(LifeSiteNews) — In his July 13, 1988, address to the bishops of Chile, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger delivered one of the most important commentaries on Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s 1988 consecrations of bishops without Rome’s approval. In that address, Cardinal Ratzinger condemned the “rebellion” of Archbishop Lefebvre and his SSPX, but he also spoke of lessons that Catholics (including Rome) needed to learn from Archbishop Lefebvre’s resistance to the worsening crisis in the Church. By all appearances, the crisis is much worse today than in 1988 because those lessons have been disregarded.
Cardinal Ratzinger began by attempting to correct the misperception that the Vatican had been far too lenient with Archbishop Lefebvre leading up to the consecrations. Here he pointed out the hypocrisy of the progressive Catholics in judging the Vatican in this matter:
There is a glaring contradiction in the fact that it is just the people who have let no occasion slip to allow the world to know of their disobedience to the Pope, and to the magisterial declarations of the last 20 years, who think they have the right to judge that this attitude is too mild and who wish that an absolute obedience to Vatican II had been insisted upon. In a similar way they would claim that the Vatican has conceded a right to dissent to Lefebvre which has been obstinately denied to the promoters of a progressive tendency. In reality, the only point which is affirmed in the agreement, following Lumen Gentium 25, is the plain fact that not all documents of the council have the same authority. For the rest, it was explicitly laid down in the text that was signed that public polemics must be avoided, and that an attitude is required of positive respect for official decisions and declarations.
Whereas the SSPX was “disobedient” for refusing to go along with changes that it considered to be impermissible, the progressives “let no occasion slip to allow the world to know of their disobedience to the Pope,” all for the sake of promoting the anti-Catholic ideas that plague the Church today. As we know, Rome failed to correct the progressives in a meaningful way, and they dominate the Vatican today. Thus, those who recently punished the SSPX for disobediently trying to preserve Catholic orthodoxy are the theological and spiritual heirs of those who were disobediently trying to destroy the Church in 1988.
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Cardinal Ratzinger continued by saying that even though the fault resided with the SSPX and not the Holy See, Rome had made errors; and the SSPX had actually preserved certain aspects of Catholic life that were otherwise missing throughout much of the Church:
Even though it is absolutely certain the fault cannot be attributed to the Holy See, it is a duty for us to examine ourselves, as to what errors we have made, and which ones we are making even now. … We must reflect on this fact: that a large number of Catholics, far beyond the narrow circle of the Fraternity of Lefebvre, see this man as a guide, in some sense, or at least as a useful ally. It will not do to attribute everything to political motives, to nostalgia, or to cultural factors of minor importance. These causes are not capable of explaining the attraction which is felt even by the young, and especially by the young, who come from many quite different nations, and who are surrounded by completely distinct political and cultural realities. Indeed they show what is from any point of view a restricted and one-sided outlook; but there is no doubt whatever that a phenomenon of this sort would be inconceivable unless there were good elements at work here, which in general do not find sufficient opportunity to live within the Church of today. For all these reasons, we ought to see this matter primarily as the occasion for an examination of conscience. We should allow ourselves to ask fundamental questions, about the defects in the pastoral life of the Church, which are exposed by these events. Thus we will be able to offer a place within the Church to those who are seeking and demanding it, and succeed in destroying all reason for schism. We can make such schism pointless by renewing the interior realities of the Church.
The overall idea is that the SSPX was right about many things, while Rome had allowed real harms to spread throughout the Church. Even more astounding is the idea Cardinal Ratzinger expressed in the last two sentences of this quotation (which was repeated in the final words of his address): Rome needed to renew the “interior realities of the Church” to eliminate the cause of the schism. For the remainder of his address, he discussed some of the deficiencies that Rome would need to confront in order to end the schism, including the following.
Attacks on the liturgy
Cardinal Ratzinger pointed to a loss of the sacred character of the liturgy:
While there are many motives that might have led a great number of people to seek a refuge in the Traditional liturgy, the chief one is that they find the dignity of the sacred preserved there. After the council there were many priests who deliberately raised ‘desacralization’ to the level of a program, on the plea that the New Testament abolished the cult of the Temple: the veil of the Temple which was torn from top to bottom at the moment of Christ’s death on the cross is, according to certain people, the sign of the end of the sacred. … I do not want to develop this point any further now; I confine myself to coming straight to this conclusion: We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director.
Traditional Catholics had been making the same observations for roughly two decades by the time that Cardinal Ratzinger said this. Why had Rome not taken steps to correct the problem by then? Why is this problem still so widespread, and even worsening in some places? Given that the desacralization is truly an abomination that offends God and leads souls to hell, why does Leo XIV seem to care so much more about questions of immigration, artificial intelligence, and inclusiveness?
The over-reliance on Vatican II
Cardinal Ratzinger’s criticism of the progressive influence also included a correction of those who placed too much emphasis on Vatican II:
The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as a part of the entire living Tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of superdogma which takes away the importance of all the rest.
Cardinal Ratzinger saw that some Catholics tried to make Vatican II’s teachings into a “superdogma,” while rejecting the importance of everything the Church taught before the Council. Why would this be problematic in the least, though, if Vatican II had not taught things that went beyond, or even contradicted, what the Church had previously taught? In other words, the logic of this statement depends upon the Council having deviated in some meaningful way from Catholic Tradition. Evidently, then, Cardinal Ratzinger saw the emphasis on Vatican II’s novelties as something harmful to the Church. All of this helps us put into proper perspective Leo XIV’s statement that the real problem with the SSPX is that it does not accept certain points of Vatican II:
Certainly, division among Christians is always a painful matter. But they refuse to accept certain fundamental elements of the Church, beginning with various points of the Second Vatican Council. And if they make those choices, I am sorry. But we must move forward.
READ: Condemnation of SSPX consecrations uses the reasoning of the Pharisees
Leo XIV is correct that divisions are painful, but as Cardinal Ratzinger indicated, the relevant division at work now is that Rome’s over-reliance on Vatican II divides it from “the entire living Tradition of the Church.”
Rejection of the Church’s treasures
Cardinal Ratzinger continued by saying that there had been a rejection of what the Church had once considered most holy:
That which previously was considered most holy — the form in which the liturgy was handed down — suddenly appears as the most forbidden of all things, the one thing that can safely be prohibited. It is intolerable to criticize decisions which have been taken since the council; on the other hand, if men make question of ancient rules, or even of the great truths of the faith — for instance, the corporal virginity of Mary, the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, the immortality of the soul, etc. — nobody complains or only does so with the greatest moderation. I myself, when I was a professor, have seen how the very same bishop who, before the council, had fired a teacher who was really irreproachable, for a certain crudeness of speech, was not prepared, after the council, to dismiss a professor who openly denied certain fundamental truths of the faith.
Archbishop Lefebvre had been making these same points for many years and knew that something must be done to counteract this rejection of the treasures that God had entrusted to the Church. While the progressives were destroying, Archbishop Lefebvre saw it as his God-given mission to rebuild. Cardinal Ratzinger evidently sympathized with this instinct but was either unwilling or unable to stop the destruction, even after he became pope.
The promotion of religious indifferentism
Next, Cardinal Ratzinger condemned errors that had contributed to the religious indifferentism that was prevailing even in 1988. It is worth considering that Archbishop Lefebvre probably would have agreed with all of this — but if he had included this statement in a sermon, he would have been denounced for his failure to appreciate “living tradition”:
All this leads a great number of people to ask themselves if the Church of today is really the same as that of yesterday, or if they have changed it for something else without telling people. The one way in which Vatican II can be made plausible is to present it as it is; one part of the unbroken, the unique Tradition of the Church and of her faith. In the spiritual movements of the postconciliar era, there is not the slightest doubt that frequently there has been an obliviousness, or even a suppression, of the issue of truth: Here perhaps we confront the crucial problem for theology and for pastoral work today. The ‘truth’ is thought to be a claim that is too exalted, a ‘triumphalism’ that cannot be permitted any longer. You see this attitude plainly in the crisis that troubles the missionary ideal and missionary practice. If we do not point to the truth in announcing our faith, and if this truth is no longer essential for the salvation of Man, then the missions lose their meaning. In effect the conclusion has been drawn, and it has been drawn today, that in the future we need only seek that Christians should be good Christians, Muslims good Muslims, Hindus good Hindus, and so forth. If it comes to that, how are we to know when one is a ‘good’ Christian, or a ‘good’ Muslim?
These problems are even worse today, as we can see from the fact that only a small number of bishops objected when Francis openly promoted all of these errors that Cardinal Ratzinger deplored in 1988. Especially with the Synodal Church, we have now reached a point at which essentially any set of common religious beliefs is praised and promoted by Rome other than Traditional Catholicism.
READ: Why many traditional Catholics believe the SSPX is answering Our Lady’s call
Departure from the right path
Finally, Cardinal Ratzinger made it clear that the the errors promoted by the progressives had diverted Catholics from the right path:
The idea that all religions are — if you talk seriously — only symbols of what ultimately is incomprehensible is rapidly gaining ground in theology, and has already penetrated into liturgical practice. When things get to this point, faith is left behind, because faith really consists in the fact that I am committing myself to the truth so far as it is known. So in this matter also there is every motive to return to the right path. If once again we succeed in pointing out and living the fullness of the Catholic religion with regard to these points, we may hope that the schism of Lefebvre will not be of long duration.
The tone and substance of these remarks indicate that Rome was in some way responsible for allowing Catholics to be led down the wrong path. Archbishop Lefebvre had been saying the same thing for roughly two decades by that point, but he had been lambasted for doing so. Therefore it is stunning to see that Cardinal Ratzinger believed that the remedy for Archbishop Lefebvre’s “schism” was not for the SSPX to abandon its doctrinal beliefs but for Rome to rediscover “the fullness of the Catholic religion.”
Today there are divisions among sincere Catholics about the SSPX, with many concluding that we can never side with disobedience. But those progressives whom Cardinal Ratzinger saw as tremendously disobedient to the Vatican in 1988 are the Vatican today, and they remain disobedient to God. Emboldened by their triumph over the relatively conservative views that Ratzinger championed, these progressives in the Vatican have now taught us household names such as: Fiducia Supplicans, Amoris Laetitia, the Abu Dhabi Declaration, Mater Populi Fidelis, the Synod on Synodality, and Traditionis Custodes. In His loving Providence, God has also permitted one of the progressives responsible for several of these abominations — Cardinal Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández, a heterodox blasphemer who writes indecent books — to sign the SSPX excommunications. One can perhaps understand, then, why the SSPX trusts that the best service it can render to the Catholic Church is to remain faithful to Tradition, even if it means disobeying the progressives who were so disobedient to Rome in 1988 and remain disobedient to God today. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!