One Sentence Says It All
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
22. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as dogmas of faith by the infallible judgment of the Church. -- Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863. (Proposition condemned by Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)
One sentence says it all. As I noted a few days ago in "Revising" the Faith In Order to be "Free" of Christ the King, unlike the falsehood that has been propagated by the Society of Saint Pius X for the better part of four decades now, it not possible to sift the teaching of true popes. A true pope cannot give us defective liturgies or doctrines contrary to what the Church has taught perennially.
Although true popes can be mistaken in administrative matters (personnel appointments to the episcopate or to the Roman Cura) and in matters of statecraft and diplomacy, they can never be "conflicted' about the Catholic Faith. Following God's definitive public manifestation on the supersession of Judaism by Catholicism with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D., a supersession that had been indicated by the earthquake on Good Friday that tore the curtain in that Temple into half and preached forcefully by the first pope, Saint Peter, and the other apostles for over thirty years prior to the destruction of that Temple after the Jews persisted in their unbelief, no true Successor of Saint Peter has ever violated the precepts of the First Commandment by entering voluntarily into the places of false "worship," no less praising these places as "sacred" or as "jewels" that stand out on the "face of the earth."
The counterfeit church of conciliarism has bred an ethos of absolute acceptance of the "legitimacy" of false religions, each of which is hated by God, as means by which the "better" world can be built. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself has spoken in this apostate manner repeatedly throughout the course of his priesthood, including the four years, two months, four days of his false "pontificate," doing so quite openly and quite brazenly during his pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel that ended one week ago today, that is, on Friday, May 15, 2009.
Here are just two examples of Ratzinger/Benedict's apostate belief that "religions" can help to build the "better world:"
An indication of the potential of this series of meetings is readily seen in our shared concern in the face of moral relativism and the offences it spawns against the dignity of the human person. In approaching the most urgent ethical questions of our day, our two communities are challenged to engage people of good will at the level of reason, while simultaneously pointing to the religious foundations which best sustain lasting moral values. May the dialogue that has begun continue to generate ideas on how Christians and Jews can work together to heighten society’s appreciation of the distinctive contribution of our religious and ethical traditions. Here in Israel, given that Christians constitute only a small portion of the total population, they particularly value opportunities for dialogue with their Jewish neighbors. (Courtesy visit to the two Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem at Hechal Shlomo Center in Jerusalem, May 12, 2009)
At the heart of all religious traditions is the conviction that peace itself is a gift from God, yet it cannot be achieved without human endeavor. Lasting peace flows from the recognition that the world is ultimately not our own, but rather the horizon within which we are invited to participate in God’s love and cooperate in guiding the world and history under his inspiration. We cannot do whatever we please with the world; rather, we are called to conform our choices to the subtle yet nonetheless perceptible laws inscribed by the Creator upon the universe and pattern our actions after the divine goodness that pervades the created realm.
Galilee, a land known for its religious and ethnic diversity, is home to a people who know well the efforts required to live in harmonious coexistence. Our different religious traditions have a powerful potential to promote a culture of peace, especially through teaching and preaching the deeper spiritual values of our common humanity. By molding the hearts of the young, we mold the future of humanity itself. Christians readily join Jews, Muslims, Druze, and people of other religions in wishing to safeguard children from fanaticism and violence while preparing them to be builders of a better world. (Meeting with the religious leaders of Galilee in the Auditorium of the Shrine of the Annunciation in Nazareth, May 14, 2009.)
These apostate statements are blasphemous and they stand condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. The new Sillonists cannot pretend that they are merely working on “the ground of practical realities” where differences of belief do not matter. Their leader is so conscious of the influence which the convictions of the mind have upon the result of the action, that he invites them, whatever religion they may belong to, “to provide on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions.” And with good reason: indeed, all practical results reflect the nature of one’s religious convictions, just as the limbs of a man down to his finger-tips, owe their very shape to the principle of life that dwells in his body. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
The beliefs of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and those of the Catholic Church are irreconcilable. Catholicism is indeed the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Indeed, it is to make a mockery of the command that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the Eleven on Ascension Thursday to
"teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matthew 28: 19-20) to assert that false "religions" are pleasing to God and that they can help to "build" the "better world."
Any defender of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who claims that the "unofficial" statement below, issued on Wednesday May 20, 2009, by the
The Jordanian Royal Institute for Inter- Faith Studies (R.I.I.F.S.) and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, does not reflect perfectly the officially stated apostate views of Ratzinger/Benedict during his recently pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel is simply intellectually dishonest:
VATICAN CITY, 20 MAY 2009 (VIS) - The Jordanian Royal Institute for Inter- Faith Studies (R.I.I.F.S.) and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, held their first meeting in Amman, Jordan, from 18 to 20 May. The theme of the event was "Religion and Civil Society".
According to an English-language communique published at midday today, the R.I.I.F.S. delegation was led by Ambassador Hasan Abu Numah, director of the institute, and the Vatican delegation by Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.
At the end of this their first meeting the participants agreed upon "the importance of civil society for a sound and integral development of individuals and communities, recognising the particular and indispensable contribution that civil society can provide as a valuable forum for dialogue in the context of the responsible exercise of freedom.
"The participants", the communique adds, "stressed the importance of educating youth in the values of mutual respect and in the culture of dialogue, rejecting violence, so as to promote peaceful coexistence on the basis of full citizenship.
"They highlighted the relevance of democracy and the rule of law in a State that respects ethnic, cultural and religious diversities and implements equality among citizens, on the basis of the respect of human dignity and the ensuing fundamental human rights, particularly freedom and justice.
"Religions", the participants note, "have a specific role to play in civil society, offering motivations for the citizen's contributions to the common good that are based on faith in God and which transcend political expediency and search of power".
The communique concludes by indicating how "the participants stressed the role that religions can play in strengthening social participation and cohesion, thereby giving their specific support to the building of a stable and prosperous State, based on the principle of subsidiarity".
The next meeting is due to take place in Rome within two years and will be "preceded by a preparatory meeting where the theme and modalities will be defined". (RELIGIONS CAN HELP TO STRENGTHEN SOCIAL COHESION.)
"Peaceful coexistence"? This is the exact phrase used on several occasions during Ratzinger/Benedict's pilgrimage to Jordan and Israel:
To the religious leaders present this afternoon, I wish to say that the particular contribution of religions to the quest for peace lies primarily in the wholehearted, united search for God. Ours is the task of proclaiming and witnessing that the Almighty is present and knowable even when he seems hidden from our sight, that he acts in our world for our good, and that a society’s future is marked with hope when it resonates in harmony with his divine order. It is God’s dynamic presence that draws hearts together and ensures unity. In fact, the ultimate foundation of unity among persons lies in the perfect oneness and universality of God, who created man and woman in his image and likeness in order to draw us into his own divine life so that all may be one.
Religious leaders must therefore be mindful that any division or tension, any tendency to introversion or suspicion among believers or between our communities, can easily lead to a contradiction which obscures the Almighty’s oneness, betrays our unity, and contradicts the One who reveals himself as “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6; Ps 138:2; Ps 85:11). My friends: Jerusalem, which has long been a crossroads for peoples of many different origins, is a city which affords Jews, Christians and Muslims both the duty and the privilege to bear witness together to the peaceful coexistence long desired by worshippers of the one God; to lay bare the Almighty’s plan for the unity of the human family announced to Abraham; and to proclaim the true nature of man as a seeker of God. Let us resolve to ensure that through the teaching and guidance of our respective communities we shall assist them to be true to who they are as believers, ever aware of the infinite goodness of God, the inviolable dignity of every human being, and the unity of the entire human family. (Courtesy visit to the President of the State of Israel at the presidential palace in Jerusalem, May 11, 2009.)
"Peaceful coexistence"? "Let us resolve to ensure that through the teaching and guidance of our respective communities we shall assist them to be true to who they are as believers"? In other words, Catholics must help members of false religions to be "true" to the false beliefs of their false religions? This is exactly the the spirit of the Sillon that was condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
This being said, what must be thought of the promiscuity in which young Catholics will be caught up with heterodox and unbelieving folk in a work of this nature? Is it not a thousand-fold more dangerous for them than a neutral association? What are we to think of this appeal to all the heterodox, and to all the unbelievers, to prove the excellence of their convictions in the social sphere in a sort of apologetic contest? Has not this contest lasted for nineteen centuries in conditions less dangerous for the faith of Catholics? And was it not all to the credit of the Catholic Church? What are we to think of this respect for all errors, and of this strange invitation made by a Catholic to all the dissidents to strengthen their convictions through study so that they may have more and more abundant sources of fresh forces? What are we to think of an association in which all religions and even Free-Thought may express themselves openly and in complete freedom? For the Sillonists who, in public lectures and elsewhere, proudly proclaim their personal faith, certainly do not intend to silence others nor do they intend to prevent a Protestant from asserting his Protestantism, and the skeptic from affirming his skepticism. Finally, what are we to think of a Catholic who, on entering his study group, leaves his Catholicism outside the door so as not to alarm his comrades who, “dreaming of disinterested social action, are not inclined to make it serve the triumph of interests, coteries and even convictions whatever they may be”? Such is the profession of faith of the New Democratic Committee for Social Action which has taken over the main objective of the previous organization and which, they say, “breaking the double meaning which surround the Greater Sillon both in reactionary and anti-clerical circles”, is now open to all men “who respect moral and religious forces and who are convinced that no genuine social emancipation is possible without the leaven of generous idealism.” (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
The Catholic Church condemns any effort to "appeal to all the heterodox, and to all the unbelievers, to prove the excellence of their convictions," which is exactly what Ratzinger/Benedict himself did when he resolved to "ensure that through the teaching and guidance of our respective communities we shall assist them to be true to who they are as believers."
"Peaceful coexistence"? This is what Father Basil Meramo, who was recently expelled by Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X for simply pointing out the truth of Catholic doctrine that has been violated repeatedly by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, had to say about the "peaceful coexistence" with the Faith that was desired by various Roman emperors:
Our Lord does not want us to be men of little faith or cowards, for cowardice comes from a lack of virility, be it natural or supernatural. Lack of faith is typical of a coward. It is proper for virtue to grow in difficult times and not to diminish, become fearful or retreat. The brave soldier goes to war to win or die, not to retreat – this is betrayal.
This is also happing inside the Church: there are very few men who are truly men in the Church! Men were lacking at Vatican Council II. If only one cardinal had stood up and strongly indicted the heresies and errors of Vatican II, declaring them publicly to be such, he would have made the world tremble. But that man was not there. There are many people who see and know, but who dares to oppose the powers that be? Here is the difficulty: the lack of virility and faith. And because of this, things are happening, beloved brethren, in the Church and, unfortunately, also in Traditionalism, and unfortunately also in the Society.
This letter that I wrote (1) can cost me my skin (…) but I cannot accept that, instead of seeing things as they are, (…) a person would say that this [accord] was made thanks to the blessing of the Most Holy Virgin Mary. And if Bishop Fellay dares to say this, I summon him before God to be chastised by the Most Holy Virgin Mary for using her holy name in such a falsehood. If I am mistaken, I ask that chastisement to fall on me. I cannot be clearer. Bread is bread and wine is wine. Here there is one selling out the Church, selling out the Society, selling out me and you, but I won’t allow anyone to sell me out or to buy me. (…)
This problem is taking place with the General Superior (of the Society of St. Pius X) (…) who is selling out the Society by allying himself with the Vatican, which has not stepped back in anything. Where does Benedict XVI go? He goes to the Synagogue, he goes to the United Nations, and now he goes to the Society (SSPX) – another concubine in the pantheon of false religions.
This is not admissible. This is a tactic of Rome. I want you to know, dear brethren, that Rome of the Roman Empire was able to dominate the world by means of religious compromises. This is why Rome had a pantheon with all the principal gods of the important peoples who were subjugated by it. Since religious alliances were established and Rome had the same gods of the enemies, then there were no mutual attacks. Rome accepted the same gods of the Greeks in order to dominate the Greeks; Rome adopted the same gods of this or that people in order to dominate them. This was its tactic to govern.
This same tactic continues today in that Rome, which St. Peter - the first Pope of the Church - called Babylon. He was not in the Middle East; he was in Rome and he called it Babylon because it was the Babylon of the religions. He didn’t spare words, because it had an altar to every god. All known religions had their representatives there. (…) A Pope quoted in the Breviary – whose name I don't remember at this moment – said that at the end [of history] Rome will again have, as in the beginning, all the religions. It will return to its ancient paganism, rejoicing in hosting all religions. It will return to its old religious prostitution. (A Bold Show of Dissatisfaction in the SSPX Ranks; please read Father Meramo's remarks in their entirety; the Tradition in Action website has also published and English translation of Father Meramo's January 26, 2009, "open letter" to Bishop Fellay, Fellay’s Decision to Merge Confronted by Intellectual Priest. These letters have been censored by the Society of Saint Pius X hierarchy. Please circulate them widely to your friends who are as of yet attached to the conciliar structures by means of the falsehoods propagated by the Society of Saint Pius X about the nature of the Church and her infallibility.)
Has it now become acceptable in the eyes of God to do what was condemned universally by the Catholic Church prior to the death of Pope Pius XII, to engage in direct, promiscuous and adulatory intercourse with false religions? (See
The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion. )
Some in the upper echelons of the Society of Saint Pius X, including a seminary rector, have accused Catholics, both priests, such as the expelled Father Meramo,and members of the laity, still attached to the Society's false ecclesiology of being "uncharitable" or "filled with hatred" for the "pope" by pointing out his consistent commitment to a Modernist agenda throughout the course of his nearly fifty-eight years as a priest. These shallow tricks of intimidation by the use of emotional red-herrings and the ad hominem (some of the French, sad to say, are quite good at using what they believe to be the well-placed insult as a means of ceasing rational discourse and to express a feigned "righteous indignation" when they are caught in exercises of rank positivism) cannot change the simple truth that the esteem for "peaceful coexistence" with false religions and the praise given to the false religions by Ratzinger/Benedict--and by the statements issued by official and "unofficial" councils and commissions of his counterfeit church--are contrary to right reason and to the dogmatic truths of the Catholic Church.
Is it to be considered an "exercise of hatred" to point out that it is a Mortal Sin, objectively speaking, against the First Commandment to speak of a mosque a "sacred" place of "worship," no less to take off one's shoes to enter into the mosque of the Dome of the Rock voluntarily while refusing to speak of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?
Is it to be considered an "exercise of hatred" to point out that it is a defection from the Faith to point out that Ratzinger/Benedict does nothing to seek the conversion of the Jews and that some of his own conciliar officials have contended publicly, without being contradicted by Ratzinger/Benedict, that the Catholic Church has no "mission from God" to covert the Jews?
Was Saint Peter wrong to have sought the conversion of his fellow Jews on Pentecost Sunday?
Was Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., wrong to have done so?
Was Father Theodore Ratisbonne, who was converted by Our Lady herself as she appeared to him in the Church of San Andrea delle Fratte on January 20, 1842, as she appears on the Miraculous Medal, wrong to have sought the conversion of the Jews in Palestine in the Nineteenth Century?
Is it to be considered an "exercise of hatred" to point out the many ways in which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has made a lifelong warfare against the Catholic Faith (see
Ratzinger's War Against Catholicism)?
If so, then why was not the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre guilty of an "exercise of hatred" for the "pope" when he said the following in 1986?
Now these recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with Protestants, animists and Jews, are they not an active participation in non-Catholic worship as explained by Canon Naz on Canon 1258-1? In which case, I cannot see how it is possible to say that the Pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church.
“Now I don’t know if the time has come to say that the Pope is a heretic; I don’t know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying ‘there is no more Pope,’ but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the Pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the Pope himself we begin to be very anxious. I am not inventing this situation; I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but this is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don’t think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods.
“What conclusion must we draw in a few months if we are confronted by these repeated acts of partaking in false worship? I don’t know. I wonder. But I think the Pope can do nothing worse than call together a meeting of all religions, when we know there is only one true religion and all other religions belong to the devil. So perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the Pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don’t wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a Pope to be publicly and formally heretical. Our Lord has promised to be with him, to keep his faith, to keep him in the Faith - how can he at the same time be a public heretic and virtually apostatise? So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this Pope is not Pope. (The Angelus, July 1986, transcripts of talks given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on March 30 and April 18, 1986.)
How are these remarks of the late Archbishop Lefebvre any different than those of right-thinking Catholics who refuse to be intimidated by insults offered to them with a French accent for condemning Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's "partaking of the worship of false gods" by lending his "papal" credibility to the "legitimacy" of these religions in the eyes of the true God of Revelation, Who hates each and every single one of these false religions?
Will it be an "act of hatred" for the current conciliar "pope," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, to object to his "beatification" next year of the "pope" who was the conciliar pioneer of entering into places of false worship, the "pope" who "excommunicated" the founder of the Society of Saint Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre, and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer of the Society of Saint John Mary Vianney, and the four bishops consecrated by them on June 30, 1988, in Econe, Switzerland?
If it is an "act of hatred" for the "pope," Ratzinger/Benedict, to point out that his lifelong rejection of Scholasticism, the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, and his embrace of the condemned precepts of the "new theology" make it possible for him to engage in theological revisionism of how Sacred Scripture and the writings of Church Fathers should be "interpreted," then how was it not an act of "hatred" for a "cardinal" ten years ago for a publication that is featured on some websites of the Society of Saint Pius X in Italy, Si, Si, No, No, to publish a scathing critique, that is still accessible on the website of the Society of Saint Pius X's District of Asia, of the then "cardinal" Ratzinger's Modernist mind?
The cultural interests pursued at the seminary of Freising were joined to the study of a theology infected by existentialism, beginning with the writings of Romano Guardini. Among the authors preferred by Ratzinger was the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. Ratzinger loved St. Augustine, but never St. Thomas Aquinas: 'By contrast, I had difficulties in penetrating the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose crystal-clear logic seemed to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made' (op. cit., p.44). This aversion was mainly due to the professor of philosophy at the seminary, who 'presented us with a rigid, neo-scholastic Thomism that was simply too far afield from my own questions' (ibid.). According to Cardinal Ratzinger, whose current opinions appear unchanged from those he held as a seminarian, the thought of Aquinas was "too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made," and was unable to respond to the personal questions of the faithful. This opinion is enunciated by a prince of the Church whose function it is to safeguard the purity of the doctrine of the Faith! Why, then, should anyone be surprised at the current disastrous crisis of Catholicism, or seek to attribute it to the world, when those who should be the defenders of the Faith, and hence of genuine Catholic thought, are like sewers drinking in the filth, or like gardeners who cut down a tree they are supposed to be nurturing? What can it mean to stigmatize St. Thomas as having a "too impersonal and ready-made" logic? Is logic "personal"? These assertions reveal, in the person who makes them, a typically Protestant, pietist attitude, like that found in those who seek the rule of faith in personal interior sentiment.
In the two years Ratzinger spent at the diocesan seminary of Freising, he studied literature, music, modern philosophy, and he felt drawn towards the new existentialist and modernist theologies. He did not like St. Thomas Aquinas. The formation described does not correspond to the exclusively Catholic formation that is necessary to one called to be a priest, even taking into account the extenuating circumstances of the time, that is, anti-Christian Nazism, the war and defeat, and the secularization of studies within seminaries. It seems that His Eminence, with all due respect, gave too much place to profane culture, with its "openness" to everything, and its critical attitude...Joseph Ratzinger loved the professors who asked many questions, but disliked those who defended dogma with the crystal-clear logic of St. Thomas. This attitude would seem to us to match his manner of understanding Catholic liturgy. He tells us that from childhood he was always attracted to the liturgical movement and was sympathetic towards it. One can see that for him, the liturgy was a matter of feeling, a lived experience, an aesthetically pleasing "Erlebnis," but fundamentally irrational (op. cit. passim.). (The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones.)
Is it to be considered an "act of hatred" for the "pope," Ratzinger/Benedict, to point out that his rejection of Scholasticism is itself a proposition condemned by Pope Pius IX in The Syllabus of Errors?
13. The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress of the sciences
Why is it an "act of hatred" for the "pope," Ratzinger/Benedict, today to point out his complete adherence to Modernist precepts as "pope" when the very same article from Si, Si, No, No, made the following conclusion about then then "prefect" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith"?
His remarks come across as a fastidious apologia. Cardinal Ratzinger seems to have learned nothing from all that has happened. He is only concerned with showing the continuity of his theology, believing that by so doing he is defending both himself and Vatican II. From this defense a certain image of Cardinal Ratzinger as restorer of the Faith has been created; and it is an image in which many still believe. However, it is only blatant mystification.
The best known work of the Cardinal is the book, Introduction to Christianity, published in 1968 and translated into 17 languages. He speaks of it with satisfaction. Not withstanding, the Christology that he sets forth is scarcely orthodox. Sometimes he only very narrowly avoids the theology of heretics, which has been passively absorbed by the majority of Catholic theologians. He also affirms that Jesus the Messiah is a product of the faith of the primitive community: "He is the One who died on the cross, and Who, to the eyes of faith, rose" (Italian ed., Brescia, 1971, 4th ed., p.171) .The Resurrection is not then an historical fact, but a simple belief of the disciples. Like examples from the book could be multiplied.
The reputation of Ratzinger as restorer of the Church does not rest on his works. It is probably owing to the fact that several times he has quite clearly described certain disorders, and that he has always dissociated himself from the most extreme factions. But this takes away nothing from the modernist foundation of his theological vision: "Ratzinger is always like that: To counter the excesses, from which he keeps his distance, he never proposes Catholic truth, but rather an apparently more moderate error, which, nevertheless, in the logic of error, leads to the same ruinous conclusions" (SISINONO, no.6, 1993, p.6).
Some commentators have compared the Second Vatican Council to the Estates General of the French Revolution. Developing the analogy, one might say that Cardinal Ratzinger is a Girondist. The members of that faction were certainly more politically moderate than were the Jacobins, and especially their left wing (to which, in theology, we could compare the Kungs, Drewermanns, etc.), but they were no less revolutionary. They wanted to accomplish the same objectives, only in a more gradual, pragmatic manner. Their vision of the world, though, was identical: human reason exalted and placed in the center of the universe, democracy, bourgeois individualism; identical, too, was their hatred of Christianity, their desire to confiscate the goods of the Church, etc. (The Memories of a Destructive Mind: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's Milestones, part 2.)
Why is an "act of hatred" to for the "pope," Ratzinger/Benedict, who placed the Protestant syncretist Roger Schutz, who was murdered by one of his "devoted" followers on August 16, 2005, in Heaven (!), to point out his respect for the "inherent truth" in heresies and false religions when such respect has been condemned by the Catholic Church and critiqued, yes, in a 1998 article in Si, Si, No, No, that was translated into English by Angelus Press (for a complete list of Si, Si, No, No articles online at the Society of Saint Pius X's District of Asia website, see
SiSiNoNo)?
Up to the very end of his conference, Card. Ratzinger resolutely continues on this road of agnosticism and now logically comes to the most disastrous of conclusions. He writes:
In conclusion, as we contemplate our present-day religious situation, of which I have tried to throw some light on some of its elements, we may well marvel at the fact that, after all, people still continue believing in a Christian manner, not only according to Hick's, Knitter's as well as others' substitute ways or forms, but also according to that full and joyous Faith found in the New Testament of the Church of all time.
So, there it is: For Card. Ratzinger, "Hick, Knitter, and others" who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Church, His sacraments, and, in short, all of Christianity, continue "despite everything" "believing in a Christian manner," even though they do so using "substitute forms of belief"! Here, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith leaves us wondering indeed, just what it is he means by "believing in a Christian manner."
Moreover, once the "preambula fidei" have been eliminated, that "full and joyous Faith of the Church of all time" which seems [for Card. Ratzinger] to be no different from modern-day apostasies other than by its style and total character, is utterly lacking in any rational credibility in comparison with and in relation to what he refers to as "substitute ways or forms" of faith. "How is it," Card. Ratzinger wonders, "in fact, that the Faith [the one of all time] still has a chance of success?" Answer:
I would say that it is because it finds a correspondence in man's nature…..There is, in man, an insatiable desire for the infinite. None of the answers we have sought is sufficient [but must we take his own word for it, or must we go through the exercise of experiencing all religions?]. God alone [but Whom, according to Card. Ratzinger, human reason cannot prove to be truly God], Who made Himself finite in order to shatter the bonds of our own finitude and bring us to the dimension of His infinity [...and not to redeem us from the slavery of sin?] is able to meet all the needs of our human existence.
According to this, it is therefore not objective motives based on history and reason, and thus the truth of Christianity, but only a subjective appreciation which brings us to "see" that it [Christianity] is able to satisfy the profound needs of human nature and which would explain the "success" [modernists would say the "vitality"] of the "faith" ["of all time" or in its "substitute forms," it is of but little importance]. Such, however, is not at all Catholic doctrine: this is simply modernist apologetics (cf. Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi), based on their affirmed impossibility of grasping metaphysical knowledge (or agnosticism or skepticism), which Card. Ratzinger seemed to want to shun in the first part of his address.
Now we are in a position to better understand why Card. Ratzinger has such a wide-open concept of "theology" and of "faith" that he includes everything: theology as well as heresies, faith and apostasy. On that road of denial of the human reason's ability of attaining metaphysical knowledge, a road which he continues to follow, he lacks the "means of discerning the difference between faith and non-faith" (R. Amerio, op. cit., p.340) and, consequently, theology from pseudo-theology, truth from heresy:
All theologies are nullified, because all are regarded as equivalent; the heart or kernel of religion is located in feelings or experiences, as the Modernists held at the beginning of this century (Amerio, op. cit., p.542).
We cannot see how this position of Card. Ratzinger can escape that solemn condemnation proclaimed at Vatican I: "If anyone says...that men must be brought to the Faith solely by their own personal interior experience...let him be anathema" (DB 1812). (Cardinal Ratzinger)
Ratzinger/Benedict's belief that we must "ensure that through the teaching and guidance of our respective communities we shall assist them to be true to who they are as believers" is exactly what was anathematized by the [First] Vatican Council and critiqued in the 1998 Si, Si, No, No article. Is it an "act of "hatred" for the "pope" to point this out?
Is it an "act of hatred" for the "pope" to point out yet again that his lifelong warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth has been anathematized solemnly by that same [First] Vatican Council?
It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.
On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. [Vatican Council, 1870.]
Obviously, the bishops and the priests in the upper echelons of the Society of Saint Pius X want the Catholics who assist at their chapels, which are, of course "una cum" Benedict XVI, to "forget" that the the Joseph Ratzinger who serves as antipope and who does and says things that are certainly a prefiguring of Antichrist is the exact Joseph Ratzinger whose Modernist theology was excoriated in the pages of publications of (and/or related to) the Society of Saint Pius X dating as far back as 1986.
As is evidenced from his words and actions as "Benedict XVI" the only thing that has changed is the willingness of the leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X to pretend as though these past criticisms never occurred or that they are irrelevant in light of the opportunity being presented to them, they believe most mistakenly, to "convert" the "pope" when the "pope's" lieutenants have made it clear that they, the leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X must "convert" and accept the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and the precepts of the "Second' Vatican Council and of the praxis of conciliarism, perhaps with a few "reservations" permitted here and there.
Permitting a few "reservations" in "negotiations" concerning the Faith, which is, of course, non-negotiable (see
Nothing to Negotiate), makes a mockery of these words of Pope Leo XIII, contained in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, about the nature of the Church:
Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ.
The heavenly doctrine of Christ, although for the most part committed to writing by divine inspiration, could not unite the minds of men if left to the human intellect alone. It would, for this very reason, be subject to various and contradictory interpretations. This is so, not only because of the nature of the doctrine itself and of the mysteries it involves, but also because of the divergencies of the human mind and of the disturbing element of conflicting passions. From a variety of interpretations a variety of beliefs is necessarily begotten; hence come controversies, dissensions and wranglings such as have arisen in the past, even in the first ages of the Church. Irenaeus writes of heretics as follows: "Admitting the sacred Scriptures they distort the interpretations" (Lib. iii., cap. 12, n. 12). And Augustine: "Heresies have arisen, and certain perverse views ensnaring souls and precipitating them into the abyss only when the Scriptures, good in themselves, are not properly understood" (In Evang. Joan., tract xviii., cap. 5, n. 1). Besides Holy Writ it was absolutely necessary to insure this union of men's minds - to effect and preserve unity of ideas - that there should be another principle. This the wisdom of God requires: for He could not have willed that the faith should be one if He did not provide means sufficient for the preservation of this unity; and this Holy Writ clearly sets forth as We shall presently point out. Assuredly the infinite power of God is not bound by anything, all things obey it as so many passive instruments. In regard to this external principle, therefore, we must inquire which one of all the means in His power Christ did actually adopt. For this purpose it is necessary to recall in thought the institution of Christianity.
How many "interpretations" have there been of the "Second" Vatican Council and the ethos of conciliarism it wrought and has promoted by the conciliar "pontiffs"? One either accepts the Faith en toto or he falls from It en toto, as Pope Leo XIII made clear Satis Cognitum, Number 9, a point that was made in a 1993 Si, Si, No, No article about the Modernist theology of Joseph Ratzinger in reference to the Catechism of the "Catholic" Church that was issued with Ratzinger's approval:
Faced with this new danger, it is necessary to remind ourselves that "Such is the nature of faith, that it is impossible to believe one thing and reject another," because "He who refuses to accept even one divinely revealed truth, in reality totally abandons the Faith -since he refuses to submit himself to God, who is Sovereign Truth itself and the motive for our act of Faith" ... "The Arians and Montanists most certainly did not abandon Catholic doctrine in all its entirety, but only some part of it - and we all know that as a result they were declared to be heretics and so excluded from the bosom of the Church. (Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum)"
The same pope quotes St. Augustine on this subject:
"On many points they agree with me. They disagree with me on only a few points. Yet, since they stand apart from me on these few points, it is pointless for them to stand with me on all the rest. (Ennarat on Ps. 54:19)"
Pope Leo continues: "It is only fair [that they be declared heretics and excluded from the Church), for those who take from Christian doctrine only those things which they want, rely upon their own judgment rather than relying upon Faith. Thus, by this refusal of 'bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ,’ they are really more obedient to themselves than they are to God. "
St. Augustine wrote: "If you only believe those parts of the Gospel that please and reject those parts that displease you, then you believe more in yourselves than you do in the Gospel. (Book 17: Contra Faustum Manich. ch. 3)"
Consequently, our attitude to the Catholic Faith should be one of - "either we profess it in its entirety, or not at all. (Benedict XV, Ad Beatorum Apostolorum Principio)" Only one error, in the tiniest detail of the Faith, suffices to make any Catechism unacceptable.
What then are we to think of this new Catechism, which pretends to be Catholic, while it propagates the same errors as Vatican II? Errors that are in no way insignificant, since they touch upon the very origins and structure of the Church; the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ; the unity and universality of His mediation, and in effect, His Divinity!
In future issues we will publish a detailed examination of the new Catechism by two of our learned colleagues. For the time being, we will simply say that in order to accept the new Catechism, it would be necessary to prove that there never was any reason whatsoever in resisting the "aggiornamento" of Vatican II.
Remember, William "Cardinal" Levada, Ratzinger's successor as the "prefect" of the conciliar "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has said that he will review the entire Catechism that was critiqued so unfavorably by Si, Si, No, No and by Father Michel Simoulin in the March, 1994, issue of The Angelus (see
The New Catechism: Is it Catholic?, which is also appended at the end of my own Piracy, Conciliar Style just in case it "disappears" one day from the Society of Saint Pius X's American website) with the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X
The outstanding points of contention with the Lefebvre followers center on what Levada calls "obedience to the magisterium," or teaching authority, of the Pope, and specific decrees of the Second Vatican Council. "The Council is vast, and not all decrees are on the same level," Levada says. "The decree on religious liberty is one of the key issues that the Society has problems with." Lefebvre always opposed the reforms aimed at reaching out to other faiths. Levada insists there is much ground to cover in order to find out if the breakaway group is ready to rejoin the fold. "We will want to review the entire catechism of the Church with them," Levada adds, referring to the far-reaching document approved under the reign of Pope John Paul II that outlines fundamental Catholic teaching.
As the man in charge of Church orthodoxy, Levada will take over the reins of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which has for nearly two decades been responsible for dealing with the Lefebvre followers. The Cardinal says the process will benefit from his congregation's body of some 30 theological advisers as well as from regular consultations with other key Vatican offices.
Levada will replace Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, who had spearheaded the talks that led to the lifting of the excommunications. Castrillon has been criticized by many inside and outside Rome, including Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, who said the Colombian Cardinal should have known about Bishop Williamson's troubling views on the Holocaust. Levada does not take sides in the dispute but concedes that the Vatican was "a human structure, with its limitations and possibilities for improvement." Levada is quick to add that his own congregation, which was run for 24 years by the future Pope, was functioning like clockwork when he took over. (Schism with Lefebvrites Not Healed Yet, Says Vatican - TIME)
Although the fathers of dogmatic councils have debated articles of the Faith, they have done so under the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, reaching conclusions that have in no way contradicted or have even given the appearance of contradicting anything that has been taught by the Catholic Church perennially. It is without precedent for a group that has no "canonical" mission from the Catholic Church to seek to "convert" "popes" and members of his "curia" on points of doctrine and worship, no less for that the leaders of that group to be willing to "bend" on matters of doctrine for the sake of "recognition" by men who have long subscribed to propositions that they have themselves long condemned as Modernist and thus irreconcilable to the Catholic Faith.
This situation is, as I have come to learn in the past few years, the result of the false ecclesiology of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre himself, which "limited' the extent of papal infallibility and arrogated unto the Society of Saint Pius X the "right" to serve as the "church within the conciliar church." No such "right" exists in the Catholic Church for an extra-magisterial group to serve as the "watchdog" of and "evangelist" to a true pope.
Apart from the summary of the major errors of the Society of Saint Pius X by Mr. Michael Creighton that I republished two days ago in "Revising" the Faith In Order to be "Free" of Christ the King, one sentence from Pope Pius IX's The Syllabus of Errors explodes the mythology of the "resist and recognize" movement that there is a "limit" to papal infallibility and the infallibility of the Church's Ordinary Magisterium on matters of Faith and Morals:
22. The obligation by which Catholic teachers and authors are strictly bound is confined to those things only which are proposed to universal belief as dogmas of faith by the infallible judgment of the Church. -- Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, "Tuas libenter," Dec. 21, 1863. (Proposition condemned by Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)
The Catholic Church cannot give us errors or any kind. She cannot give us defective liturgies that are offensive to the Chief Priest and Victim of every Mass, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 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.
I will repeat once again this passage from Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:
For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)
The very fact that there is a "need' for "negotiations" on the teachings of the "Second" Vatican Council and the conciliar "pontiffs" proves the apostate nature of conciliarism as the doctrines of the Faith "remain intact forever" "that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men."
Those who want to continue to believe that a man who enters into false places of "worship" and praises the "ability" of false religions to "build" the "better world" will persist in their very mistaken beliefs. Those who do not want to defend the honor and majesty and glory of God when it is profaned and blasphemed and offended by a putative "pontiff" will continue to remain silent. Those who have learned recently to remain silent in the face of outrages given to God by Ratzinger/Benedict will continue to convince themselves that they "must" remain silent in order for "negotiations" to "progress" smoothly, heedless of the simple truth that no true Successor of Saint Peter would enter into places of false worship, no less call them "sacred" or as "jewels" stand out on "the face of the earth."
Those who are open to the truth must consider the fact that Ratzinger/Benedict is the same Modernist now as he was when his theology and his works were critiqued in the pages of the publications of the Society of Saint Pius X before his "elevation" to be the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. He has indeed expelled himself from the Church by virtue of violating the Divine Positive Law as he has subscribed to privately and has publicly declared propositions contrary to the teaching and praxis of the Catholic Church.
In the meantime, those of who have been able to accept the truth that heretics cannot hold ecclesiastical office legitimately, having arrived at this conclusion through no merits of our own and without for one moment considering ourselves to be one bit better than anyone else who has not yet been able to accept this truth,. must cleave to true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to its false shepherds.
We begin today The Novena to God the Holy Ghost, Who descended in tongues of flame on Pentecost Sunday as the first pope, Saint Peter, filled with the seven gifts and twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost, sought the conversion of the Jews in the first papal Urbi et Orbi address. Let us keep company with Our Lady and the Apostles and the others as we pray for more and more enlightenment from God the Holy Ghost to recognize that the Catholic Church is as spotless as the Blessed Mother and that we must flee from those who are blasphemers and apostates and heretics as we seek, of course, to make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our own many sins.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end.
Every Rosary we pray well will help to plant a few seeds for this triumph.
What are we waiting for? Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
