Control The Language, Control The Perception
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Revolutionaries of any kind, whether of the theological or social variety, understand that one of the keys to controlling the perception of their efforts is to control the language used in ordinary speech as they throw out those things, practices and people associated with the past as they seek to artificial memories of a "bad past" that never existed or has been exaggerated to suit their own diabolical purposes.
Thus it is the the French revolutionaries sought to paint everything and everyone associated with the Ancien Regime of the Bourbons as evil and corrupt, starting with Holy Mother Church herself and the Sacred Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to her for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Those who sought to oppose the revolution and to defend the rights of Holy Mother Church had to be disparaged as "enemies of the people" whose property and very lives had to be forfeited in the interests of the revolutionary principles of "liberte, egalite, fraternite." Similarly, members of the royal family and the nobility and others who were sympathetic to the "past" had to be disparaged as reactionaries unworthy of "citizenship" in the "new order."
This is the same pattern followed by the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico, Italy, Spain and by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck during his Kulturkampf putsch against the Church during the 1870s that was opposed with great eloquence by Pope Pius IX in Esti Multa, November 21, 1873. And, of course, the pattern established by the French Revolution was followed and perfected by the murderous Vladimir I. Lenin during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1971 and refined even more by Mao Tse-Tung in Red China in 1949 (and in the two decade civil war in China that preceded Mao's takeover of mainland China). Class warfare warriors in this country such as Caesar Obamus Barackus Ignoramus are simply following tried and true methods of demagoguery that even antedate the French Revolutionaries as the brutalities of the lords of Modernity are really nothing other than recrudescence and adaptation of the methods employed by many of the Roman emperors and their minions.
The lords of Modernity, though, had more immediate examples in bloodletting to follow than those of the pagans of antiquity. The French Revolution could not have occurred unless the diabolical forces of revolution had not been unleashed by the likes of Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., and Thomas Cranmer and Ulrich Zwingli and Elizabeth I and John Wesley and John Knox and John Calvin and countless others against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church. Martin Luther unleashed a revolution against God and thus against all social order. It was thus necessary to "reform" doctrine and to express this "reform" liturgically in a liturgy devoid of all sacramental grace, a liturgy that worships the devil, not the true God of Divine Revelation, as everything about Protestantism is from the devil without any exception whatsoever. Protestantism is a corruption of true Faith, Morals and Worship in the name of "reforming the church" and "purifying" her of "man-made doctrines" and "archaic" sacramental rites that rob the "people" of their proper place in the economy of salvation. It is relatively easy for Order of Creation (Nature) to be corrupted once the Order of Redemption (Grace) has been attacked with violence and replaced with that which is synthetic.
Similarly, the Modernist revolutionaries of the counterfeit church of conciliarism modeled almost all of their own attacks against true Faith, Worship and Morals along the lines of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry. Modernists, according to the words of Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, use "a thousand noxious devices" to rob Catholics of their sensus Catholicus,
which is supposed to enable Catholics to detect and to reject that
which is opposed to the Faith and thus to the salvation of their own
immortal souls, as an artificial "memory" of the past is created in
order to convince Catholics, especially those who have no direct,
personal memories of the past or who have not studied authentic Catholic
history, that the revolutionary precepts of conciliarism are either in
accord with the Faith or that they represented simply a logical
"progression" of the "truth" according to the logically absurd and
dogmatically condemned principle advanced by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict
XVI, the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity."
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a true conciliar
revolutionary, has attempted to convince Catholics that the true God of
Revelation has made Himself to obscure to us that we are only now
"discovering" things that have eluded the grasp of dogmatic councils and
true popes prior to the advent of the "Second" Vatican Council and the
"magisterium" of the conciliar "popes." This, of course, is as
blasphemous as it is absurd as it means that God the Holy Ghost has
failed those dogmatic councils and true popes as they declared with
certainty and in precise terms various dogmas of the Faith that are
considered by Ratzinger/Benedict to have been formulated only in a
"contingent" manner given the historical circumstances in which those
pronouncements were made and given the "imprecise" nature of language,
which is itself allegedly subjected to the vicissitudes of time and
place.
Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe, ultimately, that
God reveals Himself clearly and unambiguously. Ratzinger/Benedict
believes in a conception of false god, one who is obscure in his
revelation, one whose work must always be refined by human effort, one
who "reveals" himself even through false religions, including those that
deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Thus it should come as no surprise that Ratzinger/Benedict's neo-Walter "Cardinal" Kasper, Kurt "Cardinal" Koch, has attempted, contrary to true history, to paint Martin Luther not as a revolutionary but as a "reformer" who did not want to create his own church. This is both true and false.
This is true in that Luther believed that he could corrupt the Faith from within, that he had the support of enough powerful and wealthy princes in the German states to support him in this regard. Luther did not count on meeting the stiff resistance that he did from Pope Leo X and from the holy pontiffs who followed him, nor did he reckon on the fact that God the Holy Ghost would direct the Fathers of the Council of Trent to reaffirm the Catholic Faith and to anathematize the errors of Protestantism.
Contrary to what Kurt Koch contended recently, Luther, a stubborn and sinful man whose false theology was designed to reaffirm himself in the commission of his sins while still remaining a "faithful Christian," delighted in the fact that he was the progenitor of a revolution. He denounced the Catholic Church, teaching that Our Lord did not create a visible, hierarchical society upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. This was no mere "reform." This was a revolution. And although Luther did not set out to create a new church, he was more than happy to do so.
The conciliar revolutionaries, on the other hand, learned the lessons of Luther quite well. They implemented their own revolutionary schemes from within the structures of the Catholic Church, having insinuated themselves into the highest offices of Holy Mother Church in the one hundred years prior to the beginning of the "Second" Vatican Council on October 11, 1962. Revolutions do not happen overnight. Seeds are planted for them, and Pope Pius IX was aware of these efforts when he issued The Syllabus of Errors on December 8, 1864. The conciliar revolutionaries, having inherited the Modernist precepts that were condemned by Pope Saint Pius X as they were refined by the New Theology, itself condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, planned and executed their plans to create a new church, a new order from within the existing structures of the Catholic Church.
As the late Father William Heidt, O.S.B., told in a class on Scriptural Hermeneutics at Holy Apostles Seminary in the Fall of 1983 that those who planned and implemented the "Second" Vatican Council had learned the lessons of Luther by staying within the structures to undermine the Faith from within. Although Father Heidt was an enemy of Modernist exegesis of Sacred Scripture and was a defender of Holy Mother Church's true liturgical patrimony, he did not understand what others by then, including "The Nine" who had made much news earlier that year, namely, that the revolutionaries had expelled themselves from the bosom of Holy Mother Church by defecting from the Catholic Faith. Most Catholics accepted the rhetorical tricks used by the revolutionaries as they disparaged the "past" and flattered them, the "people," thereby remaining in what were the outward physical structures of Catholicism while following those who had created that new church, that new order from within.
It is thus necessary for the likes of Kurt "Cardinal" Koch to anesthetize the truth of Martin Luther's revolution by calling it a reform as he calls the conciliar revolution against the Faith a "reform" that compared favorably with the work of Luther. Well, what was I saying about broken clocks a few days ago? Yes, it was this: that they are right twice a day, but for the wrong reasons. So is Kurt Koch:
According to Cardinal Kurt Koch (on the picture with the lutheran pastor Olav Fykse Tveit), President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, when questioned by the German TV channel Deutsche Welle on Christmas, quoted by La Croix on January 5, the Holy See and the World Lutheran Federation have created a common commission to prepare the 500th anniversary of the Reform, which will be celebrated in 2017.
The objective, according to Cardinal Koch, is to succeed in “healing
the memories”(sic) between the two religions. “A common document will
be published, in which we shall try to express the visions we can share
of the Reform, the positive as well as the negative,” added the prelate,
pointing out that “Martin Luther (did) not want to found a new
Church.” According to him, it was more a question of “renewing the
Church”, and not of a “complete rupture”(sic).
For Cardinal Koch, Benedict XVI’s speech – at his meeting with the Bishops on Germany (EKD) on September 23, 2011, in Erfurt -,
was very promising and “pointed out a path for the future. (…) The Pope
may even have given the answers to questions that were not brought up
originally, but that are none the less essential.” The prelate insisted
on the fact that he himself looked on the future of ecumenism in
Germany “with great confidence”. At the Vatican, too, “not a few have
realized the positive way in which the Pope spoke of Luther in Erfurt
and how positively he considers the roots of ecumenism.”
The President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
recognized that Catholics and Protestants still do not have “a common
understanding of the Eucharist and the Lord’s Supper and that, for this
reason, a common celebration of this sacrament is not yet possible.”
But this impossibility can also be a “great motivation to continue the
dialogue in view of a ecclesial community,” he declared without batting
an eyelash. (Catholics and Lutherans Together For the 500th Anniversary of the Lutheran "Reform".)
Apostasy.
As memories are short, permit me to reprise yet again what the false "pontiff," who is both an admirer and a critic of Martin Luther, said in Germany nearly four months ago now:
As I begin to speak, I would like first of all to say how deeply
grateful I am that we are able to come together. I am particularly grateful to
you, my dear brother, Pastor Schneider, for receiving me and for the words with
which you have welcomed me here among you. You have opened your heart and
openly expressed a truly shared faith, a longing for unity. And we are also
glad, for I believe that this session, our meetings here, are also being
celebrated as the feast of our shared faith. Moreover, I would like to express
my thanks to all of you for your gift in making it possible for us to speak with
one another as Christians here, in this historic place.
As the Bishop of Rome, it is deeply moving for me to be meeting you here in the
ancient Augustinian convent in Erfurt. As we have just heard, this is where
Luther studied theology. This is where he was ordained a priest. Against his
father’s wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied
theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint
Augustine. And on this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that. What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and
driving force of his whole life’s journey. “How do I receive the grace of
God?”: this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all
his theological searching and inner struggle. For Luther theology was no mere
academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for
and with God.
“How do I receive the grace of God?” The fact that this question was
the driving force of his whole life never ceases to make a deep impression on
me. For who is actually concerned about this today – even among Christians?
What does the question of God mean in our lives? In our preaching? Most people
today, even Christians, set out from the presupposition that God is not
fundamentally interested in our sins and virtues. He knows that we are all mere
flesh. And insofar as people believe in an afterlife and a divine judgement at
all, nearly everyone presumes for all practical purposes that God is bound to be
magnanimous and that ultimately he mercifully overlooks our small failings. The
question no longer troubles us. But are they really so small, our failings? Is
not the world laid waste through the corruption of the great, but also of the
small, who think only of their own advantage? Is it not laid waste through the
power of drugs, which thrives on the one hand on greed and avarice, and on the
other hand on the craving for pleasure of those who become addicted? Is the
world not threatened by the growing readiness to use violence, frequently
masking itself with claims to religious motivation? Could hunger and poverty so
devastate parts of the world if love for God and godly love of neighbour – of
his creatures, of men and women – were more alive in us? I could go on. No,
evil is no small matter. Were we truly to place God at the centre of our lives,
it could not be so powerful. The question: what is God’s position towards me,
where do I stand before God? – Luther’s burning question must once more,
doubtless in a new form, become our question too, not an academic question, but
a real one. In my view, this is the first summons we should attend to in our
encounter with Martin Luther.
Another important point: God, the one God, creator of heaven and earth,
is no mere philosophical hypothesis regarding the origins of the universe. This
God has a face, and he has spoken to us. He became one of us in the man Jesus
Christ – who is both true God and true man. Luther’s thinking, his whole
spirituality, was thoroughly Christocentric: “What promotes Christ’s cause” was
for Luther the decisive hermeneutical criterion for the exegesis of sacred
Scripture. This presupposes, however, that Christ is at the heart of our
spirituality and that love for him, living in communion with him, is what guides
our life. (Meeting with representatives of the German Evangelical Church Council in the
Chapter Hall of the Augustinian Convent Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
Brief Comment: So, Ratzinger/Benedict was pleased to be meeting with his fellow Christians? He should not have even walked into this den of iniquity where false worship and false doctrines offend God and deceive souls:
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, ,who served as the Vicar Apostolic of the Lowland District of Scotland, mind you, my friends, from December 3, 1778, to August 24, 1805: 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.)
None of this matters one whit to Ratzinger/Benedict, who dismisses the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church with a wave of the hand as he invokes his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to rationalize his violation of the very Oath Against Modernism that he had sworn to uphold:
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.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has not only failed to keep these articles faithfully, he has worked actively to undermine each and every one of them without fail.
Luther had a struggle for and with God to develop his theology? Luther's whole life was Christocentric?
Martin Luther had struggles all right. Those struggles involved his failure to control his sins against holy purity and temperance as he broke his vow of celibacy and got himself into one drunken stupor after another, confessing his sins thereafter without "feeling" forgiven, a false emotion that caused him to conclude that the whole sacramental system was false because we do not need an "intermediary" between God and man in the form of an ordained priest to absolve us of our sins. This is hardly the stuff of a man whose life was "Christocentric" as to be centered on the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation is to submit oneself without reservation to everything contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith, which includes Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.
Martin Luther thus had no true love of Our Lord. He believed that he alone understood the Word of God and the Fathers of the Church, rejecting the "prison" into which Sacred Scripture had been placed by some of the Fathers and, of course, by Saint Thomas Aquinas himself. Sound familiar? Of course it does. This is identical to what Ratzinger/Benedict and the "fathers" of the "new theology" to which he is so dedicated have taught. Luther was also a lover of novelty, and these sorts of "ecumenical" gatherings are novelties of the "popes" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
Although Martin Luther was gifted with a keen intellect, his sins and his overweening pride and disordered self-love darkened that intellect and turned it into an instrument of the evil that is still deceiving souls yet today. Father Patrick O'Hare explained the true identity, which is far different from the Ratzinger/Benedict's hagiography, of Martin Luther:
"Anointed," as Luther was, "to preach the Gospel of
peace," and commissioned to communicate to all the knowledge which
uplifts, sanctifies and saves, it is certainly pertinent to ask what was
his attitude towards the ministry of the divine word, and in what
manner did he show by speech and behavior the heavenly sanctions of law:
divine, international and social?
As we draw near this man and carefully examine his career, we find that in an evil moment he
abandoned the spirit of discipline, became a pursuer of novelty, and
put on the ways and manners of the "wolf in sheep's clothing" whose
teeth and claws rent asunder the seamless garment of divine knowledge
which should have been kept whole for the instruction and the comfort of
all who were to seek the law at his lips. His words lost their
savor and influence for good, and only foulness and mocking blasphemy
filled his mouth, to deceive the ignorant and lead them into error,
license and rebellion against both Church and state. Out of the
abundance of a corrupt heart this fallen priest, who had departed from
the divine source of that knowledge, which is unto peace, shamelessly
advanced theories and principles which cut at the root of all order,
authority and obedience, and inaugurated an antagonism and a disregard
for the sanctity of law such as the world had not seen since pagan
times. His Gospel was not that of the Apostles, who issued from the
upper room of Jerusalem in the power of those "parted tongues, as it
were of fire." His doctrine, stripped of its cunning and deceit, was
nothing else, to use the words of St. James describing false teaching,
but "earthly, sensual, devilish"; so much so, that men of good sense
could no longer safely "seek the law at his mouth" and honestly
recognize him as "the angel of the Lord of Hosts" sent with instructions
for the good of the flock and the peace of the nations. Opposed to all
law, order and restraint, he could not but disgrace his ministry,
proclaim his own shame, and prove to every wise and discerning follower
of the true Gospel of peace, the groundlessness of his boastful claims
to be in any proper sense a benefactor of society, an upholder of
constituted authority and a promoter of the best interests of humanity.
Luther, like many another framer of
religious and political heresy, may have begun his course blindly and
with little serious reflection. He may never have stopped to estimate
the lamentable and disastrous results to which his heretofore
unheard-of-propaganda would inevitably lead. He may not have directly
intended the ruin, desolation and misery which his seditious preaching
effected in all directions. "But," as Verres aptly says, "if a man
standing on one of the snowcapped giants of the Alps were to roll down a
little stone, knowing what consequences would follow, he would be
answerable for the desolation caused by the avalanche in the valley
below. Luther put into motion not one little stone, but rock after rock,
and he must have been shortsighted indeed--or his blind hatred made him
so--if he was unable to estimate beforehand what effect his
inflammatory appeals to the masses of the people and his wild
denunciations of law and order would have." He should, as a matter of
course, have weighed well and thoroughly the merits or demerits of his
"new gospel" before he announced it to an undiscriminating public, and
wittingly or unwittingly unbarred the floodgates of confusion and unrest.
Deliberation, however, was a process little known to this man of many
moods and violent temper. To secure victory in his quarrel with the
Church absorbed his attention to the exclusion of all else, and,
although he may not have reflected in time on the effects of his
revolutionary teachings, he is nonetheless largely responsible for the
religious, political and social upheaval of his day which his wild and
passionate harangues fomented and precipitated. Nothing short of a
miracle could have prevented his reckless, persistent and unsparing
denunciations of authority and its representatives from undermining the
supports by which order and discipline in Church and state were upheld.
As events proved, his wild words, flung about in reckless profusion,
fell into souls full of the fermenting passions of time and turned
Germany into a land of misery, darkness and disorder. (Monsignor Patrick
F. O'Hare. The Facts About Luther, published originally in
Cincinnati, Ohio, by Frederick Pustet Company in 1916, reprinted in 1987
by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 215-217.)
No man can be said to have led a Christocentric life who made war upon the very reality of the visible, hierarchical Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. There is no true Christocentric life without the Catholic Church. It is that simple, something that Ratzinger, much like Luther before him, is not.
Luther was concerned about "Christ's cause." No, he was not. No man who denies the very reality of His Holy Church is advancing anyone's cause except that of Lucifer himself.
Here is a brief review of the principal errors of the Lutheran strain of Protestantism:
(1) That Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did not create a visible, hierarchical Church.
(2) That there is no authority given by Our Lord
to the Pope and his bishops and priests to govern and to sanctify the
faithful.
(3) That each believer has an immediate and
personal relationship with the Savior as soon as he makes a profession
of faith on his lips and in his heart, therefore being perpetually
justified before God.
(4) Having been justified by faith alone, a
believer has no need of an intermediary from a non-existent hierarchical
priesthood to forgive him his sins. He is forgiven by God immediately
when he asks forgiveness.
(5) This state of justification is not earned by
good works. While good works are laudable, especially to help
unbelievers convert, they do not impute unto salvation. Salvation is the
result of the profession of faith that justifies the sinner.
(6) That grace is merely, in the words of Martin Luther, the snowflakes that cover up the "dung heap" that is man.
(7) That there is only one source of Divine Revelation, Sacred Scripture.
(8) That each individual is his own interpreter of Sacred Scripture.
(9) That there is a strict separation of Church
and State. Princes, to draw from Luther himself, may be Christians but
it is not as a Christian that they ought to rule.
These lies
have perm ut at ed in thousands of different directions. However, they have
sewn the fabric of the modern state and popular culture for nearly half
a millennium, serving as a good deal of the foundation of conciliarism
itself and its own devastation of souls.
Here below are explanations of these lies and their multifaceted implications for the world in which we live:
(1-2) The contention that Our Lord did not create a
visible, hierarchical church vitiates the need for a hierarchical,
sacerdotal priesthood for the administration of the sacraments. It is a
rejection of the entirety of the history of Christianity prior to the
Sixteenth Century. It is a denial of the lesson taught us by Our Lord by
means of His submission to His own creatures, Saint Joseph and the
Blessed Mother, in the Holy Family of Nazareth that each of us is to
live our entire lives under authority, starting with the authority of
the Vicar of Christ and those bishops who are in full communion with
him. The rejection of the visible, hierarchical church is founded on the
prideful belief that we are able to govern ourselves without being
directed by anyone else on earth. This contention would lead in due
course to the rejection of any and all religious belief as necessary for
individuals and for societies. Luther and Calvin paved the way for
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution that followed so closely
the latter's deification of man.
(3-6) Baptism is merely symbolic of the Christian's
desire to be associated with the Savior in the amorphous body known as
the Church. What is determinative of the believer's relationship with
Christ is his profession of faith. As the believer remains a reprobate
sinner, all he can do is to seek forgiveness by confessing his sins
privately to God. This gives the Protestant of the Lutheran strain the
presumptuous sense that there is almost nothing he can do to lose his
salvation once he has made his profession of faith in the Lord Jesus.
There is thus no belief that a person can scale the heights of personal
sanctity by means of sanctifying grace. It is impossible, as Luther
projected from his own unwillingness to cooperate with sanctifying grace
to overcome his battles with lust, for the believer to be anything
other than a dung heap. Thus a Protestant can sin freely without for
once considering that he has killed the life of sanctifying grace in his
soul, thereby darkening his intellect and weakening the will and
inclining himself all the more to sin-and all the more a vessel of
disorder and injustice in the larger life of society.
(7-8) The rejection of a visible, hierarchical
Church and the rejection of Apostolic Tradition as a source of Divine
Revelation protected by that Church leads in both instances to
theological relativism. Without an authoritative guide to interpret
Divine Revelation, including Sacred Scripture, individual believers can
come to mutually contradictory conclusions about the meaning of
passages, the precise thing that has given rise to literally thousands
of Protestant sects. And if a believer can reduce the Bible, which he
believes is the sole source of Divine Revelation, to the level of
individual interpretation, then there is nothing to prevent anyone from
doing the same with all written documents, including the documents of a
nation's founding. If the plain words of Scripture can be deconstructed
of their meaning, it is easy to do so, say, with the words of a
governmental constitution. Theological relativism paved the way for
moral relativism. Moral relativism paved the way for the triumph of
positivism and deconstructionism as normative in the realm of theology
and that of law and popular culture.
(9) The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus
Christ as it was exercised by His true Church in the Middle Ages by the
Protestant concept of the separation of Church and State is what gave
rise to royal absolutism in Europe in the immediate aftermath of
Luther's handiwork. Indeed, as I have noted any number of times before,
it is arguably the case that the conditions that bred resentment on the
part of colonists in English America prior to 1776 might never have
developed if England had remained a Catholic nation. The monarchy would
have been subject in the Eighteenth Century to same constraints as it
had in the Tenth or Eleventh Centuries, namely, that kings and queens
would have continued to understand that the Church reserved unto herself
the right to interpose herself in the event that rulers had done
things-or proposed to do things-that were contrary to the binding
precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law and/or were
injurious of the cause of the sanctification and salvation of the souls
of their subjects. The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ
deposited power first of all in the hands of monarchs eager to be rid of
the "interference" of the Church and ultimately in the hands of whoever
happened to hold the reins of governmental power in the modern
"democratic" state. Despotism has been the result in both cases.
Despite all of this, however, many conciliarists have
praised the revolutionary Martin Luther. Among these conciliarists is,
of course, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Although the false "pontiff"
has criticized various aspects of Luther's beliefs in various places at
various times, including in Spe Salvi, November 30, 2007, he
has nevertheless praised Martin Luther as a "father" of a theological
school that is deserving of respect. Ratzinger/ Benedict believes that
Catholics and Protestants can both understand their respective "Fathers"
in a way that would be recognized as "catholic" by the early Church
Fathers, which is why he, "Benedict XVI," is attempting to deconstruct
the early Church Fathers to "read" conciliarism, which is so favorably
disposed to Orthodoxy ( see Oh, Bother! It's Just A Thousand Years) and Protestantism, into their texts:
In many respects, a decision about the role of the
Fathers seems, in fact, to have been reached today. But, since it is
more unfavorable than favorable to a greater reliance upon them, it does
nothing to lead us out of our present aporia. For, in the debate about
what constitutes greater fidelity to the Church of the Fathers, Luther's
historical instinct is clearly proving itself right. We are fairly
certain today that, while the Fathers were not Roman Catholic as the
thirteenth or nineteenth century would have understood the term, they
were nonetheless "Catholic", and their Catholicism extended to the very
canon of the New Testament itself. With this assessment, paradoxically,
the Fathers have lost ground on both side of the argument because, in
the controversy about the fundamental basis for understanding Scripture,
there is nothing more to be proved or disproved by reference to them.
But neither have they become totally unimportant in the domain, for,
even after the relativization they have suffered in the process we have
described, the differences between the Catholicism of an Augustine and a
Thomas Aquinas, or even between that of a Cardinal Manning and a
Cyprian, still opens a broad field of theological investigation.
Granted, only one side can consider them its own Fathers, and the proof
of continuity, which once led directly back to them, seems no longer
worth the effort for a concept of history and faith that sees continuity
as made possible and communicated in terms of discontinuity.
Nevertheless, a fact is emerging from these
reflections that can guide us in our search for an answer. For we must
admit, on the one hand, that, even for Catholic theology, the so-called
Fathers of the Church have, for a long time, been "Fathers" only in an
indirect sense, whereas the real "Father" of the form that ultimately
dominated nineteenth century theology was Thomas Aquinas, with his
classic systematization of the thirteenth century doctrina media, which,
it must be added, was in its turn based on the "authority" of the
Fathers. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 141-142.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is joined at the hip with Martin Luther in their mutual errors concerning Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Angelic Doctor's view of the Church Fathers.
The false "pontiff" noted that his Lutheran "brothers" could join with him in fighting irreligion, a common theme of the movement that is false ecumenism while condemning the rise of various "fundamentalist" Protestant communities who owe their very origins to the revolution against God and His Catholic Church started by the drunkard and lecher named Martin Luther, whose heretical view of "justification by faith alone" became the basis of a de facto discrediting of the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification offered by the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger-brokered Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1999 (one of those "unofficial" official documents of the conciliar church that supposedly binds no one but winds up being referenced by the false "pontiff" very frequently, such as he did on Thursday by citing his own apostate work on Holy Week in his address to Talmudists in Berlin):
Now perhaps one might say: all well and good, but what has this to do
with our ecumenical situation? Could this just be an attempt to talk our way
past the urgent problems that are still waiting for practical progress, for
concrete results? I would respond by saying that the first and most important
thing for ecumenism is that we keep in view just how much we have in common, not
losing sight of it amid the pressure towards secularization – everything that
makes us Christian in the first place and continues to be our gift and our
task. It was the error of the Reformation period that for the most part we
could only see what divided us and we failed to grasp existentially what we have
in common in terms of the great deposit of sacred Scripture and the early
Christian creeds. For me, the great ecumenical step forward of recent decades
is that we have become aware of all this common ground, that we acknowledge it
as we pray and sing together, as we make our joint commitment to the Christian
ethos in our dealings with the world, as we bear common witness to the God of
Jesus Christ in this world as our inalienable, shared foundation.
To be sure, the risk of losing it is not unreal. I would like to make
two brief points here. The geography of Christianity has changed dramatically
in recent times, and is in the process of changing further. Faced with a new
form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism,
sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem
at a loss. This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth,
little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.
This worldwide phenomenon – that bishops from all over the world are constantly
telling me about – poses a question to us all: what is this new form of
Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse? In any event, it raises
afresh the question about what has enduring validity and what can or must be
changed – the question of our fundamental faith choice.
The second challenge to worldwide Christianity of which I wish to speak
is more profound and in our country more controversial: the secularized context
of the world in which we Christians today have to live and bear witness to our
faith. God is increasingly being driven out of our society, and the history of
revelation that Scripture recounts to us seems locked into an ever more remote
past. Are we to yield to the pressure of secularization, and become modern by
watering down the faith? Naturally faith today has to be thought out afresh,
and above all lived afresh, so that it is suited to the present day. Yet it is
not by watering the faith down, but by living it today in its fullness that we
achieve this. This is a key ecumenical task in which we have to help one
another: developing a deeper and livelier faith. It is not strategy that saves
us and saves Christianity, but faith – thought out and lived afresh; through
such faith, Christ enters this world of ours, and with him, the living God. As
the martyrs of the Nazi era brought us together and prompted that great initial
ecumenical opening, so today, faith that is lived from deep within amid a
secularized world is the most powerful ecumenical force that brings us together,
guiding us towards unity in the one Lord. And we pray to him, asking that we
may learn to live the faith anew, and that in this way we may then become one. (Meeting with representatives of the German Evangelical Church Council in the
Chapter Hall of the Augustinian Convent Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
What, pray tell, constitutes, "mainstream Christianity"? Orthodoxy? Lutheranism? Presbyterianism? Anglicanism? Methodism? Baptists?
How can it be said that the "fundamentalist" Protestant sects differ at all from the so-called "mainstream" Protestant sects as every Protestant sect is founded on a reject of multiple parts of the Deposit of Faith? Whatever differences that exist are matters of degree, not of kind.
What kind of "dogma" is taught by Protestants that can bind the consciences of anyone at any time for any reason?
How can heretics give a "common witness" to the "Christian faith"? What kind of common ground is there between truth and error.
Pope Leo XIII, writing in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, explained that there must be perfect agreement and union of minds for there to be unity among believers, and that that unity can be found in one and only one place, the Catholic Church:
Agreement and union of minds is the
necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which
concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results.
Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of
Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to
God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one
faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one
baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one
faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and
implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference
of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms
amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same
judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter;
they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who
profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the
greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many
are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be
recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be
ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was
done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in
faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)
How is Ratzinger/Benedict himself not guilty of doing what he condemns, that is, of "watering down the faith," by speaking of a common witness to fight against a secularized world, especially one one considers these words of Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 8, 1928?
Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty,
that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual
reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare
to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to
carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples
might be "one." And did not the same Christ will that His disciples
should be marked out and distinguished from others by this
characteristic, namely that they loved one another: "By this shall all
men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another"? All
Christians, they add, should be as "one": for then they would be much
more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion, which like a
serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely spread, and
prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. These things and
others that class of men who are known as pan-Christians continually
repeat and amplify; and these men, so far from being quite few and
scattered, have increased to the dimensions of an entire class, and have
grouped themselves into widely spread societies, most of which are
directed by non-Catholics, although they are imbued with varying
doctrines concerning the things of faith. This undertaking is so
actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a
number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very
many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a
union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother
Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring
sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these
enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which
the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
How has "Pope" Benedict XVI recalled Holy Mother Church's "erring sons" to "lead them back to her bosom"? He has not. Indeed, he uses words and blandishments that expose a most grave error by which he has personally presided over the destruction of the Catholic Faith in the lives of hundreds of millions of Catholics around the world. He is an apostate.
Ratzinger/Benedict's second set of remarks to the Lutherans September 23, 2011, delivered at an ecumenical "prayer service" in the church of the former Augustinian Convent in Erfurt, Germany, continued the same themes that he had developed in the address to the representatives of the council of the so-called Evangelical Church of Germany a short while beforehand:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe
in me through them” (Jn 17:20). These words Jesus addressed to the
Father in the Upper Room. He intercedes for coming generations of believers.
He looks beyond the Upper Room, towards the future. He also prayed for us.
And he prayed for our unity. This prayer of Jesus is not simply something from
the past. He stands before the Father, for ever making intercession for us. At
this moment he also stands in our midst and he desires to draw us into his own
prayer. In the prayer of Jesus we find the very heart of our unity. We will
become one if we allow ourselves to be drawn into this prayer. Whenever we
gather in prayer as Christians, Jesus’ concern for us, and his prayer to the
Father for us, ought to touch our hearts. The more we allow ourselves to be
drawn into this event, the more we grow in unity. (Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
Brief Comment: Grow in unity? Unity exists in one place. The Catholic Church. People either belong to this true Church or they do not.
Pope Pius XII noted this in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1946:
Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church
who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been
so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or
been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one
Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in
the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one
Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And
therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered -
so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that
those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the
unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine
Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
There is and can be no "unity" with Lutherans. They must convert unconditionally to the Catholic Church, and it is a dereliction of duty on the part of the man who believes himself to be the very Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ on earth to refuse to seek their conversion. It is a sin against God and and it is a sin against charity for the sake of the souls of the Lutherans, a sin that also reaffirms Catholics in the utterly false belief that those who adhere to Lutheranism are in no peril of losing their immortal souls for all eternity. This is a lie. Ratzinger/Benedict is a liar and deceiver. Oh, I wrote that already. I'll write it again and again if I have to whenever the false "pontiff" lies and deceives, which is a great deal of the time, admitting that he has his "Catholic" moments when addressing Catholics, something that will be addressed in tomorrow's installment of this series.
Did Jesus’ prayer go unheard? The history of Christianity is in some
sense the visible element of this drama in which Christ strives and suffers with
us human beings. Ever anew he must endure the rejection of unity, yet ever anew
unity takes place with him and thus with the triune God. We need to see both
things: the sin of human beings, who reject God and withdraw within themselves,
but also the triumphs of God, who upholds the Church despite her weakness,
constantly drawing men and women closer to himself and thus to one another. For
this reason, in an ecumenical gathering, we ought not only to regret our
divisions and separations, but we should also give thanks to God for all the
elements of unity which he has preserved for us and bestows on us ever anew.
And this gratitude must be at the same time a resolve not to lose, at a time of
temptations and perils, the unity thus bestowed.
Our fundamental unity comes from the fact that we believe in God, the
Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. And that we confess that he is
the triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The highest unity is not the
solitude of a monad, but rather a unity born of love. We believe in God – the
real God. We believe that God spoke to us and became one of us. To bear
witness to this living God is our common task at the present time. (Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
Elements of unity? There are no such things.
"Fundamental unity" comes from a common belief in the Most Blessed Trinity? Wrong again. See the passages from Satis Cognitum and Mystici Corporis cited above:
Does man need God, or can we do quite well without him? When, in the
first phase of God’s absence, his light continues to illumine and sustain the
order of human existence, it appears that things can also function quite well
without God. But the more the world withdraws from God, the clearer it becomes
that man, in his hubris of power, in his emptiness of heart and in his longing
for satisfaction and happiness, increasingly loses his life. A thirst for the
infinite is indelibly present in human beings. Man was created to have a
relationship with God; we need him. Our primary ecumenical service at this hour
must be to bear common witness to the presence of the living God and in this way
to give the world the answer which it needs. Naturally, an absolutely central
part of this fundamental witness to God is a witness to Jesus Christ, true man
and true God, who lived in our midst, suffered and died for us and, in his
resurrection, flung open the gates of death. Dear friends, let us strengthen
one another in this faith! This is a great ecumenical task which leads us into
the heart of Jesus’ prayer. (
The seriousness of our faith in God is shown by the way we live his
word. In our own day, it is shown in a very practical way by our commitment to
that creature which he wished in his own image: to man. We live at a time of
uncertainty about what it means to be human. Ethics are being replaced by a
calculation of consequences. In the face of this, we as Christians must defend
the inviolable dignity of human beings from conception to death – from issues of
pre-implantation diagnosis to the question of euthanasia. As Romano Guardini
once put it: “Only those who know God, know man.” Without knowledge of God, man
is easily manipulated. Faith in God must take concrete form in a common defence
of man. To this defence of man belong not only these fundamental criteria of
what it means to be human, but above all and very specifically, love, as Jesus
Christ taught us in the account of the final judgement (Mt 25): God will
judge us on how we respond to our neighbour, to the least of his brethren.
Readiness to help, amid the needs of the present time and beyond our immediate
circle, is an essential task of the Christian. Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
Common witness? See above. There can be no such thing with members of false religions.
A common defense against abortion and euthanasia? How can those who believe in contraception and divorce help fight two evils that were also spawned by the Protestant Revolution and the subsequent rise of the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry?
To defend the inviolability of innocent human life one must defend the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to His Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. There is no "ecumenical" way to retard errors that have their proximate root causes in the revolution that Martin Luther wrought against the true Church founded by Christ the King Himself.
As I mentioned, this is true first and foremost in our personal lives
as individuals. But it also holds true in our community, as a people and a
state in which we must all be responsible for one another. It holds true for
our continent, in which we are called to European solidarity. Finally, it is
true beyond all frontiers: today Christian love of neighbour also calls for
commitment to justice throughout the world. I know that Germans and Germany are
doing much to enable all men and women to live in dignity, and for this I would
like to express deep gratitude.
In conclusion, I would like to mention an even deeper dimension of our
commitment to love. The seriousness of our faith is shown especially when it
inspires people to put themselves totally at the disposal of God and thus of
other persons. Great acts of charity become concrete only when, on the ground,
we find persons totally at the service of others; they make the love of God
credible. People of this sort are an important sign of the truth of our faith.
Prior to my visit there was some talk of an “ecumenical gift” which was
expected from such a visit. There is no need for me to specify the gifts
mentioned in this context. Here I would only say that, in most of its
manifestations, this reflects a political misreading of faith and of ecumenism.
In general, when a Head of State visits a friendly country, contacts between
the various parties take place beforehand to arrange one or more agreements
between the two states: by weighing respective benefits and drawbacks a
compromise is reached which in the end appears beneficial for both parties, so
that a treaty can then be signed. But the faith of Christians does not rest on
such a weighing of benefits and drawbacks. A self-made faith is worthless.
Faith is not something we work out intellectually and negotiate between us. It
is the foundation for our lives. Unity grows not by the weighing of benefits
and drawbacks but only by entering ever more deeply into the faith in our
thoughts and in our lives. In the past fifty years, and especially after the
visit of Pope John Paul II some thirty years ago, we have drawn much closer
together, and for this we can only be grateful. I willingly think of the
meeting with the Commission led by Bishop Lohse, in which this kind of joint
growth in reflecting upon and living the faith was practised. To all those
engaged in that process – and especially, on the Catholic side, to Cardinal
Lehmann – I wish to express deep gratitude. I will refrain from mentioning
other names – the Lord knows them all. Together we can only thank the Lord for
the paths of unity on which he has led us, and unite ourselves in humble trust
to his prayer: Grant that we may all be one, as you are one with the Father, so
that the world may believe that he has sent you (cf. Jn 17:21). (Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)
Bishop Lohse? Eduard Lohse was no "bishop." He was a Lutheran "bishop" of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover, Germany, a member of the Evangelical Church of Germany, from 1971-1988.
Paths of unity?
Here is how Pope Pius IX called Protestants to unity one to the beginning of the [First] Vatican Council in 1869:
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.)
Here is how Pope Pius XI did so in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:
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.)
Just consider two of the statements quoted above, one from Pope Pius IX's Iam Vos Omnes and the other from Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos:
. . . .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.)
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. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos.)
The "better" world through a "common witness"? This is the path to Hell, not Heaven.
Ut unum sint (That they may be one)? This utter twisting of the words of the Divine Redeemer as recorded by Saint John in his Gospel has been a slogan of the ecumaniacal movement from the very beginning, and the use of these words to justify false "ecumenism" was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos in a passage cited earlier in this brief commentary.
Lies. Lies. Lies.
None of this can come from the mouth of a true pope.
None of this is "redeemed" by the times in which Ratzinger/Benedict sounds like a Catholic.
Yes, indeed the high-sounding
names of "equality and liberty," the clarion calls of the French
Revolution and Modernity's warfare against the Social Reign of Christ
the King, have indeed enslaved men and their nations. It is with that
revolution, which is not a "renewal," of course, that the then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger wrote
in Principles of Catholic Theology that what he thinks, falsely, of course, is the Catholic Church has made "its official reconciliation."
The conciliar revolutionaries may control the language. We cannot let them control the perceptions of the truth of the matter: they are enemies of Christ the King and of the souls He redeemed by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.
We need to pray to Our Lady of Prompt Succor, whose feast was yesterday, January 15, 2012, to help us during the perils of this present time of apostasy and
betrayal as we seek shelter in her loving arms and as we have recourse
in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance to the mercy that has been won for us
by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of her
Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on the wood of
the Holy Cross so that we may be ransomed from our attachment
even to the slightest Venial Sin and as we seek to live more
penitentially each day by making sincere acts of reparation for our
sins, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state in
life permits.
