Archbishop Lefebvre - On the Second Vatican Council

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Quotes of Archbishop Lefebvre - On the Vatican II Council

• “The more one analyzes the documents of Vatican II, and the more one analyzes their interpretation by the authorities of the Church, the more one realizes that what is at stake is not merely superficial errors, a few mistakes, Ecumenism, Religious Liberty, Collegiality, a certain Liberalism, but rather a wholesale perversion of the mind, a whole new philosophy based on modern philosophy, on subjectivism… A wholly different version of Revelation, of Faith, of philosophy! Very grave! A total perversion! How we are going to get out of all this, I have no idea, but in any case it is a fact, and as this German theologian shows (who has, I believe, another two parts of his book to write on the Holy Father's thought), it is truly frightening. So, they are no small errors. We are not dealing in trifles. We are into a line of philosophical thinking that goes back to Kant, Descartes, the whole line of modern philosophers who paved the way for the Revolution.” (Two Years After the Consecrations, September 6, 1990)
  

• “…it is nonetheless certain that the Council was deflected from its purposes by a group of conspirators and that it is impossible for us to take any part in this conspiracy, despite the fact that there may be many satisfactory declarations in Vatican II. The good texts have served as cover to get those texts which are snares, equivocal, and denuded of meaning, accepted and passed.” (from I Accuse the Council)
  

• “We believe we can affirm, purely by internal and external criticism of Vatican II, i.e. by analyzing the texts and studying the Council’s ins and outs, that by turning its back on Tradition and breaking with the Church of the past, it is a schismatic council.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Le Figaro, August 4, 1976)
  

• “It is stupefying to read in the Documentation Catholique that the Lutheran-Catholic Commission of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, and thus an official Roman commission, said in effect that numerous points in the Council were drawn from the teachings of Luther…” (Conference in Germany, October 29, 1984)
  

• “Some say the Council was good and has good, but only the reform is bad. But that is not true! Why? Because when Rome gave the reform, they always say the reforms they do, they do in the name of the Council. In the name of the Council! It is evident that all reform came from the Council, and if the reform is bad, it is impossible that the Council is good and all reforms are bad. Because that is the authentic interpretation of the Council by Rome!” (Conference, May 11, 1976)
  

• “This Council gives the same rights to error as to Truth! That is impossible.” (Conference, May 11, 1976)
  

• “We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it. ... 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. ... 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.” (Declaration of Faith, November 21, 1974)
  

• “We can think that there is Rome and Rome: [on one hand,] there is the Rome which is eternal in Her Faith, Her Dogmas, Her concept of the Sacrifice of the Mass; [on the other hand,] there is the temporal Rome which is influenced by the ideas of the modern world, an influence which the Council itself did not escape.” (October 13, 1974)
  

• “The Church, in the course of the 1960's, thus during the Council, acquired values that have come from outside the Church, from the liberal culture - due secoli - from two centuries of liberal culture. It is clear: these are the "rights" of man, it is religious freedom, it is ecumenism. It is Satanic.” (Conference, December 13, 1984)
  

• "Without rejecting this Council wholesale, I think that it is the greatest disaster of this century and of all the past centuries, since the founding of the Church." The Angelus A Matter of Principle
  

• “I never…I don’t accept the Council! Because you are destroying the Catholic State in the name of the Council! It is sure! It is evident!…This Council gives the same rights to error as to Truth! That is impossible…This new faith, it is a new religion. It is a protestant religion. That is a fact! How is it possible that the Pope gives the authorization to this change? How it is possible that the pope can sign this constitution (on liturgical change)? It is a deep mystery…If I take the position of the Council, I am betraying my Mother Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, conference, 1976)
  

• We [Bishop de Castro Mayer and the Archbishop] fought together to prevent the errors of Liberalism, which are a cancer in the doctrine of the Church, spreading themselves in the texts of the Council. ... Unfortunately, this Liberal principle has been adopted by Vatican II. ... If one does not want to believe that these texts are Liberal, one has just to see the consequences: ecumenism (all religion on an equal footing), and the laicization of the states. Ordination Sermon 1988
  

• And, so I said to him [Cardinal Ratzinger], "What is the source of these bad fruits? For me, it is the Council of aggiornamento; that signifies the Council of the changes. What changes? Changes in the sacraments, changes in catechisms, changes in the Bible, so that we are no longer Catholics [but] are like Protestants. ... And he said, "No! No, no, no, that does not come from the Council; it comes from bad interpretations of the Council; it comes from abuses of the reforms." I said, "That is not true. That comes from the new orientation of the Church in the Council, especially by ecumenism." Changes in the Sacraments...We are like Protestants 1985
  

• “It is stupefying to read in the Documentation Catholique that the Lutheran-Catholic Commission of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, and thus an official Roman commission, said in effect that numerous points in the Council were drawn from the teachings of Luther…” (Conference in Germany, October 29, 1984)
  

• The Church has always dreaded novelties, even in her vocabulary and that is why she has held on so strongly to the Latin language in the principal form of Tradition, viz. the Roman Church. For it is by a tendency to novelty that heresies, schisms, and errors have come about. This spirit of novelty, mutation, and change has succeeded in entering into the Church. It necessarily tends to destroy Tradition. The Second Vatican Council, which wished to be the Council of "up-dating," opened the door to this spirit of change and novelty. (Principles and Directives - 1982 General Chapter)
  

• The Council should have been the occasion of the reaffirmation of the Truth of the Church and the necessity of the social reign of Jesus and Mary against the errors of Protestantism and Teilhardian naturalism and against socialism and communism. Ordinary Protestants would have been converted en masse. They were disposed to it and their debacle was profound on the eve of the Council. But the Modernists, traitors to the Church, used the Council to favor their compromise with all the modern errors, profiting from a weak pope and a pope disposed to radical changes. All of the commentators on the Council recognize the triumph of the liberals who did not hide their satisfaction and who neutralized or drove from the Roman Curia all of the conservatives and who took the reins of government, centralizing power in the Secretariat of State in order to be certain of managing the ecumenical revolution so much desired by the enemies of the Church. The work was quickly carried out in all fields. Destruction also followed quickly. In this pastoral Council the spirit of error and lies was able to work at its ease, placing time-bombs everywhere which, in due course, would destroy the institutions. (Principles and Directives - 1982 General Chapter)