Orthodox Heterodoxy

by Thomas A. Droleskey

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Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has demonstrated throughout the nearly fifty seven and one-half years of his priestly life that he has no true sense of the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Holy Trinity. Lacking such a sense of the honor and majesty and glory of God, Ratzinger/Benedict has no true sense of the horror of personal sin. As has been noted on this site many times in the past, Ratzinger/Benedict cannot have this sense of horror for personal sin as he, objectively speaking, commits Mortal Sin after Mortal Sin by violating the First Commandment as he enters into mosques and synagogues and treats these dens of the devil as "holy" places and as he has esteemed the symbols of false religions with his own priestly hands and praised their nonexistent ability to "contribute" to the common good within nations and to "peace" among them.

In addition to the passages from Joseph Ratzinger's 1995 book, Understanding the Story of the Creation and the Fall, quoted by James Larson in The Point of Departure, that demonstrate his belief in the condemned Modernist proposition of the "essentialization of the faith," there are the following telling answers provided by then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger upon the release of his 2001 book, God and the World, wherein the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith expresses a benign, if not blase, attitude about the Mortal Sins committed by those who go to Mass only once a year or so, and where he once again expresses his support for the heterodox formula whereby various dogmatic pronouncements, each of which was written under the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, are considered according to their "essential" and "non-essential" elements.

The interview will be presented here, interspersed with my own comments:

1 October-2001 -- ZENIT.org News Agency

"Above All, We Should Be Missionaries"

VATICAN CITY, (ZENIT.org-Avvenire).- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has a blunt message for Catholics today. "We cannot calmly accept the rest of humanity falling back again into paganism," says the prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in "God and the World," the new book-interview he granted German journalist Peter Seewald. St. Paul´s in Italy recently published the book. Following are some of the book´s questions and answers that were highlighted by the Italian newspaper Avvenire.

Q: Many years ago, you spoke in prophetic terms about the Church of the future. At the time you said, "it will be reduced in its dimensions, it will be necessary to start again. However, from this test a Church would emerge that will have been strengthened by the process of simplification it experienced, by its renewed capacity to look within itself." What are the prospects that await us in Europe?

Cardinal Ratzinger: To begin with, the Church "will be numerically reduced." When I made this affirmation, I was overwhelmed with reproaches of pessimism.

And today, when all prohibitions seem obsolete, among them those that refer to what has been called pessimism and which, often, is nothing other than healthy realism, increasingly more [people] admit the decrease in the percentage of baptized Christians in today´s Europe: in a city like Magdeburg, Christians are only 8% of the total population, including all Christian denominations. Statistical data shows irrefutable tendencies. In this connection, in certain cultural areas, there is a reduction in the possibility of identification between people and Church. We must take note, with simplicity and realism. The mass Church may be something lovely, but it is not necessarily the Church´s only way of being. The Church of the first three centuries was small, without being, by this fact, a sectarian community. On the contrary, it was not closed in on itself, but felt a great responsibility in regard to the poor, the sick-in regard to all. There was room in its heart for all those nourished by a monotheist faith, in search of a promise. This awareness of not being a closed club, but of being open to the totality of the community, has always been a constant component of the Church. The process of numerical reduction, which we are experiencing today, will also have to be addressed precisely by exploring new ways of openness to the outside, of new ways of participation by those who are outside the community of believers. I have nothing against people who, though they never enter a church during the year, go to Christmas midnight Mass, or go on the occasion of some other celebration, because this is also a way of coming close to the light. Therefore, there must be different forms of involvement and participation.

 

This first answer is a mass of contradiction, historical disinformation and an abject refusal to understand the horror of each Mortal Sin committed by baptized Catholics who deliberately absent themselves from Holy Mass on Sundays, leaving aside for present purposes the simple fact that the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not an offering of Holy Mass.

The then "Cardinal" Ratzinger extolled the reduction of numbers of Catholics, a phenomenon that is the direct result of the conciliar revolution he helped to engineer as a peritus at the "Second" Vatican Council, and compared the current situation with that of the first centuries of the Church when the Faith was practiced more frequently than not in the catacombs. The analogy is a false one, however, as the Church was in her infancy then. She was growing. The conciliarists have put the Mystical Body of Christ that is the Church Militant on earth through her Passion, Death and Burial.

They, the conciliar revolutionaries, have driven large numbers of people out of the Church and into the waiting arms of evangelical and fundamentalist Protestant sects by means of the Novus Ordo and by means of its own revolutionary "reconciliation" with the errors of Modernity that have permitted, at least a on de facto basis, wholesale denials of dogmas contained in the Deposit of Faith to be the norm in conciliar "educational" institutions and all too frequently from the pulpits in Catholic parishes now under conciliar control. The syncretism practiced by the conciliar "pontiffs" and their "bishops have bewildered many Catholics to the point that some of them have become full-time practitioners of false religions, including those of "Eastern mysticism," while others have quit the practice of the Faith altogether. It is thus a little cheeky for a principal architect of the conciliar revolution to consider a "reduction" in the number of Catholics who practice the Faith to be a sign of needing "different forms of involvement and participation."

Furthermore, God does indeed want large numbers of people practicing the Catholic Faith. He wants everyone on the face of this earth to be a member in good standing of the Catholic Church. He has created each person to know, love and serve Him through the Catholic Church so that they can die in a state of Sanctifying Grace and thus be happy with Him for all eternity in Heaven. Numbers matter to God. They matter very much, as I discussed in an article fifty-two months ago (about fifteen months before I began to take the steps that would lead me to the logical conclusion that I had been avoiding for so long: that those who defect from the Faith cannot hold ecclesiastical office in the Catholic Church legitimately), By the Numbers and by God's Book: Cardinal Ratzinger is Just Dead Wrong. God is not pleased when apostates who claim to be acting in His Holy Name drive large numbers of Catholics out of the Church and as they engage in a "new evangelization" that is content to leave the lost sheep in false religions lost to the points of their dying breaths.

Worse yet, to have "nothing against people who, though they never enter a church during the year, go to Christmas midnight Mass, or go on the occasion of some other celebration" is to denigrate the seriousness of the sins committed against the Third Commandment by these Catholics. Joseph Ratzinger cannot seem to muster any sense of horror for what human sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer during His Passion and Death and how they caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be thrust through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. As noted above, he has absolutely no sense of horror at the sins he commits as he esteems the symbols of false religions. He has projected onto God his own sanguine acceptance of these false religions as being pleasing to God simply because they exist, thereby signifying, Ratzinger believes, God's expressed, ordained Will for them to exist. This is how he, Ratzinger, views those who choose to violate the Third Commandment. Such people are still "loved" by God, Who is "happy" that they make the "effort" to get to Mass once a year or so.

Such a lack of the sensus Catholicus is itself a sign of an apostate mind and heart. At the heart of Ratzinger/Benedict's many apostasies is his rejection of the nature of dogmatic truth as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church, starting with his Modernist belief that the particular expressions of dogmatic formulae are conditioned by the historical circumstances in which they were made, thus blaspheming the infallible work of God the Holy Ghost. This Modernist view of dogmatic truth, which has been critiqued on this site endlessly in the past few years, was on display in the interview that was published on Zenit on October 1, 2001:

Q: However, can the Church really renounce its aspiration to be a Church of the majority?

Cardinal Ratzinger: We must take note of the decrease in our lines but, likewise, we must continue to be an open Church. The Church cannot be a closed, self-sufficient group.

Above all, we should be missionaries, in the sense of proposing again to society those values that are the foundation of the constitutive form that society has given itself, and which are at the base of the possibility to build a really human social community. The Church will continue to propose the great universal human values. Because, if law no longer has common moral foundations, it collapses insofar as it is law. From this point of view, the Church has a universal responsibility. As the Pope says, missionary responsibility means, precisely, to really attempt a new evangelization. We cannot calmly accept the rest of humanity falling back again into paganism. We must find the way to take the Gospel, also, to nonbelievers. The Church must tap all her creativity so that the living force of the Gospel will not be extinguished.

Q: What changes will the Church undergo?

Cardinal Ratzinger: I think we will have to be very cautious when it comes to the risk of forecasts, because historical development has always produced many surprises. Futurology often crashes.

For example, no one risked forecasting the fall of the Communist regimes. World society will change profoundly, but we are still not in a position to predict what the numerical decrease of the Western world will imply, which is still dominant, what Europe´s new face will be like, given the migratory currents, what civilization, and what social forms will be imposed. What is clear, in any event, is the different composition of the potential on which the Western Church will be sustained. What is most important, in my opinion, is to look at the "essence," to use an expression of Romano Guardini. It is necessary to avoid elaborating fantastic pre-constructions of something that could manifest itself very differently and that we cannot prefabricate in the meanderings of our brain, but to concentrate on the essential, which later might find new ways of incarnating itself. A process of simplification is important, which will enable us to distinguish between what is the master beam of our doctrine, of our faith, what is of perennial value in it. It is important to propose again the great underlying constants in their fundamental components, the questions on God, salvation, hope, life, especially what has a basic ethical value. (On the Future of Christianity - Cardinal Ratzinger)

 

There is, as I noted in Spotless Blessed Mother, Spotless Mother Church, no distinction between "essential" or "fundamental" parts and "non-essential" or "non-fundamental" parts of doctrine. Pope Leo XIII made it clear in Satis Cognitum that one either accepts the Catholic Faith in its entirety or one is not a Catholic. It is that simple:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

 

There is no distinction between "fundamental/essential" and "non-fundamental/non-essential" "truths," as Pope Pius XI noted quite explicitly in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928:

For this reason it is that all who are truly Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not God revealed them all? 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. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.

 

A Catholic must hold to each and every dogmatic pronouncement made by the authority of the Catholic Church in exactly the same language and with the exact sense by which that pronouncement was made:

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.]

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

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

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

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

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

 

Rejecting the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, Scholasticism, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a disciple of and apologist for the neo-Modernism called the "New Theology," must "re-think" those dogmatic formulations which he believes have "outlived their usefulness," especially insofar as the goals of false ecumenism are concerned. Of particular interest to Ratzinger/Benedict is to "strip away," if you will, the filter of Scholasticism that has "corrupted" a "true" understanding of Sacred Scripture and of the Fathers of the Church and produced a "one-sided," "narrow" and "rigid" view of dogmas pronounced at various councils in the Second Millennium at which the "fathers" from the heretical and schismatic Orthodox Church did not participate. He is now, as Benedict XVI, feverishly attempting to give his "papal" imprimatur to all of his past defections from the Catholic Faith.

Ratzinger/Benedict has given his "papal" imprimatur to his heterodox view of Original Sin. Here is the text of the "general audience" talk he gave on Wednesday, December 3, 2008:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In today's catechesis we reflect on the relationship between Adam and Christ, delineated by St. Paul in the well-known page of the Letter to the Romans (5:12-21), in which he instructs the Church on the essential lines of the doctrine of original sin. In fact, already in the First Letter to the Corinthians, referring to faith in the resurrection, Paul introduced the encounter between our forefather and Christ: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive ... The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:22.45). With Romans 5:12-21, the encounter between Christ and Adam is more articulated and illuminating: Paul reviews the history of salvation from Adam to the Law and from the latter to Christ. Adam is not at the center of the scene with the consequences of sin on humanity, but Jesus Christ and grace that, through him, was poured in abundance on humanity. The repetition of "all the more" in regard to Christ underlines how the gift received in Him surpasses by far Adam's sin and the consequences brought on mankind, so that Paul can add at the end: "But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5:20). Hence, the encounter Paul traces between Adam and Christ brings to light the inferiority of the first man vis-à-vis the prevalence of the second.

On the other hand, it is appropriate to make evident the incommensurable gift of grace in Christ that Paul attributes to Adam's sin: It could be said that if it were not to demonstrate the centrality of grace, he would not have hesitated to discuss sin that "came into the world through one man and death through sin" (Romans 5:12). Because of this if, in the faith of the Church the awareness matured of the dogma of original sin it is because it is indissolubly connected with the other dogma, that of salvation and freedom in Christ. The consequence of this is that we must never treat the sin of Adam and of humanity in a way that is detached from the salvific context, namely, without understanding it on the horizon of justification in Christ.

However, as men of today we must ask ourselves: What is this original sin? What does St. Paul teach, what does the Church teach? Is this doctrine still tenable today? Many think that, in the light of the history of evolution, there is no longer a place for the doctrine of a first sin, which then spread to the whole history of humanity. And, consequently, the question of the Resurrection and of the Redeemer would also lose its foundation. So, does original sin exist or not? To be able to respond we must distinguish two aspects of the doctrine on original sin. There is an empirical aspect, namely, a concrete, visible, I would say tangible reality for all, and a mysterious aspect, regarding the ontological foundation of this fact. The empirical fact is that there is a contradiction in our being. On one hand, every man knows that he must do good and he profoundly wants to do so. However, at the same time, he also feels the other impulse to do the contrary, to follow the path of egoism, violence, of doing only what pleases him even while knowing that he is acting against the good, against God and against his neighbor. In his Letter to the Romans Saint Paul expressed this contradiction in our being thus: "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (7:18-19). This interior contradiction of our being is not a theory. Each one of us experiences it every day. And above all we always see around us the prevalence of this second will. Suffice it to think of the daily news on injustice, violence, falsehood, lust. We see it every day: It is a fact.

As a consequence of this power of evil in our souls, a filthy river has developed in history, which poisons the geography of human history. The great French thinker Blaise Pascal spoke of a "second nature," which is superimposed on our original good nature. This "second nature" makes evil appear as normal for man. Thus even the usual expression: "this is human" has a double meaning. "This is human" might mean: This man is good, he really acts as a man should act. However, "this is human" might also mean falsehood: Evil is normal, it is human. Evil seems to have become a second nature. This contradiction of the human being, of our history should provoke, and provokes even today, the desire for redemption. And, in fact, the desire that the world be changed and the promise that a world be created of justice, peace, goodness is present everywhere: In politics, for example, all speak of this need to change the world, to create a more just world. It is precisely this expression of the desire that there be a liberation from the contradiction we experience in ourselves.

Hence, the fact of the power of evil in the human heart and in human history is undeniable. The question is: How is this evil explained? In the history of thought, except for the Christian faith, there is a principal model of explanation, with several variations. This model says: being itself is contradictory, it bears within it good and evil. In ancient times this idea implied the opinion that two equally original principles existed: a good principle and an evil principle. This dualism was insurmountable; the two principles are on the same level, hence there will always be, from the origin of being, this contradiction. The contradiction of our being, therefore, reflects only the contrariety of two divine principles, so to speak. In the evolutionist, atheist version of the world the same vision returns in a new way. Even if, in such a concession, the vision of being is monistic, it is implied that being as such from the beginning bears in itself evil and good. Being itself is not simply good, but open to good and evil. Evil is equally original as good, and human history would develop only the model already present in the whole of the preceding evolution. That which we Christians call original sin is in reality only the mixed character of being, a mixture of good and evil, according to this theory, it belonged to the very fabric of being. Deep down, it is a despairing vision: If it is so, evil is invincible. In the end, only self-interest matters. And every progress would necessarily have to be paid for with a river of evil and whoever wishes to serve progress must accept to pay this price. Politics, deep down, is based precisely on these premises: And we see the effects. This modern thought can, in the end, only create sadness and cynicism.

And so we ask again: What does faith say, as witnessed by St. Paul? As a first point, it confirms the fact of the competition between the two natures, the fact of this evil whose shadow weighs on the whole of creation. We heard Chapter 7 of the Letter to the Romans, we can add Chapter 8. Evil simply exists. As explanation, in contrast with the dualisms and monisms that we considered briefly and found desolating, faith tells us: There are two mysteries of light and one mystery of night, which is, however, shrouded by the mysteries of light. The first mystery of light is this: Faith tells us that there are not two principles, one good and one evil, but only one principle, the creator God, and this principle is good, only good, without a shadow of evil. As well, being is not a mixture of good and evil; being as such is good and because of this it is good to be, it is good to live. This is the happy proclamation of faith: there is only one good source, the Creator. And because of this, to live is good, it is a good thing to be a man, a woman, life is good. Then a mystery of darkness, of night follows. Evil does not come from the source of being itself, it is not equally original. Evil comes from a created liberty, from an abused liberty.

How was this possible, how did it happen? This remains obscure. Evil is not logical. Only God and the good are logical, are light. Evil remains mysterious. It has been presented in great images, as does chapter 3 of Genesis, with the vision of two trees, of the serpent, of sinful man. A great image that makes us guess, but it cannot explain how much in itself is illogical. We can guess, not explain; nor can we recount it as a fact next to another, because it is a more profound reality. It remains a mystery of darkness, of night. However, a mystery of light is immediately added. Evil comes from a subordinate source. With his light, God is stronger and, because of this, evil can be overcome. Therefore, the creature, man, is curable.; but if evil comes only from a subordinate source, it remains true that man is curable. And the Book of Wisdom says: "the creatures of the world are wholesome" (1:14).

And finally, the last point, man is not only curable, he is in fact cured. God has introduced healing. He entered in person into history. To the permanent source of evil he has opposed a source of pure good. Christ crucified and risen, the new Adam, opposed the filthy river of evil with a river of light. And this river is present in history: We see the saints, the great saints but also the humble saints, the simple faithful. We see that the river of light that comes from Christ is present, is strong.

Brothers and sisters, it is the time of Advent. In the language of the Church the word Advent has two meanings: presence and expectation. Presence: The light is present, Christ is the new Adam, he is with us and in our midst. The light already shines and we must open the eyes of the heart to see the light and to enter the river of light. Above all to be grateful for the fact that God himself has entered history as new source of goodness. But Advent also means expectation. The dark night of evil is still strong. And that is why we pray in Advent with the ancient people of God: "Rorate caeli desuper." And we pray with insistence: Come Jesus; come, give force to light and goodness; come where falsehood, ignorance of God, violence and injustice dominate; come, Lord Jesus, give force to the good of the world and help us to be bearers of your light, agents of peace, witnesses of truth. Come Lord Jesus! (On Christ, the New Adam.)

 

Once again, good readers, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI makes complex what is most straight-forward: the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin. Ratzinger/Benedict has spent a good deal of his priestly life making murky and imprecise what has been defined very precisely by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. One can see that his discussion of Original Sin on December 3, 2008, is almost identical to what he wrote in Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall in 1995:

“In the story that we are considering [Ch. 3 of Genesis], still a further characteristic of sin is described. Sin is not spoken of in general as an abstract possibility but as a deed, as the sin of a particular person, Adam, who stands at the origin of humankind and with whom the history of sin begins. The account tells us that sin begets sin, and that therefore all the sins of history are interlinked. Theology refers to this state of affairs by the certainly misleading and imprecise term ‘original sin’. What does this mean? Nothing seems to us today to be stranger or, indeed, more absurd than to insist upon original sin, since, according to our way of thinking, guilt can only be something very personal, and since God does not run a concentration camp, in which one’s relatives are imprisoned because he is a liberating God of love, who calls each one by name. What does original sin mean, then, when we interpret it correctly?

"Finding an answer to this requires nothing less than trying to understand the human person better. It must once again be stressed that no human being is closed in upon himself or herself and that no one can live of or for himself or herself alone. We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without – from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us. Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are ‘present.’ Human beings are relational, and they possess their lives – themselves – only by way of relationship. I alone am not myself, but only in and with you am I myself. To be truly a human being means to be related in love, to be of and for. But sin means the damaging or the destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god. Sin is loss of relationship, disturbance of relationship, and therefore it is not restricted to the individual. When I destroy a relationship, then this event – sin – touches the other person involved in the relationship. Consequently sin is always an offense that touches others, that alters the world and damages it. To the extent that this is true, when the network of human relationships is damaged from the very beginning, then every human being enters into a world that is marked by relational damage. At the very moment that a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin- damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt. Consequently each person is, from the very start, damaged in relationships and does not engage in them as he or she ought. Sin pursues the human being, and he or she capitulates to it.” (Joseph Ratzinger, Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, pp. 71-73, quoted in James Larson's  The Point of Departure).

 

First of all, I would suggest that we might search 2,000 years of history and never find another statement so clearly and profoundly heretical made by a member of the Church in as high a position as that occupied by Cardinal Ratzinger. What Cardinal Ratzinger here denies, of course, is the dogma of the faith that original sin is passed down from Adam to all men through generation. Cardinal Ratzinger considers such a view of sin misleading and imprecise and, in fact, ridicules it as stemming from a view of God which sees Him as the Commandant of a Consecration Camp Who imprisons one’s relatives just because of the fact that they share a common descent. In so doing, of course, he is directly contradicting Scripture and the clearly defined teaching of the Church. (James Larson, The Point of Departure; please do read Mr. Larson's superb article in its entirety as it focuses on Ratzinger's view that " since our Faith is one of ongoing relationship, and not fundamentally a matter of God’s Immutable Being (and the truth of our nature created in the image of God), virtually everything else must also be subject to re-interpretation and change.")

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has never repudiated this. Indeed, he is reasserting this in his capacity as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Misleading? Imprecise? What is misleading or imprecise about the term "Original Sin"? Did the Fathers of the Council of Trent have any difficulty defining this term precisely?

 

Ratzinger/Benedict's December 3, 2008, "general audience" address makes of the Creation account recorded in Chapter Three of The Book of Genesis nothing more than "images" containing a "vision" of two trees. This is pretty standard fare for a Modernist. It couldn't possibly have been the case that Eve, the first woman, actually was tempted by a serpent and then ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which she and her husband had been forbidden to eat by God Himself. It couldn't possibly have been the case that Adam, in order to please his wife rather than God, also ate of the the same fruit and incurred the penalty upon his immortal soul that has been transmitted to every individual human being save Our Blessed Mother herself ever since: Original Sin. The Creation account, according to Ratzinger/Benedict, is merely one of "images" that contain a "vision."

A Catholic discoursing on the doctrine of Original Sin would have mentioned that Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans was understood perfectly by the Council of Trent, which did, after all, meet under the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost, when it pronounced the following:

 

That our Catholic faith, without which it is impossible to please God, may, errors being purged away, continue in its own perfect and spotless integrity, and that the Christian people may not be carried about with every wind of doctrine; whereas that old serpent, the perpetual enemy of mankind, amongst the very many evils with which the Church of God is in these our times troubled, has also stirred up not only new, but even old, dissensions touching original sin, and the remedy thereof; the sacred and holy, ecumenical and general Synod of Trent,--lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the three same legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein,--wishing now to come to the reclaiming of the erring, and the confirming of the wavering,--following the testimonies of the sacred Scriptures, of the holy Fathers, of the most approved councils, and the judgment and consent of the Church itself, ordains, confesses, and declares these things touching the said original sin:

1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.
2. If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:--whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.
3. If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,--which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, sanctification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.
4. If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,--whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, --let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
5. If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only raised, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.

This same holy Synod doth nevertheless declare, that it is not its intention to include in this decree, where original sin is treated of, the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother of God; but that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV., of happy memory, are to be observed, under the pains contained in the said constitutions, which it renews. (Council of Trent, The Fifth Session, June 17, 1546.)

 

What need is there to make confusing what has been made clear by the Council of Trent? As will be shown below, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is doing this for a very specific reason, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with a defense of the Catholic Faith.

Ratzinger/Benedict never once mentioned any of the specific, defined consequences that human beings suffer as a result of Original Sin: the darkened intellect, the weakened will and the overthrow of the delicate balance between man's higher, rational faculties and his lower, sensual passions. He never once mentioned Baptism administered by the Catholic Church as the normal and ordinary means by which Original Sin is flooded out of our souls and Baptismal Innocence enters into them with the very inner life of the Most Blessed Trinity by means of Sanctifying Grace. Ratzinger/Benedict spoke in vague terms about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as the New Adam, which He most certainly is, course, but without explaining that Original Sin and its guilt exists in every soul prior to Baptism, although he discussed Baptism in his December 10, 2008, "general audience" address without discussing the effects of Original Sin on the soul.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe in that men by their nature have fallen as a result of Original Sin. He believes in the corruption of "history" and "relationships," not the fallen nature of individual men. He is most clever in how he discusses this subject, which is why he speaks in vague generalities without mentioning specific doctrinal pronouncements that he rejects.

One does not need to be a latter day Perry Mason or Chief Robert T. Ironside, however, to understand that consistent refusal to speak in the clear and precise language of the Catholic Church is no accident. It is part and parcel of Ratzinger/Benedict's New Theology and his rejection of the "clarity" of Scholasticism. And he has given us clues, such as those contained in one of those "unofficial" conciliar documents that "bind" no one, of course, but wind up convincing large numbers of Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that the "unofficial" document is indeed most "official" and represents the mind of the Catholic Church, that he does not believe that children who die before receiving the Sacrament of Baptism suffer because of the guilt of Adam's sin.

Apart from his own books, one of the documents that provides a key to Ratzinger/Benedict's heretical views on Original Sin is The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised, which was issued by the International Theological Commission, a subsidiary of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and thus headed by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's hand-picked successor as perfect of that congregation and president of the International Theological Commission, William "Cardinal" Levada. One will see in this passage from The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized an exact replica of the views expressed by Ratzinger/Benedict on December 3, 2008, and thus a denial of the Decree on Original Sin issued by the Fifth Session of the Council of Trent on June 17, 1546:

Where sin abounded, grace superabounded! That is the emphatic teaching of Scripture, but the idea of Limbo seems to constrain that superabundance. “[T]he free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many”; “as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men”; “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom 5:15, 18, 20). “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). Scripture teaches of our sinful solidarity in Adam, yes, but it does so as the backdrop to teaching our salvific solidarity in Christ. 'The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News that Jesus is the saviour of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ.' Many traditional accounts of sin and salvation (and of Limbo) have stressed solidarity with Adam more than solidarity with Christ or at least such accounts have had a restrictive conception of the ways by which human beings benefit from solidarity with Christ. This would seem to have been a characteristic of Augustine’s thought in particular. Christ saves a select few from the mass who are damned in Adam. The teaching of St Paul would urge us to redress the balance and to centre humanity on Christ the saviour, to whom all, in some way, are united.“He who is the ‘image of the invisible God is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare” (GS 22). We wish to stress that humanity’s solidarity with Christ (or, more properly, Christ’s solidarity with all of humanity) must have priority over the solidarity of human beings with Adam, and that the question of the destiny of unbaptised infants who die must be addressed in that light.

 

This is false. It is a falsehood that is subscribed to by Ratzinger/Benedict, who personally approved this "unofficial" "official" document of the counterfeit church of conciliarism that has already convince some women to kill their preborn babies as in doing so they have the "hope" that their babies have gone to Heaven after they had paid to have their murdered inside of their own wombs. One is a son of Adam, not the New Adam, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, until he is regenerated in the Baptismal font or justified by Baptism of Blood or Desire.

I mentioned earlier that Ratzinger/Benedict has a reason for treating Original Sin in the imprecise terms of the New Theology. The reason is simple: he, along with the schismatic and heretical Orthodox, believes that the Catholic Church's formulation of various dogmas, including those issued by the Council of Trent, suffer from the "corruption" of Scholasticism in general and the "views" of Saint Thomas Aquinas in particular. As Pope Pius XII noted in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, the disciples of the New Theology:

...want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.

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

Hence to neglect, or to reject, or to devalue so many and such great resources which have been conceived, expressed and perfected so often by the age-old work of men endowed with no common talent and holiness, working under the vigilant supervision of the holy magisterium and with the light and leadership of the Holy Ghost in order to state the truths of the faith ever more accurately, to do this so that these things may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow; this is supreme imprudence and something that would make dogma itself a reed shaken by the wind. The contempt for terms and notions habitually used by scholastic theologians leads of itself to the weakening of what they call speculative theology, a discipline which these men consider devoid of true certitude because it is based on theological reasoning.

Unfortunately these advocates of novelty easily pass from despising scholastic theology to the neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as a hindrance to progress and an obstacle in the way of science. Some non Catholics consider it as an unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians from reforming their subject. And although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith -- Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition -- to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See," is sometimes as little known as if it did not exist. What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgment on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources, and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients.

 

These passages from Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis describe--and condemn--the entirety of the intellectual work of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is using his "vague notions" and outright heresies to appeal for "unity" with the schismatic and heretical Orthodox churches without forcing them to accept the dogmatic pronouncements of the Second Millennium that were made without their "participation" and that were "distorted" by Scholasticism as a result.

What foundation do I have for such a statement? Well, apart from the use of simple reason, the text of The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized denigrate the Catholic teaching on Limbo as enunciated by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, and at the same time makes an appeal, by way of providing "background" leading up to the document's conclusion, to the heretical "Greek" view of Original Sin:

Very few Greek Fathers dealt with the destiny of infants who die without Baptism because there was no controversy about this issue in the East. Furthermore, they had a different view of the present condition of humanity. For the Greek Fathers, as the consequence of Adam's sin, human beings inherited corruption, possibility, and mortality, from which they could be restored by a process of deification made possible through the redemptive work of Christ. The idea of an inheritance of sin or guilt - common in Western tradition - was foreign to this perspective, since in their view sin could only be a free, personal act.

 

This is what the Orthodox still believe, which makes them fit "partners" for "ecumenical dialogue" with Ratzinger/Benedict, who has told us in his own murky way that he is of one mind with them on the matter of Original Sin, which he called in 1995 an "imprecise" term (!):

With regard to original sin, the difference between Orthodox Christianity and the West may be outlined as follows:

In the Orthodox Faith, the term "original sin" refers to the "first" sin of Adam and Eve. As a result of this sin, humanity bears the "consequences" of sin, the chief of which is death. Here the word "original" may be seen as synonymous with "first." Hence, the "original sin" refers to the "first sin" in much the same way as "original chair" refers to the "first chair."

In the West, humanity likewise bears the "consequences" of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. However, the West also understands that humanity is likewise "guilty" of the sin of Adam and Eve. The term "Original Sin" here refers to the condition into which humanity is born, a condition in which guilt as well as consequence is involved.

In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.

One might look at all of this in a completely different light. Imagine, if you will, that one of your close relatives was a mass murderer. He committed many serious crimes for which he was found guilty ­ and perhaps even admitted his guilt publicly. You, as his or her son or brother or cousin, may very well bear the consequences of his action -­ people may shy away from you or say, "Watch out for him -­ he comes from a family of mass murderers." Your name may be tainted, or you may face some other forms of discrimination as a consequence of your relative’s sin. You, however, are not personally guilty of his or her sin.

There are some within Orthodoxy who approach a westernized view of sin, primarily after the 17th and 18th centuries due to a variety of westernizing influences particularly in Ukraine and Russia after the time of Peter Mohyla. These influences have from time to time colored explanations of the Orthodox Faith which are in many respects lacking. (Orthodox Church in America, Questions and Answers on Original Sin)

 

Those who want to project Thomism and doctrinal exactitude into the mind of a Modernist apostle of the condemned New Theology that colors everything he says and does will continue to use their glossy websites with links to all manner of Motu "priests" to clothe the naked emperor with their dirty rags. No matter how few people see or accept the truth, however, those who are interested in the truth must realize that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI rejects the Council of Trent's Decree on Original Sin just as he rejects the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification.

Ratzinger/Benedict has told us over and over and over again that he rejects Scholasticism,, which is the official philosophy of the Catholic Church. How can any sane or intellectually honest human being attempt to project Thomism and/or a Thomist understanding of the Faith into his words? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is an unapologetic, unbent disciple of the New Theology who believes that Catholic scholars must reject what he calls "a sterile intellectual exercise," which is how he has always viewed Thomism, in favor a new "approach" to meet "man" in the "concrete situation of humanity," a view which is nothing other than pure Modernism and a slap in the face to the popes who defended Thomism and condemned anyone and everyone who departed from it.

Consider this address that Ratzinger/Benedict gave to university professors on June 7, 2008:

The understanding of Christianity as a real transformation of human existence, if on the one hand it impels theological reflection to a new approach in regard to religion, on the other, it encourages it not to lose confidence in being able to know reality. The proposal to "widen the horizons of rationality", therefore, must not simply be counted among the new lines of theological and philosophical thought, but it must be understood as the requisite for a new opening onto the reality that the human person in his uni-totality is, rising above ancient prejudices and reductionisms, to open itself also to the way toward a true understanding of modernity. Humanity's desire for fullness cannot be disregarded. The Christian faith is called to take on this historical emergency by involving the men and women of good will in a simple task. The new dialogue between faith and reason, required today, cannot happen in the terms and in the ways in which it happened in the past. If it does not want to be reduced to a sterile intellectual exercise, it must begin from the present concrete situation of humanity and upon this develop a reflection that draws from the ontological-metaphysical truth.

Dear friends, you have before you a very exacting journey. First of all, it is necessary to promote high-level academic centres in which philosophy can dialogue with other disciplines, in particular with theology, favouring new, suitable cultural syntheses to orient society's journey.  (To participants at the Sixth European Symposium for University Professors, June 7, 2008.)

 

As I noted in last month:

The Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas has been a major protection against the imprecise expression of the doctrines of the Church and a sure guide to their definitive explication. One true pope after another has recognized this to be the case. Pope Saint Pius X did so in a tribute to Saint Thomas Aquinas, Doctoris Angelici:

For just as the opinion of certain ancients is to be rejected which maintains that it makes no difference to the truth of the Faith what any man thinks about the nature of creation, provided his opinions on the nature of God be sound, because error with regard to the nature of creation begets a false knowledge of God; so the principles of philosophy laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas are to be religiously and inviolably observed, because they are the means of acquiring such a knowledge of creation as is most congruent with the Faith; of refuting all the errors of all the ages, and of enabling man to distinguish clearly what things are to be attributed to God and to God alone….

St. Thomas perfected and augmented still further by the almost angelic quality of his intellect all this superb patrimony of wisdom which he inherited from his predecessors and applied it to prepare, illustrate and protect sacred doctrine in the minds of men. Sound reason suggests that it would be foolish to neglect it and religion will not suffer it to be in any way attenuated. And rightly, because, if Catholic doctrine is once deprived of this strong bulwark, it is useless to seek the slightest assistance for its defense in a philosophy whose principles are either common to the errors of materialism, monism, pantheism, socialism and modernism, or certainly not opposed to such systems. The reason is that the capital theses in the philosophy of St Thomas are not to be placed in the category of opinions capable of being debated one way or another, but are to be considered as the foundations upon which the science of natural and divine things is based; if such principles are once removed or in any way impaired, it must necessarily follow that students of the sacred sciences will ultimately fail to perceive so much as the meaning of the words in which the dogmas of divine revelation are proposed by the magistracy of the Church. . . . (Pope Saint Pius X, Doctoris Angelici, quoted in James Larson's Article 11: A Confusion of Loves.)

 

Anyone who believes that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes this is, to put things charitably, not seeing the truth of the matter clearly. Anyone who believes that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is correct and Pope Saint Pius X (and the other popes quoted in Attempting to Coerce Perjury) is wrong is seeking to carry water for a man who has contempt for the Angelic Doctor and for the men who have been true popes who have defended Saint Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism. Anyone who thinks that Pope Saint Pius X was correct in his day and that Ratzinger/Benedict is correct today is insane and must do all manner of intellectually dishonest somersaults to defy the principle of non-contradiction.

As Pope Leo XIII noted in Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879, the Fathers of Council of Trent relied upon Saint Thomas Aquinas in their deliberations, which were, after all, guided infallibly by God the Holy Ghost, Who cannot contradict Himself  by leading the Catholic Church to speak in a different way now than she has spoken throughout her history prior to 1958:

The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the "Summa" of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.

 

This is why, good readers, that Ratzinger/Benedict does not make advertence to the Council of Trent in his "general audience" addresses or his other allocutions. He believes that the Council of Trent, a dogmatic council that met under the inspiration and infallible protection of God the Holy Ghost, was "corrupted" by the influence of Scholasticism in general and the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas in particular, thus driving an "unnecessary" wedge between the Catholic Church and Protestants and the Orthodox that he, Ratzinger/Benedict, is seeking to remedy by means of his relentless re-definition of the Faith in terms of the "New Theology."

Ratzinger/Benedict's relentless efforts to re-define the Faith were on view again in his "general audience" address of December 10, 2008, On St. Paul and the Sacraments, in which he distorted the meaning of Original Sin and hence the very nature of the Sacrament of Baptism:

However, the question now arises: How can we enter into this new beginning, into this new history? How does this history touch me? With the first contaminated history we are inevitably united by our biological descent, all of us belonging to the one body of humanity. But how is communion with Jesus, the new birth to become part of the new humanity, realized? How does Jesus come into my life, my being? St. Paul's fundamental response, and that of the whole New Testament, is: He comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. If the first history got under way, so to speak, with biology, the second does so in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Risen Christ. In Pentecost, this Spirit created the beginning of a new humanity, of the new community, the Church, the Body of Christ.

 

As Mr. Larson wrote to me on this point:

Yes, this [the December 10, 2008, general audience address] is just the kind of thing that most traditionalists would cite as evidence that Joseph Ratzinger does indeed believe in original sin. They have become dulled to the language. They cannot see that to say that "history is contaminated" is not the same as saying that "nature has fallen." The former is perfectly compatible with the belief that original sin is the product of damaged relationships experienced after conception and birth rather than something received through generation; the latter, of course, is totally incompatible with this Modernist explanation

 

Ratzinger/Benedict's views are pure Modernism, reflecting a consistency from the time of his earliest years of scholarly work, which is why it is essential to read him in light of the roadmap that he has provided in his own books and not by projecting, most delusionally and positivistically, a Thomism that is not only not there but which he rejects as having "corrupted" the Faith as It meets "modern man" in each "new" historical circumstance.

Mr. James Larson (who remains opposed to sedevacantism but is kind enough to send me notes now and again) shared with me a few nights ago a reflection that he had written to a friend concerning then Father Joseph Ratzinger's views of Advent in his book, Being Christian:

In order to render understandable what Joseph Ratzinger has done in his writings to the whole idea of the Catholic concepts of original sin, the absolute uniqueness of Christ's Incarnation, the consequences of Christ's redemptive act, the necessity of baptism, the ontological difference between nature and grace, and the absolute distinction which we must draw between Old and New Covenant, etc., I quote below the very first words of his little book Being Christian:

"This week we celebrate with the Church the beginning of Advent. If we think back to what we learned as children about Advent and its significance, we will remember being told that the Advent wreath, with its candles, is a reminder of the thousands of years (perhaps thousands of centuries) of the history of mankind before Christ. It reminds all of us of the time when an unredeemed mankind awaited salvation. It brings to our minds the darkness of an as yet unredeemed history in which the light of hope was only slowly kindled until, in the end, Christ, the light of the world, came and freed mankind from the darkness of condemnation. We learned also that those thousands of years before Christ were a time of condemnation because of original sin, while the centuries after the birth of our Lord are 'anni salutis reparatae,' years of restored salvation. And finally, we will remember being told that, in Advent, besides thinking back on the past to the period of condemnation and expectation of mankind, the Church also fixes her attention on the multitude of people who have not yet been baptized, and for whom it is still Advent, since they wait and live in the darkness of the absence of salvation.

"If we look at the ideas we learned as children through the eyes of contemporary man and with the experiences of our age, we will see that we can hardly accept them. The idea that the years after Christ, compared with those before, are years of salvation will seem to be a cruel irony if we remember such dates as 1914, 1918, 1933, 1939, 1945; dates which mark periods of world war in which millions of men lost their lives, often in terrifying circumstances; dates which bring back the memory of atrocities such as humanity has never before experienced. One date (1933) reminds us of the beginning of a regime which achieved the most cruel perfection in the practice of mass murder; and finally, we remember that year in which the first atomic bomb exploded on an inhabited city, hiding in its dazzling brilliance a new possibility of darkness for the world.

"If we think about these things, we will have difficulty in distinguishing between a period of salvation and one of condemnation. And, extending our vision even further, if we contemplate the works of destruction and barbarity perpetrated in this and the preceding centuries by Christians (that is to say by us who call ourselves 'redeemed'), we will be unable to divide the nations of the world into the redeemed and the condemned.

"If we are sincere, we will no longer build up a theory which divides history and geography into zones of redeemed and zones of condemned. Rather, we will see the whole of history as a gray mass in which it is always possible to perceive the shining of a goodness which has not completely disappeared, in which there can always be found in men the desire to do good, but also in which breakdowns occur which lead to the atrocities of evil.."

All of this, of course, is a profound denial of Catholic truths concerning Christ's Redemption (especially as found in Galatians 3) and the meaning of baptism. Joseph Ratzinger's words here are simply a spelled-out version of the words of Chesterton's opponent who said that "Christianity has been tried, and found wanting." Chesterton's reply, of course, was that "Christianity has never been tried." This does not mean that it has not been tried and lived by saints and ordinary people faithful to their baptismal grace and vows, but that it has not been tried on a universal or even over-all social scale. It is also, of course, a reflection of that duplicity and constant compromise which comes "natural" to the fallen man who believes that he can "possess" the faith without living these baptismal graces in all their integrity. The Catholic who went along with Hitler, or who condoned the dropping of the Bomb on Hiroshima or the fire-storm bombing of Dresden, was not a Catholic living his baptismal graces in integrity. As St. Paul said, "But God is true, and every man a liar…" (Rom 3:4).

The extraordinary thing is that Joseph Ratzinger could not see these elementary truths. Because most men are liars and practiced at self-deception, Joseph Ratzinger has, in effect, also made God into a liar by undermining or denying infallible and unchangeable doctrinal formulations and meanings. And consequently, out goes the whole array of dogmatic teachings which are necessary to understand and believe in the ontological "New Creation" ("New Man") accomplished through Christ's redemption. It is my view, of course, that this blindness on his part (and a whole host of other "thinkers") is a consequence of his surrender to reductive analytical science and rejection of St. Thomas.

In Being Christian, Joseph Ratzinger goes on to tell us that the real meaning of Advent is the continual process of understanding the lack of grace (nebulous use of the term) that exists in our lives, and the continual effort that must be made to make it operative. All this, in itself, is true. But if this grace is not given an ontological basis and reality through the Church's teaching on Original Sin and the nature of the "New Man" created in Sanctifying Grace, then, as St. Paul states, our faith and efforts are in vain.

It should also be noted that the above passage from Being Christian provides the basis for ecumenism and what might be called "qualified indifferentism". If salvation is not an ontological event effected through Catholic baptism, then Christ’s salvation is operative through an evolving gray mass. This is why, in his discussion of Christ's Real Presence, Joseph Ratzinger always speaks in terms of "history" and "historical presence." Grace then becomes a presence that is always there working through man's evolving intellect and will, and through all religions and philosophies of "good will." – through the soup of spiritual evolution and evolving revelation. (James Larson, "Joseph Ratzinger's Advent")

 

Relatively very few people, obviously, pay any attention to the conciliar "popes'" "general audience" addresses. God pays attention, however. He has been and continues to be blasphemed as His Sacred Truths have been and continued to be distorted and misrepresented by the conciliar "pontiffs." This is why these matters should concern us as we seek to make reparation for how God has been and continues to be offended by men who claim, albeit falsely, to be His Vicar on earth as these men give voice to Orthodox heterodoxy.

Those who are inclined to try to "read" Catholicism into Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's efforts to re-define the epistles of Saint Paul and various dogmas of the Church in order to place them within the parameters of his "New Theology" of and thus of conciliarism must overlook as "unimportant" the fact that the current conciliar "pontiff" has absolutely no regard for solemn dogmatic pronouncements and papal encyclical letters that he believes have become "obsolete" in their particulars because of the historical circumstances in which they were written. Such an intentional overlooking of Ratzinger/Benedict's endorsement of propositions condemned by pope after pope--and/or proclaimed with papal approval by the Pontifical Biblical Commission during the pontificate of Pope Saint Pius X--makes the work of Holy Mother Church unstable and insecure.

As noted in yesterday's commentary, No Ambiguity Here, Ratzinger/Benedict's use of a neo-Hegelian denial of the nature of dogmatic truth, which is in and of itself an attack upon the very nature of God Himself, can be used by some future conciliar "pontiff" to undo his own work. Why should a future conciliar "pontiff" accord Ratzinger/Benedict any more respect than he, Ratzinger/Benedict, accords Popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII or Saint Pius X? While it is true that presidential administrations frequently undo the work of each other, the Catholic Church is not a presidential administration. The meaning of the teaching of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, remains the same one century after another.

It is furthermore the case that those who want to indemnify Ratzinger/Benedict at almost every turn must overlook his various blasphemies against the honor and glory and majesty of God and his blasphemies against the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, when he writes, as he did in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, that the Gospels were written by the "community of believers" who were "remembering back" to what Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ might have done in their circumstances. Although this Modernist blasphemy has been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church, the aftermath of the "Second" Vatican Council has given it currency in conciliar academic circles without hardly a word of correction from conciliar officials (many of whom believe in this blasphemy and have expressed their support for it quite openly).

The aforementioned Mr. James Larson wrote an article that appeared in the November 2008 edition of Christian Order that dealt with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's denial that Saint John the Evangelist is the author of the Gospel and the Epistles bearing his name:

In reading the above [passage quoted by Mr. Larson from Jesus of Nazareth in which Benedict ascribes the authorship of the Fourth Gospel to "Presbyter John"], we are faced with one inescapable fact. Despite any qualifications Benedict XVI makes about Presbyter John being a “faithful mouthpiece” and transmitter of the Apostle John’s thoughts, there is absolutely no denying that the Pope “entirely concurs” with the position that the actual writer of the Gospel of John was not the Apostle John but rather “Presbyter John.” As an aside, I would assert that he appears to do so based on extraordinarily flimsy evidence. The major point to be made here, however, is that his statement is in direct contradiction to magisterial decisions and teachings of the Pontificate of Pope St. Pius X.

To begin with, we must understand that under Pope Pius X the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission were a part of the Magisterium (it ceased to be so after Vatican II). Thus, in his Motu proprio Praestantia Sacrae Scripturae, he writes:

“We find it necessary to declare and prescribe, as We do now declare and expressly prescribe, that all are bound in conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission, which have been given in the past and which shall be given in the future, in the same way as to the Decrees which appertain to doctrine issued by the Sacred Congregations and approved by the Sovereign Pontiff. Nor can they escape the stigma both of disobedience and temerity nor be free from grave guilt as often as they impugn these decisions either in word or writing; and this, over and above the scandal which they give and the sins of which they may be the cause before God by making other statements on these matters which are very frequently both rash and false.”

On May 29, 1907, the Pontifical Biblical Commission under the authority of Pope Pius X, published the following decision Concerning the Author and Historical Truth of the Fourth Gospel:

I: Does the constant, universal, and solemn tradition of the Church dating back to the second century and witnessed to principally: (a) by the holy Fathers, by ecclesiastical writers, and even by heretics, whose testimonies and allusions must have been derived from the disciples or first successors of the Apostles and so be linked with the very origin of the book; (b) by the name of the author of the fourth Gospel having been at all times and places in the canon and lists of the sacred books; (c) by the most ancient manuscripts of those books and the various versions; (d) by public liturgical use in the whole world from the very beginnings of the Church; prove that John the Apostle and no other [emphasis mine, James Larson ] is to be acknowledged as the author of the fourth Gospel, and that by an historical argument so firmly established (without reference to theological considerations) that the reasons adduced by critics to the contrary in no way weaken this tradition? Answer: In the affirmative.”

It is very important to realize the continuity between what Benedict XVI writes concerning the authorship of the Gospel of John and his past statements in regard to “essentializing” the previous magisterium. In his 1990 statement regarding the structure and purpose of the CDF document titled Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:

“The text also presents the various forms of binding authority which correspond to the grades of the Magisterium. It states – perhaps for the first time – that there are magisterial decisions which cannot be the final word on a given matter as such but, despite the permanent value of their principles, are chiefly also a signal for pastoral prudence, a sort of provisional policy. Their kernel remains valid, but the particulars determined by circumstances can stand in need of correction. In this connection, one will probably call to mind both the pontifical statements of the last century regarding freedom of religion and the anti-Modernists decisions of the beginning of this century, especially the decisions of the then Biblical Commission.” [emphasis mine, that is, James Larson]

Let us be quite clear what we have here. Pope Benedict’s teaching concerning the authorship of the Gospel of John is in flat-out contradiction to the decision of the Biblical Commission under Pope Pius X, a decision which the latter declared to be binding upon the consciences of all the faithful “in the same way as to the Decrees which appertain to doctrines issued by the Sacred Congregations and approved by the Sovereign Pontiff.”

The problem, however, does not end here. Benedict writes: “After the death of the Apostle, he was identified wholly as the bearer of the latter’s heritage.” John was the last Apostle to die. In attributing the writing (redaction) of the actual Gospel of John to “Presbyter John,” Benedict XVI therefore appears to extend public Revelation beyond the death of the last Apostle. What is more, since “inspiration” and Revelation now become a matter of “remembering” rather than actual witnessing or direct inspiration from God, then this involves a view of Revelation which makes it to be an evolving phenomena. Thus, Benedict writes:

“This also has some fundamental implications for the concept of inspiration. The Gospel emerges from human remembering [emphasis mine] and presupposes the communion of those who remember, in this case very concretely the school of John and, before that, the community of the disciples. But because the author thinks and writes with the memory of the Church, the ‘we’ to which he belongs opens beyond the personal and is guided in its depths by the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of truth. In this sense, the Gospel itself opens up a path of understanding, which always remains bound to the scriptural word, and yet from generation to generation can lead, and is meant to lead, ever anew into the depth of all the truth.”

Again, Pope Benedict’s non-infallible, non-binding teaching, is in direct contradiction to the constant teaching of the Catholic Church, and to the specific teaching of Pope Pius X. In his Syllabus Condemning the Errors of Modernism, Pope Pius X condemned the following proposition (#21):

“Revelation, constituting the object of Catholic faith, was not completed with the apostles.”

What is possibly most astounding about all this is that Benedict XVI’s “entirely concurs” with a position based on extraordinarily flimsy and indirect evidence, and one which is in direct contradiction to 2,000 years of overwhelming historical evidence and precedent (as enumerated by the Pontifical Biblical Commission as quoted above). Such a position speaks of something more than mere personal ignorance or error. In the words of Pope St. Gelasius quoted at the beginning of this article, it speaks of “an example of rising against ourselves” which, despite Pope Gelasius’ statement that the Church would never allow such a thing, has now indeed been allowed. And it has been “allowed” not only in this one relatively small area of Catholic doctrine but, as detailed in other articles, in other doctrines much more central to the very life-blood of the Church – the doctrines of transubstantiation, original sin, or the Social Kingship of Christ for instance.

The extraordinary thing is that, blinded by a view promoted by a few influential traditionalist leaders that Pope Benedict XVI is somehow a “friend of tradition,” very few are willing to look at the extent of his “rising against ourselves.” And even less are they willing to seriously question themselves as to why a God, Who so ardently desires the salvation of all men, is “allowing” this to happen to His Bride the Mystical Body of Christ. It certainly testifies to a sickness within the Church so virulent and so deceptive as to demand, in the words of St. Paul, a “delivering over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor 5:5). It is up to us, therefore, to identify precisely wherein lies our betrayal of the Gospel that requires so great a chastisement. It is my belief that this infidelity consists primarily in our virtual total abandonment of the life of simplicity which is enumerated in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, and which I have examined in my series The Return to God. What is more, it is an abandonment which appears to apply equally to traditional Catholics and Modernists. (James Larson, "A New Form of Blindness," Christian Order, November 2008.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that things that have been defined by the Church must remain "open" for "academic" re-evaluation and analysis. This is of the essence of the pride of Modernism, which considers the task of the theologian to "re-evaluate" the Faith "scientifically rather than explicating the truths of the Faith as they have been defined and taught by Holy Mother Church under the infallible guidance and protection of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost. The authorship of the Fourth Gospel is not an "open" question. Period. No amount of "orthodox" allocutions or "homilies" on certain subjects of the Faith can redeem unrepentant acts and words that betray the Catholic Faith and thus blaspheme God, Who hast revealed the Faith and protected the integrity of Its transmission without stain or spot of "misinterpretation."

Those who cannot see for themselves that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is not a reliable "source" about the Catholic Faith must be willing to stand truth and logic on their respective heads in order to content themselves that the issuer of Summorum Pontificum, which is based on the absolute, abject lie that the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service are but two "forms" of the "one" Roman Rite, is a "friend" of Tradition. Ratzinger/Benedict is an enemy of the First Commandment, an enemy of the Social Reign of Christ the King, an enemy of the true popes of the Catholic Church who have condemned his own Modernist views of the Faith, and thus a mortal enemy of the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Or has it become the case since Summorum Pontificum that God is no longer offended by public esteem given to the symbols of false religions and public praise being offered in behalf of the "separation of Church and State" that denies His Social Kingship over men and their nations?

While thanking Mr. Larson for his superb scholarship and his unswerving devotion to a pursuit of the truth concerning the apostasies of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, I must, most respectfully, note that Pope Saint Gelasius remains correct, that the Catholic Church could indeed never permit a "rising against ourselves." No one who subscribes to Modernist notions concerning Divine Revelation is faithful disciple of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It does not matter for one nanosecond that the views expressed by Ratzinger/Benedict are "private" and thus "non-binding." No member of the Catholic Church is permitted to hold privately views that have been condemned by the authority of the Church and thus represent a defection from the Catholic Faith.

While it is indeed true that the "views" of Ratzinger/Benedict are "non-binding" upon the Catholic faithful, this is so not because his "views" are "private" or "unofficial" but because he has by holding them cast himself out of the Catholic Church, thereby disqualifying himself from the holding of ecclesiastical office legitimately. He, Ratzinger/Benedict, must be the beneficiary of our prayers. Praying for his conversion to the Faith, however, does not mean that we suspend our reason and consider a man who has dropped various poisons repeatedly into the well of the Faith has done anything other than to expel himself from the Church according to the simple truths reiterated by Pope Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, that, although cited earlier in this article, need to be repeated once again to demonstrate that no one can hold "private" views contrary to the Catholic Faith and be a member of the Catholic Church:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).

 

Defect knowingly from the Catholic Faith in just one thing and persist in this defection, my friends, you defect from the Faith in Its entirety. Joseph Ratzinger knows what he teaches deviates from "past" teachings in many areas, which is why he goes to such great lengths to justify his "novelties" by such linguistic gymnastics as "the hermeneutics of continuity in discontinuity" and by claiming that past "decisions" cannot be a "last word" on things as we "progress" in our understanding of the "historically-conditioned" nature of various expressions of dogma that contain "subjective contingencies" that do not bind future generations. Even this exercise in prideful rationalization has been condemned repeatedly by the Catholic Church, and those who ignore Joseph Ratzinger's warfare against the nature of Divine Truth show themselves to be just as much opposed to the honor and glory and majesty of God as the man, Ratzinger/Benedict, they enable by their silence or by their own exercises of positivism.

Dom Prosper Gueranger's reflection on the "O Antiphon" for today, December 18, speaks volumes about being delivered from pride, which is one of the chief characteristics of the Modernists:

"O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel, who appearest to Moses in the fire of the flaming bush, and gavest him the law on Sinai; come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm."

 

O Sovereign Lord! O Adonai! come and redeem us, not Thy power, but Thy humility. Heretofore, Thou didst show Thyself to Moses Thy servant in the midst of a mysterious flame; Thou didst give Thy law to Thy people amidst thunder and lightning; now, on the contrary, Thou comest not to terrify, but to save us. They chaste Mother having heard the emperor's edict, which obliges her and Joseph her spouse to repair to Bethlehem, prepares everything needed for Thy divine Birth. She prepares for Thee, O Sun of justice! the humble swathing-bands, wherewith to cover Thy nakedness, and protect Thee, the Creator of the world, from the cold of that midnight hour of Thy Nativity!  Thus it is that Thou willest to deliver us from the slavery of our pride, and show man that Thy divine arm is never stronger than when he thinks it powerless and still. Everything is prepared, then, dear Jesus! Thy swathing-bands are read for Thy infant limbs! Come to Bethlehem, and redeem us from the hands of our enemies.

 

As Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, Modernists, full of pride, seek to infect the totality of Catholic teaching with their monstrous errors:

Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action. Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality. Finally, there is the fact which is all hut fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.. . .

To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behooves Us, Venerable Brethren, to investigate the causes which have engendered it and which foster its growth. That the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot be open to doubt. We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two: curiosity and pride. Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of Our predecessor, Gregory XVI, who wrote: "A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error."

But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with presumption, "We are not as the rest of men," and which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most absurd kind. It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for authority, even for the supreme authority. Truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism. For this reason, Venerable Brethren, it will be your first duty to resist such victims of pride, to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest offices. The higher they try to rise, the lower let them be placed, so that the lowliness of their position may limit their power of causing damage. Examine most carefully your young clerics by yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries, and when you find the spirit of pride among them reject them without compunction from the priesthood. Would to God that this had always been done with the vigilance and constancy which were required!

 

Leaving aside, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, the subjective state of the souls of the conciliarists, including that of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, it is nevertheless most just to conclude that it takes a good deal of stubborn pride to endorse anathematized propositions and to show contempt for the work of true popes who were simply reiterating perennial truths that are contained in the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church. We must have nothing to do with these apostates who blaspheme God and thus deceive souls. We must cleave to true bishops and true priests in the catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism whatsoever.

Today is the Feast of the Expectation of Our Lady. Coming exactly seven days before Christmas Day itself, today's feast reminds us to be ever mindful of the fact that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Nativity in Bethlehem on the first Christmas Day gives us hope in the midst of the chill and the snow and the ice of our ecclesiastical winter, a time when so many people have been deceived by the false church of conciliarism and have deprived of Sanctifying Grace on a daily basis in most instances. We must be as patient now as Our Lady was during his period of Expectation of the Birth of her Divine Son. We must rely upon her maternal intercession to help us, making reparation to her Divine Son's Most Sacred Heart through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart for our sins and those of the whole world, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit.

Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote a beautiful prayer, ending with the great antiphon to Our Lady, for this feast day today:

Most just indeed it is, O holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire thou hadst to see Him, who had been concealed for nine months in thy chaste womb; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also thine; to come to that blissful hour of His brith, which will give glory to God in the highest, and, on earth, peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy thy desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery; complete our preparation by the powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour has come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entrance into our hearts.

The Great Antiphon to Our Lady

"O Virgin of virgins! how shall this be? for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look yet wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery."

 

Although the Church Militant on earth has undergone her Mystical Passion, Death and Burial as a result of the crimes of the Modernists and the apostasies of conciliarism, we know that she will have her Mystical Resurrection, a Mystical Resurrection that will occur as a result of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As we prepare for Christmas Day in seven days, may we prepare for the day of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a time in which there will indeed be a true "springtime of the Church" as each member of the true Church subscribes totally only to the teaching that has been entrusted to her by her Divine Founder and Invisible Head without any dissent whatsoever.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Vivat Maria Regina Immaculata!

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Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

 

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?