Ecclesiology of Mgr Lefebvre - Compared to Pope Michael

Michael Lofton Heard of Quo Primum Long After I Did · Ecclesiology of Mgr Lefebvre - Compared to Pope Michael · No to 1988 Consecrations = Yes to 1990 Emergency Conclave · Marcel Lefebvre - a new St. Athanasius or a new Martin Luther?

Marcel Lefebvre's Erroneous Ecclesiology w/ John Salza
Reason & Theology, 19.II.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JMnfvcnRSU

I made an own comment in the chat which seems to have been deleted. Namely on FSSPX having a somewhat EO (Eastern Orthodox) ecclesiology.

Answering a previous comment:

Duane Romana

Lefebvre’s ecclesiology sounds like sedevacantist ecclesiology

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The late Fr. Cekada made a video about Mgr Lefebvre the Sedevacvantist.

Not to pretend he actually was one, but to conclude that he shilly-shallied, and it is easy to make a compilation of either Sedevacantist or highly anti-sede statements from his writings.

Own comments:

1:12 Stating that the Vatican II Sect or Conciliar Church is no longer the Catholic Church can only constitute a denial of indefectibility, if there is no surviving Catholicism beside it.

Whenever a Protestant states that such and such a practise, from the Bible, is obligatory or forbidden and this is in conflict with obvious Catholic tradition, like baptised families getting their children to the font, or veneration for icons or whatever, I ask them to state where their Church was century after century.

Suppose they were to state "Constantine founded the Catholic Church" - I'd answer : fine, where was your Church back then? Where did it remain one century, two centuries etc after then?

For the late Mgr Lefebvre, for a Sedevacantist, for the late Pope Michael, that question is no problem.

Indefectibility is certainly in the Bible (Mt 28:16-18), and a question no brand of Christian can escape. But pretending that this is a refutation of the opposition to Vatican II and Liturgic Reforms and Ecumenism is ridiculous. FSSPX has apostolic succession through Mgrs Lefebvre and Castro-Mayer. Sedevacantists have it from Thuc, and from Old Catholics. Vatican in Exile has it from Duarte Costa and "at least some Old Catholics" as per Leo XIII.

Now, FSSPX and Sedes may be deficient as to the papacy component of indefectibility. That's where conclavism comes in.

1:19 "the visible institution contains the promises"

What constitutes the visible institution? Visibility, obviously.

But apart from visibility, which Pope Michael had both in Topeka and on the internet, despite efforts for some kind of Jewish gatekeeping (with the perpetrators here not being Jews), what more?

Papacy? That's kind of lacking in FSSPX and Sedes, but at least purportedly not in the Vatican in Exile (though it is now in an interregnum).

What exactly is required for papacy to be visible?

Election not being contested? There have been contested elections. In 1012 (which was little before popes were removed from the diptychs in Constantinople, probably due to this), Gregory and Benedict VIII were in conflict over who was the Pope.
Election being by a canonic conclave? Innocent II was elected by a committee of six, though in his case they were cardinals.
Election by cardinals only? Lacking all over the first millennium.
Electing only someone already consecrated bishop? So much lacking that it was a speciality of the Bishops of Ostia to consecrate or ordain and consecrate presbyters and laymen elevated to the papacy. Confer Bob Bjarnesen.

Continuity in same liturgy? Continuity in same doctrine? What about these?

2:17 "the Church that the world knows is Catholic"

The world accepting the Church as Catholic is certainly a part time criterium.

Gnostics and Novatians and such never dared to claim their worship was the "Catholic Church" ...

However, is this a non-changingly good criterium? What about AD 34? What about the last 3 and a half years of the world?

In Apocalypse 18, was a certain entity taken by international connexion holders as something more than it was? Was that other and better thing the Catholic Church?

In Medieval Manuscripts of the Apocalypse, you find illustrations of the bride of Christ being beheaded from an Anti-christ head by Christ putting His own head (bearded) on Her.

3:01 Exactly how long can a body of office holders be infiltrated by freemasons or communists or both before it ceases to be Catholic?

The ecclesia anglicana of the 1530's had two problems. One was adherence to formal schism - in obedience to the King. The other was infiltration by theologians of the new Protestant tradition.

How long did the ecclesia anglicana remain Catholic in doctrine? From 1553 to 1558, Mary Tudor tried to re-Catholicise the ecclesia anglicana. By then it was so protestant that the clergymen she got burned were hailed as martyrs, though they died for the wrong faith.

1534 to 1553 is just 19 years.

Say that a Pope or two around 1962 to 65 were Antipopes, infiltrators, heretics. This would leave lots of bona fide Catholics, but in a framework of pseudo-magisterial and pseudo-dicasterial acts. And such acts would leave room for more infiltrators to enter or more Catholics to defect invisibly and become infiltrators (the exact process by which the ecclesia anglicana mainly ceased to be a Catholic Church province and became a heretical sect condemned by Popes and by Trent).

What on John Salza's view is required for indefectibility to hold?

a) that the Process never started at all?
b) that the Process was successfully reversed?

Why is it insufficient for indefectibility that

c) the Process ejected good Catholics who continued the Church outside the physical boundary of Rome and eventually elected a Pope?

From 1962 to 1986 (synagogue visit, Assisi prayer meeting), that's 24 years. A bit longer than the 19 years from 1534 to 1553.

4:32 "only the Roman Catholic Church has the marks and the attributes"

If Mgr Lefebvre was saying "now we are the Roman Catholic Church" - apart from this being doubtful due to the Recognise and Resist prolongation, the refusal to act to get a real Pope elected - how is this a denial of indefectibility?

Does the visibility of the Roman Catholic Church reside in numbers?

If so, who had massive numbers against them in their own country, like Bishop Fisher and Thomas More?

If so, why would the Church still exist when Apocalypse 11 will have taken place? Obviously, at that point, the world will internationally be in rejoicing over the killing of the two witnesses.

Or if it resides in international rather than one country only presence ... what does that make of the first year of the Church? People returning from Pentecost to their countries could as laymen, perhaps even just catechumens, have been stating "the Messiah has come" but the one place with clergy was in fact Jerusalem at this point.

If papacy has to reside in Rome, where was the Church when St. Peter was in Jerusalem or Antioch, and when a series of Popes were residing in Avignon?

I don't see how the remark [by John Salza] is a refutation of what he [Mgr Lefebvre] said.

4:34 "there is no other institution that has that"

National Episcopacies do not have the marks of the Church? Orders of the Church do not have the marks of the Church?

FSSPX was a kind of congregation which was started in the see of Fribourg with approval of Bishop François Charrière. Just in the nick of time, since in 1970 Pierre Mamie came in, definitely unfriendly to Mgr Lefebvre.

Can a bishop have the marks of the Church if he is in communion with the true Rome? Certainly.

Does he lose it because he is excommunicated by a false Rome? By an intruder antipope? Certainly not.

However, to keep them, it would be his duty to see to it that the papacy is continued. That's the remark against Mgr Lefebvre as against Mgr Sanborn and Mgr Pivarunas and Mgr Dolan.

That's where Pope Michael condemned their position as schismatic.

4:58 According to the understanding of Vatican in Exile, the Church of Rome was residing in Topeka up to at least Aug. 2.

It is not certain that the next Pope they elect (by the way, I am not a candidate, I hope to get married) is also residing in or near Topeka.

5:21 Let me cite the Catechism of St. Pius X.

3 Q. Who is a true Christian?
A. A true Christian is he who is baptised, who believes and professes the Christian Doctrine, and obeys the lawful pastors of the Church.

So, for Pope St. Pius X, believing and professing the Christian Doctrine actually comes before obeying the lawful pastors of the Church.

Going from individual to collective level, from Prologue to article nine of the creed:

8 Q. What is the Catholic Church?
A. The Catholic Church is the Union or Congregation of all the baptised who, still living on earth, profess the same Faith and the same Law of Jesus Christ, participate in the same Sacraments, and obey their lawful Pastors, particularly the Roman Pontiff.

Again, obedience to lawful pastors and particularly the Roman pontiff comes after professibg same Faith and law of Jesus Christ and participating the the same sacraments.

Note that Mgr Lefebvre when founding the society (with approval by bishop Charrière) was concerned about the validity of the new liturgic forms of the sacraments.

5:29 "the marks refer to the juridical body"

Of which Society of St. Pius X started out as a subdivision.

Can a subdivision become the whole?

If it can't, is the whole always comprising all former subdivisions of itself, meaning basically branch theory?

From the juridical point, as pertains to Common Law, the Thirteen colonies remained under English law even after 1776. Only the law of governance changed. And some laws on taxation.

Now, for the Catholic Church we cannot forego one certain law of governance called papacy.

But that's not a reason why it cannot survive through a subdivision, and even a tiny one.

7:22 Mgr Lefebvre - 1991, after Pope Michael was already elected - was speaking of supplied jurisdiction, like the one a priest could have either in article of death or on a ship on the ocean or in otherwise prolonged abstinence of sacraments. At least the first and the last of these applies also to heretical and schismatic priests.

For instance, the idea that a Catholic could receive sacraments from an Orthodox priest if otherwise he would long be deprived of sacraments.

Note, Mgr Lefebvre did not consider he had ordinary jurisdiction. He did not pretend that the ordinary jurisdiction was based on the consent of the laymen.

What Pope Michael had against this was, while it would work in an acute emergency, like 1970, it would be inadequate to continue affirming this without providing for a cessation of the emergency.

This is what a then layman was up for in convoking an emergency conclave which assembled in 1990. His name was David Bawden, he was elected, he accepted and took the name Michael.

It is obviously dishonest of Mr. Salza to pretend from a remark in 1991 that the positions condemning the Conciliar Church has previously been heretical.

8:18 If it was true that by 1989 the Conciliar Church had ceased to be Catholic, ceased to contain Catholic jurisdiction, it would follow that a former part of the Catholic Church, remaining Catholic, would have the right to supplant the universal jurisdiction.

And that is where the ultimate claim of FSSPX is not really inferior to that of Pope Michael. That's the exact reason why David Bawden sensed a contradiction and sought to correct it by the emergency conclave.

Lefebvre and the Exorcism of Anneliese Michel
Reason & Theology, 19.II.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK6S-YOYC5w

4:42 The exorcist was suspecting what you said.

He asked the demon, and got the answer "what a pity"

He then wanted to verify the demon was the one lamenting the not listening, so he posed the follow up question, and the demon said "not I" ...

Note, 1976 was a date when Marcel Lefebvre had not yet imbricated himself into contradictions about jurisdiction, unlike probably by 1991.

Marcel Lefebvre was just stating that the traditional liturgy and positions on certain faith matters were the good ones. He was so busy doing that, and so many bishops were still Catholic back then, he still could have some reasonable hope for the Recognise and Resist approach, which by 1989 David Bawden considered obviously inadequate two "popes" later than Paul VI.

The demon seems to have stated the truth that it was a pity from the view point of his habitual victims.

He could already have been receiving souls damned down to hell for not having listened to Marcel Lefebvre.

4:24 In 1976, this exorcism was made in January, and Marcel Lefebvre was still in good standing.

"During the consistory of 24 May 1976, Pope Paul VI criticized Lefebvre by name and appealed to him and his followers to change their minds.[36][83] On 29 June 1976, Lefebvre went ahead with planned priestly ordinations without the approval of the local bishop and despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding them. As a result Lefebvre was suspended a collatione ordinum, i.e., forbidden to ordain any priests. A week later, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops informed him that, to have his situation regularized, he needed to ask the pope's pardon. Lefebvre responded with a letter claiming that the modernization of the church was a "compromise with the ideas of modern man" originating in a secret agreement between high dignitaries in the church and senior Freemasons prior to the council.[84] Lefebvre was then notified that, since he had not apologized to the pope, he was suspended a divinis,[85] i.e., he could no longer legally administer any of the sacraments."

5:18 "when the demon is asked, who says it was a pity that Lefebvre wasn't followed, the demon said 'not I'.."

It is already established, the demon has truthfully (since under compulsion by Fr. Rentz) said it was a pity (from someone's viewpoint) that Lefebvre wasn't followed.

Now, how about Fr. Rentz having asked the question in the sense and obtaining the answer in the sense of "from whose point of view is it a pity" - and he obtained the answer, it was not from the demon's point of view.

5:26 "if the interpretation adopted by Kennedy Hall is true, then the demon is truthfully saying that it is not a pity that people didn't listen to Lefebvre."

Not a pity from the demon's point of view.

The demon had already truthfully said it was so from someone's point of view. Perhaps that of a damned soul that he had enjoyed tormenting for that fault, or even of many damned souls.