Archbishop Lefebvre: 1983 Statement Against False Ecumenism

[Stone]

A reply to the above on the Archived Catacombs:


To look at the good in other religions is ecumenism – see #1 below
Archbishop Lefebvre says that Ecumenism is the modern heresy – see #2


#1. From the chapter on Ecumenism in Fr. Gaudron’s book, The Catechsim of the Crisis in the Church.

• Despite all that, surely these religions contain some good elements?
  

Even in the material order, the judgment of whether a cake is good or bad depends not only on its ingredients, but on the cake as a whole. Good ingredients, excellent in themselves, mixed in the wrong proportions can spoil it; the introduction of one rancid ingredient can make it inedible, and the addition of a few drops of poison would have a greater effect upon the final result than a lot of good butter, flour, and chocolate. In the spiritual order, this reality applies all the more. A religion is not merely a material agglomeration of "elements"; it forms a whole (just as a scientific or philosophical system or a demonstration, etc.). This whole is good or bad, true or false, as a whole. And if it is bad as a whole, then the good elements matter little.

• Despite that, can one not underscore the parcels of truth these religions contain?
  

Every erroneous system contains parcels of truth; an obvious folly would have no adherents. But these parcels of truth are captured by the false system that makes use of them (and that utilizes their verisimilitude and attractiveness to its advantage). Moreover, these elements of truth are themselves falsified because they are linked to errors that distort them.

• Can it not be argued, however, that there are degrees of error, and that a religion that, while being false, recognizes the existence of one God  and imposes on its adherents a certain moral code is better than [doctrinal] atheism and absolute amorality?
  

There are degrees of error, but, paradoxically, it could be argued that a system that incorporates many truths is more dangerous than one containing fewer. A chair with just three legs is more dangerous than a two-legged chair no one would think of sitting on. A very good counterfeit bill is more dangerous than a less skillfully executed fake.



#2. Archbishop Lefebvre:

“… and this, it is really the modern heresy, that we can really designate under this new term, for it really seems that there is a new heresy in addition to modernism, liberalism, and all those old errors, it seems to me that we can define this modern error: ecumenism, this false ecumenism.” (Conference at Econe, May 16, 1978)


False ecumenism is one and the same as trad-ecumenism.  They both are modern heresies!