Nothing New Under the Conciliar Sun

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 

The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing. What is it that hath been? the same thing that shall be. What is it that hath been done? the same that shall be done. Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.

There is no remembrance of former things: nor indeed of those things which hereafter are to come, shall there be any remembrance with them that shall be in the latter end. (Ecclesiastes 1: 8-11.)

 

Human beings tend to have short memories. As I have noted in endless commentaries in various journals and on this site over the years (the website itself marked its fifth anniversary on February 20, 2009, I believe), professional thugs in the two organized crime families of naturalism in the United States of America, the Republican Party and the Democrat Party, take advantage of the short memory of those who participate in their electoral process by misrepresenting their own positions and those of their nominal "opponents" in the "other" crime family of naturalism. These thugs play voters for fools, exploiting their short memories as they employ all manner of sophisticated means to appeal to base passions. Even the bitter personal attacks that one candidate for public office after another has denounced while engaging in said attacks are just and parcel of the American landscape; campaigns between Federalists and Democratic-Republican in the late 1790s, for example, were characterized by some of the most vicious mudslinging imaginable. The use of bitter personal invectives is really nothing new under the Americanist sun.

Similarly, the conciliar revolutionaries repeatedly serve up the same tired old explanations and clarifications for their failed revolution that has offended God and done so much grave damage to an incalculable number of souls. As is the case with social revolutions that ossify as their failures become more and more manifest with the passing of the decades, the conciliar revolutionaries must rationalize away their failures by an endless stream of "clarifications," each of which is but a caricature of the others that have gone before it.

Two examples of this will suffice before proceeding to discuss Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's "explanatory" letter to the conciliar "bishops" concerning the "lifting" of the "excommunications" that were imposed by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II on July 1, 1988, on the four priests consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre ((Bernard Fellay, Richard Williamson, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Alfonso de Galaretta).

Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II issued an "encyclical" letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, April 17, 2003, that "apologized" for abuses associated with the offerings of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. He had done almost the exact same thing in Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980, a "Holy Thursday letter to priests." Nothing had changed in the intervening twenty-three years:

Upon all of us who, through the grace of God, are ministers of the Eucharist, there weighs a particular responsibility for the ideas and attitudes of our brothers and sisters who have been entrusted to our pastoral care. It is our vocation to nurture, above all by personal example, every healthy manifestation of worship towards Christ present and operative in that sacrament of love. May God preserve us from acting otherwise and weakening that worship by "becoming unaccustomed" to various manifestations and forms of eucharistic worship which express a perhaps "traditional" but healthy piety, and which express above all that "sense of the faith" possessed by the whole People of God, as the Second Vatican Council recalled.

As I bring these considerations to an end, I would like to ask forgiveness-in my own name and in the name of all of you, venerable and dear brothers in the episcopate-for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience or negligence, and also through the at times partial, one-sided and erroneous application of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have caused scandal and disturbance concerning the interpretation of the doctrine and the veneration due to this great sacrament. And I pray the Lord Jesus that in the future we may avoid in our manner of dealing with this sacred mystery anything which could weaken or disorient in any way the sense of reverence and love that exists in our faithful people. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, LETTER DOMINICAE CENAE, February 24, 1980.)

All of this makes clear the great responsibility which belongs to priests in particular for the celebration of the Eucharist. It is their responsibility to preside at the Eucharist in persona Christi and to provide a witness to and a service of communion not only for the community directly taking part in the celebration, but also for the universal Church, which is a part of every Eucharist. It must be lamented that, especially in the years following the post-conciliar liturgical reform, as a result of a misguided sense of creativity and adaptation there have been a number of abuses which have been a source of suffering for many. A certain reaction against “formalism” has led some, especially in certain regions, to consider the “forms” chosen by the Church's great liturgical tradition and her Magisterium as non-binding and to introduce unauthorized innovations which are often completely inappropriate. 

I consider it my duty, therefore to appeal urgently that the liturgical norms for the celebration of the Eucharist be observed with great fidelity. These norms are a concrete expression of the authentically ecclesial nature of the Eucharist; this is their deepest meaning. Liturgy is never anyone's private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated. The Apostle Paul had to address fiery words to the community of Corinth because of grave shortcomings in their celebration of the Eucharist resulting in divisions (schismata) and the emergence of factions (haireseis) (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-34). Our time, too, calls for a renewed awareness and appreciation of liturgical norms as a reflection of, and a witness to, the one universal Church made present in every celebration of the Eucharist. Priests who faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently demonstrate their love for the Church. Precisely to bring out more clearly this deeper meaning of liturgical norms, I have asked the competent offices of the Roman Curia to prepare a more specific document, including prescriptions of a juridical nature, on this very important subject. No one is permitted to undervalue the mystery entrusted to our hands: it is too great for anyone to feel free to treat it lightly and with disregard for its sacredness and its universality. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ecclesia De Eucharistia, April 17, 2003.)

 

Twenty-three years intervened between these two documents. A true conciliar revolutionary, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, was committed to "stabilizing" what is unstable of its very nature, the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service. He continued to lament in 2003 the very "abuses" for which he had asked "forgiveness" in 1980, oblivious to the fact that he had personally presided over some of the most egregious liturgical travesties imaginable, doing so in the name of the "inculturation of the Gospel." How is it possible for a conciliar "pontiff" to be aghast at profane spectacles that take place on a regular basis across the world at the parish and diocesan levels when said "pontiff" has participated actively in those spectacles himself? No amount of lamentation or "clarification" can make an objective good out of that which is evil of its very nature, the Novus Ordo, that which offends Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and harms and bewilders the souls He redeemed by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

There was much incongruity in Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II's lamentations about "liturgical abuses" as he himself was in favor of the gutting of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church even before the "Second" Vatican Council was adjourned by Giovanni Montini/Paul VI on December 8, 1965:

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

 

Conciliar "pontiffs" will be issuing "clarifications and "apologies" for the abuses associated with the liturgical abuse par excellence, the Novus Ordo service, for as long as is is within God's Holy Providence for this era of apostasy and betrayal to continue. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has himself presided over various liturgical travesties, including the pagan rituals that were incorporated into a "papal" "Mass" at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Australia, at the end of World Youth Day on Sunday, July 20, 2008. Nothing about this will ever change under the conciliar sun.

Ratzinger/Benedict is himself the master of issuing endless "clarifications" on pronouncements he had authorized to be made. It was within a short time of the issuance of Dominus Iesus on August 6, 2000, that Ratzinger, then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had to engage in all manner of double-speak when Talmudic organizations began to complain about the document's statement that Jews had to believe in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be saved. This double-speak was recounted in the text of a book published in 2002 that is now out-of-print:

Cardinal Ratzinger himself began backpedaling almost immediately at the September 5 [2000] press conference itself. According to the Italian bishops' newspaper Avvenire, when asked whether DI [Dominus Iesus] taught that the Jews could not be saved without faith in Christ, Ratzinger offered the following non-answer: "Every Catholic theologian recognizes the salvific role of that people." Granted that "salvation is of the Jews," as our Lord taught us (John 4:22), but as He says immediately afterward: "But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth"--that is, the Messiah has arrived and shall be adored by those who worship truly. Having rejected the Messiah, however, what "salvific role" does modern Israel play today? When pressed on whether an individual Jew could be saved without recognizing Christ, the Cardinal replied that "it is not necessary that he recognize Christ the savior, and it is not given to us to explore how salvation, the gift of God, can come even for him." Ratzinger went on to say that "Christ is a reality that changes history, even for those who do not recognize him." Are we to take from this that Christ saves the Jews whether they recognize him or not, simply because His existence "changes history"?

However, it appears that at the same press conference Ratzinger gave a more nuanced answer, apparently in response to another questioner:

[We]e are in agreement that a Jew, and this is true for believers of other religions, does not need to know or acknowledge Christ as the Son of God in order to be saved, if there are insurmountable impediments, of which he is not blameworthy, to preclude it. However...Christian history affects us all, even those who are opposed or cannot encounter Christ. This is a reality that transforms history; it is something important for others, without violating their conscience.

Now, which is it--that a Jew need not recognize Christ in order to be saved, or that a Jew need not recognize Christ if there is an "insurmountable impediment"? Note also that Cardinal Ratzinger here repeats the suggestion that the mere presence of Christ in history "affects" Jews who reject him. What does this mean? One thing all these remarks mean is a diminution of the impact of DI's teaching that Christ is the sole mediator of the only way of salvation for all men--a teaching DI itself nuances nearly to the point of irrelevance.

Since the publication of DI was supposed to be the occasion for clarifying confusion about Christ and salvation, why not end a long period of postconciliar confusion by stating forthrightly what the Church always taught before the Council: "Yes, objectively speaking, a Jew must come to Christ and be baptized in order to be saved, just like everyone else in the human race; for Christ is God and He commissioned His Church to make disciples of all nations. This is what the Catholic Church has always taught and always will teach." Instead, Cardinal Ratzinger immediately focused on "insurmountable impediments." And what is an "insurmountable impediment" in the first place? Is this notion something even broader than the ever-expanding category of "invincible ignorance"? Cardinal Ratzinger gave no indications. However, if one of Rabbi Toaff's own predecessors as chief rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Israel Zolli, was able to follow God's grace into the Roman Catholic Church immediately after World War II, then why not Rabbi Toaff himself or any other Jew alive today--especially after thirty-five years of "Jewish-Christian" dialogue," which was supposed to engender greater understanding of the Church on the part of Jews?

Or is the mere fact of being a Jew, immersed in Jewish religion and culture, and facing ostracism if one converts, now to be considered an "insurmountable impediment" to conversion? If so, then no Jew from St. Paul to the present day has ever been subjectively obliged to join the Church; nor has anyone else in religious, emotional or cultural circumstances that would make conversion difficult. But this would mean that the only people obliged to become Catholics are those who would not find conversion unduly burdensome. Everyone else has an "insurmountable impediment." That is the very thesis being promoted by some of the more liberal exponents of "invincible ignorance," who speak of "unconscious psychological blocks" and other elaborate pseudo-scientific excuses for not becoming a Catholic that have proliferated since Vatican II. There is very little place for the power of God's grace in this kind of semi-Pelagian thinking. We are not here contending that Cardinal Ratzinger himself actually teaches anything like this, but in view of the veiled nature of his remarks it is difficult to know what he is teaching. A clarification of DI's "clarifications" is already urgently needed. (out of print book, , pp. 369-372.)

 

It is not surprising, therefore, that "clarifications" started to spew forth from the conciliar Vatican's nooks and crannies in the aftermath of the "lifting" of the "excommunications" on the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X on January 21, 2009, the Feast of Saint Agnes, and the very same day that Swedish television broadcast an interview with one of this bishops, Bishop Richard Williamson, that had been recorded in Germany on Sunday, November 2, 2008. Some of these "clarifications" have been the subject of commentaries on this site.

One of those "clarifications" was issued by the Vatican's Secretariat of State on February 4, 2009.

In the wake of reactions to the recent Decree of the Congregation for Bishops by which the excommunication of four prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X was remitted, and with regard to the negationist or reductionist statements made by Bishop Williamson concerning the Shoah, it seems opportune to clarify some aspects of the matter.

1. Remission of the Excommunication

As has already been publicly stated, the Decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated 21 January 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father responded benevolently to repeated requests from the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X.

His Holiness desired to remove an impediment which was prejudicial to the opening of a door to dialogue. He now awaits a corresponding gesture from the four bishops expressing total adherence to the doctrine and discipline of the Church. The very grave penalty of latae sententiae excommunication, which these bishops incurred on 30 June 1988, and which was formally declared on 1 July 1988, was a consequence of their having been illegitimately ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The remission of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a very serious canonical penalty, but it has not changed the juridical status of the Society of Saint Pius X, which presently does not enjoy any canonical recognition by the Catholic Church. The four bishops, even though they have been released from excommunication, have no canonical function in the Church and do not licitly exercise any ministry within it.

2. Tradition, Doctrine and the Second Vatican Council

A full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition for any future recognition of the Society of Saint Pius X.

As already stated in the Decree of 21 January 2009, the Holy See will not fail, in ways judged opportune, to engage with the interested parties in examining outstanding questions, so as to attain a full and satisfactory resolution of the problems that caused this painful rupture.

3. Statements about the Shoah

The positions of Bishop Williamson with regard to the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself remarked on 28 January 2009 when, with reference to the heinous genocide, he reiterated his full and unquestionable solidarity with our brothers and sisters who received the First Covenant, and he affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide must lead "humanity to reflect upon the unfathomable power of evil when it conquers the heart of man", adding that the Shoah remains "a warning for all against forgetfulness, denial or reductionism, because violence committed against one single human being is violence against all".

In order to be admitted to function as a Bishop within the Church, Bishop Williamson must also distance himself in an absolutely unequivocal and public way from his positions regarding the Shoah, which were unknown to the Holy Father at the time of the remission of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks for the prayerful support of all the faithful, so that the Lord will enlighten the Church’s path. May the commitment of the Pastors and all the faithful grow in support of the difficult and onerous mission of the Successor of Peter the Apostle, who "watches over the unity" of the Church. (Note from the Secretary of State concerning the four Prelates of the Society of Saint Pius X (February 4, 2009)

 

One will see that there is really nothing substantially different between this Note and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009), although the latter contains some very important insights into the false "pontiff's" view of the Society of Saint Pius X and his thorough-going commitment to the preservation and "correct" interpretation of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath.

Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009) was written with three audiences in mind: 1) the members of various Talmudic organizations who "outraged" by Bishop Richard Williamson's comments about the nature and the extent of the crimes committed against Jews and others by the agents of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich; 2) those conciliar "bishops," to whom he alludes most derisively as "great defenders of the council," who are hostile to return of any version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, including the modernized versions issued in 1961 and 1962 by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII; and 3) the bishops, priests and faithful of the Society of Saint Pius X.

The Talmudic Question and Conciliarism's View of Church-State Relations

 

Although there were many forces at work for many centuries that led up to the "Second" Vatican Council and the ethos that has flowed therefrom so poisonously, the remarks of Bishop Williamson have certainly brought into the forefront the degree of influence that those who deny the one and only Holocaust, that which was offered by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal Father on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins, have had on the development of the naturalistic, anti-Incarnational civil state and the counterfeit church of conciliarism's embrace of that civil state.

Thus it is, as I see it, the controversy engendered by Bishop Williamson's comments on a matter that has been reviewed by well-trained, scholarly historians  (leaving aside entirely the work of amateurs, many of whom are possessed of racialist theories that have been condemned by Holy Mother Church repeatedly, on the matter of the nature and the extent of the crimes committed by the agents of the Third Reich) who have come to different conclusions than have most "mainstream" historians, has proved to be beneficial insofar as helping at least a few Catholics to realize that there is indeed a contemporary relevance to the work of many Catholic scholars from the past, including, of course, the late Father Denis Fahey, who is oft-quoted on this site, and the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie (whose work can be read in Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers (which is available from Mr. Hugh Akin's Catholic Action Resource Center).

One of the foremost goals of Judeo-Masonry has been to make the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost to be considered a matter of complete indifference to personal and social order, to convince even believing Catholics that the pluralist civil state is an "irreversible" reality of the "modern" world and that no one religion should be given precedence over any other, that it is "enough" for men of "good will" to work together in in the pursuit of the common temporal good. There is, of course, no room for the Social Reign of Christ the King in this equation, which is why there is such a kinship between Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and adherents of the Talmud and why he has bestowed "papal" knighthood and "papal" medals on pro-abortion Talmudic rabbis, who are honored by conciliar "bishops" after death as much as they had been in life.

Cardinal Pie noted that the goal Americanists, which Monsignor Henri Delassus termed part of the Universal Israelite Alliance, was to dethrone Christ the King, a goal that was accomplished by the Protestant Revolt and has been acceded to repeatedly by the conciliar "pontiffs." Cardinal Pie:

 

If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .

"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."

In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:

"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."

 

Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:

"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?"

Moving ahead several pages in Fr. de St. Just's The Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, we continue with Msgr. Pie's observations:

"There is no more public morality, no more justice, you will say. These results astonish you; it should have been easy to predict. Isn't this as a pagan saying has it, that it would be easier to build a city in the air than to have a society without God. Isn't this what the Roman orator [Cicero] had said, that the stability of commerce and the greatest of virtues, which in justice, would be undermined along with loss of respect for a strong faith in the divinity? Hasn't the Holy Ghost declared in the most energetic language that when impious men rule men can expect nothing other than ruin: 'When the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn' (Prov. 9: 2)

"You add: all is going, all is in decline. And still you are astonished again, this should have been easy to foresee ... Because the legislation has made a profession of neutrality and of abstention concerning the existence of God, upon what foundation will its proper authority be established? In permitting me to not acknowledge God, am I not authorized to belittle God Himself? We have not elected to place dogma in the law, you tell me. And I reply: if the dogma of the existence of God is not found in the law, then the law is no longer so in the true sense of the word, it is nothing but a pipedream." (pp. 50-53, 63).

 

"Neither in His Person," Card, Pie said in a celebrated pastoral instruction, "nor in the exercise of His rights, can Jesus Christ be divided, dissolved, split up; in Him the distinction of natures and operations can never be separated or opposed; the divine cannot be incompatible to the human, nor the human to the divine. On the contrary, it is the peace, the drawing together, the reconciliation; it is the very character of union which has made the two things one: 'He is our peace, Who hath made both one. . .'  (Eph. 2:14). This is why St. John told us: 'every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God. And this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh: and is now already in the world' (1 John 4:3; cf. also 1 John 2:18, 22; 2 John: 7). "So then, Card. Pie continues, "when I hear certain talk being spread around, certain pithy statements (i.e., 'Separation of Church and State,' for one, and the enigmatic axiom 'A free Church in a free State,' for another) prevailing from day to day, and which are being introduced into the heart of societies, the dissolvent by which the world must perish, I utter this cry of alarm: Beware the Antichrist."

Fr. de St. Just adds:

"Accordingly, the Bishop of Poitiers had always fought against THE SEPARATION OF Church and State. Moreover, he opposed all separations, that of reason and faith, of nature and grace, of natural religion and revealed religion, the separation of the philosopher and the Christian, of private man and public man. He saw in all these [separations] a resurgence of Manichean dualism and he had fought all these with, the supreme argument, the law formed by Christ. Therefore, it is in all truth, writing to [Minister of the Interior] the Count of Presigny, that he could render this testimony:

'We have nothing in common with the theorists of disunion and opposition of two orders, temporal and spiritual, natural and supernatural. We struggle, on the contrary, with all our strength against these doctrines of separation which is leading to the denial of religion itself and of revealed religion.'"

Fr. de St. Just returns at this point and introduces us to what is perhaps Msgr. Pie's strongest language, with regard to this entire subject:

"To this doctrine of the Church, which Msgr. Pie brought to the mind of the rulers of nations, the liberals would oppose with acts favoring separation.

"Certain countries, Belgium and America, for example, haven't they proclaimed the separation of Church and State, and doesn't the Church enjoy a more complete liberty under such a system?"

Cardinal Pie responded firmly to this question:

'THE AMERICAN AND BELGIUM SYSTEM, this system of philosophical-political indifference, shall eternally be a bastard system" (pp. 122-124 in Fr. de St. Just's book, quoted  in Selected Writings of Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, Catholic Action Resource Center, Orlando, Florida, October, 2007, pp. 21-23.)

 

Monsignor Henri Delassus explained the admiration for the American founding that was held by the Universal Israelite Alliance, seeing in it the means to convince Catholics that their first attachments must be to "democracy" and to the Judeo-Masonic concepts of "universal brotherhood" and religious indifferentism (in the name of pluralism's "toleration" of "divergent beliefs"), not to the Holy Faith. Indeed, as Monsignor Delassus pointed out, the father of the insidious Americanist heresy, which is one of the cornerstones of conciliarism itself, Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, believed in these very false concepts, making him a prophetic precursor of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in serving the interests of those who deny the one and only Holocaust:

 

How so? Fr. Hecker tells us: "A call is made to men who possess this new synthesis of truth who are able to solve the problems of eliminating antagonisms, of being reconciled with the need of our era; of men who will take hold of all the aspirations of modern genius effected by science, of social activity, of politics, of spirituality (accordingly, spirituality itself would be called upon to defend the Church and to procure her universal triumph), of religion, and of the transformation of everything by means of the defense and universal triumph for the Church" (The Life of Fr. Hecker.)

Those who are not made aware of the world's current direction by the information that they derive from the newspaper--and this is the vast majority--will undoubtedly be surprised, in speaking to them of "Americanism" and of an "American Catholicism," we begin by calling their attention to the "Universal Israelite Alliance," entering through there upon a question, the Jewish Question, that presently fascinates the world and that is studied under every point of view, but which does not take into account, appears to be removed from, American Catholicism. This is nevertheless not imaginary on our part. The Universal Israelite Alliance is the center, the home, the bond of the antichristian conspiracy, by which Americanism seems to us to provide a support that it is not aware of which would not be given  if it were understood and upon which this book is determined to direct its attention. . . .

There is no person, who is not blind, who cannot fail to see the prodigious efforts that are being made over the last century towards secularization, that is to say, efforts to remove all religious character from everywhere and everyone. Already, on the very origin of the Revolution, [Count Joseph] de Maistre, had remarked that his had been its essential character. "Examine," he said, "all the enterprises of this century, you have to see (these men of the Revolution) constantly occupied in the separation from divinity." It would take too long to show here the many aspects under which the question of laicization or secularization is presented: it spreads itself among all, and in every governmental organ, accordingly, all the forces of society are employed in the success of this work ...

Could Americanism, itself also, have come to lend itself to this work that is certainly not intentional? This is what we have already said is to be feared. It is well to examine this thing more closely.

What is certain, what is incontestable, is that between the Jewish spirit and the Americanist spirit there is a point of contact with the principles of '89 [i.e., the principles of the French Revolution].

We have heard the Jews proclaim and declare the course they are drawing. For the Americans their social and even religious state rests entirely upon these principles; they highly praise them, and the Americanists themselves would have us that "American ideas are those in which GOD wants all the civilized people of our time to be at home." So they conscientiously make of themselves evangelists." ( Monsignor Henri Delassus, Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy, translated by Mr. Daniel Leonardi and published by Mr. Hugh Akins of Catholic Action Resource Center, Orlando, Florida, October, 2007--first printing in France, 1899, pp. 2-8.)

 

Catholics in the United States of America have not, at least for the most part, taken seriously the fact that the false, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist, anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian principles of the American founding were most compatible with and complementary to a larger movement in the world to use these false principles as the means to eradicate all vestigial influences of Catholicism from public policy in once Catholic Europe. Indeed, Catholics have been, at least for the most part, "flattered" that the false principles of the American founding have been seen by conciliar "pontiffs" as the "model" for Church-State relations in the rest of the world rather than an abject denial of the Sacred Rights of Christ the King.

As can seen from the views of Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, the Americanist worldview was but a precursor of that of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and it is this worldview relegates the Social Reign of Christ the King to the Orwellian memory hole that makes adherents of the Talmud feel such a kinship with the likes of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The conciliar worldview is the one that is considered by adherents of the Talmud to be "enlightened." Those Catholics who adhere to the demand for the conversion of the Jews and supersessionism, as Pope Saint Pius X himself explained to the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904, are "bigots" who must be monitored by various governmental and nongovernmental agencies as they are tarred incessantly with the charge of being "anti-Semitic."

Although it is not necessary for these facts to be presented from the pulpit week after week, there are occasions when pastoral prudence would dictate some kind of instruction concerning the longstanding warfare that has been waged against the Faith and against the Social Reign of Christ the King by those who deny His Sacred Divinity, accompanied by an explanation that we will no one any harm, that we harbor no grudges against anyone, and that it is a duty of ours to pray for the conversion of everyone to the true Faith, including those who continue to make warfare upon It.

A scholarly, dispassionate study of history, which, as Father Denis Fahey pointed out, is necessary to have in order to appreciate the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through His true Church, is no way any sign of being "obsessed" about the Talmudic question. Not at all. It is, however, necessary, as Pope Leo XIII wrote in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, for "those on whom God has bestowed gifts of mind" to the propagation of "Christian truth and [the] warding off [of] errors." The study of history belongs in its proper place, to be sure, and is subordinate to the good of souls. It is nevertheless true that there is never any conflict between truth in the Order of Nature (Creation) and truth in the Order of Grace (Redemption) and that those who approach truth in the natural realm with dispassion and a concern for the salvation of their own immortal souls can never be seen as any kind of threats to the Holy Faith whatsoever. There is always a place in the Catholic Church for scholars to review facts in the Order of Nature in order to better appreciate their relationship to the Order of Grace.

One of the great ironies of the Talmudic warfare against the Social Reign of Christ the King is that it helped to make possible the rise of various nihilistic ideologies that were used against Jews during the Third Reich. As I noted in Recognize and Capitulate:

Nations that lack a due submission to the Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls must degenerate into agents of the shedding the blood of innocent human beings under cover of law. This is what happened immediately in England under King Henry VIII when he had himself declared "Supreme Head of the Church in England" by Parliament in 1534 as over 72,000 Catholics who remained faithful to the true Church were put to death between that time and 1547, the time of his, Henry Tudor's, Particular Judgment. The French Revolutionaries killed between 150,000 to 200,000 people. Nearly 100 million people were killed by the various Communist revolutionaries (Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, Spanish, Korean, Cambodian). And, yes, significant numbers of innocent human beings were put to death by the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler, starting with the German generals in 1934 who refused to join the National Socialist Party and continuing with the extermination of the elderly and the infirmed and the eugenically "deformed" under its "eugenics laws" prior to the killing of those who were rounded up, tattooed like cattle and placed in concentration camps. A Catholic bishop, Clemens von Galens of Munster, Germany, denounced the eugenics laws from his pulpit with great courage and apostolic zeal.

The crimes of Nazi Germany against innocent human beings are real crimes, committed at the hands of men who had a contempt for Christ the King and His true Church. These crimes happened. Let true historians--and there are some--who are not tinged with discredited naturalist ideologies of "racial purity" or "racial superiority" continue to put forth the very sound evidence that was cited by Bishop Richard Williamson in the television interview he gave on November 2, 2008, that aired on January 21, 2009. Let those who are open to learn the truth of the nature and the extent of the Nazi crimes consider these facts and reject the claims of those who have used hyperbole about them to attempt to promote a Christophobic agenda in popular culture in Western nations. The truth will win out over time. It will be revealed most certainly for all to see, whether they like it or not, at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead on the Last day. It is not to be an "anti-Semite" to examine with dispassion the fruits of true historical research.

The fact remains, however, that Dachau existed. Buchenwald existed. Auschwitz existed. Trblinka existed. Human beings were stripped of their property. They were forced into slave labor. Many of them were tortured. And even if the number of Jews who were killed in these camps is in the range cited by Bishop Williamson, that between 200,000 to 300,000, that is indeed a genocide imposed upon innocent human beings by the authority of a godless civil state headed by men who believed in a diabolical ideology that saw itself as the means of secular salvation. And we must remember as well that Catholics were rounded up, tattooed, forced into slave labor, tortured and killed. One of those who was rounded up and sent to Auschwitz was the foe of all forms of naturalism, Father Maximilian Kolbe, who was devoted to building the City of Mary Immaculate, an enterprise the the devil, so close to the black hearts of the Nazis, hates with a passion.

Alas, the crimes committed by the doctors and judges and military officers of the Third Reich were made possible because of the fact that those whose lives they deemed to be "racially impure" or otherwise expendable because of physical or mental "deformity" or for being a critic of their Third Reich, which was to rule over the world for a thousand years, were viewed in merely naturalistic terms and not through the eyes of the true Faith as creatures of the true God Who had made them to be His own for all eternity. As the Third Reich, like all other modern civil states, rejected the right of the Catholic Church as having ordained by God Himself to be the ultimate authority on all that pertains to the good of souls, those who wielded power in that regime enacted "racial purity" and "eugenics" laws with complete legal impunity. Who could stop them? They had the legal "authority" under the Constitution of the Weimar Republic to enact "emergency laws." Constitutions that admit of no higher authority than the words of their own text are like silly putty in the hands of a child: instruments that can be manipulated for whatever ends those who hold the reins of power desire. Nations that reject the Social Reign of Christ the King are governed according to the dictates of those who exercise civil power, men who care not for His Sacred Rights or who fear not the moment of their own Particular Judgments.

These are truths that the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism do not dare to speak. Most of them live in dread fear of being called "anti-Semitic" and of thus putting into question Nostra Aetate, the conciliar decree on relations with non-Christian religions, and the "work" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II in fostering "inter-religious" dialogue with people who, he contended, possessed an "eternal covenant" with God.

Adherents of the Talmud, therefore, have quite a vested interest in the maintenance and the propagation of the conciliar ethos, which has made a firm doctrine out of the contention of the particular number of Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.

The conciliarists, for their part, have a vested interest in maintaining good relations with the people they call their "elder brothers in the Faith" (see His Excellency Bishop Donald A. Sanborn's analysis of Bishop Bernard Fellay's use of this conciliar line, Logical Chickens Coming Home to Roost: A Commentary on Recent Events in SSPX), especially as it relates to the promotion of the falsehood of "religious liberty" around the world. It also does not hurt that a little bit of money is donated now and again by adherents of the Talmud to various conciliar "bishops" for their pet "humanitarian" projects. Principally, however, there is a commonality of worldview that unites, at least on most occasions (admitting there are areas of tension and conflict now and again) adherents of a document that blasphemes Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Most Blessed Mother and adherents of an ape of the Catholic Church that dares to blaspheme Christ the King repeatedly as symbols of false religions are esteemed and as odious Novus Ordo degenerates more and more into a caricature of itself.

Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009) addressed the matter of relations between Jews and Catholics in the conciliar structures, a relationship he himself noted in his December 22, 2005, Christmas address to the members of his curia had to be "reassessed" in light of the "Shoah" denouncing Bishop Williamson's views yet again in a manner quite similar to the February 4, 2009, Note issued by his Secretariat of State:

An unforeseen mishap for me was the fact that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication. The discreet gesture of mercy towards four bishops ordained validly but not legitimately suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Church's path. A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council - steps which my own work as a theologian had sought from the beginning to take part in and support. That this overlapping of two opposed processes took place and momentarily upset peace between Christians and Jews, as well as peace within the Church, is something which I can only deeply deplore. I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news. I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility. Precisely for this reason I thank all the more our Jewish friends, who quickly helped to clear up the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust which - as in the days of Pope John Paul II - has also existed throughout my pontificate and, thank God, continues to exist.

 

The controversy caused by Bishop Williamson's remarks has certainly shown the extent to which the falsehoods of conciliarism have corrupted what should be the firm solicitude of a Successor of Saint Peter for the conversion of the Jewish people. After all, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., is still employed by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as the "preacher to the 'papal' household" nearly forty-two months after he wrote the following:

If Jews one day come (as Paul hopes) to a more positive judgment of Jesus, this must occur through an inner process, as the end of a search of their own (something that in part is occurring). We Christians cannot be the ones who seek to convert them. We have lost the right to do so by the way in which this was done in the past. First the wounds must be healed through dialogue and reconciliation. (Zenit, September 30, 2005.)

 

The Catholic Church never "loses" her duty to convert anyone to the true Faith. Cantalamessa is an apostate whose understanding of the Faith has been corrupted by the "New Theology" and by the Catholic "Charismatic" Renewal which he joined in 1977 at an "ecumenical" "Pentecostalist" rally in Kansas City, Missouri (see From Pentecostalism to Apostasy by John Vennari). He said in his 2002 Good Friday sermon:

"It is more important that men and women become holy,” Cantalamessa said, standing in the center of a magnificent basilica erected to celebrate the earthly might of Catholicism and the papacy, “than that they know the name of the one Savior.” (National Catholic Reporter)

 

How can men be holy without belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace?

Adherents of the Talmud are very pleased by the Ratzinger/Benedict letter, signaling that the "inter-religious" dialogue that has produced nothing but concessions from the counterfeit church of conciliarism may proceed as before:

Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), praised Pope Benedict XVI for issuing a personal letter to Catholic bishops explaining the circumstances of the Williamson affair.

"The pope has found clear and unequivocal words regarding Bishop Williamson's Holocaust denial, and he deserves praise for admitting that mistakes were made within the Vatican in the handling of this affair," Lauder said.

"The pope's letter conveys the essential requirements for inter-religious dialogue: candor and the willingness to tackle difficult issues squarely. His expressed anguish at the events following the Holocaust-denying statements by Williamson reflects the similar emotional pain felt by Jews worldwide during this affair," he continued.

"We reciprocate his words of appreciation for Jewish efforts to restore inter-religious dialogue and will continue to work with the Catholic Church to further strengthen mutual understanding and respect," the WJC president stated. (WJC President Lauder praises Pope's letter to Catholic bishops)

 

One goal of the "explanatory letter" has been met. Those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and who play a vital role in the promotion of His mystical dismemberment in the persons of innocent preborn children have been appeased while a concern for truth, both natural and supernatural, continues to be buried for the sake of human respect. Nothing new here under the conciliar sun.

Those Rascally "Progressive" "Bishops" and the Status of the Society of Saint Pius X

Although Ratzinger/Benedict's "explanatory letter" was addressed to all of the conciliar "bishops" in the world, the false "pontiff" was, it is quite clear, very angered by the virulent response of his brother German "bishops" to his "lifting" of the "excommunications" of the Society of Saint Pius X, which is why he, Ratzinger/Benedict, went to great lengths to defend his decision yet again as an act of "toleration" and to stress, as did the Note issued by his Secretariat of State on February 4, 2009, that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X have no "canonical" function in the Catholic Church at this time:

Another mistake, which I deeply regret, is the fact that the extent and limits of the provision of 21 January 2009 were not clearly and adequately explained at the moment of its publication. The excommunication affects individuals, not institutions. An episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardises the unity of the College of Bishops with the Pope. Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment - excommunication - with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity. Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained. The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible once the interested parties had expressed their recognition in principle of the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council. Here I return to the distinction between individuals and institutions. The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers - even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty - do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.

 

Ratzinger/Benedict has thus reassured his critics amongst the ranks of "progressive" "bishops" that the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X "do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church." This will appease some, although far from all, of his "progressive" critics amongst the ranks of his conciliar hierarchy. It will also mean nothing to the bishops and priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, who will continue doing what they have been doing for so long now: claiming to recognize the conciliar "pontiffs" while ignoring even their disciplinary decrees.

Bishop Sanborn, whose Logical Chickens Coming Home to Roost: A Commentary on Recent Events in SSPX was published in the Most Holy Trinity Newsletter before being posted online on March 7, 2009, reviewed the illogical and most un-Catholic position of the Society of Saint Pius X concerning the papacy:

The fundamental position of the SSPX is that of recognize and resist, that is, to recognize the Novus Ordo hierarchy as the Catholic hierarchy formally, that is, as wielding the true power of Christ to rule the Catholic Church, but at the same time to resist the program of Vatican II, including some conciliar doctrines, the New Mass, some new sacramental rites, and other things.

The dream of Archbishop Lefebvre was always to convince the Modernists in the Vatican that they should give their blessing to this congregation which carries on, throughout the entire world, an apostolate of more or less Catholic tradition  parallel to the reforms of the Novus Ordo. To achieve this legalized tradition has always been the goal of Archbishop Lefebvre and his successors since the founding of the SSPX in 1970.

As a result, the SSPX has lived a life of an on-again, off-again romance with the Modernists in the Vatican. Nearly every year rumors swirl about some sort of negotiations with the Modernists, and of some imminent marriage to them. This most recent episode, however, has been by far the closest that the marriage has come, and events point to an eventual legalization of the SSPX by the Modernists.

It is this idea of recognize and resist which principally distinguishes us from the Society of Saint Pius X. For this group, since its inception in 1970, has never answered the burning question: Is Vatican II Catholic? Is the religion which has emerged in our local parishes since Vatican II the Catholic religion, or is it a new religion? The answer to this question is critical; indeed, it involves heaven or hell for each of us. For if the Vatican II religion is indeed Catholicism, then it would be a mortal sin to resist it. If, on the other hand, it is a new religion, then it would be a mortal sin to recognize it, and to recognize the Novus Ordo hierarchy as having the power of Christ to teach, to rule, and to sanctify in His name. For if we recognize such a power in them, then we must necessarily say that it is Christ and His Holy Church which has handed us this defection from the Faith. But this is blasphemy.

Recognize and resist floats simultaneously these contradictions in the mind. Recognize urges that they place Ratzinger’s picture in the vestibule of their churches, and his name in the Canon of their Masses. Resist urges them to ignore Ratzinger in everyday life, as if he did not exist. Recognize urges that they make overtures to the Modernists in Rome; resist gives them a license to thumb their noses at the person whom they say is the Roman Pontiff, to publicly mock him, criticize him, and condemn him to hell. Hence the SSPX clergy and laity are capable of saying, as necessity dictates, contradictory statements. As we saw in 1988, as the consecrations were approaching, Archbishop Lefebvre accepted the Protocol of May 5, 1988, in which he declared that he accepted Vatican II in the light of tradition, and recognized John Paul as the Vicar of Christ. He even accepted to have a New Mass said at the church of Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet, the SSPX stronghold in Paris. Yet on the following day he repudiated the Protocol which he had signed, and by the middle of June, John Paul II had become the Antichrist for him. He revealed the contents of a letter which he had written to the four bishops-to-be in August of 1987, in which he described John Paul II as an Antichrist.

This means that in his negotiations with Ratzinger in 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre either changed his mind or lied about the most important point of whether or not John Paul II was the Vicar of Christ, and at the very least negotiated in bad faith with Ratzinger and John Paul II. This flip-flop, however, was made possible by the original error of Archbishop Lefebvre: that one could criticize as non-Catholic the doctrine, liturgy and universal discipline which comes from the Roman Pontiff, but at the same time co-exist with and function in the cadre of this false religion, and be subject to the hierarchy which promulgates it. Like two sides of one brain which do not communicate with each other, these two contradictory currents of thought were able to emerge from the same mouth of the Archbishop. So Archbishop Lefebvre gave both sides of his congregation quotations to work with: to the liberals he spoke words of ultimate reconciliation with the Modernists; to the conservatives he spoke words of resistance to the Modernists. This never-ceasing contradiction has plagued this Society ever since, and does so to this day.

In order to understand this group, it is essential to realize that theology begins and ends with Archbishop Lefebvre. For them, Archbishop Lefebvre is the Great Prophet, a saint anointed by God for the purpose of leading Catholics through the present crisis. For this reason, while theology and logic warn of contradictions in their system, they defer to Archbishop Lefebvre as a person in whom all contradiction is resolved. Somehow he saw what they do not see, since it would be impossible that an anointed saint be mistaken in what pertains to his very mission, which is to lead Catholics through the crisis.

Consequently the problem of the contradictory positions is swept away by an act of faith in Archbishop Lefebvre. His successors, therefore, do not perceive a problem in acting and speaking in exactly the same manner as he: now soft-line, now hard-line; now resisting, now recognizing. Their priests and lay people live in this world quite securely; they repel their critics not by theological arguments, but by chastisements for having been unfaithful to the Archbishop.

Because Archbishop Lefebvre founded the Society of Saint Pius X, the charism and aura of anointed mission and indefectibility are transferred
to this organization. So the four consecrated bishops have seen themselves as perpetuators of Archbishop Lefebvre, almost clones, even to the point of assuming to themselves certain privileges which he possessed only personally, and which died with him. The clergy and lay people of this Society therefore see it as a substitute for the Church itself, having the same mission and corresponding qualities as the anointed Archbishop had himself.

The natural consequence of such a mentality is that the clergy and lay people need to ask themselves a single question: What would Lefebvre do? The answer to this question transcends and overcomes all theological contradiction, disappearing like mist before the hot morning sun. But answering the question is at times difficult, given the two sides of the Archbishop.

So in the current events of this Society, where its future path is in the balance, all of these elements are at play. Observers on the outside should not try to make sense of what they are saying from day to day. The Society’s logic is the logic of double-think and double-talk; they truly maintain in their heads ideas which fight one with another. But they are not daunted by these interior conflicts, owing to their deep and unbending faith in Archbishop Lefebvre. (Logical Chickens Coming Home to Roost: A Commentary on Recent Events in SSPX)

 

As noted in Story Time in Econe, Joseph Ratzinger is either the pope or he is not. If he is the legitimate Vicar Christ, "Pope Benedict XVI," then he is owed filial obedience on matters of Faith, Morals and Discipline. That he is not the Vicar of Christ by virtue of the fact that he long ago defected from the Faith and is thus not a member of the Catholic Church should have been evident to me long before I recognized it to be the case. The litany below, included in several recent articles, is worth repeating once again as a "reality check" as to the many ways that Joseph Ratzinger has cast himself out of the Catholic Church:

1. Ratzinger/Benedict denies the nature of dogmatic truth, cleaving to  philosophically absurd notion that dogmatic truth can never be expressed adequately at any one point in time, that each expression of dogma is necessarily "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. Condemned by the [First] Vatican Council, Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.
2. Ratzinger/Benedict believes in an ecclesiology of "full" and "partial" communion that flies in the face of the teaching of the Catholic Church, a teaching documented so well by His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn in The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation and Communion: Ratzinger's Ecumenical One-World Church).
3. Ratzinger/Benedict specifically rejects the "ecumenism of the return," thereby making a mockery of the exhortations of one true pope after another for such a return of non-Catholics to the true Church.
4. Ratzinger/Benedict embraces concilairism's definition of "religious liberty" as he praises the nonexistent ability of false religions to "contribute" to the "betterment" of nations and the world. Condemned by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)
5. Ratzinger/Benedict endorses the "separation of Church and State," a thesis called absolutely false by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and rejects the obligation of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, an obligation reiterated by pope after pope following the rise of the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity.
6. Ratzinger/Benedict, therefore, falls into the category of a social modernist described by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922 (see: The Binding Nature of Catholic Social Teaching).
7. Ratzinger/Benedict has entered one mosque and two synagogues, engaging in acts of apostasy and blasphemy as he, who believes himself to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, has permitted himself to be treated as an inferior as he has treated places of false worship that are hideous to God as worthy of respect, thereby scandalizing His little ones no end.
8. Ratzinger/Benedict has termed Mount Hiei in Japan, where the adherents of the Tendei sect of Buddhism, worship their devils, as "sacred."
9. Joseph Ratzinger has long rejected the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in favor of the condemned precepts of the so-called "New Theology," the subject of an article, The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones, on a Society of Saint Pius X website that may well "disappear"--along with other "damaging" citations that will have to be removed as part of the conciliar process of "purification of memory"--once a formal "regularization" takes place. (See also: Attempting to Coerce Perjury.)
10. Ratzinger/Benedict holds to a view of the Doctrine of Justification that, in essence, hinges on the belief that the Fathers of the Council of Trent, who met under the influence and protection of God the Holy Ghost, were wrong (as is explained in Attempting to Coerce Perjury.)

 

Ratzinger/Benedict is attempting to save his conciliar revolution and thus to cement the pieces of his One World Ecumenical Church by means of his logically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity," which he is attempting to employ as a means of convincing his "progressive" "bishops" that the "Second" Vatican Council is not a rupture from the past as they would suppose while at the same time using this warped methodology to convince the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X that they can understand the "Second" Vatican Council in "light" of Tradition:

In light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission 'Ecclesia Dei' - the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope - to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily the acceptance of the Vatican Council II and the post- conciliar Magisterium of the Popes. The collegial bodies with which the congregation studies questions which arise (especially the ordinary Wednesday meeting of cardinals and the annual or biennial plenary session) ensure the involvement of the prefects of the different Roman congregations and representatives from the world's bishops in the process of decision-making. The Church's teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 - this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life. Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009)

 

Never mind the contradictions. Never mind the outright rejection of the "ecumenism of the return." Never mind the embrace of "separation of Church and State," a thesis termed "absolutely false" by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906 (and something "absolutely false" in 1906 does not become true in 2009). Never mind the fact that those who worked on Annibale Bugnini's Consilium, including one Father Joseph Gelineau, said:

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

 

Never mind the fact that many who participated at the "Second" Vatican Council considered it to be a break from the Catholic past, and a welcomed one (see New Book Reaffirms Depth of Change Wrought by Vatican II).No, never mind all of this. Ratzinger/Benedict is going to complete construction of the One World Church by asserting positivistically that black is white and that white is black because he says that it is so, that is, contradictions are not contradictions because human language is so imprecise that dogmatic formulae may never be expressed adequately at any one time, necessitating "adjustments" that appear to be contradictions but actually represent a "hidden" "continuity" that takes time to recognize. For this absurdity to be true, however, God the Holy Ghost would have had to "forget" to teach us this prior to now; He would have failed in His mission to protect the Church infallibly by permitting dogmatic councils to issue decrees on the nature of dogmatic truth that are incompatible with the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity." To believe this is to believe in a false religion. To believe this is blaspheme God the Holy Ghost.

Among the many papal statements that have been quoted on this site to refute the absurdity of the "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" is this one from Pope Gregory XVI, contained in Singulari Nos, June 25, 1834, and it bears repeating here:

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

Little Conciliar Nuggets

There are a few nuggets in Ratzinger/Benedict's "explanatory letter" that provide some important insights into the conciliar mind. One of these involves Ratzinger/Benedict's top priority, false ecumenism, a goal that includes bringing into the conciliar "fold" those who have exhibited "extremism" and "obstinacy" and "narrowness:"

Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith - ecumenism - is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light - this is inter-religious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love 'to the end' has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity - this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est'.

"So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church's real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who 'has something against you' and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents - to the extent possible - in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim Him and, with Him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

"Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things - arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them - in this case the Pope - he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint. Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre (March 10, 2009)

Ratzinger/Benedict lays out his agenda very clearly here. He is telling the conciliar "bishops" that the Society of Saint Pius X is composed of "extremist," "narrow," "one-sided" elements that need to be opened up to "broader vistas" such as those that have been embraced by the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter and the Institute of Christ the King and the Sisters who left the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen. These "bishops" must be willing, as he is, to overlook "various faults" in order to make "every effort to open up broader vistas." In other words, the members of the Society of Saint Pius X need to be "re-educated" so that they do not become more "extreme" and "narrow" and "one-sided" than they have become over the years.

The "unhealthy and distorted elements" in the Society of Saint Pius X must be rooted out, replaced by an acceptance of the Novus Ordo and a spirit of quietism about any perceived contradictions between Catholicism and conciliarism. Ratzinger/Benedict is pleading with the conciliar "bishops" to permit him the chance to make the bishops and priests and laity of the Society of Saint Pius X full members of the One World Church along with "Catholic" Charismatic Renewal, Opus Dei, Focolare, Cursillo, the Sant'Egidio Community, the Shalom Catholic Community, the Chemin Neuf Community, the International Community of Faith and Light, Regnum Christi, Communion and Liberation, the Emmanuel Community, the Seguimi Lay Group of Human-Christian Promotion, and. among many, many others, the Neocatechumenal Way. This may take time and patience. However, it is an "effort" that Ratzinger/Benedict must be made in the name of "ecumenism," in the name of "tolerance," in the name of a "search" for "reconciliation and unity."

It is clear that Joseph Ratzinger really meant it when he wrote the following in Principles of Catholic Theology in 1982:

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)

 

No, there is nothing new under the conciliar sun. Ratzinger is now the same as he has been throughout his priesthood. There has been no change whatsoever.

I do not see how anyone in the Society of Saint Pius X can take comfort in having the one they recognize as "pope" call them "narrow," "one-sided," "obstinate," and "rigid" and expect that the one they "resist" as "pope" is going to permit them to be any different than, say, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, one of whose priests said to us a few years ago when we were telling him that he was "una cum" Ratzinger and the Blue Mosque that he had "no obligation to oppose error," thus making a liar out Pope Pius VI, who wrote these words in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775:

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.

 

Those who seek to be "recognized" by the head of false church will find that a defense of Catholicism without the taint of the corruption provided by conciliarism is impermissible.

The True God Countenances No Respect for False Religions

 

There is yet another conciliar nugget in the passage cited from Ratzinger/Benedict's "explanatory letter" quoted just above: "Leading men and women to God, to the God Who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time." Notice that Ratzinger/Benedict did not say that his supreme and fundamental priority is to lead men and women to the true Church, wherein alone it possible to know the true God, Who speaks to us in Sacred Scripture and in Sacred (or Apostolic) Tradition. God speaks us in Divine Revelation, both Scripture and Tradition, solely through the Catholic Church, something that Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe.

It is furthermore the case that Ratzinger/Benedict does not understand "the God Who spoke on Sinai; to that God Whose face we recognise in a love which presses 'to the end' - in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen" does not countenance a true Successor of Saint Peter committing, objectively speaking, Mortal Sins against the First Commandment by going to mosques and synagogues and esteeming the symbols of false religions and make space available in a major patriarchic al basilica, Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, for "ecumenical prayer" (see The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion). The "God Who spoke on Sinai; to that God Whose face we recognise in a love which presses 'to the end' - in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen" does not countenance a true Successor of Saint Peter placing into question the dogmatic pronouncements of the past by asserting that they were expressed in contingent terms based upon the historical circumstances in which they were proclaimed. The"God Who spoke on Sinai; to that God Whose face we recognise in a love which presses 'to the end' - in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen" will not be mocked by one who dares to assert things as true that have been condemned repeatedly by the authority of the Catholic Church.

Straight Into the Novus Ordo

Bishop Sanborn's Logical Chickens Coming Home to Roost: A Commentary on Recent Events in SSPX closed by recalling a very prescient remark made by the then Father Daniel Dolan in 1983:

I remember standing in the porch of the Ridgefield seminary in April of 1983, not far away from Archbishop Lefebvre, the then-Fr.  Williamson, and Fr. Roch. They were laughing about the accusation that the then-Fr. Dolan had made to the laity — that the Archbishop would one day lead traditionalists straight back to the Novus Ordo. Well, his SSPX is on Ratzinger’s front porch now — and there is nothing to laugh about any more.

 

The agenda is clear. Ratzinger/Benedict has spelled things out very clearly for his conciliar "bishops," many of whom will remain hostile to his, Ratzinger/Benedict's, efforts to "reconcile" the Society of Saint Pius X with the One World Church of conciliarism, a reality that serves Ratzinger/Benedict well as he can, as he did in his "explanatory letter," continue to represent himself as the agent of "mercy" and "compassion" and "tolerance" for the poor, misguided, narrow-minded, obstinate souls attached to the Society of Saint Pius X. Members of the Catholic Church can have nothing to do with such an agenda of compromise and capitulation with the forces of apostasy, betrayal, sacrilege and blasphemy. Members of the Catholic Church must cling exclusively to true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds in any way, shape or form.

None of us who have accepted the canonical doctrine of the Catholic Church that the See of Peter is vacant in the case of heresy (something admitted by Mario Francesco "Cardinal" Pompedda in 2005, although he did not believe, obviously, that the doctrine applied to the then dying John Paul II) is one whit better than any Catholic who has yet to accept this doctrine and that it applies at this time. We must, therefore, especially during this holy, penitential season of Lent, be about the business of making reparation for our sins to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states in life permit. Our sins have contributed mightily--mightily, I say!--to the worsening of the state of the Church Militant on earth and the world-at-large. We must take seriously our obligation to root out vice and to grow in virtue as we seek to scale the heights of personal sanctity with every beat of our hearts, consecrated as they must be to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We must also remember that none of our words or our argumentation will "win the day" for Holy Mother Church. Saint Thomas Aquinas considered what he wrote to have been but "straw" and decided to quit the writing of the Summa Theologica as a result. Our work is indeed less than straw, especially when we consider how little love we have for God in our hearts, how little sacrifice we offer to Him through His Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart, how little gratitude we have for all that He gives us, starting with the Holy Faith itself, how far we are from perfection, how utterly we need His grace and His mercy, bestowed upon so generously in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, to approach Him in Holy Communion with greater love, piety, fervor and devotion.

None of us, especially those of us in the laity, can do all of the devotions that we would like to do in the course of a day. We should pick several that we can keep faithfully, starting with daily Mass, time before Our Lord in His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament and the praying of the Most Holy Rosary (in addition to a few minutes of Scripture reading every day). My own particular devotion is to the Poor Souls, who I hope and pray will help me as I am dying and after I am dead. Saint Francis de Sales says that one discharges all of his duties connected with the Virtue of Charity if he prays for the Poor Souls, and I am counting on that as being true as it gives me some hope that I might be saved despite my best efforts to remain with hosts of faults and failings.

We must, as I note constantly, remain cheerful during the midst of these tribulations, which God has known from all eternity would occur. It is within His Holy Providence that He has willed for us to be alive in these troubling times. He has given us the supernatural helps in the Catholic catacombs to prosper unto our eternal salvation in the midst of the apostasy and betrayal that are upon us. We must ask Our Lady to pray for us to use these supernatural helps that flow through her loving hands--and to use them well and ceaselessly until we take our last breaths, trusting that she, to whom we give our liberty as her consecrated slaves, will use some of what we give to present to the Throne of the Most Blessed Trinity to help usher in the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart and the day when all people on the face of this earth will exclaim:

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

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

See also: A Litany of Saints