Comment
Many, if not most, Catholics appear to think that as long as the members of various non-Catholic denominations and religions are “good people”, then it doesn’t matter if they belong to false religions. Why do they think that, even as they are purporting to celebrate the birth of the Saviour of the world?
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Comments (39)
Editor,
The priest in that video couldn’t have explained the modernist error of Religious Liberty any clearer. It was a very concise and accurate lesson that should make any Catholic of good will question the ecumenism and inter-religious initiatives of post-Vatican II.
Athanasius,
I couldn’t agree more. I decided to post something on the subject after hearing from a friend how, at their Christmas gathering, when the subject turned to the refugee influx, her family appeared to be of one mind about the “fact” that all people of good will, whether Catholics or not, were spiritually sound and safe. So when I found this video (and the others in the series look promising, as well) I thought it worth posting here.
I hope the others find it stimulating, and it would be particularly good to hear from readers/visitors who have been forced to re-think the issue after seeing that short, very clear, explanation.
Editor,
Since the priest who presented the video has links to Angelus Press, I thought I might post here a link to my Angelus article of April 2014, which also addresses Religious Liberty. This is the pdf file that was re-published on the Catholic Truth blog in November of the same year. It saves me cutting and pasting quotations from it!
https://catholictruthblogdotcom1.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/fiddling-while-rome-burns-vatican-ii-in-retrospect.pdf
After watching this video, which is by far the clearest exhibition of religious liberty according to a traditional Catholic viewpoint, how would this be put into practice? Would it mean an end to all public expressions of non-Catholic religions, the illegality of non-Catholic places of worship, publishing houses, seminaries etc? Of course in Salazar’s Portugal and Franco’s Spain, non-Catholics could only worship in private. What if non-Catholics protested for more rights? I always thought it somewhat hypocritical to limit the freedom of others and yet campaign for our own freedom in non-Catholic countries. Should Catholics campaign for the freedom of the Orthodox, Protestants and other Christian denominations in Muslim countries, or not, given that they are false Churches?
CC
Why would Our Lord want His Catholic countries to grant false cults freedoms? So that they can teach His children error? So that they can steal souls away from Him? The leader of a Catholic country is suppose to be like The Good Shepherd.
3LittleShepherds,
I still think that non-Catholic faiths should be able to minister to their own flocks in Catholic countries, in the form of running their own schools, publishing houses etc, and they should be able to worship freely in private. Interestingly, in the Papal States, the only religion permitted to be practiced was Judaism. You cannot force people into converting to another faith, as Jews and Muslims were in Spain, or Catholics in post-‘reformation’ England and Scandinavia, as that faith would not be genuine and they would practice in private. Examples of this include to Moriscos (Crypto-Muslims) and Marranos (Crypto-Jews). However, whilst allowing non-Catholics their own facilities they should be banned from propagating their faith to Catholics. Preventing them from having there own facilities will not make them convert, if anything it will make them hate Catholicism. Obviously Divine Truth is objective and ours is the True Religion, but not everyone wants to be Catholic for whatever reason, and we should pray for people to come to the Truth.
CC
I wish I could meet the people who instructed you. They really have an awful lot for which to answer.
Nobody is coerced into Catholicism by virtue of the fact that they must adhere to certain rules in a Catholic country – not that there are any left. Catholics living in a Muslim country are not permitted to build churches or hold public “worship” gatherings – there are stories about dire consequences for those found in possession of a bible, for goodness sake. Doesn’t make folks hate Islam. In fact, as an aside, allow me to observe that it seems clear that NOTHING makes ANYONE hate Islam these days.
Yet again, you are thinking as a contemporary human being versed, if not brainwashed, in the mindset of the adherents of so-called democracy and liberalism.
What you LACK, I’m sorry to say, and it is key to this discussion, is a basic comprehension of the fact that we must “put on the mind of Christ” if we wish to understand the things of God.
It is nonsensical to say, “this is a Catholic country, where Christ the King reigns” and then add, in effect: “But, hey, if you want to build schools and places of false worship to teach something different, that’s fine with me and, really, I don’t think God will be that bothered, not really. Sure, He left us a determined body of doctrine that applies to everyone, everywhere and at all times, but look, if you want to play around with that a bit and teach bits of it to your children, well, I don’t see the problem. I’d rather you passed on false teaching, than hated Catholics”
Reflect. God is not fooled by democracy, liberal (non) thinking or anything else. If anybody hates Catholicism, it’s because Christ warned us that they would: “as the world hates Me, so it will hate you.” Don’t worry about that. Do the right thing and (don’t) be damned.
CC, may I suggest that – in addition to your daily rosary – you offer a short prayer to St Thomas Aquinas to win the grace of a clear mind for you? You do (and I say this respectfully) show quite a bit of confusion still, in your comments and questions here.
But note… if St Thomas Aquinas doesn’t answer your prayer soon, I’ll be blocking you from this blog! Only kidding! 😀
Editor,
I agree with you entirely. It makes no sense whatsoever to proclaim Christ as King and then permit false religions to proselytise.
If non Catholics wish to live in a Catholic country and want to “worship” their false god then they can do so in private homes. They do not have the right or the freedom to build schools or places of worship. If they have a problem with this, I guess they can find somewhere else to live.
I have always failed to see the link between proclaiming Christ as King of the nation and coercion to become Catholic. I don’t see Muslims turning around and saying that they feel they need to become Catholic because planning permission for a minaret has been denied!
‘If non Catholics wish to live in a Catholic country and want to “worship” their false god then they can do so in private homes. They do not have the right or the freedom to build schools or places of worship. If they have a problem with this, I guess they can find somewhere else to live’.
What if non-Catholics such as Protestants in France, Waldensians in Italy or Orthodox Christians/ Jews in Poland happened to live under a Catholic State if True Catholicism returned to these countries and the Social Reign of Christ the King was enforced and the Government closed their schools, publishing houses, seminaries and banned the construction of their Churches, are you seriously saying that such a government should say “if you don’t like it then go and live in England, Germany, Russia or Israel, where you can practice your religion freely”?
I’m sorry but I think this unjust. These people are as French, Italian and Polish as Catholics.
CC,
Both this comment and the one beneath it at 7.19pm represent straw men set up to create a non-argument.
I don’t think we need to worry about any previously Catholic countries being restored to their former glory in the near future, so your hypothetical situation really is nothing more than that, a hypothetical situation – a classic “straw man”. Allow me, however, to offer you a common sense approach that might satisfy your thirst for justice for heretics and schismatics, and for the followers of non-Christian religions
Catholicism is not coercive and in such an unlikely situation as you describe, no non-Catholic would need to go packing their suitcases to head out of any such tyrannical Catholic state as you apparently envisage.
I imagine (well, if you can imagine such a situation, I can imagine a possible response to it!) I imagine that, given the existence of the buildings (mosques etc.) already in place and mindful of the Church’s traditional concern for the preservation of good order in society, that the buildings/public worship would have to be tolerated – albeit perhaps with some agreement in place to phase them out, and permission withdrawn if this charity is not returned and Catholics allow to build and use churches in those countries where they are currently prohibited – justice cuts both ways, does it not. Well, obviously not, at the present time, but we’re talking about the imaginary future Catholic nation of your dreams, or is it “nightmare”.
So, that would be point 1. Don’t stimulate protests and public riots by demolishing the buildings.
However, point 2, has to be that no churchman, no pope, bishop or priest and no laity would set foot in any of these buildings, in the name of ecumenism or inter-faith dialogue and would, instead, proclaim the truth that if these members of non-Christian religions and non-Catholic sects are, in fact, saved, then they are saved through the merits of Christ’s Passion and Death, they are saved, in other words, through Christ’s Catholic Church.
Now, in my world, any non-Catholic who objected to that public message would be deported, without any mercy, Pope Francis eat your heart out. . Still, the new Dictator-President of this newly restored Catholic nation isn’t likely to listen to me, so no doubt the protesters will be allowed to remain and the Catholic population asked to offer it up. Such is (Catholic) life…
Is that “just” enough for you?
CC,
It seems to me that you are viewing this subject from entirely the wrong perspective.
Supernatural truth and the salvation of souls is of far greater importance to the Church than the comfort of individuals. Of course the authorities in a truly Catholic country should ban non-Catholic and non-Christian publishing houses, otherwise they would be complicit in the spread of heresy. That’s fairly basic.
As for non-Catholic and non-Christian schools and houses of worship. These may be tolerated for the common good of society, though restricted in such a way that religious error has no opening to the wider community.
It is not about driving people from the lands of their birth, but rather protecting Catholic lands from the religious errors of some of its native people. It’s the difference between religious tolerance and religious freedom. The latter is a modern invention that leads to national atheism.
Catholic Convert,
I would have to say that a just Catholic nation wouldn’t be sending in the baliffs, bulldozers and emigration control. You certainly take a very black and white view of these things.
The original Vatican II document was entitled Religious Tolerance. There’s a big difference between tolerance and liberty. I would say that false religions already in place would have to be tolerated but under strict instructions that they cannot do any form of proselytising. This has to mean that publishing houses are disbanded or only allowed to publish materials for private use. Any new applications to build schools, places of worship etc must be denied.
I stand be what I said, if Protestants, Jews, Muslims etc don’t like this then they can chose to live somewhere else.
Ed,
I did not advocate freedom of religion. In fact I oppose it strongly. If you read my above post, I said that they should be banned from proselytising and trying to convert Catholics. If members of another religion prior to a country becoming Catholic, or if a country returns to Catholicism, have a Synagogue, Temple or Reformed Church (whatever!) then you could not close it, lest it cause public disorder. If by some immense miracle, France for example, returned to True Catholicism, then you could not forcibly close every single Mosque, Synagogue or Reformed Church as that would lead to social unrest. If non-Catholics have a presence in an overwhelmingly Catholic country, could they not import their own Bibles or religious material for their own use? By the way many people would convert just to get along in such a country, as happened post-1492 in Spain vis-à-vis the Jews and Muslims. It isn’t forced conversion, however.
CC,
Stop trying to have your cake and eat it. You do NOT oppose religious freedom. You just want a different version of it- or do you? I recall you saying in a previous discussion that a traditional Catholic nation would be intolerable, the stuff of nightmares in your opinion, or some such insult, although I can’t recall your exact words.
Anyway, I’ve answered this in my previous response to you. Except I didn’t mention your closing sentence – weak characters have always “converted” for their own reasons: mixed marriages are an example. I was talking to someone not long ago who said she’d “turned” [for her husband] although they later split up. There’s no sign of her practising the Faith now, so I suspect she’s like many another, who “converted” for selfish reasons or to make life easier with the in-laws or whatever. Can’t blame the Church for that. The Church has (until the current madness set in) strongly discouraged “mixed-faith” marriages, and for very good reason. So, far from coercing people to become Catholics, the Church has traditionally discouraged any but the most genuine converts. Just ask Cardinal Newman.
Ed,
I do oppose freedom of religion- believe me. I have defended this stance in a room full of modernist Opus Dei affiliated Catholics. I stated that we cannot allow non-Catholics to build more Churches, Mosques, Temples, Synagogue etc as it contradicted the Kingship of Christ. Christ is the Way, the Truth and Life, and I agree with Athanasius, Petrus and you, in what you say regarding that if their places of worship exist then they can remain in the name of public order and the common good to prevent violence or rioting. But no more could be built after that EVER! I also agree with your statement regarding reciprocity- they can keep what they have, but if they limit Catholic liberty in Muslim countries, then bring in the bulldozers.
I mentioned publishing houses. Athanasius said they should be banned. Petrus said they should be permitted/ tolerated but only for the use of that particular sect. I have no problem with the latter. As for their schools then as Athanasius said, then they can be permitted for the common good.
I also stated that I oppose non-Catholics from being allowed to proselytise and spread there heresy.
As for Ed’s comment regarding a Catholic State being a nightmare on the contrary in my opinion, Petrus made it sound nightmarish by saying that if they didn’t like it, then they could leave. It sounded a bit totalitarian to me.
I’m humble (I think me and Ed are related) enough to recognise when I am wrong, and now that we’ve cleared it up about how a Catholic State would function vis-à-vis other sects, then I have no issue with it.
Sorry, back to my Opus Dei friend (s). One said that we should lead by example, i.e., by allowing them freedom. I responded by saying that we have been leading by example for over a century. It ain’t worked. So I have in fact upheld traditional doctrine.
As for your ‘Dictator-President’, I think you mean glorious Catholic Monarch.
CC,
Look at it this way. If I go into a public house and I don’t like the decor, the staff, the prices, the music or the atmosphere and I approached the manager saying that I wasn’t keen on this pub and I would like it to change so I felt more comfortable, I’d be told to sling my hook and go elsewhere. It would be the same for a non Catholic living in a Catholic State. There’s nothing really controversial in that.
In a letter to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on July 20, 1983, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stated that:
“It must be noted that, because the conciliar texts are of varying authority, criticism of certain of their expressions, in accordance to the general rules of adhesion to the Magisterium, is not forbidden. You may likewise express a desire for a statement or an explanation on various points. … You may that personally you cannot see how they are compatible, and so ask the Holy See for an explanation.”
It is impossible for infallible texts to “vary in authority”. As for asking the “Holy See for an explanation”, I’m sure many here are aware of the Dubia which Archbishop Lefebvre submitted to Rome in October 1985, setting out thirty nine doubts concerning the continuity of the Council’s teaching on religious liberty with previous Church teaching. These doubts are published in the excellent book, Religious Liberty Questioned, which is mentioned in the video at the top of this thread.
Rome’s fifty page reply, received about eighteen months later if I’m not mistaken, addressed none of the doubts in particular, admitted that the doctrine on religious liberty was “incontestably a novelty”, but claimed that it was the outcome of “doctrinal development in continuity.”
Support for the Archbishop’s criticism concerning lack of continuity comes from an unlikely source:
“It cannot be denied that a text like this (the declaration on Religious Liberty) does materially say something different from the Syllabus of 1864, and even almost the opposite of propositions 15 and 77-79 of that document.” Yves Congar, Challenge to the Church, p.147
While talk of Pope Benedict’s “hermeneutic of continuity” becomes fainter by the day, any discussion of Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors should bring to mind the rather candid and revealing words published in 1982 in a private work of the then Cardinal Ratzinger, words which to my knowledge have never been retracted.
Considering the great Conciliar manifesto of aggiornamento, Gaudium et Spes, the Cardinal stated that “we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty, and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus…an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789” as well as expressing his disturbing opinion of “…the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution…” – Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 381-382
The Cardinal later reinforced the fact that he was a willing participant in the great conciliar march forward into the novus ordo desert, away from the Social Kingship of Christ, with no going back.
“…there can be no return to the Syllabus, which have marked the first stage in the confrontation with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last stage.” Ibid, p. 391
When presenting Vatican’s 1990 Instruction on the Theologian’s Vocation to the press, Cardinal Ratzinger threw down his infamous version of ringcraft in attempting to justify the contradictions of previous constant Church teaching which have become the conciliar norm. The Cardinal claimed that certain teaching of the Magisterium were “not considered to be the final word on the subject as such, but serve rather as a mooring in the problem, and, above all, as a expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of temporary disposition” (L’Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990, p. 5). As examples of those “temporary dispositions” the Cardinal cited “the statements of the Popes during the last century on religious freedom, as well as the anti-modernist decisions at the beginning of this century…” ibid. “Mooring”? Right. So previous unambiguous, constant magisterial teaching can be reduced to nothing much more than prudential policy for a given time and set of secular circumstances, while the novelties, ambiguities, contradictions and errors of the neo-modernists must be accepted under all sorts of dire and increasingly ridiculous warnings, threats and arguments from authority about “living tradition”, “obedience”, and of course, how could anyone forget, “full communion”.
When exactly, we might ask, will the errors of Vatican II be buried under a stone bearing the inscription “temporary dispositions”. Then the restoration will have begun.
Leo,
Once again, you provide unanswerable quotes from authoritative sources. Out of Cardinal Ratzinger’s own mouth, the “teachings” of Vatican II are reduced to discussion points, not at all authoritative Catholic doctrine. So why the insistence of the Modernists that we all “accept Vatican II”?
Oh I forgot; we must all now live “in the SPIRIT of Vatican II” – for which I have yet to see a definition.
To your closing sentence, then, all I can say is a resounding “hear, hear”!
When the Muslims wanted to build their first-ever mosque in the ‘Eternal City’, the Vatican announced in 1974 that Pope Paul VI ‘had no objections’.
Is it any wonder there is such confusion? Is it any wonder so many people believe that it ‘doesn’t matter which religion you follow’, because ‘one is equivalent to another’ and they are all ‘parallel paths to heaven’?
Editor asked me to inform everyone that she has had problems with her Internet connection, and therefore has been unable to comment on the blog. Hopefully the problem will soon be resolved and pay rises will once again be given and/or retracted depending on contribution content.
I might add that by the looks of things on this thread we may all be made redundant!
Thank you Athanasius, I’m now back in business!
As for redundancy – well, it IS holiday time and I suspect many are lounging and lazing and with things as they are in the world – floods, fires, tornadoes, wars and so on – who can blame them? 😀
Good video from a great series of SSPX videos.
Summa,
Good to hear from you again.
Yes, the entire series of SSPX videos looks really good. I must check more of them out for use here on this blog. If they’re all as short and to the point as the one on Religious Liberty, they’ll be a very useful and educative discussion starter.
I think all of us would benefit from taking the time to read or re-read Athanasius’ excellent Angelus article which is linked above (December 27, 1.03 am). It is a really first class synopsis of the catastrophe that has followed from the Council. In fact, I think it has to be saved at kept at hand for the one stop guidance of all the confused or malevolent Modernists and Neo Catholics who are stumbling around in the novus ordo desert. The irrefutable case is there for all of good will to read.
On the question of the Council itself, how about the truly extraordinary words in paragraph 26 Pope John Paul II’s 1986 encyclical Dominum et Vificantem:
“This work being done by the Church for the testing and bringing together of the salvific fruits of the Spirit bestowed in the Council is something indispensable. For this purpose one must learn how to ‘discern’ them carefully from everything that may instead come originally from the ‘prince of this world.’ This discernment in implementing the Council’s work is especially necessary in view of the fact that the Council opened itself widely to the contemporary world, as is clearly seen from the important Conciliar Constitutions Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium.”
So “discernment” was still ongoing 21 years after the end of the Council, with the accompanying risk of “everything that may instead come originally from the ‘prince of this world.’” And all because of “the fact that the Council opened itself widely to the contemporary world”.
Can we have a representative for the Hermeneutic of Continuity please?
I have to say I find those words absolutely staggering, and a perfect encapsulation and explanation of so much of the conciliar crisis. Where does the guarding and passing on of the Sacred Deposit of the Faith through the constant, universally held teaching of the Church fit in there? Every wildman Modernist is going to claim a license from those words for their own heretical “discernment”. Does anyone at this stage have any doubts about the source of the madness that has engulfed the human element of the Church, the Bride of Christ? How exactly has this “discernment” worked out? Just think of the scandalous machinations surrounding the recently concluded two part Synod.
Yes, everyone should read that Angelus article through carefully and copy it for further use. I have nowhere read an analysis of the conciliar crisis that comes anywhere near it for absolute incisiveness and clarity of thought and expression. And as you say, that discernment quotation from John Paul II – the very idea that the teaching of a Council needs further ‘discernment’ lest it come from the evil one – is indeed staggering. And I wonder how the great uncatechised are expected to ‘discern’ anything. Madness.
Athanasius
You wrote in the Angelus:
“The faithful have the right and a duty to ask these questions of the shepherds entrusted by Our Lord with the care of their souls. Many indeed have asked but, alas, the response is usually silence or an unjust command of obedience to the Council.”
That’s the situation exactly. In the absence of possible demonstration of continuity with the constant, universal Magisterium before the Council, argument from authority remains the last defence of the conciliar novelties, contradictions, ambiguities, and omissions.
During this papacy, even the claim of continuity with Tradition appears to have been jettisoned. Now, you’ll like this folks. Not a lot. How about this for a defence of the Council?
In his homily of April 16 2013 Pope Francis set a theme that has become rather familiar since. “Triumphalist” “restorationists”, and anyone objecting to novelties were obviously being put on warning:
“The Council was a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit. But, after 50 years, have we done everything that the Holy Spirit told us in the Council? In the continuity of the growth of the Church that the Council was? No. We celebrate this anniversary, we make a monument, but do not bother. We do not want to change. And there is more: there are calls [voci, also ‘voices’] wanting to move back.”
Hands up all “voci”.
I suppose we are being told to get with the programme as our American friends say. Keep moving. There is nothing to see here.
“The Church has never been in better shape, and is experiencing a very positive moment” – Pope Francis addressing a group of priest, 16 September 2013
Well, as someone once said, it all depends on what you by the word “positive”. It’s not the word that springs obviously to mind.
The reality is that the Modernists, of whatever intent and degree of dissent from the Church’s pre-conciliar teaching, all claim Vatican II as their charter and programme. Catholics faithful to Tradition have had their case made for them.
In an interview published in 1975, the influential liberal theologian Father Dominique Chenu OP was asked about the post-Conciliar turmoil:
Question: “In your opinion, how should one see this whole upheaval? Is it the fault of the priests, the theologians, the faithful?
Answer: “I see its cause in the Council itself, in the logic of its march and its dynamism.”
– Jacques Duquesne interroge le Pere Chenu, p. 191
“Upheaval” doesn’t exactly equate with continuity, as anyone with a reasonable grasp of reason will attest.
“The Council was a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit” and “the Church has never been in better shape”. Really?
The lay French philosopher and confidante of Pope Paul VI gave very unambiguous testimony on the Protestantisation of the Mass, as mentioned on a recent thread. He also obligingly offered the view that Vatican II proclaimed what Saint Pius X condemned as Modernist heresy, in 1906:
“When I read the documents relative to the Modernism, as it was defined by Saint Pius X, and when I compare them to the documents of the II Vatican Council, I cannot help being bewildered. For what was condemned as heresy in 1906 was proclaimed as what is and should be from now on the doctrine and method of the Church. In other words, the modernists of 1906 were, somewhat, precursors to me. My masters were part of them. My parents taught me Modernism. How could Saint Pius X reject those that now seem to be my precursors?”
– Portrait du Père Lagrange, Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris, 1992, pp. 55-56.
Notice the very telling way in which the last sentenced is phrased. No obvious consideration of the possibility that the Modernists were the ones in error.
How about the following from leading progressivist, Cardinal Franz Koenig of Vienna, promoter of conciliar Ostpolitik and Ecumenism, and widely held to be the elector of Pope John Paul II.
“O.R. 18 December 1971. Cardinal Konig said when presenting the Instruction on dialogue to the press that: ‘Dialogue puts the partners in an equal footing. The Catholic is not considered as possessing all the truth, but as someone who has faith and is looking for that truth with others, both believers and non-believers.’” I.C.I., No. 322, 15 October 1968, p.20
– Iota Unum, footnote 17, p . 355
That particular statement only echoes the infamous statement of Father Edward Schillebeeckx, peritus to the Dutch Episcopate at the Council, who claimed that:
“…the Roman Catholic Church officially abandoned her monopoly over the Christian religion at Vatican Council II.”
– Introduction to Cinco Problemas que Desafiam a Igreja Hoje, São Paulo: Herder, 1970, pp. 26-27)
Continuity? I don’t think so.
“The Council was a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit” and “the Church has never been in better shape”. Really?
Apologists for the Council have tried to blame the devastation and apostasy of the conciliar era on the general agnosticism, materialism and hedonism than that had engulfed First and Second World countries since the early sixties. The expression “tsunami of secularism” has also been pitched in. All of which brings irony to rather exalted levels considering “the fact that the Council opened itself widely to the contemporary world” (Pope John Paul II, Dominum et Vificantem) and Pope Paul VI declared at the closing of the Council that “we too, we more than anyone else, subscribe to the cult of man.” (quoted in Athanasius’ Angelus article).
One cannot with any passing resemblance of reason accept and laud the Council, and then separate out the fruits of the Council, which left absolutely nothing of the Church’s life untouched.
On October 17, 1978, the newly-elected Pope John Paul II said:
“We consider it our primary duty to be that of promoting, with prudent but encouraging action, the most exact fulfillment of the norms and directives of the Council. Above all we must favor the development of Conciliar attitudes. First one must be in harmony with the Council. One must put into effect what was started in its documents; and what was ‘implicit’ should be made explicit in the light of the experiments that followed and in the light of new and emerging circumstances.”
Continuity? I don’t think so.
Just less than a year after his elevation, Pope John Paul II set out his guiding principles of his 27 year pontificate in his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis:
“Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council…” #3
In Ecclesia Dei Adflicta in 1988, Pope John Paul II even admitted:
“Indeed, the extent and depth of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council call for a renewed commitment to deeper study in order to reveal clearly the Council’s continuity with Tradition, especially in points of doctrine which, perhaps because they are new, have not yet been well understood by some sections of the Church.”
Continuity? I don’t think so.
“The Catechism was also indispensable (i.e., as well as the 1983 Code of Canon Law), in order that all the richness of the teaching of the Church following the Second Vatican Council could be preserved in a new synthesis and be given a new direction.” – Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, London, Jonathen Cape, 1994, p. 164
Just consider that there are 806 citations from Vatican II, a number which amounts on average to one citation every three-and-a-half paragraphs throughout the 2,865 paragraphs of the Catechism.
So how exactly does this “new synthesis” and “new direction” equate with the constant, universal Magisterium of the Church? Can anyone point to one single authoritative, magisterial explanation?
Remarkably, Pope John Paul II actually recognised the bitter evil fruits of the Modernist revolution without ever linking it to the Council.
“Christians today to a great extent feel themselves lost, confused, perplexed,” and “are tempted by atheism, agnosticism, a vaguely moralistic illuminism, a sociological Christianity, without definite dogmas and without objective morality” (L’Osservatore Romano, Feb. 7, 1981).
“The Council was a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit” and “the Church has never been in better shape”. Really?
Taking just one example of the fruits of the Council, many will agree that among the most scandalous landmarks of the conciliar desert are the Assisi Abominations, I,II, and III. The toxic, syncretic, relativistic, “spirit of Assisi” links right back to Dignitatis Humanae, one of the most contentious, and still unexplained documents of the Council. There can be no doubt Pope John Paul II saw it as a visible manifestation of the Council’s teaching, not a misinterpretation.
Two months after the first Assisi scandal, in a speech to the Curia, the Pope said:
“The day of Assisi, showing the Catholic Church holding hands with our brothers of other religions, was a visible express of [the] statements of the Second Vatican Council.”
“The event of Assisi” he said, “can thus be considered as a visible illustration, an exegesis of events, a catechesis intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitments to ecumenism and to the inter-religious dialogue which was recommended and promoted by the Second Vatican Council.”
The Pope also asked his Cardinals to “keep always alive the spirit of Assisi as a motive of hope for the future.”
Can it be denied that first two Assisi scandals were obvious ways in which Pope John Paul II implemented his 1978 pledge to “favour the development of Conciliar attitudes” and to make what was “implicit” in Vatican II’s documents “explicit”.
As I said, that’s just one particular scandalous example. Athanasius has summarised the whole crisis and the major elements of the crisis for all those of good will, in his Angelus article.
Now at this point, before reading the next few lines, it might be an idea for anyone holding any glass or sharp implements to put them down.
“The Council was a beautiful work of the Holy Spirit” and “the Church has never been in better shape”, but according to one particular Dutch Bishop, there is plenty more to come. Believe it or not.
Bishop Jan Hendricks, auxiliary bishop of the Haarlem-Amsterdam diocese attended the Dutch Bishops’ ad limina meeting with Pope Francis two years ago. Following the meeting he stated that the pope said implementation of Vatican II is only half complete. “We have been implementing the council only half-way,” Hendriks recalled from the pope’s words. “Half of the work has still to be done.”
Does anyone suggest that the last two years have rendered that statement incredible?
With all respect due to the Vicar of Christ, the Church and countless souls would benefit greatly if somehow, by the grace of God, the second half programme of novus ordo revolution was halted, and Pope Francis took to heart the words of one of his illustrious predecessors:
“The sacred pastors are not the inventors and composers of the Gospel, but merely the authorized guardians and preachers divinely established. Wherefore, we ourselves, and all bishops with us, can and must repeat the words of Jesus Christ: “My teaching is not my own, but his who sent me” (John 7:16)….
“Therefore, we are not teachers of a doctrine born of the human mind, but we are in conscience bound to embrace and follow the doctrine which Christ Our Lord taught and which He solemnly commanded His Apostles and their successors to teach (Matthew 28:19-20).” – Pope Pius XII, Encyclical, Ad Sinarum Gentem, 1954
Leo,
Thank you for your kind comments and for two great posts.
The true “work of the Holy Spirit” is in the quotations I documented in my article and those documented in your posts above, because they are not our own opinions or flights of fancy. Rather, they are the quotations of Popes, Doctors and Councils throughout history, all perfectly consistent in teaching down through the ages.
What they refer to as a “work of the Holy Spirit” today in relation to the post-conciliar revolution is very easily unmasked just by observing the bitter fruits of the past fifty years. It is impossible that a work of God could result in such universal decimation of the Church.
Besides that, if you examine the texts of the Modernist innovators in the Church today, including Pope Francis’ Encyclicals, they are very obviously void of Traditional Magisterial teaching. This by itself testifies that they are preaching a Gospel other than that which has previously been preached to us.
Athanasius
I agree completely, that given “the bitter fruits of the last fifty years”, it “is impossible that a work of God could result in such universal decimation of the Church”. When can the truth of the words of Matthew 7:15-17 have been more devastatingly and tragically borne out?
What the Church has experienced over the last five decades must surely represent the parable of the mustard seed in reverse. What was flourishing, vigorous, visible and secure, has, thanks in large measure to the herbicide of Modernism, been reduced to what appears to be wasteland overrun by weeds and covered by poisonous waste.
The undoubted novelty of religion liberty espoused in Dignitatis Humanae represents, along with the other Vatican II novelties of false ecumenism and collegiality, the neo-modernists’ revolutionary version of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality”. It is also closely and inextricably connected with the conciliar refusal to uphold constant Church teaching concerning the Social Kingship of Christ, the role of the Church in society, and the duties of the temporal powers towards the one, true religion. I believe that readers will search in vain for any references to Pope Pius XI’s encyclical, Quas Primas, in the 100,000 plus words of the documents of Vatican II.
Surprise, surprise, it was one of the most influential prelates of the Council, Cardinal Suenens who was responsible for the infamous statement that “Vatican II was the French Revolution in the Church”. And rather obligingly and informatively he explained that “one could make an astonishing list for propositions taught yesterday, and the day before in Rome, as the only acceptable ones, and which were eliminated by the Conciliar Fathers”( Interview I.C.I 15/5/69).Once again, Catholics faithful to Tradition have their case made for them.
The following words of Father Vincent McNabb OP, written in happier and more secure times for Catholic souls, should counter much of the overplaying propaganda of the conciliar “French Revolution” madness and the Modernist desire to portray 1962 as some sort of year zero for the Church:
“Neither the Pope nor General Councils are ends in themselves; they are relative entities. They look towards the Church.” – Infallibility (London, 1927), Sheed and Ward, p. 53.
“If there have been antipopes still more have there been anti-councils. If papal actions must be distinguished into official, semi-official, and personal, equally so must the acts of councils.” – ibid, p. 78.
For decades, faithful Catholics, who desire nothing more than to adhere to the unchanging faith taught and upheld for two millennia by saints, martyrs, Doctors and Popes have been subject to rash judgement or calumny. Mark well, neo-Catholic slanderers, that they have done nothing but follow the words of one of the great teachers, and Doctors, of the Church concerning what is “not a Divine Tradition”.
“What is found to have its origin in the opinion of some Holy Father or particular Council is not a Divine Tradition, even though it should be celebrated throughout the entire Church. For if we did not attend to this rule, we should have to admit without certain foundation, new revelations regarding faith or morals, which has been always abhorred and impugned in the Church by men the most attached to religion. Hence, the sovereign pontiffs, the Councils, and the Fathers, have been most careful to reject all novelties or new doctrines on matters of faith, which differed from those that had been already received.”
– St. Alphonus Liguori, Exposition and defense of all the points of Faith discussed and defined by the Sacred Council of Trent, Dublin 1846, Pg. 51
Neither is the need for papal vigilance concerning the presentation of sound doctrine a modern phenomenon. Pope Clement XIII’s warned in his 1761 encyclical, Dominico Agro, that none of the faithful should have “extraordinary opinions proposed to them, not even from Catholic doctors; instead, they should listen to those opinions which have the most certain criteria of Catholic truth: universality, antiquity, and unanimity.”
And how, readers, does Dignitatis Humanae measure up to those criteria?
On the subject of Dignitatis Humanae and religious liberty, the following statements of Pope Leo XIII are worth bearing in mind:
“Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object”- encyclical, Immortale Dei
“For as the possibility of error, and actual error, are defects of the mind and attest its imperfection, so the pursuit of what has a false appearance of good, though a proof of our freedom, just as a disease is proof of our vitality, implies defect in human liberty.” – encyclical, Libertas Praestantissimum
“(Liberty consists) consists rather in this, that through the injunctions of the civil law all may more easily conform to the prescriptions of the eternal law.” – ibid
The Church has always taught that nobody can be coerced into belief in the true religion.
“And in fact the Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic against his will, for, as Saint Augustine wisely reminds us, “Man cannot believe otherwise that of his own free will.” Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei
Before the Council, the Church taught tolerance (the patient endurance of evil) towards false religions on grounds of prudence, such as for reasons of civil peace, but not as a matter of justice. Those practicing a false religion do not have a natural right not be disturbed.
“…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.” – Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce
Up to Vatican II the Popes consistently condemned Religious Liberty as absurd, ungodly, leading to the heresy of Indifferentism, and a danger to the faith of Catholics. There is, of course, no shortage of evidence for this, as regulars here are aware.
Not to stop someone from doing evil or accepting error is to open the door to evil and error. The alleged negative right of not being restrained from error is against reason. A wording that expressly recognized the right to the practice of false religions wasn’t going to have any realistic chance of making it into any Council document. So what did we get instead? An immunity from all restraint and a “rightful” claim to freedom to “honour the Supreme Being in public worship” (DH #4)! And what “Supreme Being” exactly is that? The Council defined religious liberty as a right of a person in religious matters, “in private as in public, alone or associated with other.” That’s a long, long way from freedom of conscience.
Inculpable error certainly excuses from moral fault; but it does not make the action good; and consequently it does not give rights to its perpetrator. Immunity for the public practice of false religions can never be a natural right but only a civil right to tolerance, and only in certain circumstances. Only truth and goodness have rights if by “rights” we understand “objective rights”. If we want to speak of the fundamental rights of man and of his objective rights, we must honestly admit that these rights have no existence outside of truth.
I appreciate this whole subject has the potential to be a conversation stopper, to say the least, when in the company of our non-Catholic friends. I can just imagine it resulting in silent staring at the floor at the next inter-denominational gathering for Christmas carols.
“Embarrassing” or not for others, Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society have not been afraid to repeat the words of the Pontiffs from the time of the French Revolution to Pope Pius XII. And for that, words such as “schism” and “not in full communion” are thrown about.
The first slide, about humans having a “natural dignity, which springs from use of free reason and will” that no-one should violate sits rather uneasily with the rest of the presentation, which makes no real attempt to demonstrate that the opening fundamental principles are consistent with what follows.
After these opening principles, it suddenly sets out a dichotomy of “Modernists” and “Catholics”. Is the world as a whole assumed to belong to one or other of these camps (which seems to be the case)? If so, where/how does Islam, Buddhism, the Orthodox Church, North Korea, etc sit? Are they all “Modernists”? Definitions are sorely needed.
The impression, however, is that the term “Modernist” is anyone who doesn’t agree with the presenter. Which is rather unfortunate given the series of straw man scenarios that follow. I have to say I watched it three times, and even with some background in theology and philosophy, I couldn’t really see what exactly he was proposing.
As a whole, the presentation is intellectually incoherent and poorly argued, and at the end a book entitled “Open Letter to Confused Catholics” is referenced apparently without any sense of irony.
Andrew,
Your comment about the video absolutely amazes me. It is 6 minutes and 3 seconds of the clearest possible explanation of the heresy of Religious Liberty as promoted in the diocesan churches today.
Your opening statement:
The first slide, about humans having a “natural dignity, which springs from use of free reason and will” that no-one should violate sits rather uneasily with the rest of the presentation, which makes no real attempt to demonstrate that the opening fundamental principles are consistent with what follows.
My reply:
The fact that humans have a natural dignity which springs from the free exercise of our human reason and will” and that “no-one should violate” this free gift, does not at all sit uneasily with the rest of the presentation any more than the arrest, charge, conviction and imprisonment of an offender who has misused his human reason and free will to rob a bank sits uneasily with the belief that nobody should violate the individual’s exercise of his free will. The priest does, indeed, demonstrate that the opening fundamental principles are consistent with what follows because what follows is a clear explanation of Catholic teaching on the worship ONLY of the one, true God, as the First Commandment requires. Thus, as in the analogy of the bank robber, no matter what an individual’s human reason may tell him, there is supernatural revelation available to him which leads him to the full truth about God and about morality. To encourage error based on false reasoning, then, is a novelty within the Church – Father is highlighting that error and does so, in my view, very well and very clearly, indeed. You’d soon recognise the error if you found a Judge who dismissed the case against the bank robber on the grounds that said bank robber was using his own rationale (human reason) and that no copper should have violated his conscientious decision! I mean, gerragrip!
Your next statement:
After these opening principles, it suddenly sets out a dichotomy of “Modernists” and “Catholics”. Is the world as a whole assumed to belong to one or other of these camps (which seems to be the case)? If so, where/how does Islam, Buddhism, the Orthodox Church, North Korea, etc sit? Are they all “Modernists”? Definitions are sorely needed.
My reply:
I think it is obvious that Father is speaking to a Catholic audience and may have assumed, wrongly, that anyone who has been following the crisis in the Church will have, by now, a basic knowledge of the fact that, as Pope Saint Pius X defined it in Pascendi (Encyclical letter) “Modernism is the synthesis – or sum – of all the heresies.” Anyway, click here for a link to the Catholic Encyclopaedia page on Modernism which I think you will find helpful.
In the current crisis, sadly, the Church is divided more or less into Modernists (those who have gone along, albeit unwittingly and unthinkingly) with the errors of the Second Vatican Council, and those Catholics who have not changed their beliefs one jot. So, while allowing for a whole category of Catholics who may be so immersed in the errors promoted in their dioceses as a matter of course and who may not be fully culpable, due to, say, a false understanding of obedience towards superiors, there is a clear divide between those who have either embraced or go along with the Modernism now widespread in parishes and authentic Catholics who reject it, in the Church today. As for the rest on your list – you must know that they are a combination of members of non-Christian religions and schismatics. Father was not referring to any of them. His clearly stated purpose was to correct the error of Religious Liberty which descended upon the Church as a result of Vatican II.
You then write:
The impression, however, is that the term “Modernist” is anyone who doesn’t agree with the presenter. Which is rather unfortunate given the series of straw man scenarios that follow. I have to say I watched it three times, and even with some background in theology and philosophy, I couldn’t really see what exactly he was proposing.
My reply:
Well, that’s some background in philosophy and theology when you still don’t know the definition of Modernism. Check out the definition of Pope Saint Pius X above, and the Catholic Encyclopaedia link to help you to come to a fairly thorough knowledge of the meaning of the term and its application in the current crisis of Faith within the Catholic Church. It really is a bit like watching a cookery programme and complaining that nobody defined “recipe” for you.
Oh and allow me to add that with MY background in philosophy and theology, I thought it an excellent presentation. What he was “proposing” is nothing more than the correct, traditional teaching of the Church on freedom of conscience as it applies to the toleration (not acceptance or promotion) of false religions. He was, in essence, “proposing” that the hierarchy return to keeping and teaching the First Commandment.
Finally, you conclude:
As a whole, the presentation is intellectually incoherent and poorly argued, and at the end a book entitled “Open Letter to Confused Catholics” is referenced apparently without any sense of irony.
My reply:
Wrong. The presentation is magnificent. It marries intellectual coherence with sound argument whilst remaining easy to understand, with everything put very simply, in a way that those with and those without “letters” can understand – i.e. with or without academic certificates, which often mean nothing – never over-rate them. I got my first sixpence at school for answering in class that just because the woman in the poem (or story, whatever it was) could recite the Psalms by heart, didn’t mean she was a holy person. The rest of the numpties thought it was a clear sign of her sanctity. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve all got umpteen degrees in philosophy and theology now. What’s the bet?
Father was unaware of any irony in his suggestion that viewers read Archbishop Lefebvre’s (excellent) book Open Letter to a Confused Catholic (downloadable at our website Links page) because… well… how was he to know that YOU’D be viewing? And, with all due respect to your human reason and free will, a more confused Catholic I’ve yet to meet. Unless… I wonder…. I don’t suppose… did you instruct Catholic Convert? 😀
Andrew,
Let me see if I can respond to your queries one at a time.
“The first slide, about humans having a “natural dignity, which springs from use of free reason and will” that no-one should violate sits rather uneasily with the rest of the presentation, which makes no real attempt to demonstrate that the opening fundamental principles are consistent with what follows…”
The principle of non-violation of conscience does not forbid restriction of the errors proposed by those whose consciences are malformed. Human reason and free will are gifts given by God to lead men beyond the natural to seek the supernatural. In other words, human reason and free will, when properly utilised, carry man to the door of faith. But faith itself, the true faith, is a further gift from God, a virtue, that raises man to the eminent height of a child of God.
With this in mind, it is clear that man has a duty to form his conscience properly and to make use of his free will in accordance with the law of God “written in all hearts”. Those who fail in this duty, for whatever reason, while not being coerced by force to change, must nevertheless be confronted with the truth and restricted from spreading their erroneous opinions to others. It is no violation of “natural dignity” for the Catholic State to act in this way. Quite the contrary.
The priest in the video merely re-stated this truth.
“After these opening principles, it suddenly sets out a dichotomy of “Modernists” and “Catholics”. Is the world as a whole assumed to belong to one or other of these camps (which seems to be the case)? If so, where/how does Islam, Buddhism, the Orthodox Church, North Korea, etc sit? Are they all “Modernists”? Definitions are sorely needed.”
You have misunderstood the priest. He focussed his attention on Catholics Vs Modernists as the example pertinent to us Catholics. There was nothing in his presentation that indicated a categorisation of the entire world into one or other camp.
You will find definitions for Islam and Buddhism ably set out in the teaching of the Church under the title of non-Christian religions. North Korea comes under ‘atheism’ and the Orthodox is categorised ‘schismatic’. The priest in the video should not be required to clarify this to the informed Catholic.
“The impression, however, is that the term “Modernist” is anyone who doesn’t agree with the presenter. Which is rather unfortunate given the series of straw man scenarios that follow. I have to say I watched it three times, and even with some background in theology and philosophy, I couldn’t really see what exactly he was proposing.”
No, a clear distinction was made by the presenter between ‘religious tolerance,’ which the Church has perennially upheld, and “religious liberty,” which is a condemned error that has its root in the French Revolution. The presenter merely clarified the difference between the two in light of Church teaching.
Consequently, I am at a loss as to those “straw man scenarios” you claim the presenter proposed, since his propositions were nothing other than what the Church has always proposed for our belief.
In fine, the video in question is one of the most simplistic and concise short videos I have viewed on the difference between religious tolerance and religious liberty. How can you have been confused by it?
Thank you for taking the time to reply to my post and I have watched the video again with these in mind.
I do think he needs to preface what he says with definitions. Am I to understand that by “Catholic” he means Catholics who reject Vatican II and by “Modernist” he means Catholics who don’t reject it?
Whilst I can fully understand if he wishes to debate issues within the Catholic Church, if he starts off by categorising those who disagree with him as non-Catholics he is unlikely to achieve more than reinforcing the opinions of those who already agree with him and further alienating those who don’t.
Furthermore, if this is what he means by Modernism (a term more usually applied to an artistic movement), is he saying that those Catholics who are not in his view really Catholics believe that “human conscience is the supreme authority on good and evil”? Really? Catholics who attend Mass every week (or more often), are involved in the life of the Church, indeed seemingly include Priests and the Church hierarchy are actually atheists?
I do consider it to be a sign of a healthy and vibrant Church that there are such debates. I consider Vatican II was broadly a step in the right direction. I do not consider reverting to a Mass in Latin (not the language of Christ or the Early Church) to be the right way to go (although I do understand the elegance of that form and why some may prefer it, and so am not in any way opposed to it being offered). I cannot see any reason to object to Communion in the hand, (properly managed), but there are some in our Church who prefer the older version and I would not raise any objections.
These views I would guess place me in his non-Catholic, “Modernist” category, but not in agreement with the positions he then assumes I would take.
Which means, I think, that the video works just fine for those who already agree with him, but it does absolutely nothing to advance this argument within the Church, whilst actively seeking to alienate those with whom he disagrees.
Andrew,
You simply do not see that the priest is not giving HIS personal view, but the traditional teaching of the Church. All your talk about the priest not “alienating” people is crazy. What is it you believe? That anyone who says their conscience tells them it’s OK to worship a false god (or the Devil) should be left untroubled, and their false beliefs condoned by the Church? If that is NOT what you mean, please spell out your meaning in simple language, without any reference to your “background in philosophy and theology” … who cares? Where is the priest in the video wrong about Religious Liberty (i.e. where is the traditional teaching of the Church wrong – that’s what he is spelling out.) Spill.
The fact that you appear to know the use of the term modernism where it applies to art, yet are unaware of the heresy of Modernism, raging through the Church today, is incredible. Or maybe when you Googled the term, the references to art came up, whatever. The difference is elementary and if you had followed the arguments given in my post and subsequently by Athanasius, and read the link to the Catholic Encyclopaedia page on Modernism, you would have come to a clearer understanding that the priest in the video is teaching authentic Catholicism, not giving his personal views. The fact that you don’t recognise it as such, doesn’t make it any less true. YOU are the one in the wrong, through, with respect, culpable ignorance. Not the priest who clearly has a sound grasp of Catholic theology. I say “culpable” because we have given you the answers and sources of Catholic teaching on this blog and still you cling to false teaching. That makes you culpable.
As for the ridiculous argument about Latin, well, yes, the vernacular language at the time of Jesus was Aramaic but the Jews read their Scriptures in Hebrew for worship in the synagogue. Would you prefer us to use Hebrew at Mass instead of Latin?
All talk of “preference” in your post (for vernacular/Latin, etc) only underlines that, as we are now discussing on the Mass thread, the Protestantising and Modernist influence of the novus ordo has done its work. We now have a community of Protestant Catholics. Don’t let us “schismatics” keep you….
Andrew,
“Am I to understand that by “Catholic” he means Catholics who reject Vatican II and by “Modernist” he means Catholics who don’t reject it?”
No, this is not the understanding you should have. When he speaks of “Modernists” he means the architects and promoters of what Pope St. Pius X called “the synthesis of all heresies”. He is not referring to the average person in the pew.
“Whilst I can fully understand if he wishes to debate issues within the Catholic Church, if he starts off by categorising those who disagree with him as non-Catholics he is unlikely to achieve more than reinforcing the opinions of those who already agree with him and further alienating those who don’t.”
Once again I have to point out that the priest in the video is not offering us his personal opinion, he is merely re-stating Church teaching against Modernism and one of its core heresies, Religious Liberty. He is not, therefore, categorising Catholics and non-Catholics on the basis of who agrees or disagrees with him. So yours is a wrong interpretation of what the priest is saying. Besides that, the priest is not “debating” anything. He is merely stating authoritative Catholic teaching, which is not up for debate.
You should also understand that Modernism is not just afflicting the Catholic Church. It has its architects and promoters in all the various Protestant sects and non-Christian religions. This interdenominational clique works closely together to bring about a one world religion in which there is neither doctrinal truth nor error, a worldly religion based on man’s inherent divinity and an evolutionary process leading all religions to a brotherhood of glorified man and an imagined social paradise on earth.
You should read Pope St. Pius X’s masterly Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis in which the mask is torn away from Modernism to show it as the demonic ruse that it is.
“Furthermore, if this is what he means by Modernism (a term more usually applied to an artistic movement), is he saying that those Catholics who are not in his view really Catholics believe that “human conscience is the supreme authority on good and evil”? Really?”
Modernism is not just a term used to describe an artistic movement. It is a term well used to describe post-French Revolution religious innovation.
It is not uncommon to hear modern Popes, prelates, priests and Catholic politicians respond to a controversial moral debate in the public domain with a claim to the supremancy of conscience. I trust that answers your question?
“I consider Vatican II was broadly a step in the right direction. I do not consider reverting to a Mass in Latin (not the language of Christ or the Early Church) to be the right way to go (although I do understand the elegance of that form and why some may prefer it, and so am not in any way opposed to it being offered).”
Anyone who has studied the events at Vatican II, the shocking discarding of three years of theological preparatory work on the opening day in order to force new documents containing Modernist ambiguities that would later be implemented in accordance with the Portestant Reformation, might not agree with your assessment. At any rate, 50 years of conciliar decimation of the Church speaks for itself. It was not, as you claim, a step in the right direction. Rather, it was a derailing of the Catholic religion.
The Latin Mass, contrary to your understanding, was the language of the early Church, from St. Peter right up to Vatican II. The only deviation to a vernacular meal service was carried out by the Protestant Reformers. The New Mass mirrors exactly that deviation word for word and action by action.
It is also worthy of note that above the Cross hung the “Cause” of Our Lord, written in Latin, Hebrew and Greek, the three languages still retained in the ancient liturgy of the Church. Furthermore, Latin, as explained by the Council Fathers at Trent, “raises an insurmountable barrier against heresy and anything that may threaten the integrity of the Holy Sacrifice. The wisdom and foresight of this observation is all too apparent today by the countless liturgical abuses recorded in relation to the Novus Ordo rite in the vernacular. So it’s not just about language, it’s about theological intergity.
“I cannot see any reason to object to Communion in the hand, (properly managed),..”
Really? Well, Pope Paul VI objected to it and Pope John Paul II forbade it unless for very grave reasons of emergency. This practice, remember, was illicitly introduced into the Church by Cardinal Suenens. And it was not the early Christian practice he introduced but the Protestant Reformer practice which bears no similarity to the early Christian practice. The Church outlawed this abusive practice from the time of Constantine right up to Vatican II. It was only permitted in the early Church until Christianity was well established and persecution had ceased. But, as I say, it is not even that practice which has been restored. It is also true to say that Communion in the hand remains to this day an Indult, not the Church’s reccommended practice, which is to kneel and recieve Our Lord on one’s tongue. Why would anyone want to change so humble a practice for one fraught with the dangers of sacrilege and indifference, which has proved in so many cases only too real? No, Communion in the hand is a disgrace and should be stamped out immediately. It is a work of man’s pride!
“These views I would guess place me in his non-Catholic, “Modernist” category, but not in agreement with the positions he then assumes I would take.”
Certainly a very poorly instructed Catholic who has absolutely no understanding of the Traditional teaching of the Magisterium or the faith of the saints and martyrs. I would not venture to say non-Catholic, but absolutely Modernist.
“Which means, I think, that the video works just fine for those who already agree with him, but it does absolutely nothing to advance this argument within the Church, whilst actively seeking to alienate those with whom he disagrees.”
Once again, this false dichotomy. The priest is merely stating the teaching of the Church, and that is not up for debate or argument. Those who feel alienated by what he says have to look at themselves and ask if they really know their faith and accept it in its Traditional fullness, as handed down through twenty centuries before Vatican II.
Leo,
I agree entirely with everything you’ve written.
It is also interesting to note that the influential Cardinal Suenens, he who described Vatican II as “the French Revolution in the Church,” was the one who illicitly introduced Communion in the hand into the Church. It began under his watch in Belgium, from whence it spread like a cancer to every corner of the globe. It’s not difficult upon objective and honest examination to discover who the major players at Vatican II were and what their remit was. Sadly, however, too many Catholics just went along to get along. The same largely applies today, only with greater ignorance of the truths of the Faith.
This prayer by Pope Leo XIII says it all:-
Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart
Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race, look down upon us humbly prostrate before Thy altar. We are Thine, and Thine we wish to be; but, to be more surely united with Thee, behold each one of us freely consecrates himself today to Thy Most Sacred Heart. Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts, have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.
Be Thou King, O Lord, not only of the faithful who have never forsaken Thee, but also of the prodigal children who have abandoned Thee; grant that they may quickly return to their Father’s house lest they die of wretchedness and hunger.
Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keeps aloof; call them back to the harbour of truth and unity of faith, so that soon there may be but one flock and one Shepherd.
Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism; refuse not to draw them all into the light and kingdom of God. Turn Thine eyes of mercy toward the children of that race, once Thy chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Saviour; may it now descend upon them a laver of redemption and of life.
Grant, O Lord, to Thy Church assurance of freedom and immunity from harm; give peace and order to all nations, and make the earth resound from pole to pole with one cry: Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation; to It be glory and honour forever. Amen.
Returning to the question of what Cardinal Ratzinger referred to as the Church’s “official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789” (December 27, 5.01pm) the supreme issue is not one of some prudent pragmatic working accommodation between the visible Church and the temporal powers, or some version of the Americanist “free Church in a free Society”, but rather the submission of those secular rulers to Christ the King, whose Mystical Body is the Catholic Church, the permanent and continuous Incarnation of God in the World, the external visible hierarchical society founded by Our Lord.
For four and a half centuries, the Church’s shepherds fully recognised, and had no hesitation in calling out, the horror of Luther’s attack on the Visible Body of Christ and the consequential proclamation, in the political realm, of the supremacy of naturalism by the French Revolution.
Pope Pius VI had no hesitation in condemning the Declaration of the Rights of Man as “contrary to religion and to society”.- Encyclical, Adeo nota, 23 April 1791. Para 13
The spirit of both Luther’s revolt and the French masonic revolution was not a novelty. It goes back to satan’s temptation of our first parents: “You shall be as Gods.” (Genesis iii. 6). In the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Man fell “by desiring in some way to be the equal of God in so far as he wished to rely on himself in contempt of the order of the Divine Rule.” (Summa Theologica IIa, IIae, Q. 163, a. 2). The pre-conciliar Popes understood very well what was at stake in the battle between the Mystical Body of Christ and the forces of organised naturalism. And so did the enemies of Christ. The well-known Freemason, Ferdinand Buisson, once declared: “A school cannot remain neutral between the Syllabus and the Declaration of Rights of Man.” – (R.I.S.S., April 1, 1933, p. 210)
Two years after writing of a “kind of countersyllabus” and “official reconciliation” in Principles of Catholic Theology, Cardinal Ratzinger gave another insight into the spirit of aggiornamento:
“The problem of the 1960s was to acquire the best expressed values of two centuries of ‘liberal’ culture. These are in fact values which, even if they were born outside the Church, can find their place- purified and corrected- in the vision of the world. This is what had been done.”- Conversation with Vittorio Messori in the monthly Gesu, November 1984, p. 72
“Purified and corrected”? Really? While the smoke of satan has continued for five decades to billow about Church. And what exactly are the “best expressed values of two centuries of ‘liberal’ culture”? Revolt against the Social Kingship of Christ and man’s self-proclaimed right to a delusional, self-centred “liberty” in all things (rather a slavery to the devil, the flesh and the world), is at the very heart of the crisis in world today, particularly in the those societies whose roots lie Christendom, and who are now submerged in a tidal wave of contraception, divorce, abortion, sodomite “marriage”, euthanasia, pornography, atheistic indoctrination of innocent souls through the education system, and the general repudiation of any moral order.
In forming his judgements, Cardinal Ratzinger might have been wiser to dwell on the words of Pope Pius XI, words which are become ever more relevant:
“…Hostile forces, impelled by the spirit of evil, do not content themselves with mere clamour, but unite all their strength, on order to carry out at the first opportunity their nefarious designs. Woe to mankind, if God, thus spurned by His creatures, allows, in His Justice, free course to this devastating flood and uses it as a scourge to chastise the world.” – Caritate Christi compulsi
How many Catholics are aware of quite how woefully conciliar Churchmen have refused to follow the example of the great Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, who like Pope Pius IX understood fully the supreme importance of the battle to uphold the Social Kingship of Christ, and from whom Pope Saint Pius X took his motto, “to restore all things in Christ”? On March 15, 1856 the Cardinal boldly told Emperor Louis XVIII of France that:
“It is the right of God to govern over the States as over individuals. There is nothing else that Our Lord came to look for on earth. He must reign here by inspiring the laws, by sanctifying the morals, by enlightening education, by directing the councils, by ruling over the actions of the governments as over those of the governed. Everywhere where Jesus Christ does not exercise this rule, there is disorder and decadence.”
We have had Cardinal Ratzinger’s view of Gaudium et Spes, “in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty, and world religions”, as being a “kind of countersyllabus”. One wonders what the resolute and unyielding defenders of Vatican II would have to say if confronted with following evaluation coming from the dark workshops:
“The Christians must not forget, for all that, that every path leads to God…and continue in this courageous idea of freedom of thought, which-one can now speak of revolution, setting out from our masonic lodges- has expanded itself gloriously above the dome of Saint Peter’s.” – Yves Marsaudon, Ecumenism Viewed by a Traditional Freemason
On the question of this doctrine, Bishop Tissier de Mallerais’s biography of Archbishop Lefebvre (see p. 548) gives a revealing account of a meeting at the Holy Office, July 14 1987 with Cardinal Ratzinger, in which the Cardinal argued that “the State is incompetent in religious matters”. Later on in the encounter, the Archbishop boldly stated that:
“For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything. He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you! You are doing the opposite: you have wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not reign, over society’.
“Recounting this incident, the Archbishop described the Cardinal’s attitude: ‘Motionless, he looked at me, his eyes expressionless, as if I had just suggested something incomprehensible or unheard of.’”
Archbishop Lefebvre was of course supported by the teaching of all the pre-Conciliar Popes. In Quas Primas, Pope Pius XI pointed out that laicism, organizing society without any reference to God, leads to mass apostasy and the degradation of society, on account of its complete denial of Christ’s Kingship. That encyclical, which was discarded and buried in the conciliar madness, was a very short, readable and instructive summary of constant Church teaching, based on the teaching of the Pope’s predecessors.
“Besides, this thesis (the separation of Church and State) 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…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.” – Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, 1906
“Every civilized community must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its author. Hence it follows that all public power must proceed from God. For God alone is the true and supreme lord of the world. Everything without exception must be subject to Him, and must serve Him, so that whosoever holds the right to govern, holds it from one sole and single source, namely, God, the Sovereign Ruler of all. “There is no power but from God.” (Rom. 13:1)” – Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 1885
Far from advocating an approach suited and confined solely to the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, in stating the rights of Christ over temporal rulers, Archbishop Lefebvre and the pre-Vatican II Popes did no more than reiterate constant Church teaching, the teaching of Fathers and Doctors of the Church such as Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Leo the Great, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani is quoted most often, understandably, on discussion of the new Mass fabricated by Annibale Bugnini. What the Cardinal wrote in the American Ecclesiastical Review in May 1953, three years after neo modernism had already been condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, serves as a warning against those who attempt to bypass certain Church teaching on the grounds that it was applicable only to the historical circumstances which prompted it:
“The first fault of these persons consists precisely in their failure to accept fully the arma veritatis and the teachings which the Roman Pontiffs during the past century, and particularly the reigning Pontiff Pius XII, have given to Catholics on this subject in encyclical letters, allocutions, and instructions of various kinds.
“To justify themselves, these people assert that in the body of teaching imparted within the Church there are to be distinguished two elements, the one permanent, and the other transient. This latter is supposed to be due to the reflection of particular contemporary conditions.
“Unfortunately, they carry this tactic so far as to apply it to the principles taught in pontifical documents, principles on which the teachings of the Popes have remained constant so as to make these principles a part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.”
After summarizing papal teaching on the question of Church and State, Cardinal Ottaviani concludes:
“These principles are firm and immovable. They were valid in the times of Innocent III and Boniface VIII. They are valid in the days of Leo XIII and of Pius XII, who has reaffirmed them in more than one of his documents . . . . I am certain that no one can prove that there has been any kind of change, in the matter of these principles, between Summi pontificatus of Pius XII and the encyclicals of Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris against Communism, Mit brennender Sorge against Nazism, and Non abbiamo bisogno against the state monopoly of fascism, on the one hand; and the earlier encyclicals of Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, Libertas, and Sapientiae Christianae, on the other.”
Finally, it’s worth including the words of a sainted Pope on what the “official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789” should rightfully look like:
“The Church…had been the first inspirer and promoter of civilisation…The civilisation of the world is Christian civilisation; the more frankly Christian it is, so much is it the more true, more lasting, and more productive of precious fruit; the more it withdraws from the Christian ideal, so much the feebler is it, to the great detriment of society.
“Thus by the intrinsic force of things, the Church becomes again in fact the guardian and protector of Christian civilisation. This truth was recognised and admitted in former times; it even formed the immovable foundation of civil legislation. On it rested the relations of Church and State, the public recognition of the authority of the Church in all matters relating in any way to conscience, the subordination of all State laws to the divine laws of the Gospel, the harmony of the two powers, civil and ecclesiastical, for procuring the temporal well-being of the nations without injury to their eternal welfare.” – Pope Saint Pius X, Il Fermo Proposito, 1905
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