by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Nearly sixty-one months have elapsed since I wrote in A Betrayal Worthy of the Antichrist, which was published on June 30, 2007, in the immediate aftermath of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China that very day, a week before the issuance of Summorum Pontificum. In light of some recent developments in the prison-state that we should refer to as Red China without any exceptions at all, permit me to reprise a few excerpts of the commentary on this site a little over five years ago now:
The great synthesizer, Joseph Ratzinger, has released his long awaited
letter to Chinese Catholics. The letter is a textbook example of
Ratzinger's deeply held and intransigent belief in seeking a "synthesis"
in the midst of conflicts, applying this belief in the case of the
Catholic Church in Red China to a plea for those in the underground
church there to "purify" their memories and to collaborate both with the
bishops of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) who have
been "recognized" the conciliar Vatican and even with those bishops and
priests of the CPCA who have not been so recognized if their "spiritual
good" demands such collaboration.
In other words, Joseph Ratzinger is telling those Catholics who have
suffered so much at the hands of the Communist authorities there that
their struggle is over, that Catholicism means to pose no threat to the
"legitimate" authority of the People's Republic of China. . . .
In other words, ladies and
gentlemen, it is truly regrettable that the Red Chinese government
promotes forced abortion and forced sterilization and limits families to
have but one child, policies that are referred to implicitly in
Ratzinger's letter when he writes, albeit obliquely and thus without any
specificity whatsoever, of the "denial of
of unrenounceable principles of the faith," a statement that, quite
ironically, ignores the simple fact that Communism itself is a
"denial of unrenounceable principles of the faith." It is further
regrettable that the bishops and the priests of the Chinese Patriotic
Catholic Association have given their support to such policies by means
or another since the creation of their schismatic and heretical sect in
1958 by the Red Chinese government.
How to resolve this?
Ah, collegiality and consultation, that's how! Each
"bishop" recognized by the conciliar Vatican will have to "weigh the
concrete possibilities of choice and to evaluate the possible
consequences with the diocesan community," a process that will demand
forming the "consciences of the faithful, with particular attention to
the weakest: all this should be lived out in community and fraternal
understanding, avoiding judgments and mutual condemnations." That is,
those who want to oppose, quite rightly, all possible cooperation with
Communism and the "bishops" and the "priests" who have been associated
with the Red Chinese authorities are considered the "weakest" and and
every effort must be made to form their consciences (by means of
conciliarist brainwashing, you understand) in accord with Ratzinger's
desire for a synthesis of the underground Church in Red China with the
bishops of the CPCA who have been "recognized" by the conciliar Vatican.
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's June 30, 2007, sellout of the underground Catholic Church in Red China so bewildered and confused the suffering Catholics there that the conciliar Vatican had to issue one of its infamous "clarifications" in what was condemned to be from the beginning yet another futile effort to bring order to the chaos of conciliar decisions. The "clarification," which was issued as a Compendium, prompted me to publish Red China: Workshop for the New Ecclesiology on May 29, 2009, which is a lengthy analysis of how Ratzinger/Benedict was using Red China and its Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association as a laboratory or a worship to effect "mergers" between persecuted Catholics and the very genuine schismatics and heretics who have been persecuting them while supporting every manner of evil promoted by the wicked Communist authorities.
The Compendium, of course, settled nothing. Indeed, I reiterated questions about it that I had raised in an earlier article, published in 2005, before I came to accept the plausibility of the doctrine of sedevacantism and that it applies to our circumstances today, to indicate that a "merger" between the state-sponsored rump church that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Ad Apostolorum Principis on June 29, 1958, and the underground church in Red China would result in nothing other than a vicious persecution of any Catholic, whether bishop, priest or layman, who did not "accommodate" himself to the dictates of the "new ecclesiology." Perhaps it is useful to review to questions, stated in 2005 and reiterated in 2009, once again:
1) Have the schismatic
bishops been forced to abjure their support of the Red Chinese
government's anti-life population policies?
2)
Will the "reconciled" bishops who have served in the rump church be able
to publicly oppose the evils of the Red Chinese government?
3) Will the Vatican demand the complete dissolution of the entire structure of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association?
4) If not, will "underground" bishops and priests be required to register with the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association?
5) Is
the Vatican going to require a cessation of the persecution and arrest
of underground Catholics (bishops, priests, consecrated religious laity)
in order to continue its "discussions" about the establishment of
"diplomatic relations" with the "People's Republic" of China?
6)
Will the Vatican require the marriages officiated by the bishops and the
priests of the schismatic church in Red China to be regularized?
7)
What will the Vatican do about the confessions heard by priests who were
ordained by and associated with schismatic bishops nominated by the
pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-sterilization, pro-torture,
pro-slave-labor Red Chinese communist government?
8)
Will the Red Chinese authorities be required by the Vatican to apologize
for its torture, imprisonment, execution, and harassment of Catholics
faithful to Rome? Will those authorities be forced by the Vatican to
clear the names of all persons, living and deceased, who have been
branded as "criminals" for adhering to an "illegal" religion?
9) Or will the the
Vatican simply wave its bureaucratic hand and pretend, positivistically,
that there has "always been one church in China" and seek to "educate"
the Catholics who have been suffering in the underground church that
they must accommodate themselves to the "actual reality" of the
situation in their country and thus silence themselves about the evils
being promoted by the government? (See There is Schism and Then There is Schism, 2005)
Question number nine has been answered very clearly in the affirmative by Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China and the recently-released Compendium. If you want a nutshell summary of the meaning of Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China and the recently-released Compendium,
good readers, just read question nine and you will understand
everything you need to know about their contents without having to wade
through all of the contradictions and errors.
Even those conditions, whose letter and
spirit were violated most knowingly by the lords of the counterfeit
church of conciliarism, that had been imposed in 1988 and 1998 by Karol
Wojtyla/John Paul II concerning contacts between members of the
underground Church in Red China were swept away by Ratzinger/Benedict in
one fell swoop in his Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China:
Considering in the first place some
positive developments of the situation of the Church in China, and in
the second place the increased opportunities and greater ease in
communication, and finally the requests sent to Rome by various Bishops
and priests, I hereby revoke all the faculties previously granted in
order to address particular pastoral necessities that emerged in truly
difficult times.
Let the same be applied to all directives
of a pastoral nature, past and recent. The doctrinal principles that
inspired them now find a new application in the directives contained
herein.
Positive developments?
There has been positivism in the mind of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, reflected in the body of his Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China. Positive developments? Joseph Ratzinger's Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China is a surrender of the faithful Catholics in the underground Church in
Red China in an pathetic effort to advance the false premises of his
"new ecclesiology." All of the verbiage in Ratzinger/Benedict's Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China is simply a smokescreen to sweep away the "restrictions" of the past
and to place the burden of "reconciliation" in Red China upon the very
Catholics who have suffered so much and for so long.
Behold the "Fruit" of "Reconciliation" in Red China
Those who have followed events in Red China since the issuance of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Letter five years ago and the conciliar Vatican's Compendium three years ago now know that the persecution of the long suffering Catholics in the underground, people who believe that they are being "loyal" to a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, has continued. The very man for whose Papal Primary they have suffered for so long has betrayed them because he is not the Vicar of Christ. He is but a figure of Antichrist. Those who desire "reconciliation" or "official recognition" ought to learn that the "pope" who is going to "restore" what is believed to be the Catholic Church is single-minded in amalgamating those who have disparate beliefs into his One World Ecumenical Church as long as they learn to be "silent" and accept his nonexistent "authority" to surrender them to all manner of wolves after first having refused to see him as wolf in his own right who is dressed in the clothing of a shepherd.
Here is a very graphic case in point, as found on the anti-sedevacantist Tradition in Action website, concerning an underground priest in Red China who was relased from prison two years ago and then arrested again as soon as soon as he had left the prison where had been incarcerated unjustly. So much for Ratzinger/Benedict's "reconciliation" plans:
Fr Peter Wang, a
priest of the Underground Catholic Church in the Diocese of Xiwanzi,
China was a free man for a few minutes. The Communist State released him
on July 24, 2010, then immediately arrested him again as he left the prison where he spent the last three years.
Some relatives and
fellow Catholics were waiting to welcome him. He had taken only a few
steps when four policemen pushed him into a car and took him off again to the Communist authorities. Originally, he had
been sentenced on trumped-up allegations of organizing an illegal
meeting to discuss plans for the establishing another underground parish
and for using an official parish seal without government permission.
The real reason, everyone knows, is that he refuses to join the
Communist-run “Catholic Church,” the Chinese Patriotic Association
(CPA). The release and re-arrest appears to be just a psychological
stratagem to coerce him to do so.
It is bad enough
that a faithful priest of the underground Catholic Church is facing
intense pressure from the CPA to join the Communist organization. I
believe that Fr. Wang, like so many heroic priests who have suffered
persecution and even death in the underground Church, would hold out
against government coercion. The arrests and re-arrest only serve to confirm his resolve to remain faithful to the Holy Father and Catholic Faith. Until some years ago, the tragedy ended there.
But now there is a new, appalling tool of compulsion that has been added
to the picture. Today he is being pressured by the Vicar of Christ to
make concessions to the Patriotic Association. I am not certain he will
hold out against that kind of pressure.
Three years ago, Benedict XVI sent a Letter to the Chinese Catholics urging reconciliation. The ones being urged to reconcile were not,
however, the members of the above-ground CPA, who enjoy the full favor
of the Communist government, which officially and in practice heads it.
No, it was the members of the persecuted underground Catholic Church,
faithful to our Holy Faith and the Pontiff, who were being urged to get
“reconciled ” with the Patriotic Association, and through it, with
Communism.
Many Catholics simply could not believe the Pope was asking for such a
concession to Communism. So the Vatican issued another document, a
Letter of Clarification, stating that it is exactly such submission to
Communism that Rome is urging. Since then, many in the underground
Church – pressured by the Vatican and the Chinese Communist government –
have joined the Patriotic Association. For example, Bishop Francis An
Shuxin, who had long resisted force by the Communist government to join
the CPA, succumbed under
Vatican pressures. He admits being “torn” about making the decision, “I
refused to join the CPA at first after I was released in 2006,” he
said. “I changed my mind after reading the Pope’s letter.” (2) In that
Letter, Benedict XVI told underground bishops to join the State
agencies for the sake of "unity.”
This has raised confusion in the ranks of China’s underground Catholic Church. But little by
little what was almost inevitable is taking place: The underground
communities are joining the government-sanctioned churches. A merger is
taking place.
A good example is Rev. Zhang Liang of Tianjin, a member of the CPA who makes overtures to underground Catholics by showing them a framed certificate from Pope Benedict XVI, which he displays to justify his position. “The Pope approves me, so you should accept me,” is what he insinuates. What he tells the press is this, “Pope Benedict issued a papal letter, and now we (the underground Church and the Communist-run church) in Tianjin have reconciled.”
It was, in fact, the underground Bishop of Tianjin, Stephen Li Side, who urged his flock to worship in state-sanctioned churches. After the papal letter, resistance seemed futile. For him and many others, the papal letter was the “turning point.”
This policy of ‘union’ received another strong spur forward this month from a letter to Chinese Bishops and priests bearing the signatures of Cardinal Ivan Dias and Archbishop Robert Sarah, respectively prefect and secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The letter is another Vatican support for the submission of underground Catholics to the CPA.
The text stresses the “duty of union” with all the members of the “ecclesial community.” It is this lack of unity – not Communism or unorthodox teaching – that is the “greatest danger” to the Church. This new Vatican letter concludes: “Let us praise the Lord for your efforts, accomplished and ongoing, for unity within the Church, in faithful response to the indications given by the Holy Father in the Letter he addressed to you on 27 May 2007, and for the results already obtained. May God bless your initiatives so that unity of ministers among themselves and between them and their flock may be ever stronger in Christ and in His Church ‘ad majorem Dei gloriam.’” (4)
So, now to compromise with Communism adds to the greater glory of God…
The Xiwanzi underground Catholic Diocese to which Fr. Wang belongs has 15,000 faithful, who to date have continued to resist ‘reconciliation.’ For the past few years local police, incited by the CPA, have carried out a strong campaign of intimidation against its faithful priests and Bishops.
I can’t help but wonder how long Fr. Wang – and others like him – will hold out when it is the Vatican and Pope himself who are urging the priests and Bishops to compromise with Communism. Surely they need our prayers. (
Pope Benedict + CPA = Prison for Fr. Wang.)
Growing the One World Ecumenical Church by Amalgamation
Yes, you see, one of the many ways by which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict
XVI has been growing the One World Ecumenical Church is by amalgamating
different groups together without demanding any abjuration of past
errors. He demanded nothing from the Red Chinese authorities five years ago. Nothing. It is was total surrender of the suffering Catholics in the underground church.
To refuse require any abjuration of errors, well, at least in most cases, is perfectly reasonably to the false "pontiff's" mind as he has not abjured of his past errors that are the foundation of his
current apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges. Ratzinger/Benedict
believes that certain Protestant "theologians" who deny the Sacred
Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ "continue
believing in a Christian manner" (see Cardinal Ratzinger).
One who can assert this falsehood, you see, is not going to bother too
terribly much with forcing others to abjure errors as what matters most
to Ratzinger/Benedict is the very appearance of "unity" without
doctrinal agreement that was condemned vigorously by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.
Although there are many instances of individuals
being received into the counterfeit church of conciliarism without
making any abjuration of error whatsoever (see, for example, Not Such a Triumph After All),
Ratzinger/Benedict has used four groups as the principal models of
making the falsehood of the "new ecclesiology" for what can be called
"unity devoid of the Catholic Faith."
This is what Ratzinger/Benedict has been attempting to forge with the Orthodox, especially by means of The Ravenna Document's
assertion of Ratzinger's own false view of how the "Petrine ministry"
was exercised and understood in the First Millennium, but also by
refusing to demand that the Orthodox accept dogmatic pronouncements made
by Holy Mother Church under the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, in
the Second Millennium. "Little" matters such as the doctrines on
Original Sin, Purgatory, Papal Infallibility the Immaculate Conception
and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as defined by the
authority of the Catholic Church, the indissolubility of marriage, and
the prohibition of all forms of contraception, to name just a few, can
be pretty much just swept under the rug for the sake of the bear hug of
ecumaniacal "unity." (See Anti-Apostles All.)
Ratzinger/Benedict also has been attempting to use
the example of the disaffected "Anglo-Catholics" of the "worldwide
Anglican Communion" to demonstrate how "open" the counterfeit church of
conciliarism is to the "traditions" of Protestantism, including
liturgical books deemed heretical by Pope Saint Pius V in Regnans in Excelsis, March 5, 1570. Abjuration of error? Ah, not necessary for the Orthodox or for the Anglicans. (See Defaming The English Martyrs, Apostasy: A Model of Reconciliation, and Still Defaming The English Martyrs.)
Thus, one of the most insidious examples of
Ratzinger/Benedict's quest for "unity devoid of the Catholic Faith"
involves his monstrous sellout of the underground Catholics in Red
China, long suffering souls who have placed their hope in the "pope"
after decades of persecution only to find themselves having been told,
in effect, to shut up and join up with the Communist rump church, the
so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. Ratzinger/Benedict has
stated in so many words that what he asserts in the Catholic Church has
no interest in undermining the structures of the Red Chinese
government, meaning that he is not only perfectly willing to accept the
legitimacy of that government (as opposed to accepting the actual fact
of its existence without conceding its nonexistent legitimacy) but to
urge the long suffering Catholics of the underground to cooperate with
the Communist authorities in full violation of Pope Pius XI's specific
prohibition stated in Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, against any such cooperation.
Then again, there has long been a veritable "red army" inside of the Vatican that has held it captive for over half a century now. For examples of how the conciliar "popes" have collaborated with Communist regimes, see Rebels in Rerun Season, part one.
Still on the Radar Screen?
The coup de grace, however, for
Ratzinger/Benedict's master plan of building a "church" devoid of
doctrine would have been delivered by now if Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior
General of the Society of Saint Pius X, had not been stopped from entering into an "agreement" with
conciliar authorities that would be, as we know now, almost exactly what was
offered to the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on May 5, 1988.
Bishop Fellay's public statements between April 14, 2012, and June 7, 2012, gave every indication of desiring some way to overcome the the sudden obstacles that had been raised by the "cardinal" members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that oversees "Pontifical" Commission Ecclesia Dei. Bishop Fellay told the world the following in one of his "interviews" for the DICI website of the Society of Saint Pius X:
We must set aside the secondary problems and deal with the major problems. This is the answer of one or another Roman
prelate, although they will never say so openly; you have to read
between the lines to understand.
The official authorities do not want to acknowledge
the errors of the Council. They will never say so explicitly.
Nevertheless, if you read between the lines, you can see that they hope
to remedy some of these errors. (Rome-SSPX - Important: Interview with SSPX Superior General Bp. Fellay on current affairs.)
Regular readers of this site may remember that this prompted me to write, What Lines Are You Reading Between, Bishop Fellay?
It had just been five weeks before that Father Niklaus Pfluger, the first Assistant of the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, said the following in a sermon on the Third Sunday after Easter, April 29, 2012:
Under these circumstances the Superior General,
Bishop Bernard Fellay, does not consider it possible to reject the
Pope’s proposal. It would be tantamount to a lapse into Sedevacantism if
one would still isolate oneself from the Pope’s wish, if this wish does
not entail acknowledging false doctrine. It also is a matter of
prudence/wisdom not to cut all connections with Rome. One should keep at
least one door open, even if at this moment there seems to be no
proximity in doctrinal matters.
It is, of course, a pre-condition that an
agreement will cover the assurance that the Society will be able to
disagree from Rome’s positions in disputed matters and that it will have
the freedom to continue her work in her entire apostolate. Part of an
autonomous status would also be the right to criticize the Council and
Modernism. (False Doctrine, Father Pfluger?)
How can it be that the Society of Saint Pius X would "lapse" into sedevacantism, which just happens to be the truth of our situation at this time and is not a false doctrine at all, if it rejected the false "pope's" proposal in April but does not represent such a "lapse" a week after the Society's General Chapter meeting adjourned?
Ah, logic and consistency are among the first victims of those who fall prey to the entreaties of the "great synthesizer," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Things are one way one month, another several months later. This is, however, absolutely nothing new in the Society of Saint Pius X (see The Mountains of Gelboe).
Those who look carefully at Father Pfluger's words above can see that there is absolutely nothing startling about the supposed "non-negotiable" "pre-condition" for accepting a canonical "recognition" by the counterfeit church of concilairism as expressed in one of those "secret" letters within the Society of Saint Pius X that has now found its way all over the internet (are Mel Brooks and Buck Henry writing new episodes of Get Smart or recycling old ones for use in Econe?). Nothing has changed. Nothing.
Take a look at the supposedly non-negotiable "pre-conditions" that were agreed to in Econe:
Also, the essential conditions of any normalisation of our relations with the official Church were given a better definition :
The
sine qua non conditions to which the Society binds itself and that she
requires from the Roman authorities before considering a canonical
recognition :
1 Freedom to keep, to transmit and to teach
the sane doctrine of the unchanging magisterium of the Church and of the
unchangeable truth of Divine Tradition ; freedom to defend, to correct
and to reprove, even in public, those responsible for the errors or
novelties of modernism, of liberalism, of The Second Vatican Council and
their consequences ;
2 Exclusive use of the liturgy of
1962. The retention of the sacramental practice that we have at the
moment (including holy orders, confirmation and marriage) ;
3 The guarantee of at least one bishop. (From Bishop Fellay's personal Cone of Silence.)
How is the first condition above any different from what Father Pfluger said eight weeks ago today? It is not any different.
The leaked letter, you see, does not represent any kind of "change" at all. It is merely a ratification of the position that Bishop Fellay and his chief lieutenants have been taking ever since Bishop Fellay submitted his official response to the conciliar authorities in April that was given back to him with various objections, which "papal" spokesflack "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J., did not believe at the time to be insurmountable. Perhaps the objection is insurmountable in light of the appointment of Gerhard Ludwig Muller to be the new prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Perhaps not.
Remember, the "official" response of the Society of Saint Pius X has not been sent to the concilair Vatican as of yet. Perhaps the leaked letter represents that response. Perhaps not.
All I can tell you at this juncture, my good and relatively few readers, is that far from speaking out to correct the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of "Pope" Benedict XVI in the past seven years, the leaders of the Society of Saint Pius X have been relatively mute, noting a few exceptions here and there, which leads to me ask a simple question: what would be different in a "reconciled" Society of Saint Pius X from what has been the case in the past seven years as the Society's leaders were, again for the most part, deaf, dumb and blind about them?
Moreover, what has happened to many priests of the Society of Saint Pius X who have spoken out against these apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges in the past seven years? They have been expelled. Or, as Father Joseph Pfeiffer explained to us in November of 2005 on Long Island, they get sent for their malaria shots and sent to The Philippines.
So much for the supposedly "deal breaking" condition number one.
Could it be a deal breaker? Sure. I don't know.
You know what I do know, however? This is all genuine farce that plays right into the hands of the Master of Modernists himself, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, who has already bought himself seven years of relative peace from the leadership of the Society of Saint Pius X as he has kept them distracted with his true "papal" master-stroke" of "doctrinal discussions" that convinced so many in the Society that "silence" was indeed very "prudent" at a "delicate" time.
We Must Reject and Never Recognize Spiritual Robber Barons
