About Respice Stellam & Regina Martyrum House
We are traditional Catholics based at Regina Martyrum House, seeking to practise the Catholic Faith without compromise with Liberalism or Modernism, in the spirit of Archbishop Lefebvre.
Founded by Bishop Richard Williamson in 2015, Regina Martyrum House is the home of his apostolate. Respice Stellam serves as its online arm, preserving and making available the writings, conferences, and apostolic work associated with Bishop Williamson, and helping to continue that work in fidelity to the traditional Catholic Faith. Our apostolate stands in continuity with the principles expressed by Archbishop Lefebvre in his Declaration of 21 November 1974. 1
Following his expulsion from the Society of St Pius X in 2012, Bishop Williamson continued his episcopal work, assisting priests and faithful in England and abroad who wished to maintain the traditional Faith and Sacraments.
The name Respice Stellam recalls the counsel of St Bernard of Clairvaux: “If the winds of temptation arise… look to the star, call upon Mary.” Under the patronage of Stella Maris, Our Lady Star of the Sea, we aim to provide continuity and access to materials that might otherwise remain scattered or difficult to obtain.
The site includes:
- Eleison Comments
- Letters from Broadstairs
- News and events of the apostolate
- Information regarding Holy Mass
- Translations and archival material
For further information, please write to – respicestellam2015@gmail.com
- The declaration remains a reference point for many Catholics seeking to remain faithful to the perennial teaching of the Church. ↩︎
We adhere to His Grace, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s Declaration on 21st November 1974:
We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth.
We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.
All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.
No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.
“But though we,” says St. Paul, “or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:8).
Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.
It is impossible to modify profoundly the lex orandi without modifying the lex credendi. To the Novus Ordo Missae correspond a new catechism, a new priesthood, new seminaries, a charismatic Pentecostal Church – all things opposed to orthodoxy and the perennial teaching of the Church.
This Reformation, born of Liberalism and Modernism, is poisoned through and through; it derives from heresy and ends in heresy, even if all its acts are not formally heretical. It is therefore impossible for any conscientious and faithful Catholic to espouse this Reformation or to submit to it in any way whatsoever.
The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.
That is why, without any spirit of rebellion, bitterness or resentment, we pursue our work of forming priests, with the timeless Magisterium as our guide. We are persuaded that we can render no greater service to the Holy Catholic Church, to the Sovereign Pontiff and to posterity.
That is why we hold fast to all that has been believed and practiced in the faith, morals, liturgy, teaching of the catechism, formation of the priest and institution of the Church, by the Church of all time; to all these things as codified in those books which saw day before the Modernist influence of the Council. This we shall do until such time that the true light of Tradition dissipates the darkness obscuring the sky of Eternal Rome.
By doing this, with the grace of God and the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and that of St. Joseph and St. Pius X, we are assured of remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to all the successors of Peter, and of being the fideles dispensatores mysteriorum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi in Spiritu Sancto. Amen.