From the
archives - Published from 1982-96, Fidelity magazine was the predecessor of Culture Wars.
Marcel Lefebvre: Signatory to Dignitatis
Humanae
by Rev. Brian Harrison, O.S.
From the March 1994 issue of Fidelity
magazine
In light of the fact
that for over 20 years the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre constantly denounced
the Vatican II Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, as
irreconcilable with orthodox Catholic doctrine, it is curious, to say the
least, to discover that he himself, along with Pope Paul VI and most of the
other fathers of Vatican II, was actually one of the signatories to the
document. It has been demonstrated from the original Vatican II archives that
his name (as well as that of fellow-traditionalist Bishop Antonio de Castro
Mayer of Campos, Brazil) appears on the list of signatures to this and the
other three documents promulgated on the final day of Vatican Council II, December
7, 1965.
In a sense, this is not
exactly news which is hot off the press. In fact, the list of signatures was
made public for the first time 16 years ago, when the Vatican Press finally
finished its laborious publication of the complete council documents: dozens of
huge Latin tomes known as the Acta Synodalia, which contain all the debates,
written interventions, earlier drafts of the Conciliar documents, and so on.
They include the complete lists of the names of the fathers who signed each
document after the pope.
However, since only
large Catholic libraries possess the Acta Synodalia (which cost over $2,000 per
set), and since in any case the thousands of names are not in alphabetical
order, the chance of anyone happening to notice the names of the two
traditionalist prelates appended to Dignitatis Humanae was, shall we
say, limited. No doubt there are those who find page after page of Latin
episcopal names and titles a matter of the most absorbing interest; just as
there are, no doubt, those who choose the local telephone directory for bedside
reading -- perhaps as a cure for insomnia. In any case nobody, as far as is
known, ever spotted these two very unlikely promoters of religious freedom on
the official lists for well over a decade after their publication in 1978.
When they were
discovered in 1990 by some Frenchmen researching the Vatican II archives, a
tempest in a teapot erupted in European traditionalist circles. However, up
'til now, most English-speaking Catholics have never had an opportunity to
learn the facts. Mainstream journals apparently did not consider the matter
important enough to be worth investigating and reporting. However, the Society
of St. Pius X, which evidently did consider the report an important one,
vehemently denied its truth in The Angelus, the society's American
publication, and in its Australian cousin, a monthly newspaper entitled just Catholic.
The result has been that the relatively few English-speaking Catholics who
were aware of the news about these signatures remained in uncertainty as to
whether there was any substance in the report.
In itself, of course,
the question is scarcely of earth-shaking importance. Nevertheless, an article
in English on these signatures is worthwhile publishing for several reasons.
First, just to set the record straight on a point of history. Secondly, because
Marcel Lefebvre -- whatever one thinks of him -- has been a figure of
considerable importance in post Conciliar Catholicism, and details like this
will help to build up a more accurate overall picture of his character for
future historians and biographers. (To a lesser extent the same is true of
Bishop de Castro Meyer.) Finally, because the controversy which exploded when the
signatures were discovered shows us something about prevailing attitudes within
the SSPX and its supporters.
What follows, then, is
my attempt to set the record straight, partly by quoting material of my own
which a Lefebvrist newspaper refused to publish.
There is now doubt -- or
even controversy -- about the fact that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre voted
against the religious liberty schema with a decisive non placet right
through all of its five successive drafts during Vatican Council II. During
some of the voting sessions it was possible to give a vote in between
"yes" and "no" namely, placet iuxta modum, which
signified approval on the condition requested amendments, but Lefebvre never
availed himself of that option. Thus, during the final vote on the morning of
December 7 (when the fathers had to choose between a simple approval or
disapproval of the last draft), he was one of the 70 -- about 3 percent of the
total -- who voted against the schema.
Nevertheless, when the
supreme pontiff himself put his signature to the controversial declaration an
hour or so later, the French traditionalist prelate followed suit, presumably
as an act of submission of his private judgment to that of the Vicar of Christ.
So did his Brazilian colleague. (Oddly enough, there were some other fathers
present -- none of them as publicly associated with criticism of the document
as he was -- who did not sign it.)
Subsequent history shows
that Lefebvre's attitude at that moment did not last long. He came to speak out
more and more decisively against the alleged unorthodoxy of Dignitatis
Humanae, and it seems that as the years rolled by his memory of the events
of that day in 1965 became somewhat blurred. The result was that when the
discovery of his signature on the document was reported to the 85-year-old
prelate in November 1990, a full quarter-century after the event, he vigorously
denied the truth of the report.
The situation was not
helped by the fact that the discovery was made by a man whom the archbishop
already saw in a very negative light: a young French priest named Louis-Marie
de Blignieres. Fr. de Blignieres had been ordained by Lefebvre for the SSPX,
but after a few years departed with several others to form a new community
which followed the traditional Dominican rule of life. If anything, they were
even more radically opposed to the Conciliar and post-Conciliar developments
than the SSPX -- especially on account of the Declaration on Religious
Liberty. However, during the period 1987-88, further study and reflection
-- which took into account, among other things, my own book on the subject --
persuaded Fr. de Blignieres and his dozen or so confreres that, whatever the
inadequacies of its formulation, Dignitatis Humanae does not in fact
contradict traditional Catholic doctrine. They translated my book for
publication in French, and were fully reconciled with the Holy See late in 1988
through the Vatican's Ecclesia Dei commission, as the Society of St.
Vincent Ferrer. I have visited these men in their rural French monastery, and
count them among my friends. Using exclusively the traditional Dominican
liturgy, they have continued to work quietly in harmony with the local and
universal Church, producing a quality review of theology and spirituality as
well as carrying out an effective pastoral apostolate with young people.
In the eyes of the SSPX,
however, their about face, along with that of other traditional groups who
opted for obedience to the pope on the terms of Ecclesia Dei made them
into something like turncoats. Their very sincerity was called in question when
they accepted Dignitatis Humanae, and when, two years later, they
announced the finding of Archbishop Lefebvre's signature on the document in the
Vatican II archives, their honesty was impugned.
In November 1990 (the
interview was published in The Angelus in January 1991), Lefebvre
denounced Fr. de Blignieres as badly intentioned." With permission from
the Holy See, the latter had published in his magazine (Sedes Sapientiae,
Winter 1990) a photographic reproduction of the original page from the Vatican
archives with Lefebvre's signature near the bottom, and the title Declaratio
de Libertate Religiosa (along with the titles of three
other documents) at the top. We are talking here about the hand-written original,
not the list published years earlier in the Acta Synodalia. (A copy
accompanies this article, with acknowledgments to Sedes Sapientiae.)
In the Angelus
interview, however, Archbishop Lefebvre insisted that the published page
showing his signature was merely "a large sheet. . . passed from hand
to hand among the fathers of the Council. . . upon which everyone placed his
signature." This sheet, the archbishop continued, "had no
meaning of a vote for or against, but signified simply our presence at the meeting
to vote for four documents." In order to emphasize what he saw as the
absurdity of Fr. de Blignieres' claim, Lefebvre stressed that "the
approbation or refusal of the documents was obviously accomplished for each
document separately, the vote was in secret, accomplished on individual cards,
and made with a special pencil, which permitted the electronic calculation of
the votes."
Fr. de Blignieres and
his community immediately retested this explanation of the signatures they had
published. However, far from accusing Lefebvre of lying, they made it clear in
print that they did not interpret his denial in that light, but there were some
in SSPX circles who rushed to denounce them for "defaming" the
archbishop as a liar when they refused to accept it. It is a common phenomenon
that -- especially after a lapse of some years -- our memories can blot out or
obscure certain things we would prefer not to remember. This does not have to
involve personal dishonesty.
I too see no reason to
think Lefebvre was lying. That, I believe, would have been out of character.
Indeed, in arguing as he did, the aged prelate unwittingly made clear, it seems
to me, that confusion which now existed in his memory regarding the various
documents which he signed or marked on that day in 1965. By insisting that he
never voted for Dignitatis Humanae, and ridiculing the idea
that his "vote" is what appears on a page referring to four documents
lumped together, the archbishop was hitting at a man of straw. Fr. de
Blignieres never claimed that he had "voted" in favor of DH, or that
the page he published was a list of "votes."
What happened was that
after the individual voting on all these last four documents, they were
promulgated together and signed together, by the pope and over 2,000 council
fathers. The many pages necessary for all the signatures bore the titles of all
four documents (the other three being the Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World (also frequently denounced in subsequent years by Lefebvre), The
Decree on Missionary Activity, and the Decree on the Ministry and Life of
Priests). It is among these pages that the signatures of Archbishop Lefebvre
and Bishop de Castro Mayer are found, and not only on the relatively
unimportant attendance sheet which Lefebvre recalled in his interview.
The fact that art four
documents were signed together does not mean the bishops were faced with the
alternative of signing all or none. The fathers were informed that if they
wished to sign one or more documents, but not all of them, they could make a
marginal annotation beside their name, specifying which documents they did or
did not wish to sign. No such annotation is found beside the names of either
Lefebvre or de Castro Mayer, which proves that they were prepared to share in
the official promulgation of that Declaration on Religious
Liberty which they later publicly rejected.
The reaction of the SSPX
and other supporters of Archbishop Lefebvre to this discovery was not exactly
edifying. While typically presenting themselves as the faithful
"remnant" -- champions of truth in a church dominated by falsehood --
they showed themselves in this case unwilling to face up to a truth which (for
them) was clearly very embarrassing. Indeed, they made every effort to
obfuscate, cover up and deny this proven historical fact. In France, a
publication linked to the Society of St. Pius X vilified Fr. de Blignieres as a
dishonest hireling receiving "thirty pieces of silver" from Cardinal
Ratzinger in order to misrepresent the council archives and then refused to
print his letter answering this charge!
I entered into
correspondence with the Australian monthly Catholic several years ago
about his matter, hoping that our traditional "Aussie" sense of fair
play might produce a more open approach. Catholic, I believe, is not
an official organ of the SSPX in Australia, but it certainly is de facto a
mouthpiece, supporting Lefebvre and the Society to the hilt. My hopes were
raised especially by the fact that I sent the editor, Mr. Donald McLean, a copy
of a letter I had received, on official Vatican stationery, from Monsignor
Vincenzo Carbone, a highly respected priest of many years' standing in the Holy
See who is in charge of the archives of Vatican II. The letter, dated 17
January 1991, affirms that Fr. de Blignieres' claim is correct: Archbishop
Lefebvre signed Dignitatis Humanae.
However, Catholic, while
publishing my covering letter, responded on the same page by distorting the facts,
reflecting Msgr. Carbone's statement on behalf of the Holy See as a lie, and
dismissing my position as "ridiculous." The editor then refused to
publish my subsequent letter rebutting this shameful travesty of the truth.
The simplest way to
clear up the disinformation -- at least for those who are willing to accept the
facts -- will be for me to reproduce here what Catholic would not
allow its readers to see. I will begin, however, with the following extract
form the aforesaid covering letter, which it did publish:
"It is an
indisputable historical fact that [Lefebvre and de Castro Mayer] signed the
final, officially promulgated Declaration on Religious Liberty. Their
signatures (following that of the pope) were published as long ago as 1978, in
the complete records of the Council's Acta Synodalia (Vol. IV. Part VII, pp.
809, 823).... To put an end to the discussion, I enclose a copy of a letter
just received form the official in charge of the Vatican II archives, Msgr.
Vincenzo Carbone. He declares that the signatures published by Fr. de
Blignieres are authentic, and that "they pertain to the final documents
approved and promulgated by the Council in the public sessions (Catholic,
April 1991, p. 8. The Italian original of the letter says that 'le firme pubblicate
corrispondone agli originali,' and that 'si riferiscono ai Documenti finali,
approvati e promulgati dal Concilio nelle Session(i) publiche.')"
I told Msgr. Carbone of
Archbishop Lefebvre's claim that the published signatures were merely on a sheet
recording his presence at the voting session, and he thus pointed out that this
was an error on the archbishop's part.
Nevertheless, on the
same page as my letter the editor of Catholic insisted that the
signatures indicated nothing more than "Lefebvre's presence at a vote
for four Council documents." Beneath my letter he ran a comment by an
Australian late vocation SSPX seminarian (who later withdrew from their
seminary), Mr. D.J. McDonnell, who also called Msgr. Carbone a liar. Referring
scornfully to the "phantom signatures," he said, "Well, let
Father [Harrison] believe his bureaucrats. I prefer rather to believe
the most faithful, courageous clear-sighted and persecuted archbishop in the
Church today." Finally (still on p. 8), the editor reproduced the Angelus
interview with Archbishop Lefebvre, expressing the hope that this would "finally
put paid (sic) to [Father Harrison's] ridiculous
assertion." At the same time. he expressed his unqualified concern
for honesty regarding the signatures: "This matter needs to be cleared
up once and for all. As Fr. Harrison says, we should not attempt to cover the
truth about these signatures."
In a sense I suppose you
could say the last sentence there "tells it like it is." Given the
air of authority and finality of his remarks, it would appear that Mr. McLean
was not indeed trying to "cover" the position which just happens to
be the truth; he was trying to bury it forever. What follows is the relevant
part of my reply, in a letter dated April 29, 1991. The editor who had just
piously proclaimed his zeal for the unvarnished truth refused to publish any
part of it in Catholic.
"In saying that
my position is 'ridiculous,' you clearly imply not only that the official
Vatican II archivist, Msgr. Carbone, is a liar, but that he is obviously a liar
-- a most ungracious calumny. For in his case, in contrast to that of
Archbishop Lefebvre, there could be no question of an honest mistake or a lapse
of memory many years after the event, because Msgr. Carbone has the original documents
at his fingertips, and knows them better than any man on earth. But even
supposing be is the morally corrupt individual you presume him to be, why
should he be so stupid as to publish the false assertion that the archbishop's
signature is on the final, official text (not just on 'a document which
indicates his presence at a vote') when he would know that any other scholars
who consult the archives could easily expose his lie? It should be remembered
that there is nothing very 'secret' about this list of signatures, which was
published by the Vatican back in 1978 (see reference in my previous letter). Do
you wish to maintain that those 1978 editors also acted dishonestly, adding
Archbishop Lefebvre's and Bishop de Castro Mayer's names to the list following
the pope's signature?
Well, even if you
do, my case does not rest solely on the credibility of either Msgr. Carbone or
the 1978 editors of the Acta Synodalia. Both you and Mr. McDonnell have simply
ignored the following statement from my previous letter. In repeating it, I
hereby invite you either to refute it, or to admit your error. The photocopies
of the signed pages published by Fr. de Blignieres are really proofs in
themselves, because the titles at the top of those pages (Decretum, Declaratio,
etc.) were never used for earlier drafts, or lists of votes, etc., only for the
final, papally approved documents. In fact, anyone who has done research with
the Council's Acta Synodalia as I have, knows that this is true. Those who try
to call it in question simply expose their own ignorance.
In the latest issue
of Fr. de Blignieres magazine Sedes Sapientiae (Winter 1991) there is a 12 page
article refuting conclusively and in minute detail the futile attempts to deny
that Archbishop Lefebvre signed the final document on religious liberty. It
becomes clearer than ever that in the interview which you cite from The Angelus
(January 1991). the archbishop's memory, a quarter century after the event, had
slipped somewhat. As Fr. de Blignieres shows from original archive sources,
there were indeed other sheets which the fathers signed simply to register
their presence that day at the voting session. But these were not the sheets
photocopied and published by Fr. de Blignieres! On the latter, which I sent to
you last year, Mr. Editor, there appears on the line below Archbishop
Lefebvre's signature, in his own identical handwriting, the expression Ego
procurator pro . . .Augustinus Grimault" Archbishop Lefebvre was also
signing the final document by proxy, on behalf of an absent friend, Bishop
Auguste Grimault -- proof positive that these photocopied signatures do not
belong to a list of those who were present that day for the voting. Indeed, the
council's rules forbade any voting by proxy or delegation: they permitted only
the signing by proxy of the final, official document after the pope had
approved and signed it. (See A.S. Vol. III, Part VIII, p. 184)
It is not true that
if a number of fathers (not only Archbishop Lefebvre) voted against the final
text, but then signed it half an hour later, they were thereby guilty of
'changing with the wind.' [I made this comment, because The Angelus, January
1991, argued that since the two prelates were certainly not men who 'changed
with the wind,' it was implausible 'to make believe that they would have
approved of that which they refused but a half-hour beforehand.'] It must be
remembered that up to and including the final vote, the Conciliar schema on
religious liberty had no magisterial authority whatever -- it was just a
proposal submitted for the free evaluation of the bishops. Once the pope had
put his signature to the text, however (now with the new title Declaratio de
Libertate Religiosa, the document published by Fr. de Blignieres), it became a
document formally and solemnly approved by the Vicar of Christ. For a bishop to
sign it then, after having just voted against it, does not imply weakness of
character. It simply shows that (at least at that moment) he felt that loyalty
to the magisterium required him to subordinate his own private judgment to that
of the Roman Pontiff."
"If the society
of St. Pius X," I continued, "is in good faith, it should either cease
its denials of the fact brought to light by Fr. de Bhgnieres, or else send a
delegation to Rome to inspect the original, untouched documents in the Vatican
II archives. I am sure the Holy See will be more than happy to show them to the
Society, as they were shown to Fr. de Blignieres. For it is clearly a sign of
dishonesty and cowardice to accuse someone else of lying whilst refusing to
look at the evidence which proves his veracity."
Not only did the editor
of Catholic refuse to print this letter (claiming merely that the
debate had continued for long enough "and now must cease"): much
worse, he attempted to discredit it in the eyes of his readers by blatantly
falsifying its content. In the September 1991 issue of Catholic, Mr.
McLean told his readers that he had received this letter from me, adding the
astounding assertion that Fr. Harrison seems to want to prove that Archbishop
Lefebvre cast his vote in favor of the schema (p. 10)--an obviously
indefensible thesis which, of course, I had never maintained. Indeed, I had
twice said the exact opposite to Mr. McLean, both in the letter he was now
"describing" to his readers, and in the one which he had published
five months earlier!
I did indeed manage to
get published a brief correction of this distortion, and a half-hearted apology
from the editor. But at the end of the day, readers were still not shown the
full evidence, and Catholic has never admitted that Lefebvre and de
Castro Mayer did indeed sign DH, thereby sharing in its promulgation.
The most this newspaper
would do, driven into a corner, was to speak ambiguously of the possibility of
the two prelates' signatures being "on a document attached to Dignitatis
Humanae" (Catholic, September 1991) which might merely
indicate that they both acknowledged it as a document of the Church" (and
if so, why all the fuss"? [November 1991]). That could easily be taken to
mean some hypothetical document other than DH, which was somehow "pinned
onto" it, and which the fathers were invited to sign in addition to the
declaration itself. Its purpose would supposedly have been that of merely
acknowledging the independent fact of the Conciliar document's promulgation,
without taking any responsibility for it. That, of course, would be nonsense,
since there were no such independent lists of signatures "attached"
to any council documents. The pages bearing the signatures are integral parts
of the original documents themselves, as the titles at the top of each page
bear witness.
So much for Catholic,
which has not breathed a word more about the signatures in more than two
years. Since I do not subscribe to The Angelus, or any other journal
of the SSPX, I do not know if the Society and its publications have now
recognized their previous error in denying the authenticity of the signatures,
and have made a due public apology to Fr. de Blignieres. If so, perhaps someone
will write in to inform Fidelity. If not, I hereby invite the SSPX and
its organs (as well as Catholic) to publish the statements which truth
and justice require.
What they say -- or fail
to say--will continue to furnish the rest of us with indications of just how
seriously we can take the Society's claims to be disinterested champions of the
truth.
Rev. Brian Harrison,
O.S. teaches
theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico in Ponce, Puerto
Rico and is a frequent contributor to Fidelity.
Below, Arrows Indicate
Lefebvre's And De Castro Mayer's Signatures.
Index of SSPX articles
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