Is the Church Betraying Christ? Lefebvre’s Warning Revisited in 2026

In his The Ascent of Calvary, Père Louis Perroy wrote of the way in which the offenses that Our Lord suffered during His Passion are, in a sense, renewed when those in authority uphold laws in opposition to Catholic teaching:

“The blood rushed to the face of Jesus. This blow marked the beginning of His Passion. Accepting it in silence, He submitted in silence to the long series of indignities that followed upon it. Ever since that fatal night, Christ is struck each time those in authority uphold laws in opposition to the teaching of His Church. ‘Why these narrow dogmas?’ is the cry. ‘Why submit to an intolerant Church? Caesar’s rights are supreme!’ And when His Spirit is scoffed at, and excluded from our daily lives and from society at large, when we revolt against certain commandments and commit shameful acts, we buffet Christ before His angels and saints. Again it is secret pride that demands personal liberty and free indulgence in pleasure: ‘Hast Thou given me freedom of action but to set limits to it?’ ’Tis the old cry of Lucifer, ‘I will not serve!’” (p. 29)

When Père Perroy published his book in 1922, he likely intended that these words would apply to secular authorities rather than to authority figures within the Catholic Church. However, if he had been asked about the possibility of the leaders of the Catholic Church upholding anti-Catholic laws, surely he would have said that it would amount to an incomparably worse insult to Our Lord. Indeed, Père Perroy’s words about Judas’s betrayal of Christ could apply as well to the possibility of authority figures within the Church upholding anti-Catholic teachings:

“Since the treachery of Judas, to be betrayed by a loved one has ever been the keenest suffering known to the human heart, and God does not spare even this to those who aspire to resemble His Son.” (p. 123)

And so if we were trying to rank offenses against God, it seems evident that the blasphemies of pagans are nothing compared to instances in which the ostensible leaders of the Catholic Church weaken or, even worse, contradict Catholic teaching. For the hierarchy of the Church to promote anti-Catholic errors is arguably the worst possible betrayal of Our Lord.

For the hierarchy of the Church to promote anti-Catholic errors is arguably the worst possible betrayal of Our Lord.

With this in mind, we can consider the words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre from his 1976 preface to I Accuse the Council!, in which he spoke of the crisis in the Catholic Church in terms of a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church:

“Nothing seems more opportune in these days, when the matters at Ecône set forth the grave problem of the intentions of the Second Vatican Council and of its influence on the self-destruction of the Church, than to publish the documents drawn up in the course of the Council itself. . . . The conclusion is inescapable, especially in the light of the widespread turmoil which the Church has experienced since the Second Vatican Council. This destructive occurrence for the Catholic Church and all Christian civilization has not been directed by the Holy Ghost. To denounce publicly the machinations of churchmen who sought to make this Council the Church’s peace of Yalta with her worst enemies, which is in reality a new betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, is to render an immense service to Our Lord and to the salvation of souls.” (p. xi)

Archbishop Lefebvre sought to “denounce publicly the machinations of churchmen” who would betray Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church. Going back to Père Perroy’s words above, Archbishop Lefebvre could not stay silent as Our Lord was assaulted and mocked by false shepherds. How could a true Catholic allow cries of “obedience!” to stifle the instinct to defend the rights of Christ the King?

Truth cannot surrender her rights to error without denying itself—and thus disappearing.

What, though, did Archbishop Lefebvre identify as the ways in which Our Lord was being betrayed by the false shepherds? One of the documents in I Accuse the Council! provides us with a valuable glimpse of the betrayals that Archbishop Lefebvre saw just years after the Council. His 1966 letter to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani set forth, among other insights, various doubts that the Council and its “reforms” had created:

• “Doubts about the necessity of the Church and the sacraments lead to the disappearance of priestly vocations.”
• “Doubts on the necessity for and nature of the ‘conversion’ of every soul involve the disappearance of religious vocations, the destruction of traditional spirituality in the novitiates, and the uselessness of the missions.”
• “Doubts on the lawfulness of authority and the need for obedience, caused by the exaltation of human dignity, the autonomy of conscience and liberty, are unsettling all societies beginning with the Church—religious societies, dioceses, secular society, the family.”
• “Doubts regarding the necessity of grace in order to be saved result in baptism to be held in low esteem, so that for the future it is to be put off until later, and occasion the neglect of the sacrament of Penance. This is particularly an attitude of the clergy and not of the faithful. It is the same with regard to the Real Presence: it is the clergy who act as though they no longer believe by hiding away the Blessed Sacrament, by suppressing all marks of respect towards the Sacred Species and all ceremonies in Its honor.”
• “Doubts on the necessity of the Catholic Church as the only true religion, the sole source of salvation, emanating from the declarations on ecumenism and religious liberty, are destroying the authority of the Church’s Magisterium. In fact, Rome is no longer the unique and necessary ‘Magistra Veritatis’ [Mistress of the Truth].”

Archbishop Lefebvre sent these observations to Cardinal Ottaviani roughly sixty years ago and yet they are still among the most accurate descriptions of the painful wounds in the Mystical Body of Christ that we observe in 2026. Moreover, every other evil that we see today from Rome — ranging from Synod on Synodality to Pachamamas — has been facilitated in one way or another by the fact that these doubts have persisted for decades. It is as though the most influential authorities in Rome have been assisting at the Passion of Our Lord continuously for sixty years — not by assuaging the sufferings of Jesus but by finding new ways to make them more painful and degrading.

If we want to look more closely at the betrayal of Jesus carried out by those in Rome, we can reflect on the words from Père Perroy above: so many of the ideas he described relate to the thirst for personal liberty and a corresponding rejection of God’s law. As Archbishop Lefebvre described in I Accuse the Council!, this topic was of upmost importance at Vatican II:

“No subject came under such intense discussion as that of ‘religious liberty,’ probably because none interested the traditional enemies of the Church so much. It is the major aim of Liberalism. Liberals, Masons and Protestants are fully aware that by this means they can strike at the very heart of the Catholic Church. In making her accept the common law of secular societies, they would thus reduce her to a mere sect like the others and even cause her to disappear, because truth cannot surrender her rights to error without denying itself and thus disappearing.” (p. 17)

This latter point is especially relevant in our own time, as it explains to us why error seems to have unlimited rights whereas truth no longer does. This is the case not only throughout secular society but also within the Church, as public heretics are afforded more rights than Traditional Catholics. Those who would scourge Christ are championed while those who seek to defend Him are mocked.

It is as though authorities in Rome have been assisting at the Passion of Our Lord for sixty years.

Some may argue that there was no real clash of ideas at the Council on this point of religious liberty but, as Archbishop Lefebvre described, that simply is not the case:

“It should be noted that this theme formed the subject of a dramatic debate at the last session of the Council’s preliminary Central Commission. In fact, two schemas on the same there were drawn up: one by the Secretariat for Unity directed by Cardinal Bea, the other by the Theological Commission presided over by Cardinal Ottaviani. The title of the schemas alone is significant: the first was De Libertate Religiosa, which is the expression of the liberal thesis; the second, De Tolerantia Religiosa, merely echoes the traditional teaching of the Church.” (p. 17)

Thus it is undeniable that there was a profound clash of ideas, with the traditional Catholic teaching giving way to the liberal thesis. This reality alone suffices to disprove the preposterous notion that the Council changed nothing. As Archbishop Lefebvre observed, even Yves Congar admitted this:

“Thus Father Congar, of the Secretariat of the French episcopate, in the Bulletin Etudes et Documents of June 15, 1965, wrote: ‘What is new in this teaching in relation to the doctrine of Leo XIII and even of Pius XII, although the movement was already beginning to make itself felt, is the determination of the basis peculiar to this liberty, which is sought not in the objective truth of moral or religious good, but in the ontological quality of the human person.’ Thus religious liberty no longer focuses in relation to God but in relation to man! This is indeed the Liberal point of view.” (p. 18)

At the same time that it has dedicated no efforts to ending these offenses against God, Rome has made a crusade out of persecuting those who adhere to what the Church has always taught.

The triumph of the liberal point of view was effectively the triumph of the anti-Catholic ideas that Père Perroy characterized above, such that we now see a perpetual series of offenses against Our Lord carried out (falsely) in the name of the Church. As minor as the shift in focus from God to man (as the basis for religious liberty) may seem to some, it was one of the most important battles of the Council and has resulted in a profound shift in the way that many Catholics view the Faith. Along with false ecumenism, this development has been the root cause of all of the doubts that Archbishop Lefebvre listed in his 1966 letter to Cardinal Ottaviani. And these two ideas — religious liberty and false ecumenism — have been used to continuously betray Our Lord and His Church for the past sixty years.

Every Holy Week, the Church reminds us of how much Our Lord suffered during His Passion to save us from our sins. It is useful as well to recall how much Jesus is offended today by those who continue to perpetuate the doubts that Archbishop Lefebvre lamented in 1966. For the past sixty years, Rome has done nothing to resolve those doubts in favor of Catholicism and has, in many ways, made these doubts tremendously worse. At the same time that it has dedicated no efforts to ending these offenses against God, Rome has made a crusade out of persecuting those who adhere to what the Church has always taught (and must always believe). All of this makes the decision very clear: rather than choosing blind obedience to those who ask us to condone their persecution of Our Lord, it is better to follow Archbishop Lefebvre in refusing to abandon Our Lady of Sorrows at the foot of her Son’s Cross. Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!