My presence here at this ceremony is a matter of conscience: It is the duty of a profession of the Catholic Faith before the entire Church and, more particularly, before His Excellency Archbishop Lefebvre, before all the priests, religious, seminarians and faithful here present.

 

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that there is no obligation to make a public profession of Faith in every circumstance, but when the Faith is in danger it is urgent to profess it, even at the risk of one's life.

 

This is the situation in which we find ourselves. We live in an unprecedented crisis in the Church, a crisis which touches it in its essence, in its substance even, which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Catholic priesthood, the two mysteries essentially united, because without the holy priesthood there is no Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and by consequence, no form of public worship whatsoever. Equally, it is on this basis that one constructs the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Because of this, since the conservation of the priesthood and of the Holy Mass is at stake, and in spite of the requests and the pressure brought to bear by many, I am here to accomplish my duty: to make a public profession of Faith.

 

It is sorrowful to see the lamentable blindness of so many confreres in the episcopacy and the priesthood, who do not see or who do not wish to see the present crisis, nor the necessity to resist the modernism momentarily ruling, in order to be faithful to the mission which God has confided to us.

 

I wish to manifest here my sincere and profound adherence to the position of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which is dictated by his fidelity to the Church of all centuries. The two of us have drunk at the same source, which is that of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church.

 

May the Most Holy Virgin, our Mother, who at Fatima maternally forewarned us of the gravity of the present situation, may she give us the grace to be able, by our attitude, to help and to enlighten the faithful in such a manner that they will distance themselves from these pernicious errors, of which they are the victims, deceived as they are by many of those who have received the fullness of the Holy Ghost.

 

May God bless Archbishop Lefebvre and his work.

​

​