Archbishop Lefebvre and the Vatican - Part I: The Documents (1988) - 30 June Declaration of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer

After the Consecration Sermon given by Archbishop Lefebvre, the co-consecrating bishop, Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, retired bishop of the Diocese of Campos, Brazil, gave a short allocution which was very warmly applauded. He read it in Portuguese and it was translated afterwards into French and then into German and English.

My presence here at this ceremony is caused by a duty of conscience: that of making a profession of Catholic Faith in front of the whole Church and more particularly in front of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and in front of all the priests, religious, seminarians and faithful here present.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that there is no obligation to make a profession of faith at every moment. But when the Faith is in danger it is urgent to profess it, even if it be at the risk of one’s own life.

Such is the situation in which we find ourselves. We live in an unprecedented crisis of the Church, a crisis that attacks her inner essence, in her very substance which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Catholic priesthood, two mysteries essentially united because without priesthood there is no sacrifice of the Mass and therefore no form of worship. It is also on this foundation that the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ is built.

For this reason, because the conservation of the priesthood and the Holy Mass is at stake, and in spite of the requests and pressures of many, I am here in order to accomplish my duty: to make a public profession of faith.

It is painful to witness the deplorable blindness of so many confrères in the episcopate and in the priesthood who do not see or do not want to see the present crisis nor the necessity to resist the reigning modernism in order to be faithful to the mission entrusted to us by God.

I want to manifest here my sincere and profound adherence to the position of His Excellency Archbishop Lefebvre, dictated by his fidelity to the Church of all centuries. Both of us, we have drunk at the same spring which is that of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church.

May the Most Holy Virgin Our Mother, who at Fatima has warned us in her motherly love with regard to the gravity of the present situation, give us the grace to be able by our attitude to help and enlighten the faithful in such a way that they depart from these pernicious errors of which they are the victims, deceived by many persons who have received the fullness of the Holy Ghost.

May God bless Archbishop Lefebvre and his work!