.
11 Official Bulletin of the French District of the Society of Saint Pius X, n. 29 of 29 Sept. 1988 for some details of the accord between Dom Gerard and Rome on the occasion of the recognition of the Abbey of Le Barroux.
12 The fact was noted by M. de Jaeghere in his intervention reported by Enquete, cit. on p.279.
13 Text can be found in the Appendix to Enquete, cit., p.374.
14 Text cited in Enquete, p.375.
15 Introductory essay to Enquete, cit., “Ecclesia Dei? Rappel historique,” pp.12-55, p.38.
16 A summary of these “norms” given in the Appendix to Enquete, cit. p.39.
17 The source of information is Alfonse Cardinal Stickler, in La Nef (1995) 53, pp.8-11 (see note n. 54 on p.53 of Enquete). The review reprints an interview of the Cardinal by The Latin Mass (1995).
18 Enquete, cit., p.264; pp.103,261,274.
19 Enquete, cit. p.391.
20 Enquete, cit., p.385.
21 The text is in the Appendix of Enquete, cit., p.385.
22 The expression is from Fr. Claude Barth, Enquete, cit., p.249.
23 The testimony is from Fr. Jean-Paul Argouarch, Superior of the Institute of Pontifical Rite “Santa Croce” of Riaumont [France], one of the “Ecclesia Dei communities,” cited in Enquete, pp.90-91.
24 From the Bulletin Inter Multiplices Una Vox (June 1998).
25 Examine, for example, the Festive Missal for the Faithful, Year A-B-B, the official text of C.E.I. edited by G. Boffa, with an introduction by Msgr. Mariano Magrassi, Coletti ed., Roma 1984, p.869.

In his "Thesis for a Licentiate" in Canon Law which was argued and approved with the highest grade (July, 1995) at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rev. Fr. Gerard Murray, an American priest who has no connection with the Society of Saint Pius X, held that the excommunication latae sententiae, declared at the time against Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer, and the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre without pontifical mandate, is not valid according to strict canonical law, nor is the connected accusation of schism valid in the formal sense. As of yet, his thesis for the licentiate has not been published, but a summary of it and an interview with its author is available in the American magazine, The Latin Mass.(1)

Two facts must be mentioned: 1) Fr. Murray made a partial retraction of his own thesis (Summer, 1996); and 2) the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts has published its opinion that the excommunications were justified. Though the council is entrusted with interpreting the laws of the Church, it is not a font of law itself and its opinion, in any case, was anonymous. The "Murray Thesis" is not even considered for, it said, "It is impossible to evaluate the Murray Thesis because it has not been published and the two articles [of the magazine --Ed.] which appeared about it are confused."(2)

Could it be that the thesis is contrary to the public policy of the Gregorian University? Since it has never been made available in the original, we are forced to discuss the arguments based on what appears in the magazine articles, despite the fact that the pontifical council asserts they are "confused." Without a doubt, a scholarly analysis would have considered the thesis of Fr. Murray, but the council's denial has silenced its viewpoint. On the other hand, Fr. Murray published his retraction one year before the appearance of the opinion attributed to the Pontifical Council. Why on earth would this council have to say anything regarding arguments already formally, even if partially, retracted by their author?! -- Retracted, by the way, even before a wider public with authoritative knowledge had been able to read it.

1. Whatever may be the changes of opinion of Fr. Murray about his own work and the motives for not publishing it, the fact remains that the thesis had been approved with the highest grade by the professors of the Gregorian University, conferring on this work exceptional value. This approval must be held in due regard.(3)

2. The extract of the "Murray Thesis" which appeared in The Latin Mass is sufficient to understand, namely, that the American priest, with Code of Canon Law in hand, denies -- or if you prefer, places into doubt -- the validity of the excommunication ipso iure applied to Archbishop Lefebvre because he acted in a state of necessity without bringing into being any schism. According to Fr. Murray, it is necessary to recognize that, on the basis of the canon law in force, the excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre is substantially invalid and the schism does not exist. It is thesis undoubtedly courageous and above all founded on law, even if we may not agree with the hypothesis of Fr. Murray that Archbishop Lefebvre was able to have been mistaken in good faith about the existence of the state of necessity which authorized him to proceed with the consecrations. In any case, the partial retraction of Fr. Murray concerns only the admissibility of the state of necessity, not the existence of a schism in the formal sense.

Fr. Murray is not the first to maintain the invalidity of the unjust excommunication declared against Archbishop Lefebvre and the non-existence of the so-called "schism" imputed to him. We recall the reader to the canonical study of the German canonist, Rev. Fr. Rudolf Kaschewski, which appeared in Is Tradition Excommunicated? [available from Angelus Press. Price: $7.95], on the aspect of the episcopal consecrations without papal permission.(4) This study, published shortly before the episcopal consecration of Archbishop Lefebvre and by an author independent of the Society of Saint Pius X, demonstrates unequivocally that, on the basis of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the episcopal consecration without pontifical mandate cannot be punished with excommunication. In fact, the author writes at the conclusion of his essay:

Therefore, the widely spread opinion that the consecration of one or several bishops without papal mandate would cause an automatic excommunication and would lead to schism is false. Due to the very terms of the law itself, an excommunication for the aforementioned case could not be applied, neither automatically nor by sentence of a judge.(5)

The article appearing in the original Italian SiSiNoNo of July 1988 (XIV) 13, titled "Neither Schismatics nor Excommunicated" [reprinted in Is Tradition Excommunicated?, pp.1-39] demonstrates how, in the case of the episcopal consecrations for the Society of Saint Pius X, all five of the conditions required for taking advantage of the law corresponding to the state of necessity had been realized. They are namely: 1) the existence of the state of necessity; 2) attempts having been made to remedy it with ordinary means; 3) the "extraordinary" action not being based on an act intrinsically evil nor harmful to neighbor; 4) having remained within the limits of the requirements actually imposed by the state of necessity; and 5) never having put into question the power of the competent authority, the consent of which it would have been able to presume in all legitimacy in normal circumstances.(6)

Though the Vatican officially denies its existence, a bleak picture of the real state of necessity in the present-day Catholic Church was painted by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in his speech to the Chilean Episcopal Conference (July 13, 1988) on the latest developments of the "Lefebvre case." The discourse, printed by the weekly Il Sabato of July 30, 1988, was reproduced by the Italian edition of SiSiNoNo, November 15, 1988, (XIV) 17, with the title, "Cardinal Ratzinger Demonstrates the State of Necessity in the Church."

The same Cardinal Ratzinger states in his discourse that Rome is not carrying out its necessary and indispensable functions and the bishops do not make use of or have made it utterly impossible to make use of that power which by divine right they possess in the Church for the eternal salvation of souls. It is the same Cardinal Ratzinger documenting that state and that law of necessity, to whom His Excellency Msgr. Lefebvre made his appeal when on June 30 he took advantage of a juridical competence outside of the ordinary.(7)

The passage of the speech of the Cardinal to which reference is made is the following:

Criticism for the choices of the post-Conciliar period is not tolerated: but, where the ancient rules, or the great truths of the faith -- for example the bodily virginity of Mary, the divinity of Jesus, the immortality of the soul, etc. -- are at stake, we do not react at all or we do it with extreme moderation. I myself was able to see, when I was a professor, how the same bishop who before the Council had expelled an irreproachable professor for his somewhat uncouth speaking, was not able to remove, after the Council, a teacher who was openly denying some fundamental truth of the Faith. All this drives many people to wonder whether the Church of today is really that of yesterday, or if it has been changed into another without informing them...(8)

We have to help us the essay "Neither Schismatics nor Excommunicated," the work of Fr. Kaschewski, Dr. Georg May's "The Disposition of Law in Case of Necessity Within the Church," [see both in Is Tradition Excomunicated?, pp.1-39; 111-113], the discourse of Cardinal Ratzinger, together with an article on the correct idea of tradition and with three appendices have finally been combined into one volume entitled Is Tradition Excommunicated? [available from Angelus Press, Price: $7.95]. Nor can we forget the careful study of Fr. Gerard Mura, Les sacres episcopaux de 1988. Etude theologique, which we mention in the competent synthesis published in French by the magazine Sel de la Terre, in four issues, in 1993 and 1994.(9) The salient contribution of this study, which is built on a prevalently theological plane, is on the thesis that "the pontifical prohibition for the celebration of the consecrations ought to be maintained as null and not having happened" because "contrary to the common good of the Church, a factor for the defense of the faith; defense of the faith which, aware of the state of necessity in which the Church exists, was demanding the consecrations done by Archbishop Lefebvre."

The book of the American Catholic lawyer, Charles P. Nemeth, The Case of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre: Trial by Canon Law [Angelus Press, Kansas City, 1994. Price: $9.95], must be mentioned. It presents a strictly juridical analysis which denies the validity of the excommunication and of the accusation of schism, reaching the same conclusion as Fr. Kaschewski.(10)

We have wished to mention these precedents also in order to draw attention to the fact that Fr. Murray concludes to a point substantially similar to Fr. Kaschewski's. It can be said, in fact, that Fr. Murray applies them to a concrete case. In our mind this shows that the tone of the norms of the Code of Canon Law is clear enough to have de facto permitted the establishment of opinions that are "on the same beam." As laid down by strict law, the excommunication could not be declared nor could the censured act be maintained as schismatic.

Let us consider the strictly juridical terms concerning the question so the reader is able to get the clearest picture possible.

Archbishop Lefebvre has been condemned for having consecrated four bishops without papal mandate. On this argument let us follow the commentary of Fr. Kaschewski:

1. Episcopal consecration occupies the highest place in the hierarchy of consecrations:...The bishop enjoys two powers: 1) the power of Order (in which is included the power to consecrate priests and bishops); and 2) the power of Jurisdiction, which he cannot exercise if he is not in possession of a diocese. The episcopal power is a power of divine right which confers on the bishop a proper authority and assures him of a juridical-constitutional autonomy which not even the pope can suppress or modify.(11)

This autonomy which the bishop enjoys depends on the nature of his power, which springs directly from Our Lord because bishops are the successors of the Apostles and hence enjoy that power which was conferred personally by Christ.

The autonomy of the episcopal power, nevertheless, does not mean independence. The submission of bishops to the authority of the Pope was affirmed in a very clear manner by the 1917 Code of Canon Law (Canon 329,§1):

Bishops are the successors of the Apostles and through divine institution are at the head of the local church, which they govern with ordinary power under the authority of the Roman Pontiff.(12)

In the 1983 Code of Canon Law, as a consequence of the democratic applications that Vatican II wished to exercise in the Church, the principle of submission to the pope, even if present, is stated in an ambiguous manner (e.g., in Canon 375,§1). Yet, while maintaining a millenary practice (from Gregory VII on), even the 1983 Code of Canon Law affirms that it is forbidden to consecrate a bishop without episcopal mandate, that is, without the previous authorization of the pope. And in fact the text of Prof. Kaschewski continues thus:

2. It is licit for no one to consecrate a bishop without Pontifical mandate (1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1013). He who acts contrary to this canon incurs excommunication latae sententiae reserved to the Apostolic See (1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 1382). One incurs latae sententiae excommunication ipso facto [by the fact itself], that is, at the very moment the offense is committed, and it is not necessary that the penalty be inflicted through a decree. For the illicit consecration of a bishop the [1917 Code of Canon Law] threatened only suspension [See 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 2370; "They are suspended by the law itself until the Apostolic See shall have dispensed them." --Ed.]. Only with the decree of the Holy Office (August 9, 1951), in consequence of the tragic turn of events of the Church in the Chinese Communist Republic [where bishops of the Chinese "Patriotic Church" were being appointed by the governing communists --Ed.], was the penalty of ipso facto excommunication introduced, reserved to the Holy See specialissimo modo [in a most special manner --Ed.](13)

The 1983 Code of Canon Law does not give the definition of excommunication, which must be taken from the 1917 Code of Canon Law (see Canon 2257ff.). It consists in the (external) "exclusion" from the "communion of the faithful." It belongs to that class of penalties called censures which are: excommunication, interdict, and suspension (1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 2255,§1). Censures are "medicinal" penalties because they are meant to serve as a medicine for the one being disobedient so that he may be convinced of his error and make amends. At the moment in which the offender or "contumacious one" recedes from his disobedience, the penalty ought to be remitted for him.(15) Medicinal penalties are distinguished from those called "vindictive" [a.k.a. "expiatory" in the 1983 Code of Canon Law --Ed.] which have instead as their essential purpose not the correction of the offender, but the restoration of the violated juridical order.(15)

The effects of excommunication are grave because it involves the prohibition of administering and receiving the sacraments. Yet, it is an administrative type of sanction that can be removed by the same authority that has inflicted it. Moreover,...

...the communion from which one is excluded is not that internal [communion], inhering in the soul and embracing the goods of the theological life, as grace and the virtues of faith, hope and charity, by nature invisible, but those external, visible goods, entrusted to the Church and ordained to produce the internal spiritual goods or the other external goods that are inseparably connected to the internal goods (e.g., sacraments, sacrifice, ecclesiastical power, etc.). Radical or ontological communion, which makes us members [by means of baptism --Ed.] of the Mystical Body of Christ is not called into question by excommunication.(16)

A species of excommunication used to exist and still does exist among the Jews(17) and St. John tells us that those Jewish leaders, who were favorable to Jesus, did not dare to declare that He was the promised Messias, for fear of being expelled from the synagogue, that is, of being formally excluded from the community of believers by decree of the proper authority.(18)

The possibility exists therefore that excommunication may be inflicted unjustly. The "excommunications" which the unbelieving Pharisees and persecutors were threatening or preparing to inflict upon the disciples of Our Lord, are an example of unjust excommunication:

They will put you out of the synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doth a service to God. And these things they will do to you; because they have not known the Father, nor me (Jn. 16:2,3).

Another well-known example is the excommunication inflicted by Pope Alexander VI on Savanarola.(19)

There are two types of excommunication: 1) latae sententiae is that excommunication where a sentence has been passed; and 2) ferendae sententiae, an excommunication where a sentence needs to be passed. These classifications give the two most general categories of the penal law of the Church, which find application even in the case of excommunication. A canonical penalty is called latae sententiae when "one incurs it by the very fact of having committed a crime."(20) This means that the penalty inheres, so to speak, in the criminal deed, without having to wait for a judge or a superior to inflict it by means of a sentence or a decree. On account of this it is said that excommunication latae sententiae is applied automatically. The application of the penalty therefore has only declarative value, because the decree or the sentence which contains it is limited to declaring the existence of it. This is so much the case that the juridical effects of the latae sententiae penalty are produced "from the moment in which the criminal deed was completed" (1917 Code of Canon Law; Canon 2232,§2) and not from the moment of the sentence or declaration.

The excommunication "ferendae sententiae" is, on the contrary, that which "must be inflicted by the judge or by the superior."(21) "This occurs as a rule after a trial. In this case, the sentence or the decree are constitutive of the penalty: they are not limited to declaring the existence of a penalty that already inheres in a certain behavior, but they cause it to come into being, they constitute the term of the trial, which could, in fact, also be concluded with an absolution. Therefore, the juridical effects of the ferendae sententiae" penalty are produced "from the moment of the sentence or decree," and not from the moment in which the deed was committed. No retroactivity exists here. In contrast to the situation in the latae sententiae penalty, in the former case of the ferendae sententiae penalty there cannot be a penalty without a trial and consequent sentence or decree. The difference is not small. The difference is so great that the 1917 Code of Canon Law specifies that "the penalty must always be understood ferendae sententiae," unless it is explicitly affirmed that it must be understood as latae sententiae.(22)

Every modern penal law takes into consideration the subjective element of the offense. In order that someone may be able to be considered punishable, it is not enough that he has committed the criminal act, but it is necessary that he be imputable, that is to say that the breaking of the law can be ascribed to him as an action of a subject capable of understanding and willpower. In other words, that the subject acted with a will freely directed to a determined end. In order that there be full imputability, it is necessary that the subject has acted with the intention of offending [animus laedendi] or, as the Roman jurists used to say, "with an evil intent." In fact Canon 1321,§2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law says: "A person who has deliberately violated the law or precept is bound by the penalty prescribed in that law or precept..."

A weakened form of imputability is that which considers not the malice, but the fault, understood as the disposition of the subject who does not show the animus laedendi, but a simple "omission of due diligence." The distinction is clear from the second sentence of Canon 1321,§2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the first part of which we quoted above: "...If, however, the violation was due to the omission of due diligence, the person is not punished unless the law or precept provides otherwise." In the case of a culpable violation of the norm, the punishability can be lessened.(23)

In the law of the Church the subjective element has always enjoyed a particular importance. This is derived from the very character of the religious and moral conception that the Church has practiced, defended, and developed through its own juridical system.

In order that the subject be punishable he must be imputable. The 1983 Code of Canon Law states:

No one can be punished for the commission of an external violation of a law or precept unless it is gravely imputable by reason of malice or of culpability (Canon 1321, §1).24

The full imputability of the penalty is valid, therefore, for whoever has deliberately violated the law with full consciousness and intention. For such a motive, the 1983 Code of Canon Law demands that, in the case of latae sententiae penalties which, as we have defined them, are applied without a judgment, malice and full imputability are always presumed.

The condition of malice is required by Canon 1318 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which says:

A legislator is not to threaten latae sententiae penalties, except perhaps for some outstanding and malicious offenses which may be more grave by reason of scandal or such that they cannot be effectively punished by ferendae sententiae penalties. He is not, however, to constitute censures, especially excommunication, except with the greatest moderation, and only for the more grave offenses.(27)

The invitation of the Code to prudence and to caution in a matter so delicate is substantiated in the specification of three conditions necessary for the imposition of latae sententiae penalties: 1) there must clearly be malice on the part of its author; 2) the offense must provoke grave scandal among the faithful; 3) the offense must not be punishable through ferendae sententiae penalties.(26)

For the purposes of our discussion, it is of interest that the Code of Canon Law desired to place the accent on the presence of malice as a necessary requisite for the imposition of a latae sententiae penalty. But malice can be demonstrated only if the subject is fully imputable, since only to a fully imputable subject can the moral fault of having deliberately wished to violate the law be attributed. Therefore, if full imputability is lacking, the latae sententiae penalty of excommunication cannot be legally applied.

The requirement of full imputability of the offender naturally comes into play in every malicious crime. This is a general principle of every modern penal system. All the more is it valid for latae sententiae penalties, given their exceptional character. And, in fact, Canon 1324,§1 [1983 Code of Canon Law], in ascribing ten circumstances attenuating imputability, delineates in §3 of the same canon that in all ten cases "...the offender is not bound by a latae sententiae penalty."(27)

Attenuating circumstances do not eliminate imputabulity, but they do reduce it. They prevent the imputability from be characterized as "full." As a consequence of this, a mitigation is had of the penalty already established or the substitution of it by other sanctions, for example penances. Penances are not technically penalties by definition, but replace or increase them [1983 Code of Canon Law; Canon 1312,§3). Canon 1324 states in §1:

The perpetrator of a violation is not exempted from the penalty, but the penalty prescribed in the law or precept must be diminished, or a penance substituted in its place, if the offence was committed by: 1. one who had only an imperfect use of reason;...

The list of nine other attenuating circumstances follows the first listed in the above quote.(28) Among these nine other attenuating circumstances two are of interest to us: Numbers 5 and 8. Number 5 considers the case of one who was "compelled by grave fear, even if only relative, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience, if the act is intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls."(29) The meaning of this part of Canon 1324 means that whoever has completed an action "intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls," not deliberately, but only on account of having been forced or from grave fear, necessity, or grave inconvenience, is entitled to have take these circumstances, which attenuate his imputability, taken into consideration. This requires that the penalty not be imposed in its fullness and/or it be substituted by another type of sanction, as for example, a penance.

But why doesn't the attenuating circumstances of Number 5 of Canon 1324 eliminate all imputability? -- Because the action to which they have felt forced to perform was itself "intrinsically evil" or tending to be "harmful for souls." Given this nature of the action, it necessary that a form of sanction be maintained in view of the common good. Among the penalties which cannot be maintained, however, is excommunication.

In Number 8 of Canon 1324 on attenuating circumstances, there is considered, on the other hand, the case of one "who erroneously, but culpably, thought that some one of the circumstances existed which are mentioned in Canon 1323, Numbers 4 or 5."(30) It reads:

No one is liable to a penalty who, when violating a law or precept acted only under compulsion of grave fear, even if only relative, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience, unless, however, the act is intrinsically evil or tends to be harmful to souls; [or] acted, within the limits of due moderation, in lawful self-defense or defense of another against an unjust aggressor.

Besides these two circumstances, Canon 1323 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law gives five other circumstances that exempt the agent from all imputability, rendering the application of the penalty impossible. The exemptions mentioned are those according to which the law has been violated through grave fear even if relative, necessity, and grave inconvenience when the act performed is not intrinsically evil or does not tend to be harmful to souls or has been performed through legitimate defense.(31) Therefore, for that which regards the state of necessity [the category which is important for us to analyze --Ed.], when a norm has been violated with an act intrinsically evil or harmful for the salvation of souls, there is had a circumstance only attenuating, sufficient however for excluding the application of excommunication which ought to be substituted for by another penalty or by a penance. On the other hand, if the norm was violated with an act neither intrinsically evil nor harmful for souls, then imputability absolutely does not exist and neither can a penalty nor another form of sanction be inflicted. If the subject erroneously thought himself to be within the conditions given in Numbers 4 and 5 of Canon 1323 [1983 Code of Canon Law], namely of being forced to act in a state of necessity [or through grave fear, grave inconvenience, or legitimate defense --Ed.] without his action constituting something wicked in itself or harmful for the salvation of souls, then he has a claim on the attenuating circumstances. This means that even if the action warrants excommunication, this cannot be declared because it must be substituted by another penalty or by a penance. When the error of judgment takes place without fault on the part of the acting subject, then, rather than laying claim to an attenuating circumstance, the subject has claim to an exempting circumstance:

No one is liable to a penalty who, when violating a law or precept thought, through no personal fault, that some one of the circumstances existed which are mentioned in Numbers 4 or 5 [1983 Code of Canon Law; Canon 1323, n.7].

1 See “Gaps in the New Code?” an interview with Fr. Gerald E. Murray followed by a detailed enough exposition of his thesis, “Schism, Excommunication, and The Society of St. Pius X” edited by Steven Terenzio on pp.50-55 respectively in The Latin Mass (Fall, 1995). For another interview with Fr. Murray see 30 Days, n.4, April, 1995, pp.17,18.
2 Mise au point du Conseil Pontifical pour l’interpretation des textes legislatifs in La documentation catholique, 79 (1997), 2163, of July 6, 1997, pp.621-623. The retraction of Fr. Murray is found in The Latin Mass (Summer, 1996; pp.54,55). The Mise au point has been translated into Italian in Il regno-Documenti, n.17, 1977, pp.528,529. The Letter to Friends and Benefactors, #53 of the Society of Saint Pius X (Sept. 23, 1997) points out that the Mise au point and a simultaneous document from the Congregation of the Faith on the canonical situation of the “levebvrists” presented by Msgr. Brunner are in reality anonymous documents without date nor protocol number. For these reasons an obligatory value cannot be granted to them. These documents are evidence of the persistent hostility of the French and Swiss episcopates towards the Society of Saint Pius X.
3 This has been emphasized by Fr. Michel Beaumont in the article “L’abbé Gerald Murray se fait taper sur les doits,” which appeared in an issue of Fideliter (1997), pp.41-46, strongly critical of the “retraction” of the American scholar: “But this is the explicit approbation given by the highest academic instance, the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, which confers on this work an exceptional value.” This value is not able to be lessened in light of its retraction otherwise we would have to say that the professors of the Gregorian must retract their scientific approval! (Fr. Albert O.P. “La these de l’abbe Murray” in Le sel de la terre, n.24, Spring 1998, pp.50-67).
4 See Is Tradition Excommunicated?, “The Episcopal Consecrations: A Canonical Study,” pp.103-110. [Available from Angelus Press. Price: $7.95].
5 Is Tradition Excommunicated? cit., p.110.
6 SiSiNoNo, Ne schismatici ne excomunicati, Albano 1997, p.28ff.
7 SiSiNoNo, October 1988 (XIV, 17,p.4).
8 Op. cit., p.1.
9 Le sel de la terre (1993) 4, pp.27-45; 5, pp.44-87; 7, pp.25-57; (1994) 8, pp.28-44. The original is in German: “Bischofsweihen durch Erzbischof Lefebvre. Theologische Untersuchung der Rechtmassigkeit” [“The Episcopal Consecrations of Archbishop Lefebvre: A Theological Examination of their Legitimacy”], Zaitzkofen, 1992.
10 The book is interesting for its numerous comparisons between the 1917 Code of Canon Law and the 1983 Code of Canon Law. The 1917 Code of Canon Law is also called the Pian-Benedictine Code because it was compiled through the initiative of Pope Pius X and promulgated under Pope Benedict XI (Sept. 15, 1917). The 1917 Code of Canon Law is a known for its conceptual and systematic vision.
11 Kaschewski. French translation in La tradition excommuniee, cit., pp.51-57, p.51.
12 “Episcopi sunt Apostolorum successores atque ex divina institutione peculiaribus ecclesiis praeficiuntur quas cum potestate ordinaria regunt sub auctoritate Romani Pontificis.”
13 Kascewski, op. cit., p.4; French translation cit., pp.51-52
14 See Commento al Codice di Diritto Canonico [a.k.a., Commento] edited by Msgr. Pio Vito Pinto, Urbaniana University Press, Rome, 1985, pp.771, 772; see Del Guidice Istituzioni di diritto canonico, 12th revised ed. in collaboration with G. Catalano, Milan, 1970, p.488ff.
15 See Commento cit. p.777; Del Giudice op. cit., p.488ff.
16 Commento, p.772.
17 See “Das Mosaïsche-Rabbinische Strafgesetze und Strafrechtliche Gerichts Verfahren [“The Mosaic-Rabbinical Penal Law and Penal Procedure”] edited by Head Rabbi Hirsch B. Fassel, Gross-Kanischa, 1870, reprinted anast., Scientia, Aalen, 1981, sec. II, §13, p.12.
18 Jn. 12:42-43. An Old Testament reference is found in Prov. 22:10: “Cast out the scoffer and contention shall go out with him, and quarrels and reproaches shall cease.”
19 See the biography of R. Ridolfi, Vita di S. Girolamo Savonarola, Firenze, 1974, 5th ed., pp.283ff.
20 Canon 2217, §1, 2º [1917 Code of Canon Law]: “Poena dicitur...latae sententiae, si poena determinata ita sit addita legi vel praecepto ut incurratur ipso facto commissi delicti; ferendae sententiae, si a iudice vel superiore infligi debeat.” The penalties latae sententiae and ferendae sententiae are considered also in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, but for their definition it is necessary to go back to the former 1917 Code of Canon Law. The “fixed” penalty is that established especially by a norm addressed to all [law] or individually specified persons [precept]: “Poena dicitur: Determinata si in ipsa lege ver praecepto taxative statuta sit” [Canon 2217, cit.1, 1º].
21 Canon 2217, §2, 2º, 1917 Code of Canon Law, cit.
22 Canon 2217 cit., §2, “Poena intelligitur semper ‘ferendae sententiae,’ nisi expresse dicatgur eam esse latae sententiae vel ipso iure contrahi, vel nisi alia similia verba adhibeantur.” The concept is reaffirmed in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which in Canon 1314 reassumes the exposition of the 1917 Code: “Poena plerumque est ‘ferendae sententiae,’ ita ut reum non teneat, nisi postquam irrogate sit; est autem ‘latae sententiae,’ ita us in eam incurratur ipso facto commissi delicti, si lex vel praeceptum id expresse statuat.” [See p.753 of the Commento cit.: “The penalty is generally ferendae sententiae, such that it does not oblige the guilty one if it has not afterwards been inflicted; but it is latae sententiae such that it is incurred through the very fact of the offense having been committed, if the law or the precept expressly establish it.”] On the declarative and constitutive significance of the act of the condemned, see Commento cit., p.489.
23 The whole of Canon 1321 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law reads: “1) No one can be punished for the commission of an external violation of a law or precept unless it is gravely imputable by reason of malice or of culpability. 2) A person who deliberately violated a law or precept is bound by the penalty prescribed in that law or precept. If, however, the violation was due to the omission of due diligence, the person is not punished unless the law or precept proveides otherwise. 3) Where there has been an external violation, imputability is presumed, unless it appears otherwise.” [On this canon and its relation to the 1917 Code see Commento, cit., pp.758-759. The definitions present in the 1917 Code are clearer: cf. 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canons 2199;2200.]
24 The canon has already been reported in its entirety in footnote §13.
25 This canon re-echoes Canon 2241, §1, of the 1917 Code of Canon Law: “Censures, especially latae sententiae, most of all excommunication, are not to be inflicted, except moderately and with great circumspection.”
26 Examine Commento, cit., on p.756.
27 Commento states: §3 [of Canon 1324 of the 1983 Code] articulates a general principle that every diminution of imputability frees from latae sententiae penalties otherwise demanding full imputability [cf. Canon 2218,§2 of the 1917 Code.] When it is a question of latae sententiae penalties, the judgment of whether one of the causes (cited in Canon 1324) exists is the concern of the delinquent himself. This is different from what happens in ferendae sententiae penalties in which there is a judge to establish whether or not the cause exists [Commento, cit., pp.765-766]. If §3 of Canon 1324 states a general principle, this ought to be valid then for all cases in which a latae sententiae penalty is foreseen, even for apostasy, heresy, and schism [1983 Code, Canon 1364,§1). Lacking full imputability, they would never be able to be punished by incurring a latae sententiae excommunication.
28 “Violationis auctor non eximitur a poena, sed poena lege vel praecepto statuta temperari debet vel in eius locum paenitentia adhiberi, si delictum patratum sit: 1o ab eo, qui rationis usum imperfectum tantum habuerit.” See also Commento, cit., pp.763ff.
29 See Commento, cit., p.762: “The general principle of Canon 125,§2 [1983 Code under “Title VII: Juridical Acts”-Ed.] decrees that an act performed as a result of fear which is grave and unjustly inflicted is valid unless the law provides otherwise. However, in a penal matter whether absolute or relative, having taken into account the subject who places the threat and whoever undergoes it, it frees from every penalty.”
30 “...ab eo, qui per errorem, ex sua tamen culpa, putavit aliquam adesse ex circumstantiis, de quibus in can.1323, nn.4 or 5.”
31 “...metu gravi, quamvis relative tantum, coactus egit, aut ex necessitate vel gravi incommodo, nisi tamen actus sit intrinsece malus aut vergat in animarum damnum.”

From what has been seen in Part II of this canonical study of the 1988 Consecrations by Archbishop Lefebvre , it is certain that through the 1983 Code of Canon Law the attenuating and exempting circumstances have not only objective force, but also subjective force. This means that the canon is to be applied even if the situation of crisis, such as the state of necessity, of grave fear, etc., exists merely in the mind of the acting subject, that is to say, be it the fruit of his own erroneous judgment, an error which can even be due to his own fault, namely to a culpable ignorance which leads the subject to a "false judgment about some thing."(1) Let us return to the text of canon lawyer Fr. Rudolf Kaschewski, whom we have been quoting from in this series [see Is Tradition Excommunicated? "The Episcopal Consecrations: A Canonical Study," available from Angelus Press. Price: $7.95].

Even if one were to call into question, or actually deny altogether, the existence of a situation of emergency, as we have described it [i.e., his analysis of the dreadful situation of today’s Catholic Church -–Ed.], the following would still apply:

No one will deny that a bishop who, in the aforementioned situation, consecrates another one, would be at least subjectively of the opinion that he is in a situation of necessity such as we have described above. Thus one cannot speak of a premeditated violation of the law: for one who goes against the law but believing even wrongly that his action is legitimate, does not act in a premeditated way. The New Code< [of 1983] is even clearer:

a)The person who thought, without fault on his part, that a circumstance foreseen in Canon 1323, Numbers 4,5, and 7 applied when he was breaking the law or an administrative order, does not incur any punishment.

b)The violator of the law is not exempt from all penalty but the penalty laid down in the law or in the administrative order must be mitigated, or a penance must be substituted, if the offense was accomplished by someone believing through an error, even if culpable, that he was in a circumstance foreseen in Canon 1323, Numbers 4 and 5 (Canon 1324, §1, No.8)...

Thus those who would suppose that the emergency exists only in the fantasy and the imagination of the bishop concerned could hardly argue that this supposedly erroneous conception would be punishable.

Even if someone were to put it to him that he was guilty for having arrived at such a mistaken notion of the existence of an emergency (not, in fact, existing), still:

1) The automatic excommunication could not follow as mentioned in Canon 1382 [i.e., it could not be automatic].

2) In any case, an eventual penalty which a judge might apply would have to be more clement than that foreseen in the law, so that here, too, an excommunication would be out of the question.(2) [All emphasis in original.]

How can it be denied that, in the case of consecrations imposed by necessity, "a bishop is at least subjectively convinced that it is a question of a state of necessity detrimental to souls"? The 1983 Code of Canon Law protects this very consideration by establishing a true and proper presumption of good faith, since it protects it even when it is erroneous, that is, even when it may be the result of an error of judgment to be ascribed to the acting subject and not to the circumstances. It is evident that the current law renders the application of a latae sententiae excommunication to the consecration of a bishop without mandate practically impossible, and that, therefore an excommunication declared in contempt of that 1983 Code of Canon Law (especially of Canons 1323,1324) must be considered completely invalid with the consequent intrinsic nullity of all the effects which canon law attributes to it.

How was the Holy See able to make such a mess of the case of Archbishop Lefebvre? -– It has judged him to have had bad faith. Perhaps, while violating the principle that the Church does not judge internal matters, the Church has conducted a trial on the intentions of Archbishop Lefebvre, something that only God can do.

The "Notice" that appeared in L'Osservatore Romano (June 30-July 1, 1988) addressed the fact that in some circles the latae sententiae excommunication was considered completely invalid. L'Osservatore Romano took action against Archbishop Lefebvre's intentions by accusing him of bad faith. It said that in this situation "Canon 1323 [of the 1983 Code of Canon Law] cannot be applied," which considers, as we know, the state of necessity among those reasons that exempt one from penalty. L'Osservatore Romano proposed that even the supposed "state of emergency" in the Church was deliberately created by Archbishop Lefebvre in order to preserve his position of defending tradition within the Catholic Church!(3) This insanely ludicrous proposal does nothing more than show the bad will of L'Osservatore Romano! It is clear! Obviously, it felt it necessary to embrace this proposal because saying so means Archbishop Lefebvre acted in bad faith, preventing the application of Canon 1323 and thereby justifying the bogus excommunication!

The "Notice" in question does not mention Canon 1324 at all, which establishes the ten famous attenuating circumstances exempting one from penalty, even in the presence of error imputable to the acting subject. That which we have called the subjective relevance concerning the state of necessity, as conceived by the 1983 Code of Canon Law so as to exclude every action against intentions, is passed over in silence by L'Osservatore Romano.

It is sure that the Vatican authorities know canon law. The silence on Canon 1324 has, according to us, a specific reason. Please tell us, how can the supposed bad faith of a bishop who believes (even erroneously!) in a state of necessity in the Church and who acts as he feels he must as a consequence be proven conclusively? It is a proof that can follow only from judgments against his intentions, that is, a proof that is impossible to make. Yet the allusion to bad faith is quite clear in the "Notice." From this, the antagonists will advance the proposal that this "bad faith" arose from a schismatic will which they attribute unjustly to Archbishop Lefebvre. The "Notice" says that the consecrations of bishops in Ecône which were "performed expressly against the will of the Pope," are to be absolutely considered an "act formally schismatic according to the norm of Canon 751 [of the 1983 Code], by holding that Archbishop Lefebvre openly refused submission to the Supreme Pontiff and communion with the members of the Church subject to him."(4) The so-called "schismatic will" of Archbishop Lefebvre will be then be used to "prove" his bad faith in invoking the "state of necessity" in the Church. The whole circular argument boils down to its central point: What is schism?

Before analyzing schism from the juridical point of view, we want to observe how the non-mention of Canon 1324 [which was heavily discussed in Part II of this canonical study -–Ed.] is tantamount to the exclusion by the Conciliar Church of every possible attenuating circumstance useful to defending Archbishop Lefebvre and those others who, such as Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, maintained and are maintaining themselves faithful to the dogmas of the Faith. This has become a constant in the Conciliar Church which has provoked a distorted representation of Canon 1324 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

With this is mind, we make reference to the opinion of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts which attempts to debunk the well-founded thesis of canonist Fr. Gerald Murray regarding the validity of the latae sententiae excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre. Fr. Murray is an American priest who has no connection with the Society of Saint Pius X. The "Murray Thesis," receiving the highest grade at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, holds that the excommunication latae sententiae declared against Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, and the four bishops consecrated, was not valid according to strict canonical law nor is the accusation of schism valid in the formal sense . Against the Murray Thesis, the Pontifical Council said:

Nevertheless, the validity of the excommunication of the Bishops, declared by the motu proprio and by the decree, cannot be reasonably doubted. In particular, the possibility of looking for attenuating or nullifying circumstances concerning the imputability of the offense (Canons 1323,1324 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law) does not seem admissible. As far as concerns the state of necessity in which Archbishop Lefebvre would have been able to find himself, it is necessary to remember that such a state must exist objectively and that the necessity of consecrating bishops contrary to the will of the Roman Pontiff, head of the College of Cardinals, never happens [emphasis added].(5)

This "clarification" clearly contradicts what is established in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. It affirms, in fact, that for the 1983 Code the state of necessity "must objectively exist," but in fact, according to the same 1983 Code, the state of necessity, as we have already shown, can exist only subjectively. Hence, the "clarification" misrepresents the norms in force, as if the 1983 Code considered the state of necessity only in its objective reality, as is the case of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The Pontifical Council passes over in silence the attenuating circumstances that the Holy See should have legitimately considered had it wanted to, in order to prevent the application of a latae sententiae excommunication that was not only unjust but also invalid.

What was written by Prof. Kaschewski and reported above shows how consecration without pontifical mandate and schism are two totally independent things which by their very nature are not related. They are governed by two distinct canons of the 1983 Code of Canon Law [i.e., Canon 1382 for consecration without pontifical mandate, and Canon 1364, §1 for schism --Ed.] even if the penalty provided is the same.

Nevertheless the documents which declare or explain the condemnation of Archbishop Lefebvre all contain the accusation of schism, and of schism in the formal sense, beginning with the already cited anonymous "Notice" from L'Osservatore Romano of June 30-July 1, 1988, published two days before the official documents of the Holy See. In the "Notice," it is affirmed that, since to "no bishop is it permitted to consecrate anyone as Bishop, unless it is first established that a pontifical mandate has been issued (1983 Code, Canon 1013), the episcopal consecrations which took place:

were performed expressly against the will of the Pope with a formally schismatic act according to the norm of Canon 751, he [Archbishop Lefebvre] having openly refused submission to the Supreme Pontiff and communion with the members of the Church subject to him.

As a consequence of this, the "Notice" says that:

he cannot even apply Canon 1323, any relevant matter foreseen by him not being verified in this case, since even the alleged "necessity" was deliberately created by Archbishop Lefebvre in order to preserve a posture of separation from the Catholic Church, notwithstanding the offers of communion and the concessions made by the Holy Father John Paul II.(6)

The official declarations of excommunication on the part of Cardinal Gantin (July 1, 1988) affirm likewise that Archbishop Lefebvre has "...performed a schismatical act by the episcopal consecration of four priests without pontifical mandate and contrary to the will of the Supreme Pontiff..."(7) Also the motu proprio of the Pope, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta (July 2, 1988), condemns the consecrations of Ecône as a "schismatic act" using the same faulty theological and canonical reasoning as that in the "Notice":

...In itself, this act was one of disobedience towards the Roman Pontiff in a very grave matter and of supreme importance for the unity of the Church, such as is the ordination of bishops whereby the apostolic succession is sacramentally perpetuated. Hence such disobedience -– which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy -– constitutes a schismatic act. [A citation of Canon 751 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law defining "schism" is inserted here. -–Ed.] In performing such an act, notwithstanding the formal canonical warning sent to them by the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops on June 17 last, Archbishop Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, and Alfonso de Galarreta, have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law...[The reference to Canon 1382 is inserted here which, as we know, provides for latae sententiae excommunication for consecration without pontifical mandate.(8)]

Only the anonymous "Notice" of L'Osservatore Romano speaks expressly of a "formally" schismatic act. As already mentioned, this "Notice" furnishes the so-called "canonical motivation" for the condemnation which would appear in the same paper two days later (July 3) with the simultaneous publication of the Decree of the Office of the Congregation for Bishops (see Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, p.126) and of the motu proprio, Ecclesia Dei Adflicta. The "Notice" is therefore of extreme importance because it makes clear that the Vatican did not consider applying the nullifications provided by Canon 1323 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law because it accused Archbishop Lefebvre of giving life to a true and proper schism in the formal sense, which, by definition, is manifested by the denial of the primacy of Peter and the creation of a parallel "Church." This being the mindset of the Vatican, it is not possible for it to invoke any circumstance nullifying imputability. This imputation of schism by the Vatican was not repudiated by the Decree of the Office of the Congregation for Bishops nor by Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, although both use the adjective "schismatic" without the adverb "formally."

Archbishop Lefebvre has been charged twice over, that is, with both disobedience and schism in the formal sense. Be it the one or the other, they cause the acting subject to incur excommunication ipso iure. If two offenses have been imputed to Archbishop Lefebvre, has he incurred two excommunications at the same time? The dean of the faculty of Canon Law at the Institut Catholique (Paris, France) maintains that schism is not created per se by the consecration of a bishop without papal mandate. What causes schism is the subsequent conferral of an Apostolic Mission upon this bishop, a symbol of the usurpation of power of the Supreme Pontiff proving one wishes to constitute a parallel Church.(9)

On the same note, the canonist Neri Capponi of the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the University of Florence states that in order to consummate a schism, Archbishop Lefebvre would have had to establish his own hierarchy.(10) Theological and canonical doctrine hold that the essential requisites for a schism in the formal sense consist in 1) the express denial of the papal primacy; 2) the denial of communion with members of the Church, and 3) the conferral of the power of jurisdiction.(11)

The first two requisites do not necessarily have to concur; only one of them is enough. And if they are not explicitly affirmed, by themselves or together, the act of the conferring of the power of jurisdiction is sufficient to create schism. This act, implying the establishment of an official ecclesiastical jurisdiction over a determinate territory, causes a proper hierarchy to be born, created with that act and therefore distinct from that of Holy Church and parallel to it. Here we have a formal rupture of unity. The act of disobedience alone (such as an episcopal consecration without papal mandate) does not create schism through itself. Not every act of disobedience is schismatic, but only those that meet any or all of the three aforementioned criteria. In the case of the episcopal consecrations for the Society of Saint Pius X, nothing done applies to be called "schismatic." Though, yes, the act was disobedient (through force of events), no act conferring any "apostolic mission" was ever performed.

The act imputed to the Archbishop was only one according to the terms of law -– the consecration of bishops. The excommunication is, therefore, one only. But the fact that one unique act has received two imputations of illegality -– i.e., "disobedience" and "formal schism" -– shows that the Holy See wanted to establish an intrinsic relation between the consecration without mandate and schism. For the excommunication to be valid from the point of view of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the connection of these two different imputations must find its foundation in the one act performed by Archbishop Lefebvre.

The episcopal consecrations for the Society of Saint Pius X took place without the mandatum, that is, the authorization of the pope. Nevertheless a mandatum was read during the ceremony. With what right? -– With the right that springs from the state of necessity, correctly understood. At the beginning of the rite of consecration of the four bishops, the following dialogue took place between the consecrating bishops and the Archpriest who presented the bishops-elect for consecration:

Do you have an apostolic mandate?

We have it!

Let it be read.

We have this Mandate from the Roman Church, always faithful to the Holy Tradition which She has received from the Holy Apostles. This Holy Tradition is the Deposit of Faith which the Church orders us to faithfully transmit to all men for the salvation of their souls...(12)

If the authorities of the Church refuse their permission for an episcopal consecration required by the state of necessity created by a Catholic clergy infected with postmodernist errors and which no longer transmits the deposit of the Faith, then it is totally legitimate to hold that the "Roman Church" of 19 centuries (excluding Vatican II) "orders" those who have remained faithful to the Magisterium to "faithfully transmit" the Deposit of the Faith for the salvation of souls. The "authorization" of Archbishop Lefebvre to consecrate these bishops comes from the Catholic Church of All Time and its Head of All Time. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, not properly the Holy Father, who by definition is only its Vicar pro tempore. If, in a case like the consecration of these four bishops, the earthly ruler refuses to authorize an act required by the public and general necessity and totally in accordance with the Church of All Time, it is lawful to maintain that the Church supplies jurisdiction.

A mandatum conceived in this manner is totally legitimate from both the theological and canonical points of view.

After having declared in the first part of the mandatum the Authority which conferred this mandate, the dialogue continued:

...Since the Second Vatican Council to this day, the authorities of the Roman Church are animated by the spirit of modernism. They have acted contrary to the Holy Tradition since "...there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine;...and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned to fables...," as says St. Paul in second Epistle to Timothy (II Tim. 4:3-5). This is why we reckon of no value all the penalties and all the censures inflicted by these authorities.(13)

That which is affirmed here is not a refusal of submission to the Pope nor a refusal of communion with the members of the Church. And neither is it the denial of the authority of the present hierarchy, insofar as it is the legitimate Catholic hierarchy. More simply, validity is denied to "penalties and censures" inflicted or declared by an authority which at the present moment is infected by a postmodernist spirit and professing grave errors and ambiguities such as to lead souls into error.

In this case, the understanding of the authority of the Holy Father to govern the Catholic Church is not taken in a purely formal sense, that is to say that, as though his authority extends to making valid everything the pope says or does simply by the fact alone that he is formally invested with the authority of the papacy. This simplistic idea of authority has never been Catholic. On the contrary, the perennial principle prevails, that is, "The corruption of law is not law." Therefore it is not enough that authority be legitimate, it is also necessary that its commands are legitimate and do not contradict the reason for being of the authority itself. The sole reason for papal authority is that the Holy Father propagate the Faith and extirpate heresy.

If authority is clearly infected by a postmodernist spirit, the spirit of heresy which has penetrated the Church through Vatican II documents like Lumen Gentium [which gives a new definition of the Catholic Church (§8) contrary to that given by the Church herself for 19 centuries and thus placing the Church in contradiction with herself -–Ed.]; if legitimate authority shows itself by consistent and various acts and declarations to have lost the sense of the Catholic Faith, then let it be resolved that it is lawful to often ask how much value ought to be attributed to the decisions of the Conciliar Church and if it ought to be always unquestionably obeyed as expressing the will of the God.

All actions made in the spirit of postmodernism and hence manifestly in contradiction with the purposes of the Church are "devoid of weight" and therefore invalid. On the contrary, when Pope John Paul II reaffirms in conformity to Tradition the prohibition against women being ordained priests (L'Osservatore Romano, May 30-31, 1994), this action is unquestionably valid because it corresponds to the doctrine and purposes of the Holy Church of All Time. When, however, the same Pontiff declares Archbishop Lefebvre -– a bishop most faithful to the papal primacy, whose desire owing to the urgency of the age was to consecrate bishops to preserve the life of his priestly fraternity which Rome had enthusiastically approved and which was found unreproachable in doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline, devoted to the formation of priests for the purpose of helping souls in the state of grave general necessity -– to have incurred a latae sententiae excommunication, we call this action invalid in the substantial plane, considered apart from the formal plane already examined [i.e., constituted by conformity to what has been established expressly by the pertinent canons of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which nevertheless we claim exclude the possibility of Archbishop Lefebvre’s excommunication ipso iure -–Ed.]. The action is invalid and without weight because it wishes to exclude from the Catholic Church the defenders of Tradition with totally unfounded theological and canonical imputations because these defenders do not accept the New Theology's concept of "living" Tradition professed by Pope John Paul II and other members of the present hierarchy.

Rejecting the validity for "penalties and censures" inflicted with a "modernist spirit" by Vatican authority does not indicate a rejection of the legitimacy of this authority insofar as with this denial we do not confess any act of schism. It indicates that we declare unacceptable and invalid every act of authority that is contrary to the preservation and perpetuation of the doctrine of the Catholic Faith.

Among these acts considered invalid are the suppression of the seminary of Ecône and subsequent suspension of Archbishop Lefebvre a divinis. The latter is to be judged invalid because the Vatican did not consider the state of necessity in which Archbishop Lefebvre found himself as a consequence of the illegitimate suppression of the Ecône seminary.

The mandatum of the episcopal consecrations reaffirmed a truth in the form of a general principle which implies, in the concrete case, the invalidity a priori of the penalties and censures already inflicted or to be declared by an authority that is fundamentally postmodern and acting with a false notion of Tradition.

The Vatican's false notion of Tradition shows up in an explicit manner in the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei Adflicta where Archbishop Lefebvre is accused of having accomplished an act to be considered schismatic for not having sufficiently embraced "the living character of Tradition."(14) In the language of modernism, "living tradition" is tradition as understood by the New Theology, not the tradition which the Magisterium of the Church has always understood. "Living tradition" moves (that is, lives) by a dynamic concept, moving to see truth evolve and see that evolution applied to Church doctrine, whose content is no longer unchanging but must be updated to the times. Thus in the already cited §8 of the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, the notion of the Catholic Church is adapted to the demands of ecumenism, fundamentally denying that the Catholic Church is the one and only Church of Christ, that the Christian denominations which cut themselves off from Her are not the Church of Christ. The notion of "living tradition" in the New Theology is nothing more than passing off as being in harmony with true Catholic Tradition any adaptations to the falsehoods of heretics and schismatics by the Conciliar Church of the past 40 years.

The mandatum concludes with the explicit, official motivation of the episcopal consecrations of 1988:

As for me, "I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand" (II Tim. 4:6). I heed the call of souls who ask for the Bread of Life, Who is Christ, to be broken for them. "I have pity upon the crowd" (Mk. 8:2). It is for me therefore a grave obligation to transmit the grace of my episcopacy to these dear priests here present, in order that in turn they may confer the grace of the priesthood on other numerous and holy clerics, instructed in the Holy Traditions of the Catholic Church.

It is by the Mandate of the Holy Roman Catholic Church always faithful, then, that we elect to the rank of bishop in the Holy Roman Church the priests here present as auxiliaries of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X: Fr. Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Fr. Richard Williamson, Fr. Alfonso de Galarreta, Fr. Bernard Fellay.(15)

The text is most clear. On account of the state of necessity in which he had come to find himself, Archbishop Lefebvre knew he had to "transmit his episcopal grace" without further delay to other priests, satisfying the legitimate expectations of seminarians and faithful, for the salvation of their souls. To the bishops consecrated by him he gave the power of order, not the power of jurisdiction, so that they might be best called "auxiliaries" of the Society of Saint Pius X.

Archbishop Lefebvre was consistent with the general stance taken and maintained by him for a long time. In the letter addressed to the future bishops, already prepared on August 28, 1987, in which he was inviting them to take upon themselves this grave responsibility, it was declared in an explicit manner that he would confer on them only the power of order:

[T]he principal object of this transmission [of my episcopal grace -—Ed.] is that of conferring the grace of the sacerdotal order for the continuation of the True Sacrifice of the Holy Mass and to confer the grace of the sacrament of Confirmation to children and the faithful who ask it of them.(16)

So you see, there is no intention to create a parallel hierarchy, and therefore, no power of territorial jurisdiction conferred. The jurisdiction that he did confer was unicamente supplita ad actum, that is, a jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis at the request of souls in the state of necessity.

Even more important for showing the consistency and good faith of Archbishop Lefebvre is what he wrote Pope John Paul II (Feb. 20, 1988) six weeks after a presumably favorable report had been given the Holy Father by Edward Cardinal Gagnon, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, who had been assigned by the Vatican to make an Apostolic Visitation to seminaries, schools, and priories of the Society of Saint Pius X. Told by Cardinal Gagnon the Pope had read the report and yet not receiving any response from the Holy Father, Archbishop Lefebvre wrote this letter to Pope John Paul II expressing once again the three requirements he understood to be necessary for a happy resolution of problems: 1) a Roman Secretariat composed exclusively of members chosen from within Tradition; 2) consecration of several bishops to be decided on or before June 30, 1988; and 3) exemption vis-à-vis the local Ordinaries. It is the part of this letter which talks about the second of these requirements that we quote:

2) The consecration of bishops succeeding me in my apostolate appears indispensable and urgent.

For the first designation, and while waiting for the Roman Office to assume its functions, it seems to me that you can entrust it to me, as is done with the Eastern patriarchs.

If this is agreed to in principle, I will present the names [of the episcopal candidates -–Ed.] to Cardinal Gagnon.

The second point is the most urgent one to be resolved, given my age and my fatigue. It is now two years that I have not done any ordinations at the seminary in the United States [in Ridgefield, CT at the time -–Ed.] The seminarians ardently aspire to be ordained, but I no longer have the health to be crossing oceans.

This is why I entreat Your Holiness to resolve this point before June 30 of this year.

These bishops would be in the situation vis-à-vis Rome and vis-à-vis their Society [i.e., the Society of Saint Pius X -–Ed.] that the missionary bishops were vis-à-vis the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and their own Society. Instead of a territorial jurisdiction, they would have a jurisdiction over individuals.

It goes without saying that the bishops would always be chosen from among priests of Tradition.(17)

From this text, the state of necessity for the Church and in the person of Archbishop Lefebvre himself clearly appears. What is more interesting is the qualification he gives concerning the jurisdiction of the future bishops. There is no question here of threatening a schism. Archbishop Lefebvre is inspired with the precedent familiar within the Church of the "missionary bishop," a prelate devoid of territorial jurisdiction, with a jurisdiction only over individuals. These individuals are not predetermined by belonging to any particular diocese, but are those who would be qualified before the bishop as persons in need of an act of his power of order.

Archbishop Lefebvre remained faithful to this letter to the Holy Father and to the mandatum of the consecrations by conferring only the power of order upon the four bishops consecrated by him. While it can be maintained that the bishops consecrated by him are not exactly identical to "missionary bishops," it can be said that the "auxiliary" bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X are effectively "missionary," because they have received (only) a power of order to be exercised with a supplied jurisdiction over individuals.(18)

1 This is the doctrinal definition of “Error” as found in Commento al Codice di Diritto Canonico [a.k.a., Commento], p.761: “Error, which is in reference to an action done out of ignorance, is a false judgment about some thing.” As regards ignorance, it is “the lack of due knowledge, that is, an habitual state.” It can be culpable (i.e., “slight, grave, crass or supine, affected or fully deliberate”). Ignorance that “removes all penal imputability is only that which is inculpable” (op. cit., p.761).
2 See Is Tradition Excommunicated?, “The Episcopal Consecrations: A Canonical Study,” by Rev. Fr. Rudolf Kaschewsky, pp.108,109 [available from Angelus Press. Price: $7.95], translated from Una Voce Korrespondence, March-April 1988.
3 L’Osservatore Romano, cit.
4 L’Osservatore Romano, cit. Canon 751 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law reads: “Heresy is the obstinate denial or doubt, after baptism, of a truth which must be believed by divine and catholic faith. Apostasy is the total repudiation of the christian faith. Schism is the withdrawal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him.”
5 Mise au point du Conseil Pontifical pour l’interpretation des textes legislatifs in La documentation catholique, 79 (1997), 2163, of July 6, 1997, p.529.
6 L’Osservatore Romano, 3 July 1988.
7 Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, pp.126 (available from Angelus Press).
8 Ibid, pp.126,127.
9 Valeurs Actuelles, July 4, 1988, p.18.
10 Interview in The Latin Mass, Summer, 1993.
11 The word “Schism,” written by Fr. Yves Congar, in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique, XIV, col.1286-1312; col.1299ff. See also the words “Schisme” and “Schismatique” in the Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, col. 886,887.
12 Excerpted from Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, p.123. For the text in Latin, see Fraternite S. Pie X. Bulletin Officiel du District de France, July 13, 1988, n.10, p.2.
13 Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, p.123.
14 L’Osservatore Romano, July 3, 1988, cit.
15 Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, cit.
16 Fideliter, June 29-30, 1988.
17 Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, pp.42,43.
18 The bishops consecrated as “auxiliaries” of the Society of Saint Pius X are not to be included in the category of “auxiliary bishop” without “right of succession,” referred to in Canon 403, §1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. These latter enjoy the power of jurisdiction over the territory of a diocese, being placed alongside [a latere] the diocesan bishop when “he is not able personally to fulfil all the episcopal offices as the good of souls would demand” (Commento, cit., p.241). It must be remembered that jurisdiction in actu supplita is not the same as in actu expedita, referred to in §2 of the Nota Praevia affixed to Lumen Gentium, this latter always resulting from a canonical mission. That which justifies jurisdiction supplita in actu is especially the state of necessity, in particular in the case of grave error and of heresy which have been publicly spread, also and above all on account of a temporary cessation of the authority of the official Church. In a similar situation, grave necessity of the many which is effected by a danger of seduction to error is equated by unanimous teaching to the extreme necessity of the individual as can be had in the danger of death.

The bulk of Part 3 of this ongoing canonical study of the 1988 episcopal consecrations dealt with the notion of "mandate." It was conceded that these consecrations took place without the mandatum ("mandate"), that is, the authorization of the Pope. Despite this, we proved in Part 3 that these consecrations were not, therefore, a formally schismatic act. In any case, a mandate was read at the consecrations ceremony in Ecône. With what right? -- We answered in Part 3, "With the right that springs from necessity, correctly understood."

Do you have an apostolic mandate?

We have it!

Let it be read.

We have this Mandate from the Roman Church, always faithful to the Holy Tradition which She has received from the Holy Apostles. This Holy Tradition is the Deposit of Faith which the Church orders us to faithfully transmit to all men for the salvation of their souls...[Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican, Angelus Press, p.123]

In this part of our canonical study, Part 4, we will attempt to better understand what "schism" actually means.

If we analyze the mandate read at Ecône on the occasion of the episcopal consecrations, no will to be "schismatic" appears. No desire to establish a parallel hierarchy emerges, neither from the words nor from the actions of Archbishop Lefebvre. And it is known that, subsequent to the ordinations, he never conferred any "canonical mission" upon the bishops. In the years since 1988, none of the four bishops consecrated that day has behaved as if he were titular of a diocese.

The accusation of schism in the formal sense contained in the Vatican documents is based on the text of the mandate of Ecône and on the act represented by it. The consecrations performed (by necessity, we argue) against the will of the Pope are considered by the Vatican to constitute an act of disobedience further considered by it to be "schismatic." This opinion is contrary to the accepted principles according to which, as we have seen, it is necessary always to distinguish between "disobedience" and "schism." This appears in a clear manner from the decree of Card. Gantin who speaks of an act "by its nature" schismatic. In the opinion of the Cardinal, the consecration without mandate is an act "in itself" of disobedience, and this disobedience, regarding a most grave matter concerning the unity of the Church through apostolic succession, involves a true repudiation ("vera repudiatio") of the Roman Primacy and for this reason is to be considered a "schismatic act." His claim is because it denies the unity of the Church "this disobedience effects a schismatic act."

The sense of the text is clear: the disobedience of Archbishop Lefebvre was so serious it implied a refusal of the primacy of Peter, putting into doubt the unity of the Church, and therefore, must be considered "schismatic." In fact, the Cardinal has attributed a new quality to disobedience which makes him now consider the disobedience to be "schismatic." The Archbishop found himself accused of a "schismatic act" in the objective sense, an accusation derived from the assumed quality of the act alone attributed to it by Cardinal Gantin, which, through itself, is not schismatic! In addition, there exists no declaration of will by Archbishop Lefebvre to be schismatic, nor of further acts necessary to prove the existence of schism in the formal sense.

This concept of schism is totally unknown either to canon law or to theology. The Holy See made an innovation with regard to the current law, enforcing against Archbishop Lefebvre a notion of schism in the formal sense, different from what is admitted by Church doctrine and the 1983 Code of Canon Law. This new notion of schism is unacceptable because it does not distinguish between disobedience and schism, that is, between legitimate and illegitimate disobedience. Instead, it interprets any act of disobedience as an act in itself schismatic.

In the case of these episcopal consecrations, can a schism in the purely objective sense exist? That is to say, can a schism exist in the absence of a will annunciated and in the absence of the institution of a parallel hierarchy through an illegitimate "canonical mission"? No canonist or theologian would admit the existence of a schism thus conceived. It is true that the 1983 Code of Canon Law does not define the specific "schismatic act," but merely the concept of schism which refers substantially to St. Thomas Aquinas, but that does allow the Holy See to invent a new category of schismatic act, moreover one which is contrary to what doctrine has always maintained!

Of course, the Pope, supreme legislator and foremost teacher of the Church, has the power to innovate with respect to the Code. But, for him to do so, he must proclaim he is doing so, namely, by establishing and defining a new type of offense. Whatever he may call it -- "objective schism," or "objectively schismatic disobedience" -- he cannot sneak around doing so nor establish a proper procedure as if it were a question of the mere application of the law in force. The fact that the Code does not define "schismatic act" does not mean that the supreme authority can establish, between today and tomorrow, without creating new norms to which it assumes legislative responsibility, that a determinate act must be considered "by its nature" schismatic. On the contrary, it means that the Code of Canon Law must be interpreted by deferring the determination of a "schismatic act" to the consolidated canonical and theological doctrine of the Church and her practice through the ages. The supreme authority cannot ignore this deferment without falling into arbitrariness.

What is then the notion of "schism" in the formal sense? In Canon 751 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law "schism" is defined as "the withdrawal from submission to the Supreme Pontiff or from communion with the members of the Church subject to him."(1)

This withdrawal gives life to a separation from the body of the Church and represents a rupture of the unity of the Church. It is to be noted that, on the conceptual plane, schism can be had also by withdrawing oneself from communion with members of the Church only, who are subject to the Pope, without, at the same time withdrawing oneself from subjection to the Pope, or vice versa. The sin of schism is contrary to charity because it "directly and through itself opposes unity," given that not accidentally, but through its nature, a schismatic "intends to separate himself from the unity which charity produces." Schismatics are those who, in violating the command of charity, separate themselves from the Church willfully and intentionally. The unity of the Church must be considered in two ways in themselves linked together: 1) "in the mutual connection or communion of the members of the Church" and, 2) "in the subordination of all the members of the Church to the one head according to Colossians 2:18-19." The head "is Christ Himself, whose Vicar in the Church is the Supreme Pontiff." That is why St. Thomas Aquinas says:

[S]chismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Supreme Pontiff, and to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy.(2)

He gives therefore the concept of schism just as we find it even today in the Code of Canon Law.

Schism is a special type of sin in itself that demands proper qualifications. It cannot be reduced to simple disobedience as such, as the Vatican wishes, inasmuch as disobedience is the source of every sin, as St. Thomas Aquinas recalls in this objection to which he then proceeds to reply:

Further, a man is apparently a schismatic if he disobeys the Church. But every sin makes a man disobey the commandments of the Church, because sin, according to St. Ambrose, is "disobedience against the heavenly commandments." Therefore every sin is a schism.(3)

The reply of St. Thomas to this objection hinges on his indisputable reasoning that in disobedience that gives life to schism there must be a "certain rebellion" ("rebellio quaedam"):

The essence of schism consists in rebelliously disobeying the commandments: and I say rebelliously, since a schismatic both obstinately scorns the commandments of the Church, and refuses to submit to her judgment. But every sinner does not do this, wherefore not every sin is a schism [Summa Theologica, II-II, Q.39, A.I, Obj.2].

For one to be in schism, there must be a manifestation of a rebellion which must appear from the fact of "despising with pertinacity the teachings of the Church and of refusing to submit to its judgment. And every sin does not have this attitude in it. Therefore every sin is not schism."(4)

Schism is a "special" sin, which is to say, it can't be assimilated to another sin simply on the grounds of the principle that in every sin there is a disobedience. For St. Thomas, schism must be characterized by "rebellion." If expressed by a "rebellion," then the schism is a question of illegitimate disobedience, for if the disobedience is legitimate, then there is no question of rebellion! Torquemada says that theologians of at least the 14th century and later:

point out that schism is an illegitimate separation from the unity of the Church; they assert in fact that there could be a legitimate separation, as in the case of him who refuses to obey the Pope, if the Pope commands of him something evil or illegal [emphasis added].(5)

In such a case, as in an unjust excommunication, "there would be a purely exterior and putative separation from unity."(6)

Doctrine has therefore elaborated the concept of schism as the illegitimate refusal of submission and communion. This refusal must be understood in an act or in acts in which an illegitimate disobedience (or, rebellion) to authority is unequivocally manifested. In formal schism, the intention of the acting subject must be clearly manifest to consciously deny submission and communion on which is founded the unity of the Church. Otherwise schism is virtual; it is present, that is, in the intention, but not yet brought into action, not yet carried into an effective separation. It can already be a sin, even if it does not fall under the sphere of the norms of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Therefore by the notion of virtual schism is meant not only the attitude or the intention of the potential schismatic (schismatic in potency), but also behavior (conduct) that objectively reveals a non-participation in the communion of the Church's members, even in the absence of an actual schism in the formal sense. This behavior, which manifests a separation in fact, would reveal the existence of a situation of virtual schism. According to Fr. Gerald Murray in his interview published in The Latin Mass , this is the situation of the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X and of the Catholics who attend the Tridentine Mass in the churches and chapels of the Society. They cannot be defined as schismatics in the formal sense, because Fr. Murray denies that Archbishop Lefebvre can be considered schismatic in the formal sense, but they would be presumed nevertheless to be considered as separated from the official Church and therefore as schismatics in the virtual sense, canonically not condemnable but theologically reprehensible.(7)

This consideration, however, is totally erroneous. At the same time, however, the concept of virtual schism is also used in connection with heresy. St. Thomas reminds us that while schism is a sin opposed to charity, heresy is a sin opposed to the faith. Schism and heresy are different vices, although whoever is a heretic is also schismatic.(8) In this way a grave doctrinal error can be professed which per se implies a virtual separation from the Church. In substance, this is precisely the accusation Archbishop Lefebvre charged against the hierarchy that was condemning him as schismatic. Afflicted itself with the modernist heresies, the present hierarchy is to be considered virtually excommunicated because the modernists have been formally excommunicated by Pope St. Pius X.(9) Insofar as it is afflicted with a grave error such as that of §8 of Lumen Gentium about the notion of the Church, an error that breaks per se unity with the doctrine taught for almost 20 centuries by the Church, we can apply this concept to mean that the present hierarchy has placed itself outside the Church of All Time and put itself in a position of virtual schism.

Let us now put aside virtual schism and discuss the notion of a "schismatic act," the decisive point for the concept of schism in the formal sense. Yves Congar, a Vatican II liberal theologian, summarized St. Thomas this way:

The schismatic act is therefore that evil act which has directly, properly, and essentially as its specific object one thing contrary to ecclesiastical communion, that is to say, to that unity which, among the faithful, is the proper effect of charity. An act, in effect, is characterized through the object to which it tends per se, through the fact itself of what it [i.e., the act -–Ed.] is. An act will show therefore the quality of a schismatic act when, through its very own nature, it will have as its object the separation from unity, the spiritual fruit of charity.(10)

A schismatic act is, and cannot not be, that which has as its object the rupture of Church unity "directly, properly and essentially." Note that an indirect approach is not applicable. Therefore, it can be said that a schismatic act has this aim, it has a certain sign, given not by disobedience as such, but by "the will of constituting through one's own account a particular Church," according to the clear enunciation of St. Thomas.(11) It is not enough "not to preserve concord," nor is disobedience alone. The manifest will of constituting a separate Church is necessary. A schismatic act cannot be confined to mere disobedience, such as an episcopal consecration without papal mandate; on the contrary, a schismatic act will be that which institutes a hierarchy of a parallel church with "canonical mission." But if this were to happen, such an act certainly aims at a "separation from unity, the spiritual fruit of charity." It is the absolutely sure sign. Such an act is schism in the formal sense because with it one withdraws himself formally from submission to the Pope, denying him the authority as Supreme Pontiff, namely as the head of the universal Church.(12) This was the case with King Henry VIII of England who by his own will set himself up as head of a self-styled national "Catholic" Church with its own hierarchy after having degraded the authority of the Pope to that of a simple bishop of Rome at a session of the English Parliament (Nov. 3, 1534).

Without the schismatic act, without the "canonical mission," schism in the formal sense is impossible. And when is it that a schism in the virtual sense can be had? -- Certainly not when an exterior separation imposed by necessity is had. For a virtual schism, it is necessary t