by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's visit to Cyprus, which began on Friday, June 4, 2010, and concludes yesterday, Sunday, June 6, 2010, the Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christ, was a continuation of his efforts to promote "unity" among "religions" without ever once seeking the conversion of anyone to the true Faith, no less to make any public references to the necessity of praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary every day as an essential part of the interior life as we mediate upon the very mysteries of our Redemption. Not one word of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary during any of the ten public addresses that he gave during his brief stay on the island of Cyprus, which is divided between the predominantly Mohammedan northern part, which was invaded by the murderous military forces of Turkey on July 20, 1974, and the predominantly Orthodox southern part, which constitutes the Republic of Cyprus (whose officials consider the northern part to be part of the republic although occupied by foreign invaders).
As I noted in Goofy Is Number Two two days ago, the false "pontiff" repeats himself so much in these "pastoral pilgrimages" that there is very little need to go into the sort of analysis that has been provided on this site when Ratzinger/Benedict visited the United States of America from April 15-20, 2008, and when he visited Jordan and Israel from May 8-15, 2009, and when he visited Portugal from May 11-14, 2010. He's said it all before. He's said it all before numerous times. He is merely giving "papal" voice to the many Modernist ideas, repackaged by the "insights" of the New Theology that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, that he has espoused in his lectures and in his books, many of which are transcriptions of his lectures or of interviews that he has given at various times.
Perhaps the best way to place the entirety of the "Pope" Benedict XVI's visit to Cyprus in its proper perspective is to look at just how effective his message of "peace by coexistence" in a "civilization of love," a theme he reiterated constantly in Portugal last month (see
Mocking Pope Saint Pius X and Our Lady of Fatima and On Full Display: The Modernist Mind), has been accepted by many world leaders. This is a small part of what the President of Cyprus said at the beginning of Ratzinger/Benedict's visit on Friday, June 4, 2010:
Due to its geographic position, Cyprus has always been a meeting point of many peoples and civilizations. For centuries, Orthodox Christians live harmoniously on our island together with the Catholic and Muslim communities. This heritage and the wealth emanating from this co-existence demonstrate that Cyprus can become a bridge which unites different worlds.
Cyprus aspires to and can become a model for the "civilization of co-existence," the civilization of the future. The message of peace sent by the Inter-faith Conference organized in 2008 by the community of Saint Egidion and the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, headed by His Beatitude the Archbishop of Cyprus Chrysostomos II is always current: "No human being, no people, no community is an island. Everyone needs somebody else; everyone needs the friendship, forgiveness, and help of someone else. We share a common global destiny: either we live together in peace or we perish. […] No hatred, no conflict, no wall can resist the power of prayer, forgiveness, and patient love leading to dialogue. Dialogue does not generate weakness, rather it grants new strength. It is the real alternative to violence. Nothing is lost with dialogue."
The humanitarian work of the Holy See for the poor is an example for all of us. For this reason, Your Holiness, to me Your visit is a historic moment and I assure You of my country's desire to further develop its cooperation with the Holy See in the field of development aid. We, together with Your Holiness, are fellow travelers on the road toward achieving peace and acquiring a common universal moral conscience, as well as in the struggle against poverty, exclusion, injustice and hunger. (Cypriot President's Greeting to Pope.)
Those who have written mocking epitaphs for the "civilization of love" that was heralded for over a quarter of a century by the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II ought to reconsider their prognostic abilities as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is carrying out his predecessor's Judeo-Masonic legacy of brotherhood, wrapping up in a veneer of Catholicism just as Marc Sagnier, the founder of the The Sillon movement that was condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, using that exact nauseating phrase, "civilization of love," when he was in Portugal just twenty-six days ago now:
Precisely so as “to place the modern world in contact with the life-giving and perennial energies of the Gospel” (John XXIII, Apostolic Constitution Humanae Salutis, 3), the Second Vatican Council was convened. There the Church, on the basis of a renewed awareness of the Catholic tradition, took seriously and discerned, transformed and overcame the fundamental critiques that gave rise to the modern world, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In this way the Church herself accepted and refashioned the best of the requirements of modernity by transcending them on the one hand, and on the other by avoiding their errors and dead ends. The Council laid the foundation for an authentic Catholic renewal and for a new civilization – “the civilization of love” – as an evangelical service to man and society. (Meeting with the world of culture in the Cultural Center of Belém, Wednesday, May 12, 2010; for an analysis of this swill, please see On Full Display: The Modernist Mind.)
Those seeking to defend Ratzinger/Benedict by contrasting him with his immediate predecessor in the counterfeit church of conciliarism have to so all sorts of intellectual gymnastics in order to justify word as ones just quoted. How do I know? I used to do these kinds of intellectual gymnastics during the first fifteen years of the Wojtyla/John Paul II "pontificate." Oh, yes, I know. I know very well. (Please see Singing the Old Songs.)
I digress, but not by very much.
The principal purpose of Ratzinger/Benedict's now concluded visit to Cyprus was to present yet another "working document" for the conciliar novelty known as the "synod of bishops," one that will will take place in Rome from October 10-24, 2010. Although the "working document,"
The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness, will be the subject of a protracted series of short articles in the coming months (much along the lines of what I published sequentially in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos between March of 2001 and June of 2003 that served as the basis of G.I.R.M. Warfare), it is particularly significant that Ratzinger/Benedict has gone to the trouble of using it as the very foundation of his "apostolic journey" to Cyprus. Just a quick glance at a few passages will indicate that
The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness "working document" is a veritable summary of some of the major building blocks of concilairism.
Stuck in the 1960s
As noted in
Anti-Apostles All, Ratzinger/Benedict is seeking to effect some kind of "unity" the Orthodox. In order to accomplish this goal, which is perhaps of overriding importance for him, before he dies, therefore, the false "pontiff" considers it necessary to fortify the conciliar bishops of the Middle East, many of whom are are true bishops as they have been consecrated in the Eastern rites by true bishops in the Eastern rites, as he pursues the path outlined in The Ravenna Document for a "reconciliation" with those who defect from numerous points of the Catholic Faith, starting with the rejection of Papal Primacy (see the appendix below, composed for Anti-Apostles All), without requiring them to abjure their errors. After all, the "Anglo-Catholics" who have petitioned the conciliar Vatican to be received into what they think is the Catholic Church are not being required to abjured any errors, any pledge fealty to the conciliar church's Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is itself filled with errors (see Defaming The English Martyrs and Still Defaming The English Martyrs for analyses of the forthcoming Anglican transfer of allegiance from one part of the One World Ecumenical Church to another; see
The New Catechism: Is it Catholic? of some of the errors contained in the so-called "Catechism of the Catholic Church").
Ratzinger/Benedict believes that his is the one and only "true" interpretation of the "Second" Vatican Council. His "pontificate" is the means to find a modus vivendi between those he considers to be "ultra-progressives" who he thinks have gone beyond the "true intentions" of that false council and the "ultra-traditionalists" who need to be taught to accept his precious "council" according to the insights provided by his philosophically absurd and doctrinally condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity."
Instruments such as The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness, although drafted by others in preparing for the forthcoming synod, are meant to be the means by which he can "correct" the "misinterpretations" of the "right" and the "left" while forging ahead with the "true" goals of the "council, especially as pertains "unity" according to the new ecclesiology's error of the "Church as communion," which sees those Christians who do not recognize the governing authority of the Catholic Church and who defect in numerous ways from articles contained in the Deposit of Faith as being in "partial communion" with the Catholic Church (see Bishop Donald Sanborn's The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation). This is why is vitally important to use the forthcoming synod of Middle Eastern bishops as yet another
workshop for the New Ecclesiology.
Here are just one passage near the beginning of The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness to illustrate that the whole rationale of the false ecumenism to which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has devoted his "pontificate" has been condemned and cannot "produce" a false "unity" to fight irreligion in the world:
The Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops has a twofold goal: to confirm and strengthen Christians in their identity through the Word of God and the sacraments and to deepen ecclesial communion among the particular Churches, so that they can bear witness to the Christian life in an authentic, joyful and winsome manner. Our Catholic Churches are not alone in the Middle East. There are also the Orthodox Churches and the Protestant communities. This ecumenical aspect is basic, if Christian witness is to be genuine and credible. "That they may all be one, so that the world may believe" (Jn 17: 21).
Always the mania for that which is false, that which is bound to fail time and time again because it is false: ecumenism.
There is no such thing as "communion" with heretics and schismatics. Here is what Pope Pius XI wrote about the misrepresentation of the passage from the Gospel according to Saint John (ut unum sint--that they may be one) that was used as the title of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's "encyclical letter" of May 25, 1995, and has been the clarion call of the "ecumenical movement" since it was launched at the so-called "World Missionary Conference" in Edinburgh, Scotland, one hundred years ago this very month, the month of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2010:
Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be "one." And did not the same Christ will that His disciples should be marked out and distinguished from others by this characteristic, namely that they loved one another: "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another"? All Christians, they add, should be as "one": for then they would be much more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion, which like a serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely spread, and prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. These things and others that class of men who are known as pan-Christians continually repeat and amplify; and these men, so far from being quite few and scattered, have increased to the dimensions of an entire class, and have grouped themselves into widely spread societies, most of which are directed by non-Catholics, although they are imbued with varying doctrines concerning the things of faith. This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed.
Admonished, therefore, by the consciousness of Our Apostolic office that We should not permit the flock of the Lord to be cheated by dangerous fallacies, We invoke, Venerable Brethren, your zeal in avoiding this evil; for We are confident that by the writings and words of each one of you the people will more easily get to know and understand those principles and arguments which We are about to set forth, and from which Catholics will learn how they are to think and act when there is question of those undertakings which have for their end the union in one body, whatsoever be the manner, of all who call themselves Christians. . . .
And here it seems opportune to expound and to refute a certain false opinion, on which this whole question, as well as that complex movement by which non-Catholics seek to bring about the union of the Christian churches depends. For authors who favor this view are accustomed, times almost without number, to bring forward these words of Christ: "That they all may be one.... And there shall be one fold and one shepherd," with this signification however: that Christ Jesus merely expressed a desire and prayer, which still lacks its fulfillment. For they are of the opinion that the unity of faith and government, which is a note of the one true Church of Christ, has hardly up to the present time existed, and does not to-day exist. They consider that this unity may indeed be desired and that it may even be one day attained through the instrumentality of wills directed to a common end, but that meanwhile it can only be regarded as mere ideal. They add that the Church in itself, or of its nature, is divided into sections; that is to say, that it is made up of several churches or distinct communities, which still remain separate, and although having certain articles of doctrine in common, nevertheless disagree concerning the remainder; that these all enjoy the same rights; and that the Church was one and unique from, at the most, the apostolic age until the first Ecumenical Councils. Controversies therefore, they say, and longstanding differences of opinion which keep asunder till the present day the members of the Christian family, must be entirely put aside, and from the remaining doctrines a common form of faith drawn up and proposed for belief, and in the profession of which all may not only know but feel that they are brothers. The manifold churches or communities, if united in some kind of universal federation, would then be in a position to oppose strongly and with success the progress of irreligion.
There is really no need to belabor this point again, is there? Readers are either to understand accept the contrast or they are not. The entirety of The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness is premised upon the promotion of the "new ecclesiology" by means of false ecumenism in order that "religions" may join together in the fight against irreligion, a fight that can and must involve adherents of the Talmud and Mohammedans as believers in the "one God" even though they specifically reject that one God as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church to be a Unity and Trinity of Divine Persons.
This has all been condemned. Let those who have grace to see and to accept this to be the case do so. There does come a time when belaboring the obvious, apart from being laborious for the one doing the belaboring, gets a little silly. Thus it is that subsequent commentaries on selected passages The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness will be as brief and as succinct as the one just above.
I hated the culture of the 1960s as a pre-adolescent and teenager. Hated it, and I was hated by many of my peers in high school because I hated it, and wasn't bashful about saying so (surprised?). I am not going to let Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI keep me stuck fighting the battles of the 1960s as tries convince the Orthodox that they can have a place at the conciliar table along with the "Anglo-Catholics" and as he makes the truly ridiculous effort to convince Mohammedans to embrace such conciliar concepts as "religious liberty" they abhor and have no intention in the slightest of ever embracing. Ratzinger/Benedict wants to convert his "dialogue partners" not to an unconditional acceptance of the Catholic Faith but of the central tenets of the conciliar ethos.
Ten Talks, Ten Missed Chances To Seek the Conversion of Non-Catholics to the true Faith
Ratzinger/Benedict gave ten addresses while he was in Cyprus. The first was upon his arrival and the last was upon his departure. The second talk that he gave came at an "ecumenical" gathering hosted by the Orthodox on Friday, June 4, 2010, during which the false "pontiff" once again mentioned that "World Missionary Conference" that launched the false ecumenism that was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, once again telling us that the "common commitment" of Christians can bring "peace" to a trouble region. Talk about being stuck in the 1960s:
The Church’s communion in the apostolic faith is both a gift and a summons to mission. In the passage from Acts which we have heard, we see an image of the Church’s unity in prayer, and her openness to the promptings of the Spirit of mission. Like Paul and Barnabas, every Christian, by baptism, is set apart to bear prophetic witness to the Risen Lord and to his Gospel of reconciliation, mercy and peace. In this context, the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, due to meet in Rome next October, will reflect on the vital role of Christians in the region, encourage them in their witness to the Gospel, and help foster greater dialogue and cooperation between Christians throughout the region. Significantly, the labours of the Synod will be enriched by the presence of fraternal delegates from other Churches and Christian communities in the region, as a sign of our common commitment to the service of God’s word and our openness to the power of his reconciling grace.
The unity of all Christ’s disciples is a gift to be implored from the Father in the hope that it will strengthen the witness to the Gospel in today’s world. The Lord prayed for the holiness and unity of his disciples precisely so that the world might believe (cf. Jn 17:21). Just a hundred years ago, at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, the acute awareness that divisions between Christians were an obstacle to the spread of the Gospel gave birth to the modern ecumenical movement. Today we can be grateful to the Lord, who through his Spirit has led us, especially in these last decades, to rediscover the rich apostolic heritage shared by East and West, and in patient and sincere dialogue to find ways of drawing closer to one another, overcoming past controversies, and looking to a better future. (Ecumenical Celebration in the archeological area of the church of Agia Kiriaki Chrysopolitissa, Paphos, 4 June 2010.
You mean to say that Pope Leo XIII did not have an understanding or an appreciation of the rich apostolic heritage shared by East and West and that both he and Pope Pius XI were wrong to exhort the Orthodox to convert in writing, respectively, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae and Mortalium Animos? The better future? Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Do I have to quote from Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique (August 15, 1910) to prove this to you yet again?
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
How much more of this can a man take. It's way past my bed time again. All right, duty calls. Just a few more examples before I expand this article after Holy Mass early this morning, Monday, June 7, 2010.
Ratzinger/Benedict, ever the apologist for what has been called a "healthy secularity" and is called in The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness as a "positive laicity" (George Orwell, call you office), gave an address to civic officials and diplomats in the Republic of Cyprus that emphasized adherence to the Natural Law, which is all just fine and peachy keen swell except for the fact that those in public life have an obligation to recognize Holy Mother Church as the ultimate and infallible explicator of the Natural Law as they seek to foster conditions in civil society that are conducive to the sanctification and salvation of the souls of their fellow citizens. Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe that civil governments have such obligations whatsoever. He is, despite all of his alleged opposition to moral relativism and secularism, one of the greatest naturalists alive as He rejects the Social Reign of Christ the King Whose rejection has given rise to the very relativism and secularism he says that he opposes, justifying this rejection by making advertence to his "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," which is itself an exercise in relativism:
I have just laid a wreath at the memorial of the late Archbishop Makarios, the first President of the Republic of Cyprus. Like him, each of you in your lives of public service must be committed to serving the good of others in society, whether at the local, national or international level. This is a noble vocation which the Church esteems. When carried out faithfully, public service enables us to grow in wisdom, integrity and personal fulfilment. Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics gave great importance to such fulfilment – eudemonia - as a goal for every human being, and saw in moral character the way to reach that goal. For them, and for the great Islamic and Christian philosophers who followed in their footsteps, the practice of virtue consisted in acting in accordance with right reason, in the pursuit of all that is true, good and beautiful.
From a religious perspective, we are members of a single human family created by God and we are called to foster unity and to build a more just and fraternal world based on lasting values. In so far as we fulfil our duty, serve others and adhere to what is right, our minds become more open to deeper truths and our freedom grows strong in its allegiance to what is good. My predecessor Pope John Paul the Second once wrote that moral obligation should not be seen as a law imposing itself from without and demanding obedience, but rather as an expression of God’s own wisdom to which human freedom readily submits (cf. Veritatis Splendor, 41). As human beings we find our ultimate fulfilment in reference to that Absolute Reality whose reflection is so often encountered in our conscience as a pressing invitation to serve truth, justice and love.. . .
A second way of promoting moral truth consists in deconstructing political ideologies which would supplant the truth. The tragic experiences of the twentieth century have laid bare the inhumanity which follows from the suppression of truth and human dignity. In our own day, we are witnessing attempts to promote supposed values under the guise of peace, development and human rights. In this sense, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, I called attention to attempts in some quarters to reinterpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by giving satisfaction to particular interests which would compromise the Declaration’s inner unity and move away from its original intent (cf. Address to the United Nations General Assembly, 18 April 2008).
Thirdly, promoting moral truth in public life calls for a constant effort to base positive law upon the ethical principles of natural law. An appeal to the latter was once considered self-evident, but the tide of positivism in contemporary legal theory requires the restatement of this important axiom. Individuals, communities and states, without guidance from objectively moral truths, would become selfish and unscrupulous and the world a more dangerous place to live. On the other hand, by being respectful of the rights of persons and peoples we protect and promote human dignity. When the policies we support are enacted in harmony with the natural law proper to our common humanity, then our actions become more sound and conducive to an environment of understanding, justice and peace. (Meeting with the civil authorities and the diplomatic corps at the presidential palace in Nicosia, June 5, 2010.)
The Incarnation has occurred. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has instituted His Catholic Church. She alone has the authority from Him to teach infallibly in His Holy Name all that Has revealed to her, providing men with the Sanctifying Graces that they need to obey the teaching that she proclaims in fidelity to Him, whether they are acting as private individuals or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance. There is no way to "build a more just and fraternal world" other than Catholicism, which alone has Revealed Truths (not "values) that bind the consciences of all men in all circumstances in all places until the end of time, which I really do hope and pray will come very, very soon. This is getting tiring. (I know. I know. It's "rest in peace." This is the means of my own personal sanctification as I seek to make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for my many sins. I know. It is getting tiring nevertheless.)
Pope Leo XIII pointed this out in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:
God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.
The sensus Catholicus of the average Catholic has been so eviscerated by the ethos of conciliarism that this clear statement of Catholic truth is considered by most of the Catholics in the world to be utterly foreign to them as they have been conditioned by the conciliarists to believe that it is wrong to be confessionally Catholic in one's own private conversations with friends, no less to speak in such terms in public life.
The triumph of various political ideologies mentioned by Ratzinger/Benedict that use slogans such as "human rights" to promote various evils, including baby-killing under cover of the civil law, is the specific and inevitable result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolution and the rise of Judeo-Masonry in its wake. The antidote? Catholicism. The Catholic City:
This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
Want to argue with Pope Saint Pius X? Go ahead. The conciliarists do this all the time by contradicting the words of the pope who condemned the very Modernist presuppositions they use to deconstruct the Holy Faith. They lose in the end, however. So will anyone who attempts to argue that Pope Saint Pius X was wrong when insisting that the Catholic City is the foundation of the rightly ordered civilization and that the thesis of "separation of Church and State" is absolutely false. How something be absolutely false in 1906 and then true and even necessary in 2010? Impossible, save in the twisted minds of those who embrace the relativism that masquerades under the slogan of the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity."
Just one more example for now until I expanded this article in a few hours after 7:00 a.m. Mass here in Connecticut, which is less then seven hours away from the time of this writing:
Ratzinger/Benedict does not know how how to exhort people to convert unconditionally to the Catholic Faith. He sure does know, however, how to exhort people to work in behalf of the madness of false ecumenism, which is what he did when addressing the Catholic community of Cyprus on Saturday, June 5, 2010:
Dear brothers and sisters, given your unique circumstances, I would also like to draw your attention to an essential part of our Church’s life and mission, namely the search for greater unity in charity with other Christians and dialogue with those who are not Christians. Especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been committed to advancing along the path of greater understanding with our fellow Christians with a view to ever stronger ties of love and fellowship among all the baptized. Given your circumstances, you are able to make your personal contribution to the goal of greater Christian unity in your daily lives. Let me encourage you to do so, confident that the Spirit of the Lord, who prayed that his followers might be one (cf. Jn 17:21), will accompany you in this important task.
With regard to interreligious dialogue, much still needs to be done throughout the world. This is another area where Catholics in Cyprus often live in circumstances which afford them opportunities for right and prudent action. Only by patient work can mutual trust be built, the burden of history overcome, and the political and cultural differences between peoples become a motive to work for deeper understanding. I urge you to help create such mutual trust between Christians and non-Christians as a basis for building lasting peace and harmony between peoples of different religions, political regions and cultural backgrounds. (Meeting with the Catholic community of Cyprus at the sports field of St. Maron primary school, Nicosia, 5 June 2010.)
Always, always there is the "search for greater unity in charity," which is a false charity as it does not admit that there is no need to "search" for unity as it exists perfectly in the Catholic Church, which has the Divinely-appointed mission of preaching with urgency the necessity of non-Catholics to convert to her maternal bosom. She alone has the means to build an true and lasting peace amongst people of different regions and backgrounds as people of different religions become her sons and daughters now as happened when many of our own (for those of us who are of European descent, that is) barbaric or pagan European ancestors converted to the true Faith in the First Millennium.
True peace and harmony? Consider yet again these words of Pope Pius XI:
Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.
When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.
There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.
It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.
It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. In such a sanctuary of love, parental authority is fashioned after the authority of God, the Father, from Whom, as a matter of fact, it originates and after which even it is named. (Ephesians iii, 15) The obedience of the children imitates that of the Divine Child of Nazareth, and the whole family life is inspired by the sacred ideals of the Holy Family. Finally, Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects, a duty which cannot but ennoble all who live up to its demands. Christ reigns where the position in society which He Himself has assigned to His Church is recognized, for He bestowed on the Church the status and the constitution of a society which, by reason of the perfect ends which it is called upon to attain, must be held to be supreme in its own sphere; He also made her the depository and interpreter of His divine teachings, and, by consequence, the teacher and guide of every other society whatsoever, not of course in the sense that she should abstract in the least from their authority, each in its own sphere supreme, but that she should really perfect their authority, just as divine grace perfects human nature, and should give to them the assistance necessary for men to attain their true final end, eternal happiness, and by that very fact make them the more deserving and certain promoters of their happiness here below.
It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)
False religions are hated by God. They can never serve as the means of personal salvation or of social order. While it is true that Catholics living as tiny minorities in predominantly non-Catholic countries have to live in peace with their neighbors and to pursue the common temporal good as best as they can, mindful of the prudence is necessary in order to survive without betraying the Faith, they have been doing so in many places for a long while prior to the advent of the "Second" Vatican Council. The wisdom of Holy Mother Church, she is who guided infallibly by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, does not expect the impossible from her children.
It is also true, however, that the madness of conciliarism is not the way to "improve" circumstances as the murders of Chaldean Rite Catholics in the "liberated" Iraq built by the American invaders and occupiers has demonstrated. Mohammedans are not interested in the learning about the "joys" of conciliarism. Catholicism remains the one and only foundation of personal and social order, and it is the abject rejection of this truth by the conciliar "popes" in full "obedience" to the "Second" Vatican Council as they praise the nonexistent "ability" of false religions to "contribute" to the "building" of the "better world should be proof positive of the apostasy that is upon us.
The "glories" of false ecumenism were preached once again the presence of "His Beatitude" Chrysostomus II, the head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, on Saturday, June 5, 2010:
Before all else, I wish to express my gratitude for the hospitality which the Church of Cyprus so generously offered to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue on the occasion of its meeting last year in Paphos. I am likewise grateful for the support that the Church of Cyprus, through the clarity and openness of her contributions, has always given to the work of the dialogue. May the Holy Spirit guide and confirm this great ecclesial undertaking, which aims at restoring full and visible communion between the Churches of East and West, a communion to be lived in fidelity to the Gospel and the apostolic tradition, esteem for the legitimate traditions of East and West, and openness to the diversity of gifts by which the Spirit builds up the Church in unity, holiness and peace. (Meeting with His Beatitude Chrysostomos II, Archbishop of New Justiniana and All Cyprus at the Orthodox archbishopric of Nicosia, June 5, 2010.)
The "Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue" is the entity that produced The Ravenna Document that gave an indirect "papal" expression of Joseph Ratzinger's long-held beliefs, articulated in his The Principles of Catholic Theology, that misrepresent and distort the nature of Papal Primacy during the First Millennium and the acceptance by Eastern bishops of its exercise by one pope after another.
The East does have legitimate traditions. These are enshrined in the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church, admitting that even many of the Uniat bishops have been corrupted by the ethos of conciliarism (see
Not Such a Triumph After All). And it is very telling that Ratzinger/Benedict, although admitting that there are "difficulties" in points of doctrine that he says should never be minimized, never insists publicly on the following clear statement of Catholic truth found Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1897:
Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)
Is there agreement and union of minds between the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox on such matters as Papal Primacy and Papal Infallibility and the Filioque and Purgatory and divorce and remarriage, among others listed below in the appendix? Can such matters be "finessed" as three of the conciliar "popes" (Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI) have done with the Filioque as they have authorized the removal of the phrase that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son in the Nicene Creed by these in the Uniat rites who desire to do so? Can God the Holy Ghost, Who guides the general councils of the Church with the charism of His infallibility, have been wrong when He directed the Fathers of the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 to condemn the removal of His profession from the God the Father and God the Son in the Nicene Creed? Montini/Paul VI believed so. (Please see Appendeix B below for a discussion on this matter drawn from an out-of-print book.)
Ratzinger/Benedict's "homily" (see
Eucharistic Celebration at the parish church of the Holy Cross attended by priests, religious, deacons, catechists and representatives of Cyprian ecclesial movements) at a Novus Ordo worship service, which featured the doctrinally correct Latin rendition of the Nicene Creed and the hideous "Eucharistic Prayer III" (Modernism is, after all, a mixture of truth and error), on Saturday, June 5, 2010, was an explication of the necessity of the Cross of the Divine Redeemer and how we must suffer with Him in our daily lives. It could have passed for a pretty Catholic sermon, except when you note the fact that he just happened to dropped in a bit of poison at the end when stressing the importance of "dialogue." The Cross of the Divine Redeemer has nothing to do with "dialogue," thank you very much.
Unfortunately, appearing as a Catholic in front of other Catholics while promoting concepts before Catholics and non-Catholics alike that have been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church does not redeem one's defections from the Faith.
Who says so? Oh, let's try Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X. How's that?
The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).
The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)
Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all but fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy. . . .
This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
A little dose of Catholicism now and again does not make one immune from the consequences of denying or obscuring articles contained in the Deposit of Faith and/or endorsing propositions that have been condemned by the Catholic Church while, effectively, reaffirming men in schismatic sects in their false beliefs and treating them as equals before God in terms of their "authority" to preach and sanctify.
Leaving aside a fuller discussion of The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness the false "pontiff's" presentation of it on Cyprus yesterday for the sequential series of articles that will follow in the next few months, it was back to full-throated conciliarism when he gave his farewell address to the President of Cyprus yesterday before returning to Rome:
As I give thanks to God for these days which saw the first encounter of the Catholic community in Cyprus with the Successor of Peter on their own soil, I also recall with gratitude my meetings with other Christian leaders, in particular with His Beatitude Chrysostomos the Second and the other representatives of the Church of Cyprus, whom I thank for their brotherly welcome. I hope that my visit here will be seen as another step along the path that was opened up before us by the embrace in Jerusalem of the late Patriarch Athenagoras and my venerable predecessor Pope Paul the Sixth. Their first prophetic steps together show us the road that we too must tread. We have a divine call to be brothers, walking side by side in the faith, humble before almighty God, and with unbreakable bonds of affection for one another. As I invite my fellow Christians to continue this journey, I would assure them that the Catholic Church, with the Lord’s grace, will herself pursue the goal of perfect unity in charity through an ever deepening appreciation of what Catholics and Orthodox hold dearest.
Let me also express again my sincere hope and prayer that, together, Christians and Muslims will become a leaven for peace and reconciliation among Cypriots and serve as an example to other countries.
Ratzinger/Benedict was referring to time that Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, who believed himself to be the Successor of Saint Peter and the Vicar of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth, genuflected in front of the Greek "patriarch," Athenagoras I in Jerusalem in 1964. He also expects Mohammedans to be untrue to the blasphemous document, the Koran, that he has venerated with his own priestly hands on two different occasions by expecting them to agents of conciliarism's "vision" of "religions" combating the secularism of our times as everyone works together for "peace." False. This is what is preached by Judeo-Masonry. This is what was preached by The Sillon.
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.
The final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Be confident in that victory as we seek to work out our own salvation with her help in fear and in trembling.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, 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?
Appendix A
Various Ways in Which the Orthodox Defect From the Deposit of Faith Entrusted to the Catholic Church
1. Papal Primacy.
2. Papal Infallibility.
3. The doctrine of Original Sin as defined dogmatically by the Catholic Church. The ambiguous doctrine of the Orthodox was noted by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, when discussing the Greek rejection of Limbo that is, of course, shared by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:
Very few Greek Fathers dealt with the destiny of infants who die without Baptism because there was no controversy about this issue in the East. Furthermore, they had a different view of the present condition of humanity. For the Greek Fathers, as the consequence of Adam's sin, human beings inherited corruption, possibility, and mortality, from which they could be restored by a process of deification made possible through the redemptive work of Christ. The idea of an inheritance of sin or guilt - common in Western tradition - was foreign to this perspective, since in their view sin could only be a free, personal act.
This is what the Orthodox still believe, which makes them fit "partners" for "ecumenical dialogue" with Ratzinger/Benedict, who has told us in his own murky way that he is of one mind with them on the matter of Original Sin, which he called in 1995 an "imprecise" term (!). Here is a statement on Original Sin from the Orthodox Church in America:
With regard to original sin, the difference between Orthodox Christianity and the West may be outlined as follows:
In the Orthodox Faith, the term "original sin" refers to the "first" sin of Adam and Eve. As a result of this sin, humanity bears the "consequences" of sin, the chief of which is death. Here the word "original" may be seen as synonymous with "first." Hence, the "original sin" refers to the "first sin" in much the same way as "original chair" refers to the "first chair."
In the West, humanity likewise bears the "consequences" of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. However, the West also understands that humanity is likewise "guilty" of the sin of Adam and Eve. The term "Original Sin" here refers to the condition into which humanity is born, a condition in which guilt as well as consequence is involved.
In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.
One might look at all of this in a completely different light. Imagine, if you will, that one of your close relatives was a mass murderer. He committed many serious crimes for which he was found guilty and perhaps even admitted his guilt publicly. You, as his or her son or brother or cousin, may very well bear the consequences of his action - people may shy away from you or say, "Watch out for him - he comes from a family of mass murderers." Your name may be tainted, or you may face some other forms of discrimination as a consequence of your relative’s sin. You, however, are not personally guilty of his or her sin.
There are some within Orthodoxy who approach a westernized view of sin, primarily after the 17th and 18th centuries due to a variety of westernizing influences particularly in Ukraine and Russia after the time of Peter Mohyla. These influences have from time to time colored explanations of the Orthodox Faith which are in many respects lacking. (Orthodox Church in America, Questions and Answers on Original Sin)
This is not Catholic doctrine. This matter cannot be "bridged" by concerts of music composed by Russians.
4. The Filioque, that God the Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
5. The doctrine of Purgatory as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church.
6. The doctrine of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church.
7. The doctrine of Our Lady's Assumption body and soul into Heaven as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church.
8. The doctrine of the indissolubility of a sacramentally valid, ratified and consummated marriage; the Orthodox hold that a person can marry up to three times following two divorces. Here is the Orthodox "consensus" (as there is no ultimate ecclesiastical authority within Orthodoxy to decide doctrinal matters) on the issue:
Marriage is one of the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. Orthodox Christians who marry must marry in the Church in order to be in sacramental communion with the Church. According to the Church canons, an Orthodox who marries outside the Church may not receive Holy Communion and may not serve as a sponsor, i.e. a Godparent at a Baptism, or as a sponsor at a Wedding. Certain marriages are prohibited by canon law, such as a marriage between first and second cousins, or between a Godparent and a Godchild. The first marriage of a man and a woman is honored by the Church with a richly symbolic service that eloquently speaks to everyone regarding the married state. The form of the service calls upon God to unite the couple through the prayer of the priest or bishop officiating.
The church will permit up to, but not more than, three marriages for any Orthodox Christian. If both partners are entering a second or third marriage, another form of the marriage ceremony is conducted, much more subdued and penitential in character. Marriages end either through the death of one of the partners or through ecclesiastical recognition of divorce. The Church grants "ecclesiastical divorces" on the basis of the exception given by Christ to his general prohibition of the practice. The Church has frequently deplored the rise of divorce and generally sees divorce as a tragic failure. Yet, the Orthodox Church also recognizes that sometimes the spiritual well-being of Christians caught in a broken and essentially nonexistent marriage justifies a divorce, with the right of one or both of the partners to remarry. Each parish priest is required to do all he can to help couples resolve their differences. If they cannot, and they obtain a civil divorce, they may apply for an ecclesiastical divorce in some jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church. In others, the judgment is left to the parish priest when and if a civilly divorced person seeks to remarry.
Those Orthodox jurisdictions which issue ecclesiastical divorces require a thorough evaluation of the situation, and the appearance of the civilly divorced couple before a local ecclesiastical court, where another investigation is made. Only after an ecclesiastical divorce is issued by the presiding bishop can they apply for an ecclesiastical license to remarry.
Though the Church would prefer that all Orthodox Christians would marry Orthodox Christians, it does not insist on it in practice. Out of its concern for the spiritual welfare of members who wish to marry a non-Orthodox Christian, the Church will conduct a "mixed marriage." For this purpose, a "non-Orthodox Christian" is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, or one of the many Protestant Churches which believe in and baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity. This means that such mixed marriages may be performed in the Orthodox Church. However, the Orthodox Church does not perform marriages between Orthodox Christians and persons belonging to other religions, such as Islam , Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any sectarian and cult group, such as Christian Science, Mormonism, or the followers of Rev. Moon. (The Stand of the Orthodox Church on Controversial Issues.)
9. The absolute prohibition against the use of any form of contraception whatsoever. This is from the website of the Greek Orthodox Church in America:
General agreement exists among Orthodox writers on the following two points:
- since at least one of the purposes of marriage is the birth of children, a couple acts immorally when it consistently uses contraceptive methods to avoid the birth of any children, if there are not extenuating circumstances;
- contraception is also immoral when used to encourage the practice of fornication and adultery.
Less agreement exists among Eastern Orthodox authors on the issue of contraception within marriage for the spacing of children or for the limitation of the number of children. Some authors take a negative view and count any use of contraceptive methods within or outside of marriage as immoral (Papacostas, pp. 13-18; Gabriel Dionysiatou). These authors tend to emphasize as the primary and almost exclusive purpose of marriage the birth of children and their upbringing. They tend to consider any other exercise of the sexual function as the submission of this holy act to unworthy purposes, i.e., pleasure-seeking, passion, and bodily gratification, which are held to be inappropriate for the Christian growing in spiritual perfection. These teachers hold that the only alternative is sexual abstinence in marriage, which, though difficult, is both desirable and possible through the aid of the grace of God. It must be noted also that, for these writers, abortion and contraception are closely tied together, and often little or no distinction is made between the two. Further, it is hard to discern in their writings any difference in judgment between those who use contraceptive methods so as to have no children and those who use them to space and limit the number of children.
Other Orthodox writers have challenged this view by seriously questioning the Orthodoxy of the exclusive and all-controlling role of the procreative purpose of marriage (Zaphiris; Constantelos, 1975). Some note the inconsistency of the advocacy of sexual continence in marriage with the scriptural teaching that one of the purposes of marriage is to permit the ethical fulfillment of sexual drives, so as to avoid fornication and adultery (1 Cor. 7:1-7). Most authors, however, emphasize the sacramental nature of marriage and its place within the framework of Christian anthropology, seeing the sexual relationship of husband and wife as one aspect of the mutual growth of the couple in love and unity. This approach readily adapts itself to an ethical position that would not only permit but also enjoin sexual relationships of husband and wife for their own sake as expressions of mutual love. Such a view clearly would support the use of contraceptive practices for the purpose of spacing and limiting children so as to permit greater freedom of the couple in the expression of their mutual love. (For the Health of Body and Soul: An Eastern Orthodox Introduction to Bioethics.)
These are not minor matters. And this all going to be "bridge" by means of appeals to the "heart"? Preposterous.
A mutual dislike of Scholasticism and a desire to "re-read" the Church Fathers without the "filter" provided by Saint Thomas Aquinas links Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's "New Theology" and the ambiguous doctrinal views of the Orthodox. I explored this in an article seventeen months ago now:
The following passages from Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, describe--and condemn--the entirety of the intellectual work of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is using his "vague notions" and outright heresies to appeal for "unity" with the schismatic and heretical Orthodox churches without forcing them to accept the dogmatic pronouncements of the Second Millennium that were made without their "participation" and that were "distorted" by Scholasticism as a result:
Hence to neglect, or to reject, or to devalue so many and such great resources which have been conceived, expressed and perfected so often by the age-old work of men endowed with no common talent and holiness, working under the vigilant supervision of the holy magisterium and with the light and leadership of the Holy Ghost in order to state the truths of the faith ever more accurately, to do this so that these things may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow; this is supreme imprudence and something that would make dogma itself a reed shaken by the wind. The contempt for terms and notions habitually used by scholastic theologians leads of itself to the weakening of what they call speculative theology, a discipline which these men consider devoid of true certitude because it is based on theological reasoning.
Unfortunately these advocates of novelty easily pass from despising scholastic theology to the neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as a hindrance to progress and an obstacle in the way of science. Some non Catholics consider it as an unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians from reforming their subject. And although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith -- Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition -- to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See," is sometimes as little known as if it did not exist. What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgment on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources, and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients.
Such is not the foundation of any kind of true reconciliation between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, admitting that the counterfeit church of conciliarism can indeed "live" with these differences in the name of a false notion of "unity" and "love."
Appendix B
Material From The Great Facade on the Filioque
Is DI [Domine Iesus] a roadmap out of the postconciliar crisis? Is it, like the Syllabus, a major corrective measure that will shore up Catholic orthodoxy in a time of peril to the Faith? Unfortunately, the suggestion that DI is a new Syllabus does not correspond to reality. As we showed in Chapter 11, it is none other than DI's principal author, Cardinal Ratzinger, who has assured us that "there can be no return to the Syllabus," and that the documents of Vatican II are "a countersyllabus," whose aim is to attempt "an official reconciliation" with an era whose institutions are now founded on the very errors the Syllabus condemns. To expect anything like a new Syllabus from the current Vatican apparatus is to indulge in fantasy.
To begin with, Catholics have been perplexed by DI's use of the ancient Nicne-Constaninopolitan Creed (381), which refers to the process of the Holy Spirit from the Father (see DI 1). Although there is obviously nothing wrong with this early creed per se, the Council of Constantinople was merely concerned with affirming the divinity of the Holy Spirit against the Pneutmatomachians, who denied it. (It should be mentioned, however, the the filioque does appear in the version of the Nicene-Constaninpolitan Creed by Dionysius Exiguus.) Subsequent councils, however (Lyons and Florence) explicitly affirmed the filioque (the process of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son together) as a de fide teaching of the Church against the Greek schismatics. As the Council of Lyons declared: "In faithful and devout profession, we declare that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two beginnings, but from one beginning, not from two breathings, but from one breathing. The most Holy Roman Church, the mother and teacher of all the faithful, has up to this time processed, preached and taught this; this she firmly holds, preaches, declares and teaches; the unchangeable and true opinion of the orthodox Fathers and Doctors, Latin and as well as Greek, holds this.
But in DI, the filioque is suddenly dropped in favor of a fourth century creed that did not address that theological question. So much for the "development of doctrine" that neo-Catholics are always citing! Neo-Catholics are constantly wavering between "development of doctrine" and "return to antiquity" in defending the current unexampled novelties (which follow neither principle).
At at any rate, the pointed omission of the filioque form DI is curious in a document promulgated to defend the salvific role of the Son. Why diminish the Catholic teaching about the Son even slightly by omitting the filioque? Evidently the Vatican did not wish to offend present-day Greek schismatics by being as forthright as the Council of Lyons about what the Catholic Church teaches. "Ecumenism" strikes again. (Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Press, 2002, pp. 335-336.)
[Thomas A. Droleskey afterword: I would only point out that what was identified in The Great Facade as a "wavering between 'development of doctrine and 'return to antiquity' in defending the current unexampled novelties (which follow neither principle)" has a had a new name in the past fifty-four months: the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity.]
