An Open Letter to Confused Catholics
by His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

The Angelus Press 1987
ISBN 0 85244 047 2

"An Open Letter to Confused Catholics" by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre is probably the best piece of polemic I have come across for a long time. It is rare that something is this much of a joy to read - despite the disagreeable contents. His Excellency advocates (among other things) what essentially amounts to a sort of theocratic fascism, but does so in an extraordinarily eloquent way.

To say that the Archbishop is a conservative Catholic would be an understatement of gargantuan proportion. He is more conservative then the Pope, who is not known for extreme liberalism. He attacks Vatican II, non-Latin mass, the ecumenical movement, separation of church and state, and liberalism within the Church in general. His statements about the spiritual bankrupcy of the more liberal elements of the church are not without merit - as an intelligent conservative he is good at spotting the serious flaws in liberals' worldview. However his statement about the Inquisition not being all bad (I am not making this up) lacks any merit - whether historical or theological.

Ironically, His Excellency is himself not entirely free of modern notions. His belief that the desire to do God's will, even among non-Catholics, can result in an implicit 'Baptism by desire' - is a modern one, a result of the modern squeamishness when it comes to the notion of eternal damnation for all non-believers. Of course, this does not mean that any religion other then the Catholic one are true in any way whatsoever.

The Archbishop claims that the doctrines of the Church are unchanging, and even the Pope has no authority to alter them. Despite his eloquence he ignores the historical changes that took place between the Council of Trent and Vatican II. Like other conservatives, he looks to a past that never was - the past as he imagines it. He certainly seems unaware that, for example, homosexuality varied, several times, between being a minor sin slightly worse then masturbation, to a mortal sin. This is also true of abortion - it was, and was not, murder several times through the Church history.

His Excellency's shortcomings in history - and indeed any field outside of conservative Catholic theology - are enormous, especially for someone with his obvious intelligence. Furthermore, he never asks "How did it come to be that the Church is in such a sorry state?". He exposes what he perceives as problems, but he sees liberals, Protestants and Freemasons as the source - never the Church itself.

He quotes with approval Cardinal Ottaviani, who had this to say on religious liberty - "Just as the civil power considers it right to protect citizens from the seductions of error, so it may also regulate and moderate the public expression of other forms of worship and defend its citizens against the diffusion of false doctrines which, in the judgement of the Church, endanger their eternal salvation." The Archbishop does not outright state that non-Catholic doctrines should be banned - he seems to suggest that this would just not be practical.

Unfortunately it is difficult for me to give any sense of the books' eloquence, which is much more difficult to describe then mere religious fanaticism. "An Open Letter to Confused Catholics" is an intellectual defense of extreme Catholic conservatism, and it does the job about as well as is possible given the nature of the subject matter. It is not a rant of a religious fanatic - it is a brilliant expression of religious fanaticism and intolerance. Those with in interest in polemic will find the book of great value. As a non-Catholic reader I occasionally found myself agreeing with the author - the idea of theocratic fascism would almost make sense for a few seconds, before the brain took over.

His Excellency is certainly a welcome change from the mental midgets of the American Christian Right. I certainly much prefer religious fanatics who are eloquent and intelligent.

If you want to find out more about the late Archbishop's views, you may want to take a look at the WWW page of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X - a society that His Excellency founded. It has, among other things, a selection of his writings.