They placed a new missal in my hands, saying, “Here is the Mass you must celebrate and will now celebrate in all your houses.” They also told me that if, on this date, today, June 29, before our assembly, we had celebrated a Mass according to the new rite, everything between us and Rome would now be settled.

Now, it is clear that this new rite is based on—if I may say so—another conception of the Catholic religion, another religion. It is no longer the priest who offers the holy sacrifice of the Mass, but the assembly. This is a whole program. Now it is the assembly that replaces the authority in the Church; it is the episcopal assembly that replaces the power of the bishops. It is the presbyteral council that replaces the power of the bishop in the dioceses: it is numbers that now rule in the Holy Church. And this is expressed in the Mass precisely because the assembly replaces the priest to such an extent that now many priests no longer want to celebrate Holy Mass when there is no assembly. Little by little, it is the Protestant notion of the Mass that is being introduced into the Holy Church.

If I have persisted in this attitude, it is because I believe, with good reason, that in the face of the persecution to which I am subjected, I have never really been able to defend myself; there has never been a fair trial. It is true that it is always painful to be in difficulty with the authorities, and I desire nothing more than to be on good terms with them, but I feel supported, I would say, by 2000 years of Christianity, 2000 years of the Church. Consequently, I even have the impression that my position is more secure than theirs. They are based on a Church that began with Vatican II. I have 2000 years of Church behind me. | Mons. Lefebvre in 2 minuti spiega il disastro dottrinale e liturgico vaticanosecondista (In two minutes, Archbishop Lefebvre explains the doctrinal and liturgical disaster of Vatican II), radiospada, 20 December 2024 (in French with subtitles in Italian).