The Roots of the Split

The rift between the Vatican and Archbishop Lefebvre’s right-​wing conservative Catholic movement had been widening for some time. The roots of the schism go back to the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965. Pope John XXIII, who convened the council, set two objectives for the gathering. One was called aggiornamento (updating), and the other was the reuniting of all the so-​called Christian churches.

Although Archbishop Lefebvre, as a Catholic prelate, took part in Vatican II, he was not in agreement with either of these objectives. As a dyed-​in-​the-​wool traditionalist, it is his opinion that the Catholic Church does not need to be brought up-​to-​date. Subscribing wholeheartedly to the traditional Catholic view that “outside the Church there is no salvation,” Lefebvre is convinced that the only way “Christians” could possibly become reunited would be for all non-​Catholics to adhere to the Roman Catholic faith.

Against Religious Freedom

A year after his excommunication, Archbishop Lefebvre, speaking on behalf of conservative Catholics who support his movement, declared: “We are categorically against the idea of religious liberty and its consequences, especially ecumenism, which I find personally unacceptable.”

He was not innovating. He was faithfully following Catholic tradition. On August 15, 1832, Pope Gregory XVI published the encyclical Mirari vos, in which he condemned freedom of conscience as a “mistaken view, or rather madness.” Thirty-two years later, Pope Pius IX published his Syllabus of Errors, in which he condemned the idea that “every man is free to embrace and to profess the religion which, by the light of reason, he believes to be true.”

By rejecting ecumenism, Archbishop Lefebvre was merely showing his attachment to what Catholic dogma calls the “unicity of the Church,” that is, that there is but “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic” church.

Incensed by “Protestant” Mass

The reforms in the traditional Catholic liturgy brought about by Vatican II are a particularly sore subject to Archbishop Lefebvre and his followers. The rebel prelate considers such reforms to have “Protestantized” the Mass. It is not just the question of using modern languages instead of Latin; Lefebvre feels that too much has been modified with a view to attracting the Protestants and that even in Latin the liturgy approved by Pope Paul VI is “heretical.”

To ensure the continuity of the traditional Latin Mass, Archbishop Lefebvre set up a seminary at Ecône, Switzerland, in 1970. It was administered by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, which Lefebvre founded the same year. As his movement gathered momentum, he established other conservative Catholic seminaries in Europe and the Americas. There hundreds of young men receive ultraconservative training for the priesthood.

The rebel prelate has ordained well over 200 traditionalist priests, although forbidden to do so by Pope Paul VI in 1976. These celebrate Latin Mass in priories and illegally occupied Catholic churches.a The Vatican admits that Lefebvre has about a hundred thousand militant traditionalist followers throughout the world, but other church officials concede that the number is closer to half a million. Lefebvre himself claims that millions of Catholics share his views.

The Need for a Successor

In the Catholic Church, a bishop can ordain priests. However, only the pope can approve the ordination of a bishop. For want of a bishop to ordain new priests, the elderly Lefebvre realized that his Priestly Fraternity risked dying out after his death. Apparently hoping that this would happen, the Vatican entered into protracted negotiations with him, eventually issuing an ultimatum. Either he would accept the ordination of a Vatican-approved bishop or if he proceeded to ordain a bishop himself, he would be excommunicated.

On June 30, 1988, at a ceremony attended by thousands of his followers, the rebel prelate consecrated four traditionalist bishops. The Paris daily International Herald Tribune reported: “Archbishop Lefebvre’s consecration of the four bishops cast a shadow over a Vatican consistory in which the pope elevated 24 bishops to the College of Cardinals. The Vatican canceled a special concert in order to register its ‘deep pain’ over Archbishop Lefebvre’s action. ‘It is a day of mourning,’ [French] Cardinal Decourtray said.”

Not only has this schism within the Catholic Church caused pain in the Vatican but it has left millions of sincere Catholics throughout the world perplexed and confused.

[Footnotes]

Why the “Deep Anxiety”?

POPE JOHN PAUL II expressed “despair” at the schism of Archbishop Lefebvre’s traditionalist Catholic movement. The church, he said, reacted with “great distress.”

Catholic priest Joaquín Ortega, deputy secretary of the Roman Catholic bishops conference in Spain, deplored the situation: “We have fallen into a ‘supermarket Catholicism.’ People are picking and choosing among what suits them as if our doctrines were cans of vegetables.”

Archbishop Lefebvre maintains that the Second Vatican Council betrayed the traditional Catholic Church, opening the church to changes. Thus, he feels, the council shook the belief of Catholics that they belong to the one true church.

Summing up the arguments of Lefebvre and his followers, the International Herald Tribune wrote: “The traditionalists argue that either the church was in error before the council, or it is in error now, but cannot have it both ways. If it erred before the council, they say, then it may have been wrong about other doctrines. ‘We are here to manifest our attachment to the church of all times,’ the archbishop said.”

However, many sincere Catholics are wondering whether what the pre-​Vatican-​II church taught and practiced was the truth or it was error.

Liberal Catholics Are Worried

Many liberal-​minded Catholics are worried that what they consider to be progressive steps taken at Vatican II are being sabotaged because of the Lefebvre affair. They are frightened by recent official Vatican statements, such as those by Cardinal Ratzinger, the watchdog of Catholic orthodoxy. He is the head of the Vatican agency that for four centuries was known as the Congregation for the Holy Inquisition.

Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in Rome, stated: “Schisms come about only when people have stopped living and loving certain truths and values of the Christian faith.” Progressive Catholics are afraid that the cardinal had in mind “truths and values” that characterized the Roman Catholic Church in pre-​Vatican-​II days.

Voicing such fears, an article entitled “The Price of a Schism,” published in the French newspaper Le Monde, stated: “Who knows if the Vatican is not​—unknowingly or unadmittedly—​starting to practice ‘traditionalism without Lefebvre’? . . . Is [the Vatican] not now trying to win back the traditionalist-​inclined clergy and laity and above all reasserting Catholic authority and values where they are the most openly challenged, particularly Western Europe and North America?”

Dissident Theologians

In January 1989, 163 Catholic theologians from West Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland issued a statement now known as the Cologne Declaration. In the ensuing weeks, they were joined by hundreds of Catholic theologians from other countries, including Italy. The wave of dissent was triggered by the arbitrary Vatican appointment of a conservative prelate as Catholic archbishop of Cologne, Germany, against the wishes of the local hierarchy. But the protest went beyond the appointment of right-​wing bishops. It included Vatican disciplinary measures to silence theologians who reflected “the theological thinking which the Second Vatican Council emphasized.” The theologians also questioned the pope’s right to impose his views “in the field of doctrinal teaching,” particularly concerning birth control.

Reacting to this declaration, Cardinal Ratzinger stated bluntly that those who reject the Vatican’s position on birth control and divorce are giving an erroneous interpretation of “conscience” and “freedom” and are violating the traditional teaching of the church. He recently reminded U.S. prelates that they should not let their teaching be influenced by the “discordant concert” of theologians.

Many Catholics Are Perplexed

A French Catholic theologian declared in an interview with Le Monde: “It would be a mistake to claim . . . that this crisis affects only the theologians. They are merely expressing the deep anxiety of a great many Catholics.”

Many sincere Catholics are wondering if rebel archbishop Lefebvre, although excommunicated, may not have ‘lost a battle but won the war.’ In fact, concessions are being made to Lefebvre’s followers in an effort to win them back into the fold. Mass is again being said in Latin in many Catholic churches, and conservative bishops are being appointed to positions. Interestingly, traditionalist Catholics are asking: ‘Why was Monsignor Lefebvre excommunicated when Catholic priests in Holland who bless homosexual “marriages” and South American priests who advocate revolutionary liberation theology are still a part of the church?’

All of this leaves many Catholics confused. A French Catholic wrote to Catholic daily La Croix (The Cross): “Simple Christians, like myself, are suffering because those involved [in the church’s dissensions] are not discussing things and coming to an agreement. Some people are tiptoeing away from religious practice, if not the Church.”

Doubtless, such people cannot understand why what they consider to be the one true church is so divided. Even Catholic priest René Laurentin asked: “Why these divisions among Christians?”

Different ideologies, responsible for divisions within the church, could be avoided if the church adhered to the Bible as the source of its teachings. Indeed, the Second Vatican Council decreed: “The sacred Word is a precious instrument in the mighty hand of God for attaining to that unity which the Saviour holds out to all men.” Yet, undermining the unifying value of the Bible, that same Vatican Council stated: “The Church does not draw her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Hence, both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal feelings of devotion and reverence.” And again: “Sacred theology relies on the written Word of God, taken together with sacred Tradition.”

Jesus’ words to the Pharisees might well be applied to the magisterium of the Catholic Church: “You have made God’s word ineffective by means of your tradition.” (Matthew 15:6, The New Jerusalem Bible) A sincere Catholic woman wrote to a Catholic periodical in France: “If the clergy are no longer motivated to preach the Good Word, is it surprising that the faithful are fewer in numbers, or seek elsewhere? (As for Jehovah’s Witnesses and the traditionalists, their faith makes them different.)”

A Divided Hierarchy

Consider now the organizational cause for divisions within the church. The schism brought about by Archbishop Lefebvre was directly related to the Catholic dogmas of “Apostolic Succession” and the primacy of the pope. Lefebvre claims that the “power to teach, rule, and sanctify that Christ conferred on His Apostles is . . . perpetuated in the Church’s college of bishops.” On the other hand, it is claimed that the bishop of Rome, the pope, is the “first of all the bishops, not only in rank or dignity, but in pastoral authority.”​—New Catholic Encyclopedia.

But are these dogmas based on the Bible? This same Catholic encyclopedia admits that “one does not find in the New Testament any words of Christ indicating how the apostolic mandate was to be handed on.” And it also confesses that “papal primacy” was not “clearly understood or explicitly professed” in the “Western [Latin] Church” until the fifth century C.E.

At present the hierarchical system of the Catholic Church is being challenged from top to bottom. It is a factor in the divisions, as bishops, theologians, priests, and laymen openly express their disagreement with the pope on matters of faith, morals, and church government. The “Cologne Declaration” stated: “If the pope does what does not belong to his office, he cannot demand obedience in the name of Catholicism.”

Divided Politically

Britain’s Economist wrote: “As Lefebvrists see it, their church has fallen victim to a conspiracy which has delivered it into the hands of Marxists, modernists and Protestants. Monsignor Lefebvre believes the French Revolution introduced lamentable modernism and liberalism into the world, and that Vatican II introduced the French Revolution . . . into the church.” Many right-​wing Catholics share this view. On the other hand, left-​wing Catholics are for social reforms, some going so far as to accept the principle of armed revolution. Thus, politics is another divisive factor among Catholics.

Concluding his article on “Why These Divisions Among Christians?” priest Laurentin stated that the credibility of the Catholic Church would depend on its conforming to Jesus’ words: “It is by your love for one another, that everyone will recognise you as my disciples.”​—John 13:35, NJB.

Using that touchstone, many sincere Catholics all over the world have come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church’s claim to be the one true church is not credible. Realizing, as Jesus also stated, that “no household divided against itself can last,” many have “tiptoed” out of the church.​—Matthew 12:25, NJB.

Quite a number of Catholics are now seeking a “household” made up of true Christians, who are united by real brotherly love and who are not divided either by unbiblical dogmas, a disunited hierarchy, or by opposing political opinions. Thousands have found what they were seeking when they began to associate with Jehovah’s Witnesses.