Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais: Why I Love the Society

Dear Faithful and Friends,

The loss of His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais has undoubtedly left a hole in the Ecône seminary. He was one of the first seminarians to approach Archbishop Lefebvre after asking him, with great insistence, at the end of the 1960s, to form a truly Catholic priesthood.

Often at the side of our venerated founder during the course of his priesthood and at the beginning of his episcopacy, he followed in the footsteps of Archbishop Marcel Lefebve with filial devotion. He composed, as we all know, a complete biography of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre which  undoubtedly remains the definitive reference work on his life and his work.

We hope to give here the direct words of the Bishop Tissier, through an extract of a homily that he gave in Ecône, after several years of residence at the St. Pius X Seminary, he moved to the Chicago priory.

He delivered his spiritual testament in which he summarized the work of the Society of St. Pius X and the reasons to remain faithful to its doctrinal position and its spiritual heritage, and through it, the means to remain faithful to the Church, to the faith which she has always transmitted and to the means of holiness which she continues to offer.

Don Gabriele D’Avino, District Superior of Italy

Dear Faithful,

Why do I love the Society of St. Pius X? I love it firstly because it was approved by the Church on November 1, 1970 by Bishop Charrière of Fribourg, as a society of common life without vows; approved by the Church, unjustly and invalidly suppressed. It continues to exist canonically, this Society of Saint Pius X, no matter what others say. I love it because it has been approved by the Church.

Archbishop Lefebvre, its founder, told us: “I have never done anything without the permission of the local bishop.” He received permission from the Bishop of Fribourg in Switzerland. Why Switzerland?  In recognition of the generosity of Swiss Catholics towards the Dakar missions, because the generosity of the Swiss Catholics had paid for the mission and Fatick church in Senegal. And to thank their bishop, especially Bishop Charrière of Fribourg, Archbishop Lefebvre invited him to come to the solemn consecration of the Fatick Church. And since that time they remained friends, Bishop Charrière and Archbishop Lefebvre. As a result in 1969, when Archbishop Lefebvre came to the Bishop of Fribourg, he was welcomed with open arms, by the Bishop of Fribourg, who permitted him to plant his vineyard, his seminary, in Fribourg, and to plant his Fraternity in Switzerland.

Voila, the reward for the generosity of Swiss Catholics. Voila Providence. This is why I love the Society. It is a recompense of the Good Lord.

Next, because this Society develops the common life of the clergy; of priests living in common. This is not ordinary in the Church, and yet it was the best tradition of the Church. Priests should live together, as we do, that is to say a common life of the table, certainly of the dormitory, if you like, but above all of prayer and the apostolate. Three hours of the Breviary and the daily rosary are prayed in common, and the apostolate is exercised in common, organized together. For more holiness and more efficiency; a brilliant idea of Archbishop Lefebvre: a society of common life without vows.

I love the Society also because it draws religious life around it; our Oblates, the Society Sisters, our Brothers and a quantity of other communities, religious societies which have developed in the shadow, so to speak, of the Society of Saint Pius X. That is why I love the Society, because it loves the religious life.

I love the priestly Fraternity because it is priestly. This is essential, this is its definition, because the crisis of the Church – let’s say the crisis in the Church – is simply the crisis of priestly identity. When priests have lost sight of what they are, then they discard the cassock first of all, and next they discard Latin, they have thrown it all away, and finally they have discarded their heart, they have thrown away their faith. Then Archbishop Lefebvre said no, the priesthood must be maintained in its doctrinal purity and its missionary charity. The Society of St. Pius X is priestly, dedicated to the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of the social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, because Jesus reigned and reigns through the wood of the Cross, and consequently through the Mass, which is the sacramental continuation of the Sacrifice of Calvary. That is why I love the priestly Society of St. Pius X, because it is truly priestly.

I love the Society of Saint Pius X because it has as its patron St. Pius X, the last canonized pope, who took great care of his priests, of the priests of the Catholic Church, through his exhortation Haerent animo, which is a magnificent summary of the priestly spirit; because St. Pius X condemned modernism by announcing that it was not finished, since this heresy was in the heart and veins of the Catholic Church. Modernism cannot be rooted out in one day. And also because St. Pius X restored order in the Church and this is what we are lacking today. That is why I love the Society.

I love the Society of Saint Pius X because its founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, gave us regulations, gave us statutes, constitutions, a very wise rule, that Rome had approved, even praised, the sapientes normae, through a letter by Cardinal Wright, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, in 1971. Praise of the Society’s constitutions which are dealt with in twenty pages, in twenty pages as a compendium of priestly spirituality, wherein everything is said. And we are still living there now, without anything changing. It goes on. Who wrote it? Archbishop Lefebvre, by a stroke of the pen in Rome. Isn’t that marvelous? 

I love the Society of Saint Pius X because it provides the ideal priestly formation in its traditional seminaries, as it had always been done in the seminaries, that is combining doctrine and piety -- a piety solidly founded on doctrine and the liturgical life, and a deep love of beautiful and solemn liturgical ceremonies. That is why I love the Society of St. Pius X.

I also love the Society, dear faithful, because Archbishop Lefebvre, through a brilliant idea, established a spirituality year in the seminary as a novitiate to give young men a spiritual year, to explain the principles to them and to have them live these principles of Catholic spirituality, the principles of the Church and not the principles of Archbishop Lefebvre; the principles of the Church and of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

I also love the Society of Saint Pius X because Archbishop Lefebvre, via another brilliant idea, wanted a special course to be given – besides the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, of course – a special course on the Acts of the Magisterium of the Church, teaching the encyclicals of all the great popes who, from the nineteenth century until the eve of the Council, had transmitted the doctrine of the Church on modern errors, liberalism, modernism, and socialism. And from then on, every year, the seminarians would receive this teaching from the encyclicals of the popes, the true successors of Peter.

I also love the Society because Divine Providence brought to Ecône Fr. Barrielle and his [Spiritual] Exercises of St. Ignatius. Since then we have come to love St. Ignatius and we are able to do what once only the Jesuits, specialists, were capable of doing. We are able to preach the [Spiritual] Exercises of St. Ignatius. Is this not extraordinary, dear faithful? And you are all invited to go and frequent the retreat houses where the Exercises of St. Ignatius are preached and which are a marvel, not only for converting sinners, but for making saints. Go to the Exercises of St. Ignatius.

I love the Society, finally, dear faithful, because it was launched into the combat for the faith. It has not feared to launch itself boldly into the risk of unjust condemnation, null, into the combat for the faith to which the Apostle St. Paul exhorts us. And we are still in the battle for the faith. Thank God. So, in spite of it, because it was not founded to fight, it was founded to pass on the priesthood, in spite of it, but willingly, the Society became a warrior. I love the Society because it is a warrior, because it wages war for Christ the King, and that’s no trifle. I love the Society, so to speak, in short, because it is the last bastion that remains to resist, to hold on, to say no to conciliar and post-conciliar apostasy. The last precious bastion, and our first duty, therefore, is to protect it from all modernist infections. Our first duty is to guard this bastion for the future, for the Church.