Letter from Mgr. Lefebvre to the Abbe de Nantes
Dear Monsieur L'Abbe,
You will admit, I think, that it was no wish of mine that we should exchange letters which are now being made public. I have already written that to you. Debates of that kind can only serve to weaken the spiritual forces we need for the battle against error and heresy.
The indelicacy of your conduct is such that I should have kept silence had you not, in your last two publications, written extremely insidious articles which could be highly prejudicial to me.
The first dealt with a Bishop's breaking away from Rome, which seemed to you desirable. Admittedly you made no explicit allusion. However, in the following lines you mentioned my name in connection with the Credo pilgrimage. Uninformed readers were quick to relate the person named with the preceding lines. The whole procedure is odious. Be assured that if any Bishop breaks with Rome, it will not be I. My ' Declaration' states as much, explicitly and strongly.
In that connection I must tell you that I utterly disagree with the further comment in your last number, in which you put forward what you wish and would rejoice to see but not what.
We believe that when Saint Paul reproached Peter he kept and even showed towards the head of the Church the affection and respect which are his due. At one and the same time Saint Paul was "with" Peter, Head of the Church, who at the Council of Jerusalem had laid down clear prescriptions and " against " Peter who, in practice, acted against his own instructions. Are we not tempted to experience these feelings today"? That is no excuse for scorning Peter's successor, it should rather spur us to pray for him with ever greater fervour.
Together with Pope Paul VI we denounce neo-modernism, the self-destruction of the Church and the smoke of Satan within the Church and in consequence we refuse to co-operate in the destruction of the Church by the spreading of modernism and Protestantism by accepting the reforms they have inspired, even should they come to us from Rome.
As I had occasion to say recently when speaking in Rome about Vatican Council II: "For the past century and a half Liberalism has been condemned by the Church.... " It found its way into the Church under the aegis of the Council. The Church is dying of the practical consequences of that liberalism. We must therefore do all in our power to help the Church and those who rule her to free themselves from this Satanic project.
That is the meaning of my "Declaration."
I will say nothing of your illogicality and the fact that you did not meet me at Econe. These are trifles by comparison with the major problem I have just raised.
With cordial regards,
Yours devotedly in Christ and Mary,
19th March 1975 on the Feast of Saint Joseph.
