Letter of Pope Paul VI to Mgr. Lefebvre
29 November 1976
To Our Brother in the episcopate Marcel Lefebvre,
formerly Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle.
Once more We address Ourselves directly to you, dear brother, after having prayed for a long time and asked Our Lord to inspire Us with words able to touch you. We do not understand your attitude. Can you have decided to attach no importance to the word of the Pope? Before rejecting the appeal of the Church, your Mother, have you at least taken time to reflect and pray?
As for Us, it seems that silence would have been becoming the day after your visit in September and after Our letter of 11 October. But We continue to hear of new initiatives which lead to a deepening of the ditch you are digging: the ordination on 31 October, your book,3 your declarations, your many journeys on which you take no account of local bishops.
This very day, therefore, We resolve, with regret, to authorize publication of Our last letter. God grant that knowledge of the exact text of that admonition may put an end to the calumnious interpretations of it that have been spread and may help the Christian people to see clearly and to strengthen its unity.
Conscious of the gravity of the moment We adjure you at the same time, with very special solemnity and insistence, to change the attitude which sets you in opposition to the Church, to return to the true Tradition and to full communion with Us.
From the Vatican, 29 November 1976.
Paulus PP. VI.
To Our Brother in the episcopate Marcel Lefebvre,
formerly Archbishop-Bishop of Tulle.
Once more We address Ourselves directly to you, dear brother, after having prayed for a long time and asked Our Lord to inspire Us with words able to touch you. We do not understand your attitude. Can you have decided to attach no importance to the word of the Pope? Before rejecting the appeal of the Church, your Mother, have you at least taken time to reflect and pray?
As for Us, it seems that silence would have been becoming the day after your visit in September and after Our letter of 11 October. But We continue to hear of new initiatives which lead to a deepening of the ditch you are digging: the ordination on 31 October, your book,3 your declarations, your many journeys on which you take no account of local bishops.
This very day, therefore, We resolve, with regret, to authorize publication of Our last letter. God grant that knowledge of the exact text of that admonition may put an end to the calumnious interpretations of it that have been spread and may help the Christian people to see clearly and to strengthen its unity.
Conscious of the gravity of the moment We adjure you at the same time, with very special solemnity and insistence, to change the attitude which sets you in opposition to the Church, to return to the true Tradition and to full communion with Us.
From the Vatican, 29 November 1976.
Paulus PP. VI.
