sspx_consecration_homily — English transcript (Écône, 1 July 2026)

Source: Otter.ai recording “Note” by Mike Doughney (37 min), of the SSPX episcopal consecrations held at Écône on 1 July 2026. The French homily was rendered phrase-by-phrase by a live English interpreter. This is an edited transcript of that English interpretation only; the French speech is omitted. It was prepared primarily from whisper.cpp large-v3 run on loudness-normalised audio (the raw recording was very quiet, ~−36 LUFS), checked against the other local ASR outputs, and restored conservatively where the recordings or transcripts were garbled. Punctuation, paragraphing and the ## navigation headings are editorial and were not spoken. Some uncertain wording may remain.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Greeting and thanks

My lords, Excellencies, dear brothers in the priesthood, sisters, fathers, faithful. Finally, this day has arrived. What a joy to see you, so many, from all corners of the world.

I would like first of all to thank the generosity of all those who have prepared this ceremony — those who prepared it materially, with devotion — and all the fellow priests who prepared the hearts, the minds, of the faithful for this day. And I thank you, all of you who made the effort to come here today, to come to Écône. On this day, it is certainly a historical day.

What this day means

What is the meaning of this day? Why are we all here? How should we understand these consecrations? These consecrations are a very important moment in history. We cannot be indifferent to the situation. What does it mean for us?

Firstly, this ceremony should be a manifestation of faith. This is very important. We do not choose what we want to believe or do not want to believe. We cannot change, reinterpret, or reconsider articles of faith. We cannot do that. We have simply the duty to keep the faith that the Church has always taught. We must live in this faith, and we need to transmit this faith to the next generation.

If we truly love our Lord Jesus Christ, we have the duty to share these goods of the faith — essentially the faith itself. He who does not have the desire to pass on the faith, it is a sign that he does not truly live his faith. And the more the faith is attacked, the more it disappears, the more this duty becomes important — because without the faith it is impossible to please God, impossible to live well, impossible to be saved.

And today we take exceptional means, means proportioned to the needs of the Church today.

The false dilemma: faith or the Church

And so some people might consider this a simple dilemma. “You choose the faith — but you separate yourselves from the Church. You are choosing between the faith and the Church. In order to keep the faith, are you separating yourselves from the Church?”

It is a false dilemma. A false dilemma. We believe we belong to the Church primarily by the faith, by the integral profession of the faith, the faith of the Church — in the same way that we belong to a nation because we speak the same language, share the same identity, the same culture; in the same way that we belong to a family because we have the same name and live in the same house. In the same way, we belong to the Church because we have the same faith.

So it is not a real dilemma. We cannot enter into this dilemma. You cannot choose between the faith and belonging to the Church. No one can make that choice. We want the faith of the Church in order to stay inside the Church, and we want the Church by the faith, in the faith. It is very important to understand this point — even though those in front of us do not want to understand it. It is not an opinion. It is not a certain sensitivity. It is an absolute necessity.

Because we love the Pope

We are accused of not loving the Pope. We are accused of not respecting him. But it is precisely because we love the Pope, as the Vicar of Christ, as the head of the Church, that we do not want to see the Pope humiliated anymore — next to fake shepherds, representing fake religions, next to the Holy Father. How many times have you seen this in these past years?

It is precisely because we love the Vicar of Christ that we do not want any more of this humiliation for the Pope — a humiliation that falls down upon all of the Church, putting truth next to false religions.

We have explained this many times. We have explained it in almost all the languages on the face of the earth. Why is it that we are not understood? We have to admit that we now speak two different languages. We speak the language of the faith. We want the faith, in all simplicity. It is not that complicated. The Creed is not that complicated. The profession of faith that the future bishops should pronounce is not that hard to understand. It is the language of the faith, the language of tradition.

And in front of us we have a different language, a different level. They are speaking about other things. It is a language of including others, listening to others, dialogue, accompaniment. We want the faith. We accompany souls in the faith. We listen to souls in the faith, in order to convert souls to the faith. We need to stop speaking just to dialogue for the sake of dialogue. That is not what souls need today. Souls today need our Lord Jesus Christ, to find him through the faith. There is only one faith. And because of this difficulty in understanding one another, we speak, unfortunately, different languages, more and more distant one from the other.

Joy and hope: God has not abandoned us

We are living these consecrations also in hope. It is not to start more polemics — not a bit of that, not sadness. We are living these consecrations in joy and hope.

Why is that? In 1988, those who condemned the Society’s action announced that we would disappear. Why are we still here? Why did Providence keep us until this day? God has never abandoned us, and he will not abandon us. All these years have shown it, and these consecrations show it even more.

Why could God not abandon us? The reason is very simple. Because God has only one idea, one desire: to save souls. The one who applies to the letter the salvation of souls is God himself. It is his law, and he applies it to us to the letter. That is why, against all expectations, in order to save souls, he sent his Son into the world and asked his Son to become incarnate, to die on the cross, to save souls. That is God’s law for the salvation of souls.

That is why God has not abandoned us, and he will not abandon us. He will always give us means proportioned to our needs. If the order of redemption can meet obstacles on the part of men, it will never meet obstacles on the part of God. Man can place obstacles before his redemption — will they ever be sufficient to block God’s grace? The more we open ourselves, the more he is with us; he manifests it to us.

Sometimes we are weak. We can have doubts. We can become discouraged at times. But the promises of our Lord are always infallible. He will always keep them. And today he gives us a proof of this. We seek the will of God and the salvation of souls, no matter what it costs. His grace will not be lacking to us.

Charity towards souls and the Church

But above all, these consecrations have to be understood and lived in a spirit of charity — charity towards souls, and the charity of all towards the Church. The more souls are disoriented, the more we have to seek them out and support them. The more the Church is scorned, the more her divinity is hidden and obscured, the more we have to love her, the more we have to serve her.

We have to be ready to pay whatever the price to serve the Church, and to make whatever sacrifices God asks of us — even if it means we are treated as rebels. In fact, we want to love the Church and to serve the Church as a mother: a mother who is struggling, a mother who is suffering, a mother who has sometimes been betrayed; a mother who needs this help and merits this help, deserves this help.

This is why we have done this. We have received all of this from the Church, in the Church. The faith that we want to attain and in which we want to live comes to us from the Church, from our mother. And it is in the name of what she is, of who she is, that she deserves this help, that she deserves our sacrifices, that we have to do everything that we can to help her, to support her.

Can we be indifferent to one another? Can we do nothing? Can we say it is not our problem? Can the Society remain indifferent? No. That would be to betray the Church. That would be to lack in charity. We cannot do that. It is out of the question.

The precious blood

And the feast of today — the feast of the most precious blood of our Lord — very providentially expresses and summarizes perfectly the significance of these consecrations. He who does not know this blood, who does not adore it, love it, does not know our Lord, does not know the redemption. And he who does not know our Lord knows nothing, has understood nothing.

The precious blood is the unique, the only remedy — the first and the last — for all the evils that afflict humanity. Because all these evils come from sin, and the remedy for sin is the precious blood. Everything that is evil comes from sin, and from one sin particularly. It is always the same kind of sin, from the very beginning up until now: the exaltation of man. It is pride. We are soaked in this. Today this exaltation of man is everywhere — man who is a wonder, who is seemingly perfect, who seemingly has an infinite power. And in fact all of this just pushes him towards pride, and ultimately towards the despising of God and towards an apostasy — a silent apostasy. It comes from that.

The more we exalt man, the more we become crazy. We become fanatics. We become far from God. And we are far from the true perfection of man. This is a disaster. Man is full of his rights, full of himself, incapable of turning to his God, incapable of recognizing that he is in fact wounded by sin and that he needs the redemption. He needs our Lord. He needs his precious blood. That is the greatest evil — today’s war, and the war of all history. It is the source of all the other evils. This plague, this disease, is an obsessive idea that can be recognized even in the Church. Unfortunately, even in the Church, this disease blinds souls. It is not that which is going to bring the soul back to God.

And so we want to do something by these consecrations. We want to preach the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We want to continue, in a certain way, to pour his blood into our souls. It is in this blood that our Lord founds a new and eternal covenant. There is only one. Whoever thinks that there are two or three covenants no longer believes — he no longer believes in the infinite and unique power of the blood of our Lord.

And in speaking of the unique power, the value, the dignity of the precious blood of our Lord, we cannot forget where it comes from. It was formed, brought forth, furnished by the very pure blood of Our Lady. It was Our Lady who gave to the Word his humanity. It was in her most pure and immaculate blood that the humanity of our Lord was formed, and the blood of our Lord was formed.

Our Lady, who was present there with our Lord and for us, saw the blood flow from his wounds on the cross. And it is she who collects it at the foot of the cross, who keeps it, who still at the altar presents it. It is she who, at the Mass, then spreads these graces to souls. She has understood the power and the dignity of this blood. What a mystery — this association of Our Lady with her Divine Son, always at his side. You can see it. All of our faith, all of our religion, all of our love, all of it turns around our Lord, because everything turns around this blood.

The charge to the new bishops

My brothers in the priesthood, in just a few moments you will receive the fullness of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear a few words about what you will have to defend, what you will have to preach. What an honour you will have. What responsibility you will have — preaching redemption by the word and by applying it through the sacraments: a scandal for the Jews and madness for the pagans, especially for a world like today, a world that is apostate. They cannot understand the wisdom of the cross. This fake humanism leads to indifference and apostasy. This humanism you must always have in your sights, in all your preaching.

What advice can we give you today? It is so delicate, so important, so great. What advice can I give you? I will let the Lord speak for me, just by quoting the Gospel. What advice did the Lord give to the apostles? “Behold, I send you forth as sheep among wolves.” A beautiful image of our Lord and of God, and also a beautiful image of the bishop. You need to preach above all by the innocence of your life, the purity of your life — that will give you the moral authority for what you are going to preach.

To be a lamb also means to be docile to the will of God — the same way that our Lord is constantly submitted to the will of his Father, the same way you have to be submitted, even more so, to see God’s will and to do it. But our Lord, who is the Lamb of God, is also the Lion of Judah. How could someone be both a lamb and a lion? On one hand, our Lord is so docile in his love for his Father. On the other hand, he never yields ground to the world. And you will always face the battle against the spirit of the world. The bishop has to be docile to the will of God, and in the same way has to fight for the rights of God in the world — and not for the rights of man. The lion never runs away, never steps back, and the lion never gives ground to the spirit of the world. Do not turn backwards. Do not go backwards. This sacrament will give you an irresistible force.

At this moment, in the whole world, there are people who watch you, who listen to you. In thirty or forty years, may they be able to say of you: they never gave way, they never stepped back, they never gave way to the spirit of the world; they only bent their knees before the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what we hope they will say about you at your death.

Our Lord gives you another bit of advice: to be simple as doves, but why also as serpents? How can a bishop be like a serpent? To be able to have discernment, to understand, to avoid duplicity, to avoid the ambiguity and falseness of the world. Your worst enemies are not going to attack you directly. They are always going to try to come in from the side, gradually, in a very comfortable way, attacking a Christian life, complying with the world. You have to know that. You have to understand this danger. Take a step back, pray, observe, ask for advice, evaluate; do not move, wait before you react — and then, when you have to act, react, and the Holy Ghost will give you direction in order to act correctly. And you will have to come back, to take a step back. Because you have to be like a serpent, like a snake — avoiding ambiguity, avoiding falseness. Speak, preach, always simply, without duplicity, without fear, without ambiguity. You need to be able to discern the duplicity of others.

What else does the Lord say to us? “The brother will deliver up his brother, the father his son” — because of me, because of my name. The Lord says: do not fear them. Do not fear these things. As the Lord says, “Let me do it, let me judge; I will intervene myself when it is necessary.” There is only one real testimony: the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. “All those who have acknowledged me before men, I will acknowledge them before my Father.” Those who have acknowledged, professed my name, my nature, my divinity, my royalty.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the world.” When you are consecrated, our Lord will give you a sword — the sword of the Gospel, the sword of the faith. It is by the faith, and only by the faith, that we overcome the world. The world has already been overcome by the faith. From today on, you will be a victim of the Lord, in order to use this word of God to combat the world. “I have come to set a man against his father.” He cannot be understood by everyone. He cannot get along with everyone. That is a tragedy. Is there something here that is not understandable? It is the Gospel; it is the cross. The Lord has given you the way through the Gospels.

Two model bishops: St Cyril and Archbishop Lefebvre

And before we finish, we cannot forget today to commend ourselves to all the holy bishops of the Church — among these thousands of holy bishops in history. I would like to select one from the history of the Church, and one who is closer to us.

The first is St Cyril of Alexandria. The liturgy says about him the most beautiful things one could say about a bishop. It eulogizes him in many ways. He was solicitous only for the faith. What a beautiful programme for the life of a bishop. He was a great defender of the maternity of Our Lady. And the liturgy adds to this sentence: because of this, because of his solicitude for the faith, he suffered. It is important to understand — we cannot defend the faith integrally, always, without suffering. He was not ashamed of our Lord, he was not ashamed of our Lady; he suffered for the people.

Another bishop, who is a model much closer to us, not canonized yet: His Excellency Archbishop Lefebvre. About him we could also say that his only care was the faith, and because of that he suffered much. And this faith he saw well how it was synthesized and encapsulated in the Mass, in the Holy Mass, and therefore in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. How could he do this? How could he know this, so many years before all these things developed — the cause of the crisis? How did he have such clairvoyance, such strength? That is the wisdom of the cross. And the cross which he carried was the source of his wisdom. Today, more than ever, his spirit is among us. He prays for us, he prays for you, especially when he shows you the path that you have to follow through the wisdom of the cross.

But the disciples are not superior to their master. If he was treated this way, if he suffered this way, we must expect the same thing. Thirty-eight years ago, he was condemned.

Closing

Do we have to look for anything else? Should we be afraid? Should we weaken? This question is very important. I let our Lord speak again. It is he who will respond. “Blessed are you when they insult you, when they persecute you, when they say all sorts of things falsely against you — because of me, because of my kingship, because of my rights, because of my law, because of my faith, because of my commandment. Rejoice, be joyful, because your reward will be great in heaven.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.