The ceremonies in Saint Peter’s basilica… completely transported us, and we had the impression, when we were there, that we were no longer on this earth, for everything there seemed to be alive with faith in Our Lord… It was truly the living Church singing the praises of God, magnifying Our Lord Jesus Christ in His saints. It was all extremely beautiful. We had great esteem for the Holy Father, and it was a real privilege to spend our seminary years so close to the pope. God knows how much we were taught to love the Supreme Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ! The contact we had with those who represented the highest authority of the Church was truly edifying… One scene I remember clearly – just a little memory that sticks in my mind – was a pontifical high Mass at Saint Peter’s which was celebrated by Cardinal Merry del Val, and I can still see the impressive and edifying way he celebrated the Mass. There we saw true men of faith, men of the Church whose souls were truly animated by the Faith.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991)
Archbishop

“We all experienced the Archbishop’s simplicity, his modesty, and his discretion about himself. Truly detached, he paid little attention to himself. Truly humble, he spoke little of himself. Sometimes however, if we insisted, he would willingly share his memories, always favoring his African adventures more than any others. When he told us stories of Totor, or Felix, or of the wine cistern on the village square, or stories of the column he led during the war in search of Italians, or of the Exultet sung in Dakar, etc… he would laugh himself to tears, but he rarely, if ever, revealed anything about his interior life, or offered any mystical considerations. He guarded God’s secret action in his soul with modesty, and we could only guess at what it was by the fruit of that union which he transmitted to us… His end reflected his life: it was centered on the Faith, it was simple, discreet, modest. He didn’t leave any spiritual message, or novissa verba, last words to be remembered… What he left were a few thoughts, seemingly commonplace at the time, which today take on their full significance when we consider his death.”
(Excerpts from the preface of “In Memoriam,” notebook nº1 of Controversies)

Father Michel Simoulin (1943-2025)
Priest