“Ridgefield (1979-1988)” (with Daniel Themann) (March 2005)

From Issue No. 96: VERBUM Turns 25! (March 2005)

“Ridgefield (1979-1988)” (with Daniel Themann)

During the first academic year, seminarians and faithful worked together on Saturdays to renovate the long-neglected building. While improvements were under way, Seminary superiors were already planning an ambitious addition that would include 50 new rooms, five classrooms and a chapel in order to accommodate the anticipated growth in the number of vocations. Three priests ordained in 1982 were the first to have been formed entirely in the United States. But even as the American Seminary was beginning to firmly establish itself, God’s Providence determined to send another and more painful trial.

The Great Split of ’83

In April, 1983, nine of the eleven Society priests in what was then the Northeast American District, among them the District Superior, the District Bursar and the Seminary Rector, brought their increasing differences with the line fixed by Archbishop Lefebvre for the SSPX to the point of open conflict, forcing the Archbishop to dismiss them from the Society. The precipitating act was the refusal of one of the newly ordained priests of 1982 to report to St. Mary’s, Kansas, because only the “John XXIII Mass” – that is, the rite of Mass found in the 1962 Missal – was said there. His disobedience was endorsed by the Rector and seven other American SSPX priests.

The priests dismissed had formed a tight-knit clique that finally exploded into open revolution against the Archbishop and the SSPX. Their brilliant minds, administrative abilities and profound sense of liturgical decorum were ruined by (in the Archbishop’s words) “an extremist way of thinking and a tendency to schism in the domain of the liturgy, the papacy and the sacraments of the modern Reform” that conflicted with the broad, Catholic vision of Archbishop Lefebvre. They extended their opposition to almost everything done since the pontificate of St. Pius X, and rejected all confirmations, ordinations, annulments, and liturgical reforms done in accordance with Vatican II. After attempts at reconciliation, the Archbishop had no choice but to expel these priests from the Society before they poisoned its work in the United States. Lawsuits followed, as the rebellious priests tried to obtain control of the properties and assets of the SSPX in the United States.

The Split could have proved fatal for the Seminary. Most of the faculty had left and the Society was forced to take immediate action to save this house of formation that was so vital to the growth of the American districts. Englishman Fr. Richard Williamson, a convert from Anglicanism, had arrived at the Seminary the previous year and was named Rector in 1983. His first-rate intellect, keen insight into the modern world, absolute fearlessness in standing for Catholic principles and unflinching obedience to Eternal Rome and the Archbishop would be the hallmarks of his stewardship of the Seminary for the next twenty years. Frs. Goettler, Bourmaud and Delaplace arrived from Europe to fill the other vacated professorships. Representing three different nationalities – English, German and French – the new professors gave the Seminary the international character that it retains to this day. They were to form Catholic priests for the Catholic Church and not American priests for an “American SSPX.” One important aspect of the true Catholic spirit of the Seminary’s new professors was well expressed in a May 6, 1983 letter of then Superior General Fr. Schmidberger: “We are firmly convinced that the Church still continues and lives on today, even if the corn can hardly be seen for the weeds. Let us not forget that the Church is not going to be saved through our erecting ourselves into self-glorifying judges; rather we must imitate the love and patience of the crucified Savior by begging for Her resurrection as a gift of grace, and offer ourselves up in this sense.”

Looking back with a supernatural perspective on this troubled time, which almost ended the Society’s presence in the U.S., one sees the guiding hand of Providence at work. Archbishop Lefebvre was a model of fidelity and obedience to his superiors throughout his long career of service to the Church. In the end, however, he was snubbed and betrayed: first by his Congregation, the Holy Ghost Fathers, who made him step down as Superior General because he refused to follow the doctrinal deviations of Vatican II, and then by the Pope and bishops, who had set in motion the destruction of the Church and proceeded to persecute the Archbishop for trying to save Her. It only remained for the Archbishop to suffer a cross rarely granted even to the saints: betrayal by members of the very congregation he had founded. Yet he suffered all with admirable fortitude. “The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Every one that beareth fruit, the Father will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (Jn. XV).

Growth and Progress

As the Seminary’s new Rector, Fr. Williamson was faced with a great challenge. Not only was the Church undergoing possibly the greatest crisis of her existence, but society as well was breaking down at an alarming rate. Although he had the true Catholic pattern of priestly formation, Fr. Williamson was applying it in a world consumed as never before by errors that directly refused this pattern of Catholic priesthood. He had to confront these errors and eliminate them from the minds and hearts of his seminarians, so that the grace of God would make them good and faithful priests in a world gone mad.

A great aid in this battle against modern errors would be the Spiritual Exercises that Fr. Ludovic-Marie Barrielle, spiritual director at Ecône, had passed on to the Society. The Seminary professors, who for years had given the five day Ignatian spiritual exercises to the faithful, finally had the joy of preaching the first 30-day retreat to seminarians during the summer of 1985.

In 1986, Fr. Williamson inaugurated the “East Coast Trip” to fill gaps in seminarians’ knowledge of American history by visiting the locations where it was made. There was also the deeper purpose of uncovering America’s non-Catholic – and even anti-Catholic – roots. He had to make the seminarians realize how they, themselves – simply by virtue of growing up in America – had been shaped by an American spirit contrary to Catholicism, and to help ensure that those who proceeded on to the priesthood did not confuse this “Americanism” with the true Catholic apostolate entrusted to them by the Church.

By 1986, it had become clear that Ridgefield was simply too small. Fr. Williamson, in his August Rector’s Letter of that year, mentioned the need for more room: “We shall soon have to build again at Ridgefield, unless someone can swiftly find us a bargain 100-room seminary ready-built, within easy reach of a major airport and which the Seminary could buy. Keep looking for Providence’s bargain!”

The Biggest Month in Seminary History

In March, 1987, a brief, unexplained visit by Fr. Schmidberger sparked rumors that the purchase of a new seminary was imminent. Indeed, by fall the transaction was complete. A new building had been purchased in Winona, Minnesota, with the sale finalized on September 14, feast of the Holy Cross – a symbolic date both for the years in Ridgefield and those to come in Winona. But as the seminarians and priests settled into their last school year in Ridgefield, they little suspected that June, 1988, the month selected for the big move, was destined to prove vitally significant for quite another reason.

During the last months of 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre met with Cardinal Gagnon to discuss the Archbishop’s request to consecrate bishops. The seminarians knew that a crucial moment in the Society’s history had come. By May, with the final meetings in sight, the Seminary fasted, a Triduum of Masses was offered and Holy Hours were arranged. After discussions with Rome broke down, the Archbishop declared his decision to proceed with the episcopal consecrations. The excitement of the period only increased when it was announced on June 13 that Fr. Williamson would be one of the four bishops consecrated.

On June 21, the seminarians spent a long afternoon loading the 48-foot trailer which would transport the Seminary’s material possessions to Winona. The first Mass on the new Seminary’s high altar was celebrated five days later on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. Later that week, during the early morning hours of June 30, the seminarians again gathered in the chapel. With the bell breaking forth in joyful song, they chanted the Te Deum as the episcopal consecrations were taking place in Switzerland: “We praise Thee, O God.” At that moment, with God’s grace, a decisive step had been taken in the work of ensuring the future of both the true Catholic priesthood and the Society of St. Pius X.