Archbishop Lefebvre on Vatican II's
Ecumenism and Religious Liberty
In 1964, Archbishop Lefebvre correctly warned that the Conciliar schemas “have a
spirit of rupture and suicide,” and went on to say, “There exists a spirit of
non-Catholic or rationalist ecumenism that has become a battering ram for
unknown hands to pervert doctrine.”
by John Vennari
The new ecumenism was a defining element of the Second Vatican Council.
Archbishop Lefebvre at the Council, true to form, presented interventions
against this new spirit.
• He warned against what he described as a “false irenicism which tampers with
the purity of Catholic teaching or obscures its true and certain meaning.” In
the schema, “the most fundamental truths in this sphere are watered down.”[1]
The plain truths of Catholicism were being diluted in an attempt to make them
more palatable to Protestants.
• The Archbishop had plenty to say against the schema calling the Church a
“general help to salvation.” A general help? He reiterated the
traditional doctrine–and quoted the 1951 Letter of the Holy Office–that “Our
Lord indeed not only commanded all men to enter the Church” that was “divinely
instituted” by Him, but that Our Lord “instituted the Church as the means
of salvation without which no one can enter the kingdom of Heavenly glory.”
Thus, said the Archbishop, it is obvious from this traditional teaching that
“the Church is not seen merely as a ‘general help to salvation’.”[2] No, it is
necessary for salvation.
• He further warned against the schema’s statement: “The Holy Ghost does not
refuse to make use of these churches and communities.” In response, the
Archbishop said: This statement contains error: a community insofar as it is a
separated community, cannot enjoy the assistance of the Holy Ghost. He can only
act directly on souls or use such means as, of themselves, bear no sign of
separation.[3]
What resulted was Vatican II’s new ecumenical approach—a revolution in Catholic
attitudes—wherein Catholic prelates and clergy no longer were interested in
working towards conversion of non-Catholics, but rather, in convergence with
non-Catholics. In the spirit of the “New Theology,” theology, in order to remain
alive, had to “move with the times”–and the times were ecumenical.
It is worth noting on this point that Dr. Robert McAfee Brown, a Protestant
observer at Vatican II, was quick to praise Vatican II’s new approach. Dr. Brown
was well aware of the traditional Catholic teaching on Christian unity, and
celebrated the drastic change of attitude that Vatican II wrought. He did not
see continuity in Vatican II, but rupture with the past, and he rejoiced. In his
1967 book, The Ecumenical Revolution, he applauds the Council’s Decree
on Ecumenism:
"The
document makes clear how new is the attitude that has emerged.
No more is there talk of “schismatics and heretics” but rather of “separated
brethren.” No more is there an imperial demand that the dissidents return in
penitence to the Church who has no need of penitence; instead there is
recognition that both sides are guilty of the sins of division and must reach
out penitentially to one another. No more are Protestants dismissed merely as
“sects” or psychological entities alone; instead it is acknowledged that there
is a measure of “ecclesial reality” to be found within their corporate life."[4]
This last point made McAfee Brown is precisely what Archbishop Lefebvre was
warning against when he made the intervention against the notion that “a
community [that is, for example, a Protestant sect], insofar as it is a
separated community, cannot enjoy the assistance of the Holy Ghost.” The
Protestant McAfee Brown celebrates that Vatican II confirmed the opposite when
the Council claimed that these Protestant groups have a measure of “ecclesial
reality.”
Archbishop Lefebvre clearly saw the danger of these new teachings at the time of
the Council. In 1964, he said that the Conciliar schemas “have a spirit of
rupture and suicide,” and went on to say, “There exists a spirit of non-Catholic
or rationalist ecumenism that has become a battering ram for unknown hands to
pervert doctrine.”[5]
And while so many other highly-placed churchmen were predicting the great
renewal that the Council would bring, Archbishop Lefebvre was far more
realistic. He said: "In an inconceivable fashion, the Council promoted the
spreading of liberal errors. The Faith, morality, and ecclesiastical discipline
are shaken to their foundations as the Popes have predicted. The destruction of
the Church is advancing rapidly."[6]
Religious Liberty
Of course, Archbishop Lefebvre was most active opposing the new notion of
religious liberty that would emerge at Vatican II. This innovation states that
all men have the positive right to practice their false religion in public.
Archbishop Lefebvre made numerous interventions against this novel tenet. He
noted that the new doctrine shifts the focus away from the rights of the
objective truth given to us through Divine Revelation to the right of the human
person to embrace religious error, which is contrary to the traditional teaching
of the Church.
This traditional teaching is summarized by Pope Pius XII in the 1950s, who
taught that “what is not in accord with truth and the moral law has objectively
no right to exist, to be promoted or to be practiced,” and that “no human
authority can give a positive mandate to teach or do things contrary to
religious truth.”[7]
Archbishop Lefebvre further noted that the progressive Fr. Yves Congar openly
admitted Vatican II’s new doctrine of religious liberty is a rupture with the
past. Congar said: "What is new in this teaching in relation to the doctrine of
Leo XIII and even of Pius XII…is the determination of the basis peculiar to this
liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good,
but in the ontological quality of the human person."[8]
Of special note was Archbishop Lefebvre’s predicted consequences of the new
doctrine. During the Council, he warned that “religious liberty is the right to
cause scandal” because it gives civil rights to spread religious error and its
moral consequences. Among these consequences, Archbishop Lefebvre spotlighted
the following:
• Immorality: “The liberty of all religious communities in society mentioned in
No. 29, cannot be laid down, without at the same time granting moral liberty to
these communities: morals and religion are very closely linked, for instance,
polygamy and the religion of Islam”;
• The death of the Catholic States: “A civil society endowed with Catholic
legislation shall no longer exist”;
• “Doctrinal Relativism and practical indifferentism”;
• “The disappearance in the Church of the missionary spirit for the conversion
of souls.”[9]
The consequences that the Archbishop predicted, and worse, have come to pass due
to the Council’s new program. Cardinal Ottaviani likewise predicted that the
Council’s religious liberty would result in South America’s being overrun with
Protestantism. He too is proven correct. Of course, the most damning indictment
of the Council’s religious liberty came from the synagogue of Satan itself.
Archbishop Lefebvre noted:
"This very year [1965], Yves Marsaudon, the Freemason, has published the book L’oecumenisme
vu par un franc-maçon de tradition [Ecumenism as Seen by a Traditional
Freemason].
In it the author expresses the hope of Freemasons that our
Council will solemnly proclaim religious liberty....What more information do we
need?"[10]
Excerpted from: "Archbishop Lefebvre: A Bishop Speaks at the
Council":
Notes:
1 I Accuse the Council, Arcbhbsihpo Lefevre (angelus
Press) p. 17.
2 Ibid., pp. 17-18 (emphasis added).
3 Ibid., p. 18.
4. Robert McAfee Brown, Ecumenical Revolution, 2nd ed. (1967;
Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 67-8. (emphasis added)
5. Marcel Lefebvre, Bishop Tissier de Malarais (Angelus Press) p. 330.
6. Ibid., p. 335.
7. Quoted from ibid., p. 310.
8. I Accuse the Council, p. 21.
9. Marcel Lefebvre, p. 329.
10. Ibid., p. 328. (emphasis added)