The Archbishop of Reims Uncrowns Christ

One question concerned "the traditionalist pilgrimage to Chartres," and the fact that, according to the interviewer, the bishops had "failed to make people understand the importance of a common liturgy for the unity of the Church," even though this pilgrimage "brings together more and more young people around the Latin Mass."

Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort's response is presented on several levels. He begins by stating that "the pilgrimage of Christianity plays on an ambiguity." Undoubtedly, participants in the pilgrimage came looking for what the organizers were promoting, that is, "to find comfort in the worship of the supposedly traditional form of the Roman rite."

One must admire the phrase "supposedly traditional," which reveals a certain ignorance, even a definite lack of awareness, of the history of the liturgy.

The prelate goes on to explain that "today, many are looking for an atmosphere, an exceptional moment during which they can affirm themselves as Catholics, French, with flags, banners, and the challenge of physical effort, which had gradually faded from the student pilgrimage to Chartres, [and] which eventually disappeared."

The former president of the CEF thus reduces the spiritual approach of the pilgrimage to a sort of traditional "World Youth Day," a celebration that is both Catholic and patriotic, where the eye is drawn to the flapping banners and a sort of "commando" spirit. This is a rather curious way of judging things, which seriously diminishes the desire to manifest one's faith and to make a pilgrimage for Christ.

Bishop de Moulins-Beaufort goes on to accuse the organizers of hardening "into an understanding of Tradition that ends up being false." This is why he explains that the challenge for the bishops "is to express in clear terms to the youngest what the tradition of the Church is," and for him, it is "above all the act of Christ who transmits himself, who gives himself."

This description is very broad. It is not a true definition of Tradition, which is the oral transmission of divine Revelation, to distinguish it from Holy Scripture, which is the same transmission through texts inspired by the Holy Ghost to the sacred writers. The answer goes on to explain that tradition "is not the perpetuation of customs or morals" and that "it is not the tradition of ancestors." 

The Council of Trent, however, states that "every salutary truth and every moral rule... is contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions which, received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself or transmitted as it were from hand to hand by the apostles under the dictation of the Holy Spirit, have come down to us." Moral rules are clearly mentioned, as are our ancestors in the faith, the Apostles of Jesus Christ.

Finally, Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort "also notes a political ambiguity: Christ did not found the Catholic Church to create Catholic states, nor even a Catholic society." This statement is remarkable: it completely destroys Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quas Primas, which sets out in detail the meaning, nature, importance, and fruits of Christ's kingship.

And even though Pius XI explains that His kingship is primarily spiritual and that Christ did not exercise it Himself over temporal matters, he asserts that "it would be an ignominious error to deny Christ, as man, sovereignty over civil societies of any kind; He holds from the Father the most absolute right over creatures, bringing all things into His judgment." 

It would also be possible to cite passages from Leo XIII, or proposition 55 of the Syllabus, condemned by Pope Pius IX: "The Church must be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." Thus, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was definitively right: the modernists have uncrowned Jesus Christ, and the Archbishop of Reims proves this to us once again in a pitiful manner by absolutely rejecting Christ's social kingship over nations.