Singing the Old Songs

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As one who can count the number of glasses of wine and champagne that I have had in my life on my fingers and toes, I have never been in a state of alcoholic inebriation. Similarly, as one who has never smoked anything in my life, including marijuana, or taken any hallucinogenic substances, I have never had my rationality clouded by a state of "euphoria" produced by such substances. It has been my misfortune over the years, however, to see the effects of alcoholism or drug addiction on others, especially among some of my former students who would come to class in states of total disarray, and how the consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol and/or any bit of hallucinogenic drugs clouds judgment and causes human beings to act in bizarre ways. (Please understand that my own "eccentric" behavior as exhibited in baseball parks off and on between 1976 and 2002 occurred when I was fully sober, having made a conscious decision to make fun of myself--and to make myself an object of derision--as I helped to revive the tradition of the baseball "novelty figure" amongst the fans in the stands.)

Although I have seen the phenomenon of the effects of intoxication upon others, I do not fully understand why one would want to be in such a state. What is particularly baffling to me is why consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, in particular, leads people to "sing the old songs" as they slur their words to botched-up melodies. Sing the "old songs," they do, however, oblivious to how such behavior is the product of their being, no matter how temporarily, out of their right minds.

Fallen human nature leads many of us who are perfectly sober to "sing the old songs" in order to justify ourselves and our positions before men. One of the "old songs" that has been sung in the past forty years involves reciting a litany of examples of how seemingly "Catholic" a particular postconciliar "pontiff" has been despite his undeniable acceptance of one condemned Modernist proposition after another. I am a past master of "singing the old songs" in defense of the false "pontificate" of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, not putting aside those songs until the altar girl fiasco of nearly fourteen years ago now. What am I talking about? Well, I am glad that you asked.

Anyone who loves the treasure that is our Holy Catholic Faith wants the best for the Church Militant on earth. No one-and I mean no one--who has been alarmed by the revolutionary events of the past forty-nine years wants to harm the Church in any way, shape or form. We are living in a time similar to in the Great (or Western) Schism that lasted between 1378 and 1417, a time in which Catholics who do not dissent one whit from the Deposit of Faith find themselves all too frequently at war with each other concerning what has happened within the Church Militant and how to deal with it. This is, of course, most regrettable. Important differences must not be papered over as nothing other than the eternal fate of souls is at stake. What is important to do when such differences are aired, however, is to do so without engaging in personal, ad hominem attacks against individuals as efforts are made to focus solely on the issues-at-hand, issues that are truly ones of eternal life and eternal death.

As I have come to realize in the past two years, Our Lady sent extraordinary graces to a handful of her priests in the 1960s and 1970s to see with clarity that the era of apostasy and betrayal that the Church has taught perennially is one of the things that must occur prior to end times. I am thinking particularly of Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.D., whose precision of analysis is most exacting. It is so sad that Father Stepanich's wisdom is dismissed so readily by so many who have never studied theology in a systematic manner, no less who lack earned doctorates, and who discount the graces that have flowed into the soul of a man who has been a priest for nearly sixty-seven years.

Father Stepanich was not entirely alone in the 1960s as he rejected the evil that is the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and non-Catholicity of the pretenders to the papal throne. Others, such as then Father Robert Fidelis McKenna, O.P., were given similar graces. Many of the "nine" who were expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X twenty-five years ago this year saw things clearly in their seminary days in the 1970s, having never once mentioned the name of the false "popes" in the Canon of the Mass in any of the Masses that they ever offered. And the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen was the first community of Catholics to express publicly in the 1970s the doctrine of the Catholic Church that even the late Mario Francesco "Cardinal" Pompedda, former President of the Apostolic Signatura in the conciliar Vatican, admitted three years ago was the case:

"It is true that the canonical doctrine states that the see would be vacant in the case of heresy." (Cardinal Says Pope Could Govern Even If Unable to Speak, Zenit, February 8, 2005.

 

There will be no convincing those who reject sedevacantism entirely out-of-hand of the canonical correctness of the position, admitted even by a conciliar "cardinal," no less, or that it applies in our present circumstances. What one can do, however, is to attempt to point out that efforts to excuse Modernism on the part of the the conciliar "pontiffs" by reciting long litanies of their alleged "good deeds" in behalf of the Faith fall short of the mark as such litanies ignore the simple Catholic truth that embracing simply one anathematized proposition expels one from the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIII made abundantly clear in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

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).

 

To wit, all of my own former efforts to project Catholicity into the mind and the heart of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II were founded in looking at bits and pieces of the puzzle, refusing to admit that the false "pontiff" expressed most publicly a belief in various condemned propositions (including false ecumenism, the new ecclesiology, inter-religious dialogue, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, praising false religions for the "good" that they do and how they can contribute to "world peace," etc.). Undeterred by these inconvenient little facts, I sang "the old songs" to defend Wojtyla/John Paul II for far too long. This is how the "old songs" went:

1. It was within a week of his election on October 16, 1978, that John Paul II said that he wanted to see priests back in their clerical garb and women religious back in their habits. He's traditionally-minded, I told people repeatedly.

2. He tried to put catechesis back on the "right track" with the issuance of the post-synodal exhortation Sapientia Christianae

3. He told off the Communists in Poland in June of 1979, saying in a "homily" at an outdoor "Mass" in Victory Square in Warsaw that no one could ever remove Christ as the center of history. See, he's not an appeaser like Paul VI, I said triumphantly.

4. John Paul II whacked the American bishops over the head but good during his first pilgrimage to the United States of America in October of 1979, using some of their own pastoral letters against them, knowing full well that they were not enforcing their own documents. He told Catholic educators assembled at The Catholic University of America on October 7, 1979, and I was one of those educators in attendance that day, that the Church needed her theologians to be "faithful to the magisterium." I gloated as John Paul II said this, staring in the direction of the notorious dissenter named Father Charles Curran, a priest of the Diocese of Rochester, New York, who was sitting two rows in back of me, dressed in a jacket and tie. It was later that same day that the "pope" denounced abortion as the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America sat in the very front row of chairs on the Capitol Mall during an outdoor "Mass," saying in a most stirring manner, "And when God gives life, it is forever!"

5. Two months thereafter, in December of 1979, Father Hans Kung was declared by the then named Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to be ineligible to hold a chair in theology at Tubingen University in Germany (all right, all right, "other arrangements" were made to permit Kung to stay). "Let the heads roll," I told my classes at Allentown College of Saint Francis de Sales that day. "Let the heads of the dissenters roll."

6. John Paul II wanted to correct abuses in the Novus Ordo Missae, using his Holy Thursday letter, Dominicae Cenae, February 24, 1980, going so far as to state:

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

 

See, I said proudly, to one and all. He's going to "fix" things, isn't he? The issuance of Inaestimabile Donum two months later, which I would wave in the faces of "disobedient" conciliar priests for about a decade before it began to dawn on me that there was going to be no enforcement of "rules" in an ever-changing and ever-changable liturgical abomination, was "proof," I said at the time, of how the "pope" is "turning things around in right direction. I wasn't the only one. The Angelus, a publication of the Society of Saint Pius X, commented favorably on some of these things itself in 1980.

7. "Pope" John Paul II personally opened a Perpetual Adoration Chapel in the Piazza Venezia in Rome at the behest of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, also mandating daily periods of Solemn Eucharistic Adoration in each of the four major basilicas in Rome. He used his pilgrimage to South Korea in 1984 to state that he wanted to see Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration established in all of the parishes of the world.

8. Father Charles Curran was finally denied in 1986 the right to teach as a theologian in Catholic institutions and Father Matthew Fox, O.P., was forbidden to teach in Catholic institutions by John Paul II's "defender of the faith," Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, and dismissed from the Order of Preachers in 1992  for his New Age "creation spirituality" beliefs.

9. John Paul II would take various American "bishops" to task during the quinquennial (or ad limina apostolorum) visits, pointedly asking the late "Bishop" John Raymond McGann of the Diocese of Rockville Center in 1983 why sixteen of his diocese's parishes did not have regularly scheduled confessions during the recently concluded Easter Triduum. Being dissatisfied with McGann's answer ("Our priests are very busy, Your Holiness"), John Paul said, "Excellency, I was not too buy to hear Confessions in Saint Peter's on Good Friday." McGann got into further trouble later that day in April of 1983 when he was talking at lunch with John Paul and the other New York Province "bishops" about how most young people today do not know their faith and are thus in theological states of error, inculpable for their ignorance. John Paul II put down his soup spoon and said, "I agree with you. You are correct. However, the bishops and priests who are responsible for these young people being in states of error go directly to Hell when they die." McGann turned ashen, reportedly having difficulty eating for three days. "Ah, what a pope we have,"  I said when learning of this from Roman contacts.

10. Silvio Cardinal Oddi, then the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, told me personally in his office on the Via della Concilazione on October 10, 1984, the very day that the first "indult" for the Immemorial Mass of Tradition was issued, "I want the Mass of Saint Pius V back! The Pope wants the Mass of Saint Pius V back! We will get the Mass of Saint Pius V back!" Cardinal Oddi explained that there was much opposition to what the "pope" wanted to, that he had to move cautiously and with conditions. He made it clear, however, that it was the mind of the "pope" for the "old Mass" to return.

 

Such a litany could go on and on and on. Oh, did I mention that I did indeed "sing the old songs" quite literally? Yes, indeed, my friends, I stood with several thousand people outside and across the street from what was then called the Apostolic Delegation (now called the Papal Nunciature) on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C., on the evening of Saturday, October 6, 1979, serenading "Pope" John Paul II with endless renditions of "Stolat, stolat, may you live a hundred years!" Get the idea?

Sure, sure sure, I was always "uncomfortable" with ecumenism in particular and the whole ethos of Vatican II in general. John Paul II was going to "fix" things, I convinced myself. No more "Hamlet on the Tiber" as had been experienced under Giovanni Montini/Paul VI. I simply ignored those things that contradicted my delusional concept of who Karol Wojtyla was and what he believed, that he had been a leading revolutionary at the "Second" Vatican Council and was a thorough-going Modernist in both theological and philosophical terms.

I ignored the simple fact that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II praised false ecumenism in his inaugural address to the "cardinals" in the Basilica of Saint Peter on Tuesday, October 17, 1978, the exact thing that his "successor," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI would do on Wednesday, April 20, 2005. I ignored John Paul II's embrace of the "archbishop" of Canterbury, who was no more a clergyman than was Mike Huckabee when he plied his trade as a Baptist "minister." I winced a little when John Paul II praised Martin Luther during his pilgrimage to the Federal Republic of Germany (also known at the time as "West Germany") in 1980. I buried my head in the sand after the egregious sacrileges associated with the Day of World Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy, on October 27, 1986. I could not defend the indefensible, considering the Assisi event to have been an "aberration" rather than an actual symptom of the apostate heart beating within Karol Wojtyla's very soul. And I was vocal, at least privately in my conversations with fellow "conservative" Catholics, about liturgical abominations at "papal" "Masses (half-naked women bringing up to the "gifts," rock music at "youth" "Masses," praise offered to voodoo witch doctors, etc.). Face facts that Wojtyla was not a Catholic? Perish the thought, which is what I did for a very long time.

How did I try to reconcile what I knew to be un-Catholic with the list of things above that I hoped against hope represented "progress" for the end of the confusion wrought by the "Second" Vatican Council? Rationalization is a fine art, my friends. One can rationalize almost anything, especially if one tries to balance "good" and "bad" developments on a scale as in a butcher market or as an attorney attempted to defend a client whose record is, shall we say, questionable at the very best. What I did not understand in those early years of the Wojtyla "pontificate" is that the measure of what makes one a Catholic is not how frequently he sounds like a Catholic and even does things that seem to advance the Catholic Faith now and again.

The measure of what makes one a Catholic is a total adherence to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the infallible teaching authority of the true Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, without one iota of dissent. I did not accept the simple truth that the "Second" Vatican Council institutionalized condemned propositions (false ecumenism, religious liberty) and promulgated a definition of the very nature of the Church over which even believing Catholics still argue to this very day. Ambiguity has never been part of the language of the Catholic Church. That people can argue yet over the meaning of the word "subsist" in Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, while the conciliar Vatican continues to defend Lumen Gentium against charges that it is representative of a new ecclesiology that sees the "Church of Christ" as something not coextensive with the Catholic Church (see His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn's Ratzinger's Subsistent Error). I did not accept the truth that the "Second" Vatican Council embodied condemned propositions and therefore was demonstrative of a new religion that was at odds with the true Faith. I grasped at straws for a very long time to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Similarly, I projected into the mind of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II my own fondest hopes for Holy Mother Church, not realizing that he was a Modernist to very core of his being, as these passages from Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times demonstrate:

His [Wojtyla's] stand on atheism puzzled many of the bishops, especially those from Communist countries. Archbishop Wojtyla believed that the human person should find the truth on their own and that conversion was unnecessary:

"Wojtyla was deeply convinced that personalist ethics--which stresses the uniqueness and inviolability of the human personality--would never allow the imposing of ideas on anyone. He took the same line when the council discussed the problems of atheism--a question that vexed the Council Fathers almost from the beginning to the end of Vatican II. 'It is not the Church's role to lecture unbelievers,' Wojtyla declared on taking the floor on October 21, 1964. 'We are involved a quest along with our fellow men. ...Let us avoid moralizing or suggesting that we have a monopoly on the truth.' ...Talk at the council of actual 'relations with atheism' meant dialogue with Marxists." (Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness, pp. 102-103, quoted in Tumultuous Times, p. 540.)

 

These were revolutionary ideas, especially at a time when the West braced for nuclear war and when much of the world was held captive under Communist tyranny. He further expressed his ecumenical and Modernist persuasions a week later.

"He began with several previously expressed comments on the Church and the world and the president of the session was on the point of stopping him, when he quickly and skillfully captivated his audience and silenced all the noise in the auditorium. In a loud and distinct voice, he clearly explained that the Church should no longer pose as the sole dispenser of Truth and Goodness... She should, he went on, be in the world but not above it. ...The Church must alter her teaching; she should encourage Revelation and no longer dictate it." (Catherine and Jacques Legrand, John Paul II, p. 68.)

"Although he was only forty-two when the council opened, Wojtyla made eight oral interventions in the council hall, a rather high number, and often spoke in the name of large groups of bishops from Eastern Europe. (Altogether he made 22 interventions, oral and written.) He was an unusually active member of various drafting groups for Gaudium et Spes, and even a chief author of what was called the 'Polish draft.' His voice as crucial to the passage of the document on religious liberty.''"(William Madges and Michael Daly, Vatican II: Forty Personal Stories, p. 33)

 

The Modernists Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou worked closely with Archbishop Wojtyla to draft the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et Spes]. In his speeches of September 23 and 28, 1965, Wojtyla championed the heresy of religious liberty and encouraged dialogue with atheists.

"Archbishop Wojtyla then took up the question of atheism as a pastoral issue, as part of the Church's 'dialogue with everyone.' ...The Church's dialogue with atheism should begin not with arguments or proofs about the existence of God, but with a conversation about the human person's interior liberty." (Tumultuous Times, pp. 540-541.)

 

Karol Wojtyla was a quintessential Modernist, mixing truth with error, carrying about himself a most definite Catholic bearing on some occasions while engaging in the most obscene blasphemies against God as he praised false religions, each of which is loathed by God, and reaffirmed adherents of false religions of the essentia l"goodness" of their beliefs. He believed that it was not necessary to adhere to everything that the Catholic Church had taught perennially and in the precise manner in which she had taught the truths entrusted to her by her Divine Founder and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In other words, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II did not accept the [First] Vatican Council's simple statement about the fact that Divine Revelation is not a matter of "discussion" for "further understanding:"

"For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them." -Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.

 

What applied to Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II applies also to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. While the two have their differences of philosophy and theology, both are committed to the agenda of the "Second" Vatican Council. One, Wojtyla, was a "council" Father. The other, Ratzinger, was a "council" peritus (expert) who was directly responsible for the insertion of the word "subsist" in Lumen Gentium, a recommendation he made at the behest of a German Lutheran "theologian." No honest observer who is committed to the good of souls can look at Joseph Ratzinger's career and not see the Modernism that has pervaded it throughout, a Modernism that influences his actions as Benedict XVI.

As has been demonstrated endlessly on this site, which exists more to reach those in the future rather than the infinitesimally small number of people who read it or who agree with its contents at the present time, at the core of Joseph Ratzinger's Modernist worldview is his Hegelian view of the nature of truth. This alone causes him to fall from the Catholic Faith. He believes in propositions about dogmatic truth that have been anathematized by the [First] Vatican Council and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, and in the very Oath Against Modernism that he, Joseph Ratzinger, had to take prior to his ordination to the priesthood on June 29, 1951. Only those who are intellectually dishonest can refuse to acknowledge that Joseph Ratzinger's Modernist view of dogmatic truth, reiterated forcefully by him in his "capacity" as Benedict XVI on December 22, 2005, places him outside of the pale of the Catholic Faith.

Consider, once again, the comments of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI made on December 22, 2005, concerning the nature of dogmatic truth:

 

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas Address to Curia, December 22, 2005.)

 

Consider, once again, how this statement stands as anathematized by the authority of the Catholic Church:

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.]

 

Consider, once again, how Ratzinger's view of dogmatic truth was eviscerated by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis:

Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they [dogmatic statements and papal pronouncements] 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.]

 

Consider, once again, how Ratzinger himself swore to Almighty God to reject the very Modernist view of dogmatic truth that he has reiterated in his "capacity" as Benedict XVI:

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. [Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.]

 

No, none of this matters to those who are doing now what I did for many years with Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, pointing to the "good" while minimizing, if not overlooking entirely, the "bad." That which never emanated from the mouths of the true Sovereign Pontiffs before 1958 is considered to be nothing other than "diabolical disorientation" and not indicative of apostasy of the highest and most publicly manifest order. Such an invocation of "diabolical disorientation" to dismiss or to explain away defections from the Catholic Faith that are, in actual point of fact, much more than single drops of poison that have been placed into the well of the Faith by one considered by most people in the world to be the Successor of Saint Peter is gratuitous. It is without any doctrinal, canonical or Patristic support. There is not a single instance of a true Roman Pontiff ever speaking in such a way that defies the anathemas imposed by the solemn disciplinary and teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

Although the "counter-litany," if you will, of Joseph Ratzinger's record as Benedict XVI will not impress those who are so bold as to discount  Ratzinger's lifelong acceptance and propagation of condemned propositions about truth, a brief review of just some of the anti-Catholic words and actions of one of the "Second" Vatican Council's chief planners and ideologues might be helpful for those in the future to review with a bit more dispassion than can be brought to bear by those who consider themselves to be the "center of Catholic gravity" and able thus to judge others on the basis of whether they are to the "right" or to the "left" of their self-aggrandizing proclamation of being at the "center" of all things Catholic:

1. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI committed himself to false ecumenism in his inaugural "Mass" as the "successor" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II.

a. This commitment to false ecumenism that Ratzinger has made from the beginning of his "reign" is not rhetorical. It is real,. It is actual. It permeates everything about Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as he has consistently rejected opportunities presented to him to invite non-Catholics into the true Church. Indeed, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has wished God's "choicest blessings" upon Buddhists and Methodists and Baptists and Zionist athletes, among many others. He has taken off his shoes while entering into the "Blue Mosque" in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2007, so as to signify that he was standing in a "holy" place and turned with his Mohammedan host in the direction of Mecca while assuming the Mohammedan prayer position. Saints gave up their lives rather than to give even the appearance of such apostasy.

b. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI specifically and categorically rejects what he calls derisively the "theology of the return," making a mockery of the work of Pope Pius IX in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868, and Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, as well as the constant missionary work of the Catholic Church:

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English

 

Once again, let us turn to Pope Pius IX and to Pope Pius XI:

It is for this reason that so many who do not share “the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church” must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd. (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. . . .

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is "the root and womb whence the Church of God springs," not with the intention and the hope that "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Only one who is intellectually dishonest can fail to admit publicly that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has betrayed the eternal good of souls by his obstinate refusal to invite non-Catholics into the Church. Indeed, Ratzinger/Benedict XVI arrogantly and defiantly rejects the necessity of such a return. Benedict XVI the friend of God? Benedict XVI the friend of souls? He does not fear the judgment on his soul for refusing to do that which Pope Pius IX said was his pastoral duty, to invite non-Catholics into the Church. Alas, what does that judgment mean to one who believes, although expressing such belief in very clever ways, in the heresy of "universal salvation"? (The Protestant syncretist Roger Schutz has attained "eternal joy"? See: Pope Mourns Murder of Taizé's Brother Roger. Most souls go to Purgatory? The constant tradition of the Church is that the number who are saved are very few. See: The Little Number of Those Who are Saved, by Saint Leonard of Port Maurice.)

The "unity in diversity" lie propagated by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI was handled quite adroitly by Father Francis Connell in 1959:

To characterize the relation between Catholics and Protestants as 'unity-in-diversity' is misleading, inasmuch as it implies that essentially Catholics are one with heretics, and that their diversities are only accidental. Actually, the very opposite is the true situation. For, however near an heretical sect may seem to be to the Catholic Church in its particular beliefs, a wide gulf separates them, insofar as the divinely established means whereby the message of God is to be communicated to souls--the infallible Magisterium of the Church--is rejected by every heretical sect. By telling Protestants that they are one with us in certain beliefs, in such wise as to give the impression that we regard this unity as the predominant feature of our relation with them, we are actually misleading them regarding the true attitude of the Catholic Church toward those who do not acknowledge Her teaching authority. (Father Francis Connell, Father Connell Answers Moral Questions, published in 1959 by Catholic University of America Press, p. 11; quoted in Fathers Dominic and Francisco Radecki, C.M.R.I. TUMULTUOUS TIMES, p. 348.)

 

It should also pointed out (yes, yet again) that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised the "father of spiritual ecumenism" in his August 19, 2005, address to Protestants in Cologne, Germany, one Abbe Paul Couturier, a disciple of none other than the late Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., Just more "diabolical disorientation," huh? What a convenient catch-all to cover a Modernist's "new clothing."

c. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has blasphemed God by calling Mount Hiei in Japan "sacred:"

I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the “Religious Summit Meeting” on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.

From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!

Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy.” Benedict XVI sends message to interreligious meeting in Japan

 

What is sacred about a place where those steeped in a false religion offer their false "worship"? As Mr. Timothy McAleer, a reader of this site who has visited Kyoto, Japan, reminded me recently, the nice, peace-loving Buddhists have persecuted Catholics quite a bit in Japan, even long after the crucifixions of Catholics at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century:

By the way a little more about the Buddhists in Japan, in light of Benedict's cozying up to them. For the 260 years or so that Catholicism was proscribed, the way that the Japanese government rooted out any kakure kirishitans (hidden Christians), was to adopt the practice of fumi-e (stepping picture). The fumi-e were a representation of Jesus and Mary, usually of of Mary holding Jesus at the foot of the cross. They were bronze bas-relief plates set in a wood frame about the length and width of a human foot.

Every year, in every city in Japan (I believe for the full 260 years!), the government had each citizen walk single file into the main Buddhist temple and step on the fumi-e in front of the Buddhist magistrate who sat in lordly fashion atop a dais in judgment. If one of the citizens refused to step on the image, or flinched, they were then pulled out and tortured until they recanted--or killed.

These fumi-e are by now infamous, and are in many museums throughout Japan. (Check the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki Museum in a google search.) This also shows the further profundity of Tecla Hashimoto's sacrifice. All she, a pregnant woman--who obviously loved the child in her womb--had to do to save that child was to step on the fumi-e. But even with the child in her womb as a possible excuse, she refused to do so.

Her husband, seen in the postcard on the cross behind her, was also a person of great virtue, allowing his pregnant wife and kids to go through this for the sake of Our Lord and Our Lady. He was a converted samurai named Johann Kikoya. Tecla's last words--heard through the flames and spoken to her children--were "Pray to Jesus and Mary."

Do we hear anything about this from Ratzinger and his Buddhist friends in Kyoto?

 

Indeed not, Mr. McAleer. Indeed not. Not a word.

Pope Saint Leo the Great did not dismiss blasphemy with benignity as nothing other than "diabolical disorientation." No, he wrote something just a little stronger in his fourteenth epistle, addressed to Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, explaining that those who "take" blasphemy well and who do not denounce it must believe in the blasphemies uttered:

But it is vain for them to adopt the name of catholic, as they do not oppose these blasphemies: they must believe them, if they can listen so patiently to such words. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, Epistle XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Leo the Great | Letters 1-59 )

 

Joseph Ratzinger has said constantly that the "world's religions" can help to build peace. This is apostasy, not diabolical disorientation, thank you. There is only one kind of peace, and that is the peace of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as Pope Pius XI noted in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

The only remedy for such state of affairs is the peace of Christ since the peace of Christ is the peace of God, which could not exist if it did not enjoin respect for law, order, and the rights of authority. In the Holy Scriptures We read: "My children, keep discipline in peace." (Ecclesiasticus xli, 17) "Much peace have they that love the law, O Lord." (Psalms cxviii, 165) "He that feareth the commandment, shall dwell in peace." (Proverbs xiii, 13) Jesus Christ very expressly states: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." (Matt. xxii, 21) He even recognized that Pilate possessed authority from on High (John xiv, 11) as he acknowledged that the scribes and Pharisees who though unworthy sat in the chair of Moses (Matt. xxiii, 2) were not without a like authority. In Joseph and Mary, Jesus respected the natural authority of parents and was subject to them for the greater part of His life. (Luke ii, 51) He also taught, by the voice of His Apostle, the same important doctrine: "Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God." (Romans xiii, 1; cf. also 1 Peter ii, 13, 18)

If we stop to reflect for a moment that these ideals and doctrines of Jesus Christ, for example, his teachings on the necessity and value of the spiritual life, on the dignity and sanctity of human life, on the duty of obedience, on the divine basis of human government, on the sacramental character of matrimony and by consequence the sanctity of family life -- if we stop to reflect, let Us repeat, that these ideals and doctrines of Christ (which are in fact but a portion of the treasury of truth which He left to mankind) were confided by Him to His Church and to her alone for safekeeping, and that He has promised that His aid will never fail her at any time for she is the infallible teacher of His doctrines in every century and before all nations, there is no one who cannot clearly see what a singularly important role the Catholic Church is able to play, and is even called upon to assume, in providing a remedy for the ills which afflict the world today and in leading mankind toward a universal peace.

Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the "true spirit of brotherly love" (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual's soul help thereby to lift us even unto God.

Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God "Who beholdeth the heart," to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time "Christ would be all, and in all." (Colossians iii, 11)

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.

It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. In such a sanctuary of love, parental authority is fashioned after the authority of God, the Father, from Whom, as a matter of fact, it originates and after which even it is named. (Ephesians iii, 15) The obedience of the children imitates that of the Divine Child of Nazareth, and the whole family life is inspired by the sacred ideals of the Holy Family. Finally, Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects, a duty which cannot but ennoble all who live up to its demands. Christ reigns where the position in society which He Himself has assigned to His Church is recognized, for He bestowed on the Church the status and the constitution of a society which, by reason of the perfect ends which it is called upon to attain, must be held to be supreme in its own sphere; He also made her the depository and interpreter of His divine teachings, and, by consequence, the teacher and guide of every other society whatsoever, not of course in the sense that she should abstract in the least from their authority, each in its own sphere supreme, but that she should really perfect their authority, just as divine grace perfects human nature, and should give to them the assistance necessary for men to attain their true final end, eternal happiness, and by that very fact make them the more deserving and certain promoters of their happiness here below.

It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace.

 

Only those who have become complete positivists--or taken all leave of their Catholic senses--can assert with a straight face that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes these words of Pope Pius XI. He does not. He believes in interdenominationalism as the means to social justice within nations and peace among nations. He is just as much a supporter of the Judeo-Masonic United Nations as was Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, who uttered the following blasphemous words before that "world body" on October 4, 1965:

Our message is meant to be, first of all, a moral and solemn ratification of this lofty institution. This message comes from Our historical experience. It is as an "expert in humanity" that We bring to this Organization the suffrage of Our recent Predecessors, that of the entire Catholic Episcopate, and Our own, convinced as We are that this Organization represents the obligatory path of modern civilization and of world peace.

In saying this, We feel We are speaking with the voice of the dead as well as of the living: of the dead who have fallen in the terrible wars of the past, dreaming of concord and world peace; of the living who have survived those wars, bearing in their hearts a condemnation of those who seek to renew them; and of those rightful expectation of a better humanity. And We also make Our own, the voice of the poor, the disinherited, the suffering; of those who long for justice for the dignity of life, for freedom, for well being and for progress. The peoples of the earth turn to the United Nations as the last hope of concord and peace. We presume to present here, together with Our own, their tribute to honour and of hope. That is why this moment is a great one for you also. We know that you are fully aware of this. Now for the continuation of Our message. It looks entirely towards the future. The edifice which you have constructed must never collapse; it must be continually perfected and adapted to the needs which the history of the world will present. You mark a stage in the development of mankind; from now on retreat is impossible; you must go forward. . . .

Gentlemen, you have performed and you continue to perform a great work: the education of mankind in the ways of peace. The United Nations is the great school where that education is imparted, and We are today in the Assembly Hall of that school. Everyone taking his place here becomes a pupil and also a teacher in the art of building peace. When you leave this hall, the world looks upon you as the architects and the builders of peace. Peace, as you know, is not built solely by means of politics and the balance of forces and of interests. It is constructed with the mind, with ideas, with works of peace. You labor in this great construction. But you are still at the beginning of your labors. Will the world ever succeed in changing that selfish and bellicose mentality which, up to now, has woven so much of its history: It is hard to foresee, but it is easy to affirm that it is toward that new history, a peaceful, a truly and fully human history, as promised by God to men of goodwill, that we must resolutely set out. The roads lie well marked before you; the first one is that of disarmament.Paul VI's United Nations Address

 

2. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has constantly propagated the condemned proposition of "religious liberty," doing so in a particularly egregious manner in Verona, Italy, on October 19, 2006, once again blaspheming Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by saying that He instituted a "novelty" in Church-State relations:

Your Convention has rightly considered the theme of citizenship, that is, the question of the civil and political responsibility of Catholics. Christ has come to save the real, concrete man who lives in history and in the community, and so Christianity and the Church have had a public dimension and value from the beginning.

As I wrote in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est (cf. nn. 28-29) on the relationship between religion and politics, Jesus Christ brought a substantial novelty, opening the way towards a more human, freer world through the reciprocal distinction and autonomy of the State and the Church, that is, between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God (cf. Mt 22: 21).

The very religious freedom that we hold as a universal value, particularly necessary in the world today, has its historical roots here. The Church, therefore, is not and does not intend to be a political agent. At the same time she has a profound interest in the good of the political community, whose soul is justice, and offers it her specific contribution at a double level.

Indeed, Christian faith purifies reason and helps it to be better: as a result, with its social doctrine whose argument begins from what is conformed to the nature of every human being, the Church's contribution is to enable whatever is just to be effectively recognized and then also accomplished. To this end, moral and spiritual energies are clearly indispensable as they ensure that the demands of justice are put before personal interests, a social category or even a State. For the Church, here again, there is ample space to root these energies in the conscience, to nourish them and fortify them.

The immediate duty to act in the political sphere to build a just order in society is not the Church's task as such, but that of the lay faithful, who work as citizens under their own responsibility. This is a duty of great importance to which Italian lay Christians are called to dedicate themselves with generosity and courage, illuminated by faith and by the Magisterium of the Church and animated by the charity of Christ.( Fourth National Ecclesial Convention, October 19, 2006, English.)

 

There are just a few problems with this statement.

First, "religious freedom" is not a universal value that was instituted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Pope after pope condemned this false concept, which means, for Ratzinger to be correct that is, that pope after pope had it wrong, that God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, simply failed to guide the "popes of the past" properly, providing a "new" insight with the dawning of the age of conciliarism. For the conciliarists, including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, to be correct, therefore, these firm statements of Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX, which are never--and I mean never--referred to by the conciliarists, must be consigned to Orwellian memory hole and/or dealt with in the Hegelian manner by which Modernists deal with all dogmatic truths that they do not "like:"

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. 15. Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?

The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books. It may be enough to consult the laws of the fifth Council of the Lateran on this matter and the Constitution which Leo X published afterwards lest "that which has been discovered advantageous for the increase of the faith and the spread of useful arts be converted to the contrary use and work harm for the salvation of the faithful." This also was of great concern to the fathers of Trent, who applied a remedy against this great evil by publishing that wholesome decree concerning the Index of books which contain false doctrine."We must fight valiantly," Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames." Thus it is evident that this Holy See has always striven, throughout the ages, to condemn and to remove suspect and harmful books. The teaching of those who reject the censure of books as too heavy and onerous a burden causes immense harm to the Catholic people and to this See. They are even so depraved as to affirm that it is contrary to the principles of law, and they deny the Church the right to decree and to maintain it. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;"3 and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that adherents of false religions have a right to propagate their false beliefs in civil society and that that these false beliefs can "contribute" to the betterment of the world. And while there is indeed a distinction between the civil sphere, which is autonomous in its own areas of competency, and the ecclesiastical sphere, the Catholic Church does not teach that she has no role to play in the development of the just society. Quite the contrary is true. While the specifics of public policy are left to those who hold civil power to determine within the bounds of the immutable precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, Holy Mother Church teaches that she does have the right to be recognized by the civil authorities as the true religion and that she has the right, exercised judiciously and only when the good of souls demands it following the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, to interpose herself with civil authorities to nullify actions that are contrary to the good of souls. Joseph Ratzinger believes in no such thing.

No one who is possession of his faculties can assert honestly that Joseph Ratzinger believes in a single word of Paragraph Three of Pope Saint Pius X's Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."

 

Does anyone want to contend that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that the civil state must aid us in effecting the conquest of our supreme and absolute welfare? Seriously? Really? Some might protest that he doesn't have to believe such a thing. Au contraire, as Pope Pius XI noted in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "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." (Ephesians iv, 14)

 

A "healthy secularity" or the absolute right of the Catholic Church to be recognized by the civil state as its true religion? True, the Church has no choice but to make concessions to the actual reality of things in a given nation. She does so without ever once refusing to teach the full truth about her sacred rights to be recognized by the civil state as the true religion, never ceasing to exhort her children to pray and to work for the conversion of their nations to the true Faith.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's obsession with religious liberty has been such that he has blasphemed the first martyrs of the Church by saying that they died for "religious freedom."

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all. (Christmas Message to Curia, December 22, 2005.)

 

The first martyrs of the Church did not die "for freedom of conscience." They died for the Catholic Faith, refusing to accept a bust of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the Pantheon along with the false gods. In other words, the first martyrs of the Church refused to place the true Faith on a level of equality with false religions. Was Saint Benedict himself wrong to have smashed the altars of idols? Was Saint Boniface wrong to have chopped down the tree worshiped by the pagans in Germany? Was Saint Francis Xavier a "hothead" when he approved of the smashing of pagan shrines in Goa, India?

Coexistence? The Catholic Church seeks with urgency to convert all men to her maternal bosom. One can only accept "coexistence" as the norm if one believes it is possible to hold out "good hope" that men can be saved as they persist in false religions (or no religions at all) until the day they die without ever once being challenged to convert to the Catholic Faith--and if one accepts the lie that the Catholic Church is not the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

3. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI personally chose his protege, William Levada, to succeed himself as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announcing this decision at the Basilica of San Giovanni di Laterano on Friday, May 13, 2005. Levada has presided over the disaster represented by the International Theological Commission's The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized and expressed in an interview with the Whispers in the Loggia website last year the same sort of Modernist notion about the nature of dogmatic truth as possessed by his mentor, Ratzinger:

The role of the Church in that dialogue between an individual and his or her God, says the Cardinal, is not to be the first interlocutor, but the role is indispensable. "We believe that the apostles and their successors received the mission to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges. That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another.

But at the end of the day there has to be an instance that can decide whether a specific lifestyle is coherent with the principles and values of our faith, that can judge whether our actions are in accordance with the commandment to love your neighbor. The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigate different hypotheses, or collect knowledge. Its mission is to give those processes orientation". . . .

 

4. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI acted upon William Levada's recommendation and appointed George Niederauer, another product of the factory of corruption that has been the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, to be his, Levada's, successor as the conciliar "archbishop" of San Francisco. Is it necessary to recount how Niederauer has offended God and harmed souls by such things as praising the motion picture Brokeback Mountain and by continuing to indemnify the open support given to perversity at Most Holy Redeemer Church in San Francisco's Castro district?

5. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sent his two fellow conspirators in the effort to deconstruct the meaning of the Third Secret of Fatima, Angelo "Cardinal" Sodano and Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone, to Fatima to represent him at, respectively, on the ninetieth anniversaries of the first and last apparition of Our Lady in the Cova da Iria in Fatima, Portugal. If the Third Secret of Fatima does not speak of apostasy, then why have the conciliarists gone to such lengths to deconstruct its contents? (See: In League with the Mayor of Ourem.)

6. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has approved the turning of the Shrine of the Most Holy Trinity in Fatima into a center of ecumenical activity, once again blaspheming the Mother of God, who is opposed to false ecumenism, as Father Maximilian Mary Kolbe himself noted at the height of the inter-war ecumenical movement:

"Only until all schismatics and Protestants profess the Catholic Creed with conviction, when all Jews voluntarily ask for Holy Baptism – only then will the Immaculata have reached its goals.”

“In other words” Saint Maximilian insisted, “there is no greater enemy of the Immaculata and her Knighthood than today’s ecumenism, which every Knight must not only fight against, but also neutralize through diametrically opposed action and ultimately destroy. We must realize the goal of the Militia Immaculata as quickly as possible: that is, to conquer the whole world, and every individual soul which exists today or will exist until the end of the world, for the Immaculata, and through her for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.” (Father Karl Stehlin, Immaculata, Our Ideal, Kansas City, Missouri, Angelus Press, 2007, p. 37.)

 

7. As noted in In Full Communion with Apostasy four weeks ago today, on December 27, 2007, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has ordered that a room be made available in the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls in Rome, Italy, to accommodate Protestant services, thus gravely offending God. You mean to say that God is offended by Protestant worship? Yes, consider this brief excerpt from The Exorcism of Nicola Aubrey:

As the strange circumstances of Nicola's possession became known everywhere, several Calvinist preachers came with their followers, to "expose this popish cheat," as they said. On their entrance, the devil saluted them mockingly, called them by name, and told them that they had come in obedience to him. One of the preachers took his Protestant prayer book, and began to read it with a very solemn face. The devil laughed at him, and putting on a most comical look, he said: "Ho! Ho! My good friend; do you intend to expel me with your prayers and hymns? Do you think that they will cause me any pain? Don't you know that they are mine? I helped to compose them!"

"I will expel thee in the name of God," said the preacher, solemnly.

"You!" said the devil mockingly. "You will not expel me either in the name of God, or in the name of the devil. Did you ever hear of one devil driving out another?"

"I am not a devil," said the preacher, angrily, "I am a servant of Christ."

"A servant of Christ, indeed!" said Satan, with a sneer. "What! I tell you, you are worse than I am. I believe, and you do not want to believe. Do you suppose that you can expel me from the body of this miserable wretch? Ha! Go first and expel all the devils that are in your own heart!"

The preacher took his leave, somewhat discomfited. On going away, he said, turning up the whites of his eyes, "O Lord, I pray thee, assist this poor creature!"

"And I pray Lucifer," cried the evil spirit, "that he may never leave you, but may always keep you firmly in his power, as he does now. Go about your business, now. You are all mine, and I am your master."  Exorcism of Nicola Aubrey 

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI further blasphemes Saint Paul, who was most firm in his rejection of intercourse with those outside of the true Church:

Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: And I will receive you; and I will be a Father to you; and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor. 6: 14-18)

But through we, or an Angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you beside that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so I say now again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

For I give you to understand, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For neither did I receive it of man, nor did I learn it; but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion: how that, beyond measure, I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it. And I made progress in the Jews' religion above many of my equals in my own nation, being more abundantly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased him, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I condescended not to flesh and blood. (Galatians 1: 8-16.)

8. Speaking of God having converted Saint Paul, an event we commemorate in tomorrow's liturgy, it should be noted that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has kept Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., as the "Preacher to the Papal Household" despite his having said the following on September 30, 2005:

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

 

"We have lost the right to do by the way in which this was done in the past"? Says who? Did Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ get it wrong when converting Saint Paul on the road to Damascus? Was Our Lady wrong to have appeared to Alphonse Ratisbonne in the Church of San Andrea della Fratte on January 20, 1842? How about Saint Vincent Ferrer? Was he wrong to "proselytize" to the Jews in the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the Fourteenth and the beginning of the Fifteenth Centuries? Oh, well, no bother, huh? Just more "diabolical disorientation." Just more "no fault apostasy." The only people who fall outside the pale of the Church, it appears, are those who insist that the following passage from Pope Pius XI's Mortalium Animos precludes any of this as coming from the Catholic Church:

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly." The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.

 

9. Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone, the conciliar Vatican's Secretary of State, praised the American "bishops" for how they have handled the scandalous crisis caused by their own promotion and protection of each other and of the priests under their own authority who had engaged in the most vile behavior. Bertone blamed the victims of perverted bishops and priests for costing the "church" money, never once considering how these victims were victimized repeatedly by chancery factotums and attorneys and insurance companies. Judge after judge has seen it necessary to throw the book against the deceivers in the chancery offices now under conciliar control. Lies have been told. Menaces to bodies and to souls have been allowed to stay in power. Bertone's comments, made in Nashville, Tennessee, nearly six months ago now, are beneath contempt and indicative of how almost nothing will cause a conciliar "bishop," including the likes of Roger Mahony and his nefarious annual "catechetics congress," to be removed from authority. (See: Enemies of Souls Universally and The Six Hundred Million Dollar Man and His Friends.)

10. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has continued to approve the bestowal of various awards ("papal" knighthood, prestigious medals) to members of the "reformed" sect of Talmudic Judaism, among them Dr. Walter Jacob and Leon Klenicki, each of whom is fully supportive of baby-killing and other crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. Ah, yes, long live the great defender of Tradition and Catholic truth, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. These outrages do not matter if we don't pay any attention to them, right? Just more "diabolical disorientation," more no fault apostasy. No big problem. Nothing signifying a general loss of the Catholic Faith.

11. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sold out the interests of the underground Catholics in Red China by essentially telling them to cooperate with the Communist authorities. (See: A Betrayal Worthy of the Antichrist.)

12. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI "beatified" Father Antonio Rosmini, a proto-Modernist who had forty of his propositions condemned by the Holy Office during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII. Ratzinger, who has an affinity for Rosmini's condemned propositions, personally presided over Rosmini's alleged "rehabilitation" while he was the prefect of conciliarism's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, thereby spitting on the work of Pope Leo XIII himself. Ratzinger refers now and again to "Blessed" Rosmini's "insights," doing so on Friday, January 25, 2008, in an address on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the conciliar Code of Canon Law. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, this proves that Joseph Ratzinger meant it when made the following statement on July 2, 1990, a statement that he has never abjured, indeed, a thoroughly Modernist statement that he reaffirmed in a most forceful manner in his December 22, 2005, Christmas address to the conciliar curia (as noted above):

"The text [of the Second Vatican Council] also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms -- perhaps for the first time with this clarity -- that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.

“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (L'Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990)

13. Walter Kasper is permitted to preside over a Methodist service. Walter Kasper is permitted to discourage the attempted mass conversion of Anglicans to the conciliar church. Walter Kasper presided over Roger Schutz's "funeral Mass." Walter Kasper praised "ecumenism" as our "sacred duty" in a speech before a consistory of the conciliar "cardinals" on November 23, 2007, also including praise for the Balamand Agreement that forbids Catholics to "proselytize" the Orthodox. (See: Conciliarism's Sacred Duty.) Walter Kasper is permitted to remain in power. Silly me. Shouldn't I realize that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI disapproves of everything Kasper says and does? He, Benedict, is just keeping Kasper on board his conciliar team because he gets a few chuckles out of what his fellow German national says. Sure. I got.

14. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has increased the cooperation of the conciliar Vatican with the World Council of Churches, which organization, which supports what it calls "reproductive rights" for women (whose own documents admit that for some "reproductive rights" might mean abortion while for the World Council of Churches it means "the right to choose") is about to honor the aforementioned Walter Kasper for work well done in behalf of the One World Ecumenical Church under the auspices of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

15. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI said on July 26, 2007, "This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favour of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.” I know. I know. Just more "diabolical disorientation." No need for alarm when true science is disproving every single bit of evolutionist propaganda, right? This is not a matter of Faith and morals, is it? We don't have to believe in the Creation account, do we? (See: Listen to the Voice of God.)

16. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI continues to permit those who support the taking of innocent preborn human life under cover of law to remain in "good standing" as members of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, leaving up to his "bishops" to decide whether such individuals should be denied what purports to be Holy Communion. One of his own appointees, "Archbishop" Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., has said that he will not deny what he believes to be Holy Communion to pro-aborts. Episcopal collegiality. Isn't it wonderful? Another great "contribution" of the "Second" Vatican Council.

17. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI made misrepresentations of fact in his accompanying letter to the issuance of Summorum Pontificum on July 7, 2007. Oh, I forgot. There was nothing "official" about that letter. He just "had" to make these misrepresentations as he attempts to succeed where his "predecessor" failed in "fixing" the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and making overtures to traditionally-minded Catholics. Lies are now acceptable as part of "papal" parlance. (See: A Shopworn Line: "He Just 'Had' to Say That.") Traditionally-minded Catholics in the structures of counterfeit church of conciliarism can now take their place alongside the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Focolare and the Cursillo and Communion and Liberation and Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ and scores of other "movements" in the One World Ecumenical Church where "unity of minds" is not necessary for membership.

 

Such a "counter-litany" could go on for quite a while longer. So could a counter-counter litany of the "good" things that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has said and done, some of which is indeed valid and quite Catholic. Such is the insidious nature of Modernism as it mixes truth with error. At some point, however, it has to be recognized that no one who reaffirms non-Catholics in their false religions--and who can blaspheme God by calling a place of false worship sacred--is a friend of God or of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Pope Saint Pius X noted that it is eminently possible for a Modernist, who has a "double mind," to be true to his Modernism part of the time while sounding like a Catholic most of the time:

The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of them may be applied the words which another of Our predecessors Gregory IX, addressed to some theologians of his time: "Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the sacred text...to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science...these men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail and force the queen to serve the handmaid."

This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people, they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

 

The "Second" Vatican Council's new ecclesiology and its embrace of religious liberty and false ecumenism and episcopal collegiality--and conciliarism's overarching warfare against the nature of all truth, including dogmatic truth, emanate from one source: pride, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominci Gregis:

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!

 

We must continue to be grateful to Our Lady for raising up such good shepherds as Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M., S.T.D., and Bishop Robert McKenna, O.P., and the "nine" and those in the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen and Father Francis Miller, O.F.M., and so many other priests who have written so eloquently about the apostasies of the present moment.

As I write constantly, to see the full extent of our ecclesiastical situation, as these good shepherds have done for quite a long time, does not make them any better than anyone else. Those of us who follow them are not one whit better than anyone else. There are indeed wonderful Catholics yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who love God dearly and are tenderly devoted to His Most Blessed Mother, people who just cannot fathom anything as horrible as to believe that we are in a state of general apostasy and betrayal that has extended "all the way to to top" of the conciliar structures for over four decades now. Each of us must work out our salvation in fear and in trembling, making sure to pray for our fellow Catholics as we offer up all of our prayers and sufferings and humiliations and penances and sacrifices to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We must trust in Our Lady in these times of apostasy and betrayal, making sure to pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. We know that she will help us to save our souls and to plant a few seeds for the day in which all men in all nations will exclaim with joy the words uttered by Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., as he was put to death by the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico on November 23, 1927:

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Timothy, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints