(Yes, the post office box has still been pretty empty. You can go online, you know, if you want these articles to continue. Is the laborer worth his keep?)

"Continuity"? Only in the Rejection of Catholic Truth

by Thomas A. Droleskey

There are times when notes from readers arrive in the "inbox" when I am absolutely dead tired. Even the thought of taking on additional work at a time when I am trying generate some income by promoting my new book (I couldn't afford to keep a website for this purpose that been built for "free" but carried a monthly charge to maintain that was beyond my capacity to pay, which means that I must start from scratch) is fatiguing beyond words to describe. It is very fatiguing to have to deal with the conciliar revolutionaries repeating  the same old denials of the nature of the dogmatic truth that are the foundation of the entire conciliar house of cards.

As a recent article that appeared in Columbia, the magazine of the Knights of Columbus, written by "Bishop" William Lori, the conciliar "bishop" of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was brought to my attention by a reader of this site nine days ago, it is time, however, to repeat myself f yet again on the most important aspect of the conciliar madness: the denial of the very nature of dogmatic truth. The article was a facile, sophomoric effort to "prove" that the "Second" Vatican Council and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service do not represent any rupture with Catholic teaching and tradition.

"Bishop" Lori's article in in Columbia magazine is perhaps the weakest to be found in the literary genre that could be called conciliar "apologetics." Here is the article, which has been placed conveniently online for poor schnooks such as me to review with a soft, gentle, deft touch:

 

 

 

In October 2012, the Church will observe the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Like any anniversary, this is a time to both look back and look ahead.

Among those who took a leading part in the council was a young bishop named Karol Wojtyla, who later became Pope John Paul II. When he was archbishop of Krakow, Wojtyła referred to the council as “the seminary of the Holy Spirit,” adding that it is “historically a thing of the past, but spiritually still in being.” In other words, this momentous gathering of bishops from all over the world was not just a gigantic strategic planning meeting for the future of the Church, but was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and, in the power of the Holy Spirit, continues to shape the life of the Church going forward.

BUILDING ON, NOT BREAKING WITH THE PAST

Many remember the years just after the Second Vatican Council, but few people actually read the council’s 16 documents. All too often, the importance of the council was reduced to one little phrase: “the changes.” One change that everyone noticed was that, beginning in 1969, Mass was no longer regularly celebrated in Latin, but rather in one’s native tongue.

The council is also associated with less formality in the Church. Catholics were told that, thanks to the council, the Church would now be more open to the world — that is, to the spirit of the times. Priests were to be regular guys; sisters donned lay clothes; family life began to change, often drastically; and strict doctrine was often replaced by a variety of theological opinions.

To be sure, the Second Vatican Council did open the door to various practical changes in the life of the Church and called upon all Catholics to engage the world more robustly. But sometimes that was taken to mean that the council constituted a complete break with the past. Everything prior was deemed by some to be old and outdated. Everything going forward was new and fresh and of the Holy Spirit. In fact, a phrase was coined to express this point of view: “the spirit of the council.” We were sometimes told to pay little attention to what the Vatican II documents actually said and instead be more attentive to the council’s “spirit.”

Actually, there is a better way for us to appreciate the council. Pope Benedict XVI calls it a “hermeneutic of continuity.” What he means by this phrase is that the best way to delve into the authentic meaning of the council is to see its connections with Christ, the Scriptures and the whole of the Church’s tradition. The Second Vatican Council doesn’t represent a break with the past, but rather an organic development flowing from all that the Church has believed and taught through the centuries. You can see this clearly if you consider how many times the Second Vatican Council refers to the councils that preceded it, as well as the teachings of popes and doctors of the Church, ancient liturgical texts, and masters of the spiritual life.

A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY

In their wisdom, the fathers of the Second Vatican Council understood that the best way to respond to the modern world was to understand and treasure the heritage of the Church more deeply. The council’s document Gaudium et Spes makes it clear that we are best equipped “to read the signs of the times” by opening ourselves to the fullness of the Church’s tradition and to the person of Christ.

Let’s think about it this way: What if we, as members of the Knights of Columbus, suddenly stopped talking about Father McGivney because he lived a long time ago under very different conditions? What if we said that our principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism are old-fashioned and should be traded in for new principles? Or suppose we radically reorganized the insurance program so that it bore no resemblance to Father McGivney’s original vision? What would become of the “new and improved” Knights of Columbus? Of course, the Order has changed with the times so as to meet new needs and varying conditions — but always those changes have been in continuity with our deepest roots.

In a similar way, the Catholic Church has been journeying through history for some 2,000 years and, obedient to the mandate of Christ, has proclaimed the Gospel in every epoch, culture, language and place. To be sure, the Church has grown, and her teaching, worship and discipline have developed — but organically. What is new is integrated with what went before; we don’t get to “remake” the Church’s teaching with each passing generation.

This has nothing to do with being “liberal” or “conservative.” In fact, those terms, which are borrowed from politics, have done a lot of damage to the Church’s unity. St. Paul reminds us there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5). The Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church have set forth the teaching of the Church in a way that is complete, reliable, life-giving and beautiful. In the Year of Faith that lies ahead, let us open our hearts to Christ and to all he teaches us in and through our beloved Church. (Continuity and the Second Vatican Council.)

Did you wade through all of this foul waste? (How's that for soft, gentle and deft?)

All right, take off your hip boots. Here comes the the clean-up brigade to the rescue.

Let's start with the simple fact that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was a Modernist revolutionary. See, for example, "Connecting" with Betrayal,   "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, Celebrating Apostasy and Dereliction of Duty, To Be Loved by the Jews, Enjoy the Party, George, Enjoy the Party.

Let's continue with equally simple fact that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict VI is a Modernist revolutionary. See, for example, Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy, which includes a partial listing of past articles amply demonstrating this incontestable fact.

Now, let's dissect the rest of "Bishop" Lori's incredibly shallow effort in positivism to make it appear as though the "Second" Vatican Council and the aftermath that followed in its destructive wake anything other than wholesale apostasy.

Once Again, Distorting the Nature of the Liturgical Abomination Known as the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo Liturgical Service

Although, I will address "Bishop" Lori's attack on the nature of dogmatic truth in but a short while, his contention that the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, "directed" the proceedings of the "Second" Vatican Council is, of course, blasphemous as to believe this one must believe that He can contradict himself directly. To believe that the "Second" Vatican Council was "directed" by God the Holy Ghost, you see, one must believe that dogmatic truth must be understood in light of the "historical conditions" in which a particular pope reigned and/or general council met under his authority. As we know, of course, this is precisely what the conciliarists must believe and contend publicly as they well aware that most Catholics will do not know anything about nor will ever take the time to discover the direct contradictions of immutable Catholic truth found in the conciliar documents and in the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes."

Before reviewing this yet again, though, I do want to demolish with a really big wrecking ball to the implication contained in Bishop Lori's statement that the use of the vernacular in the Novus Ordo liturgical service was the essence of what conciliarists call the "liturgical renewal."

Let us be clear for the thousandth time or so on this site: the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service was a revolutionary break from the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church as it represents a complete and total break with Catholic dogmatic teaching in order to make the liturgy a vessel to communicate the "novelties" of concilairism while accustoming Catholics to ceaseless liturgical change and changes in pastoral praxis so that they would accept radical change, including changes in the "understanding" of dogmatic teaching, as a normal, natural part of Catholic life when it is nothing other than foreign to very Mind of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as repugnant to the good of souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem.

Here is another review of what the liturgical revolutionaries told us in their very own words:

 

 

We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants." (Annibale Bugnini, L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)

Let it be candidly said: the Roman Rite which we have known hitherto no longer exists. It is destroyed. (Father Joseph Gelineau, who worked with Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, Quoted and footnoted in the work of a Father John Mole, who believed that the Mass of the Roman Rite had been "truncated," not destroyed. Assault on the Roman Rite)

Certainly we will preserve the basic elements, the bread, the wine, but all else will be changed according to local tradition: words, gestures, colors, vestments, chants, architecture, decor. The problem of liturgical reform is immense. (Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, 1965, Quoted and footnoted in Assault on the Roman Rite. This has also been noted on this site in the past, having been provided me by a reader who had access to the 1980 French book in which the quote is found.)

"[T]he intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should coincide with the Protestant liturgy.... [T]here was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense, in the Mass, and I, repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass" (Dec. 19, 1993), Apropos, #17, pp. 8f; quoted in Christian Order, October, 1994. (Jean Guitton, a close friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI.)

Continuity? Only in the rejection of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Faith protected and transmitted therein.

The late Monsignor Klaus Gamber, who, though, not a traditionalist and was in favor of some liturgical reforms, was an intellectually honest liturgical scholar who wrote the following about the abject lie that the Novus Ordo liturgical service was merely the translation of the "old Mass" into the vernacular:

 

 

Not only is the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969 a change of the liturgical rite, but that change also involved a rearrangement of the liturgical year, including changes in the assignment of feast days for the saints. To add or drop one or the other of these feast days, as had been done before, certainly does not constitute a change of the rite, per se. But the countless innovations introduced as part of liturgical reform have left hardly any of the traditional liturgical forms intact . . .

At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old and until now the heart of the Church, was destroyed. A closer examination reveals that the Roman rite was not perfect, and that some elements of value had atrophied over the centuries. Yet, through all the periods of the unrest that again and again shook the Church to her foundations, the Roman rite always remained the rock, the secure home of faith and piety. . . .

Was all this really done because of a pastoral concern about the souls of the faithful, or did it not rather represent a radical breach with the traditional rite, to prevent the further use of traditional liturgical texts and thus to make the celebration of the "Tridentime Mass" impossible--because it no longer reflected the new spirit moving through the Church?

Indeed, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the prohibition of the traditional rite was announced at the same time as the introduction of the new liturgical texts; and that a dispensation to continue celebrating the Mass according to the traditional rite was granted only to older priests.

Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful.

Liturgy and faith are interdependent. That is why a new rite was created, a rite that in many ways reflects the bias of the new (modernist) theology. The traditional liturgy simply could not be allowed to exist in its established form because it was permeated with the truths of the traditional faith and the ancient forms of piety. For this reason alone, much was abolished and new rites, prayers and hymns were introduced, as were the new readings from Scripture, which conveniently left out those passages that did not square with the teachings of modern theology--for example, references to a God who judges and punishes.

At the same time, the priests and the faithful are told that the new liturgy created after the Second Vatican Council is identical in essence with the liturgy that has been in use in the Catholic Church up to this point, and that the only changes introduced involved reviving some earlier liturgical forms and removing a few duplications, but above all getting rid of elements of no particular interest.

Most priests accepted these assurances about the continuity of liturgical forms of worship and accepted the new rite with the same unquestioning obedience with which they had accepted the minor ritual changes introduced by Rome from time to time in the past, changes beginning with the reform of the Divine Office and of the liturgical chant introduced by Pope St. Pius X.

Following this strategy, the groups pushing for reform were able to take advantage of and at the same time abuse the sense of obedience among the older priests, and the common good will of the majority of the faithful, while, in many cases, they themselves refused to obey. . . .

The real destruction of the traditional Mass, of the traditional Roman rite with a history of more than one thousand years, is the wholesale destruction of the faith on which it was based, a faith that had been the source of our piety and of our courage to bear witness to Christ and His Church, the inspiration of countless Catholics over many centuries. Will someone, some day, be able to say the same thing about the new Mass? (Monsignor Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, p. 39, p. 99, pp. 100-102.)

Who used to agree with Monsignor Gamber before he took a dose of Professor Pepperwinkle's Anti-Memory spray and contended the reverse in 2007? Well, longtime readers know the answer to that rhetorical question. "Bishop" Lori does not, and it is my hope that someone out there in cyperspace will send this to him (hey, maybe he might even push the PayPal button when he's done reading it, huh?), I am revealing the rather obvious answer yet again:

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history form the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Preface to the French language edition of Monsignor Klaus Gamber's The Reform of the Roman Liturgy.)

The prohibition of the missal that was now decreed, a missal that had known continuous growth over the centuries, starting with the sacramentaries of the ancient Church, introduced a breach into the history of the liturgy whose consequences could only be tragic. It was reasonable and right of the Council to order a revision of the missal such as had often taken place before and which this time had to be more thorough than before, above all because of the introduction of the vernacular.

But more than this now happened: the old building was demolished, and another was built, to be sure largely using materials from the previous one and even using the old building plans. There is no doubt that this new missal in many respects brought with it a real improvement and enrichment; but setting it as a new construction over against what had grown historically, forbidding the results of this historical growth. thereby makes the liturgy appear to be no longer living development but the produce of erudite work and juridical authority; this has caused an enormous harm. For then the impression had to emerge that liturgy is something "made", not something given in advance but something lying without our own power of decision. (Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, Milestones.)

 

No "rupture," "Bishop" Lori? The entirety of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal that is supposed to govern the stagings of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service is a rupture with the Faith of our Fathers, expressed perhaps perfectly in Paragraph 15:

The same awareness of the present state of the world also influenced the use of texts from very ancient tradition. It seemed that this cherished treasure would not be harmed if some phrases were changed so that the style of language would be more in accord with the language of modern theology and would faithfully reflect the actual state of the Church's discipline. Thus there have been changes of some expressions bearing on the evaluation and use of the good things of the earth and of allusions to a particular form of outward penance belonging to another age in the history of the Church. (Paragraph 15, General Instruction to the Roman Missal, 1997.)

 

Acts of outward penance belong to every age in the history of the Catholic Church, unless, that is, Our Lady herself, the very Mother of God, was wrong when she said:

 

"Penance! Penance! Penance!. . . .  Kiss the ground as a penance for sinners." (Our Lady's Words at Lourdes.)

"Are you willing to offer yourselves to God and bear all the sufferings He wills to send you, as an act of reparation for the conversion of sinners? (May 13, 1917.)

"Then you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort." (May 13, 1917.)

"Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them." (August 19, 1917.) (Our Lady's Words at Fatima.)

Holy Mother Church, guided infallibly by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who is without any shadow of change or ambiguity, knows that her children are weak, inclined to be lazy and to make excuses in their sins. Although we should be motivated solely by love of God as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church, the Catholic Church, to do penances in reparation for our many sins, both Venial and Mortal, recognizing how they wounded Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ once in time during His Passion and Death and caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be thrust through and through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Co-Redemptrix and our Mediatrix and Advocate, offering up to Him everything freely as His consecrated slaves through the same Immaculate Heart of Mary, Holy Mother Church knows that we need to prompted by her disciplinary powers to bind us under pain of sin to do the penances that we might not undertake on our own accord.

The counterfeit "faith" that is expressed in the Novus Ordo has done away with most references in its collects and other prayers to a God Who judges, to the possibility of losing one's soul for all eternity, to heretics or those who are in error. This has been demonstrated countless numbers of times in numerous scholarly works and in theological treatises written even before the Novus Ordo's implementation (see Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer's Letter to Paul VI regarding the Promulgation of the Novus Ordo.or the Ottaviani Intervention). The whole theology that was at the foundation of Pope Pius XI's instituting the Feast of Christ King in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, has been replaced in its entirety by the conciliar revolutionaries (see Michael Davies' The Reign of Christ the King).

Contrary to "Bishop" Lori's facile, sophomoric contention in his Columbia magazine article, the evidence of the rupture between the Mass of all ages and the Novus Ordo is vastly documented in scholarly tomes. The evidence of the differences between the two faiths expressed by each liturgy is equally vast (see, for example,What Lines Are You Reading Between, Bishop Fellay?). The problem with the Novus Ordo is not a matter of translations. It is not a matter of "implementation." It is not a matter of "interpretation." It is indeed a fundamental matter of the Holy Faith Itself.

Bishop Lori's contention that there has been no rupture between the Faith of our fathers and that of conciliarism is false. This point has been made in many articles on this site, including the following that deal with it in reference to the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service: With Perfection Staring Directly At Them, Turning Perfection Aside For A More Perfect Banality, Taking The Obvious For Granted, Enough Spin To Make Our Heads Spin, Calling Cesar Romero, Calling Cesar Romero, part two, Transforming the Extraordinary Into the Ordinary, The Better Mousetrap, "Cardinals" Burke and Canizares, Meet The Council of Trent and, among so many others, Next Stop On The Motu Madness Merry-Go-Round: 1969 And Beyond.

Accepting The Very False Premise of the Conciliar Revolution: The Warfare Against Dogmatic Truth

As noted above, to accept "Bishop" Lori's claim false claim that there has been no rupture between the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church on such matters as the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and prayer services, the "new" definition between what purports to be the Catholic Church and "the faith of Israel," religious liberty, separation of Church and State and methodologies of interpreting Sacred Scripture that have been condemned repeatedly by true pope after true pope, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI coined a slogan, "the hermeneutic of continuity," as a means of repackaging his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned notions concern the nature of dogmatic truth. He has done this to justify the "teaching" of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" even though his own whole approach has been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church.

1971: "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.)

1990: 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, cited at 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.)

 

"Bishop" Lori, did God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, leave the Catholic Church in darkness about the "discovery" made by your "pope" of an "innovation in continuity" in which we have "learned" that certain decisions made by our true popes and/or under their authority are "contingent themselves because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself"? Did the Catholic Church, to whose infallible teaching authority Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted His Sacred Deposit of Faith, only "learn" about this "reality" in the 1960s?

If so, then was God the Holy Ghost wrong when He directed the Fathers of the Council of Trent and Pope Saint Pius X to issue the following condemnations of the exact same propositions advanced through the nearly sixty-one years of Joseph Ratzinger's priestly life?

• 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 1.)

 

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910; see also Nothing Stable, Nothing Secure.)

Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

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.

It is evident from what We have already said, that such tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it. The contempt of doctrine commonly taught and of the terms in which it is expressed strongly favor it. Everyone is aware that the terminology employed in the schools and even that used by the Teaching Authority of the Church itself is capable of being perfected and polished; and we know also that the Church itself has not always used the same terms in the same way. It is also manifest that the Church cannot be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of time. Nevertheless, the things that have been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on any such weak foundation. These things are based on principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things. In the process of deducing, this knowledge, like a star, gave enlightenment to the human mind through the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that some of these notions have not only been used by the Oecumenical Councils, but even sanctioned by them, so that it is wrong to depart from them.

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. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

 

As they would say on the some the mean, rough streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, "Bishop" Lori, you are "busted." Your contention of "continuity" that parrots the Master Modernist himself, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, is without any dogmatic foundation in the history of the Catholic Church and flies of simple reason on the natural level.

A Brief Review of Concilairism's Many Ruptures From Catholic Teaching

How, "Bishop" Lori, is it possible possible not to "understand" any teaching of the Catholic Church when a simple review of Denziger will reveal that the Church spoke consistently throughout the ages with no shadow of contradiction precisely because there is and can never be any shadow of contradictory or ambiguity or lack of clarity in God the Holy Ghost or in the infallible guidance he provides to Holy Mother Church?

As my time is valuable and I am not going to waste it on trying prove the obvious to one persists obstinately in self-induced blindness, I will provide only three more examples of demonstrable ruptures that no amount of Modernist sophistry can seek to "understand" as compatible with the Catholic Faith.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has rejected what he calls, most disparagingly, it should be noted, the "ecumenism of the return," even though true pope after true pope has said precisely that those who are outside of her maternal bosom must be converted to the true Faith lest their perish for all eternity:

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: "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. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English)

 

This is, of course, not the teaching of the Catholic Church:

"It is for this reason that so many who do not share 'the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church' must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

"So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. . . .  Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is 'the root and womb whence the Church of God springs,' not with the intention and the hope that 'the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth' will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be 'careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'" (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

No rupture, "Bishop" Lori? Just a "development of doctrine" and pastoral praxis? Nonsense. .

Not enough,"Bishop" Lori? How about testimony from the Mother of God herself?

"Do you think that I do not know that you are the heretic? Realize that your end is at hand. If you do not return to the True Faith, you will be cast into Hell! But if you change your beliefs, I shall protect you before God. Tell people to pray that they may gain the good graces which, God in His mercy has offered to them." (See: If You Do Not Return to the True Faith, You Will Be Cast Into Hell!)

 

The Catholic Church has always condemned "fellowship" in matters concerning religion with adherents of false religions:

Lastly, the beloved disciple St. John renews the same command in the strongest terms, and adds another reason, which regards all without exception, and especially those who are best instructed in their duty: "Look to yourselves", says he, "that ye lose not the things that ye have wrought, but that you may receive a full reward. Whosoever revolteth, and continueth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that continueth in the doctrine the same hath both the Father and the Son. If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, nor say to him, God speed you: for he that saith to him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works". (2 John, ver. 8)

Here, then, it is manifest, that all fellowship with those who have not the doctrine of Jesus Christ, which is "a communication in their evil works" — that is, in their false tenets, or worship, or in any act of religion — is strictly forbidden, under pain of losing the "things we have wrought, the reward of our labors, the salvation of our souls". And if this holy apostle declares that the very saying God speed to such people is a communication with their wicked works, what would he have said of going to their places of worship, of hearing their sermons, joining in their prayers, or the like?

From this passage the learned translators of the Rheims New Testament, in their note, justly observe, "That, in matters of religion, in praying, hearing their sermons, presence at their service, partaking of their sacraments, and all other communicating with them in spiritual things, it is a great and damnable sin to deal with them." And if this be the case with all in general, how much more with those who are well instructed and better versed in their religion than others? For their doing any of these things must be a much greater crime than in ignorant people, because they know their duty better. (Bishop George Hay, The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

The spirit of Christ, which dictated the Holy Scriptures, and the spirit which animates and guides the Church of Christ, and teaches her all truth, is the same; and therefore in all ages her conduct on this point has been uniformly the same as what the Holy Scripture teaches. She has constantly forbidden her children to hold any communication, in religious matters, with those who are separated from her communion; and this she has sometimes done under the most severe penalties. In the apostolical canons, which are of very ancient standing, and for the most part handed down from the apostolical age, it is thus decreed: "If any bishop, or priest, or deacon, shall join in prayers with heretics, let him be suspended from Communion". (Can. 44)

Also, "If any clergyman or laic shall go into the synagogue of the Jews, or the meetings of heretics, to join in prayer with them, let him be deposed, and deprived of communion". (Can. 63) (Bishop George Hay, (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly."The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Yes, I have deliberately included the passage from Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos a second time in order to show you, "Bishop" Lori, that you must believe in the theological equivalent of the tooth fairy to contend that the "ecumenism" embraced and practiced with abandon by your false church is not a major rupture from Catholic teaching and practice and, quite indeed, has been condemned by Holy Mother Church from time immemorial.

Were the apostolical canons wrong,"Bishop" Lori? How is what the conciliar "pontiffs" have done by entering Protestant assembly halls (which they think are churches) and mosques and synagogues not a rupture with the consistent doctrine and canon law of the Catholic Church? How?

Let's move on, "Bishop" Lori, to your "pope's" constant endorsement of and praise for "separation of Church and State."

Contrast Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's praise of "separation of Church and State" in Portugal in 2010 with Pope Saint Pius X's condemnation of it in 1911:

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: From a wise vision of life and of the world, the just ordering of society follows. Situated within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life. The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom. What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the radical choice of martyrdom. (Official Reception at Lisbon Portela International Airport, Tuesday, May 11, 2010.)

Pope Saint Pius X:  2. Whilst the new rulers of Portugal were affording such numerous and awful examples of the abuse of power, you know with what patience and moderation this Apostolic See has acted towards them. We thought that We ought most carefully to avoid any action that could even have the appearance of hostility to the Republic. For We clung to the hope that its rulers would one day take saner counsels and would at length repair, by some new agreement, the injuries inflicted on the Church. In this, however, We have been altogether disappointed, for they have now crowned their evil work by the promulgation of a vicious and pernicious Decree for the Separation of Church and State. But now the duty imposed upon Us by our Apostolic charge will not allow Us to remain passive and silent when so serious a wound has been inflicted upon the rights and dignity of the Catholic religion. Therefore do We now address you, Venerable Brethren, in this letter and denounce to all Christendom the heinousness of this deed.

3. At the outset, the absurd and monstrous character of the decree of which We speak is plain from the fact that it proclaims and enacts that the Republic shall have no religion, as if men individually and any association or nation did not depend upon Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things; and then from the fact that it liberates Portugal from the observance of the Catholic religion, that religion, We say, which has ever been that nation's greatest safeguard and glory, and has been professed almost unanimously by its people. So let us take it that it has been their pleasure to sever that close alliance between Church and State, confirmed though it was by the solemn faith of treaties. Once this divorce was effected, it would at least have been logical to pay no further attention to the Church, and to leave her the enjoyment of the common liberty and rights which belong to every citizen and every respectable community of peoples. Quite otherwise, however, have things fallen out. This decree bears indeed the name of Separation, but it enacts in reality the reduction of the Church to utter want by the spoliation of her property, and to servitude to the State by oppression in all that touches her sacred power and spirit. . . .

Accordingly, under the admonition of the duty of Our Apostolic office that, in the face of such audacity on the part of the enemies of God, We should most vigilantly protect the dignity and honor of religion and preserve the sacred rights of the Catholic Church, We by our Apostolic authority denounce, condemn, and reject the Law for the Separation of Church and State in the Portuguese Republic. This law despises God and repudiates the Catholic faith; it annuls the treaties solemnly made between Portugal and the Apostolic See, and violates the law of nature and of her property; it oppresses the liberty of the Church, and assails her divine Constitution; it injures and insults the majesty of the Roman Pontificate, the order of Bishops, the Portuguese clergy and people, and so the Catholics of the world. And whilst We strenuously complain that such a law should have been made, sanctioned, and published, We utter a solemn protest against those who have had a part in it as authors or helpers, and, at the same time, We proclaim and denounce as null and void, and to be so regarded, all that the law has enacted against the inviolable rights of the Church. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)

 

That the Holy See made an accommodation to the reality caused by the Portuguese decree of separation of Church and State and had its property and many of its privileges restored in the Concordat  of 1940 in no way justifies the revolution against the Social Reign of Christ the King in Portugal wrought by the Masonic and socialistic forces there one hundred years ago. Holy Mother Church has long sought to accommodate herself to the concrete realities of any given situation in which her children find themselves so that she can continue her work of teaching and preaching and sanctification without the hindrance of the civil state. To reach a concordat that recognizes the reality of a forced separation of Church and State is not the same thing as endorsing that false thesis or to praise the free flow of false ideas and organizations that have occurred in its wake.

No rupture, "Bishop" Lori? No rupture?

Pope Saint Pius X had written the following in Vehementer Nos just five years before Iamdudum:

 

 

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. . . .Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

How can something absolutely false in 1906 and that had been condemned repeatedly by pope after pope become true, good, virtuous and even necessary sixty years thereafter, Father Cavalcoli? How? That the conciliar "popes" have ceased condemning the doctrine of separation of Church and State and have, quite instead, embraced and defended and promoted it is yet another proof that have not the Mind of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, but are possessed of Modernist heart and soul that is intent on "reconciling" with the anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist, naturalist and semi-Pelagian principles of Modernity that are from the devil himself.

As Pope Leo XIII put it in Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

No "rupture," "Bishop" Lori? Dream on. Dream on. You do a great disservice to the cause of Catholic truth and must answer to God when you die for articles such as the one you wrote on September 8, 2012, in Columbia magazine. You are deceiving souls, starting first and foremost with your own.

How about "religious liberty," that supposedly "first and most cherished freedom"? A complete rupture, thank you very much, "Bishop" Lori:

"Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words." (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right").

The Catholic Church: For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

"This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling." (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

Your "first and most cherished freedom," "Bishop" Lori, is cherished only by its author, the devil, not by the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity.

For the sake of time, "Bishop" Lori, please give me just one example of any pope in the history of the Catholic Church prior to the "election" of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on October 28, 1958, who ever attempted to give any "joint blessings" with the Anglican "archbishop" of Canterbury or who dared to walk into a Talmudic synagogue or a Mohammedan mosque or a Lutheran assembly hall (which the Lutherans think is a church) to show these places of false worship signs of respect and veneration?

Still waiting.

No rupture? You are intellectually dishonest or blind or both.

Just one more example, "Bishop" Lori. Just one.

Finally, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and many of his "cardinals" and "bishops" have treated Talmudism as a perfectly valid means of sanctification and salvation for those who adhere to it.

For this to be correct, "Bishop" Lori, then God the Holy Ghost must have "erred" when he directed the Fathers of the Council of Florence issue the following solemn dogmatic proclamations under the authority of Pope Eugene IV:

 

 

It [the Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments, because they were established to signify something in the future, although they were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord's coming had been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began; and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these errors. Therefore, it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed at all without the loss of eternal salvation. Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, when no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the Devil and adopted among the sons of God, it advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or eighty days, or any time according to the observance of certain people, but it should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently, but so ,that, when danger of death is imminent, they be baptized in the form of the Church, early without delay, even by a layman or woman, if a priest should be lacking, just as is contained more fully in the decree of the Armenians. . . .

It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart "into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442.)

28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. [28] "And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.

29.And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

No "rupture,""Bishop" Lori?

I'll give you a break, "Bishop" Lori.. I will leave for the appendix below a review of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani's complete evisceration of the condemned proposition that dogmatic truth, including the Church's Social Teaching, contains "contingent realities" that are subject to "adjustment" according to the circumstances of the times, including also Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton's demolition of the belief that Catholics are not bound by papal encyclical letters or allocutions, many of which have been, as demonstrated in brief above. I'll just give you a break on that one in the man body of this article's text as I don't think that you are intellectually honest enough to call apostasy and absurdity and contradiction by their proper names.

"Continuity" in conciliar doctrine, liturgy and pastoral praxis? Only insofar as the rejection of Catholic truth is concerned. The conciliarists have been and continue to be completely consistent in that kind of "continuity," one of apostasy, blasphemy and sacrilege.

The Catholic Church can never make any terms with error:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.)

In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Say good night "Bishop" Lori. You belong to a church that is but a counterfeit ape of the Catholic Church.

"Bishop" Lori, you are neither a true priest or a true bishop. The "pope" you serve expelled himself from the bosom of Holy Mother Church years ago just as surely as the pro-abortion Catholics who are in completely good standing in your false church and, I should note to you as the supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus, are allowed to remain as members of the Knights of Columbus.

It is time for you and your fellow "bishops," "Bishop" Lori, to recognize the truth of the Church Militant in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

"Bishop" Lori thus has erred grievously when contending that the "Second" Vatican Council represents no "rupture" with Catholic teaching. There has been a rupture. The men responsible for it are apostates. They are not members of the Catholic Church.

It was a conciliar official, now deceased, who recognized that the See of Peter would be vacant in the case of heresy even though he, the late Mario Pompedda "Cardinal" Francesco, did not believe that the situation obtained at the time that he spoke (in February of 2005 as Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was dying of Stage III Parkinson's Disease). Yes, sedevacantism is the other possibility, Father Pfluger:

It is true that the canonical doctrine states that the see would be vacant in the case of heresy. ... But in regard to all else, I think what is applicable is what judgment regulates human acts. And the act of will, namely a resignation or capacity to govern or not govern, is a human act. (Cardinal Says Pope Could Govern Even If Unable to Speak, Zenit, February 8, 2005; see also see also Gregorius's The Chair is Still Empty.)

 

Unlike what many traditionally-minded Catholics have heard from the theologians of the Society of Saint Pius X, however, Pompedda was intellectually honest enough to admit that sedevacantism is indeed a part of the canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church. Only a handful of Catholics, priests and laity alike, accepted this doctrine and recognized that it applied in our circumstances in the immediate aftermath of the "Second" Vatican Council. I was not one of them.

We separate ourselves from the conciliarists because they offend God by defecting from the Faith, starting with their rejection of the nature of dogmatic truth and their making complex what it is: the knowledge of Him that He has deposited in Holy Mother Church. We must understand, however, that offenses against the moral order are no less of a concern to God than offenses against doctrine. Offenses against the moral order, many of which have been committed by the conciliar "bishops" and their chancery factotums and their insurance companies are not "little things," unless, as I have noted in other commentaries in recent weeks, that the loss of the Faith in a single soul is a "little thing" and that the clergy responsible for indemnifying the loss of just one soul do not show themselves to be enemies of the Cross of the Divine Redeemer as a result.

Although there are those who tell us that we should "stay and fight" in once Catholic parishes that now in the hands of apostates (or their enablers who refuse to speak out against them), we must recognize that offenses against the doctrines of the Faith and offenses against the moral order are never the foundations upon which God will choose to restore His Holy Church. Truth in the moral order is as black and white as truth in the doctrinal realm. Conciliarism consists of its very nature in a rejection of various parts of the Catholic Faith, and it is this rejection that leads in turn to the same sort of despair and hopelessness in the souls of so many men now as existed at the time before the First Coming of Our Lord at His Incarnation and, nine months later, His Nativity.

We do not need to conduct a "search" for the "true meaning" of the doctrines contained the Sacred Deposit of Faith. We accept what has been handed down to us as docile children of Holy Mother Church.

We must remember at all times because the crosses of the present moment, no matter their source, are fashioned to us from the very hand of God Himself to be the means of our participating in Our Lord's Easter victory over the power of sin and eternal death. It matters not what anyone thinks of us for refusing to accept the conciliarists as representatives of the Catholic Church or for refusing to associate with those who believe act in a de facto manner as the authority of the Church while looking the other way at grave abuses of the moral order and indemnifying wrong-doers time and time again. All that matters is that we carry our cross as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, looking for no other consolation than that which is given to the souls of the elect upon the Particular Judgment and that is ratified for all to see at General Judgment of the Living and the Dead:

Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (Matthew 25: 21.)

 

We never have to "understand" apostasy. We just have to recognize it and then flee from it.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

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 John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani on the Modernist Methodology to Dispense with the True Social Teaching of the Catholic Church

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)

Appendix B

Monsignor Joseph Clinton Fenton on the Binding Nature of Papal Declarations

(As Extracted and Adapted from a Previous Article)

The late Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, who had taught my own late seminary professor, Father John Joseph "Jackie Boy" at Saint Bernard's Seminary in Rochester, New York, in the late-1930s, wrote a superb explication of the teaching authority of encyclical letters a year before Humani Generis, and I thank Mr. Jerry Meng, the author of Joseph Ratzinger Is Not the Pope, for providing me with information about Father Fenton's material, which appeared in the American Ecclesiastical Review, that I had read several years ago but had faded into the deeper recesses of my memory in the meantime. Thank you, Mr. Meng. To Father Fenton:

It would manifestly be a very serious fault on the part of a Catholic writer or teacher in this field, acting on his own authority, to set aside or to ignore any of the outstanding doctrinal pronouncements of the Rerum novarum or the Quadragesimo anno, regardless of how unfashionable these documents be in a particular locality or at a particular time. It would, however, be a much graver sin on the part of such a teacher to pass over or to discountenance a considerable section of the teachings contained in these labor encyclicals. In exactly the same way and for precisely the same reason it would be seriously wrong to contravene any outstanding individual pronouncement in the encyclicals dealing with the relations between Church and State, and much worse to ignore or disregard all of the teachings or a great portion of the teachings on this topic contained in the letters of Pius IX and Leo XIII.

It is, of course, possible that the Church might come to modify its stand on some detail of teaching presented as non-infallible matter in a papal encyclical. The nature of the auctoritas providentiae doctrinalis within the Church is such, however, that this fallibility extends to questions of relatively minute detail or of particular application. The body of doctrine on the rights and duties of labor, on the Church and State, or on any other subject treated extensively in a series of papal letters directed to and normative for the entire Church militant could not be radically or completely erroneous. The infallible security Christ wills that His disciples should enjoy within His Church is utterly incompatible with such a possibility. (Doctrinal authority of Papal Encyclicals.)

 

To wit, Pope Saint Pius X wrote the following about the falsehood represented by the separation of Church and State:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. . . . Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

Gee, I wonder who has spent a great deal of the past eighty-eight months endorsing this false thesis: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, that's who. This cannot be. It is impossible for a true Roman Pontiff to contradict another on a matter that is part of the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. "Bishop" Lori endorses it as well.

Some glib commentators might protest that not every papal statement demands our assent, that we can "sift" through what a true pope says. This is false, which is one of the reasons why true popes never spoke in interviews as they knew that their words, which were carefully chosen and vetted by theological advisers (yes, the rendering of this word as "advisors" is also accepted usage), carried the weight of their papal office, that the faithful weren't and could not be expected to make unnecessary distinctions between "official" and "unofficial" words and deeds, which was the whole point of Words and Actions Without Consequences.

Monsignor Fenton elaborated on this point when applying the teaching stated by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis to the authority of papal allocutions:

Despite the fact that there is nothing like an adequate treatment of the papal allocutions in existing theological literature, every priest, and particularly every professor of sacred theology, should know whether and under what circumstances these allocutions addressed by the Sovereign Pontiffs to private groups are to be regarded as authoritative, as actual expressions of the Roman Pontiff's ordinary magisterium.  And, especially because of the tendency towards an unhealthy minimism current in this country and elsewhere in the world today, they should also know how doctrine is to be set forth in the allocutions and the other vehicles of the Holy Father's ordinary magisterium if it is to be accepted as authoritative.  The present brief paper will attempt to consider and to answer these questions.

The first question to be considered is this: Can a speech addressed by the Roman Pontiff to a private group, a group which cannot in any sense be taken as representing either the Roman Church or the universal Church, contain doctrinal teaching authoritative for the universal Church?

The clear and unequivocal answer to this question is contained in the Holy Father's encyclical letter Humani generis, issued Aug. 12, 1950.  According to this document: "if, in their 'Acta' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."[6]

Thus, in the teaching of the Humani generis, any doctrinal decision made by the Pope and included in his "Acta" are authoritative.  Now many of the allocutions made by the Sovereign Pontiff to private groups are included in the "Acta" of the Sovereign Pontiff himself, as a section of the Acta apostolicae sedis.  Hence, any doctrinal decision made in one of these allocutions that is published in the Holy Father's "Acta" is authoritative and binding on all the members of the universal Church.

There is, according to the words of the Humani generis, an authoritative doctrinal decision whenever the Roman Pontiffs, in their "Acta," "de re hactenus controversa data opera sententiam ferunt."  When this condition is fulfilled, even in an allocution originally delivered to a private group, but subsequently published as part of the Holy Father's "Acta," an authoritative doctrinal judgment has been proposed to the universal Church.  All of those within the Church are obliged, under penalty of serious sin, to accept this decision. . . .

Now the questions may arise: is there any particular form which the Roman Pontiff is obliged to follow in setting forth a doctrinal decision in either the positive or the negative manner? Does the Pope have to state specifically and explicitly that he intends to issue a doctrinal decision on this particular point?  Is it at all necessary that he should refer explicitly to the fact that there has hitherto been a debate among theologians on the question he is going to decide?

There is certainly nothing in the divinely established constitutional law of the Catholic Church which would in any way justify an affirmative response to any of these inquiries.  The Holy Father's doctrinal authority stems from the tremendous responsibility Our Lord laid upon him in St. Peter, whose successor he is.  Our Lord charged the Prince of the Apostles, and through him, all of his successors until the end of time, with the commission of feeding, of acting as a shepherd for, of taking care of, His lambs and His sheep.[7]  Included in that responsibility was the obligation, and, of course, the power, to confirm the faith of his fellow Christians.

And the Lord said: "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."[8]

St. Peter had, and has in his successor, the duty and the power to confirm his brethren in their faith, to take care of their doctrinal needs.  Included in his responsibility is an obvious obligation to select and to employ the means he judges most effective and apt for the accomplishment of the end God has commissioned him to attain.  And in this era, when the printed word possesses a manifest primacy in the field of the dissemination of ideas, the Sovereign Pontiffs have chosen to bring their authoritative teaching, the doctrine in which they accomplish the work of instruction God has commanded them to do, to the people of Christ through the medium of the printed word in the published "Acta."

The Humani generis reminds us that the doctrinal decisions set forth in the Holy Father's "Acta" manifestly are authoritative "according to the mind and will" of the Pontiffs who have issued these decisions.  Thus, wherever there is a doctrinal judgment expressed in the "Acta" of a Sovereign Pontiff, it is clear that the Pontiff understands that decision to be authoritative and wills that it be so.

Now when the Pope, in his "Acta," sets forth as a part of Catholic doctrine or as a genuine teaching of the Catholic Church some thesis which has hitherto been opposed, even legitimately, in the schools of sacred theology, he is manifestly making a doctrinal decision.  This certainly holds true even when, in making his statement, the Pope does not explicitly assert that he is issuing a doctrinal judgment and, of course, even when he does not refer to the existence of a controversy or debate on the subject among theologians up until the time of his own pronouncement.  All that is necessary is that this teaching, hitherto opposed in the theological schools, be now set forth as the teaching of the Sovereign Pontiff, or as "doctrina catholica."

Private theologians have no right whatsoever to establish what they believe to be the conditions under which the teaching presented in the "Acta" of the Roman Pontiff may be accepted as authoritative.  This is, on the contrary, the duty and the prerogative of the Roman Pontiff himself.  The present Holy Father has exercised that right and has done his duty in stating clearly that any doctrinal decision which the Bishop of Rome has taken the trouble to make and insert into his "Acta" is to be received as genuinely authoritative.

In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own "Acta."  Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner?

The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer.  This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: "And if, in their 'Acta,' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."

Theologians legitimately discuss and dispute among themselves doctrinal questions which the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church has not as yet resolved.  Once that magisterium has expressed a decision and communicated that decision to the Church universal, the first and the most obvious result of its declaration must be the cessation of debate on the point it has decided.  A man definitely is not acting and could not act as a theologian, as a teacher of Catholic truth, by disputing against a decision made by the competent doctrinal authority of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own "Acta."  Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner? (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)

 

The crashing sound you hear in the background is the whole facade of the false ecclesiology of the "resist but recognize" movement that has been propagated in the past forty years as the "answer" to "resisting" the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "encyclical" letters and statements and allocutions of the conciliar "popes" crumbling right to the ground.

The rejections, for example, of the clear and consistent Catholic condemnation of religious liberty and separation of Church and State while endorsing the sort of false ecumenism condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, and while propagating the "new ecclesiology" of the "new theology" that is a public and manifest rejection of the very nature of the Church as summarized by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, are no mere acts of "modification" of past papal statements as they are applied in the world today. They are a wholesale rejection of Catholic truth, which is why they have been shrouded in a cloud of ambiguity and paradox as to deceive many of the elect.

Perhaps "Bishop" Lori ought to familiarize himself with the truth about the nature of dogmatic teaching and the teaching authority of the encyclicals and allocutions of- our true popes by considering seriously, perhaps for the first time in his life, the true scholarship of Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani and Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton that explodes every false contention he made in such a sophomoric manner in his Columbia magazine article.