November 21, 1974 - 2024

1. The year 2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of November 21, 1974, in which Archbishop Lefebvre set out so well the profound reasons for the attitude still followed by the Society of Saint Pius X in the post-Vatican II context.

These reasons are as follows: obedience to the teachings of the Magisterium; rejection of errors contrary to these teachings, as they emerged at Vatican II and since; resistance to the actions of the representatives of authority in the Church when they impose these errors.

2. The deepest reason of all, the fundamental reason which lies at the root of all the others, is the obedience demanded of every Catholic by the teachings and directives of the ecclesiastical Magisterium, the Magisterium entrusted by Our Lord to the Apostle St. Peter and, through him, to all those who succeed him in the See of Rome.

“We hold fast,” Archbishop Lefebvre declares, “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.” This obedience is in fact the absolutely necessary condition for the profession of the saving Faith.

For, if faith is a gift from God, a supernatural virtue infused and received with the grace of Baptism, its exercise depends on its object, and it is the Magisterium instituted by Christ that must indicate it to us, in God's name, by declaring to us with authority what truths are essential to the act of our faith.

As Pius XII reminded us again in 1950, “this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith - Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition - to be preserved, guarded and interpreted” [1].

3. The second reason is the first, inevitable consequence of the first, in the face of facts that we are obliged to observe. The consequence of submission to the truth is the rejection of contrary error, and therefore, obedience to the teachings of the Church's Magisterium has as its consequence the rejection of anything that would contradict these teachings.

And the facts are there: error contrary to the teachings of the Magisterium has crept into the preaching of the clergy, at Vatican II and since. “We refuse, on the other hand,” continues Archbishop Lefebvre, “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 derived from it.”

Here, refusal is the necessary consequence of obedience. The proven fact is that neo-Modernist, neo-Protestant tendencies “were clearly evident”: yes, clearly. The opposition between the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and those of the earlier Magisterium is clear, if only in the practical directives that flow from them, and a fortiori in the key passages of the Council relating to religious freedom [2], ecumenism [3], and collegiality [4].

4. The third reason flows from the first two: if obedience to the ecclesiastical Magisterium commands us to reject errors contrary to the truths hitherto taught with authority, the same obedience commands us to resist the actions of clergy who would impose these errors in the name of a false obedience.

“No authority,” Archbishop Lefebvre says, “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. [...]

“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.” 

[1] Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis of August 12, 1950, no. 18.
[2] Declaration Dignitatis humanae, no. 2.
[3] Decree Unitatis redintegratio, no. 3; Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 8.
[4] Constitution Lumen gentium, no. 22.

5. And it is here that Archbishop Lefebvre backs up his words with the precept given by the Apostle St. Paul. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians says: “But though we”‘—“we,” St. Paul says; it is not only if an angel comes from heaven but also this little sometimes forgotten word: “But though we, or an angel from heaven”: si nos aut angelus de cælo.

“But though we, or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” St. Paul makes himself anathema if he teaches something new, if he teaches something he did not teach before. The Archbishop continues, “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.”

6. In his Commentary on this passage from the Epistle to the Galatians [5], St. Thomas Aquinas gives the following clarifications. “There are three kinds of teaching: that of the philosophers who follow natural reason; the Revelation of the Old Testament communicated by the angels (Gal. 3:19); the Revelation of the New Testament given immediately by God (Jn. 1:18; Heb. 1:2).

“A man’s teaching can be changed and revoked by another man who has better knowledge; the teaching of the Old Law revealed by the angel can be completed by God; but the teaching revealed directly by God cannot be changed, by man nor angel.

“Therefore, if it happens that a man or an angel says the opposite of what God has revealed, it is not his word that is against revealed doctrine, but rather it is revealed doctrine that is against his word, for he who has uttered such a word must be excluded and cast out of the communion based on that doctrine.

“Here the Apostle says that the doctrine of the Gospel, immediately revealed by God, is of such great dignity that, if any man or angel preaches anything other than what has been set forth in that Gospel, he is anathema—that is, he must be cut off and cast out.”

7. Let us not forget this important idea: “if it happens that a man or an angel says the opposite of what God has revealed, it is not his word that is against revealed doctrine, but rather it is revealed doctrine that is against his word.” It is revealed doctrine, already communicated to men through the organ of the divinely instituted Magisterium, that judges this contrary word.

This explanation by the Angelic Doctor is exactly in line with the criterion set out by Archbishop Lefebvre in a homily delivered at Écône on August 22, 1976: “And when people say to us: ‘You judge, you judge the Pope, you judge the bishops,’ we reply that it is not we who judge the bishops, it is our Faith, it is Tradition. It is our own little catechism of all time.

“A five-year-old child can show his bishop a thing or two. If a bishop comes to a child and says: 'What they tell you about the Holy Trinity, that there are three Persons in the Holy Trinity, that is not true.’ The child picks up his catechism and says: ‘My catechism teaches me that there are three Persons in the Holy Trinity. You are the one who is wrong. I am the one who is right.’

This child is right. He is right because he has the whole of Tradition with him, because he has the whole of the Faith with him. Well, that is what we are doing. We are doing nothing else. We say: Tradition condemns you. Tradition condemns what you are doing now. [6]“

8. It is true, we have said, recalling the teaching of Pius XII, that the Magisterium of the Church, in matters of faith and morals, must be for every theologian the next and universal rule of truth. This rule is that of the Magisterium's proposition, from which theologians, and with them all the faithful, receive the Word revealed by God, the deposit of the Faith.

And in normal times, it is the current proposition, insofar as this proposition remains in perfect homogeneity with the proposition accomplished up to now by the Magisterium, throughout the past. In this way, the Magisterium could be described as an uninterrupted echo.

It calls itself “living” as distinct from Revelation, which calls itself “finished” or “closed,” and the Magisterium is living taken as such—that is, not as the current Magisterium of the Pope of the present age, but as what it is and has been, since the time of the Apostles until the end of the world.

It is this living Magisterium which is the rule of truth in matters of faith and morals. This is usually the case in its present preaching, insofar as it is the unaltered echo of all its past preaching.

[5] Commentaire de l’Epître de saint Paul aux Galates, chapitre I, verset 8, leçon II, no. 25.
[6] Institut Universitaire Saint Pie X, Vatican II. L’autorité d’un Concile en question, chapitre XI: “Vraie et fausse obéissance : la foi n’appartient pas au Pape,” Vu de haut no. 13, 2006, p. 35–36.

9. We are obliged to note that today's preaching by men of the Church, since Vatican II, far from echoing that of the Church's living Magisterium, is in contradiction with it. There is therefore a deficiency that must lead us to rely on all the past preaching of the living Magisterium of the Church, on the Tradition of twenty centuries, to continue to keep the faith by protecting ourselves against errors.

And this is the criterion set out by St. Paul, as explained by St. Thomas: it is the doctrine revealed by God and already proposed by the Church's living Magisterium that is against the word of today's Churchmen, who judge and condemn the new word of Vatican II.

10. Archbishop Lefebvre goes on to stress the seriousness of these errors, which affect the faithful in particular through the implementation of the liturgical reform. “It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi.

“Corresponding with a new mass we have a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church—all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church. This Reformation, stemming from 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.”

11. Resistance is essential, in the name of obedience to the living Magisterium of the Church, in the name of this uninterrupted echo of the preaching of Christ and the Apostles. “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. 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 appeared before the Modernist influence of the Council. [...]

“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.”

12. In so doing, aren't Archbishop Lefebvre and his Fraternity calling into question the indefectibility of the Church? Wouldn't the famous observation repeatedly made by the former Archbishop of Dakar (“We are obliged to note”) be that of the forfeiture of the institution established by Jesus Christ and the negation of its divine nature?

Once one has grasped exactly what the indefectibility of the Church consists in, the objection disappears of its own accord. Everything here hinges on the fundamental distinction between, on the one hand, the very institution of the Church, which is divine and therefore indefectible, and, on the other hand, the acts of the men of the Church who represent this institution.

The failure, if there is one, concerns not the Church as such, considered in its Magisterium, but some of the acts performed by certain members of its hierarchy who have broken with Tradition and who unfortunately occupy positions of authority in the Church.

But the Church remains indefectible, through the courageous resistance of all those who oppose the reforms resulting from the Council and hold firmly “to all that has been believed [...] before the Modernist influence of the Council.”

13. Indeed, Archbishop Lefebvre speaks precisely not of another Rome, of a heretical or schismatic Rome, of a neo-modernist or neo-Protestant Rome, but of a “Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies.” This expression refers not to the Church as such, but to those within the Church who are pushing souls toward the errors once condemned.