Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

- November 21, 1974

We adhere with our whole heart and our whole soul to Catholic Rome, the Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of those traditions necessary for the maintenance of that Faith, to eternal Rome, Mistress of Wisdom and Truth.

Because of this adherence we refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies, such as were clearly manifested during the Second Vatican Council, and after the Council in all the resulting reforms.

All of these reforms have, indeed, contributed and still contribute to the demolition of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the destruction of the Holy Sacrifice and the Sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, and to naturalistic and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechesis, a teaching born of Liberalism and Protestantism many times condemned by the solemn magisterium of the Church. No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can constrain us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, such as has been clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s magisterium for 19 centuries.

“But though we, or an angel from Heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” (Gal. 1:8).

Is this not what the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if a certain contradiction is apparent in his words and actions, as well as in the acts of various Roman Congregations, then we choose what has always been taught, and we turn a deaf ear to the innovations which are destroying the Church.

The lex orandi (law of prayer) cannot be profoundly changed without changing the lex credendi (law of belief). The New Mass is in line with the new catechism, the new priesthood, new seminaries, new universities, and the charismatic or Pentecostal church, all of which are in opposition to orthodoxy and to the age-old magisterium.

This reform, since it has issued from Liberalism and from Modernism, is entirely corrupt. It comes from heresy and results in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is thus impossible for any faithful Catholic who is aware of these things to adopt this reform, or to submit to it in any way at all. To ensure our salvation, the only attitude of fidelity to the Church and to Catholic doctrine, is a categorical refusal to accept the reform.

It is for this reason that, without any rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of the formation of priests under the star of the age-old magisterium, in the conviction that we can thus do no greater service to the holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to the future generations.

For this reason we hold firmly to all that has been believed and practiced by the Church of all time, in her faith, morals, worship, catechetical instruction, priestly formation and her institutions and codified in the books which appeared before the Modernist influence of the late Council. Meanwhile, we wait for the true light of Tradition to dispel the darkness which obscures the sky of eternal Rome.

By acting thus we are sure, with the grace of God, and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. Pius X, of remaining faithful to the Catholic and Roman Church, to all the successors of St. Peter, and of being fidelis dispensatores mysterium Domini Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto.

+ Marcel Lefebvre

Rome on the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary