Bp. Antonio de Castro Mayer’s Letter To Pope Paul Vi January. 1974

[Dawn Marie]

Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer’s

January 1974 Letter

To Pope Paul VI

Most Holy Father,

Prostrate respectfully at the feet of Your Holiness, I ask permission to submit for your consideration the studies that follow this letter.

My sending these studies is carried out in obedience to Your Holiness’s order transmitted by letter from His Eminence Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio to His Eminence Vicente Cardinal Scherer, of which the latter informed me orally in a meeting I had with him in Rio de Janeiro last September 24.

On the 15th of October I had the honor of writing to Your Holiness, affirming my filial compliance with these orders.

Among these there was one by which, in the event that “in conscience I do not agree” with “acts of the current Ordinary Magisterium of the Church,” “I freely express to the Holy See” my opinion. This is what I do with all the reverence due to the Venerable Vicar of Jesus Christ, as I hand over to Your Holiness the three enclosed studies.

With this – as Your Holiness will see – I am performing nothing other than an act of obedience to Your venerable order. The considerations that I express in them, I have formed over years of reflection and prayer. It is not my intention to hand them over to the public, certain that my reserve will please Your Holiness.

Behold, Holy Father, obedience compels me now to communicate to Your Holiness thoughts that perhaps bring you grief. I do it, however, with peace of mind, because I am on the path of sincerity and obedience, on which I hope to remain with the grace of God.

But if my conscience is clear, at the same time my heart is sad.

In fact, my whole life as a Priest and Bishop has been marked by the commitment – in my limited scope of action – to be, by my unrestricted devotion and by my entire obedience, a source of joy for the various Popes under whose authority I have successively served.

Now, at the present juncture, devotion and obedience lead me to bring sorrow to Your Holiness.

An episode from the history of France in the last century comes to mind in this action. Chateaubriand narrates it in the “Mémoires d’Outre Tombe.” King Louis XVIII once asked him for his opinion on a measure that the monarch had just made public. Sincerity prevented the writer from praising such a measure. But the fear of saddening the King moved him to silence. He therefore avoided expressing his thoughts. Seeing this, Louis XVIII formally ordered the writer to speak with complete frankness. The latter, in response to the noble mandate, and before opening himself to his King, addressed this request: “Sire, pardonnez ma fidélité.” This is what I ask of Your Holiness: forgive me for the fidelity with which I carry out Your orders.

I implore Your Holiness to have compassion toward the obedience of this Bishop, now seventy years old, who is currently experiencing the most dramatic episode of his life. And I ask Your Holiness to grant me at least a portion of that understanding and that benevolence that you have so often manifested not only around you, but also with people who are strangers, and even enemies of the one fold of the one Shepherd.

Over the years, the conviction has taken form in my soul that Your Holiness’s official acts do not have, with those of the Pontiffs who preceded you, that consonance that with all my soul I wanted to see in them.

These are not, of course, acts guaranteed by the charism of infallibility. Therefore, that conviction of mine in no way shakes my unrestricted and profound belief in the definitions of the First Vatican Council.

Fearing to waste the valuable time of the Vicar of Christ, I dispense with further considerations and limit myself to submitting three studies to the attention of Your Holiness:

1. On “Octogesima Adveniens”

2. On Religious Liberty

3. On the new “Ordo Missae”

(The latter authored by attorney Arnaldo Vidigal Xavier da Silveira, whose content I identify with).

It will be superfluous to add that in this step, as already in others of my life, I will fulfill, in all the measure prescribed by the laws of the Church, the Sacred duty of obedience. And in this spirit, with the heart of an ardent and devoted son of the Pope and the Holy Church, I will welcome any word from Your Holiness regarding this material.

In a special way, I beseech Your Holiness to declare to me:

A. If You find any error in the doctrine exposed in the three enclosed studies;

B. If You see in the attitude assumed in these studies towards the documents of the Supreme Magisterium something that is at odds with the respect I owe them as a bishop.

Begging Your Holiness to grant me, as well as my Diocese, the precious benefit of the Apostolic Blessing, I am of

Your Holiness

Humble and obedient son.

+ Antonio de Castro Mayer

Bishop of Campos

[Dawn Marie]

Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer's
January 25, 1974 Letter
to Pope Paul VI

 

Endorsing a Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae

 

Two Timely Issues:

The New Mass and the Possibility of a Heretical Pope



by Arnaldo Xavier da Silviera

2023 365 pages / sewn hardcover $24.00 #3117
 

Pope Paul VI’s action in September 1973 to prevent the publication of the above book, as explained by José Antonio Ureta in the foreword to the present edition, prompted Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer of Campos, Brazil to write to the Holy Father on January 25, 1974.  Bishop Mayer in his letter referred to his previous October 15 communication with the Pope, in which he manifested his “filial compliance” with Paul VI’s request.  In this second letter, he cited the Holy Father’s permission for him to “freely express to the Holy See” his opinions, if in conscience he did not agree with certain acts of Pope Paul’s Magisterium.

The promulgation of the new rite of the Mass, the novus ordo missae, intending to replace the traditional Latin rite, was one such act that deeply concerned Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer.  Therefore in his letter to the Pope he expressed his agreement with the contents of this book by Arnaldo Vidigal Xavier da Silveira.  And he did so after appealing to the Holy Father for an understanding of his concerns.  “I implore Your Holiness to have compassion toward the obedience of this Bishop, now seventy years old, who is currently experiencing the most dramatic episode of his life. And I ask Your Holiness to grant me at least a portion of that understanding and that benevolence that you have so often manifested not only around you, but also with people who are strangers, and even enemies of the one fold of the one Shepherd.”  Six paragraphs above in his letter, he had manifested his intention regarding those opinions that he was expressing to the Pope: “It is not my intention to hand them over to the public, certain that my reserve will please Your Holiness.”

In the years immediately following these events, however, Paul VI did not respond favorably to the wishes of Bishop Mayer and those of all the faithful who wanted to preserve the traditional liturgy.  In May of 1976, at a consistory of Cardinals, Paul VI criticized Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre for adhering to the traditional rite, and stated that he wanted every priest to celebrate the new rite.  In 1984 his second successor, John Paul II, granted an indult, which was interpreted as an exception to the law, allowing the traditional Mass when permitted by the local bishop.  But later a commission of Cardinals, set up by the same Pope to study the canonical status of the traditional rite, concluded in their majority that Paul VI had not in fact abolished the traditional rite, which in effect made an indult unnecessary because the rite had not been abrogated.  Nevertheless, opposition to the traditional Mass continued, and in June of 1988 Archbishop Lefebvre, joined by Bishop Mayer, consecrated four bishops in order to assure that priests would continue to be ordained to celebrate the traditional rite.

For nineteen more years the controversy within the Church continued, until Benedict XVI officially declared in his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007 that the traditional rite was never abrogated.  However, that declaration was challenged by the July 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes of Pope Francis.

In view of this history of nearly five decades, manifested at first by Bishop Mayer’s reserve in not going public to express his deep concerns, has given way, in the face of a worldwide effort to suppress the traditional rite, to the need to explain to Catholics throughout the world the reasons behind the public resistance to its suppression.  The traditional rite must be preserved – as many Catholics firmly believe – because the new rite does not fully express the sacrifice of propitiation that is realized in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Arnaldo Vidigal Xavier da Silveira demonstrates that there is no other possible explanation of the theology behind the new rite. For the explanations given, by those who were its most representative advocates, demonstrate a radically new understanding of the Mass, different from what the Church has always taught throughout the centuries.