Below is some rare video footage of Archbishop Lefebvre giving a press conference on June 15 1988, just prior to the June 30 consecrations. In the video, the Archbishop responds to the potential charges of schism and excommunication.
The video is from the Battle for Truth Youtube account; a transcript is provided below the video.
Transcript
Very well, we continue what the popes taught and did before Vatican II, and we oppose what Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II are doing now because they have broken with these popes, their predecessors.
We prefer the tradition of the Church to the work of a few popes who oppose their predecessors. Given my age—I am now 82 and in my 83rd year—it is clear that I feel the end approaching.
I need a successor. I cannot leave these seminaries—five seminaries around the world—without a bishop to ordain these seminarians, and since one cannot ordain priests without a bishop, and as long as there is no agreement with Rome, there will be no bishops who will agree to perform the ordinations.
So I find myself in a complete deadlock. I have a choice to make: either die and leave my seminaries abandoned like this, orphaned, or become bishops. I have no choice.
The L’Osservatore Romano will probably publish the excommunication, the declaration of schism, obviously. What does all this mean?
Well, who is making this excommunication? By a modernist Rome, by a Rome that no longer fully possesses the Catholic faith, that no longer thinks Catholic, that no longer acts Catholic.
We can’t say that when there’s a demonstration like the one in Assisi, we’re still Catholic. It’s not possible.
We can’t say that when the declarations were made to the Jews in the synagogue and the ceremony took place at Santa Maria in sever weather last year, right? Right in the heart of Rome. It’s scandalous. Absolutely scandalous. It’s no longer Catholic.
L’Osservatore Romano will probably publish the communication, the declaration of schism, obviously. So, we are excommunicated by modernists, by people who were condemned by previous popes.
So, what does that matter to us? We are condemned by people who are condemned because they are people who should be publicly excommunicated.
So it becomes different for us … it has no value, obviously.
Declaration of schism. Schism with what? Schism with the pope, successor of Peter? No.
Schism with the modernist pope? Yes.
Schism with the ideas that the pope is spreading everywhere. The ideas of the revolution, the modern ideas, aren’t they?
Yes, that’s where we are in schism. We don’t accept it, of course.
For more on this subject, see the articles “If it is my duty, I will consecrate bishops” and “Archbishop Lefebvre to his bishops-elect”
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