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January 14, 2011

Unity and Peace Cannot Be Based in Error and Falsehood

Part Two

by Thomas A. Droleskey

President Barack Hussein Obama's appeal for greater "civility" as a means to "unify" the United States of America after the horrific crime that was committed by a deranged young man, despondent, it appears, over being rejected by a girlfriend he knew in high school, who had no interest in politics and did not listen to talk radio, whether conservative or liberal (see Arizona Gunman Was Not Motivated By Politics), could have been given by the false "pontiff," Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who is planning yet another "Assisi World Day of Peace," which he has praised on numerous occasions since his "election" as the head of his false church on April 19, 2005, including when sending a letter to an Assisi-like meeting that took place on what he termed the "sacred" Mount Hiei in Japan, on August 4, 2007 (see Religious "Liberty" Even For The Adversary). What applies to Obama is applicable also to Ratzinger/Benedict: unity and peace cannot be based in error and falsehood.

The handful of readers who actually read these articles of mine will recall that the false "pontiff" termed "religious freedom" as the "path to peace" in his recent "World Day of Peace" message (see Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part one), in which he praised 1986 Assisi event yet again. He is convinced that "religious freedom" and greater "dialogue" among religions are keys to world peace and fraternal "coexistence" among people of different religions or of no religious faith at all. His mythical, self-made, philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity" and discontinuity" was manufactured to justify his embrace of propositions that have been condemned repeatedly and consistently by true Successors of Saint Peter.

Contrasting sharply with an address, Ci Riesce, given by Pope Pius XII on December 6, 1953, to a meeting of Italian lawyers, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI recently addressed remarks to a group of two hundred Italian parliamentarians in order to endorse yet again the very thing that Pope Pius XII himself condemned, the modern notion of "religious freedom" or "religious liberty:

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 9, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is thanking politicians who are committed to protecting and promoting religious liberty.

The Pope expressed his appreciation today during his traditional Angelus address. Gathered with the faithful in St. Peter's Square was a group of some 200 Italian Parliamentarians, both of the majority and the opposition. They attended the midday Angelus, together with other politicians, in a show of support for the Orthodox Copts of Alexandria, victims of a Jan. 1 attack on a church that claimed the lives of 23.

The delegation released a statement calling for religious liberty, and exhorting national and international institutions to take concrete steps to combat anti-Christian sentiment.

"I greet the group of Italian Parliamentarians present here, and I thank them for their commitment, together with others of their peers, in favor of religious liberty," the Pope said. "With them, I also greet the Coptic faithful here present and I renew to them my closeness."

The day after the attack on the Coptic Christians of Alexandria, the Italian minister of foreign affairs, Franco Frattini, called for a political debate on anti-Christian violence and discrimination at the next EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting. (http://www.zenit.org/article-31399?l=english.)

 

This is the text of Ratzinger/Benedict's short post-Angelus address remarks to the Italian parliamentarians for those of you out there in cyberspace who are fluent in the Italian language:

Saluto il gruppo di Parlamentari italiani, qui presenti, e li ringrazio per il loro impegno, condiviso con altri colleghi, in favore della libertà religiosa. Con loro saluto anche i fedeli copti qui presenti a cui rinnovo la mia vicinanza. (Italian.)

 

Imagine what Ratzinger/Benedict could have done with his priesthood if he used the zeal that he has for error and for redefining and placing into murkiness, if not entirely contradicting, the teaching of the Catholic Church for Its defense in the midst of the errors of our times. He has chosen, most deliberately, to discard those teachings he does not like, using a veritable wave of the hand and an invocation of his "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" to make us believe that truth just kind of goes away or becomes obsolete all on its very own as the circumstances of the times change.

Contrasting with Ratzinger/Benedict's dogged insistence upon a strict adherence to "religious freedom" as the path to stop such violence as that which took place in Alexandria, Egypt, on January 1, 2011, even though the Mohammedans who committed those deadly attacks are more faithful to their false religion than he is to what he thinks is the Catholic Faith, Pope Pius XII discussed the true Catholic understanding of religious toleration, which is far, far different than that of "religious liberty:"

Thus the two principles are clarified to which recourse must be had in concrete cases for the answer to the serious question concerning the attitude which the jurist, the statesman and the sovereign Catholic state is to adopt in consideration of the community of nations in regard to a formula of religious and moral toleration as described above. First: that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated. Secondly: failure to impede this with civil laws and coercive measures can nevertheless be justified in the interests of a higher and more general good. .

. .

The Church must live among them and with them [the nations and peoples of the world]; she can never declare before anyone that she is "not interested." The mandate imposed upon her by her divine Founder renders it impossible for her to follow a policy of non-interference or laissez-faire. She has the duty of teaching and educating in all the inflexibility of truth and goodness, and with this absolute obligation she must remain and work among men and nations that in mental outlook are completely different from each other.

Let Us return now, however, to the two propositions mentioned above: and in the first place to the one which denies unconditionally everything that is religiously false and morally wrong. With regard to this point there never has been, and there is not now, in the Church any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice.

Her deportment has not changed in the course of history, nor can it change whenever or wherever, under the most diversified forms, she is confronted with the choice: either incense for idols or blood for Christ. The place where you are now present, Eternal Rome, with the remains of a greatness that was and with the glorious memories of its martyrs, is the most eloquent witness to the answer of the Church. Incense was not burned before the idols, and Christian blood flowed and consecrated the ground. But the temples of the gods lie in the cold devastation of ruins howsoever majestic; while at the tombs of the martyrs the faithful of all nations and all tongues fervently repeat the ancient Creed of the Apostles.

Concerning the second proposition, that is to say, concerning tolerance in determined circumstances, toleration even in cases in which one could proceed to repression, the Church - out of regard for those who in good conscience (though erroneous, but invincibly so) are of different opinion - has been led to act and has acted with that tolerance, after she became the State Church under Constantine the Great and the other Christian emperors, always for higher and more cogent motives. So she acts today, and also in the future she will be faced with the same necessity. In such individual cases the attitude of the Church is determined by what is demanded for safeguarding and considering the bonum commune, on the one hand, the common good of the Church and the State in individual states, and, on the other, the common good of the universal Church, the reign of God over the whole world. In considering the "pro" and "con" for resolving the "question of facts," as well as what concerns the final and supreme judge in these matters, no other norms are valid for the Church except the norms which We have just indicated for the Catholic jurist and statesman. (Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953.)

 

Toleration is a far, far different concept than asserting that religious falsehoods have the ability to "contribute" to the common good, a concept that was mocked roundly by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910. And no one who is intellectually honest can say that there has not been "any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice" on the part of the leaders counterfeit church of conciliarism concerning an unconditional denial of everything that is religiously false and morally wrong. Happy Diwali? A most precious and dear document (the Koran)? Esteeming the symbols of false religions? There has been little but vacillation and compromise both in theory and in practice on the part of the leaders of the counterfeit church of conciliarism concerning the nature of false religions.

Conciliarists such as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his immediate predecessor in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, have gone far, far beyond the mere toleration of false religions by means of their words and, more importantly, their actions. They have extolled the ability of these false religions to contribute to the common good and to build "world peace." Both Wojtyla and Ratzinger have esteemed the symbols of false religions, the former with his episcopal hands, the latter with his priestly hands. There is no way, ladies and gentlemen, for anyone to find "continuity in discontinuity" between the esteeming of false religions and Pope Pius XII's firm exhortation against any semblance of esteem being shown unto their idols. A review of Bishop George Hay's The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion will show that the Catholic Church has consistently condemned the actions undertaken by the conciliar "pontiffs." Indeed, we must make many acts of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for those offenses to the honor and majesty and glory of God.

The open promotion of unbelief has always been condemned by the Catholic Church. Given the circumstances in which she finds herself today, the Catholic Church can do little to stop this promotion of unbelief as one of the all-too-logical consequences of the natural process of degeneration that must take place in a religiously indifferentist civil state. The counterfeit church of conciliarism shows respect for false religions, thus playing a contributing or supporting role in the devolution of society in the direction of unbelief, especially as its "pontiffs," including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, deny that the civil state has any obligation whatsoever to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to accord her the favor and the protection of the laws.

Yet it is that Ratzinger/Benedict believes that leaders of "religions" can come "together" to help build "peace," which is why he is calling for a third "World Day of Prayer for Peace" to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the scandalous events that took place in Assisi, Italy, on October 27, 1986, and that were repeated at Assisi on January 24, 2002 (see Francis "Cardinal" Arinze's extolling of the teachings of false religions at this "Assisi II' meeting at Day of Prayer at Assisi, 24 January 2002):

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday announced that he would hold an interfaith meeting in Assisi, Italy, this October to mark the 25th anniversary of a watershed meeting held there by his predecessor, John Paul II.

In the ever-shifting legacy of a complex papacy, the announcement seemed intended to show Benedict’s good will toward other faiths after years in which he was criticized by Muslims, Jews and other Christian denominations, especially Anglicans. But it was also significant because as the longtime head of the Vaticans powerful doctrinal office when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was widely seen as having had serious reservations about the 1986 meeting, where leaders of all faiths met and prayed.

In a speech in 1990, then-Cardinal Ratzinger declared interreligious relativism — in effect, honoring other religions as equal to Christianity — “the fundamental problem of faith in our time.” In 2000, he drew intense criticism from leaders of other faiths for “Dominus Jesus,” a document that essentially stated that Christianity was the only true path to salvation. And it has been a recurring theme at the heart of his six-year-old papacy.

Celebrating World Peace Day on Saturday, Benedict said that he would travel as a pilgrim to Assisi in October, inviting Christians of other confessions, leaders of other world faiths “and, ideally, all men of good will, to recall the historic gesture sought by my predecessor and to solemnly renew the commitment of the faithful of all religious to live their own religious faith as a service for the cause of peace.” (Benedict Announces Meeting of Faiths.)

 

Poor Rachel Donadio, the New York Times reporter who wrote this story, has not figured out that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI lives in the murkiness of the "new theology" wherein one mind can hold simultaneously a variety of conflicting, contradictory views without ever realizing that this is so. The murkiness of the "new theology" is evocative of the whole "theology" of Orthodoxy, to whose leaders Ratzinger/Benedict is attempting to appeal when he makes fuzzy and unclear various teachings of the Catholic Church, including on Purgatory (see General Audience of 12 January 2011), which will be the subject of the next brief commentary on this site. I digress, however.

Look at the apostasy contained in his desire to "renew the commitment of the faithful of all religious to live their own religious faith as a service for the cause of peace." In other words, the path to peace is to be found by means of encouraging those who adhere in false religions to be "faithful" to their false beliefs that are odious in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity. And there are some bright-lights out there in cyberspace who say that sedevacantists aren't Catholic? Talk about hubris.

Wasn't one of the reasons that traditionally-minded Catholics opposed the "beatification" of Mother Teresa of Calcutta centered around her having told Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims to be faithful to their false beliefs ("be a good Muslim...be a good Hindu, etc.)? How can Ratzinger/Benedict be given a "pass" on something so basic, something so fundamentally offensive to God and thus harmful to souls. Yet it is that some will try, perhaps believing, as Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, speculated that Assisi III will be better than Assisi II, which was better than Assisi? Seems as though the illogic of the "new theology" is contagious as Bishop Fellay gave one sermon on January 9, 2011, at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet Church in France in which he said that Assisi III would be full of devils before giving a conference later that evening at a different location wherein he nuanced his remarks, speculating that his "pope" would seek to convert those who attend Assisi III (see RORATE CÆLI). (For a reality check on the horror that was Assisi II, see Appendix A below.)

Has Bishop Fellay actually read Ratzinger/Benedict's Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace message?

The year 2011 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Peace convened in Assisi in 1986 by Pope John Paul II. On that occasion the leaders of the great world religions testified to the fact that religion is a factor of union and peace, and not of division and conflict. The memory of that experience gives reason to hope for a future in which all believers will see themselves, and will actually be, agents of justice and peace.

15. The world needs God. It needs universal, shared ethical and spiritual values, and religion can offer a precious contribution to their pursuit, for the building of a just and peaceful social order at the national and international levels. (44th World Day of Peace 2011, Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace.)

 

Remember, Ratzinger/Benedict had warned against syncretism and relativism in the paragraph preceding his praise of Assisi I, which was nothing other than an exercise in syncretism and relativism that was condemned both before and after the fact by the very prelate who ordained Bishop Fellay to the priesthood and consecrated him a bishop, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a a complete violation of the teaching of the Catholic Church and her Code of Canon Law, the one issued in 1917. (See Appendix B below.) For Ratzinger/Benedict, the man who has openly rejected the "ecumenism of the return," to seek the unconditional conversion of leaders of the world's false religions, he would have to be converted himself to the Catholic Faith, which he lost early in the years of his seminary training as he came under the influence of the "new theology" that was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. It is truly astounding to see the extent to which some will go to minimize that which used to be called by its proper name, apostasy.

Did Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI seek to convert the Jews at the synagogue on Rome on Sunday, January 17, 2010. No. (See Saint Peter and Anti-Peter.)

Did he seek to convert the Lutherans when he went into their own temple of false worship in Rome on Sunday, March 14, 2010? No. (See Unity Among Lutherans)?

By what stretch of logic can anyone speculate publicly that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is going to do at Assisi III, what he has never done before: to seek openly the unconditional conversion of all non-Catholics to the true Faith, warning them that their souls are in jeopardy of eternal perdition if they do not so and that the world itself is in need of being ordered exclusively by the Sacred Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Please, by what stretch of logic, of rationality, can one assert such a possibility as within the realm of probability? Absurd. Irresponsible.

Seeing the danger was at hand to Catholic teaching and pastoral praxis, the late Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani warned that those who were attempting to propagate a contradiction of the Church's condemnation of religious liberty had to dispense with the whole meaning of dogmatic truth. Cardinal Ottaviani, writing a somewhat veiled rejoinder to the Americanist Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., explained in Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion, prophetically warned us of the likes of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and their schemes to make it appear as though Catholics can ignore various pronouncements and decrees that make life "inconvenient" for the Church in the "modern" world:

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)

 

Let me reiterate one paragraph from the excerpt taken from Cardinal Ottaviani's essay):

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

 

Who believes this? Take a look at Appendix C to find out. I think, however, that you might be able to take a good, educated guess at his identity.

Unity and peace cannot be based in error and falsehood.

The false spirit exhibited by Barack Hussein Obama in Tucson, Arizona, on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 (see Unity and Peace Cannot Be Based in Error and Falsehood, part one), and by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is one that emanates from an evil spirit, the Master of Lies and the Prince of Darkness. Catholicism and Catholicism alone is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Inter-religious "prayer services" and "dialogue" are from the devil. To convince adherents of false religions that they must be "faithful" to their false beliefs is of the devil. This very clear. This is the talk and the work of Antichrist.

The hour is late. I must arise early.

Pray your Rosaries. Keep making sacrifices to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Remember that that Immaculate Heart of Mary will indeed triumph in the end.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

 

Viva Cristo Rey! 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 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 Hilary of Poitiers, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

Material from The Great Facade on the 1986 Assisi World Day of Peace and Assisi 2002

No doubt the height of the fever engendered by the virus of dialogue was the World Day of Peace at Assisi in October 1986. In the plaza outside the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, the "representatives of the world's great religions" stepped forward one by one to offer their prayers for peace. These "prayers" included the chanting of American Indian shamans. The Pope was photographed standing in a line of "religious leaders," including rabbis, muftis, Buddhist monks, and assorted Protestant ministers, all of them holding potted olive plants. The official Vatican publication on the World Day of Prayer for Peace at Assisi, entitled "World Day of Pray for Peace," pays tribute to the "world's great religions by setting forth their prayers, including an Animist prayer to the Great Thumb. The world's great religions" are honored by the Vatican in alphabetical order: the Buddhist prayer for peace; the Hindu prayer for peace; the Jainist prayer for peace; the Muslim prayer for peace; the Shinto prayer for peace; the Sikh prayer for peace; the Traditionalist African prayer for peace (to "The Great Thumb"); the Traditionalist Amerindian prayer for peace; the Zoroastrian prayer for peace. In a glaring symptom of the end result of ecumenism. and dialogue in the Church, the only prayer not included in the official book is a Catholic prayer for peace. There is only a Christian prayer for peace, which appears after the prayers of the "world's great religions"--and after the Jewish prayer. Catholicism has been subsumed into a generic Christianity.

At the beginning of the list of prayers of the world's religions, there is an amazing statement by Cardinal Roger Etchergary, president of the Pontifical Council on Interreligious Dialogue. According to Etchergary, "Each of the religions we profess has inner peace, and peace among individuals and nations, as one of its aims. Each one pursues this aim in its own distinctive and irreplaceable way." The notion that there is anything "irreplaceable" about the false religions of the world seems difficult to square with the de fide Catholic teaching that God's revelation to His Church is complete and all-sufficient for the spiritual needs of men. Our Lord came among us--so Catholics were always taught--precisely to replace false religions with His religion, with even the Old Covenant undergoing this divinely appointed substitution. Yet the members of all "the world's great religions" were invited to Assisi and asked for their "irreplaceable" prayers for world peace--the "irreplaceable" prayers of false shepherds who preach abortion, contraception, divorce, polygamy, the treatment of women like dogs, the reincarnation of human beings as animals, a holy war against infidel Christians and countless other lies, superstitions and abominations in the sight of God. . . .

[Italian journalist Vittorio] Messori was merely observing the obvious when he stated that the Assisi 2002 implied that the doctrine of every religion is acceptable to God. For example, the invited representative of Voodoo (spelled Vodou by its native practitioners), Chief Amadou Gasseto from Benin, was allowed to sermonize on world peace from a wooden pulpit suitable for a cathedral set up in the lower plaza outside the Basilica of Saint Francis. The Chief declared to the Vicar of Christ and the assembled cardinals and Catholic guests: "The invocation to take prayer in the Prayer for Peace at Assisi is a great honour for me, and it is an honour for all the followers of Avelekete Vodou whose high priest I am." The high priest of Avelekete Vodou then give the Pope and all the Catholic faithful the Vodou prescription for world peace, which included, "asking forgiveness of the protecting spirits of regions affected by violence" and "carrying out sacrifices of reparation and purification, and thus restoring peace." This would involve slitting the throats of goats, chickens, doves, and pigeons and draining their blood from the carotid arteries according to a precise ritual prescription. In other words, the Pope invited a witch doctor to give a sermon to Catholics on world peace. [Thomas A. Droleskey interjection to Bishop Fellay: This was better than Assisi I?]

Among other "representatives of the various religions" who came to the pulpit was one Didi Talwakar, the representative of Hinduism. Talwakar declared that the "divinization of human beings gives us a sense of the worth of life. Not only am I divine in essence, but also everyone else is equally divine in essence...." Talwakar went on to exclaim: "My divine brothers and sisters, from whom much above the station of life where I am, I dare to appeal to humanity, from this august forum, in the blessed presence of His Holiness the Pope...." While Talwakar acknowledges that the Pope is a holy man, he is only one of many such holy men who lead the various religions. Didi prefers to follow another holy man: the Reverend Pandung Shastri Athawale, who heads something called the Swadyaya parivari, which teaches "the idea of acceptance of all religious traditions" and the need to "free the idea of religion from dogmatism, insularity and injunctions," Just the thing Catholics of the postconciliar period need to hear.

The spectacle of Assisi 2002 staggers the Catholic mind, and human language fails in its attempt to adequately describe the unparalleled ecclesial situation in which we now find ourselves--a situation even the Arian heretics of the fourth century would find incredible. Yet, true to form, the neo-Catholic press organs reported the event as if it were a triumph for the Catholic faith--while carefully avoiding any of the shocking images and words that would give scandal to any Catholic who has not been spiritually lobotomized by the postconciliar changes in the Church. (Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Great Facade, Remnant Press, 2002, pp. 83-85; 213-215).

Appendix C

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on Assisi I, 1986

And most recently, the Pope has been in the synagogue of the Jews in Rome. How can the Pope pray with the enemies of Jesus Christ? These Jews know and say and believe that they are the successors of the Jews that killed Jesus Christ, and they continue to fight against Jesus Christ everywhere in the world. At the end of the Pope's visit, the Jews sang a "hymn" that included the line "I believe with all my heart in the coming of the Messiah," meaning that they refuse Jesus as the Messiah, and the Pope had given permission for this denial of Christ be sung in his presence, and he listened, head bowed! And the Holy See announces that in the near future that he will visit Taize to pray with the Protestants, and he himself said in public at St. Paul Outside the Walls that later this year he will hold a ceremony gathering all of the religions of the world together to pray for peace at Assisi in Italy, on the occasion of the Feast of Peace proclaimed by the United Nations due to take place on October 24.

“Now all these facts are public, you have seen them in the newspapers and the media. What are we to think? What is the reaction of our Catholic Faith? That is what matters. It is not our personal feelings, a sort of impression or admission of some kind. It is a question of knowing what our Faith tells us, faced with these facts. Let me quote a few words - not my words - from Canon Naz’s Dictionary of Canon Law, a wholly official and approved commentary on what has been the Catholic Church’s body of law for nineteen centuries. On the subject of sharing in the worship of non-Catholics (after all, this is what we now see Pope and bishops doing), the Church says, in Canon 1258-1: ‘It is absolutely forbidden for Catholics to attend or take any active part in the worship of non-Catholics in any way whatsoever.’ On this Canon the quasi-official Naz Commentary says, and I quote, ‘A Catholic takes active part when he joins in heterodox; i.e., non-Catholic worship with the intention of honouring God by this means in the way non-Catholics do. It is forbidden to pray, to sing or to play the organ in a heretical or schismatic temple, in association with the people worshipping there, even if the words of the hymn or the song or the prayer are orthodox.’ The reason for this prohibition is that any participation in non-Catholic worship implies profession of a false religion and hence denial of the Catholic Faith. By such participation Catholics are presumed to be adhering to the beliefs of the non- Catholics, and that is why Canon 2316 declares them ‘suspect of heresy, and if they persevere, they are to be treated as being in reality heretics.

 

“Now these recent acts of the Pope and bishops, with Protestants, animists and Jews, are they not an active participation in non-Catholic worship as explained by Canon Naz on Canon 1258-1? In which case, I cannot see how it is possible to say that the Pope is not suspect of heresy, and if he continues, he is a heretic, a public heretic. That is the teaching of the Church.

 

Now I don’t know if the time has come to say that the Pope is a heretic; I don’t know if it is the time to say that. You know, for some time many people, the sedevacantists, have been saying ‘there is no more Pope,’ but I think that for me it was not yet the time to say that, because it was not sure, it was not evident, it was very difficult to say that the Pope is a heretic, the Pope is apostate. But I recognize that slowly, very slowly, by the deeds and acts of the Pope himself we begin to be very anxious. I am not inventing this situation; I do not want it. I would gladly give my life to bring it to an end, but this is the situation we face, unfolding before our eyes like a film in the cinema. I don’t think it has ever happened in the history of the Church, the man seated in the chair of Peter partaking in the worship of false gods.

 

“What conclusion must we draw in a few months if we are confronted by these repeated acts of partaking in false worship? I don’t know. I wonder. But I think the Pope can do nothing worse than call together a meeting of all religions, when we know there is only one true religion and all other religions belong to the devil. So perhaps after this famous meeting of Assisi, perhaps we must say that the Pope is a heretic, is apostate. Now I don’t wish yet to say it formally and solemnly, but it seems at first sight that it is impossible for a Pope to be publicly and formally heretical. Our Lord has promised to be with him, to keep his faith, to keep him in the Faith - how can he at the same time be a public heretic and virtually apostatise? So it is possible we may be obliged to believe this Pope is not Pope. (The Angelus, July 1986, transcripts of talks given by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on March 30 and April 18, 1986.)

 

 





© Copyright 2011, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.