"By celebrating the ancient Mass, I discovered what the priest is.
We have recently received many moving testimonies from priests who have come closer to us.
This statement resumes the profound mystery which strikes the Church :
1/ the Church is in crisis since the Second Vatican Council because the priesthood has been attacked. This is one of the fundamental elements of the crisis.
2/ the decisive point for the restauration of the Church is, and will be, the priesthood. Archbishop Lefebvre is amongst those men of the Church of the 20th century who have probably understood this most clearly.
3/ Archishop Lefebvre, in founding the Society of St. Pius X, sought nothing else than the restoration of the priesthood in order to restore the entire Church.
4/ In order to accomplish this, one must reestablish this intimate, incredibly profound relation between the priest and the Mass.
The fathers of the Council candidly admit that the priest was the personage forgotten by the Second Vatican Council.
In the constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which consecrates whole chapters on bishops and especially to the laity (one of the great "inventions" of Vatican II), one will only find a few paragraphs for the priest - and each time, he is subordinate either to the bishop or to the univeral priesthood of the baptised.
Already in 1971 the International Theological Commission could say :
"Vatican II has modified the priestly image in two aspects. The Council treats of the Priesthood common to all the faithful before treating the ministerial priesthood... It has put the place of the bishop more clearly as the center of the particular Church and member of the universal college of bishops. The place of the priest in the Church has become vague."[1]
This vagueness, coming from this depreciation and new perspective of the priesthood has had as a consequence the loss of the identity of the priest, of which John Paul II would speak in his Post-Synodal exhortation of 1992, Pastores dabo vobis, saying that it comes from an erroneous interpretation of the Council.
Loss of identity, an vague position in the Church... and yet the decree "Presbyterorum ordinis" gives the definition of the priesthood given by the Council of Trent! But the context is such that it is another idea, that of the priest preacher, as Luther desired, that one puts forward, and not him who offers the Sacrifice. Fr. Olivier, a specialist on the question, was obliged to say concerning the malaise surrounding the priesthood after the Council :
"The true problem is so abnormal to Catholicism that one can easily understand this instinctive blindness that allows one to avoid seeing it: the desire to be faithful to two Councils which are so divergent one from the other is simply impossible." [2]
This new presentation of the priesthood perfectly corresponds to the New Mass, which is even more Protestant in taste and intention...
These elements put together, the definition of the priest and the New Mass, are sufficient enough to provoke the greatest crisis concerning the priesthood in the entire history of the Church.
Let us say it simply: the priesthood has been denatured. The "president" (praeesse), the "preacher" (praedicare) are certainly priestly roles, but they are not the essential : the "sacrificare".
In so far as the priest has not understood his reason of being, that is to say sacrifice, that his ordination ordaines him to sacrifice, the sacrifice of Our Lord upon the Cross, the priest will not truly know what he is. The preist without Mass, without sacrifice, is an eye without vision, an ear which doesn't hear, feet that don't walk.
Never has the enemy of the Church succeeded so well to strike at the heart. Because the heart of the Church, that which communicates the supernatural life to the entire Mystical Body, that which diffuses life throughout the whole organism, is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For the Mass protestantized in the name of ecumenism, according to the words of Bugnini himself, there must be a corresponding priesthood...
The priests whom we cite at the beginning of this letter have understood this as in a bolt of lightning coming from their contact with the Traditional Mass. They say to me that they are frustrated and happy at the same time. Frustrated, because 'they' had hidden this treasure, they had taken it away from them. Happy because they are extactic at their understanding of the extraordinary greatness of their vocation, the reality of their participation in the priesthood of Our Lord Jesus Christ 'in persona Christi'. The priest is associated, even submerged in the sacrificial act of Our Lord, Sovereign Priest, and he participates therein with his whole being, he is handed over to Jesus, priest and victim, for the salvation of souls, for the act of redemption. All of this has been removed from the New Mass.
Poor priests who do not know what they are!
My dear faithful, we do not doubt that you rejoice with us when priests discover what they are. This is one of the beautiful victories against the crisis of the Church - the outposts, the castles reconquered for the Church Militant and who add to those new priests which Divine Providence gives to us each year. This year there will be 17, 10 in the month of June, 7 in December. Such events realize one of the ends of the Society in a tangible way, the end of which is the priesthood and everything which concerns it.
It ought to be the constant concern of the superiors to sustain alive amongst the members the will to accomplish and achieve this end. As in every society, from time to time one must sit down and examine the course followed, verify if and how the end of the society is being accomplished, and to see the state of its members. This work is particularly done during the 'Chapter', an assembly which for us, the Society of St. Pius X, reunites every 12 years. It is also at this occasion that the capitulants, to the number of 40, elect the Superior General, which will lead the Society, with the assistance of his council, for the next twelve years.
We do not need to insist on the importance of such an event for our Society.
For this reason our rules ordain prayers for the obtain from the Divine Mercy His grace, His light and the aid of the Holy Ghost during the six months preceding the Chapter.
We invite you to join us in these prayers and sacrifices by a novena, and if possible, by a day of fast.
This novena will begin the 2nd of July. It consists of the prayer 'Veni Creator', three invocations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and one to Saint Pius X. The day of fast is fixed for Friday, 7th of July.
We thank you heartily for your touching and faithful generosity, without which the Society would not have the means to develop and to increase, a growth that is due to a miracle... We count on your prayers and ask of Our Lady to obtain for you by Her intercession all the graces and spiritual assistance of which you have need.
May God bless you abundantly !
On the Feast of Pentecost
4 June 2006
+ Bernard Fellay
Notes
(1)Le ministère sacerdotal, Cerf, Paris, 1971
(2) Daniel Olivier, Les deux visages du prêtre, Fayard, Paris 1971, p. 106.
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