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Dear
Editor,
Let
me try your patience with an argument that
may be stale, hut that unfortunately presents
itself every time that the Society of St.
Pius X comes up in conversation. Here is
the situation.
We
recently invited a close friend of the family
to attend Holy Mass at Albano [i.e.,
the priory of the Society of Saint Pius
X nearest Rome, Italy-^d.].
She politely responded that she had asked
the advice of the priest whose celebrations
of the Conciliar Mass she habitually attends.
As she told me, she had posed the question
in more or less the following terms: "Does
the Mass of the followers of Lefebvre [sic]
fulfill the obligation of sanctifying the
Sunday?" The response offered was a
decisive "no" motivated by the
lack of a valid and recognized priesthood
in view of the fact that Archbishop Lefebvre
had consecrated bishops without authorization,
which bishops in their turn had consecrated
priests without the required authorization.
In conclusion: the whole process being unfounded,
the Mass is not valid.
Perhaps
the priest in question has some specific
preparation in other areas, but this response
indicates such an ignorance of the real
validity of the consecrations of the Society
of St. Pius X as to amount to active disinformation.
My father used to say, "A lie may be
fast, but truth catches up with it."
It is no exaggeration to say that the Church
lives today in the reality of her apostolic
Tradition thanks to the courage of Archbishop
Lefebvre and other consecrated bishops in
the past and the present. To spread disinformation
on the basis of prejudice, or of having
read some articles in the popular press
rather than valid and irrefutable official
documents, is as it were to keep the "little
ones" from approaching Jesus. It is
to impede the ignorant from acquiring adequate,
honest information—the truth, in short.
But even today the Catholic world is full
of persuaders...uninstructed, albeit capable
of defending the most implausible positions.
This is why I have addressed myself to you....Would
you be so kind to address the statement
of this young Conciliar priest?
[Signature]
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Recently,
a reader sent us this letter with the question to
which we must repeatedly
respond in order to expose the errors of those pretending
to have all the answers.
Dear
Friend,
The
priest seems to be unaware of two basic and fundamental
concepts: 1) The difference
between invalidity and illicitness,
and 2) Catholic doctrine
on the state of necessity, which
can render lawful (licit) an action that would otherwise
be prohibited.
We
shall briefly summarize what we have already written
on this subject in the past since, in order to act
with a clear conscience, one must also have an informed
conscience.
The
validity of an episcopal consecration is
one thing, its licitness (lawfulness) is
another. By virtue of his episcopal consecration
a bishop has by divine right the power of consecrating
other bishops, and therefore he always does so validly.
Moreover, the episcopal consecrations by Archbishop
Lefebvre and the priestly ordinations of the bishops
he consecrated are not only valid but also licit.
They are in fact necessary by virtue of the state
of general or public necessity which today prevails
in the Catholic Church. In fact, all limitations
imposed by canon law fall away in cases of the extreme
or virtually extreme spiritual necessity of an individual
(danger of death) or the grave spiritual necessity
of many (e.g., in case of the unopposed diffusion
of heresy), when the help of the ordinary pastors
is lacking. In this situation any minister of God
(priest or bishop) has the obligation to act, and
thus does so licitly, even "without the required
authorization," when he does all that he can
validly do by divine right in virtue of his power
of orders. If he were not to do so, he would commit
a mortal sin. This is because natural and positive
divine right obliges him to help anyone in a state
of grave necessity.1
Therefore (and this is the most usual case) any
priest has the obligation to absolve the sins of
a dying man by the side of the road, and thus absolves
them validly and licitly, even "without the
required authorization" of the local bishop.
Likewise, a bishop has the obligation to consecrate
other bishops—and therefore does so not only validly
but also licitly-even "without the required
authorization" of the pope, when the grave
necessity of many souls demands it. This in fact
has often happened in the history of the Church,
as in the times of the Arian crisis and, more recently,
behind the Iron Curtain. This is because the highest
law of the Church is the salus animarum—the salvation
of souls. Therefore, whenever the salvation of one
or many souls is in danger, it is certain that "the
Church supplies the jurisdiction"2
or, in the language of the young Conciliar priest,
the Catholic Church confers the necessary authority
in making up for the lack of "required authorization"
demanded by ordinary ecclesiastical laws.
An
Obligation of Station and of Charity
St.
Thomas Aquinas explains that "any priest, by
virtue of the power of orders, has power indifferently
over all the faithful and for all sins. The fact
that he cannot absolve everyone from all sins results
from the jurisdiction imposed by ecclesiastical
law. But since "necessity does not submit
to the law," in a case of necessity the order
of the Church does not prevent him from absolving
sins sacramentally, provided that he has the
power of orders (Summa Theologica,
SuppL, Q.8, Art.6). Any bishop, by virtue of
the power of orders, has the power to consecrate
another bishop. The fact that he cannot do so without
the necessary authorization of the pope results
from ecclesiastical law. But, since "necessity
does not submit to the law," in a case of necessity
ecclesiastical law does not impede him from consecrating
other bishops, given that he has the power of orders.
Every
bishop, therefore, like every priest, has not only
an obligation towards souls based on his own office,
which he exercises in ordinary cases and within
the framework of ecclesiastical strictures (which,
like all laws, regard ordinary cases), but also
an obligation imposed by charity that he is bound
to exercise in extraordinary circumstances, under
no limitation but that of his power of orders. Not
without reason did our Lord Jesus Christ, in conferring
the primacy on Peter, abstain from personally and
directly determining the jurisdictional limits of
episcopal power. In fact, as Billot observes,
it
would not have been appropriate that something intrinsically
subject to change by virtue of changing circumstances
and times—by virtue of the greater or lesser ease
of recourse to the Holy See and other similar causes-should
have been immutably determined by divine law (De
Ecclesia Christi, Q. XV, §2)
It
should be noted that impossibility of recourse to
the Holy See can be not merely physical but also,
as today, moral. However, since the distinction
between divine law and ecclesiastical law is made
with regard to the immediate institutor of the norm,
it is certain that the primacy of the pope is founded
on divine law, since his primacy has been directly
instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ. The pontifical
restriction over episcopal consecrations, on the
other hand, belongs to ecclesiastical law, because
it has been directly instituted by the pope and
because, like every other "order of the Church"
(St. Thomas Aquinas) it must yield to a higher law,
that is, to the divine right (natural and positive)
that obliges under pain of mortal sin that one come
to the aid of souls in a condition of grave spiritual
need.
It
should be noted that 1)this grave
obligation of charity obliges even if it is the
pope himself who puts souls in a state of necessity,
because "charity is not concerned with the
source of the necessity, but only with its existence,"4
and 2)it is imposed even in circumstances
where others, for reasons of interest, ignorance,
or superficiality, deny the existence of a state
of necessity. Such denials do not in fact eliminate
the state of necessity, but render it graver by
eliminating the hope of remedy.
And
this is precisely the case of Archbishop Lefebvre
and those bishops he consecrated. Today a process
of "self-destruction" of the Church is
underway, as Pope Paul VI himself admitted (June
30, 1972). Modernist heresies are so rampant, by
the admission of Pope John Paul II himself, that
"Christians today to a great extent feel themselves
lost, confused, perplexed," and "are tempted
by atheism, agnosticism, a vaguely moralistic illuminism,
a sociological Christianity, without definite dogmas
and without objective morality" (L'Osservatore
Romano, Feb. 7, 1981). And the ordinary pastors,
who would have the official duty of helping souls
in such great necessity? They are complicit, conniving,
or fearful-in any case, virtually absent. When people
from all over the Catholic world turned to Archbishop
Lefebvre he did nothing but apply Catholic doctrine
on the state of necessity in making use of his power
of orders to provide for the needs of souls.
The Law of Supplied Jurisdiction
Since
the case of a bishop authorized by the necessity
of souls to consecrate another bishop even "without
the required authorization" is rarer than that
of a priest who, without required authorization,
licitly absolves a dying man on the side of the
road, let us make a simple but relevant comparison.
A pope and bishop are in the Catholic Church by
divine law something like a husband and wife in
a family. The latter is subordinated to the former,
but both are directed to the same goal-the salvation
of souls. It sometimes falls on the wife to supply,
within the limits of her possibilities, for a husband
who does not provide for the needs of their children
in a suitable manner. Likewise the duty of supplying,
within the limits of his own power of orders [which
includes the power of consecrating other bishops-Ed.])
can fall upon a bishop when the pope, for whatever
reason-culpable or not—does not provide "in
a sufficient manner" for the spiritual needs
of souls. Dom A. Grea, whose attachment to papal
primacy is beyond all suspicion, writes that "thus
in the 4th century St. Eusebius of Samosata traveled
among the eastern churches devastated by the Arians
and consecrated Catholic bishops without having
any special jurisdiction"5
or, as the young Conciliar priest might put
it, "without the required authorization."
Other Catholic bishops, defenders of Catholic orthodoxy
whom the Church today venerates on her altars, acted
in the same way. "Without the required authorization"
they conferred not only the power of orders, as
Archbishop Lefebvre did, but also, when necessity
demanded it, the power of jurisdiction over individual
dioceses. Dom Grea calls this action "the extraordinary
action of the episcopate," called by extraordinary
circumstances to "supply a remedy to the pressing
need of the Catholic faithful," and he writes
that in such cases the episcopate acts "with
the tacit consent of its head made certain by the
necessity."
It
should be noted that it is not the consent of the
pope that makes the bishops certain of the state
of necessity, but rather the necessity that makes
them certain of the consent of the head. Why is
this so? Because in a state of necessity for souls
the consent of the pope is obligatory. By virtue
of the primacy, the pope has from Christ the power
to enlarge or restrict the power of orders, but
always so as to provide "in a sufficient manner"
for the salvation of souls,6
which is the reason for being of the Church and
of the papacy itself.
A "No" Which Does Not Oblige
It
should now be clear why the pope does not have the
right to prohibit a priest from absolving a dying
man on the side of the road, or to prohibit a bishop
from consecrating another bishop when the needs
of souls demand it. This is so for the same reason
that a father who does not fulfill his own duties
(with or without fault) does not have the right
to prevent his wife from providing, insofar as she
is able, for the needs of their children. In the
case, therefore, that the pope might oppose such
an action, his "no" is no more binding
than that of such a husband to his wife. And just
as the state of necessity makes it morally impossible
for the subject to obey his superior, so too does
it deprive the superior of his power to oblige.
In order to obey, in fact, the subject would have
to sin against a precept of divine law which is
by its own nature "graver and more binding"
than ecclesiastical law,7
and the superior, for his part, would sin in obliging
a subject to act contrary to divine law, "to
which no human precept of the Church can oppose
itself."8
Therefore St. Thomas Aquinas says that "necessity
brings dispensation with itself."9
Suarez adds that, when the superior's refusal can
be foreseen, there is no necessity to ask his consent,
because the superior would sin by refusing it and
the inferior by obeying the refusal.10
Likewise, in our example, the wife would not be
obliged to ask the consent of her husband to fulfill
her own supplied obligation. In so doing she would
sin by obeying his "no" and the husband
would sin for his part in saying "no."
Unknown to Many, But Not in the Vatican
This
teaching on the state of necessity is little known
to most Catholics. Since it applies to special cases
in which extraordinary principles apply, it is not
the subject of ordinary preaching. This teaching,
however, should not be unknown to a priest who,
in any case, can find its principles spelled out
in any encyclopedia or dictionary of canon law under
the entries "charity," "equity,"
"cessation of legal obligation," "necessity,"
"resistance to unjust power," and elsewhere.
Nor
was this doctrine unknown to the Vatican authorities,
who did not undervalue the weight of the exculpatory
argument professed by His Excellency Archbishop
Lefebvre. Therefore they limited their response
to replying that there was no state of necessity,
thus recognizing that, should such a state exist,
the action of Archbishop Lefebvre would be fully
justified, even in the face of a papal refusal.
The
true question, therefore, is neither that of the
validity of the consecrations by Archbishop Lefebvre
and of the ordinations performed by the bishops
he ordained, nor of their licitness. It is rather
a question of the existence of a state of necessity,
which is the foundation for the licitness of the
consecrations. We believe that today, 15 years later,
in the face of an ecclesiastical situation that
deteriorates daily, there should no longer be any
doubts concerning the real existence
of a general state of necessity for souls. Catholic
souls are no longer fed by the bread of Truth, but
by that of doubt, heresy, and even of immorality,
as for example in the case of "divorced remarrieds,"
in sermons, catechesis, the "Catholic"
press, in the pronouncements of episcopal conferences,
the actions of the Holy See, and even in papal allocutions.
Doctrinal corruption is no longer characteristic
of small groups, as at the time of the first modernism.
Today it appears rather as "a public action
of the Church body."11
Unfortunately there are souls who, because of a
lack of adequate information, deprive themselves
of the help that Providence has wanted to offer
them in the work of Archbishop Lefebvre. To these
souls we dedicate these remarks, that they might
act in good conscience, without fear of offending
God—a risk constantly run by those who adhere to
the "conciliar Church."
To
those responsible for the current ecclesiastical
catastrophe, we limit ourselves to asking how they
can reconcile their denial of a general state of
necessity for souls with their other statements
of a contrary character, beginning with the "self-destruction"
of the Church and the "smoke of Satan in the
temple of God" denounced by Pope Paul VI. Is
it possible that the Church could be destroyed from
within without souls perishing in the ruins? Can
the windows of the temple of God be opened to the
"smoke of Satan" without any soul being
suffocated? All the more since, in this state of
grave general or public necessity, not only is no
remedy applied, but rather the condition is aggravated
by persistence in an increasingly fatuous and arbitrary
ecumenism.
