Apostasy: A Model Of "Reconciliation"

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As noted four days ago in Defaming The English Martyrs, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes in a concept of "unity" that accepts as legitimate the "traditions" of various schismatic and heretical sects even though those "traditions" stemmed in whole or in part as a result of a rejection and/or corruption of the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Faith. Ratzinger/Benedict's approaches to the Orthodox and the Anglicans and even the Communist Chinese rump church are efforts to put into practice his apostate view of "unity" that deviates from the teaching of the Catholic Church and flies directly in the face of such papal encyclical letters as Pope Leo XIII's Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894, and Pope Pius XII's Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943. The contrast between conciliarism and Catholicism could not be clearer:

"We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne, August 19, 2005.)

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request.  It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love.  The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 20, 1894.)

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict believes in a concept of "unity" that is not premised on an absolute and unswerving adherence to everything taught by the Catholic Church as true, which is one of the reasons he seeks to make the dogmatic pronouncements of the Catholic Church's legitimate councils and of her true popes contingent upon the historical circumstances in which they were made. Ratzinger/Benedict reasons that it is possible to overlook and/or to deconstruct those past pronouncements in order to accommodate what he himself has called, both as Father and "Cardinal' Ratzinger and as "Benedict XVI," the "search for unity." This effort, which, of course, blasphemes the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, by denying that the language used by the Fathers of the Catholic Church's dogmatic councils and by her true popes was the result of the infallible guidance of the same God the Holy Ghost and is not subject, therefore, to deconstruction as to do so is to say that God was wrong in directing popes and Council Fathers to speak and to write as they did.

Pope Pius XII, writing in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, explained the modus operandi of those who subscribe to the New Theology that is at the foundation of the Modernist mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.

 

Who believes in and propagates the beliefs described and condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, of course:

In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute.

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes. (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict's views are directly contrary to reason and logic on the purely natural level and have been condemned numerous times by the authority of the Catholic Church, including by the [First] Vatican Council:

• For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward

  • not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
  • but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
• Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1870.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger, both as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as Benedict XVI, has made publicly manifest his rejection of the [First] Vatican Council's condemnation of the belief that "a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different form that which the church has understood and understands":

The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time.

(Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete.)

"It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

"On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

 

This is apostasy. This is philosophical absurdity writ large. This has all been anathematized solemnly by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

Nonetheless, however, Ratzinger/Benedict's philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned views of the nature of dogmatic truth are what make it possible for him in his Hegelian world of paradox and contradiction to "search for a unity" among all Christians that can be effected in only one way: the unconditional return of all non-Catholic Christians to the maternal bosom of the Catholic Church. One who believes that it is necessary to "rediscover the meaning" of dogmatic truths because the language used to express them is contingent upon the historical circumstances in which they were formulated will, of course, come to believe in all manner of absurdities, including the belief that there can be a sense of "unity" that does not depend upon a complete and perfect submission to everything contained in the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger wrote in Principles of Catholic Theology that the "unity" of the Church could not be effected by demanding the unconditional conversion of Protestants and the Orthodox to the Catholic Faith that would result in the destruction of their "structures" and a denial of their "history:" One will see in the passage below Ratzinger's belief that "distinctions" must be made between what is true "in reality" and what has been "claimed' to be "true" as a result of contingent circumstances. In other words, Protestants and the Orthodox cannot be "forced" to accept  the results various dogmatic councils and/or papal pronouncements that are said to be the "products" of historical circumstances that have now changed:

Against this background we can now weigh the possibilities that are open to Christian ecumenism. The maximum demands on which the search for unity must certainly founder are immediately clear. On the part of the West, the maximum demand would be that the East recognize the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the full scope of the definition of 1870 and in so doing submit in practice, to a primacy such as has been accepted by the Uniate churches. On the part of the East, the maximum demand would be that the West declare the 1870 doctrine of primacy erroneous and in so doing submit, in practice, to a primacy such as has been accepted with the removal of the Filioque from the Creed and including the Marian dogmas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As regards Protestantism, the maximum demand of the Catholic Church would be that the Protestant ecclesiological ministers be regarded as totally invalid and that Protestants be converted to Catholicism; the maximum demand of Protestants, on the other hand, would be that the Catholic Church accept, along with the unconditional acknowledgement of all Protestant ministries, the Protestant concept of ministry and their understanding of the Church and thus, in practice, renounce the apostolic and sacramental structure of the Church, which would mean, in practice, the conversion of Catholics to Protestantism and their acceptance of a multiplicity of distinct community structures as the historical form of the Church. While the first three maximum demands are today rather unanimously rejected by Christian consciousness, the fourth exercises a kind of fascination for it – as it were, a certain conclusiveness that makes it appear to be the real solution to the problem. This is all the more true since there is joined to it the expectation that a Parliament of Churches, a "truly ecumenical council’, could then harmonize this pluralism and promote a Christian unity of action.  That no real union would result from this, but that its very impossibility would become a single common dogma, should convince anyone who examines the suggestion closely that such a way would not bring Church unity but only a final renunciation of it.  As a result, none of the maximum solutions offers any real hope of unity.

As a result, none of the maximum solutions offers any real hope of unity. In any event, church unity is not a political problem that can be solved by means of compromise or the weighing of what is regarded as possible or acceptable. What is at stake here is unity of belief, that is, the question of truth, which cannot be the object of political maneuvering. As long as and to the extent that the maximum solution must be regarded as a requirement of truth itself, just so long and to just that extent there will be no other recourse than simply to strive to convert one's partner in the debate. In other words, the claim of truth ought not to be raised where there is not a compelling and indisputable reason for doing so. We may not interpret as truth that which is, in reality, a historical development with a more or less close relationship to truth. Whenever, then, the weight of truth and its incontrovertibility are involved, they must be met by a corresponding sincerity that avoids laying claim to truth prematurely and is ready to search for the inner fullness of truth with the eyes of love. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 197-198)

 

This is the exact approach that Joseph Ratzinger is using as "Benedict XVI" to effect a false "unity" with the Orthodox and the Anglicans the Communist rump church in Red China, making relevant once again what I wrote a little over five months ago now in Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology:

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China, June 30, 2007, is using the situation facing Catholics in the "People's Republic of China" (hereinafter referred to as Red China) the most elaborate "workshop" of all as means of making the "new ecclesiology" (bringing "full communion" out of "partial communion") a "workable" reality for relations with the Orthodox (as well as those Anglicans who might be interested in "converting" to what they think, albeit falsely, is the Catholic Church without having to "give up" their own structures and "traditions," each of which was born as a result of a rebellion against Papal Primacy by King Henry VIII in 1534 and then by Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn, in 1558 and thereafter). There is only one little problem with the grand schema of this "workshop" in the new ecclesiology: many Catholics in Red China are confused about how it is supposed to work, thus the "need" for the Compendium to make Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter more "comprehensible."

 

Behold the results of Ratzinger/Benedict's 2007 Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China and the 2009  Compendium to make that letter more "comprehensible" to the underground Catholics in Red China who have suffered so much and for so long at the hands of the Red Chinese government and its stooges in the so-called "Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association":

 

Rome (AsiaNews) – Mgr Francis An Shuxin, a former underground (coadjutor) bishop of Baoding, has joined the city’s Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), an organisation well known for persecuting Catholics. Elsewhere underground priests are still being arrested, and told that they can regain their freedom if they join the CPCA whose goal is to set up a Catholic Church independent of Roma, something that is “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”

 

Sources told AsiaNews that after years in police custody Mgr An Shuxin was torn about joining the CPCA. Vatican and local sources confirm that the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples (Propaganda Fide) put pressure on him to come out into the open. Seen as one of the more mature and promising bishops, in the end, he obeyed the Vatican. Still, he was against joining the CPCA, an organisation that has arrested bishops and priests and shut down religious shrines, underground seminaries and communities for many years.

Mgr An Shuxin was released only on 24 August 2006 after ten years spent in detention at an unknown location. However, the government’s Religious Affairs Bureau was adamant that in order to be officially recognised, and free to work, he had to join the CPCA.

The former bishop’s decision to join has sown confusion and created acrimony among the faithful in Baoding, who for the most part are members of the underground Church, and led some priests to brand him a “traitor”.

The turn of events has embarrassed the Vatican because its good intentions (to give the bishop greater leeway) were frustrated by the CPCA. Even so, the latter still does not trust its newest member and continues to monitor his movements, preventing him from taking part in conferences and meetings, dragging him around as the “big one” that did not get away from the organisation, proof that the government’s religious policy is correct.

The Vatican had always hoped that the Chinese government would allow the Religious Affairs Bureau register all bishops (official and underground) as well as priests and women religious, without requiring them to join the CPCA. Instead, it does not seem willing to change by one iota its policy of more than 50 years.

Many Baoding Catholics find the Vatican policy contradictory, very different from what the Pope said in his Letter to Chinese Catholics. In fact, in that document Benedict XVI described the CPCA and its actions as “incompatible with Catholic doctrine.”  At the same though, no one has actually called on bishops to quit the CPCA.

Hebei is the Chinese province with the highest concentration of Catholics, at least 1.5 million, mostly in underground communities. It is also the place when the greatest effort is being made to eliminate the underground Church.

The fate of three local underground bishops is still unknown but they are said to be in police custody. One is Mgr James Su Zhimin, the 75-year-old ordinary of Baoding, who was arrested in 1996 and not heard of since. Then there is Mgr Cosma Shi Enxiang (diocese of Yixian), 86, who also disappeared after he was arrested on 13 April 2001. The third one is Mgr Julius Jia Zhiguo (diocese of Zhengding), 74, who disappeared again on 30 March of this year.

The CPCA continues to arrest underground priests to get them to submit to the organisation’s control. Fr Chen Hezhao, 40, who works in Aoxin (Baoding), was arrested last July and moved to a secret location. He had just returned from France where he had completed some specialisation courses.

By contrast, two of the ten priests arrested in Baoding diocese over the past two years were freed last August and have since then taken part in a CPCA meeting. Their release was thus conditional on their joining the organisation. (CHINA – VATICAN In Hebei, underground bishop joins Chinese Communist Schismatic Church.)

 

Yet another conciliar "triumph" for the "ecumenism" and the "new ecclesiology" of the "Second" Vatican Council and one of its chief architects and propagators, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a man who has no regard for the sacrifices made by the English martyrs to withstand the corruption of liturgy and doctrine propagated by the Anglican sect in the Sixteenth Century, a man who has no regard for the sacrifices made by the martyrs in Red China to withstand the unjust demands made upon them by an apostate church in Red China which has doctrines and practices at odds with the Deposit of Faith. The only thing that matters to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a man who did not have the courage to resist joining the Hitler Youth, believing it would have been a "futile" exercise to resist, is a spirit of "reconciliation" that accepts doctrines and practices at odds with the Catholic Faith.

Ratzinger's Red China policy that has sold out and bewildered and demoralized the underground Catholics there was undertaken in large measure precisely because he does not believe himself to be bound by past papal pronouncements, including the following simple declaration by Pope Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, that there must never be any cooperation whatsoever with Communist regimes:

See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is contemptuous of this clear warning against any collaboration with Communist regimes. He knows better. Behold the disastrous results. The same results await his pending amalgamation of disaffected Anglicans into the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

What I wrote five months ago has indeed come true as the conciliar Vatican is now seen to be pressuring underground bishops in Red China to "reconcile" themselves to the Communist-sponsored Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association:

Leaving aside the inconvenient little fact that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not the Catholic Church, the rump church in Red China can never be reconciled to the Catholic Church until its bishops and priests publicly abjure their errors, among which is the concession that they need to "register" with the civil authorities to exercise their priestly duties and exercise them only according to the conditions outlined by the Communist authorities, and are then and only then received back into the Catholic Church. No such demand is being made of the clergy who belong to the rump church in Red China.

In other words, Ratzinger/Benedict and his apparatchiks in the conciliar Vatican are telling the members of the underground Church in Red China that it is up to them to make "visible" a "communion" with the "pastors"of the rump church that supports the Communist regime's "population control" policies. "Communion" depends upon them being willing to forgive past--and present!--injustices as well as to forget the inconvenient truth that the most of the leaders of the rump church defect from several of the Church's defined teachings on Faith and Morals, placing them totally outside of the pale of the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.

Ratzinger/Benedict has told the long-suffering Catholics in the underground Church in Red China that their suffering is appreciated and noted. It is time, however, to "move on" and purify "memories" so that a "reconciliation" based on a deliberate and calculated overlooking of defections from Faith and Morals on the part of the rump church in China can take place, leaving to a later date--perhaps--"discussions" on the more "delicate" matters that might seem to the Communist authorities to be an "interference" in their "internal affairs." Just be quiet, therefore, don't complain about the government's "population control policies," be good citizens and be content that you have the sacraments and are in "communion" with your fellow Chinese Catholics.

An unfair reading of Ratzinger/Benedict's June 30, 2007 letter. Read this footnote from the recently released Compendium and decide for yourselves:

We can see that the Holy Father is talking about a spiritual reconciliation, which can and must take place now, even before a structural merger of official and unofficial Catholic communities takes place. As a matter of fact, the Holy Father seems to make a distinction between “a spiritual reconciliation” and “a structural merger”. He recognizes that the reconciliation is like a journey that “cannot be accomplished overnight” (6.6): however, he emphasizes that the steps to be taken on the way are necessary and urgent, and cannot therefore be postponed because - or on the pretext that - they are difficult since they require the overcoming of personal positions or views. Times and ways may vary according to local situations, but the commitment to reconciliation cannot be abandoned. This path of reconciliation, furthermore, cannot be limited to the spiritual realm of prayer alone but must also be expressed through practical steps of effective ecclesial communion (exchange of experiences, sharing of pastoral projects, common initiatives, etc.). Finally, it should not be forgotten that all without exception are invited to engage in these steps: Bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful. It is by means of practical steps that spiritual reconciliation, including visible reconciliation, will gradually occur, which will culminate one day in the complete structural unity of every diocesan community around its one Bishop and of every diocesan community with each other and with the universal Church. In this context, it is licit and fitting to encourage clergy and lay faithful to make gestures of forgiveness and reconciliation in this direction. (Footnote 2, Compendium, pp. 8-9.)

 

This footnote reflects entirely Joseph Ratzinger's abject rejection of the "ecumenism of the return." Ratzinger/Benedict believes that people are gradually "absorbed" into the Church by means of "perfecting" their "communion" with other Christians. This is heretical. This is condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church. Yet it is of the essence of Ratzinger/Benedict's theology, which is reflected so completely in his June 30, 2007, Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China and in the Compendium released on May 24, 2009.

After all, it is "reconciliation" and "love" that matters the most, although Catholics understand that true love of God can never sanction anything that is offensive to Him, making, therefore, Ratzinger's appeal for a "reconciliation" with authorities of a rump church who support (or are silent about) government polices contrary to Faith and Morals nothing other than an exercise in pure subjectivism.

 

Ratzinger/Benedict's rejection of the nature of dogmatic truth makes it possible for him to be so very sanguine about false doctrines and false practices that have been condemned by the Catholic Church. He believes in a form of "spiritual ecumenism" that was promoted by a disciple of the late Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., the late Abbe Paul Couturier, that is premised upon "putting aside" "divisive" matters in order to concentrate on common prayer and a sense of unity that is, of course, in all truth founded upon one apostate principle after another. It is possible, Ratzinger/Benedict believes, for there to be a "federation" of those who believe in God in order to fight "the dictatorship of relativism" even though he is heedless of the fact that he is one of the chief relativists on the face of the earth who is willing to compromise truth for false "reconciliations" that offend Our Lord and that do not promote the sanctification and salvation of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

As Father Basil Meramo, who was expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X earlier this year for his criticism of Bishop Bernard Fellay's "negotiations" with the apostates of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, noted, the Rome of today harkens back of of the time of Saint Peter, a place where the lords of the Roman Empire wanted to make room for the worship of all of the "gods" in order to maintain civil peace throughout the vast territories they controlled:

This problem is taking place with the General Superior (of the Society of St. Pius X) (…) who is selling out the Society by allying himself with the Vatican, which has not stepped back in anything. Where does Benedict XVI go? He goes to the Synagogue, he goes to the United Nations, and now he goes to the Society (SSPX) – another concubine in the pantheon of false religions.

This is not admissible. This is a tactic of Rome. I want you to know, dear brethren, that Rome of the Roman Empire was able to dominate the world by means of religious compromises. This is why Rome had a pantheon with all the principal gods of the important peoples who were subjugated by it. Since religious alliances were established and Rome had the same gods of the enemies, then there were no mutual attacks. Rome accepted the same gods of the Greeks in order to dominate the Greeks; Rome adopted the same gods of this or that people in order to dominate them. This was its tactic to govern.

This same tactic continues today in that Rome, which St. Peter - the first Pope of the Church - called Babylon. He was not in the Middle East; he was in Rome and he called it Babylon because it was the Babylon of the religions. He didn’t spare words, because it had an altar to every god. All known religions had their representatives there. (…) A Pope quoted in the Breviary – whose name I don't remember at this moment – said that at the end [of history] Rome will again have, as in the beginning, all the religions. It will return to its ancient paganism, rejoicing in hosting all religions. It will return to its old religious prostitution.

This is what we are witnessing today. And now they need Traditionalism to also be there with its rights – just like the Muslims or the Adventists have rights – but not the real rights of Tradition. (…)

This is why Benedict XVI went to the UN. What do you think he was doing there? He had nothing to do as a Catholic. So things go… So the kings and presidents of this world go. So goes religion riding the Beast. The woman in scarlet, the great harlot as the Apocalypse says. Don’t be scandalized at this because the Bible speaks very plain language and sometimes our effeminate ears are scandalized to hear the truth. But they are not scandalized to see all the pornography they see day and night on the Internet, TVs, movies, spectacles and fashions. They are not scandalized, yet they will warn you: “Be careful about the sermon of Fr. Basilio when he uses the expression great harlot.” This is the scandal of Pharisees.

So this woman goes about in her scarlet dress, like the prelates who wear purple and the cardinals wear red – the color of royalty, nobility. She rides the Beast fornicating with all the kings of the world. So religion goes.

And into this adulterous and apostate cohabitation, they want to incorporate the Society (SSPX) founded by Msgr. Lefebvre. But I, as a member of the Society – which will always be my family whether they expel me or not - I publicly, officially and until death oppose this cohabitation. And if one day I will cease to oppose this, it is because I will be dead. I would desire this for continuing to say what I am saying, for if this happens, there would be another saint-martyr. I nourish this desire because so I would go straight to Heaven, without stopping in Purgatory. God be praised [should this happen]! (A Bold Show of Dissatisfaction in the SSPX Ranks)

Putting aside Father Meramo's support for the false ecclesiology of the Society of Saint Pius X that has been examined on this site any number of times, including in One Sentence Says It All, Smashing Through the Conciliar Looking Glass, True Popes Never Need to Convert to the Faith, In A Nutshell, and Negotiating To Become An Apostate, his analysis of the false ecumenism of conciliar Rome and its embrace of the absurdity that is "partial communion" as analogous to the political practices of the Roman Empire is an echo of the description ancient Rome's veneration of all of the false 'gods" of its subjects as found in Jacobus Voragine's The Golden Legend's discussion of All Saints' Day:

The feast of all the saints was established for four causes. First, for the dedication of the temple; secondly, for supplement of offences done; thirdly, for to take away negligence; and fourthly, for to get more lightly that thing which we pray for. This feast was established principally for the dedication of the temple. For the Romans saw that they were seigniored all over the world, and therefore they made a right great temple and set their idol in the middle, and all about this idol they set the false images of all the provinces; so that all the images beheld right the idol of Rome. And it was ordained by art of the devil that, when a province would rebel against the Romans, the image of that province should turn his back to the idol of Rome, like as in showing that it departed from the seigniory of Rome. And then anon the Romans would bring great puissance into that province, and there subdued it to their seigniory. And yet it sufficed not to the Romans that they had in their seigniory all the false images of the provinces, but made to each of those false gods a temple, like as those gods had made them lords and vanquishers of all the provinces. And because that all the idols might not be in that temple, they made a greater temple, more marvellous and high than all the others, and for to show the more their woodness, they dedicated this temple in the honour of all their gods. And more for to deceive the people, feigned that it had been commanded to them of Cybele, a goddess, that is called mother of the gods. And they called this temple, Pantheon, which is as much to say as all gods; of pan, that is all, and theos, that is god. And because they would have victory of all the people, therefore they made a great temple to all the sons of Cybele. And the foundament of this temple was cast round by a sphere, that by this form the perdurability of their gods should be showed. And for as much as the great quantity of the earth which was within seemed not sustainable to be voided, and that the work was a little seen above the earth, they filled the crevices within the earth, and meddled pennies with the earth, and did always so till the said temple was fully accomplished. And then they gave licence that whosoever would take away the earth, that all the money that he found with the earth should be his. Then came hastily great company of people and voided anon the temple. And at the last the Romans made a pinnacle of copper and gilt, and set it in a right high place, and it is said all the provinces were entailed and graven marvellously within that pinnacle, so that all they that came to Rome might see in that pinnacle in what part his province was. And this pinnacle after long time fell, and remained in the overest part of the temple. And in the time of Phocas the emperor, what time Rome had received the faith, Boniface, the fourth pope from Saint Gregory, about the year of our Lord six hundred and five, gat of Phocas the said temple, and did do take away and efface all the ordure of all these idols. And the fourth kalends of May he hallowed it in the honour of our Lady Saint Mary and of all the martyrs. And called it Saint Mary at martyrs, which is now called Sancta Maria Rotunda, that is Saint Mary the round. For then was made no solemnity of the confessors. And because there assembled great multitude of people at this feast, and there might not be found abundance of victual for the people that came, Pope Gregory established this feast to be in the kalends of November, for then ought to be greater abundance of victual, when the corn is had in, and wine made, and he established this day to be hallowed through the world in the honour of all saints. And thus the temple that had been made for all the idols is now dedicate and hallowed to all the saints, and whereas the worshipping of idols was used, there is now the praising of all saints. (The Golden Legend: The Feast of All Hallows)

 

Today, of course, the symbols of false gods are esteemed by the very priestly hands of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The temples of false worship in which these symbols are housed are called and treated by his very actions as "sacred" by this figure of Antichrist, this enemy of Christ the King, this apostate who dares to deconstruct the nature of dogmatic truth, this Modernist who scoffs at the binding nature of papal pronouncements that he, a quintessential subjectivist, does not like. What's the big deal about letting disaffected Anglicans keep their traditions that are a rejection and/or a corruption of the Catholic Faith? What's the big deal about redefining the exercise of Papal Primacy to suit the Orthodox? What's the big deal about telling the suffering saints of the underground church in Red China to "reconcile" with the Communist authorities there?

We must be willing to suffer the white martyrdom of ridicule and criticism and rejection and ostracism for refusing to recognize or associate with any of the spiritual robber barons of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who are so blithe in the offenses they commit against God so regularly and who are so dismissive of the gravity of error (save for "defections" from conciliarism by fully traditional Catholics and save for any effort to review the nature and the extent of the crimes of the Third Reich as such defections are "unforgivable" errors that must be "corrected") that do so much harm to the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins (a truth of the Faith that "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch denied two hundred three days ago now and has still remained in "office" without a word of protest from the kindly apostle of the toleration of error, Ratzinger/Benedict). We must cleave exclusively to true bishops and to true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or its officials in the slightest.

Obviously, we must, as always, spend time in prayer before Our Lord's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, using the shield of Our Lady's Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and the weapon of her Rosary to protect us from the contagion of apostasy and betrayal that is all around us. We must also, of course, make reparation for our own many sins by offering up all of our prayers and sufferings and sacrifices and humiliations and penances and mortifications and fastings to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, remembering most especially the Poor Souls in the Church Suffering in Purgatory every day during this month of November.

The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May the seeds we attempt to plant be watered by the good works of the patient endurance of our suffering as members of the Church Militant on earth so that we will be ever ready to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace who have done most, if not all, of our Purgatory on earth.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?