Dear readers,

Luther, the Mass and Marriage

God is Providence.

October 13, 1969 was the day Archbishop Lefebvre opened the door of his Don Bosco’s Residence for the embryonic Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) in Fribourg, Switzerland. This was six weeks before the New Mass became mandatory. Providence prepared the antidote before the disease arrived.

Recently, one of the most senior SSPX priests remarked that the battle for the Mass in the late 1960s and early 1970s was in fact of greater theological importance than today’s battle for marriage. Morality always follows doctrine.

The Archbishop understood that. Many of his talks around the world in the first decade of the SSPX were on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, simply to explain that touching the doctrine of the Mass would have untold, unimaginable consequences for the Church, for the Kingship of Christ. For instance, read his talk entitled Luther’s Mass, presented in 1975 in Florence.

Luther thought exactly the same. But he rejoiced, whilst the Archbishop mourned.

“Having triumphed over the Mass, I think we have triumphed over the whole papacy. For upon the Mass as upon a rock is built the whole papacy with its monasteries, its bishoprics, its colleges, its altars, its ministers, its doctrines, and leans on it with its whole weight” (Against Henry VIII, 1522).

The crises of marriage and of the Papacy, which we are witnessing today, are direct consequences of the liturgical reform of 1969. Who sees it? Luther saw it. Archbishop Lefebvre saw it, too.

Let us pray that others in red and in purple will see it as well, and while continuing to fight for the sacred principles of Catholic morality and of marriage under siege at present, they will have the grace to see the logic, cause, and effects which have led to the tragedies we witness today, and act accordingly. Touch the Holy Mass and you touch marriage and the very foundation of the Church.

Isn’t the sacrament of marriage great because it signifies the union of Christ and His Church on the Cross, which is the Holy Mass?

Qui potest capere capiat.

Fr. Daniel Couture