On this day in 1991 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre died.
Lefebvre was a great churchman, an astoundingly effective missionary. Much of the Church in French speaking Africa even today owes a great deal to his work. I find it not unusual at all that the African Church reveals strong fidelity to certain moral teachings which are lately under attack.
I learned of Lefebvre’s death in an interesting way. That morning I was opening up our office (the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei“) because I was the first to arrive. As I was switching on lights and machines, the doorbell rang. Thinking it was our secretary, who might not have the key handy, I opened the door to find… then-Card. Ratzinger. He gave me the news that Lefebvre had died. He had just received a phone call about his death and stopped at our office on his way in to the Congregation. I got on the phone to our own Cardinal right away.
Here are shots of Lefebvre’s memorial card, which I have kept these years.
In your charity, you might say a prayer for him.
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March 25, 1991, fell on a Monday of Holy Week just as it does this year.
Did you mean…say a prayer to him?
There would be ZERO Tridentine Masses happening right now without his heroic faith.
The 150 years from 1850 to 2000 provided Holy Mother Church with an amazing group of saints, theologians, popes, cardinals, bishops and archbishops, parish priests, and religious who dedicated their intellects and lives to protect the traditional Apostolic Roman Catholic Church and to proclaim it as the one true Church established by Our Saviour on Holy Thursday. We all know most of their names so there is no need to list them, but Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was one of them. Without his successfully courageous stand, certainly inspired and directed by the Holy Spirit, against the papal cadre whose only end goal was the destruction of the Vetus Ordo and subsequent destruction of the One True Church. All to be replaced by an anti-christ mishmash of meaningless liturgy to please Satan. Today may not have been a good day. St. Michael, please, protect us from this evil with your heavenly sword and shield!
@cblanch912
We have no idea how many Tridentine Masses there would be with him or without him. Perhaps less, perhaps more. We are not the Divine Providence and have no knowledge of all that is happening in heaven and on earth.
@An Old Historian
“An anti-christ mishmash of meaningless liturgy to please Satan.” If what you want to write is a description of what the liturgy of the Church is today, then I vehemently reject this description.
Old Historian: All to be replaced by an anti-christ mishmash of meaningless liturgy to please Satan.
Allow me to push back a little. Why? The Novus Ordo is what brought me into the Catholic Church as a convert. HOWEVER… this was at an almost unique parish, St. Agnes in St. Paul in the time of Msgr. Schuler. Had I stumbled into another parish in the area, I strongly suspect I would not have given the Catholic Church a second look, given their liturgical proclivities.
It is true that some involved with the cobbling-up of the Novus Ordo (a point Ratzinger made strongly) were consciously trying to change the Church’s doctrine by changing her worship. The smoking gun for that is in a book by former-papal MC Piero Marini who was Bugnini’s secretary during the Consilium. It is true that some wanted to Protestantize the rites. However, I know something about the orations of the Novus Ordo, since I wrote about them every week for over a decade for The Wanderer. That was the origin of this blog.
The orations of the Novus Ordo were massively edited or new ones created. The emphasis of the prayers over all stressed eschatological joy. Here’s the problem. There is nothing wrong with emphasizing eschatological joy. The prayers are good, from that point of view. What’s wrong is that, in the aggregate, what the prayers lack is how to obtain that joy. The prayers of the Vetus Ordo also look to eschatological joy. However, they also strongly emphasize penance, the need for grace, our sinful state, our dependance on God, propitiation, etc. The Vetus prayers signal both the goal and the means. The Novus prayers mostly focus on the goal without the way to obtain it.
So, the Novus Ordo prayers are not bad prayers, in that they have bad content. They are lacking something.
Were the men involved in the Consilium trying to “please Satan”? If there were Masons involved, that’s possible. I think we can be pretty sure about one Mason.
So, the Novus Ordo is not exactly a “mishmash”, even though it was pasted together by experts in ways that absolutely violated the mandates of the Council Fathers. It isn’t exactly “anti-christic” in that it validly confects sacraments (I include all the sacraments, not just Eucharist). It isn’t “meaningless”. On the contrary. However, it has deficiencies. Does it “please Satan”? I suspect not, except when it is horribly abused, which it is far and wide. When the rubrics are observed and it is used in the traditional style, your description isn’t accurate, in my humble opinion.
@Fr. Reader
Our Lord said, “Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” We are absolutely encouraged by Him to use our intellect to discern the actions of men -especially in the affairs of the Church, where we are told we will be facing false prophets.
Ecclesia Dei was issued in response to the consecrations +Lefebvre did in Econe. Even Wikidpedia notes this. Without the SSPX, there would be no FSSP, ICKSP, or even Indult Masses.