Open Letter to Confused Catholics

http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-Lefebvre/OpenLetterToConfusedCatholics/

Was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre right?

Quaeritur: I don't publish all comments; but why does any defense of this man and result in such vehement insults?

Well, well, well. How is it possible that it has taken over 50 years to come discover this little ditty from Rorate Caeli blog.

Gaudium et Spes 24: 'Quapropter dilectio Dei et proximi primum et maximum mandatum est.'

For non-Latinists, this claim (it is a complete sentence in the conciliar document) can be translated as follows: 'For love of God and of neighbour is the first and greatest commandment'. No Latin is needed to realise that this is a flat contradiction of the teaching of Christ. There is a deliberate allusion in Gaudium et Spes 24 to the wording of the divine teaching it is contradicting, as can be seen from looking at the Vulgate text of that teaching:

Matthew 22:35-39: "Et interrogavit eum unus ex eis legis doctor, temptans eum; 'Magister, quod est mandatum magnum in lege? Ait illi Iesus: 'diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et in tota anima tua, et in tota mente tua. Hoc est maximum et primum mandatum. Secundum autem simile est huic: diliges proximum tuum, sicut teipsum.'"

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre said:

"All the dogmatic councils have given us the exact expression of Tradition, the exact expression of what the Apostles taught. Tradition is irreformable. One can never change the decrees of the Council of Trent, because they are infallible, written and published by an official act of the Church, unlike those of Vatican II, which pronouncements are not infallible because the popes did not wish to commit their infallibility.  Therefore nobody can say to you, "You are clinging to the past, you have stayed with the Council of Trent." For the Council of Trent is not the past. Tradition is clothed with a timeless character, adapted to all times and all places." 

He later made famous the phrase, "Timebombs" when referring to the Councils documents.

Perhaps the Archbishop was not so wrong in his assessment of the situation. That statement in Gaudium et Spes clearly and unequivocally contradicts Sacred Scripture.  I admit to missing it, clearly; millions of others with great degrees and letters after their names and much more qualified than I, missed it too.

Or did they?