Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Holy Wisdom on the Crisis in the Catholic Church

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Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Holy Wisdom on the Crisis in the Catholic Church

Robert Morrison, Remnant Columnist | July 23, 2025

Understanding this holy wisdom from Archbishop Lefebvre does not make the crisis go away, but it does help us serve God without feeling “lost and confused” because of what we see from Rome. Perhaps this is why those who seek to perpetuate the crisis in the Church never stop trying to disparage the man who did more than anyone else to oppose the Vatican II revolution and preserve the Traditional Latin Mass.

One of the many interesting aspects of Diane Montagna’s report on the document which purportedly served as the pretext for Francis’s overturning of Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum was the document’s discussion of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:

“Regarding the second objection, it should be recalled that the MP Summorum Pontificum was not intended for the SSPX; they already had access to what was granted by the MP Summorum Pontificum and therefore did not need it. Rather, the MP Summorum Pontificum stands in unity and completion, as an organic and coherent development, to the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei Adflicta of John Paul II, by which the Polish Pontiff sought to save many Catholics who were lost and confused and at risk of schism following the episcopal ordinations carried out by Archbishop Lefebvre.”

So, according to the Vatican document that supposedly provided the justification for Traditionis Custodes, we are to believe that Catholics were “lost and confused” because of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s 1988 consecration of bishops without Rome’s permission, as though Catholics had been quite comfortable with the changes that had taken place since Vatican II up until that point. To appreciate the sheer lunacy of this suggestion, we merely need to consider Paul VI’s 1972 statement about the state of affairs after the Council:

“Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety, confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement, and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were supposed to be opened to the light instead. . . Even in the Church this state of uncertainty rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom, quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of fillin

Paul VI rendered this cataclysmic assessment of the state of the Church over a decade before John Paul II’s prayer meeting at Assisi, which only magnified the confusion of serious Catholics. Obviously, then, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s 1988 actions cannot seriously be blamed for making Catholics feel “lost and confused.” Rather, it is certain that Archbishop Lefebvre accurately diagnosed the actual source of confusion in his 1986 book, Open Letter to Confused Catholics:
[quote]“Who can deny that Catholics in the latter part of the twentieth century are confused? A glance at what has happened in the Church over the past twenty years is enough to convince anyone that this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Only a short time ago the path was clearly marked: either one followed it or one did not. One had the Faith — or perhaps had lost it — or had never had it. But he who had it — who had entered the Church through baptism, who had renewed his baptismal promises around the age of twelve and had received the Holy Ghost on the day of his confirmation — such a person knew what he had to believe and what he had to do. Many today no longer know.  They hear all sorts of astonishing statements in the churches, they read things contrary to what was always taught, and doubt has crept into their minds. . . We naturally ask,  therefore, what brought on this state of things? For every effect there is a cause. Has faith been weakened by a disappearance of generosity of soul, by a taste for enjoyment, an attraction to the pleasures of life and the manifold distractions which the modern world offers? These cannot be the real reasons, because they have always been with us in one way or another. The rapid decline in religious practice comes rather from the new spirit which has been introduced into the Church and which has cast suspicion over all past teachings and life of the Church.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 1)

Thus, the real source of confusion was, and remains, the new spirit which has “cast suspicion over all past teachings and life of the Church.”

As confusing as the crisis is, though, God permitted Archbishop Lefebvre to leave us both a clear explanation of the causes of the crisis and a well-marked path of what we must do to persevere in the Faith as the crisis continues. The quotations from Archbishop Lefebvre that follow ring more true today than they did when he wrote them decades ago, and illuminate the road ahead as we try to remain faithful Catholics.

In His Loving Providence, God Permits This Great Crisis in the Church for Our Sanctification. “Providence has allowed this painful crisis in the Church for our sanctification and in order to give more brightness to the pure gold of its doctrine and its means of redemption. This passion of the Church is a great mystery, for it reaches chiefly its hierarchy, its scholars, who seem to no longer know who they are and the reasons of their being appointed. Satan, the father of lies, as Our Lord Jesus calls him, has the extraordinary talent of finding out some words, to which he assigns a new meaning so that from their ambiguity, he achieves acceptance of the destructive falsehood which overthrows the best established societies. He found it in this “ecumenism” of the Council which has created an ecumenical liturgy, an ecumenical Bible, and ecumenical catechism, uniting truth and falsehood - marrying the true and the false.” (1978 Letter to Friends and Benefactors)

The Church’s Enemies Have Caused the Crisis Because They Seek to Hide and Distort Catholicism’s Objective Truth. “The Church is necessarily, fundamentally opposed to Freemasonry. They affirm that truth is relative, we, that it is objective. They declare that there are no dogmas, and we, that there is a revealed truth and dogmas. Accord is therefore impossible. That is why the Freemasons will continue to do everything, as Leo XIII affirmed, to attempt to destroy the Church, because, necessarily, she is against them. There is an essential incompatibility. Their naturalist principle is in formal opposition to the Church’s doctrine.” (Against the Heresies, p. 83)

Much of the Real Damage Occurred Prior to Vatican II. “My personal experience never ceases to amaze me. These bishops for the most part were fellow students with me in Rome, trained in the same manner. And then, all of a sudden, I found myself alone. But I have invented nothing new; I was carrying on. Cardinal Garrone even said to me one day: ‘They deceived us at the French Seminary in Rome.’ Deceived us in what? Had he not himself taught the children of his catechism class thousands of times, before the Council, the Act of Faith: ‘My God, I firmly believe all the truths Thou hast revealed and that Thy Church doth teach, because Thou canst neither deceive nor be deceived’? How have all these bishops been able to metamorphose themselves in this manner? I can see only one explanation: they were always in France and they let themselves become gradually infected. In Africa I was protected. I came back the year of the Council, when the harm had already been done. Vatican II only opened the gates which were holding back the devastating flood. In no time at all, even before the end of the fourth session, it was catastrophic. Everything, almost, was to be swept away; prayer first of all.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 8)

But the Turning Point Came at the Council, With the Majority of Bishops Going Along with the Church’s Enemies. “Having assisted at the dramatic contest between Cardinal Bea, representing Liberalism, and Cardinal Ottaviani, representing the doctrine fo the Church, it was clear after the vote of the seventy cardinals that the rupture was consummated. One could thing, without fooling oneself, that the support of the Pope would go to the Liberals. But henceforth this problem was in broad daylight! What would the bishops do, aware of the danger which threatened the Church? All could see the triumph, within the Church, of new ideas, born of the Revolution and the Lodges: 250 cardinals and bishops rejoiced at the victory, 250 were horror-stricken, 1,750 tried not to ask questions, but simply followed the Pope: ‘. . . we shall see to it later!’” (Spiritual Journey, p. vi-vii)

The Enduring Source of the Crisis Is an Adulterous Union of the Church and Revolution, Which Places Truth and Error on the Same Level. “The adulterous union of the Church and the Revolution is cemented by ‘dialogue.’ Our Lord said ‘Go, teach all nations and convert them.' He did not say ‘Hold dialogue with them but don’t try to convert them.’ Truth and error are incompatible; to dialogue with error is to put God and the devil on the same footing. This is what the Popes have always repeated and what was easy for Christians to understand because it is also a matter of common sense. In order to impose different attitudes and reactions it was necessary to do some indoctrinating so as to make modernists of the clergy needed to spread the new doctrine. This is what is called ‘recycling,’ a conditioning process intended to refashion the very faculty God gave man to direct his judgment.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 112)

It Has Been the Masterstroke of Satan to Trick Catholics Into Disobeying Tradition Through False Obedience to the Revolution. "In fact ‘the masterstroke of Satan has been to trick the Church through obedience into disobeying her Tradition.’ The Church was going to destroy herself by obeying revolutionary principles brought inside the Church by the authorities of the Church. From 1968 onwards, did not Paul VI himself speak publicly of the ‘auto-demolition of the Church’? On June 29, 1972, he admitted: ‘Through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God . . . Satan . . . has come to spoil and wither the fruits of the Council.’ Paul did not want to see where the crack was. Marcel saw it and denounced it: it lay in the break with Tradition. Already, however, the Archbishop felt that his foresight would get him condemned: ‘Satan has played a masterstroke: those who keep the Faith are condemned by those who should defend and propagate it!’” (from the Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais biography of Archbishop Lefebvre, p. 468)

However, If We Love the Church, We Must Remain Faithful to Tradition. “That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome. By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto.” (1974 Declaration)

If We Have Any Doubts About Which Path to Follow, We Can Simply Judge by Fruits. "Traveling a great deal, I see everywhere at work the hand of Christ blessing His Church. . . . In the United States, young married couples with their numerous children flock to the Society’s priests. In 1982 in that country I ordained the first three priests trained entirely in our seminaries. Groups of traditionalists are on the increase whereas the parishes are declining. Ireland, which has remained refractory towards the novelties, has been subject to the reforms since 1980, altars having been cast into rivers or re-used as building material. Simultaneously, traditionalist groups have formed in Dublin and Belfast. . . . It is therefore the right road we are following; the proof is there, we recognize the tree by its fruits.” (Open Letter to Confused Catholics, pp. 161-162)

By Following the Path of Tradition, We Will Do All We Can Until the Blessed Virgin Mary Triumphs. “As for me, I will not resign; I will not content myself with being present, my arms dangling, at the death-throes of my Mother the Holy Church. . . If this is how things are, you will understand that, in spite of everything, I am not a pessimist. The Holy Virgin will have the victory. She will triumph over the great apostasy, the fruit of Liberalism. One more reason not to twiddle our thumbs! We have to fight more than ever for the social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In this battle, we are not alone: we have with us all the Popes up through Pius XII inclusively. All of them combatted Liberalism in order to deliver the Church from it. God did not grant that they succeed, but this is no reason to lay down our weapons! We have to hold on. We have to build, while the others are demolishing.” (They Have Uncrowned Him, pp. 250-251)

Understanding this holy wisdom from Archbishop Lefebvre does not make the crisis go away, but it does help us serve God without feeling “lost and confused” because of what we see from Rome. Perhaps this is why those who seek to perpetuate the crisis in the Church never stop trying to disparage the man who did more than anyone else to oppose the Vatican II revolution and preserve the Traditional Latin Mass. Far from causing us to turn away from Archbishop Lefebvre’s keen insights, this unabated persecution of the saintly defender of the Faith should make his wisdom shine forth more brightly for those of us who need light in the darkness of the ongoing crisis.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!