Different Names, Same Results
by Thomas A. Droleskey
There are many great champions of the Social Reign of Christ the King across the ecclesiastical divide.One of these champions spoke at a conference on Americanism that I hosted at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Washington, D.C., in November of 1999.
This individual, who is not, shall we say, particularly enamored of my work in recent years, gave an excellent presentation, making the most salient point that false premises always lead to bad consequences. In other words, the naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles of the American founding are what has brought us quite inevitably to the situation we face in the United States of America at the present time. There is no "redeeming" those false premises by making advertence to the "good intentions" of the American founders, the men who believed in those false premises, or to attempt to rationalize away the importance of those false premises by arguing that it would have been "unreasonable" to have expected the Founders to have had embraced Catholic Social Teaching as they were the products of the Protestant Revolution and the so-called Age of the Enlightenment. False premises of their very erroneous nature lead to bad consequences no matter the sincerity of those who proposed them or the historical circumstances in which they developed.
As I have noted in many different commentaries on this site, the false premises of the American founding will continue to produce bad results, especially as Catholics, including many traditionally-minded Catholics across the ecclesiastical divide, continue to delude themselves into believing that "things will be different" in the future, that some current or future candidate for elected office, each of whom believes in and extols to the hilt the very false premises that have gotten us to where we are today, is going to produce "different" results. All we need, we are told, is the "right" kind of "conservative" or the "right" kind of "libertarian in order to restrain the size and the power of the Federal government at home and to prevent more needless, unjust and immoral wars abroad to serve the ideological interests of the neoconservatives, who are the representatives of the State of Israel, and the financial interests of American multinational corporations. "That day will come," we are assured every four years.
Such a belief is delusional. "That day" will never come. American public schools--right from pre-school through graduate and professional programs--continue to churn out millions upon millions of eager relativists and materialists and positivists and utilitarians and pragmatists and statists and feminists and environmentalists and every brand of naturalism imagine each and every year. While relatively small segments of that universe will be able to withstand the ideological brainwashing that they were subjected to in America's concentration camps (i.e., public schools)--and while a still smaller segment of the population of the young will have been home-schooled and/or taught in true Catholic schools in the Catholic underground, the vast majority of Americans now and in the future will always respond to the likes of a Bill Clinton or a Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama or a John McCain (I mean, who was at a recent fund-raiser of his in the City of New York? Dr. Henry Alfred Kissinger and other Council of Foreign Relations types, to saying nothing of Lewis Eisenberg, the founder of the Republican Leadership Council, an organization that supports baby-killing) or a Mitt Romney or some future variation of George Walker Bush. Pure naturalism will always win out over some diluted version thereof. Catholicism is the one and only antidote to the false premises of Modernity, an inconvenient little truth that so few Catholics want to accept in order to recognize the fraudulent nature of the Judeo-Masonic electoral and governmental processes that are said to possess the means by which we can "turn things around" and to "make things different."
What is true of the delusional beliefs fostered by the false, naturalistic premises of Americanism is true also of conciliarism.
Conciliarism is founded on the false belief that it was necessary for the Catholic Church to make an "opening" to the world. Although Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII announced that his idea for what he believed would be a "New Pentecost" for the Church came to him as a "flash of lightning," the actual truth is that there had been a great deal of planning for the "surprise" announcement that Roncalli/John XXIII made forty-nine years ago this past Friday, that is, on January 25, 1959:
On January 26, 1959, only one day after Pope John XXIII had publicly announced the convening of a General Council for the Universal Church, Archbishop Montini addressed a Messagio to the faithful of Milan. His musings on the upcoming Council suggests he either had a crystal ball or he was in on the ground floor of the elite shakers and movers of the Council.
According to Amerio [the author of Iota Unum], on the eve of the Council, L'Osservatore Romano carried portions of the text of a book written by Cardinal Montini on the future Council that was published by the University of Milan. Montini stated that the Council's mission was to rearrange the Faith so as to minimize its supernatural elements, in order to render it more acceptable to the modern world and modern man.
In a similar vein, Martinez reports that four days before Pope John's "flash of lightning" experience that allegedly inspired the Council, [Hans] Kung told an astonished lecture hall audience in the Hofkirche (Abbey Court Church) in Luzern, Switzerland, not only there would be a General Council, but he also outlined its direction and agenda.
With the publication of The Council, Reform and Reunion one year before the opening of the Council, Kung demonstrated that he knew more about the upcoming Council than did Pope John. (Mrs. Randy Engel, The Rite of Sodomy pp. 1134-1135)
An essential part of the whole foundation of the "Second" Vatican Council was an abandonment of the necessity of opposing error, including the pernicious error of Communism. Happy old Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII believed that the Church's teaching had to be presented anew to "modern" man, something that is of the essence of Modernism and has been a constant theme in the writings of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI throughout his priesthood. One can see in Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII's opening address to the "Second" Vatican Council a turning away from the Catholic Church's consistent denunciation of error:
At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.
That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her. To mankind, oppressed by so many difficulties, the Church says, as Peter said to the poor who begged alms from him: "I have neither gold nor silver, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk" (Acts 3:6). In other words, the Church does not offer to the men of today riches that pass, nor does she promise them merely earthly happiness. But she distributes to them the goods of divine grace which, raising men to the dignity of sons of God, are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a more human life. She opens the fountain of her life-giving doctrine which allows men, enlightened by the light of Christ, to understand well what they really are, what their lofty dignity and their purpose are, and, finally, through her children, she spreads everywhere the fullness of Christian charity, than which nothing is more effective in eradicating the seeds of discord, nothing more efficacious in promoting concord, just peace, and the brotherly unity of all.
From the very outset, you see, there is the classical Modernist admixture of much truth interspersed with little seeds of error in Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII's opening address. One of the most important seeds of error contained in the excerpt above concerns the supposedly "obvious" nature of fallacious teachings. It bears repeating for a moment:
Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life.
This itself is erroneous. Errors are not always "obvious." They must be opposed. They do not, as John XXIII asserted, "vanish as quickly as they arise." Our Blessed Mother gave Saint Dominic de Guzman her Psalter, her Most Holy Rosary, to be the means to combat the heresy of the Albigenses. A belief that error need not be opposed openly, however, permeates the entirety of the structures of the counterfeit church spawned by conciliarism. It was almost exactly a year ago that a "priest" in what is now a "Motu" community told us that he had "no obligation to oppose error," that all people had to "do to get to Heaven was to observe the moral law." This is what he was taught in his community's seminary, which is under the auspices of a conciliar diocesan "bishop" and the "Pontifical Commission" Ecclesia Dei. Who in the conciliar structures can argue with him? His belief that he has no obligation to oppose error is in perfect accord with Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII's merry view that errors are so obvious that they sort of just "vanish" away.
Unfortunately, for Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII and the false ethos that he helped to unleash, the view that errors simply "vanish" and are obvious is not the patrimony of the Catholic Church, as Pope Pius VI pointed out in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775:
We thought it useful to speak to you lovingly on these matters in order to strengthen your excellent resolve. But a much more serious subject demands that We speak of it, or rather mourn over it. We refer to the pestilent disease which the wickedness of our times brings forth. We must unite our minds and strength in treating this plague before it grows rife and becomes incurable in the Church through Our oversight. For in recent days, the dangerous times foretold by the Apostle Paul have clearly arrived, when there will be "men who love themselves, who are lifted up, proud, blasphemous, traitors, lovers of pleasure instead of God, men who are always learning but never arriving at the knowledge of truth, possessing indeed the appearance of piety but denying its power, corrupt in mind, reprobate about the faith." These men raise themselves up into "lying" teachers, as they are called by Peter the prince of the Apostles, and bring in sects of perdition. They deny the Lord who bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. They say they are wise and they have become fools, and their uncomprehending heart is darkened.
You yourselves, established as scouts in the house of Israel, see clearly the many victories claimed by a philosophy full of deceit. You see the ease with which it attracts to itself a great host of peoples, concealing its impiety with the honorable name of philosophy. Who could express in words or call to mind the wickedness of the tenets and evil madness which it imparts? While such men apparently intend to search out wisdom, "they fail because they do not search in the proper way. . . and they fall into errors which lead them astray from ordinary wisdom." They have come to such a height of impiety that they make out that God does not exist, or if He does that He is idle and uncaring, making no revelation to men. Consequently it is not surprising that they assert that everything holy and divine is the product of the minds of inexperienced men smitten with empty fear of the future and seduced by a vain hope of immortality. But those deceitful sages soften and conceal the wickedness of their doctrine with seductive words and statements; in this way, they attract and wretchedly ensnare many of the weak into rejecting their faith or allowing it to be greatly shaken. While they pursue a remarkable knowledge, they open their eyes to behold a false light which is worse than the very darkness. Naturally our enemy, desirous of harming us and skilled in doing so, just as he made use of the serpent to deceive the first human beings, has armed the tongues of those men with the poison of his deceitfulness in order to lead astray the minds of the faithful. The prophet prays that his soul may be delivered from such deceitful tongues. In this way these men by their speech "enter in lowliness, capture mildly, softly bind and kill in secret." This results in great moral corruption, in license of thought and speech, in arrogance and rashness in every enterprise.
When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.
Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.
Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.
The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance," that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence.... A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection.
When was the last time you saw a conciliar "pontiff" quote from Pope Pius VI's Inscrutabile? And why was it that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI made no mention of Pascendi Dominici Gregis on its centenary on September 8, 2007, after going to great lengths to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (March 26, 1967) last year? How could Benedict XVI have mentioned Pascendi, which calls attention to his own Hegelian/Modernist understanding of the nature of truth, including dogmatic truth? How could any self-respecting conciliarist call attention to a condemnation of errors when he believes in an entire ethos created upon a rejection of the necessity of condemning errors?
Pope Saint Pius X spelled it out rather completely at the beginning of Pascendi Dominci Gregis:
One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things,""vain talkers and seducers," "erring and driving into error." It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.
That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.
Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action. Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all hut fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.
Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better mind, and to this end We first of all treated them with kindness as Our children, then with severity; and at last We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. It is known to you, Venerable Brethren, how unavailing have been Our efforts. For a moment they have bowed their head, only to lift it more arrogantly than before. If it were a matter which concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it; but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore We must interrupt a silence which it would be criminal to prolong, that We may point out to the whole Church, as they really are, men who are badly disguised.
It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast. For this reason it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out their interconnection, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil results.
It is not for nothing, dear readers, that there is a grotesque representation of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII glowering down on a wall to the right of the altar under which the mortal remains of Pope Saint Pius X rests. The conciliarists are telling the sainted pontiff, "We win! We spit on you!" Oh, yes, the conciliarists have won momentary battles during this time of the Mystical Passion and Death of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (a subject about which I have a good deal of information, but that I am precluded from using until given the authorization to do so). The final victory belongs to Christ the King as the fruit of the Triumph of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.
The false, un-Catholic premise of the "Second" Vatican Council's refusal to condemn error has deep roots in Modernist thought. This thought was reflected in the mind of Albino Luciani/John Paul I, as recounted in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times:
John Paul I is often portrayed as a humble, saintly prelate of the Church. His doctrinal stand was very questionable as evidenced by his pastoral letter of 1967 in which he advised his clergy to "see, if instead of uprooting and throwing down [error], it might be possible to trim and prune it patiently, bringing to light the core of goodness and truth which is not often lacking even in erroneous opinions" [Reference 839: Our Sunday Visitor, September 28, 2003, "Celebrating the Smiling Pope," by Lori Pieper.] This is like a doctor telling his patient: "I won't take out all the cancer; it might be good for you.
Can you imagine Saint Basil or Saint Athanasius or Saint Nicholas of Myra or seeking to find the "core of goodness and truth" in Arianism? Can you imagine Saint Jerome seeking to find the "core of goodness and truth" in Arianism and other other heresies, including Novatianism, which he fought so fiercely? Can you imagine Saint Dominic de Guzman seeking to "find the core of goodness and truth" in the Albigenses heresy? Can you imagine Saint Optatus, who wrote in very fierce tones, seeking to find the "core of goodness and truth" in Donatism? Can you imagine Saint Augustine seeking to "find the core of goodness and truth" in Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism? Can you imagine Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen seeking to "find the core of goodness and truth" in Protestantism.
Ah, here is where conciliarism's refusal to condemn error meets its alleged sense of "charity" toward those who are separated from the Catholic Church, as Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII explained in the excerpt from his opening address to the "Second" Vatican Council quoted above:
That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward the brethren who are separated from her.
This implies, of course, that the Catholic Church had not been loving and merciful and full of goodness "toward the brethren who are separated from her" in the years prior to the "Second" Vatican Council. This false assertion is one of the most enduring false premises of conciliarsm, leading most Catholics to conclude that "the old church" was "mean" to non-Catholics. How was it "mean" to insist upon the unconditional conversion of those of the true Church, founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, to her maternal bosom, outside of which there is no salvation? This is what the average Catholic yet attached to the conciliar structures believes, is it not? They respond with amazement, if not stunned disbelief, when they are told that is God's Holy Will that everyone on the face of this earth be member of the Catholic Church. It is you, see, the most supreme exercise of the Spiritual Works of Mercy to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all men to the Catholic Church. It is nothing other than merciful and charitable to will the eternal good of all men, which eternal good can only be fostered in the Catholic Church.
The false conflict between "proselytizing," which is "discouraged" by the counterfeit church of conciliarism (admitting that some priests in the conciliar structures do indeed have true Apostolic zeal for souls), and "charity" raised by conciliarism permeates the whole rotten core of the conciliarist ethos. This false conflict between "proselytizing," which is seen as part of the Catholic "triumphalism" of the past, and "charity" is at the core of the entirety of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service itself.
Consider the influence of the late "Brother" Roger Schutz's Taize Ecumenical Community on conciliarism and the Novus Ordo Missae:
On April 10, 1970, when Pope Paul VI received the members of the Consilium for the last time, his picture was taken with the Protestant observers who had been involved in rewriting the Catholic liturgy. This photograph illustrated the cover of La Documentation Catholique on May 3rd. Even so, Protestant influence on the New Order of Mass was still being debated five years after its introduction. For instance, in 1976, an exchange of letters was published in La Libre Belgique between Consilium member Dom Botte and His Grace Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Dom Botte vehemently insisted that, despite the undeniable presence of Protestant "observers," there was no Protestant influence on the drafting of the new liturgy. Archbishop Lefebvre refuted his claim outright, citing statements of approbation made by Protestants as well as the famous intervention of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci.
Four years after this debate, a powerful testimony to the truth of Archbishop Lefebvre's assertions came into the author's possession. It was a document, the ritual used at Taize to celebrate the Eucharist in 1959 [reproduced on pp. 102-119 in Father Bonneterre's book]. The document is reproduced here in its entirely with permission from the Taize Community. The reader will quickly see that this Protestant rite of 1959 prefigures the Novus Ordo Missae of 1969. Archbishop Lefebvre was right: the Protestants collaborated actively--whether directly or indirectly matters little--in the reform of the Mass. . . .
Max Thurian (1921-1996), a Reformed Church pastor born in Geneva, was known as the "theologian of Taize," and was for many years a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. Under its auspices he edited the influential (in ecumenical circles) volume Ecumenical Perspectives on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, in conjunction with which was developed the infamous "Lima Liturgy" of 1982.
For those in the Catholic hierarchy evidently intent on abandoning the concept of ecumenism as renunciation of error and return to the Catholic fold, Taize, Schultz, and Thurian became living examples of the kind of Christian reconciliation allegedly possible. During one of several audiences with Schultz, Pope John XXIII responded to a reference to Taize by saying, "Ah, Taize, that little springtime!" In spite of the fact that Thurian personally asked Pope Pius XII not to define the Assumption, both he and Schultz were invited to the Second Vatican Council, where, according to Schultz, they had numerous private meetings with the Council fathers, to "study the evolution of the texts, write up notes, and give our point of view when asked." it is well known that Thurian participated in the Consilium which revised the Roman rite; speaking of the Consilium's ecumenical fruit, he later declared, "It is now theologically possible for Protestants to use the same Mass as Catholics."
Roman fascination with the Taize experiment was not, however, reciprocated by a corresponding interest in the Roman religion by the Taize founders. In 1975 Roger Schultz asked of Rome, that a reconciliation come about without requiring non-Catholics to repudiate their origins. Even with truly...catholic communion in view, repudiation goes against love." And Max Thurian expressed similar sentiments in 1976, asserting that "if a Protestant has the conviction that the Catholic Church, following the Second Vatican Council, rediscovered conformity with the apostolic church, he can then consider himself to be a member of that Church without, however, renouncing his adherence to another ecclesial community.
In spite of such indifferentism, the Holy Father [the late Pope John Paul II] deigned to grace Taize with his presence on October 5, 1986, effectively inscribing his name on a long list of admiring visitors, including three Archbishops of Canterbury, Orthodox metropolitans, the fourteen Lutheran bishops of Sweden, and countless pastors from all over the world. Thurian received Holy Orders in a semi-secret ceremony conducted by the former Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Ursi, and was later invited by John Paul II to join the International Theological Commission, and yet, according to the Taize community "no abjuration of [his] Protestant religion took place [!]"
It is even admitted by some Catholics that the change in Rome's attitude toward ecumenism was directly inspired by the work of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, through which Thurian accomplish so much of his ecumenical work in the 1980's: "...the Roman Catholic church changed her understanding of what we now call the ecumenical enterprise. . . Let me say that this huge change of Roman Catholic mentality is certainly in great part due to the high quality of the world done by the World Council of Churches, and especially Faith and Order."
Such a change of mentality was no doubt welcomed by the Taize founders, and in some fashion accepted by Pope John Paul II. Thurian once suggested that "unity today in the churches exists as we renounce all our divisive ways, only holding to the fundamental faith which saves and joins us." In 1986 the Pope congratulated the members of the Taize community for "desiring to be [them]selves a "parable of community," [that] will help all whom [they] meet to be faithful to their denominational ties, the fruit of their education and their choice in conscience."
After the death of John XXIII, his brother, Giuseppe Roncalli, visit Taize. During his visit, Roncalli remarked to his grandson, "It was my brother the Pope who began what will come out of Taize." (Father Didier Bonneterre, The Liturgical Movement: Roots, Radicals, Results. Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press, 2002. pp. 97-101.)
We also have the evidence of Annibale Bugnini himself, provided in the pages of L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965:
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." (L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965.)
There is also the evidence of a close personal lay friend of Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, Jean Guitton, as to Paul VI's express desire to conform what purported to be the Catholic liturgy to appeal to Protestants:
"[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. (The quotation and citations are found in Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, The Remnant Publishing Company, 2002, p. 317.)
At the very heart, therefore, of conciliarism is its refusal to denounce error and its desire to appease Protestants by changing what purported to be the Catholic liturgy in an ecumenical gesture of "brotherhood" and false unity.
There is even more proof of Protestantism's influence on the very liturgical essence of conciliarism that is the Novus Ordo.
A Father Romano Thomassi explained in The Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture some years ago now that he had gone through the correspondence written by some of the Protestants who were "observers" during the proceedings of the Consilium that planned the Novus Ordo under the direction of the aforementioned Annibale Bugnini. That correspondence demonstrates that the Protestant "observers" made their "observations" to the bishop members of the Consilium during coffee breaks. The "observations" made by the Protestant "observers" were then read into the written record by various bishops, who made it appear as though they, the bishops, were solely responsible for the thoughts that had, in actual point of fact, originated with the liberal Protestant observers. Giving the enemies of the Faith a "say" in helping Catholics do something that had never been attempted before, writing a "new liturgy" out of whole cloth, is a fundamentally false methodology, premised as it was upon the importance of enshrining false ecumenism liturgically, making what purported to be the Catholic liturgy a singular vessel of propaganda in behalf of the conciliarist spirit of ecumenism.
Thus it is, you see, that all efforts to "reform" the "reform" are bound to fail as they are based upon false premises that are displeasing to God and harmful to the souls for which He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. The fact that a Menshevik (moderate revolutionary) replaces a Bolshevik (hard core revolutionary) insofar as planning "papal" liturgies conducted according to the synthetic "new rite" does not change the fact that the whole enterprise is as incapable of producing good results as is the modern anti-Incarnational civil state. Both are founded in false premises, which will produce bad results no matter who is in charge and no matter how earnestly it is believed that it is possible to redeem those false premises and "turn the tide" to produce a different set of results. (And this is not even to discuss the validity of the conciliar episcopal rite of consecration or the conciliar rite of priestly ordination.)
A "council" that began with false premises and that has spawned numerous errors that are related to false ecumenism (religious liberty, the new ecclesiology, separation of Church and State) is incapable of being "understood" properly. It is no more capable of a stable, permanent "interpretation" than is the Constitution of the United States of America, whose own false premises play an essentially critical role in the development of conciliarism. It is not for nothing that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has praised the very relationship between Church and State in the United States of America that Pope Leo XIII said most emphatically was not the model for the rest of the world. The contrast between conciliarism and Catholicism in just this one area could not be more clear:
In comparing U.S. and European attitudes to diverse religions, Cardinal Ratzinger added: "I think that from many points of view the American model is the better one," while "Europe has remained bogged down in caesaropapism."
"People who did not want to belong to a state church, went to the United States and intentionally constituted a state that does not impose a church and which simply is not perceived as religiously neutral, but as a space within which religions can move and also enjoy organizational freedom without being simply relegated to the private sphere," he explained.
On this point, "one can undoubtedly learn from the United States," as it is a "process by which the state makes room for religion, which is not imposed, but which, thanks to the state, lives, exists and has a public creative force," the cardinal said. "It certainly is a positive way." (ZENIT - Cardinal Ratzinger Commends U.S. Model of Laicism.)
The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)
The Constitution of the United States of America, which is founded on false, naturalistic, semi-Pelagian principles is religiously indifferent, the former Cardinal Ratzinger's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. It is not enough to "permit" those with religious beliefs the "right" to influence public policy on the basis of those beliefs. The one and only true religion must be recognized so that "in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority." Pope Leo XIII was reiterating the constant teaching of the Catholic Church throughout his pontificate, as he did in Longiqua Oceani. The then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was distorting the true meaning of the American Constitution, which is indeed neutral about the true religion and most open, thank you very much, to atheism, while at the same time offering its model of "religious liberty" as that for the rest of the world.
The false premises of conciliarism are, therefore, inter-related with those of Modernity. All of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's efforts to oppose the secularization wrought in part by the ethos of the Enlightenment miss the point entirely. Secularization in the world is the result of the Protestant Revolt's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Judeo-Masonry's use of the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity to institutionalize the deification of man as the norm of social life. There is no "interdenominational" way to deal with the problems of Modernity. Catholicism is the one and only antidote to all of the poisons of Modernity (the Protestant Revolt, the ideas of the "Enlightenment," the rise of Judeo-Masonry, the rise and the spread of various pantheistic and/or atheistic political ideologies).
Alas, just as meetings of The Federalist Society fifty years from now will still be focusing on the "proper interpretation" of various parts of the Constitution of the United States of America according to the standard of "original intent," so will there be meetings fifty years from now, barring a Divine intervention to restore the Church, of various Catholic organization and scholarly societies to try to ascertain the "right interpretation" of the texts of the "Second" Vatican Council and the documents of the postconciliar "popes" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. There will be endless meetings on what went wrong with the "reform of the reform" and why there are still "clown Masses" fifty years after Summorum Pontificum. The names of the individuals involved will be different. The wretched results will be the same. False premises always lead to bad consequences. This should be as plain to anyone as the nose on the face of the late Schnozzola himself, James Francis "Jimmy" Durante.
As I noted in
Contradictors Contradicting Each Other as They Contradict the Faith five weeks ago now, even the contemporary conciliarists disagree amongst themselves as to how to view and interpret the liturgical and doctrinal revolutions that they unleashed upon millions of millions of unsuspecting souls at the "Second" Vatican Council and thereafter. The "Bologna School" is composed of those who see the "Second" Vatican Council as representing a rupture from the past of the Catholic Church. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is of the school that sees "continuity in discontinuity," a quintessentially Modernist euphemism that stands for an effort to explain away the contradictions inherent in conciliarism's embrace of propositions (the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, religious liberty, separation of Church and State) that have been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church. Thus it is that Joseph Ratzinger's lifelong warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth is an essential component of how he attempts to continue to propagandize in behalf of propositions that have been condemned by the Catholic Church and that have shown themselves to be offensive to God and thus injurious to the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.
Principles of Catholic Theology spelled out almost everything that Joseph Ratzinger believed should be done to implement the "Second" Vatican Council directly. He wants to discover and then to preserve the "true" meaning of this false council,, whose texts have been so ambiguous and obscure in their meaning as to create a veritable cottage industry of discerning "original intent," if you will, or "original intent" in light of "changed circumstances":
Does this mean that the Council should be revoked? Certainly not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet even begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the Council was not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes clear precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes. What was identified with the Council was, for the most part, the expression of an attitude that did not coincide with the statements to be found in the text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency in its development and in some of its individual formulations. The task is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present experience. That means that there can be no return to the Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage. In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for Christians the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the bastions" is a long-overdue task. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 391)
No return to the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX? How can there be when it contains such clear contradictions of those things held near and dear by the conciliarists? Raze the bastions? Pope Pius VIII, writing in his only encyclical letter, Traditi Humilitati Nostrae, May 24, 1829, warned us against such men who would are to utter such a thing:
Although God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This is due to the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to natural reason. In the first place, the Roman See is assailed and the bonds of unity are, every day, being severed. The authority of the Church is weakened and the protectors of things sacred are snatched away and held in contempt. The holy precepts are despised, the celebration of divine offices is ridiculed, and the worship of God is cursed by the sinner. All things which concern religion are relegated to the fables of old women and the superstitions of priests. Truly lions have roared in Israel. With tears We say: "Truly they have conspired against the Lord and against His Christ." Truly the impious have said: "Raze it, raze it down to its foundations."
Among these heresies belongs that foul contrivance of the sophists of this age who do not admit any difference among the different professions of faith and who think that the portal of eternal salvation opens for all from any religion. They, therefore, label with the stigma of levity and stupidity those who, having abandoned the religion which they learned, embrace another of any kind, even Catholicism. This is certainly a monstrous impiety which assigns the same praise and the mark of the just and upright man to truth and to error, to virtue and to vice, to goodness and to turpitude. Indeed this deadly idea concerning the lack of difference among religions is refuted even by the light of natural reason. We are assured of this because the various religions do not often agree among themselves. If one is true, the other must be false; there can be no society of darkness with light. Against these experienced sophists the people must be taught that the profession of the Catholic faith is uniquely true, as the apostle proclaims: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Jerome used to say it this way: he who eats the lamb outside this house will perish as did those during the flood who were not with Noah in the ark. Indeed, no other name than the name of Jesus is given to men, by which they may be saved. He who believes shall be saved; he who does not believe shall be condemned.
We must also be wary of those who publish the Bible with new interpretations contrary to the Church's laws. They skillfully distort the meaning by their own interpretation. They print the Bibles in the vernacular and, absorbing an incredible expense, offer them free even to the uneducated. Furthermore, the Bibles are rarely without perverse little inserts to insure that the reader imbibes their lethal poison instead of the saving water of salvation. Long ago the Apostolic See warned about this serious hazard to the faith and drew up a list of the authors of these pernicious notions. The rules of this Index were published by the Council of Trent; the ordinance required that translations of the Bible into the vernacular not be permitted without the approval of the Apostolic See and further required that they be published with commentaries from the Fathers. The sacred Synod of Trent had decreed in order to restrain impudent characters, that no one, relying on his own prudence in matters of faith and of conduct which concerns Christian doctrine, might twist the sacred Scriptures to his own opinion, or to an opinion contrary to that of the Church or the popes. Though such machinations against the Catholic faith had been assailed long ago by these canonical proscriptions, Our recent predecessors made a special effort to check these spreading evils. With these arms may you too strive to fight the battles of the Lord which endanger the sacred teachings, lest this deadly virus spread in your flock.
How can anyone in his right mind seek to reconcile Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995, with Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928? Even the conciliarists, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, sometimes have to ignore the past entirely, recognizing that not even their Modernist adaptation of Hegelianism can be of much assistance in explaining the "continuity in discontinuity" in instances where the contradictions between conciliarism and Catholicism are so stark as to be left best unaddressed.
In the main, however, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is absolutely committed to attempt a "reconciliation," to "bridge the gap" between "continuity" and "discontinuity." So what if God is offended by the offering of false worship under "papal" auspices in a Roman archbasilica? So what? Just a little thing, right?
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has taken every opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to the conciliar revolution, having done so about five months ago when he addressed the conciliar "bishops" and "priests" from two Italian dioceses:
THE CATHOLIC HERALD - POPE BENEDICT XVI has responded to fears that the church is moving away from the reforms of Vatican II by declaring that the Council is the church’s “magna carta”.
Speaking to clergy from the northern Italian dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso, he said: “The Council has given us a great road marker, we can go forward full of hope”.
Vatican II was “essential and fundamental” to the future of the faith, he said. Pope Benedict was answering a question from a priest who, describing himself as a member of the Vatican II generation, said that many of his counterparts were disheartened following the enthusiasm that accompanied the Council.
The priest’s concerns echoed those of many other Catholics, who feel that the recent motu proprio relaxing restrictions on the Traditional Mass has undermined the authority of the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. But the pope encouraged his audience to stress the positive elements that grew out of the Council, including “the renewal of the liturgy”.
He said: “It seems to me that we must rediscover the great heritage of the Council, which is not a ’spirit’ reconstructed behind the texts, but the great Conciliar texts themselves, re-read today with the experiences that we have had and that have born fruit in so many movements, in so many new religious communities.” Vatican II Essential to the Faith
Those who agree that "Vatican II" is "essential to the Faith" will never be convinced that the confusion and horror wrought in the past forty-six to forty-nine years has devastated millions upon millions of Catholic souls and resulted in the reaffirmation of billions of other souls in false religions unto the point of their deaths, permitting these lost souls to wander around aimlessly in life while they persist in all manner of unrepentant sins without ever once knowing the Mercy that is meant to be theirs in the Baptismal font and in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Those who do not agree that "Vatican II" is "essential to the Faith" are fooling themselves very badly if they believe that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI just "has" to say that it is "essential" to the Faith. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is a thorough supporter of the conciliar revolution, both liturgically and doctrinally.
It is apparently the case, sad to say, that such major offenses to God as false ecumenism and religious liberty (for a very good contrast between the teaching of the counterfeit church of conciliarsm and that of the Catholic Church, see:Vatican II Condemned, Part 1 (Religious Liberty)) have become "little things" to some Catholics that must not get in the way of accentuating the "positive" in a most positivistic manner. I believe that Saint Teresa of Avila put this attitude quite well when she wrote:
"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)
Is false ecumenism "nothing," just an "exaggeration," despite Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's enthusiastic support for it given at almost every turn? Is religious liberty "nothing," just an "exaggeration"? Is the Novus Ordo, which is founded on Protestant and Masonic principles, "nothing," just an "exaggeration"? Just as God will never "bless" a land which is founded on the blasphemy of religious indifferentism and the heresy of semi-Pelagianism (the belief that human beings are more or less "self-redemptive," that they "stir up graces" within themselves and thus do not need belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to be virtuous, no less to save their immortal souls) that has wreaked devastation among souls in Catholic nations in her lifetime--and has presided over the deaths of over fifty million innocent preborn children under cover of law, so is it the case that God will never bless any effort to redeem the false premises of conciliarism, especially those that make a mockery of Him by means of providing space in Catholic archbasilicas for false worship.
Oh, some have written to say that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has engendered a good deal of opposition as a result of Summorum Pontificum and a few of his other mostly stylistic changes in the tone of the conciliar "papacy." So what? What is this supposed to prove? As was noted a little over six months ago following the issuance of Summorum Pontificum, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is willing to engender opposition from ultra-progressives among his fellow conciliar revolutionaries as but a small price to pay for convincing traditionally-minded Catholics to be at peace in their corner of the One World Ecumenical Church alongside Focolare, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Communion and Liberation, Opus Dei, the Legionaries of Christ, the Cursillo, World Youth Day and any number of other disparate "movements."
Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was hated by all sorts of people within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism for his alleged "conservatism." Did this undo the harm of his Modernism, of his personalist philosophy, of his egregious offenses against God by means of blasphemous liturgies and sacrilegious "inter-religious prayer meetings? Indeed, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was shot and nearly killed on May 13, 1981, by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish Mohammedan who had traveled freely behind the Iron Curtain (Romania, East Germany) before he went to Rome to try to kill John Paul II. The Soviets hated Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev wanted him dead for the role he played in the rise of the Polish trade union named Solidarity. This is undeniable. It does not change, however, the fact that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II had defected from the Catholic Faith in a number of areas.
Look, the devil loves to throw up various smokescreens to confuse people. The devil knows that "conservative" Catholics are very prone to the give the benefit of the doubt to a putative pontiff who is under such unremitting attack from so many quarters. Didn't Sinead O'Connor tear up a photograph of John Paul II while "performing:" on Saturday Night Live on October 3, 1992? John Paul II was hated by pro-aborts and feminists, upset that he "held the line" against the absurdity that is women's "ordination" to the priesthood, and a whole variety of social revolutionaries. This terrible hatred, which was certainly from the devil, convinced many of us that John Paul II's forays into ecumenism and his praise of the voodoo witch doctor were simply "aberrations" that had to be "tolerated" lest we ourselves join the chorus of those badgering the "poor Holy Father." This is how the devil uses the false opposites of the world to convince otherwise sensible Catholics to suspend their sensus Catholicus in order to serve as unwitting enablers of attacks on the Faith from one deemed by most people to be the Sovereign Pontiff of the Catholic Church.
This is the same phenomenon that exists in the realm of secular politics. That is, men such as the late President Richard Milhous Nixon, who supported egregious evils, such as "population control," were indeed hated by a wide variety of very bad people and groups. Such hatred could not, however, indemnify the evil that Nixon supported. And how many pro-aborts and other assorted leftists hate President George Walker Bush because they think that he, who supports the surgical slicing and dicing of babies in some instances and funds their chemical assassination to the hilt, is "pro-life?" The mere fact that the devil raises up a torrent of opposition to one person does not meant the person being opposed is not himself doing the devil's bidding, whether wittingly or unwittingly, in many important ways.
Why is not this formerly oft-quoted passage of Joseph Ratzinger, found in Principles of Catholic Theology and also in The Ratzinger Report, proof of the fact that one of his longstanding goals has been to neutralize the opposition of tradition Catholics and to convince them to accept ecumenism, the new ecclesiology and religious liberty?
Among the more obvious phenomena of the last years must be counted the increasing number of integralist groups in which the desire for piety, for the sense of mystery, is finding satisfaction. We must be on our guard against minimizing these movements. Without a doubt, they represent a sectarian zealotry that is the antithesis of Catholicity. We cannot resist them too firmly. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 389-390)
Much like the American founding fathers, who believed that they were charting a new course of history that would make it possible for future generations to live as "free" men in a system of self-government, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his fellow conciliarists really believe that their false premises, which, of course, they do not recognize or admit as false, will work to bring about "unity" within what they believe is the Catholic Church and will halt the spread of secularization within the world. The false premises of Americanism, which are very similar to the false premises of the Sillon, and the the false premises of conciliarism both lead to one place: the One World Ecumenical Church, whether in name or in fact, as Pope Saint Pius X prophesied in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
When we consider the forces, knowledge, and supernatural virtues which are necessary to establish the Christian City, and the sufferings of millions of martyrs, and the light given by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the self-sacrifice of all the heroes of charity, and a powerful hierarchy ordained in heaven, and the streams of Divine Grace - the whole having been built up, bound together, and impregnated by the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word made man - when we think, I say, of all this, it is frightening to behold new apostles eagerly attempting to do better by a common interchange of vague idealism and civic virtues. What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people. Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train.
We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."
And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
"But what about diabolical disorientation?" some readers have asked me. "Didn't Sister Lucia speak of such a thing?"
Yes, Sister Lucia spoke about diabolical disorientation infecting the "upper hierarchy" of the Catholic Church. This might even be part of the actual Third Secret of Fatima rather than some "private insight" from Sister Lucia that were never investigated or approved by the authority of the Catholic Church. All well and good.
This having been noted, however, it's rather a bold move on the part of mere mortals to believe that they can know who is suffering from such diabolical disorientation God alone knows who suffers from such a condition. Moreover, to seek to excuse the Modernism of the conciliar "pontiffs" by making advertence to diabolical disorientation is gratuitous. It proves nothing. It trumps not one whit of doctrinal and canonical principles that govern whether a person who embraces anathematized propositions is a member of the Catholic Church in good standing. Pope Leo XIII made it abundantly clear in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that those who fall from the Faith in one thing fall from the Faith in its entirety. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about this at all:
The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).
The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).
The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).
Is false ecumenism poisonous? Is religious liberty poisonous? Is the new ecclesiology poisonous? Is the separation of Church and State poisonous? Is the Novus Ordo poisonous? Is Joseph Ratzinger's Hegelian/Modernist view of the nature of dogmatic truth poisonous? Are his assertions that we must "search for truth," which just happens to be Revealed by God Himself to His Catholic Church, poisonous?
It is not pleasant at all to have to write about the conciliar revolution that has devastated so many souls. As I explained a few days ago in Singing the Old Songs, it is my hope that those in the future will be able to read the analysis of these present days with a bit more dispassion than can be brought to bear at the present moment. If it has not been within God's Holy Providence to effect the restoration of the Church by then--and if the end of the world has not occurred, perhaps it might be the case that at least a few people will be able to see that although the names of those who believe in various false premises will have changed with the passage of time the actual results remained the same as people argued fruitlessly about which "reform," whether politically or ecclesiastically, was going to "work."
For our part, however, we must flee to the catacombs where the Immemorial Mass of Tradition is offered by true bishops and priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds. We must seek to do penance for our own many sins, which have contributed in many ways to the actual Passion and Death of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ once in time and to the Mystical Passion and Death that the Church Militant has been experiencing for the past forty-nine years. Penance is good. We must embrace with love as the consecrated slaves of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Indeed, penance must increase one week from Wednesday as we begin the Season of Lent.
The errors of the past did not simply "vanish." They had to opposed publicly. Our own efforts to oppose error will be fruitless unless we are fortified by time before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and pray that great spiritual weapon which is Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary. We must have total confidence in Our Lady. She will help us in these troubling times. She promised Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, that there would be the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart. We must have total confidence in Our Lady's promise as we seek never to offend her Divine Son again by means of our sins and as we seek to live with joy as we lift high His Most Holy Cross in the midst of our lives, taking comfort from these words written by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:
We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before.
With Our Lady's help, good readers, may it be our privilege, despite our own unworthiness and our own past sins, to plant a few seeds for the restoration of the Catholic City, the restoration of all things in Christ the King, that day on which all men and women in the world will exclaim with joy:
Viva Cristo Rey!
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 Peter Nolasco, pray for us.
Saint Agnes, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
