Admit Bearer After Denying the Catholic Faith
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Bishop Bernard Fellay, acting as the authorized agent for the Society of Saint Pius X as its Superior General, is seeking admission as a "full, conscious and active" participant in the One World Ecumenical Church of conciliarism. He has been given a ticket for group admission to the big conciliar circus as a full member of what he himself once called within my very hearing on Sunday, November 7, 2004, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, as "the conciliar zoo." That ticket can be used for admission, however, only by denying the Catholic Faith and embracing the false religion of conciliarism, including its "new way of understanding" what its leaders believe is the "Church's relationship with the faith of Israel."
Kurt "Cardinal" Koch, the President of the "Pontifical" Council on Promoting Christian Unity and the the head of the Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, following in the grand footsteps of his predecessor, Walter "Cardinal" Kasper (see
Forever Prowling the World Seeking the Ruin of Souls, part 1 and Forever Prowling the World Seeking The Ruin of Souls, part 2), has emphasized yet again that the Society of Saint Pius X must accept the "new doctrine" on the Jews as annunciated by the "Second" Vatican Council:
ROME (CNS) -- The Catholic
Church's relationship to Judaism as taught by the Second Vatican Council
and the interpretations and developments of that teaching by subsequent
popes, "are binding on a Catholic," said the Vatican official
responsible for relations with the Jews.
Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Commission for
Religious Relations with the Jews and a member of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to reporters May 16 after delivering a
speech on Catholic-Jewish relations in light of Vatican II's declaration
"Nostra Aetate" on the church's relations with non-Christian religions.
The afternoon speech followed Cardinal Koch's participation in a meeting
of the doctrinal congregation to examine the latest progress in the
Vatican's reconciliation talks with the traditionalist Society of St.
Pius X.
"There are questions to clarify in discussions with this community. I
can't say more than that," he told reporters, echoing a Vatican
statement saying the reconciliation talks are ongoing.
In addition to the highly publicized position of Bishop Richard
Williamson, an SSPX bishop who denies the Holocaust, public statements
by the society's superior general, Bishop Bernard Fellay, leave in doubt
whether the society as a whole accepts the entirety of "Nostra Aetate,"
including its condemnations of anti-Semitism and of the idea that the
Jews were to blame for the death of Jesus.
"All the doctrinal decisions of the church are binding on a Catholic,
including the Second Vatican Council and all its texts," Cardinal Koch
said when asked if the SSPX would be expected to accept all the
teachings of Vatican II. "The 'Nostra Aetate' declaration of the Second
Vatican Council is a clear decree and is important for every Catholic,"
he added.
At the same time, Cardinal Koch said, "it is very necessary to make
clear the difference between the position of the Society of St. Pius X
and the negation of the Shoah (the Holocaust), which is a position that
has no place in the Catholic Church. It is very clear."
Following the revelation of Bishop Williamson's comments about the
Holocaust, SSPX leaders issued a statement saying his position in no way
reflected the views of the society. "I'm very happy about this,"
Cardinal Koch said. "The Holy Father has spoken clearly about this
position of Williamson, that it's not possible, there is no place for
deniers in the Catholic Church."
In his speech at Rome's Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas,
Cardinal Koch said "Nostra Aetate" is "the 'foundation document' and the
'Magna Carta' of the dialogue of the Roman Catholic Church with
Judaism."
The declaration highlighted the Jewish roots of Christianity and took
"an unambiguous position against every form of anti-Semitism," he said.
The church's theological reflection on its Jewish roots, as well as on
the relationship between God's covenant with the Jewish people and the
new covenant instituted by Christ have been developed further and
authoritatively by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, he said.
God's plan of salvation for humanity began with his covenant with the
Jewish people and if Christianity ignores that, he said, "it is in
danger of losing its location within salvation history."
Cardinal Koch said that for Pope Benedict, the key to the theological
understanding of the importance of a relationship with Judaism and Jews
is that the Bible is one book detailing the entire history of salvation.
While Catholics profess that, in the end, all salvation will be
accomplished through Jesus Christ, "it does not necessarily follow that
the Jews are excluded from God's salvation because they do not believe
in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and the son of God," the
cardinal said. "That the Jews are participants in God's salvation is
theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without
confessing Christ explicitly is and remains an unfathomable divine
mystery."
The cardinal said, "The Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports
any specific institutional mission work directed toward the Jews," but
that does not exclude Christians bearing witness to their faith "in an
unassuming and humble manner." (Catholics must accept Vatican II, including on Judaism, cardinal says.)
Although some have made much of "Cardinal" Koch's statement that the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council are binding, this is (big yawn from a very, very tired man who's getting sleep deprived by this insanity) nothing new. Giovanni Montini/Paul VI said the exact same thing on December 8, 1965:
APOSTOLIC BRIEF "IN SPIRITU SANCTO' FOR THE CLOSING
OF THE COUNCIL - DECEMBER 8, 1965, read at the closing ceremonies of
Dec. 8 by Archbishop Pericle Felici, general secretary of the council.
The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council,
assembled in the Holy Spirit and under the protection of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, whom we have declared Mother of the Church, and of St.
Joseph, her glorious spouse, and of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul,
must be numbered without doubt among the greatest events of the Church.
In fact it was the largest in the number of Fathers who came to the seat
of Peter from every part of the world, even from those places where the
hierarchy has been very recently established. It was the richest
because of the questions which for four sessions have been discussed
carefully and profoundly. And last of all it was the most opportune,
because, bearing in mind the necessities of the present day, above all
it sought to meet the pastoral needs and, nourishing the flame of
charity, it has made a great effort to reach not only the Christians
still separated from communion with the Holy See, but also the whole
human family.
At last all which regards the holy ecumenical council has, with the
help of God, been accomplished and all the constitutions, decrees,
declarations and votes have been approved by the deliberation of the
synod and promulgated by us. Therefore we decided to close for all
intents and purposes, with our apostolic authority, this same ecumenical
council called by our predecessor, Pope John XXIII, which opened
October 11, 1962, and which was continued by us after his death.
We decided moreover that all that has been established
synodally is to be religiously observed by all the faithful, for the
glory of God and the dignity of the Church and for the tranquillity and
peace of all men. We have approved and established these things,
decreeing that the present letters are and remain stable and valid, and
are to have legal effectiveness, so that they be disseminated and obtain
full and complete effect, and so that they may be fully convalidated by
those whom they concern or may concern now and in the future; and so
that, as it be judged and described, all efforts contrary to these
things by whomever or whatever authority, knowingly or in ignorance be
invalid and worthless from now on.
Given in Rome at St. Peter's, under the [seal of the] ring of the
fisherman, Dec. 8, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, the year 1965, the third year of our pontificate. (APOSTOLIC BRIEF - IN SPIRITU SANCTO.)
Nothing new here, folks. "Cardinal" Koch's comments of two years ago concerning the "binding" nature of the "Second" Vatican Council is nothing new.
It is, however, not insignificant that "Cardinal" Koch made a point of reiterating some of the standard, boilerplate apostasies just a day after the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Koch is a member, met to discuss Bishop Fellay's response to the "doctrinal preamble." One of the sticking points that might very well make me that monkey's uncle that I made reference to in Monkey Wrenches is the matter of the conciliar church's newfound "relationship" with the "faith of Israel." In other words, Bishop Fellay and those in the Society of Saint Pius X who are ready to follow him into "full communion" with the counterfeit church of conciliarism must adopt a "new language" in dealing on matters relating to Judaism that is in full accord with the "new theology." You want plainer words? Sure. Deny the Catholic Faith. That's your price of admission, Bishop Fellay.
Consider these key paragraphs from Kurt "Cardinal" Koch's address to at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, The Angelicum, that was co-sponsored by by the
university’s John Paul II Center for Interreligious Dialogue and the
Russell Berrie Foundation, a Talmudic organization, in Rome on Thursday, May 17, 2012, that states the convoluted conciliar doctrine just as it has been stated before by Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger and his own infamous predecessor as the president of the "Pontifical" Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the head of the Commission on Religious Relations with the Jews, Walter "Cardinal" Kasper:
The
Declaration of the Second Vatican Council on Judaism, that is the
fourth Article of “Nostra aetate”, stood, as has surely become clear, in
a decidedly theological framework. That is not meant to claim that all
theological questions which arise in the relationship of Christianity
and Judaism were solved there. They did receive there a promising
stimulus, but require further theological reflection. That is also
indicated by the fact that this Council document, unlike all other texts
of the Second Vatican Council, could not in its notes refer back to
preceding doctrinal documents and decisions of previous councils. Of
course there had been earlier magisterial texts which focussed on
Judaism, but “Nostra aetate” provides the first theological overview of
the relationship of the Catholic Church to the Jews.
Because it was
such a breakthrough, the Council text is not infrequently
over–interpreted, and things are read into it which it does not in fact
contain. To name an important example: That the covenant that God made
with his people Israel persists and is never invalidated – although this
confession is true – cannot be read into “Nostra aetate”. This
statement was instead first made with full clarity by Pope John Paul II
when he said during a meeting with Jewish representatives in Mainz on 17
November 1980 that the Old Covenant had never been revoked by God: “The
first dimension of this dialogue, namely the encounter between God’s
people of the Old Covenant which has never been revoked by God and that
of the New Covenant is at the same time a dialogue within our church, as
it were between the first and second book of her bible.”
This
statement too has given rise to misunderstandings, for example the
implication that if the Jews remain in a valid covenant relationship
with God, there must be two different ways of salvation, namely the
Jewish path of salvation without Christ and the path of salvation for
all other people, which leads through Jesus Christ. As obvious as this
answer seems to be at first glance, it is not able to solve
satisfactorily at least the highly complex theological question how the
Christian belief in the universal salvific significance of Jesus Christ
can coherently be conceptually combined with the equally clear
conviction of faith in the never–revoked covenant of God with Israel.
That the church and Judaism cannot be represented as “two parallel ways
to salvation”, but that the church must “witness to Christ as the
Redeemer for all” was established already in the second document
published by the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the
Jews in 1985. The Christian faith stands or falls by the confession that
God wants to lead all people to salvation, that he follows this path in
Jesus Christ as the universal mediator of salvation, and that there is
no “other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to
be saved” (Acts 4:12). The concept of two parallel paths of salvation
would in the least call into question or even endanger the fundamental
understanding of the Second Vatican Council that Jews and Christians do
not belong to two different peoples of God, but that they form one
people of God.
On the one hand, from the Christian confession there
can be only one path to salvation. However, on the other hand, it does
not necessarily follow that the Jews are excluded from God’s salvation
because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Israel and
the Son of God. Such a claim would find no support in the
soteriological understanding of St Paul, who in the Letter to the Romans
definitively negates the question he himself has posed, whether God has
repudiated his own people: “For the grace and call that God grants are
irrevocable” (Rom 11:29). That the Jews are participants in God’s
salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible
without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable
divine mystery. It is therefore no accident that Paul’s soteriological
reflections in Romans 9–11 on the irrevocable redemption of Israel
against the background of the Christ–mystery culminate in a mysterious
doxology: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways” (Rom
11:33). It is likewise no accident that Pope Benedict XVI in the second
part of his book on Jesus of Nazareth allows Bernard of Clairvaux to say
in reference to the problem confronting us, that for the Jews “a
determined point in time has been fixed, which cannot be anticipated”.
This
complexity is also attested by the re–formulation of the Good Friday
Prayer for the Jews in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite which
was published in February 2008. Although the new Good Friday prayer in
the form of a plea to God confesses the universality of salvation in
Jesus Christ within an eschatological horizon (“as the fullness of the
peoples enters your church”), it has been vigorously criticised on the
part of Jews – and of course also of Christians – and misunderstood as a
call to explicit mission to the Jews. It is easy to understand that the
term ‘mission to the Jews’ is a very delicate and sensitive matter for
the Jews because in their eyes it involves the very existence of Israel
itself. On the other hand however, this question also proves to be
awkward for us Christians too, because for us the universal salvific
significance of Jesus Christ and consequently the universal mission of
the church are of fundamental significance. The Christian church is
naturally obligated to perceive its evangelisation task in respect of
the Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to
the nations. In concrete terms this means that – in contrast to several
fundamentalist and evangelical movements – the Catholic Church neither
conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed
towards Jews. In his detailed examination of the question of so–called
mission to the Jews Cardinal Karl Lehmann rightly discerned that on
closer investigation one finds “as good as no institutional mission to
the Jews in Catholic mission history”. “We have an abundant share in
other forms of inappropriate attitudes towards the Jews and therefore
have no right to elevate ourselves above others. But in respect to a
specific and exclusive ‘mission to the Jews’ there should be no false
consternation or unjustified self–accusation in this regard.” The
in–principle rejection of an institutional mission to the Jews does not
on the other hand exclude that Christians bear witness to their faith in
Jesus Christ also to Jews, but they should do so in an unassuming and
humble manner, particularly in view of the great tragedy of the Shoah. (Phony "Cardinal" Koch on Jewish-Catholic dialogue since Nostra Aetate.)
Punch this ticket, Bishop Fellay as your price of admission as a "legitimate," functioning bishop in the counterfeit church of conciliarism?
One can see in in "Cardinal" Koch's remarks just how the conciliar doctrines, such as they are, have "evolved" from one to the other, teaching us yet again that nothing is stable or secure in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, including its doctrines, which mutate over the course of time as the nature of error requires.
Front and center, obviously, in Koch's remarks is the admission that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's proclamation that the Old Covenant had never been "revoked by God" was something "new" that was contained in the the "Second' Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate, October 28, 1965. In an incredible feat of illogic, Koch, repeating the line that has been invented to justify Wojtyla/John Paul II's apostasy, asserts that both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant exist in a "dialogue' with each other. This is opposed to the following dogmatic statements:
It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of
the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites,
sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify
something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship
at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them,
ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever,
even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and
submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in
Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet
it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the
promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were
believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the
promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed
without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who
after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other
requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and
not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday
they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in
the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to
cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope
in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal
salvation. Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which
can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another
remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are
snatched from the domination of the Devil and adopted among the sons of
God, it advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or
eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people,
but it should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently, but
so ,that, when danger of death is imminent, they be baptized in the form
of the Church, early without delay, even by a layman or woman, if a
priest should be lacking, just as is contained more fully in the decree
of the Armenians. . . .
It firmly believes, professes, and
proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only
pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become
participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire
which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless
before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that
the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those
remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for
salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and
exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one,
whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the
name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and
unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442.)
28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the
Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the
Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve,
mother of all the living. [28]
"And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced
side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is
now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is
that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.
29.And first of all, by the death of our
Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been
abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries,
enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole
world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine
Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the
sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34]
"To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the
Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the
Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one
Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the
innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently
from top to bottom." [35]
30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37]
and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family
in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that
our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church.
"For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching
of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over
the gentiles"; [38]
by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces,
which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His
mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger
was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual
graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the
fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above
all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into
possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical
Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
There is no room for any "dialogue" between the Mosaic Covenant and the New and Eternal Covenant that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and was ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday as He breathed His last and the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom:
Let that be your judgment about the
synagogue, too. For they brought the books of Moses and the prophets
along with them into the synagogue, not to honor them but to outrage
them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets knew not
Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could
they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize
their Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of
their impiety? And so it is that we must hate both them and
their synagogue all the more because of their offensive treatment of
those holy men." (Saint John Chrysostom, Fourth Century, A.D., Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews.)
Many, I know, respect the Jews and think
that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten
to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is
no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness.
Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets.
"You had a harlot's brow; you became shameless before all". Where a
harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is
not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a
lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: "Your house has become
for me the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but
"of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house, I have
cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what
hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes
the dwelling of demons.
(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they,
too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says
so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my
Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know
my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of
God?
(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if
they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who
should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling
of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now
on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor
as a holy place. (Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews)
Take a look at these words and
compare them to those of Ratzinger/Benedict or lieutenants of his such as Kurt Koch. These few paragraphs from
Saint John Chrysostom are about as cogent a rebuttal to conciliarism's false, contradictory doctrines about the Jews
as one is ever going to
find. Who pays synagogues honor as holy places? Joseph
Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, that's who. He is an apostate. He is a true
anti-Semite as he is content to leave people steeped in a dead,
superseded religion in their false beliefs until the moments of their
deaths, showing that he is their enemy unto eternity, not their friend
as he is opposing that which can effect their salvation, namely, their
conversion to the true Faith.
Alas, Catholics have become so accustomed to apostasy
that they do not even blink when a putative "pope" violates the First
and Second Commandments by entering into a synagogue, no less entering
into that place of false worship without exhorting anyone that they need
to the convert to the true Faith to save their immortal souls. Gone
from the Catholic consciousness of most baptized Catholics are the
truths written by Bishop George Hay over 200 years ago now::
The spirit of Christ, which dictated the Holy
Scriptures, and the spirit which animates and guides the Church of
Christ, and teaches her all truth, is the same; and therefore in
all ages her conduct on this point has been uniformly the same as what
the Holy Scripture teaches. She has constantly forbidden her children to
hold any communication, in religious matters, with those who are
separated from her communion; and this she has sometimes done under the
most severe penalties. In the apostolical canons, which are of
very ancient standing, and for the most part handed down from the
apostolical age, it is thus decreed: "If any bishop, or priest, or deacon, shall join in prayers with heretics, let him be suspended from Communion". (Can. 44)
Also, "If any clergyman or laic shall go
into the synagogue of the Jews, or the meetings of heretics, to join in
prayer with them, let him be deposed, and deprived of communion". (Can. 63) (Bishop George Hay, (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)
Mr. Frank Rega, a Third Order Franciscan who is the author of many books, including Saint Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims, sent an observation to me about another passage in Kurt "Cardinal" Koch's address that he has given his most kind permission to use on this site:
On May 16, Cardinal Koch delivered
a major speech in Rome on Jewish-Catholic "dialogue" since the
Council. (link below). In it he made two rather astonishing
observations: First, he said:
"In his detailed examination of the question of so–called mission to the
Jews Cardinal Karl Lehmann rightly discerned that on closer investigation one
finds “as good as no institutional mission to the Jews in Catholic mission
history”.
Why then is St. Paul called the Apostle to
the Gentiles? Because the first 12 Apostles of the Holy Roman Catholic
Church were Apostles primarily to the Jews! The mission to the Jews is the
Church's seminal mission, one that has never been "revoked."
These
twelve Jesus sent: commanding them, saying: Go ye not into the way of the
Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel (Matthew 10: 5-6)
Secondly, from
Koch speech on May 16: "The in–principle rejection of an institutional mission
to the Jews does not on the other hand exclude that Christians bear witness to
their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews, but they should do so in an unassuming
and humble manner, particularly in view of the great tragedy of the
Shoah."
Does that describe the "unassuming" way St. Peter spoke
to the Jews on the day of Pentecost? No, here is what the first
Pope said:
Therefore let all the
house of Israel know most certainly, that God hath made both Lord and
Christ, this same Jesus, whom you have crucified. [37] Now when they had heard these things, they had compunction in their heart,
and said to Peter, and to the rest of the apostles: What shall we do, men
and brethren? [38] But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2: 36-38.)
I thank Mr. Rega for his fine observations and his permission to use them on this site.
God gave the Jews over thirty-seven years to respond to the preaching of the Gospel that began on Pentecost Sunday. They
persisted in their unbelief and hatred as they persecuted the infant
Church. As prophesied by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Jerusalem was destroyed by the very
Romans to whom they had handed over Our Lord as they, prompted by our
sins having transgressed time, and blasphemed him and rejoiced in his death.
While God left Jews to their own devices after the destruction of Jerusalem, Holy Mother Church has been by no means indifferent to their conversion.
To wit, Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., saw it as his specific mission to convert Jews and Muslims on Iberian Peninsula and in southern France in the late-Fourteenth and early Fifteenth Centuries.
Having been converted to the true Faith because Our Blessed Mother herself appeared to him in the Church of San Andrea della Fratte on January 20, 1842, in the image of her Miraculous Medal that he wore only to disprove its power to a friend who had challenged him to wear it, the Catholic-hating Jew named Alphonse Ratisbonne became a Jesuit priest and then asked permission from Pope Pius IX in 1855 to establish a mission in Palestine to seek the conversion of his fellow Jews. He spent the last twenty-nine years of his life in Palestine to precisely this as his brother Theodore, also a convert and a priest, was given permission to organize a group called the Fathers of Sion in Paris, France. Father Maria-Alphonse Ratisbonne actually worked with his brother in Paris before going to Palestine.
The Catholic Church has never ceased praying for the conversion of the Jews and she has never given any credence to the "enduring validity" of the Old Covenant or to the Modernist assertion that there is "one covenant in two forms."
As noted earlier, the contradictions in Kurt "Cardinal" Koch's speech two days ago at the Angelicum are very familiar. His "pope" and his predecessor both said the same thing in 2000 upon the issuance of Dominus Iesus (August 6, 2000):
The postconciliar Vatican has not been altogether straightforward
regarding the Jews' need for conversion. either. The fashionable
doctrine these days--again, contrary to all prior papal teaching--is the
claim that the Old Covenant that God established with the Jews, far
from having been superseded by the New Covenant of Christ and the
Church, is in fact still in effect. Thus we have John Paul II telling a
Jewish audience: "The first dimension of this dialogue, that is, the
meeting between the people of the Old Covenant, never revoked by God,
and that of the New Covenant , is at the same time a dialogue within our
Church, that is to say, between the first and second part of her
Bible." "Jews and Christians," he went on to say, "as children of
Abraham, are called to be a blessing to the world" by "committing
themselves together for peace and justice among all men and peoples."
Such statements seem impossible to reconcile with the Church's divine
commandment to convert the Jews for the salvation of their souls. In
fact, Cardinal Kasper, whom the Pope has also made the President of the
Pontifical Council for Religious Relations with the Jews, has repudiated
the conversion of Jews as explicitly as he has repudiated the return of
the Protestant dissidents to the one true Church:
[T]he old theory of substitution is gone since the Second Vatican Council. for us Christians today the covenant with the Jewish people is a living heritage, a living reality.... Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, i.e., the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises.... Thus mission, in this strict sense, cannot be used with regard to Jews, who believe in the true and one God. Therefore--and this is characteristic--there does not exist any Catholic missionary organization for Jews. There is dialogue with Jews; no mission in this proper sense of the word towards them. (Address at 17th meeting of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, New York, May 1, 2001, quoted in Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade. Remnant Press, 2002, pp. 203-204.)
Once again, Kasper received no correction from the Pope or any Vatican dicastery [Thomas A. Droleskey interjection here: and neither has Kasper received any correction from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI for saying similar things repeatedly in the course of the past three and one-half years!]. On the contrary, he has received only a promotion to his current position of authority. What can one conclude but that the Vatican has de facto abandoned the conversion of the Jews, and the return of the Orthodox and Protestants to Catholic unity. (Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade. Remnant Press, 2002, pp. 203-204.)
Cardinal Ratzinger himself began backpedaling almost immediately at the September 5 [2000] press conference itself. According to the Italian bishops' newspaper Avvenire, when asked whether DI [Dominus Iesus] taught that the Jews could not be saved without faith in Christ, Ratzinger offered the following non-answer: "Every Catholic theologian recognizes the salvific role of that people." Granted that "salvation is of the Jews," as our Lord taught us (John 4:22), but as He says immediately afterward: "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth"--that is, the Messiah has arrived and shall be adored by those who worship truly. Having rejected the Messiah, however, what "salvific role" does modern Israel play today? When pressed on whether an individual Jew could be saved without recognizing Christ, the Cardinal replied that "it is not necessary that he recognize Christ the savior, and it is not given to us to explore how salvation, the gift of God, can come even for him." Ratzinger went on to say that "Christ is a reality that changes history, even for those who do not recognize him." Are we to take from this that Christ saves the Jews whether they recognize him or not, simply because His existence "changes history"?
However, it appears that at the same press conference Ratzinger gave a more nuanced answer, apparently in response to another questioner:
[We]e are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it. However...Christian history affects us all, even those who are opposed or cannot encounter Christ. This is a reality that transforms history; it is something important for others, without violating their conscience.
Now, which is it--that a Jew need not recognize Christ in order to be saved, or that a Jew need not recognize Christ if there is an "insurmountable impediment"? Note also that Cardinal Ratzinger here repeats the suggestion that the mere presence of Christ in history "affects" Jews who reject him. What does this mean? One thing all these remarks mean is a diminution of the impact of DI's teaching that Christ is the sole mediator of the only way of salvation for all men--a teaching DI itself nuances nearly to the point of irrelevance.
Since the publication of DI was supposed to be the occasion for clarifying confusion about Christ and salvation, why not end a long period of postconciliar confusion by stating forthrightly what the Church always taught before the Council: "Yes, objectively speaking, a Jew must come to Christ and be baptized in order to be saved, just like everyone else in the human race; for Christ is God and He commissioned His Church to make disciples of all nations. This is what the Catholic Church has always taught and always will teach." Instead, Cardinal Ratzinger immediately focused on "insurmountable impediments." And what is an "insurmountable impediment" in the first place? Is this notion something even broader than the ever-expanding category of "invincible ignorance"? Cardinal Ratzinger gave no indications. However, if one of Rabbi Toaff's own predecessors as chief rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Israel Zolli, was able to follow God's grace into the Roman Catholic Church immediately after World War II, then why not Rabbi Toaff himself or any other Jew alive today--especially after thirty-five years of "Jewish-Christian" dialogue," which was supposed to engender greater understanding of the Church on the part of Jews?
Or is the mere fact of being a Jew, immersed in Jewish religion and culture, and facing ostracism if one converts, now to be considered an "insurmountable impediment" to conversion? If so, then no Jew from St. Paul to the present day has ever been subjectively obliged to join the Church; nor has anyone else in religious, emotional or cultural circumstances that would make conversion difficult. But this would mean that the only people obliged to become Catholics are those who would not find conversion unduly burdensome. Everyone else has an "insurmountable impediment." That is the very thesis being promoted by some of the more liberal exponents of "invincible ignorance," who speak of "unconscious psychological blocks" and other elaborate pseudo-scientific excuses for not becoming a Catholic that have proliferated since Vatican II. There is very little place for the power of God's grace in this kind of semi-Pelagian thinking. We are not here contending that Cardinal Ratzinger himself actually teaches anything like this, but in view of the veiled nature of his remarks it is difficult to know what he is teaching. A clarification of DI's "clarifications" is already urgently needed. (Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade. Remnant Press, 2002, pp. 369-372.)
Those who seek to make sense of the contradictions inherent in the conciliar documents and statements such as those made by Kurt "Cardinal" Koch two days ago should remember that the Catholic Church speaks to us clearly and without ambiguity or contradiction:
For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
The ambiguities and contradictions of conciliarism have had to be justified by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI by means of his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity." This fundamental building block of Modernism has been used by the false "pontiffs" to justify the "new relationship with the faith of Israel" and to make advertence to the crimes against Jews committed by agents of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime:
It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed, and on the other hand, that a reflection on faith also requires that this faith be lived. In this regard, the programme that Pope John XXIII proposed was extremely demanding, indeed, just as the synthesis of fidelity and dynamic is demanding.. . .
Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005)
This contention is, of course, is blasphemous as it means that Saint Peter, our first pope, would have to refrain from seeking the conversion of the Jews today as he did on the first Pentecost Sunday. It is also a false reading of history as no crime against any group of people is the equal of the crime of Deicide that our sins imposed upon the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King.
Kurt Koch's contention that it was the "anti-Semitism" of Catholics that was one of the root causes of the Nazi crimes against Jews and others also false and self-serving as professional victimologists among Talmudists have sought to use those crimes as the means to "change" what they think is the teaching of the Catholic Church about their dead, superseded religion and and to use adherence to the conciliar line about it in order to bludgeon Catholics who hold to the truth as veritable purveyors of "hate."
It was not Catholic "anti-Semitism" that was a root cause of Hitler's crimes. Holy Mother Church did not round up the people who were in the concentration camps. She did not exterminate those who were killed
there. Catholicism had nothing whatsoever to do with the crimes of the
Third Reich, which occurred precisely because of the systematic
de-Catholicization of Europe that took place in the wake of the
Protestant Revolution against the Social Reign of Christ the King and in
the wake of the rise of naturalistic ideologies and philosophies of Judeo-Masonry that
permitted the ancient enemies of the Church to spit on the Holy Faith
and to promote the "rights of man" to the exclusion of the sacred right
of the Catholic Church to be recognized as the true religion by the
civil state. It is precisely because Catholicism was rejected and mocked
and vilified that the murderous likes of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and
Maximilian Robespierre and Otto von Bismarck and Vladimir Lenin and
Adolf Hitler, among many others, including the leaders of the Italian
Risorgimento, arose to take their place in the history of petty tyrants
and thugs who have attempted to wipe the Holy Faith from the face of
this earth and to replace It with their own diabolical "programs" for
the "better" world.
Kurt "Cardinal" Koch is completely wrong. So is his boss, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.
One can have his ticket punched to gain "full, active and conscious participation" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism only by denying the Catholic Faith.
Let us ask Our Lady, she who is the Queen of the Apostles, the men who began the missionary work of the Church on the first Pentecost Sunday by seeking the conversion of the Jews, a missionary work that can never be "lost" or that has any kind of "expiration" date, for the graces to remain steadfast in our defense of the honor and glory and majesty of God when he is so blasphemed and offended by the words and deeds of men who bend over backwards to please non-Catholics as they fear not to offend Him by esteeming the symbols and the places of false religions and as they dare to assert that the "beliefs" of these false religions can contribute to the "better world."
Conciliarism is a work of blasphemy against God the Holy Ghost, Whose Novena we began yesterday.
We must make much reparation for our own sins as we seek each week to be cleansed in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance at the hands of true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism at all and as we give all of our efforts to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Peter Celestine, pray for us.
Saint Pudentiana, pray for us.
Saint Bernardine of Siena, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
