Viganò: My defense against schism is the same as Archbishop Lefebvre’s

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Viganò: My defense against schism is the same as Archbishop Lefebvre’s
Replying to the Vatican's accusation of schism, Viganò writes, 'Fifty years ago, in that same Palace of the Holy Office, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was summoned and accused of schism for rejecting Vatican II. His defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine.'



Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

Jun 20, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has been summoned to the Vatican for trial, accused of the crime of schism. 

Nearly fifty years ago, in 1975, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre received a similar summons. He was questioned by a commission of cardinals as a result of a declaration of his position, which he had issued at the seminary he had founded to form priests according to the Catholic doctrine and liturgy which had been universally taught and practiced just ten years before.

On June 25, 1976, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli wrote to Archbishop Lefebvre, in the name of Paul VI, calling on him to affirm his allegiance to “the Conciliar Church.” The archbishop refused, choosing instead to remain faithful to the Catholic Church, in which he had received his baptism, in whose mission field he had labured, and whose doctrine he had always professed. 

Archbishop Viganò, in response to his summons to Rome, has issued a statement in which he forcefully rejects the “Bergoglian Church” and makes his own profession of allegiance to “the Catholic Apostolic Roman Church, with the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs, and with the uninterrupted doctrinal, moral, and liturgical Tradition that they have faithfully guarded.” 

The document of Viganò is clearly modelled on the Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre, which preceded his own summons to Rome. 

Nearly fifty years on it will be instructive to look at this document in the context of events today.


The 1974 Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre 

In November 1974, the Vatican sent Apostolic Visitors to Archbishop Lefebvre’s seminary in Switzerland.

These representatives of Paul VI told seminarians that truth changed with the times and that the bodily resurrection of Christ was open to question. They assured these young men, who were preparing to dedicate themselves to a life of celibacy, that married men would soon be priests.

These words, coming from representatives of the Vatican, deeply disturbed these young men. By the mid-1970s theological errors were commonplace in seminaries; over the course of just one decade, the teaching of the Catholic faith in seminaries, universities, and many schools had been abandoned, and new liberal, modernist, and even Marxist doctrines had been introduced. 

This seminary however was different. It had been founded four years earlier by retired missionary, and former Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, in order to provide a truly Catholic formation for seminarians who could no longer find such a thing in their own countries. 

It is probably no exaggeration to say that by 1974, his seminary at Écône, Switzerland was the only seminary in the western world where the Catholic faith was taught, and the traditional liturgical and sacramental rites of the Catholic Church maintained. 

For a decade, Archbishop Lefebvre had watched as the edifice of the Catholic Church crumbled, and as laity and clergy alike abandoned her in ever increasing numbers. In 1969, he had come out of retirement to establish a house of formation for young seminarians, and in 1970 had established a seminary because he could no longer find a university which taught the Catholic faith. 

And now, four years later, Paul VI had sent his personal representatives to the seminary, and they were attacking the core doctrine of the faith: the Resurrection of Christ.

On November 21, ten days after the scandal caused by the Apostolic Visitors, he issued his famous 1974 Declaration. 

This document is of profound historical importance because it represents one of the first public statements by a Catholic bishop, that a large part of the hierarchy had separated itself from the Catholic Church and could no longer be safely followed. 

The document is also of importance to us because the crisis he exposes has only deepened in the five decades since this Declaration was issued. 

Informed Catholics today cannot evade facing the reality of this crisis, as we witness the putative authorities in Rome authorizing things that we know the Church of Christ cannot authorize, such as offering public worship to idols, blessing same-sex “couples,” and admitting unrepentant adulterers to Holy Communion

Archbishop Lefebvre’s declaration begins:

We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.

The Catholic Church was established by Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind. Its supreme head is the Roman Pontiff, who together with the Apostolic College of bishops, transmits the Catholic faith intact to every generation. To this Rome, every Catholic is bound by loyalty and obedience. Hence, Archbishop Lefebvre begins his declaration with this profession of faith. 

However, by 1974 it was clear that many of those who held power in Rome were no longer transmitting the authentic Catholic faith. 

Hence Archbishop Lefebvre, after reaffirming his loyalty to the Roman Church, was compelled to state:

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.

He continued: 

All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.

In this paragraph Archbishop Lefebvre is accurately describing what had taken place in the decade since the opening of the Second Vatican Council. In a remarkably short period of time, every level of the Church had been transformed and differed radically from how it had been in 1963. 

New doctrines were being taught in the seminaries and from the pulpits, and these contradicted what the Church had always taught. New liturgical and sacramental rites were practiced in the parishes, and devotions which had been extolled for centuries were being mocked and excoriated by 1974. Ordinary Catholics were shellshocked and broken-hearted. 

In 1968 the famous Catholic apologist Frank Sheed asked, “Is it the same Church?”

And the answer from many revolutionaries and Catholics alike was, “No.” 

In the face of this crisis, which was unparalleled in the history of the Church, Archbishop Lefebvre established the following as a guiding principle: 

No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries. 

‘But though we,’ says St. Paul, ‘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). 

In 1974, Archbishop Lefebvre was unwilling to draw – at least in a definitive and public manner – the conclusion that ultimately follows from this statement, namely, that Paul VI, the leading figure of this revolution, had separated himself from the Church.

However, Archbishop Lefebvre was very clear that the errors of Paul VI must be rejected: 

Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church. 

It was necessary to reject these novelties because:

It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.

In short, the radical changes imposed after Vatican II amounted to a new set of doctrines and practices, that were being implemented in Catholic parishes and institutions, often against the will of ordinary people. 

By 1974 it was clear that many well-meaning Catholics, laity and clergy, were losing the faith, because they had failed to recognize that this new way of living, believing, and worshipping, was in fact a new religion, the practice of which was not compatible with the Catholic religion. 

Therefore, to call men and women back to the sure path of salvation, Archbishop Lefebvre issued a warning that many found challenging at the time, and still do today:

This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.

The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation. 

The danger to the faith posed by this Reformation, led him to the conclusion that he would have to continue to form Catholic priests who could minister to the Catholic faithful, even against the will of those who claimed to be successors of the apostles, but whose legitimacy was becoming more doubtful with every day that passed:

That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.

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. Amen.

 


The situation today

The situation today is fundamentally unchanged. We are still living in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II and the apparent enshrining of theological errors in supposedly magisterial texts. 

The signs of revival that many thought they saw in the Vatican under John Paul II and Benedict XVI were false dawns, because there was no repudiation of the liberal and Modernist errors that had been enshrined in the texts of Vatican II and other post-conciliar documents. 

Over the past decade, under the leadership of Francis, the Vatican has worked to eliminate any remaining conservative tendencies, and to push the revolution closer and closer to its conclusion. 

Francis’s end goal is “synodality,” which will locate the source of all doctrine and discipline in the ever-changing opinions of the masses – or, in fact, those who can manipulate the synodal institutions. “Synodality” represents the termination of all doctrinal and disciplinary authority. And a church with no authority is a church which can neither transmit the divine revelation entrusted to it by Christ, or direct the flock towards eternal salvation by the exercise of governing authority. 

The most recent Vatican document, called “The Bishop of Rome.” clearly specifies the end goal as an “authentic conciliar/synodal church.”

Of course, they cannot actually extinguish the Catholic Church, which was founded by Jesus Christ as a permanent body, and will always exist in her members: those who are baptized, publicly profess the Catholic faith, and are subject to her legitimate pastors. 

But the false church is deceiving many. 

Therefore, two recent events are of great importance. 


The consecration of new bishops by the Society of St Pius X

By the late 1980s, Archbishop Lefebvre knew that he was approaching the end of his life and that it was necessary to ensure that young men could receive an authentic formation and receive an ordination that was certainly valid. In 1986, John Paul II authorized the worship of idols at Assisi, an act which helped to convince Archbishop Lefebvre of the necessity of providing Catholic bishops, and not trusting the promises of the Vatican. 

He did so on June 29, 1988, with the Bishop of Campos, Antônio de Castro Mayer, as co-consecrator. 

On June 19, 2024, the superior of the French district of the Society of St. Pius X strongly indicated that, thirty-six years later, the SSPX will again consecrate new bishops.

Of course, many traditional bishops have been consecrated in the intervening period by various sedevacantist groups, and by Bishop Richard Williamson, but news of the consecrations by the Society of St. Pius X will have an impact on a much wider audience. 

It is a powerful statement that the crisis of the Church is not over, and that resistance to the Conciliar Synodal Church of Francis is as much a duty as resistance to the Conciliar Church of Paul VI. 

The consecration of Catholic bishops intended to operate against the will of the putative authorities in Rome also indicates the need for a proper theological analysis of the claims of the post-conciliar popes and a resolution to the theological conundrum of how they can be accepted as legitimate popes without doing violence to the integrity of Catholic theology. 

This remains an urgent task both for the Society of St. Pius X, and for all those Catholics who wish to verbally recognize Francis as pope while rejecting his teaching and authority in practice. 

The practical position of Archbishop Lefebvre has borne much fruit, and led many souls to heaven, but many theoretical questions remained unanswered.


The recent statement of Archbishop Viganò

The claims of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the papacy are directly challenged by Archbishop Viganò in his recent statement, made in response to a summons to the Vatican for a trial. 

Archbishop Viganò correctly notes that the Conciliar Synodal Church presided over by Francis cannot be identified with the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ. He writes: 

The Catholic Church has been slowly but surely taken over, and Bergoglio has been given the task of making it a philanthropic agency, the ‘church of humanity, of inclusion, of the environment’ at the service of the New World Order. But this is not the Catholic Church: it is her counterfeit.

And he further notes that:

Everything that Bergoglio does constitutes an offense and a provocation to the entire Catholic Church, to her saints of all times, to the martyrs who were killed in odium Fidei, and to the popes of all times until the Second Vatican Council.

In words similar to the Declaration of Archbishop Lefebvre he states:

I repudiate the neo-modernist errors inherent in the Second Vatican Council and in the so-called ‘post-conciliar magisterium,’ in particular in matters of collegiality, ecumenism, religious freedom, the secularity of the state, and the liturgy.

I repudiate, reject, and condemn the scandals, errors, and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who manifests an absolutely tyrannical management of power, exercised against the purpose that legitimizes authority in the Church. 

Archbishop Viganò avoids stating directly that Francis is not the pope, though this conclusion is inevitable when reading from this statement and from that which follows:

No Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion with this ‘Bergoglian church,’ because it acts in clear discontinuity and rupture with all the popes of history and with the Church of Christ.

The ‘Bergoglian Church’ is that ‘Conciliar Synodal Church’ which has been established over and against the Church of Christ.

Archbishop Viganò concludes by making his closeness to the position of Archbishop Lefebvre evident:

Fifty years ago, in that same Palace of the Holy Office, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was summoned and accused of schism for rejecting Vatican II. His defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine – arguments before which the Roman authorities could not condemn him for heresy, having to wait instead for him to consecrate bishops so as to have the pretext of declaring him schismatic… The scheme is repeated even after half a century has demonstrated Archbishop Lefebvre’s prophetic choice.

Archbishop Viganò is to be congratulated for his courage in rejecting the new religion of the Conciliar Synodal Church and professing his allegiance to the indefectible Catholic Church.

The question many will ask is this: why have so few cardinals and bishops had the courage to do likewise?