2
June 1988
Most
Holy Father,
The
conversations and meetings with Cardinal Ratzinger and his
collaborators, although they took place in an atmosphere
of courtesy and charity, persuaded us that the moment for
a frank and efficacious collaboration between us has not
yet arrived.
For
indeed, if the ordinary Christian is authorized to ask the
competent Church authorities to preserve for him the Faith
of his Baptism, how much more true is that for priests,
religious, and nuns?
It
is to keep the Faith of our Baptism intact that we have
had to resist the spirit of Vatican II and the reforms inspired
by it.
The
false ecumenism, which is at the origin of all the Council's
innovations in the liturgy, in the new relationship between
the Church and the world, in the conception of the Church
itself, is leading the Church to its ruin and Catholics
to apostasy.
Being
radically opposed to this destruction of our Faith and determined
to remain within the traditional doctrine and discipline
of the Church, especially as far as the formation of priests
and the religious life is concerned, we find ourselves in
the absolute necessity of having ecclesiastical authorities
who embrace our concerns and will help us to protect ourselves
against the spirit of Vatican II and the spirit of Assisi.
That
is why we are asking for several bishops chosen from within
Catholic Tradition, and for a majority of the members on
the projected Roman Commission for Tradition, in order to
protect ourselves against all compromise.
Given
the refusal to consider our requests, and it being evident
that the purpose of this reconciliation is not at all the
same in the eyes of the Holy See as it is in our eyes, we
believe it preferable to wait for times more propitious
for the return of Rome to Tradition. That is why we shall
give ourselves the means to carry on the work which Providence
has entrusted to us, being assured by His Eminence Cardinal
Ratzinger's letter of May 30th that the episcopal consecration
is not contrary to the will of the Holy See, since it was
granted for August 15th.
We
shall continue to pray for modern Rome, infested with Modernism,
to become once more Catholic Rome and to rediscover its
two-thousand-year-old tradition. Then the problem of our
reconciliation will have no further reason to exist and
the Church will experience a new youth.
Be
so good, Most Holy Father, as to accept the expression of
my most respectful and filially devoted sentiments in Jesus
and Mary.
+
Marcel Lefebvre
