by
Thomas A. Droleskey
As has been noted on this site quite a lot in the past nearly six years now, paradox and contradiction are of the essence of the the Modernist mindset of those who control the counterfeit church of conciliarism. I have explained in the past how Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's penchant for self-contradiction is evident even to some sedeplenists (that is, those who believe that the papal seat is held legitimately at this time by Benedict XVI):
In Cardinal Ratzinger’s Values in a Time of Upheaval, he muddies up his phrase [the dictatorship of relativism]; indeed, he reverses his position. He says, “The modem concept of democracy seems indissolubly linked to that of relativism.” Well, well! But then he backtracks: “This means that a basic element of truth, namely, ethical truth, is indispensable to democracy.” But then he backtracks again: “We do not want the State to impose one particular idea of the good on us. ... Truth is controversial, and the attempt to impose on all persons what one part of the citizenry holds to be true looks like enslavement of people’s consciences.” And he says this on the same page!
Yes, we know: Some of our readers feel that the Pope is above all criticism; he cannot make a mistake, even in his previous writings. But what he has written here is contradictory and inscrutable.
Ratzinger says, “The relativists ...[are] flirting with totalitarianism even though they seek to establish the primacy of freedom ...” Huh?
So, what is he saying? “The State is not itself the source of truth and morality.... Accordingly, the State must receive from outside itself the essential measure of knowledge and truth with regard to that which is good. ... The Church remains outside’ the State. ... The Church must exert itself with all its vigor so that in it there may shine forth moral truth ...”
Then he says, “Conscience is the highest norm [italics in original] and ... and one must follow it even against authority. When authority - in this case the Church’s Magisterium - speaks on matters of morality, it supplies the material that helps the conscience form its own judgment, but ultimately it is only conscience that has the last word.”
So the Church’s Magisterium will not “exert itself with all its vigor,” because “conscience has the last word.” Indeed, Ratzinger says that “one must follow the erring conscience.” Does the Church support relativism too? Pope John Paul II said in his Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, “Conscience is not an infallible judge” (n. 62; italics in original).
What happened to a rightly formed conscience? The Catechism says, “Personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church” (n. 2039), and “One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience” (n. 1793). (A Contradictory Definition of Relativism. See also: 
Cardinal Ratzinger's Subjectivism.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not realize that he contradicts himself almost incessantly. He has, for instance, explained in different allocutions and addresses that "the" key to world peace is "religious liberty" and that "the" key to world peace is "coexistence" among religions and that "the" key to world peace is to "respect creation" and that "the" key to world peace is to reject the "dictatorship of relativism." That's a lot of keys.
There are, however, few things more relativistic and self-contradictory than Ratzinger/Benedict's own "New Theology," which is premised upon the belief that truth can contain within itself the seeds of its own internal contradictions, something that was believed by the false "pontiff's own mentor, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar (see
The Inflated Reputation of Hans Urs von Balthasar).
At the root of Ratzinger/Benedict's approach to Faith and Morals is his rejection of the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which is founded on clarity of thought and logic. Ratzinger himself has told us in his own autobiography that he found the writing of the Angelic Doctor to be too "crystal clear" for his own liking. This says a lot about the conciliarist mindset as those who reject the method of one of the greatest sons of Saint Dominic de Guzman, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, are never free from the suspicion of error and heresy, something that Pope Leo XIII made clear in Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879:
But, furthermore, Our predecessors in the Roman pontificate have celebrated the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas by exceptional tributes of praise and the most ample testimonials. Clement VI in the bull 'In Ordine;' Nicholas V in his brief to the friars of the Order of Preachers, 1451; Benedict XIII in the bull 'Pretiosus,' and others bear witness that the universal Church borrows luster from his admirable teaching; while St. Pius V declares in the bull 'Mirabilis' that heresies, confounded and convicted by the same teaching, were dissipated, and the whole world daily freed from fatal errors; others, such as Clement XII in the bull 'Verbo Dei,' affirm that most fruitful blessings have spread abroad from his writings over the whole Church, and that he is worthy of the honor which is bestowed on the greatest Doctors of the Church, on Gregory and Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome; while others have not hesitated to propose St. Thomas for the exemplar and master of the universities and great centers of learning whom they may follow with unfaltering feet. On which point the words of Blessed Urban V to the University of Toulouse are worthy of recall: 'It is our will, which We hereby enjoin upon you, that ye follow the teaching of Blessed Thomas as the true and Catholic doctrine and that ye labor with all your force to profit by the same.' Innocent XII, followed the example of Urban in the case of the University of Louvain, in the letter in the form of a brief addressed to that university on February 6, 1694, and Benedict XIV in the letter in the form of a brief addressed on August 26, 1752, to the Dionysian College in Granada; while to these judgments of great Pontiffs on Thomas Aquinas comes the crowning testimony of Innocent VI: 'is teaching above that of others, the canonical writings alone excepted, enjoys such a precision of language, an order of matters, a truth of conclusions, that those who hold to it are never found swerving from the path of truth, and he who dare assail it will always be suspected of error.'
The ecumenical councils, also, where blossoms the flower of all earthly wisdom, have always been careful to hold Thomas Aquinas in singular honor. In the Councils of Lyons, Vienna, Florence, and the Vatican one might almost say that Thomas took part and presided over the deliberations and decrees of the Fathers, contending against the errors of the Greeks, of heretics and rationalists, with invincible force and with the happiest results. But the chief and special glory of Thomas, one which he has shared with none of the Catholic Doctors, is that the Fathers of Trent made it part of the order of conclave to lay upon the altar, together with sacred Scripture and the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs, the 'Summa' of Thomas Aquinas, whence to seek counsel, reason, and inspiration.
A last triumph was reserved for this incomparable man -- namely, to compel the homage, praise, and admiration of even the very enemies of the Catholic name. For it has come to light that there were not lacking among the leaders of heretical sects some who openly declared that, if the teaching of Thomas Aquinas were only taken away, they could easily battle with all Catholic teachers, gain the victory, and abolish the Church. A vain hope, indeed, but no vain testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, August 4, 1879.)
It is no wonder, therefore, that confusion and chaos reign supreme throughout the counterfeit church of conciliarism as "conservative" conciliarists are sometimes very much at odds with "progressive" conciliarists as to whose interpretation of the "Second" Vatican Council is legitimate (see
Contradictors Contradicting Each Other as They Contradict the Faith). Open warfare has broken out in the past decade between a few "conservative" "bishops" in the United States of America and their more "progressive" confreres over whether to distribute what purports to be Holy Communion to Catholic pro-aborts in public life. The conciliar Vatican, far from siding with the "conservative" "bishops," has taken a middle course in most instances, going so far as to accept the resignation of the conciliar "bishop" of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Joseph Martino, because he was too outspoken in his opposition against pro-abortion Catholic politicians, including the Vice President of the United States of America, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (Spotlight On The Ordinary).
Subjectivism and the exaltation of individual conscience are "key" (pardon me) constituent parts of Modernism and the Modernist world view. Pope Saint Pius X explained this very cogently in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:
10. It is thus that the religious sense, which through the agency of vital
immanence emerges from the lurking-places of the subconsciousness, is the germ
of all religion, and the explanation of everything that has been or ever will be
in any religion. This sense, which was at first only rudimentary and almost
formless, under the influence of that mysterious principle from which it
originated, gradually matured with the progress of human life, of which, as has
been said, it is a certain form. This, then, is the origin of all. even of
supernatural religion. For religions are mere developments of this religious
sense. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with
the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, and by no
other way, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature,
whose like has never been, nor will be. In hearing these things we shudder
indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet,
Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers.
There are Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly; and they
boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings! The question is
no longer one of the old error which claimed for human nature a sort of right to
the supernatural. It has gone far beyond that, and has reached the point when it
is affirmed that our most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated
from nature spontaneously and of itself. Nothing assuredly could be more utterly
destructive of the whole supernatural order. For this reason the Vatican Council
most justly decreed: "If anyone says that man cannot be raised by God to a
knowledge and perfection which surpasses nature, but that he can and should, by
his own efforts and by a constant development, attain finally to the possession
of all truth and good, let him be anathema." (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI fuels this subjectivism at almost every turn. He has done this repeatedly throughout his priestly life, including since his election as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism on Tuesday, April 19, 2005. Ratzinger/Benedict has razed one bastion after another as he has used his condemned New Theology
to attempt to make many of our saints, including the Fathers and the Doctors of Holy Mother Church, as witnesses in behalf of the false doctrine of the false church of conciliarism. Countless have been the articles on this site dealing with this wholesale effort to redefine the Catholic Faith in the warped image of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes."
The false "pope" is starting to make noises about trying to find a way to let divorced and civilly remarried Catholics into receiving what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service while at the same time "reaffirming" the indissolubility of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
Vaticanologist and Ratzinger apologist Sandro Magister summarized this matter in the first section of an article he wrote to analyze an essay that the then "Cardinal" Ratzinger wrote in 1998 and was republished recently in L'Osservatore Romano:
ROME, December 5, 2011 – During Benedict XVI's recent visit to Germany,
many were expecting "openness" from the pope to divorced and remarried
Catholics: with the attenuation, if not the revocation, of the ban on
receiving communion.
This expectation was expressed by the
president of the German federal republic himself, Christian Wulff,
Catholic and remarried, in the official welcome he extended to the pope
at his arrival in Berlin.
Neither during the four days of his
voyage to Germany, however, nor afterward, did pope Joseph Ratzinger say
anything on this issue.
But it is well known that this question
is very close to his heart. He has spoken of it repeatedly in the past,
and has said that "the problem is very difficult and must be explored
further."
Last November 30, Benedict XVI returned to the issue in
indirect form: with the republication in "L'Osservatore Romano" of a
"little-known" essay of his from 1998, supplemented with a footnote
presenting his remark on this issue to the clergy of the diocese of
Aosta on July 25, 2005.
An important footnote, because it
concerns precisely one of the points on which Benedict XVI maintains
that an exception could be opened in the general ban on communion. (No Communion for Outlaws. But Benedict Is Studying Two Exceptions.)
What's difficult to following words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? "Every one that putteth away his wife, and
marrieth another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her that is
put away from her husband, committeth adultery" (Luke 16: 18.)
Ah, the false "pontiff" believes that the problem of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics is "very difficult and must be explored further." Difficult?
Leave to Ratzinger/Benedict to make the simple quite complex and difficult as found in the Sandro Magister analysis of the 1998 Ratzinger essay:
In the third part of his essay, Pope Benedict replies to those who
demand that the Catholic Church respect the choice of the divorced and
remarried when "in conscience" they believe it just to receive
communion, in contrast with the juridical norm that bans it.
Benedict XVI begins with a consideration that seems to close any sort of loophole:
"If
the prior marriage of two divorced and remarried members of the
faithful was valid, under no circumstances can their new union be
considered lawful and therefore reception of the sacraments is
intrinsically impossible. The conscience of the individual is bound to
this norm without exception." A norm, the indissolubility of marriage,
that is of "divine law" and "over which the Church has no discretionary
authority."
But immediately afterward, he adds:
"However,
the Church has the authority to clarify those conditions which must be
fulfilled for a marriage to be considered indissoluble according to the sense of Jesus' teaching."
And, he writes, the ecclesiastical
tribunals that should ascertain whether or not a marriage is valid do
not always function well. Sometimes the processes "last an excessive
amount of time." In some cases "they conclude with questionable
decisions."In still others "mistakes occur."
In these cases,
therefore – the pope recognizes –, "it seems that the application of
'epikeia' in the internal forum is not automatically excluded," meaning a
decision of conscience:
"Some theologians are of the opinion
that the faithful ought to adhere strictly even in the internal forum to
juridical decisions which they believe to be false. Others maintain
that exceptions are possible here in the internal forum, because the
juridical forum does not deal with norms of divine law, but rather with
norms of ecclesiastical law. This question, however, demands further
study and clarification. Admittedly, the conditions for asserting an
exception would need to be clarified very precisely, in order to avoid
arbitrariness and to safeguard the public character of marriage,
removing it from subjective decisions". (No Communion for Outlaws. But Benedict Is Studying Two Exceptions.)
This is vintage Ratzinger doublespeak.
The false "pontiff" is trying to maintain the Catholic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage while at the same time "rediscovering" the "sense" of a teaching that is very clear. This is just another manifestation of Ratzinger/Benedict's lack of understanding of the nature of the immutability of God, Who is immutable. Ratzinger/Benedict thus proceeds to analyze almost every point of Catholic doctrine and pastoral praxis on the basis of the agnosticism critiqued by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. That is, Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe that anything about the Catholic Faith is ever truly settled once and for all, something that Pope Saint Pius X noted in Pascendi Dominci Gregis:
It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From
all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager
is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is
absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. They wish philosophy to
be reformed, especially in the ecclesiastical seminaries. They
wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the history of
philosophy and to be classed among absolute systems, and the young men
to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited to the
times in which we live. They desire the reform of theology:
rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and
positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma. As for
history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods
and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to
be harmonized with science and history. In the Catechism no dogmas are
to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the
capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of
external devotions is to be reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent
their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of
symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head. They cry out
that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its
branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments
They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into
harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards
democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be
given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and
authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized The
Roman Congregations and especially the index and the Holy Office, must
be likewise modified The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line of
conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside
political organizations it must adapt itself to them in order to
penetrate them with its spirit. With regard to morals, they
adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are
more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in
practice. They ask that the clergy should return to their
primitive humility and poverty, and that in their ideas and action they
should admit the principles of Modernism; and there are some who, gladly
listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the
suppression of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the
Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their
principles? (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Everything must be "discovered" and expressed anew.
What Ratzinger/Benedict is saying, therefore, on the issue of giving what he thinks is Holy Communion to those engaged in adulterous marriages is that "we will uphold the teaching on the indissolubility of marriage by changing the meaning of what constitutes an indissoluble marriage, thereby making it possible for those who are divorced and civilly remarried to resort to a 'solution' within the confessional that is pastorally sensitive to their 'difficult' circumstances."
This is similar to the conciliar protestations that the Assisi events have not been exercises in religious syncretism when, of course, they have been precisely this. Simply saying that something is not so does nothing to change the reality of what an event actually is in the eyes of God. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has "prayed" with ministers of false religions. He has entered into their places of false worship. He has esteemed the symbols of false religions. He has extolled the nonexistent ability of false religions to "contribute" to the common good and the building of a just world order and world peace. Masquerading as a "true pope," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has even given "joint blessings" with the likes of Rowan Williams, the layman masquerading as the "archbishop" of Canterbury. None of this is from the Catholic Church. All of this represents efforts to destroy the Catholic Faith.
Ratzinger/Benedict's attempt to find a way to give what purports to be Holy Communion to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics is also exactly what he has done in endorsing a thesis, separation of Church and State, called "absolutely false" by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and in defining a "new way" the relationship of what he thinks is the Catholic Church with what he calls "the faith of Israel," which is, of course the faith of the devil himself:
Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious
tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the
relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In
particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general,
with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was
necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between
the Church and the faith of Israel. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
In other words, God the Holy Ghost "kept" things from Holy Mother Church for nearly two millennia. Preposterous. More the point of course, this is blasphemous.
Sandro Magister's article concludes with his own commentary of the 1998 Ratzinger essay that has been republished recently, doing so after he quoted from that 1998 article wherein Ratzinger warned against "watering down" the doctrine on this matter. This, too, is subjectivism as it all depends on what one means by "watering down," doesn't it?
Here ends the thought of Benedict XVI on communion for divorced and
remarried Catholics, which he wanted to reiterate with the republication
of this essay from 1998.
The "openness" indicated by the pope in the essay and in the supplemental footnote has at least two parts.
The
first is the possible expansion of the canonical recognition of the
nullity of marriages celebrated "without faith" by at least one of the
spouses, although baptized.
The second is the possible recourse
to a decision "in the internal forum" to receive communion by a divorced
and remarried Catholic if the lack of recognition of the nullity of his
previous marriage (because of a verdict held to be erroneous or because
of the impossibility of proving its nullity in procedural form) were to
contrast with his firm conviction of conscience that that marriage was
objectively null.
In fact, this latter is a practice that tends
to be expanded far beyond its limits, on the part of divorced and
remarried Catholics who have never even approached the canonical
tribunals to regularize their position, nor intend to do so, but all the
same receive communion at their own discretion, with or without the
approval of a confessor.
On both the one and the other avenue, Benedict XVI hopes that the exploration will proceed.
And
he is making it known that he hopes for a positive result in both
cases, "without compromising the truth in the name of charity." (No Communion for Outlaws. But Benedict Is Studying Two Exceptions.)
Conscience must, according to Ratzinger/Benedict, trump the decision of what he believes is a duly constituted ecclesiastical tribunal of the Catholic Church. Pure subjectivism. Pure Modernism.
One of the sad ironies of this is that Ratzinger/Benedict's approach is already in use by one set of traditional priests who fashion themselves to be champions of the true state of the Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal. In both instances, that is, whether that of Ratzinger/Benedict or the traditional clergy, there is simply a lack of belief that the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood that flow into our souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for Catholics in these circumstances to live a Josephite marriage. Such is the stuff of naturalism. It is the stuff of rank unbelief.
Pope Pius XII spoke directly to the alleged "impossibility" of Catholic couples to abstain from that which is proper to marriage when he address Italian midwives on the nature their profession on October 29, 1951:
Perhaps you will now press the point, however, observing that in the
exercise of your profession you find yourselves sometimes faced with
delicate cases, in which, that is, there cannot be a demand that the
risk of maternity be run, a risk which in certain cases must be
absolutely avoided, and in which as well the observance of the agenesic
periods either does not give sufficient security, or must be rejected
for other reasons. Now, you ask, how can one still speak of an
apostolate in the service of maternity?
If, in your sure and experienced judgment, the circumstances require
an absolute "no," that is to say, the exclusion of motherhood, it would
be a mistake and a wrong to impose or advise a "yes." Here it is a
question of basic facts and therefore not a theological but a medical
question; and thus it is in your competence. However, in such cases, the
married couple does not desire a medical answer, of necessity a negative
one, but seeks an approval of a "technique" of conjugal activity which
will not give rise to maternity. And so you are again called to exercise
your apostolate inasmuch as you leave no doubt whatsoever that even in
these extreme cases every preventive practice and every direct attack
upon the life and the development of the seed is, in conscience,
forbidden and excluded, and that there is only one way open, namely, to
abstain from every complete performance of the natural faculty. Your
apostolate in this matter requires that you have a clear and certain
judgment and a calm firmness.
It will be objected that such an abstention is impossible, that such
a heroism is asking too much. You will hear this objection raised; you
will read it everywhere. Even those who should be in a position to judge
very differently, either by reason of their duties or qualifications,
are ever ready to bring forward the following argument: "No one is
obliged to do what is impossible, and it may be presumed that no
reasonable legislator can will his law to oblige to the point of
impossibility. But for husbands and wives long periods of abstention are
impossible. Therefore they are not obliged to abstain; divine law cannot
have this meaning."
In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a
false conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the
terms of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is
impossible. But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their
union cannot be completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in
this case abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can
be brought forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the
chapter on the observance necessary and possible of referring to a
passage of St. Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible
but while He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for
the grace for what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be
able".
Do not be disturbed, therefore, in the practice of your profession
and apostolate, by this great talk of impossibility. Do not be disturbed
in your internal judgment nor in your external conduct. Never lend
yourselves to anything which is contrary to the law of God and to your
Christian conscience! It would be a wrong towards men and women of our
age to judge them incapable of continuous heroism. Nowadays, for many a
reason,—perhaps constrained by dire necessity or even at times oppressed
by injustice—heroism is exercised to a degree and to an extent that in
the past would have been thought impossible. Why, then, if circumstances
truly demand it, should this heroism stop at the limits prescribed by
the passions and the inclinations of nature? It is clear: he who does
not want to master himself is not able to do so, and he who wishes to
master himself relying only upon his own powers, without sincerely and
perseveringly seeking divine help, will be miserably deceived.
Here is what concerns your apostolate for winning married people over
to a service of motherhood, not in the sense of an utter servitude under
the promptings of nature, but to the exercise of the rights and duties
of married life, governed by the principles of reason and faith. (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)
There you have it. For anyone
to assert that it is "impossible" for a married couple to maintain
complete marital abstinence by mutual consent if truly extraordinary
circumstances require it, whether for reasons of being remarried
invalidly after having received a decree of nullity from a conciliar
tribunal or for the reasons outlined by Pope Pius XII in 1951, that it
is "too tough" for them to do so, perhaps it would be more than little
wise to become familiar with these words of Pope Pius XII cited just
above:
In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a
false conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the
terms of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is
impossible. But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their
union cannot be completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in
this case abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can
be brought forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the
chapter on the observance necessary and possible of referring to a
passage of St. Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible
but while He commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for
the grace for what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be
able". (Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, October 29, 1951.)
Modernism is agnosticism. It is unbelief, and it is an unbelief that is shared, perhaps unwittingly, by anyone and everyone who thinks that it is "too difficult" to live in accordance with the law of God exactly as Holy Mother Church has defined it for us.
Ratzinger/Benedict really meant it when he wrote the following in Principles of Catholic Theology:
Does this mean that the Council should be revoked? Certainly not. It
means only that the real reception of the Council has not yet even
begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the Council was
not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes clear
precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes. What was
identified with the Council was, for the most part, the expression of an
attitude that did not coincide with the statements to be found in the
text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency in its
development and in some of its individual formulations. The task is not,
therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real
Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present
experience. That means that there can be no return to the Syllabus,
which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation with
liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage.
In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for Christians
the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von Balthasar
pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the bastions" is a long-overdue task. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 391)
Yes, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is Still Whittling Away At Those Remaining Bastions, thus fulfilling the words of Pope Pius VIII in his one and only encyclical letter, Traditi Humilitati Nostrae,
May 24, 1829, when he condemned such "razing of the bastions," prophetically
pointing out the very revolution embraced by conciliarism and by one of
its chief progenitors and defenders, Joseph Ratzinger:
Although
God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This is due to the
numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines which, no
longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously, attack the
Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised the standard
of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which they proclaim
themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised according to
natural reason. In the first place, the Roman See is assailed
and the bonds of unity are, every day, being severed. The authority of
the Church is weakened and the protectors of things sacred are snatched
away and held in contempt. The holy precepts are despised, the
celebration of divine offices is ridiculed, and the worship of God is
cursed by the sinner. All things which concern religion are relegated to
the fables of old women and the superstitions of priests. Truly
lions have roared in Israel. With tears We say: "Truly they have
conspired against the Lord and against His Christ." Truly the impious
have said: "Raze it, raze it down to its foundations."
.
Among these heresies belongs that foul contrivance of the sophists
of this age who do not admit any difference among the different
professions of faith and who think that the portal of eternal salvation
opens for all from any religion. They, therefore, label with the stigma
of levity and stupidity those who, having abandoned the religion which
they learned, embrace another of any kind, even Catholicism.
This is certainly a monstrous impiety which assigns the same praise and
the mark of the just and upright man to truth and to error, to virtue
and to vice, to goodness and to turpitude. Indeed this deadly idea
concerning the lack of difference among religions is refuted even by the
light of natural reason. We are assured of this because the various
religions do not often agree among themselves. If one is true, the other
must be false; there can be no society of darkness with light. Against
these experienced sophists the people must be taught that the profession
of the Catholic faith is uniquely true, as the apostle proclaims: one
Lord, one faith, one baptism Jerome used to say it this way: he who eats
the lamb outside this house will perish as did those during the flood
who were not with Noah in the ark. Indeed, no other name than the name
of Jesus is given to men, by which they may be saved. He who believes
shall be saved; he who does not believe shall be condemned.
Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., explained in but one sentence the simple fact those steeped in error cannot have any part in the Catholic Church, meaning that Federico Lombardi's desire to put aside "differences" is of the devil, not of God:
There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the true Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, commentary on the life of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.)
May our recitation of the Joyful Mysteries today help us to prepare in the final days of this Advent for the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord on Christmas Day. We need to make more and more reparation for our sins as we entrust the difficulties of the present moment to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Vivat Christus Rex!
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 Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
