KORRESPONDENS MELLAN ABBÉ DE TANOÜARN OCH BISKOP FELLAY

Letter of Bishop Fellay to Father de Tanoüarn (March 3rd 2005)

Priestly Society of Saint Pius X
Schloss Schwandegg
CH 6313 Menzingen

Menzingen, March 3rd 2005


Dear Father,

I have received all your various messages and letters; you have asked me to review my decision to allow you to renew your commitment for a period of only three months, arguing moreover that such a commitment would be invalid; you express also your astonishment at what you consider to be my hostility since the beginning of last summer.

Allow me, then, to express to you my own astonishment. It seems to me that you do not grasp the situation at all. You should know that in sending me this message you have committed a decisive and irreversible act of blatant disobedience.

You know also the consequences of such an act; you know that this final provocation will cost you your membership of the Society. I speak, of course, concerning your participation in the Congress of February 6th in disobedience of the formal veto of your superior.

This last act was the culmination of an impressive series of violations against our statutes; you have not respected the numerous injunctions of your District Superior concerning the common life, and this is nothing new: I know of none of your superiors who has not had to call you to order.

Always you do as you please. Such an attitude makes us conclude that you have proved beyond doubt that the smallest submission to the common rules of our Society means absolutely nothing to you. Seeing no point in prolonging this life of disobedience, we are not going to issue any further warnings, but simply suggest that you continue doing what you are already doing and live freely in your own apartment, pleasing yourself, as you have always done.

Therefore you will not be permitted to renew your commitment on March 8th (2005).

Why do you look for arguments against the validity of the act by which you committed yourself for three months while at the same time it would appear that you have been behaving as if the rule were a dead letter anyway? What is the point of requesting an extension? And concerning the validity of the commitment, I repeat that shorter terms of commitment do exist commonly in our Society, particularly in the southern hemisphere, despite the fact that there is nothing actually written down in the statues.

Custom has the force of law. Moreover, this measure was by way of benevolent exception in your case, considering the atmosphere of considerable distrust engendered by your behaviour; it was intended to give you another chance; unfortunately, a chance you wasted.

The interview you gave to Minute [a newspaper], in which you explained why you were to take part in the Congress of February 6th, even though you had in your hand a letter from Father de Cacqueray asking you not to participate has made me decide not to prolong an argument that now seems futile.

Make your own arrangements from now on. Discuss insurance matters and your other material needs with Suresnes.

With great sadness, I assure you of my prayers before the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

+ Bernard Fellay

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Open letter to Bishop Fellay, Superior General of the Priestly Society of St Pius X

March 29th 2005

Your Excellency,

Although our last meeting in December had been cordial, such that nobody could have predicted your current attitude, now you send me this very personal letter to the effect that you consider me expelled after twenty years' service. It is the tone of the letter, as much as what you are not saying, that has induced me to publish an answer. I would never attack my spiritual mother, the Society of St Pius X, but I think it is my duty to respond to this personal attack, coming as it does from an official superior.

One thing which on which you keep silence immediately strikes me; you say nothing about the Bordeaux affair. On the last two occasions we met, the principal reproach you heaped on me as we spoke was that I had pointed out to you both in writing and in public that it was your duty to organize a structure enabling Fr Laguérie to make a judiciary appeal. However, the letter you sent me suddenly goes quiet on the matter; this is strange, considering the impassioned nature of this subject. This makes us immediately wonder whether the grievances you speak about are actually the real ones you hold against me; you don't even breathe a word about the most important of them, despite the fact that in the course of the two meetings we have had since August, we spoke about practically nothing else.

Instead of reviewing the real question, the right of appeal within the Fraternity, you accuse me of having participated in a Congress against secularization, a magnificent and peaceful Catholic gathering last February 6th in Paris. The 1600 people who participated were able to see a real continuity between the speeches against secularization and the militant theological stance of Archbishop Lefebvre. More precisely, you reproach me for having given an interview to the journal Minute, which you say was a good enough reason for you to refuse me renewal of my committment. In that article, I defended the traditional doctrine of the Church on the matter of religious freedom, and showed that it was not just a dusty problem of interest only to specialists, but a question that is fundamental for the future of a multicultural society like that of modern France. In giving this interview, I was consciously continuing the militant approach of Archbishop Lefebvre-which we hardly speak about any more-against Vatican II and in favour of the Kingship of Christ in society. It is intriguing to see that it is this interview which is the direct motive for my expulsion from the Society of St Pius X, because I acknowledged there that I was a participant in the Congress.

I am well placed to know that the Congress has had the support of Bishop Williamson from the very beginning, and who, though you sought to persuade him otherwise, would not retract his encouragement of the organizers; and whether you like it or not, it was all a great success. Many of the faithful attended, like myself, responding to the powerful call of your brother bishop. Therefore my participation was not an act of disobedience; on the contrary it can do nothing but strengthen the Society of St Pius X of which you remain the moderator for at least several more months. However, had I, under constraint, immediately retracted my support, this would indeed have caused a scandal, revealing to all an unresolved disagreement between two bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre. Must I remind you that in 1999 you were similarly discouraging of people and their enterprises, in attempting to forbid, ten days before it was due to take place, a congress of Association 496 on the topic of A true repentance; Vatican II and its excesses? Despite the fact that we had obtained all the necessary permissions from the District Superior, you tried to stop the enterprise, never mind that you were in Menzingen without any knowledge of the local situation, and without asking any advice about the scandal that would be caused by such a dreadful cancellation. This year I feel that I am going through the same situation all over again.

You go on and on about the interview I gave to the journal Minute which 'decided you', you say, 'not to prolong the discussion', but at the same time you cannot reproach me with a singe doctrinal error in the three full pages of text. Everybody will be able to see the baselessness of your action. In order to give credibility to your decision, you are reduced to trying to demonize me, by attacking my priestly honour. It really seems to me that the appropriate proverb for this situation is 'if you want to kill your dog, say that he is rabid'. You write, for example, without any further precision, that this is the motivation for the non-renewal of my committment: 'I know of none of your superiors who has not had to call you to order.' and you blame me now for 'an impressive series of violations against our statutes' and 'a life of disobedience'. With this description you describe my ministry, and yet you hardly know me, and have not even discussed with me those things with which you reproach me; I would be very surprised if any one of my immediate superiors recognized any accuracy at all in this description. Everyone acknowledges that I never refused any work, that I have never sought to obtain a position, that I have never been a problem in the chain of command. You also reproach me for 'remaining in my apartment' as you so elegantly put it. When I was an assistant priest at St Nicolas', I welcomed very many of the faithful; when I taught at the University Institute of St Pius X and St Bernard's School, every year I delivered a good ten hours of classes each week; I set up a Mass centre in Tournan-en-Brie; moreover, I always sought to defend and to explain the ecclesial positions of the Society of St Pius X through many means: congresses, conferences, symposiums, and always with the applause of my superiors. I founded two reviews, each financially independent. That makes a great deal of activity for one who is supposed to have remained in his apartment! I note that for all this work you have today not a word of appreciation.

No doubt you will say that I refused to live in the priory. Your excellency: have you ever asked me this question before? Have you made any enquiry yourself before passing judgment? Fr de Cacquerey will tell you that I had a broken arm, and I asked him to move me and my library into the very small room I occupied in the priory beginning on the 10th January. My request was accepted, and therefore I was in a perfectly legal situation. Regrettably, on January 12th, you put me on trial before all the Society priors of the district, brought together for that purpose, and you laughed at me while reading a document concerning me. This was to do with an old letter of Fr Laguérie which sounded in your mouth like a piece of major evidence sufficient to put me on trial. This charitable and responsible laughter made me understand that your decision had already been made, and I drew the appropriate conclusions. You are in no moral position to criticize me. As for living in community, I may say without mentioning any names that if you were to use the same criteria to judge my Parisian fellow-priests, there wouldn't be many Society members left in the capital.

But this is not the real issue. On December 8th, without ever mentioning what you allege in your letter, you had allowed me three months' [renewal of my commitment], in the same way that a landlord might give fifteen days' notice to an undesirable concierge. This cosmetic renewal of my commitment was not probationary; it was intended to stir up trouble and prepare for the expulsion which you had already planned and spoken about to several dozen priests on 25th August 2004 and which were to be found mentioned in the columns of the Figaro on August 27th. Moreover, at the beginning of July you blamed me for 'some subversive manovres in the seminary' without a scrap of evidence underpinning your accusation; is it not true that in my regard you had already set in motion the infernal machine of arbitrary decision-making and exclusion that has taken the place of proper government since the beginning of this crisis? One among other indications of your intentions is shown in your use of the term 'complete integrity' in the wording of the conditions you imposed on me at the beginning of December. I must implement the statutes 'in their complete integrity', you said. But, your Excellency, you know for a fact that no priest implements the statues 'in their complete integrity' in his ministry. How would it be possible for me to observe them 'in their complete integrity'? Let me give you an example: the rule provides for four periods of prayer in common each day. In the community of St Nicolas du Chardonnet, to which I belong, these four periods of prayer never took place. So, one of the rules of our constitutions is not observed, and as a result, the requirement to which I was asked insistently to subscribe was simply impossible. In the letter which you required me to sign, I permitted myself to interpret this requirement in another way; I wrote that I promised to 'live with complete integrity in the light of the statutes', which is what all priests try to achieve on the whole, and which I always tried to achieve: Despite what you have written, I am not a kind of part-time priest.

So this requirement, according to the way you phrased it, since it was not feasible, concealed a form of blackmail: 'watch your step, or I will say that you have not been faithful to the statutes "in their complete integrity"'. This blackmail is a method of government like any other, when there is a lack of authority, but we should recognize that no good will come of it.

It seems particularly odious that the Superior in his government implements neither ecclesiastical canon law (see Pacte no.87) nor the particular law of the Society carefully set down in its statutes. You permitted me to renew my commitment for three months in accordance with your assessment of the circumstances, which is to say in accordance with your own convenience. This discriminatory measure was itself contrary to the statutes which you demanded that I fulfill 'in their complete integrity', the letter (never mind the spirit) of which statues lays down that the length of the commitment of a member of the Society shall be for one year, three years, or in perpetuity. The decision you made in my regard by itself symbolizes well your recurring tendency to govern regardless of general canon law, as if you were an absolute master of the statutes of our organization. You interpret them as you wish, and you apply them according to your own convenience.

When we speak to you about the text of the statutes, when we show you that the superior of an Institute of Common Life without vows exists above all to ensure that the statutes are respected, and not violated by his decisions, your response is to assert that 'custom has the force of law'. Your Excellency, when lawyers say that custom has the force of law, they are referring to immemorial custom and not to some curious departures which you curiously cite, having taken place in the southern hemisphere. These departures from the law create no precedent at all!

What appears above all to be the characteristic manner of your behaviour is your scorn for the priestly fraternity which Archbishop Lefebvre founded not only as an ecclesiastical institution, but also to be a moral and spiritual reality. You should fear to hear being said to you what the Lord said to Cain: 'the cry of the blood of your brothers in the priesthood is crying out to me from the earth'.

How many priests today are leaving silently the ark which is the FSSPX simply because they feel scorned and rejected. One single word would have been all that it took to retain them, but all they hear are orders. These anonymous priests are many, and I am going to be their voice for a moment. I am not going to speak of the fate you sealed for Fr Epiney in December 2001, he who was the first and most faithful supporter of the seminary which had been providentially established in his parish, who was also the priest who taught you catechism when you were a child. You slapped an interdict on him, suggesting that the faithful who assisted at his masses were in 'mortal sin'. And your motivation for this severity? This venerable pastor had dared to hold a different opinion than yours concerning the spiritual good of a young priest who was bewildered by the seven different appointments you imposed on him during his six years of ministry. Neither will I speak about the German priests who have left us, nor the show trial you organized for one of them in Menzingen, a 'trial' where you yourself were the supreme judge, and where your staff of yes-men, brought in for the grotesque procedure, united in a chorus of accusation. I will not speak of Chile, of Argentina, the United States, nor India, where the damage caused by your governance is ongoing. Some day, we must speak about it.

For now, I will confine myself to the French priests, and among them, to the three most well known whom you successively expelled.

In Father Aulagnier, you struck a father of the Society of Saint Pius X. With his legendary dynamism, within 18 years he had given to the district of France (the most beautiful and the most important of our districts) the shape it still retains today. He organized prestigious events: the Jubilee of Archbishop Lefebvre and the "Anti-89". Faced with such a man, we owe him respect and gratitude. How many things could he still achieve! He was simply dismissed and sent to learn English despite being more than 50 years old. Throughout the following years, you harassed him, urging him to resign, and you transfered him to Canada. And then you fired him. For a clumsy word. As though we could find other future Father Aulagniers knocking at the doors of our seminaries. Even if we do not share his opinion on the urgency of purely judicial accords with Rome; as a second assistant, was not Father Aulagnier justified in giving his opinion, even though it be as different from yours as it is from mine?

As for Father Héry, he was dismissed without understanding anything of what happened to him, simply because he fraternally supported Father Laguérie, his prior; as his advocate, he made a presentation which your administration have continually misinterpreted. In the face of this priest's case, I feel compelled to shout 'If you want to govern, learn how to read and how to understand what you read'. Of course you understood perfectly that you were misinterpreting Fr Héry's presentation; you did it in order to make it easier to kill him. It is as simple as that. And then you decreed his expulsion, in violation of the most fundamental principles of law, without having even tried to understand what he was saying. You never tried to meet with this priest who is anything but a rebel-you should have known it, and without doubt you did know it. But back you came from your three weeks' holiday in Sierre, and you decided that you had no time to waste on a priest! Instead, you made the district Superior expel him.

Fr Laguérie is a symbol, a priest whom people knew well beyond the world of our chapels. In France he stands for speech that is fearless and truly Catholic. At a time when all the bishops are silent, this strength is invaluable. Within the bosom of the Society, Fr Laguérie, the builder, has also stood for the spirit of enterprise, and of that supernatural efficacity which our Lord so praised on earth: 'by their fruits shall ye know them'. You have not listened to the Gospel's message, and you have treated the courageous pastor of Saint-Eloi in Bordeaux and of Sainte-Colombe in Saintes like a rebellious young priest. Far from disobeying, he dared to raise concerns about the management of our seminaries. But you consider that this senior priest had no right to manifest his concerns to some fellow priests even in private letters. Why? Fr Celier made that clear during the press conference which took place in Paris at the beginning of September: 'Nobody has the right-especially a priest of the Society-to disagree with the Superior General'. Because Fr Laguérie disagreed with your management of the seminaries, you tried to send him to Mexico as you had sent Fr Aulagnier to Canada. And then you expelled him as well. Without appeal. And against the law.

Your Excellency, I have considered here only the disciplinary aspects of the recent happenings which have shaken our Society. I would need to write another letter to address the most important issues, to draw attention to the doctrinal mistakes which have caused these recent errors of government. One of your accredited mouthpieces recently stated that our statutes were equivalent to a religious rule, despite the fact that these same statutes clearly state that the Society of St Pius X is fundamentally a clerical institute (IV,3). He also said that the Society enjoys 'ordinary jurisdiction' deriving directly from the pope 'even though he oppose it'. This conflicts with everything that Archbishop Lefebvre has said about our conditional legitimacy, and with the works of Fr Pivert and Fr Anglés which were published on the occasions of the consecrations. To continue in this direction, claiming ordinary jurisdiction for the Society though it be independent from the Pope, in order to justify unjustifiable decisions and to preserve a kind of legal monopoly of the Society of St Pius X over the Tradition of the Church, this amounts to a drift towards schism and towards a destruction of the work of Catholic restoration for which you have assumed the responsibility before God.

As a member of the Society to which I freely committed myself last 8th December, which commitment should, all other things being equal and according to the statues, be valid for at least a year, I beg you to cease adding fuel to the fire! You are set on a path that will betray the legacy of Archbishop Lefebvre; in reducing, de facto, the Society to its material substructures you are abandoning the crusade for the future of the Church by bogging us down in useless internecine quarrels. It is urgently necessary that you change your attitude so that the Society of Saint Pius X may survive.

Abbé Guillaume de Tanouärn

This 29th March 2005