Notice from the Apostolic Administration St. Jean-Marie Vianney, April 2003

Important notice

We are anxious to put the faithful linked with our Apostolic Administration on their guard against certain publications – sent even to non-subscribers – which claim to be Catholic and traditional, but in reality are not Catholic, since they do not respect the most elementary moral rules.

These publications have circulated articles on the Administration which are false, they have slandered our Apostolic Administrator, they have questioned some

canonisations and have later rejected saints canonised by the Holy Father Pope John Paul II.

Some people connected with these publications have driven the faithful into leaving the Administration. They have circulated stories of division among the priests of the Administration, and of some priests wishing to leave it. As proof of the falsity of this assertion, one has only to read the declaration by the priests of the Administration.

Our intention in writing this is not to slander, but, according to moral teaching, to warn the faithful of the danger of schism, which is where such publications lead us.

In particular, they are:

- the magazine Si si no no and the Bulletin de la Sainte Croix, which both come under the responsibility of the Sainte Croix monastery in Nova Friburgo, whose prior has already written to people of the administration, advising and urging them to hold out against the priests.

- the magazine Guarde a Fé and the revue Semper, edited by the priests of the Society of St. Pius X.

Unfortunately, the above mentioned Society, like the monastery of La Sainte Croix, are not in communion with the Holy See, as they have refused the recognition that the Holy Father offered to them, as he did for us.

The magazine Guarde a Fé has published an article whose contents are alien to the Catholic faith; in this article, it is stated that today it is the Society of St. Pius X which possesses the essential and characteristic elements of the Church (unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity), and that what is called the official Church has lost these elements. What is the difference between the official Church and the visible Church?

The logical consequence of this article is that the Church of Our Lord has either ceased to exist, or it has been reduced to the Society of St. Pius X. But this has never been, and cannot be, Catholic doctrine.

The Society, which devotes itself almost entirely to criticising and resisting the Church authorities, and those linked to it (characteristic of schism, according to St. Thomas Aquinas) have spread these publications against the Apostolic Administration, just about everywhere.

Unfortunately, however, they do not see the very grave situation they are in: outside of the Church, schismatic and saying things such as are at least suspect of heresy.

We wish to affirm, in the strongest possible terms, that we have no link either with the Society of St. Pius X, or with the monastery of Nova Friburgo, so long as they remain outside of the bosom of the Roman Apostolic Church, whose visible head, principle and foundation of its unity, is the Holy Father the Pope.

To know the spirit which now animates the Society, read the letter from Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, to Bishop Bernard Fellay.

(Translated by DICI)