Copyright ® 2011
The Apostolate of Our Lady of Good Success
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America First English Edition
For information about permission or reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions:
The Apostolate of Our Lady of Good Success
1288 Summit Ave Suite 107
Oconomowoc, WI. 53066 USA Phone 262-567-0920
ISBN: …..
Library of Congress Control Number: …
by Rev. Luigi Villa Th. D.
Vatican II
ABOUT FACE!
The Apostolate of Our Lady of Good Success
1288 Summit Ave Suite 107
Oconomowoc, WI. 53066 USA
Phone 262-567-0920
Website: http://www.ourladyofgoodsuccess.com
Email: ladyofgoodsuccess@sbcglobal.net
Index
Preface 9
Introduction 13
Chapter I
So, why a “New Council”? 25
Chapter II
Theological Qualification of Vatican II 35
Chapter III
“Sacrosantum Concilium” Constitution
- A “New Liturgy” – 49
Chapter IV
“Unitatis redintegratio” Decree
- Ecumenism – 91
Chapter V
“Gaudium et spes” Constitution
- The Church and the World – 115
Chapter VI
“Dignitatis Humanae” Constitution
- Religious Freedom – 131
Chapter VII
“Nostra Aetate” Constitution
- Non-Christian Religions – 159
Chapter VIII
“Lumen gentium” Constitution
- The Church – 171
Chapter IX
- Collegiality – 183
Conclusion 193
Appendix
If the Pope falls into heresy or schism… 199
The two Popes of Vatican II: John XXIII…
… and Paul VI.
«For we cannot do anything against the truth.»
(Corinthians 13:8)
PREFACE
Despite all the post-conciliar authoritarian voices’ attempts to silence any criticism, my articles portraying a critical analysis of the Second Vatican Council have created a certain amount of interest for they have discovered and pointed out multiple “errors” in the Council’s texts (Constitution, Decrees, Declarations).
Up until now, only a certain number of Catholic critics had been outspoken about the fallacious arguments, contradictions, unforeseen resolutions and mysterious decisions of the post-conciliar documents. However, no one had pointed fingers against the Council itself through a systematic study, setting up a direct comparison of their texts with the texts of the dogmatic teaching of Tradition [the Magisterium] throughout the twenty centuries of infallible ecumenical councils and teachings of all previous Popes.
It is clear that this study involves the question of the “theological status” to be attributed to Vatican II, that is, whether or not it is covered by the charism of infallibility.
The best theologians have excluded [this charism], because it [Council’s texts] contained so many grave “errors” already condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.
Vatican II texts lack dogmatic definitions and the corresponding punishment for those who do not accept the doctrine. But then Vatican II had nothing defined; therefore, no one can appeal to them, even for several reasons. For example: the “Constitution on the Liturgy” deliberately ignored Pius XII’s doctrine of “Mediator Dei” as well as Saint Pius X’s Encyclical which condemned Modernism; in addition, the statement on “religious freedom” in Pius IX’s “Syllabus” was ignored in which he condemned, in No. 15, the argument of those who say that every man is free to embrace that religion which, in conscience, seems real, which excludes the rights of the revealing God, of which no man has a right to choose, but only a duty to obey. No. 14 also condemns those who assert that the Church has no right to exercise judicial and coercive power
These are just a few examples, like those found throughout our work, to prove that the Vatican II was held on the verge of ruin.
I believe there will come a day when Vatican II will be declared “null and void” in a solemn judgment of the Supreme Pontiff. It will then appear as an anomalous stone, abandoned at the back of a cemetery.
A Scene of the Second Vatican Council.
«The matters of the Faith must take precedence over all others,
Since faith is the substance and foundation
of the Christian religion.»
(St. Pius V)
INTRODUCTION
The Second Vatican Council was one of the longest ones in history, from beginning to end.
It lasted five years, 10 months and 34 days. It was one of the most difficult Councils: 168 general Congregations; over 6000 written and oral Statements; 10 Public sessions; 11 Commissions and Secretaries; and hundreds of experts. The results of it were four Constitutions, nine Decrees and three Declarations.
For this reason, it has been compared to plowing a field. At the end of Vatican II, the Church opened to a trend of giving into worldliness, the result of which were the desacralization, democratism, socialization and banalization of the Church, defined by Cardinal Ottaviani as “an enormous deviation from the Catholic doctrine.” How was it possible that three Popes had accepted a doctrine in clear contradiction with what 260 Pontiffs had supported?
Monsignor Spadafora, the brilliant professor from the Lateran University and an “expert” in the Sacred Scriptures, has stated that, “The Second Vatican Council is an abnormal Council.”
The unexpected reversal of the Catholic doctrinal guidelines, brought about by an Alliance of French and Belgian Cardinals and bishops, encouraged by experts like Rahner, Küng, De Lubac, Chenu, Congàr, and by Jesuits from the Pontifical Bible Institute, has converted Vatican II into an ominous “consultation” of Councils of Neo-Modernist “experts” who have duped the oblivious multitudes of Council Fathers. However, how did they manage to impact the Church’s doctrine? There has been no revealed truth left intact. From the beginning of the two Constitutions presented as the fundamental expression of the Council, “Lumen Gentium” and “Gaudium et spes” contained errors, such as the expression by which the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ “subsists” in the Catholic Church, which contradicts the identity expressed by Saint Paul, that is, on the Body of Christ, and the perennial and infallible Magisterium of the Church, and also contradicts the dogma “there is no salvation out of the Church.” Not to mention clearly erroneous Documents such as “Nostra Aetatae” (about non-Christian religions) and “Dignitatis Humanae” (about religious freedom); these errors are the origin of heretical and syncretistic manifestations such as the ecumenical day of Assisi.
But, didn’t the Holy Spirit help the Council Popes? As Monsignor Spadafora explained:
«The assistance of the Holy Spirit presupposes that on the part of the Pope, there would be unreserved correspondence with the Holy Spirit; without it, the assistance of the Holy Spirit is purely negative i.e.: it only prevents the Vicar of Christ from imposing an error as an infallible dogma.»
Furthermore, this unsound Church of the Council is developing itself mainly on: the major heresy of “Religious Freedom”, and the heresy of “Universal Fraternity.”
Therefore, the post-Conciliar period is non-other than the natural and necessary consequence of the Council, the assortment of bad fruit from the poisoned tree that has ensured the continuity and legality of the actions of Paul VI and John Paul II as Popes. This leads to a clear conclusion: a Third Vatican Council led by a Repairer Pope [Pope with the intention of repairing the damage].
However, the current Pope, Benedict XVI, repeated to the participants of the Clerical Congregation of March 16, 2009, the need to return to the uninterrupted church tradition, and to “promote among the priests and in particular in younger generations an appropriate acceptance of the texts from the Second Vatican Council, interpreted in light of all the doctrinal baggage of the Church.”
In his “Letter” dated March 10, 2009, he said:
«… we must remember that the Second Vatican Council contains the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Whoever wants to obey the Council, must also accept the faith professed throughout the centuries and cannot cut off the roots of this living tree.»
Thus, according to Benedict XVI, Vatican II is only credible if it can be seen as a part of the whole and unique tradition of the Church and Her Faith.
The speaker of the Holy See, Father Lombardi, commented on January 15, 2010: “The conclusions of the Second Vatican Council and in particular of the “Nostra Aetate” document are not in question”. Then, he clarified that as the Pope has repeatedly explained, adopting the teachings of the Council (and of “Nostra Aetate” as an essential document from the Council) is a condition to achieve true ecclesiastical communion.
For us, instead, Vatican II is in contradiction with the Church’s tradition. In fact, the Council represented a “new Pentecost”, a “charismatic event” that has remade the Church, freeing it from Tradition.
Perhaps the Popes (John XXIII and Paul VI) executors and directors of this “pastoral and non-dogmatic council” would not say the same about Vatican II? So, his “pastoral” consists, ultimately, in the Church’s relationship with the world, and this makes it different from other councils precisely because it lacks a “defining” doctrinal character. Strange, then, that the absence of intent contradicts the “dogmatic” qualifications of the two constitutions: “Lumen Gentium” and “Dei Verbum”, which were reproposed in the” Dogmatic Constitution, because they had been proposed as truths of the faith and dogmas defined in previous councils (pp. 50-51). However, it remains clear that the other documents of Vatican II do have not a dogmatic character, whereby their doctrines do not point to previous definitions, are neither infallible nor irreformable, and thus non-binding; those who deny them, are not automatically considered heretical Whoever then would impose it as infallible and irreformable, would go against the Council itself.
So one might accept Vatican II as only markedly dogmatic only when the Vatican II proposes truths of the faith and dogmas defined in previous councils.
“The doctrines that originated at the Council, however absolutely cannot be considered dogmatic, for the inescapable reason that they are devoid of ‘unavoidable formalities of definition and, therefore, of its “voluntas definiendi” (p. 51). Therefore, the texts that have a certain ambiguity can be subject to historical and theological criticism.
An example is the “Pastoral Constitution”, “Gaudium et Spes” on the Church in the Modern World, where the term “pastoral” becomes a humanistic term of empathy, openness, of understanding toward Man, his history and “aspects of modern life and human society”, with particular attention to “problems that seem more urgent today.”
Therefore, “Gaudium et Spes” is a document full of culture and institutions (GS 53), economic and social progress (GS 66), technological advances (GS 23), and human progress (GS 37.39.53.72). It is obvious that it is a “new Christianity” that extends its boundaries to Karl Rahner and Schillebeeckx’s “anonymous Christians” and to the Council Assembly’s “mature” Christians.
For this reason, it is clear that “Gaudium et Spes” is a pastoral document, without any binding value, and thus without any intention to define concepts. However, given that progressivists would like to make a “dogma” out of it, just like they would like to make an absolute dogma out of the Council, it has stated very clearly that it did not intend to assert any absolute principles.
Still, the specific results of the post-conciliar analysis were identified by Benedict XVI in his “Rapporto sulla Fede” [“The Ratzinger Report”], where he wrote:
«It is undisputable that the last twenty years have certainly been unfavorable for the Catholic Church. The results of the Council seem cruelly contrary to everyone’s expectations, beginning with John XXIII and Paul VI (…). We expected a leap forward, and instead we were faced with a gradual decadence that had been developed mostly in the name of a supposed “Council spirit” that has actually discredited it (…). The post-conciliar Church is a large building site, but a building site where the project has been lost and everyone continues to build as he pleases.»
It was truly a filthy and overwhelming “tsunami”! It is not difficult to prove that Vatican II has not followed the path of Tradition but rather represents an almost complete break with the past!
Paul VI himself admitted, in his July 15, 1970 speech in front of a general audience, the Church’s disastrous situation:
«This time… is a stormy time! The Council has not given us, in many ways, the desired serenity, but rather caused turbulence…»
Faced with this unsettling fact, I recall a Gospel passage (John XI, 51):
«… hoc autem a semetipso non dixit (…) sed cum esset Pontifex anni illius (…) profetavit.» [and this he spoke not of himself (…) but being the high priest of that year, he prophesied]
Therefore, a Conciliar Pope has admitted (despite himself?) the harsh and humiliating reality for the entire Church.
This “confession” made by Paul VI motivated me to do this historical-theological work about Vatican II. For this, I will apply the technique mentioned by the Divine Master in Saint Luke:
«De ore tuo judico (…) serve nequam!..» (Lk. XIX, 22) [… Out of thy own mouth I judge thee, thou wicked servant! …]
Therefore, in order to establish a comparison between the doctrine of Vatican II and that of the infallible definitions made by Ecumenical councils and twenty centuries of Papal Traditions, I will use Denzinger’s “Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum, et Declarationum de rebus fidei et morum.”
Furthermore, Vatican II had proposed to “reform everything” in the Church, in the name of a “pastoral purpose”, including the presentation of the dogmatic Doctrine as clearly expressed by John XXIII in his opening speech for the Council on October 11, 1962:
«It is necessary (?) for this doctrine (…) true and immutable (…) to be thoroughly studied and presented in a way (…) that addresses the needs of our time!»
Consequently, it is not based on the intrinsic requirements of God’s revealed Will, but based on the currents demands by Mankind! Now, this is a true reversal of the supernatural order! Actually, it was a manifestation of Modernism that wanted to adapt the Divine Law (= Revelation) to Man’s will!
That is how “facts” became disastrous, open to any and all heresy, without the Catholic Hierarchy ever opposing any resistance. The Dutch-type Catechisms responded to the requirements of modern times, by actually completely eliminating the supernatural.
The pastoral purpose did not serve any other purpose than that of creating confusion between the terms “dogmatic” and “pastoral.” Pope John XXIII could not give us a practical example of how to present the true and immutable doctrine in a different way from that of twenty centuries of tradition without making dramatic changes to its meaning!
We must ask ourselves: how can it be that the assembly of Council Fathers did not seem to notice the trap of the strange idea of changing the way of presenting doctrine, which for over half a century already, had been the obsession and the main agenda of Modernism? How can it be that they were not alarmed by the challenging words pronounced by John XXIII which were contrary to “the prophets of doom”, announcing ominous events that even encompass the end of the world? Was it then a gesture of the “New Pentecost” that was going to make the Church bloom and maternally spread over human activities?
It is easy to see: John’s prophecy did not make the Church bloom; on the contrary, it was the beginning of a catastrophe! Faced with the evidence of the facts, Paul VI said in his speech dated December 7, 1968 to the Lombard Seminary:
«The Church is undergoing a time of unrest and self-criticism (…) we could even call it selfdestruction!»
It was a true disarmament in the middle of a battle, introduced by Pope John in his speech dated October 11, 1962:
«The Church has always been opposed to errors; it has often condemned them with the utmost severity (…) however now, the Bride of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy rather than severity!!»
That is how the “Masonic Modernist plan” could be carried out, through a Pope (a real “Mason”!). It was a “plan” that dismantled and destroyed all walls, all defenses, disarming all the soldiers and freed any defeatist propaganda!
«O infelix astutia!» (Saint Augustine) What a dishonor for the Second Vatican Council, why had it not been prevented, but instead has been completed! The refusal of Vatican II to use the charism of infallibility contains the true explanation of all the fatal ambiguities one can find on its pages, and even true and real “heresies.”
The purpose of my analysis is to express ideas on diverse issues of this topic in light of the infallible doctrine of the Church’s teachings.
In this regard, my accusations against the Vatican II try to discredit the temptation of unconditional submission to the “errors” that have by now permeated the souls of the majority and have affected the spiritual lives of the faithful few at all levels of the Church.
For this we must be able to freely discuss how orthodox Vatican II really is, as well as analyze the texts from this “pastoral Council” that is imposed as dogmatic, and therefore, as the only reference from this point on.
It is necessary not only to clarify terms but also to make revisions and corrections.
A “new language” has emerged from Vatican II to better communicate with the modern world.
The “Yankee Jesuit”, John O’Malley, wrote in his book “What happened at the Second Vatican Council” in which he makes known the “inadequate” liberal-conservative opposition to understand the conflicts that took place in the Council. Actually, in his book he talks about a “network of truly notable interconnections” in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
This “network” applies a new vocabulary. The documents of the Council meetings present a linguistic innovation applied to different questions; for instance, words like “dialogue,” “collegiality,” “development,” “brothers and sisters,” “conscience” (…) The language stand out because it describes and prescribes new actions of the Church.
Karl Rahner described the Council as a time of the birth of the “World Church,” after the “Judaic Church” and the two “Hellenistic” millennias.
The newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” of January 25, 2010, settled the permanent value of Vatican II stating that the Council “should be historical rather than mythological.” However, given the fact that it has been said that Catholicism could not be practiced without referring to Vatican II, any hermeneutical position that tries to explore the continuity with previous teachings must weigh it with the same pontifical authority to reach the aphorism: “one Pope stamps it and the next one undoes it!”
We know that in the ancient Church it was common practice to react to doctrinal crises with Councils as a collective reflection of the Faith. Nowadays, the Church of Rome has the option of a self-destructive crisis or a reversal of the Reform. This was also stated by the most renown intellectuals of our times, who nonetheless reminded us that a breakup [of the Reform] was a positive commitment of the Church to open to a greater understanding of the “Deposit of Faith” and a greater fidelity to the spirit of Its Founder!
Paul VI.
Benedict XVI.
«If an Angel came from
Heaven to announce a different Gospel from the one
I have brought to you, it would be an anathema!
Apart from having a different Gospel, there are heretics that intend to distort the truth.»
(Saint Paul – letter to the Hebrews)
Chapter 1 
HOWEVER, WHY A “NEW COUNCIL”?
The Pope and the Bishops in 1962 unanimously declared that the Church was in good condition: the faith was intact, without errors to threaten it; its vitality was safe, its unity, its peace and its outreach in the world were very real. John XXIII, in his October 11, 1962 speech, blamed the “prophets of doom” and Paul VI repeated it at the opening of the second Session.
However, why a pastoral Council? Could it be because they did not want to create dogmatic work and they did not want to touch the essential issues of Faith, but rather just refresh the face of the Church?
It was an “Update” that was to become a “New Pentecost,” opening a wonderful “Springtime for the Church!”
It was due to John XXIII’s good-natured optimism, certainly blind because he could not see that he was paving the way for Modernism to fight to take control of the Council, with a revolution that hid its own name!
Here, we will see some elements that go beyond appearances to show the Modernist “errors”, ambiguity, vague language, empty sentences, fatal doctrines and other undisputable errors that go against traditional teachings.
The entire texts of the Second Vatican Council are missing dogmatic definitions with their corresponding anathemas. This denies the doctrine of definitions. However, the Second Vatican Council has not defined anything!
In point of law, Vatican II is presented as “suspectum de haeresi” [suspect of heresy] also because it deliberately ignored Pius XII’s “Mediatur Dei” doctrine, as well as Pius X’s “Pascendi” encyclical and Pius IX’s “Syllabus” that condemns (on numbers 15 and 24) errors of which Vatican II is guilty, on No. 1 (towards the end) and No. 2 (first paragraph of the “Declaratio De Libertate Religiosa”).
Therefore, the fraud against God’s rights as a Creator and Revealing God is obvious, as well as against the Church’s teachings expressed in Pius IX’s “Syllabus.”
The Second Vatican Council, because of its “pastoral” nature, is very nearly in conflict with the “dogmatic” nature of all other ecumenical Councils. It is like one of those crops that render the fields sterile.
After 60 post-conciliar years, it is easier to summarize the crass “errors” that have plagued the Church. It is clear now that the authors of the Second Vatican Council had the goal of a new humanism, like the one the Pelagians and the Renaissance progressives were trying to achieve.
The various cardinals, Montini, Bea, Frings, Liénard, etc.., wanted to find a new way to humanize the Church and make it more acceptable for the modern world, while saturating it with false philosophies, false religions, wrong political and social principles, to create a universal union of cultures and ideologies under the guidance of the Church. Thus, the “Truth” will no longer be the basis for Unity, but rather a foundation of religious sentiments, pacifism, freedom and acknowledgment of Man’s rights would be the basis for Unity.
In order to be able to make that universalism come true, anything that was specific to Faith had to be eliminated through ecumenism in order to put all religious and ideological human groups in contact with the Church.
Consequently, the Liturgy, the Hierarchy, the priesthood, the teaching of catechism, the concept of Catholic Faith, the teachings at university and seminaries or schools had to be modified; the Bible had to be turned into an “ecumenical” Bible; the Catholic States had to be eliminated; the “common law” had to be accepted; the moral rigor had to be reduced, replacing moral laws with conscience. In order to reduce these obstacles, scholastic philosophy had to be abandoned in favor of a subjective philosophy that no longer obliged man to submit to God and His laws, leaving “Truth” and Morals up to creativity and personal initiative.
The reforms of Vatican II were carried out along this line: research, creativity, pluralism and diversity. The Second Vatican Council has opened horizons that had been forbidden by the Church: accepting false humanism; freedom of culture, religion, conscience, bringing error onto the same level as truth; and revoking any excommunications regarding errors and public immorality with all the incalculable consequences of it.
The “new humanism,” that was solemnly proclaimed by Pope Paul VI in his closing speech in the Second Vatican Council, on December 7 1967, and also covered in the speech dated October 11, 1962, can be summarized in these main “heresies”:
1. The Cult of Man
«We, more than anyone else, have the “Cult of Man.”» (Paul VI).
However, from this point on, the Catholic faith in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three divine Persons is nothing more than a fixed point for secular humanism to achieve its double goal: perfection of the human being, in all his dignity and world unity through peace on earth. But these two ultimate goals “reek of heresy.” Actually, in the Gospel, we read:
“You cannot serve God and Satan, and money and the World.” Therefore, the last two goals are heresies because they express a break with Christianity that professes the need to believe in Jesus Christ not to improve human life, but to avoid hell and earn Paradise.
2. A “New Religion”
There is an “error” marked by Pentecostal Enlightenment and included in John XXIII’s speech at Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls on January 25, 1959, where he speaks of an “inspiration” confirmed by a “splendor of celestial lights” and the Pope did not hesitate to compare Vatican II with “a second Last Supper,” insinuating that the “first” Last Supper had been on the day of Pentecost, whereas the “second” one would be the “Ecumenical Council” in Rome. However, John XXIII’s Enlightenment is “charismatic” because the Pope stated that the heretics and separatists’ prayers, as well as their abundant and wholesome fruits, are of supernatural value, even if they are “outside the Bosom of the Church.” Although no one can assert this, if we can say that they have saved their souls and converted, then we should say that Vatican II has founded a “new religion”!
3. The “New Prophets” of Joy
Pope John XXIII condemned the “prophets of doom”; a condemnation that represents the third break with the “prophets” of all times, from Elijah to Lucia, the visionary of Fatima, who have Jesus Christ as a Patron and Our Lady of the Rosary, La Salette and Fatima as a Patroness. These “prophets of doom” preach penitence, conversion of the heart, the return to the true Faith and Christ and the true Church, whereas John XXIII’s “prophets of joy” do not want debilitating joy that does not lead for certain to Happiness and is not true God’s inspiration.
The disdain, irony and sarcasm in John XXIII’s speech can be explained this way: in 1960, everyone expected the publication of the “Third Secret” of Fatima, but John XIII did not want to know it, demonstrating his easy-going and good natured personality and saying that he did not want to hear about sad things!
It is true that the Pope did not speak “ex cathedra” and did not make use of his Papal authority, but this did not prevent his condemnation against the “prophets of doom” from becoming a ticket to the Devil of sorts who then turned against him [the pope] and his supporters!
4. Idolatry of the World
We could say this is the corollary of the above-mentioned ideas. Before Vatican II, the Bride of Christ, had always worked “in the world” only for the Lord. However, nowadays, because of the “l’aggiornamento” [“update”], it has updated focusing on a world for which “Jesus did not pray” (John 17:9), but that Paul VI, liked with an “affinity without limits.” This is a spirit of adultery that submits Divine Faith to the whims of the masses, inspired by the “Prince of This World.” (see 2 Tim. 4:3) This attitude is more like a “marketplace” than an “update”!
5. “Modernism”
This Satanic “heresy” named Modernism triumphed in the Second Vatican Council, covered by the principle set forth by John XXIII: “men are always more convinced that the dignity and perfection of the human being are very important values, that demand hard efforts.”
This means that the “Deposit of Faith” has been betrayed, because it implies John XXIII’s axiom: “We must present our true and immutable doctrine in a way that it can address the requirements of our time.” Paul VI underlined this idea by saying: “Actually, the Deposit of Faith is one thing, that is, the truth contained in our venerable doctrine, but the manner in which to announce this truth is a completely different matter.” This idea was presented as the basis of the “Reform” that turned the entire dogma upside down without respecting the meaning or the scope of the Dogma of the Faith! We see this in the Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium”, which was presented as the biggest text inspired by the Holy Spirit for Catholic Teaching (see also “Gaudium et Spes”, No. 62).
6. “Religious freedom”
This new break with the Catholic Faith is the one we described in the previous chapter, by Pope John XXIII: “Men are always more convinced that the dignity and perfection of the human being are very important values that demand hard efforts.”
Here, the Declaration “Dignitatis Humanae” specified this statement made by John XXIII, and the Pastoral Constitution “Gaudium et Spes” drew all the consequences that can be inferred as follows: the dignity and perfection of the human person are such that do not allow the use of violence or conflicts, but rather demand that we recognize everyone’s freedom, complete responsibility of their thoughts, their choices and their social and political commitments.
7. Ecumenism
Here the heresy lies in attributing to Jesus Christ a desire of unity that He never had, because His true idea of union will be put in place by Him – gathering all people under one fold, His own! Since Pentecost, in fact, there has been no other church than the Church of Christ and outside of Her, there is no other religion, and therefore no one can be saved “outside of It.” The error here is the will to break with the dogma: “There is no salvation outside the Church.”
8. Salvation is guaranteed for everyone
The main principle behind the Declaration “Nostra Aetate” is the same that was justified by Karol Wojtyla stating that all men have been united with Christ by the simple fact of the Word Incarnate. Now, that means not recognizing that every “irreligion” dissenting from the Catholic Church, and all types of atheism or agnosticism have a right to belong to the Church of Christ which contradicts the Catholic faith both in form and in content. However, this “apocatastasis” of parallel “faiths” and morals, all these personal beliefs or religious groups take away all respect to our Holy Religion and show contempt for it.
In any case, these principles of the Conciliar Revolution were already included in John XXIII’s opening speech on October 11, 1962 and were not new ideas, but rather the bold and authoritative formulation of errors which had been already condemned such as the opinion of Origen who believed in a complete and definite elimination of evil and the conversion of the damned, thus, the universal “return” of creatures to God. This hypothesis was condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 543(D-S 409-411).
Teilhard de Chardin, the “soul” of Vatican II.
Karl Rahner the “mind” of Vatican II.
«Be strong! You must not give in where it is not necessary to give in (…)
You must fight, not half-way, but with courage instead;
not in hiding but in public;
not behind closed doors,
but out in the open.»
(Saint Pius X)
Chapter II
THEOLOGICAL QUALIFICATION OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL
We have already said that the Second Vatican Council, in its “Decrees”, did not have the charism of infallibility because it did not want to effectively use dogmatic definitions, that is, use the definition and reinforce them with the sanctions of anathemas against those who were contrary to the defined doctrines.
Therefore, none of the doctrines or Decrees from Vatican II have the charism of infallibility because the Council was limited to expressing Catholic Doctrine in a “pastoral form.” We know this from the words of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI, in the two opening Speeches of Vatican II (October 11, 1962 by Pope John and September 29, 1963 by Paul VI).
The orientation of the entire Second Vatican Council was in fact a line of “pastorality”, completely unknown by the Magisterium of 20 centuries of Tradition, precisely because right reason tells us that “God is always God” and “man is always man”, always identical in his nature as a rational creature, always in need of basic needs, both of natural that the spiritual order.
Paul VI himself, in his encyclical called “Mysterium Fidei” dated September 3, 1965, three months before the end of the Council, literally took ownership of the Doctrine of the “Anti-Modernist Oath” imposed by Saint Pius X on the entire clergy. Paul VI explained it as follows:
«Who could ever tolerate that the dogmatic formulas of the Ecumenical Councils, on the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation (…) are deemed no longer appropriate for the men of our times, and others daringly replace them?»
It is obvious that by these words of Paul VI, he directly accused the foolish direction pointed by Pope John XXIII as the “main goal” of the Second Vatican Council when he said:
«… it is necessary that this doctrine (…) is analyzed thoroughly (transeat!) and presented in a way to address the needs of our time.»
These statements assume that dogmatic formulas are also no longer suitable to the men of our time! However, why did Paul VI, in his opening speech on September 29, 1963, adopt for himself these affirmations and directives that Pope John XXIII had given in Council, putting it on the path to the disaster that we are still suffering now?
Vatican II was not a dogmatic Council and because of that, it is inexplicable how it can be possible that the other four Constitutions were named “dogmatic,” for neither these nor other documents from the Council were defined by the new dogmas, just like errors were not condemned.
Because of this, it is necessary to know the theological qualification given Vatican II.
Like all the other Ecumenical Councils before it, there is no doubt that Vatican II is ecumenical because:
-
it was legitimately convoked, presided over and
signed (its documents and decrees) by two Popes;
-
the Assembly of Fathers was formed by the World’s Episcopate.
Despite all this, Vatican II (in its Decrees) … does not have the charism of infallibility, for the reasons that it did not want to apply the necessary peremptory conditions to achieve infallibility, which are:
-
the intention of defining its own teachings as a truth of Faith, as its own doctrine (in relationship with those already defined by other Ecumenical Councils or Popes);
-
the effective use of the dogmatic definitions that were formally and openly considered as such in front of the entire Church and Her followers. In fact, as the First Vatican Council teaches (see Denzinger, 3011), and as expressly stated by Can. 1323, par. 1 of the Canon Law:
«Fide divina et catholica ea omnia credenda sunt, quae verbo Dei scripto vel tradito continentur, et ab Ecclesia, sive sollemni judicio, sive ordinario et universali magisterio, tamquam divinitus revelata, credenda propunutur.»
[All these things must be believed which are contained in the written or handed down Word of God proposed by the Church to be believed as divinely revealed either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.]
The “solemn judgment” regarding a doctrine, relevant to the Faith can be exercised by Ecumenical Councils or also by Pontiffs by themselves, as well. Paragraph 3 of Canon 1323 warns us that:
«Declarata, seu definita dogmatice (…) res nulla intelligitur (…) nisi id manifeste constiterit (…)» [Nothing is to be understood as declared or dogmatically defined unless it is explicitly established.] Therefore, it must be clear to everyone that the Council wanted to dogmatically define and use the defining formulas, as “de facto” in its Decrees, Declarations and Constitutions, arming them with the sanction of anathemas against those who teach doctrines that oppose the ones that have been defined.
These conditions were carried out by all previous Ecumenical Councils.
These conditions are, instead, completely absent from Vatican II!
Therefore, none of the Doctrines and Decrees that belong to Vatican II have the charism of infallibility.
In other words, the Second Vatican Council “by itself” does not have anything that was proposed as infallible teachings, through dogmatic definitions which are absolutely not found in any of its Decrees.
Vatican II only explained Catholic Doctrine in a simply pastoral way and in both opening Speeches (October 11, 1962 – Pope John XXIII; September 29, 1963 – Paul VI) Numbers 55+, 57+ and 152+ respectively of the Dehonian Edition of Council Documents, made it clear that it renounced the dogmatic definitions, as stated by Paul VI in Number 152+:
«Nobis prorsus videtur, advenisse nunc tempus, quo, circa Ecclesiam Christi, Veritas magis, magisque “explorari”, “dìgeri”, “éxprimi” debeat – (Note: even “debeat”: unbelievable!) – fortasse non illis enuntiationibus, quas “definitiones dogmaticas” vocant,.. sed “potius” – (preferred!) – “declarationibus” adhibitis, quibus Ecclesia (…) clariore et graviore Magisterio, sibi declarat quid de seipsa sentiat (…)»
[It seems now the time has come in which we should deeply examine, reorganize, and convey the truth about the Church of Christ, perhaps not with those solemn utterances that are called dogmatic definitions, but preferably with statements that are clearer authoritative teachings on what the Church thinks of Herself….]
In this papal declaration, directed to the Council Assembly, it is completely clear that for Paul VI the dogmatic definitions lose “clarity” and “autonomy” compared to the Pastoral Declarations.
This incredible statement explains many things that disturb the Church, in the Council texts of Vatican II:
-
It explains the complete absence of “dogmatic definitions” in all the different Constitutions, Declarations and Decrees of the Second Vatican Council (…)
-
It explains certain disastrous “illusions,” “errors,” “boldness” of “judgments”, of “presumptuous forecasts,” of directions full of fatal dangers and the obvious jingle of counterfeit money, all part of the complex Modernist heretical position, that plagued the opening speech given by Pope John on October 11, 1962, such as:
-
(No. 37+) «Enlightened by the light of this Council,the Church (…) will be spiritually enriched with timely
‘updates’…»
-
(No. 40+ and 41+)… «to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal but lacking in a super-abundant sense of discretion and measure.” In these modern times, they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin; they say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse…»
-
(No. 41+) «It seems to us that we should dissent withthose so called “Prophets of Doom” that are always forecasting disaster…»
First and foremost, the inauspicious “illusions”! The frightful reality of the disaster in which the Church finds itself today (despite the illusions) and that all grieve over now: the explicit and very bitter evidence and confession made by Paul VI in his speech of December 7, 1968 (to the Lombard Seminary) and on July 15, 1970 to the faithful during the regular general audience, leave us astonished because of the obvious “superficiality” with which they “despised” the sense of discretion and measure that the Church had always possessed in Her Tradition, in the experience of Her people, animated by zeal and a very clear awareness of the evils, which, at any time, can plague the Church and force us, therefore, to keep our eyes wide open, instead of closing them with mis-placed optimism.
.
Pope John’s ominous “illusions,” however, were preceded by other no less ominous “oddities” in language and “expressions” that later became “slogans” with a demagogical effect, shrewdly exploited and manipulated in a clearly Modernist way by the innovators lying in ambush such as the “need to know how to identify the ‘signs of the times'” (from the “Apostolic Constitution” of the Ecumenical Council (No. 4+) that will later find its most famous application in the opening speech (October 11, 1962) to the paradoxical expression (No. 55+), with an openly Modernist bent in itself:
«It is necessary that this doctrine (…) true and immutable (…) be thoroughly studied (prevestigetur) and presented (exponatur) in a way that it addresses (…) the needs (…) of our time
(…)»
How can we say that “it is necessary that this immutable doctrine ‘changes'” (?) following the ‘sign of the times'”! This is clear evidence of conflicting terms and an internal contradiction of intentions; in fact, the expression “in a way that it addresses the needs of our time” (“needs” that were intentionally left unexplained by Pope John), shifts (not without a scandal, turning the value system upside down) the center of gravity of the revealed message that cannot be affected by man’s “needs” but only by God’s requirements, a God who clearly knew how to speak to be understood by men of all times!
The direction taken by the entire Council as instructed by Pope John’s words is not only completely unknown to the teachings of a twenty centuries long Tradition (presenting the doctrine based on the needs of our time) but it is also intrinsically absurd and unconceivable by pure reason because “God is always God” and “man is always man”, always identical in his nature as a rational creature, the recipient of the revealed message with basic natural and spiritual needs that are always the same.
The problem of presenting the doctrine in a way that addresses the needs of a specific time, of a specific era, of a certain degree and quality of culture, does not and cannot exist for the Catholic Church, and Paul VI himself, in his encyclical “Mysterium Fidei” of September 3, 1965, three months before the end of the Council (December 7, 1965), literally adopted the Doctrine of the Anti-Modernist Oath, previously imposed by St. Pius X on the entire:
«… omnia et singula, quae ab inerrante Magisterio, definita, adserta, et declarata sunt (…) (sunt etiam) (…) intelligentiae aetatum omnium, atque hominum etiam huius temporis, maxime accomodata» (Denz. 3539);
[“embrace and accept each and every definition that has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church,”…are well adapted to the understanding of all eras and all men, even of this time…” taken from “The Oath Against Modernism, Pope St. Pius X September 1, 1910]
The expression: “presented in a way that addresses the needs of our time” would not have made any sense if Pope John had not been convinced (exactly like in the case taken into consideration and condemned by Paul VI in his “Mysterium Fidei”) that the dogmatic formulas of the Ecumenical Councils and others “are no longer appropriate for the men of our time (…)”
It is clearly evident that Pope John firmly believed in this statement, condemned by Paul VI, in his incredible insistence on hammering the same point (“presenting the doctrine in a way that it addresses the needs of our time”) that can be read between the lines at Number 55+:
«It will be necessary (?) to give much importance to this way (that is, the new way of presenting the doctrine) and if necessary, it will require to patiently insist on its elaboration and to find a way to present things more in line with the teachings (…) of a predominantly pastoral nature (…)»
How can we put this? Paul VI, in his “Mysterium Fidei”, clearly condemns as a daring idea the thought of subjecting other formulas to the dogmatic Conciliar formulas of the Council and also the pretext (albeit inconsistent) that the formulas “are deemed no longer appropriate to men of our time (…)”
If we are not mistaken, in his speech to reopen the Council of September 29, 1963, Paul VI, in the section dedicated to the Homage to the Memory of Pope John, referring specifically to his Council opening speech of October 11, 1962 and unconditionally praising its tone and goal, continued to worsen all the colossal paradoxes found in the speech, in the above-mentioned No. 55+ of the Dehonian and that which Paul VI condemned in his “Mysterium” as we have just mentioned!!!
Yes, we repeat, Paul VI, by compounding things, made all the directives from Pope John in the Second Vatican Council his own, steering it towards the disaster that we now have in front of our still incredulous eyes.
With slow meditative and attentive reading (with wideopen eyes due to the immediate dismay) one stops with infinite amazement on the truly outrageous content, full of contradictory words and obvious conflicts, between terms that are not certainly opposites but are rather “unum, idemque”, in terms of their doctrinal meaning and their identical teaching matter (teaching matters that specifically relate to the Church) that is nothing other and could be nothing other than the revealed Truth, “confusion” and the “contrast” flaunted to no purpose between the “dogmatic teachings” and the “pastoral teachings”, almost as if it were a make-believe pastoral, rather than Dogmas of Revelation! It dwells on the content of several expressions read throughout No. 139+ of the Dehonian, such as:
«… (You, Pope John) have called the brothers, the successors of the Apostles (…) to feel united with the Pope (…) so that the sacred deposit of the Christian doctrine is guarded and taught in a more effective way» (more effective than “when” and “how”? The answer to this is missing!).
«… However you, by indicating the highest goal of the Council (that is: guarding the deposit of the Christian doctrine and teaching it in a more effective way!) have already set forth another more “urgent” goal (?) which is more “wholesome”
(?)… the pastoral goal (?)»
What can this contradiction in terms mean, this wrangle of words between the Council’s “main goal” and the “Pastoral goal”? Of “the highest” goal (as we read in this expression) and the “most urgent” and “more wholesome”? What has become more important than the “highest goal”, now called “pastoral”? Why is there a conflict of time and urgency two aspects of the same problem? Teaching the dogma in a pastoral manner, was considered by the Church for twenty centuries as inseparable to each other [that is “time and urgency”], and was actually solved in a precise manner by means of dogmatic definitions taught by the Church in the most appropriate way for the Faithfull’s level of understanding (based on their culture and age) with the Catechismal teachings and sacred preaching that created a great number of Saints, even amongst children. Whereas, Vatican II, with its confusing and ambiguous ideas, internal errors and immense tower of documents, with the chain of lies carried out (that is, with the victory of falsehood used as a means of imposing obedience, with continuous, insistent and stubborn failure to keep their word that only serves to irremediably compromise not only the prestige of the Church’s authority but also the faith that Vatican II claims in vain, in the context of all the paradoxes in which it has so astonishingly and disconcertingly put itself)… it will no longer be able to succeed in creating Saints or converting our separated brethren until the missionaries, the Shepherds of souls purely and simply return to the doctrine and teaching methods of the pre-conciliar era?
The tone of the speech from September 29, 1963, with the idea of saying unheard, new, and original things, never thought before, at least by the Church; urgent and preeminent in regard to the tradition, did not do anything other than knock down open doors! The Church did not expect Vatican II to better do its “job” – allowing the profane word! – of Teacher of dogma, through practical pastoral work, with the purpose of enunciating with precise definitions, the dogma itself and its “explanation” in the simplest way possible, to children and adults.
As we said, it broke open doors and at the same time, confused concepts because of its statements, which clouded and blurred that which was once crystal clear dogmatic definitions from Popes before the Council (a classical example of which is those made by Saint Leo the Great) and Ecumenical Councils (such as Trent and Vatican I over one century ago, 1870!). Upon thorough analysis it could not be clearer in the smallest nuances and examinations that the relative condemnations of the varied and complex Modernist heresy found in the immortal encyclical written by St. Pius X, “Pascendi” were completely ignored and never again mentioned in any of the dogmatic texts, decrees or Declarations of the sixteen official documents of this Council (not without a clear motive of biased premeditation, because of the insurmountable embarrassment it would cause to the massive bulwark of the Catholic Faith due to the hidden intentions of general subversion which were later consummated by Vatican II).
This total absence of references to “Pascendi” (we are truly certain and convinced of it!) is by itself enough not only to project dark shadows and to make the entire Second Vatican Council a “Suspectum de haeresi” [suspect of heresy] (based on such an unbelievable omission of consultation, use of data, solemn judgments of condemnations, pronounced in regard to the problems and errors of modern times, exposed and revealed even in its most hidden depths, by the major infallible Magisterium from a Pope, – “Pascendi”). However, it will also be necessary to formulate in the easiest and clearest manner, the first and biggest indictment against Vatican II itself, in a regular canonical process, that sooner or later will be promoted by the faithful of the Catholic church themselves, with an appeal to the Summum Pontificem pro tempore invited for the occasion to use in his judgment, the charism of infallibility which was not used in any phase or Document of the Council (making the Council “not infallible” but accused however “de haeresi” [of heresy] instead, to the supreme misfortune of the Church, after twenty centuries of infallible Ecumenical Councils!).
Yves-Marie-Joseph Congar.
Marie Dominique Chenu.
«We ought to obey God, rather than men.»
(Acts 5:29)
***
«The biggest charity is to share and love the truth.»
(Card. Charles Journet)
Chapter III
“SACROSANTUM CONCILIUM” CONSTITUTION
– A “New Liturgy”
In the Council Constitution about the Sacred Liturgy there are some incredible mistakes regarding doctrine; therefore, “… a fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos!..” (Mt. VII, 16-18) [By their fruits you shall know them…], and so, “omnis arbor, quae non facit fructum bonum … excidetur (…) et in ignem mittetur …” (Mt. VII, 19) [Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.]
In an article published in “L’Avvenire d’Italia” on March 12, 1968 the Mason Monsignor Annibale Bugnini, wrote that the Council’s Commission in charge of compiling the final version of the Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy had clear intentions of confusing, by using “cautious, flowing, and even vague, in some cases, ways of expressing ideas and edited the text of the Constitution to leave – in the application stage – as many options as possible without closing the door to the revitalizing action of the “Spirit” (without using the Divine attribute, “Holy”!).
Therefore, this is one document that reveals a lot!
For instance: the introduction of the “versus populum” (facing the people) altar is presented with masked words, full of suspicion, in Art. 91 of the Instruction: “Oecum. Concilii”: «It is a good idea to place the main altar away from the wall (…) in order to easily move around it (…) to celebrate “versus populum.”» (!!)
It is worth noting the fraudulent way of presenting this. Episcopalian Conferences almost always use the “criterion of arbitrary interpretation,” which consists in converting a “licet” [permitted], an “expedit” [free from entanglements] and a “tribui possit” of liturgical law, into a categorical “debet” [withdrawal], thus eliminating the viability of a different option, when the “licet” provides for freedom of choice and is recognized in all legal Codes.
This is how the true “turn away from God” turned into a “focusing on beings,” such as it happened with the introduction of the altar “versus populum,” that is a true “turn away from God,” a God who is truly present, substantially, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Tabernacle that holds the Holy Eucharist.
Today, with his back to the Lord, the priest “focuses” (“conversio ad creaturas“) on “God’s people,” who have now become the protagonists of the Liturgy. This is also confirmed in the “Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani” (Art. 14), where it says:
«… cum Missae celebratio (e.g. “execution” of all ceremonies of sacrificial rites!) natura sua (against the Tridentine dogma!) indolem communitariam habeat» (!!). Therefore, “it is a community celebration”!
There is no way out. Here, the heretical sense of the term “indolem communitariam” or community nature, attributed to the “Celebration of the Mass,” is confirmed in what follows in line with the time: “dialogis inter celebrantem et coetum fidelium (…) (omitted)… communionem inter sacerdotem et populum fovent, et efficiunt…”!
While before, the celebration [of the Mass] “facing God” made every celebrant “the priest”, “in the person of Christ,” now, by celebrating “facing the people,” he focuses particular attention on the faithful, that is attention given to any “Tom, Dick or Harry” of any diocese updated to address “the needs of modern times” and “to the post-conciliar charismatic signs” for a community celebration “towards the people.”
This is not just any hypothesis thrown out there! We just need to think of the many priests (over 100 thousand!) who have thrown away their priestly vestments and those who have first adopted the “clergyman” uniform and then “plain clothes” to better identify with “God’s people” and therefore, to give it a more “communal” touch. If we think of that, it would not be “daring” to think that there is a straight “cause” and “effect” relationship also in this “leveling” of the ministerial priesthood with the “common priesthood” of the believers (by virtue of Baptism), created by the Second Vatican Council in Article 27 of the “Liturgical Constitution” with complete disdain for Pius XII‘s “Mediator Dei,” which had been absolutely ignored in the Constitution! The “Mediator Dei” says:
«… “dialogued” Mass (today known as “communal”) (…) cannot be a replacement of the solemn Mass; the latter, even if it is officiated only in front of ministers, has a special dignity because of the majesty of its rites…»
And later adds:
«We must take into account that they are not of the truth (and therefore, not just undisciplined and disobedient!) and have deviated from the path of reason (and Vatican II did not realize this?). These people have wrongful opinions and “attribute to all these circumstances” those values that should be asserted without a doubt but by omitting them, the sacred action (that is, attending the rite of solemn Mass), cannot achieve the intended goal…»
Instead, the Liturgical Council Constitution, Art. 2 says:
«… every time the rites have, based on their individual nature, a communal celebration characterized by the presence and active participation of the believers (…) it is inferred that “this” is preferred whenever possible to the individual and private celebration…»
Even if Article 27 is ambiguous, reticent, it does not specifically say that communal Mass should be chosen over solemn Mass in order not to contradict Pius XII‘s “Mediator Dei,” which states that: “Dialogued Mass should not be a substitute for Solemn Mass.” Now, this example reminds us of the words of Monsignor Bugnini, who in his article of March 23, 1968, illustrates the “Roman Canon” as follows:
-
– the “Liturgical Constitution (…) is not a dogmatic text”;
-
– it is “(instead) an operational document.” In fact, it is with a surgical operation that it has “disemboweled” without any concerns, the entire Liturgy and its very rich Tradition, saving absolutely nothing and throwing everything in the garbage!
-
– that “anyone can see (in the Liturgical Constitution) the structure of a gigantic construction (…) that still refers to the post-conciliar entities to determine the specifics and in some cases, to authoritatively interpret what in generic terms would be mentioned but not authoritatively said…”
As we can see, the command was taken away from the Generals (e.g. Bishops), who also lost the authority to establish the tactics and strategies of action, which can only lead to defeat! Nevertheless, the Mason Monsignor Bugnini, undeterred, added:
«The same way to express it was chosen by the Conciliar Commission (…) who polished the text of the Constitution (…) to leave, in the execution stage (…) the largest number of possibilities (…) without closing the door (…) on the revitalizing action (…) of the Spirit!» (without adding “Holy”!).
In particular, the introduction of the “facing the people” altar was at once the clearest application of the use and abuse of the “communal” idea and the term “communal” and that terminology is a “counterfeit coin” of sorts! Article 27 of the Liturgical Constitution is completely opposite to “Mediator Dei”, “actually troubling on key points”! For this reason, Monsignor Bugnini used that formidable formula in his article of March 23, 1968. So Vatican II was able to reverse the hierarchy of value, giving the “Dialogue Mass” a preferential position in comparison with “The Solemn Mass” in defiance of Pius XII‘s “Mediator Dei” that had established instead that
«… Solemn Mass cannot be replaced, even if officiated only in the presence of Ministers …»
We can infer from this that Vatican II “cheated” to completely turn upside down the liturgy of the Roman Church over 1000 years old! Overwhelming evidence of this can be also found in the sophism (the “fallacy” of “scholastics”) in Article 1:
«The Sacred Council intends to grow with each passing day, the Christian life of the believers.”» However, later it says
«it is better to adapt (…) to the needs of our time those institutions that are subject to change …» So we wonder, what exactly are “the needs of our time” for the Council? What exactly are those situations subject to change? “In what sense,” “to which extent” and “with what criteria” are they subject?
Here, there is only mystery and darkness! Later, Article 1 continues:
«We propose to foster what can contribute to the union of all believers in Christ …»
We can also ask here, what could contribute to the union of all believers in Christ? And, at what price?
Absolute silence!
Article 1 (proposes) to invigorate (…) what is useful to call all into the bosom of the Church. In particular, what and how is it useful? How and under what legitimate circumstances?
Finally, it concludes:
«(The Sacred Council) considers that we must put special emphasis (…) also in the “reform” and the augmentation of the Liturgy …» (!!)
Nevertheless, in Article 21, the Council states that with a liturgical reform, the Church will throw out the window all pre-conciliar reforms and Liturgical rites, for the following “reason”:
«… to ensure the providing of the highest amount of the abundant treasure of grace contained in the Sacred Liturgy to the people!»
It is a real mockery (…) a liturgical mockery! The Holy Roman Catholic Church is served and thrown into that “upheaval”, attributed exactly to that by the driving force of the Council, Paul VI. In fact, in his speech of July 15, 1970, his subject was “the Council that caused an upheaval …”!
THE ALTAR “TABLE”
Pius XII’s “Mediator Dei” had already condemned it!
«Is rector aberret itinere, qui priscam altri velit “mensae” formam restituere» (those who want to restore altars to the old “table” form are on the wrong track!)
Therefore, it was another trick! Actually, the “facing the people” altar was introduced by Cardinal Lercaro with a “trick” as proved by his memo of June 30, 1965, Number 3061, from Vatican City to the Bishops. In reality, the altar quickly took the form of a “table” instead of the shape of sacrificial altar that had been used for over a millennium!
This new form could also be considered as “heretical” because the XXII Session of the Tridentine Council, Canon I, had threatened with excommunicating anyone wanting to assert that Mass is nothing more than a “supper”:
«Si quis dixerit, in Missa non offerri Deo verum et proprium Sacrificium, aut quod “offerri” non sit aliud quam nobis Christum ad manducandum dare, anathema sit!»
[If anyone says that in the mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God; or that to be offered is nothing else than that Christ is given to us to eat, let him be anathema.]
Four centuries after the Tridentine [Council of Trent], Vatican II had made a scandalous gesture! It is true that the Liturgical Constitution did not dare speak in such words about the heresy of the “Mass-supper” nor did it openly say that the altar should be in the old “table” shape and facing the people, but no one contested when Cardinal Lercaro abusively wrote in his Memo:
«By March 7 (1965) there was a general trend to celebrate “facing the people” …»
and then added this “arbitrary” explanation of his own:
«… Actually, it has been found that this form (“facing the people” altar) is the most convenient one (?) from a pastoral perspective.»
Therefore, it is clear that Vatican II ignored the issue of the “facing the people” altar in its Liturgical Constitution, accepting Cardinal Lercaro and his “revolutionary” team’s decision! Nonetheless, the author of that “idea” perhaps had some regrets about it, because he later wrote:
«In any case, we must underline that celebrating the Mass “facing the people” (…) is not absolutely indispensable (…) for an effective “Pastoral.”» Any Liturgy of the Word (…) where believers participate as much as possible through “dialogue” (?!) and “singing” can be conducted (…) making it also more intelligible nowadays by using the language spoken by the people (…) facing the Assembly (…) It is truly desirable to also celebrate the Eucharistic Liturgy (…) “facing the people” …»!
Therefore, Vatican II had given “carte blanche” to Cardinal Lercaro, just like it had done with Monsignor Bugnini! It was done in a hurried way, as shown by Article 128 of the Liturgical Constitution:
«… First of all, it is to be revised as soon as possible (…) the Canons and ecclesiastical dispositions regarding all external things (?), pertaining to the sacred worship and in particular to the dignified and appropriate construction of sacred buildings (…) the form (?!) and construction of altars, nobility and safety of the
Eucharistic tabernacle.»
Astonishing! One could perhaps question the nobility and safety of marble tabernacles, but the treasures of artwork and Traditions of the Faith? Unfortunately, this nobility was trampled, scorned and thrown away by the churches, due to the bigotry and stupidity of many executive entities of Vatican II of the seven “Instructions” of the Liturgical Constitution! All of them were overheated fantasies from the “false prophets” of a “Pastoral” unknown to the Church for twenty centuries!
Unfortunately, altars “facing the people” were set up in churches and Cathedrals even before new Canons came out, before the Canonical Legislation came about and before the “Instrutio Oecum. Concilii” had even created a name for it: “altars facing the people,” where they allude only to an officiator that “must be able to easily move around the altar”
(“why”?) “and officiate facing the people.”
All this can be none other than the tragic confirmation by the innovators of their will to emphasize the heretical idea that the Mass is nothing but a “banquet,” a “supper” rather than the memory and bloodless renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Proof of this is found in Article 7 of the “Istitutio Generalis Missalis Romani”:
«Cena dominica, sive Missa, est sacra synaxis, seu congregatio populi Dei in unum convenientis, sacerdotale praeside, ad memoriale Domini celebrationem …»
[“The Sunday Supper, or Mass, is the sacred meeting or congregation of the people of God assembled, the priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.”]
It is clear that the subject here is only “Sunday supper,” purely and simply sine adiecto! [without any additions] In fact, the two terms (“Sunday supper” and “Mass”) have the same values as “ens,” “verum” and “bonum”in the scholastic-Thomistic philosophy:
ens et verum (…) convertuntur! ens et bonum (…) convertuntur!
Like them, also “The Lord Supper” and “Mass” (…) convertuntur!
Now, this definition of Mass as a synonym of “Sunday supper” and “one and the same” with the “people gathered” to celebrate “God’s memory” immediately recalls the condemnation of Canon I, Session XXII of the Council of Trent:
«Si quis dixerit in Missa non offerri Deo verum et proprium Sacrificium, aut quod “offerri” non si aliud quam nobis Christum ad manducandum dari, anatema sit!»
Because of this, it is futile to jump up and down trying to explain that “Sunday supper” meant Jesus’ “Last Supper” with his Apostles, because that “supper” of the Passover was not “that event”; it was only at the end of this supper that Jesus did instituted the Eucharist!
Even if we wanted to consider the Mass only as a “sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur,” we would still be committing heresy, condemned with excommunication by the Council of Trent! In order to better show the severity of this heresy, contained in Article 7 of the “Istitutio Generalis Missalis Romani” and defined as “Coena dominica, seu Missa,” we just need to read the dogmatic doctrine taught by Pius XII in his Speech to the attendants at the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy (September 22, 1956):
«Even when the consecration, (which is the central element of the Eucharistic Sacrifice!), takes place without pomp and in a simple manner, it (the “consecration”) is still the core of the whole Liturgy of the Sacrifice, the focus of the “actio Cristi (…) cuius personam gerit sacerdos celebrans”!»
Therefore, it is clear that the Mass is not a “supper,” the “Sunday supper” but rather the bloodless renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross, as we had always been taught by the Church before Vatican II!
Now, the first principle of logic (“sine qua non”! = absolutely essential!) is the identity and contradiction principle (which does the same!), that says, “idem non potest esse et non esse, simul.” Therefore, two Popes cannot be right when one (Pius XII) defines one doctrine and the other one (Paul VI) defines it as the opposite idea using the same argument and the same issue.
Doctrine is also – and better – taught with facts and practical examples. That is how Jesus taught it, first “coepit facere” and then “docere” (verbis) [first “by doing” and then “by teaching” (through words).]
The fraudulent introduction of the altar “facing the people” is a “fact” that has overturned the whole “order” that “had been in existence for over a millennium,” or “versus absidem,” that had been placed facing the East, as a symbol of Christ, “lux vera, quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum”! [The true light that enlightens every man that cometh into this world.]
However, why in the “Instructiones” of the Liturgical Constitution, Article 55 of the “Euch. Mysterium” it says that “it is more appropriate to the nature of the sacred celebration for Christ not to be eucharistically present in the tabernacle, the altar where the Mass is celebrated… from the beginning…” by calling for a reason for the symbol?..
But doesn’t the altar “facing the people” undermine the very reason of the symbol of “sol oriens” [Eastern Sun], which is Christ, forcing the celebrant to turn his back to that “symbol of light” to show the people the “face of man”? Is it not this altar “facing the people” a way to assert what the Council of Pistoia taught, that there should only be one altar in a church, which then fell under the condemnation of Pius VI’s “Auctorem Fidei”?
Thus, not only were the glorious marble altars rendered useless, but also all those side altars, suggesting with this that no worship should be given to the Saints, not even “dulia” and also challenging, even here, the condemnation of heresy made by the Council of Trent!
What was the fate of the tabernacle?
In his Speech of September 22, 1956, Pius XII wrote:
«We are concerned about (…) a tendency on which We would like to call your attention, that of a lessening of esteem for the presence and action of Christ in the tabernacle.»
«… and the importance of Him who accomplishes it is reduced. Yet the person of our Lord must hold the central place in worship, for it is His person that unifies the relations of the altar and tabernacle and gives them their meaning.»
«It is through the sacrifice of the altar, first of all, that the Lord becomes present in the Eucharist, and He is in the tabernacle only as a “memoria sacrificii et passionis suae” (memory of His Sacrifice and Passion.)»
«To separate tabernacle from altar is to separate two things which by their origin and their nature should remain united …»
As we can see, the Church’s Doctrine was very clear and serious in terms of its pastoral motivation and concern because of the separation of the tabernacle from the altar!
Instead, Paul VI in the Liturgical Constitution does not remember this doctrine and is also silent on Pius XII’s condemnation in his “Mediator Dei,” of those who wanted to restore the altar to the old “table” form which is nowadays the altar “facing the people,” ignoring or failing to mention what had been said both in “Mediator Dei” and in his Speech of September 22, 1956:
«… a revision of the canons and the ecclesiastical regulations related to all external things in regard to sacred worship (…) the shape and construction of the altars (…) the dignity, position and security of the tabernacle.»
So, why did Paul VI and Vatican II remain silent on this? With Article 128 of the Liturgical Constitution, as well as greater freedom to the discretion of post-conciliar executive entities, it was added to paragraph 1 that:
«Those rules that are less relevant to the liturgical reform should be corrected (…) or abolished.» (nothing else!), which means giving carte blanche to the executive entities to completely mangle the old liturgy!
In order to carry out that formula, Cardinal Lercaro was in a hurry to decide the fate of the tabernacle. He did it quietly with Articles 90 and 91 of the First Instruction of the
Liturgical Constitution, teaching that
«When building new Churches or restoring or adapting existing ones, it is important to take care of having the appropriate layout to officiate sacred actions, according to their true nature.»
This disqualifies all twenty centuries of history of the Church because Basilicas, Sanctuaries, Parishes, Chapels, etc., were not built in the appropriate manner to allow the celebration of Sacred Actions according to their true nature! Article 91, continued:
«It is a good idea for the main altar to be detached from the walls (…) to be able to walk around it (…) and celebrate (…) facing the people!»
Finally! This breaks the “Gordian knot” and here is the “perfect crime” that may remind us of the devilish wit mentioned by Giosuè Carducci in his ode: “The Church of Polenta” (verse 15.ma), where we read: “… behind the Baptistery, a small reddish creature, the horned devil was looking and mocking about …”!
However, Cardinal Lercaro was not upset by this. The solution to the “tabernacle” issue came three years later with Article 52 of the “Eucaristicum Mysterium”:
«The Holy Eucharist cannot be continually and routinely guarded except in one altar or in one place of the Church itself.»
As we can see, it is clear the opposition between “one altar” and “in one place of the Church itself,” because this “one place” does not necessarily mean an altar (on the side or in a chapel!) since the word “place” means any “place” (such as “confessional,” a pulpit or others).
In any case, it is also serious that before Cardinal Lercaro and Cardinal Larraona’s signatures, we can read this Declaration:
«Praesentem Instructionem (…) Summus Pont. Paulus VI, in audentia (…) 13 aprilis 1967 (…) approbavit (…) et auctoritate sua (…) confirmavit (…) et pubblici fieri (…) jussit …»
Once main altars and tabernacles had disappeared and the place of the evicted “Master” was taken by the “Master’s Letter,” that is the Missal or the Bible (like Protestants!) the Holy Sacrament that should have taken the central place of worship ended up hiding in a dark corner.
The purpose of this would have been
«to ensure Christian people the abundant treasure of grace contained in the Sacred Liturgy»!!!
LATIN LANGUAGE
Latin was abandoned as the language of the Church on November 30, 1969 with the beginning of the (mandatory!) use of the “Missale Romanum Novi Ordinis; from that moment on, Latin disappeared from virtually every single Rite in the Liturgy, beginning with the Rite of the Holy Mass.
Pius XII’s “Mediator Dei” already talked about the very serious consequences of abandoning Latin in Liturgy, although Vatican II purposely ignored it knowing quite well what their goal was.
This is what Pius XII wrote in “Mediator Dei”:
«… the temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices… deserve severe reproof…»
«It has pained Us grievously to note, Venerable Brethren, that such innovations are actually being introduced, not merely in minor details but in matters of major importance as well. We instance, in point of fact, those who make use of the vernacular in the celebration of the august Eucharistic sacrifice; those who transfer certain feast-days – which have been appointed and established after mature deliberation …» « The use of the Latin language, customary in a considerable portion of the Church, is a manifest and beautiful sign of unity, as well as an effective antidote for any corruption of doctrinal truth …»
He also said, in his “Speech to the International Congress on Pastoral Liturgy”:
«From the Church’s side, today’s liturgy involves a concern for progress, but also for conservation and defense (…) It creates new elements in the ceremonies themselves, in using the vernacular, in popular chant (…) Yet it would be superfluous to call once more to mind that the Church has grave motives for firmly insisting that in the Latin rite the priest celebrating Mass has an absolute obligation to use Latin, and also, when Gregorian chant accompanies the Holy Sacrifice, that this be done in the Church’s tongue …»
However, Vatican II did not agree with that. The issue of Latin was decided in Article 36 of the “Liturgical Commission” in four paragraphs, the last two of which destroyed everything that the first one had guaranteed, using the solemn word of the Council! Chapter 36 said:
-
“the use of Latin must be preserved in rites …”;
-
“… the use of vulgar language can occur in some prayers, songs, etc.”;
-
the form and quantity is left up to the discretion and judgment of the local church authority;
-
but it ends by practically cancelling everything!
The text of the first “Instructio, Art. 57: Inter Oecum. Concilii” stated that the competent local authority could introduce the people’s language in all parts of the Mass (except for the Canon). However, another “Instructio”, the “Tres abhinc annos” also degraded the Canon, by saying in Art. 28:
«The competent local church authority, observing what has been set forth in Art. 36, par. 3 and 4 of the Liturgical Constitution, can establish that the spoken language can also be used in the Canon of the Mass …»
Therefore, with Art. 57 of the “Inter Oecum. Conc.”, the competent local church authority could ask the Pope to confer the power to “violate” the dispositions of Art. 36 of the Liturgical Constitution! This “violation”, was considered in fact, as “a correct application of the law”! Instead, the “tres abhinc annos”, easily jumped the barrier as expressed by Monsignor Antonelli, on February 20, 1968 in a tone that would be appropriate for the [military] battalion:
«By reciting the Canon in Italian, as decided in the Italian Episcopal Conference (…) the last bastion of the Mass in Latin (…) has collapsed.»
Thus, whilst Arabic language is the vehicle of Islam that unites Muslims in their faith and launches them against Christians of all countries, instead, the elimination of Latin in the Catholic Church was the “perfect crime” committed by Paul VI with which he broke the union of all Christians in their own true Faith! Modernists can thank Vatican II for this achievement in a way that ” ’twas madness”! (Manzoni)
With this umpteenth error, Paul VI had “canonized” the heresies of the Council of Pistoia, condemned by Pius VI in his “Auctorem fidei” and by Pius XII in his “Mediator Dei”! With Paul VI “MODERNISM” had earned power even if Tradition and Canonical Law were against the liturgical reform. In fact, the “Liturgical Constitution” contained solemn obligations and commitments:
-
The use of Latin in Latin Rites remains the norm and it is not an exception (Art. 36, paragraph 1);
-
Art. 54, item 2, asks priests to “ensure” (“provideatur”) that the faithful know how to sing and recite in Latin parts of the “Ordinary.”
-
Art. 114 requires even from Bishops to preserve the patrimony of traditional sacred music and to promote “scholae cantorum” to preserve traditional music.
-
Art. 116 requires giving Gregorian Chant a “prominent place” in the Church.
Therefore, every single executive law of the Episcopalian Conference had to be complied with – as a “sub gravi” mandate! – by all authorities at all levels; this was an obligation that they had accepted “under oath”, as stated by Paul VI on December 4, 1963 when he signed the “Liturgical Constitution” and wrote: “In Spiritu Sancto approbamus” – “omnia et singula, quae in hac Constituzione edicta sunt”. Therefore, those decisions such as using the people’s language during Mass, made by the Episcopalian Conference were illegal because the ability to make these decisions had been denied by Article 36, paragraph 3:
«the competent Church authority is in charge (…) of making a decision on the “permission” (therefore, not on the obligation!) and to what “extent” (but only as a concession, not as an “obligation” to adopt it!) the people’s language
[would be used].»
Canon 9, Session XXII of the Council of Trent makes more obvious the abuse of power by the leadership of Vatican II when it says:
«Si quis dixerit lingua tantum vulgari celebrari debet (…) anathema sit!» [If anyone says that the mass ought to be celebrated in the vernacular tongue only…let him be anathema.]
Now, this “excommunication” was never annulled, nor could it have been, because the use of Latin by the officiating priest is mandatory to prevent a certain risk of corruption of the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
It is, at this point, certain that the text of the Offertory and of the three Eucharistic Prayers of the Canons, added to the Ancient Roman Canon, is full of which can be described as “heretical”.
For example, the formula in Italian of the Consecration of the wine, where the translation has a double title, reads: “Qui pro vobis, et pro multis, effundetur” (in simple future, passive form = “will be shed”), CEI [Italian Episcopal Conference], instead translated it as: “It is the blood… shed (past participle) for you and for all.”
CEI’s translation of the “pro multis effundetur” into “shed (…) for all” is an insult to the priests’ intelligence – who should also know “Latin”! – but above all, it is an insult to Christ who “pridie quam pateretur” (that is, when he instituted the Sacrifice of Mass) and could not say: “Take it and drink; this is My Blood, shed for you,” because he had not shed it yet!
Quid dicendum, then? How does one not think of the very serious problem of conscience that arises out of it? Pope Innocent XI, condemning 65 proposals containing as many “errors” of lax morals, also established the principle – compelling the “sub gravi”! conscience – that it is not licit to follow an opinion that is only probable, and it is necessary to follow the safer path when it comes to the validity of the Sacraments. Now, Mass has the dogmatic issue of Consecration! How can one not only question this issue of “translating” from Latin into Italian (and into other languages) when Article 40 of the Instructio “Inter Oecum. Concilii” clearly states that:
«Translations of liturgical texts shall be made from the Latin Liturgical text»!
We are astonished also about the way it was translated and then the Episcopal-Conferences imposed the reciting of the Consecration of the Sacred Species, in the vernacular even the text of the consecration, which instead of “… Corpus meum, quod pro vobis tradetur” (= betrayed by you, or handed over), was translated as: “my Body, offered for you” (past participle, that means only a memory, a “memorial” that is denied by the “pridie quam pateretur” where the past participle would not make any sense!).
It is even worse in the formula of the consecration of the Chalice: “… Sanguinis mei… qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur” was translated as “This is the Chalice of my Blood” (…) then repeating the word Blood, although it was not repeated in the relevant Latin text. “It is the Blood (…) shed” (past participle instead of future tense – “it will be shed” or “effundetur”), “for you and for all” (instead of saying “for you and for many” (as it says in Latin and has been confirmed by Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution).
We can exercise the right here granted by Vatican II in Chapter 2 of the “Declaratio de libertate religiosa”, based on which
«… in religion, no one is forced to act against his own will, nor prevented – within reasonable limits – from acting according to his will (…) in private or public, individually or as a group …»
Because of this, based on the pre-conciliar liturgical law, those faithful to Tradition, “in rebus maximi momenti” are certainly within “reasonable limits”, especially more so than those who follow the post-conciliar line!
***
The analysis of this sad liturgical situation makes us also consider the irreconcilable differences between the “Mediator Dei” and the “Liturgical Constitution of Vatican II.”
It is worth noting that when the Liturgy is considered a community celebration, it implies that the Liturgy, instead of being exclusively the responsibility of the Ministers of the Hierarchical Order (as read in Can. 109 and Can. 968, par. 1.A, Codex J. C., meaning that only men – and not women! – can be sacredly ordained!) becomes instead the responsibility of the entire community of believers, both men and women, all of “God’s people”! This can also be found in Art. 14 of the “Instructio Generalis Missalis Romani”, Novi Ordinis, where they clearly say that:
«Mass is by nature a community celebration (…) by means of dialogues between the priest and the assembly, with acclamations, that are not only external signs of a community celebration (or “co-celebration”?!) a communion between priest and people is promoted and achieved …»
The Latin version of Art. 14 clearly highlights this concept of community (“a heresy”!).
«Cum Missae celebratio, natura sua, indolem “communitariam” habeat, dialogis inter celebrantem et coetum fidelium, nec non acclamationibus, magna vis inhaeret: etenim non sunt tantum signa externa celebrationis communis, sed communionem inter sacerdotes et populum fovent et efficient.» (!!)
It cannot be said here that this doctrine does not belong to Vatican II, that is, to the “Liturgical Council Constitution”, because the “Instructio Generalis” is the main procedural text of the Council and therefore, this “Instructio Generalis” confirmed and worsened the “mens” of the Apostolic Leadership! Furthermore, we must also assume that this is the sense of Art. 27 of the Liturgical Constitution, that says:
«Quoties ritus, iuxta propriam cuiusque naturam, secum-ferunt celebrationem communem cum frequentia et actuosa participatione fidelium (…) inculcetur hanc, in quantum fieri potest, praeferendam esse eorundem – (rituum) – celebrationi singulari, et quasi privatae …»
As we can see, the wording is cryptic and ambiguous, as the Mason Monsignor Bugnini wanted it, as stated in his document dated March 23, 1968 where he said:
“The same mode of expression, at times flowing and then in some case, almost vague, (…) was willingly chosen by the Council Commission to edit the Constitution with the purpose of allowing for a wider range of possibilities in the application stage …”
The expression “Community Celebration” is completely nonexistent in Pius XII “Mediator Dei” and in all the preconciliar texts before Vatican II! Yes, they talk about a “Dialogue Mass”, although this does not mean a “Community Mass”, and much less a “Community Celebration”! Allowing for “dialogue” with the priests officiating the rite does not mean that the believers have the “right” [to dialogue] nor that Mass is unconceivable without them because the only protagonist of the Mass is Christ through the priest officiating the service and representing Him “in the person of Christ” by Divine Institution conferred to him by Christ Himself!
Here we can see the meaning of that unfortunate text of Art. 27 of the Liturgical Constitution, following Can. 18 of the Canon Law Code that sets forth the criterion to interpret Church laws, “propria verborum significatio in textu et in contextu considerate.”
All things considered, the meaning of that “celebrationem communem” used by Art. 27, is none other than that of “cocelebration”! This is nothing else but a heretical principle that goes against the doctrine of Session XXIII of the Council of Trent, Chapter IV, when it talks about Hierarchy of the Church and Holy Orders, attributing only to the clergy the exercise of the divine mysteries and therefore, of the liturgical rites.
Instead, in Art. 27, the Second Vatican Council added a paragraph that I would describe as “suspicious”, by which the elements that “secumferunt” (= define) a “community celebration” are two: the “frequentia fidelium”, that is, a large meeting; and the “actuosa participatio fidelium”, or an “active participation of the faithful.”
These two elements that can determine (“de facto” although not “by right”!), a “con-celebration” of the believers with the priest, certainly are paradoxical aberrations by Vatican II against the Traditional dogmatic doctrine! Actually, on this issue we have a categorical condemnation by Pius XII‘s solemn teachings with his “Mediator Dei”!
It is also true that before Vatican II, people “dialogued” and “sang” with the priest, both during Mass and during Sunday Vespers, in those parts where people were allowed to join in. However, this was never confirmed as a “community celebration” or a “celebrazionem commune.”
True, the priest officiated “coram populo”, but not “in common” with the people. It is very sad that Vatican II fell into such a crass “sophism” and adopted a completely opposite position to that of “Mediator Dei”, where we read:
«The Dialogue Mass (in its Latin version: “id genus sacrum, alternis vocibus celebratum”) cannot replace the Solemn Mass even if it is officiated only in the presence of the ministers.»
The “condemnation” is even clearer and detailed in a previous “passage”:
«Some, coming close to errors that have already been condemned (…) teach that (…) the Eucharistic Sacrifice is a true and real “co-celebration” (…) and that “it is better” for the priests to “concelebrate” with the people attending the Mass, rather than offering the sacrifice privately …»
Therefore, Art. 27 of the “Liturgical Council Constitution” repeats concepts that had already been solemnly condemned by the “Mediator Dei”; not only do they know they are supporting a principle that has been condemned by Tradition but they even knowingly express it in other words:
«… Inculcetur hanc (celebrationem communem) (…) esse praeferendam celebrationi singulari, et quasi privatae! quod valet praesertim pro Missae celebratione (…) salva semper natura publica et sociali (…) cuiusvis Missae …»
In order to further analyze this huge change that was wrongly introduced in the liturgical reform we should include here the part of the “Mediator Dei” that specifically covers this issue, which is a dogmatic issue, to emphasize the “Modernist errors” made by the Second Vatican Council!
This is the text about the “participation of the people in the Eucharistic Sacrifice”:
«It is necessary, Venerable Brethren, to clearly explain to your flock how the fact that faithful take part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice does not mean that they will enjoy priestly powers. There are some in our time who, approaching errors that have already been condemned, teach that the New Testament only recognizes one priesthood, that is the responsibility of all those who have been christened, and that the precept given by Jesus to the Apostles during the Last Supper to do what He had done refers directly to all Christians, and only then comes hierarchical priesthood. They say that only the people have true priestly powers, whereas the priest is commissioned by the community. In consequence, they state that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is a true and real “co-celebration” and it is better for the priests to “co-celebrate” together with the people, rather than offering the Sacrifice in private…»
«It is useless to explain how much these captious
errors clash with the truth we have proved in this document when we analyzed the position of the priest in the Mystical Body of Jesus. Let’s remember only that the priest takes the place of the people because he represents Our Lord Jesus Christ as the Head of all the members and because He sacrificed Himself for them. In this sense, he goes to the altar as a minister of Christ, inferior to Him, but superior to the people! Instead, the people do not represent in any way the person of the Divine Savior, and are not mediators between themselves and God. Because of this, they cannot have any priestly powers…»
To which it adds:
«When we say that the people celebrate with the priest, we are not saying that Church members, other than the priest himself, officiate at the visible liturgical rite, because this belongs only to the minister of God, but that they join the priest in their praise, requests, expiation and gratitude, and they join the Supreme Priest, to present them to God the Father, in the oblation, also with the external rite of a priest.»
We can see how much this doctrine of the Church before Vatican II clashes with Article 1 of the “Institutio generalis Missalis Romani” that states the confusing and erroneous principle:
«Celebratio Missae, ut actio Christi et Populi Dei hierarchice ordinati (…) centrum est totius vitae christianae …»
Apart from the fact that traditional doctrine was confirmed by Canon 109 of the Canon Law:
«Qui in ecclesiasticam hierarchiam cooptantur, non ex populi, vel potestatis saecularis consensu, aut vocatione adleguntur; sed in gradibus potestatis ordinis constituuntur sacra ordinatione (…) ecc.»
We are dazed when we find ourselves in front of such an arbitrary and daring definition, condemned by Pius XII in his “Mediator Dei”, almost as it was a promiscuous action of Christ and the entire “people of God” who have been officially ordered! This is a true aberration that leads to even more serious ones, like the one in Art. 7 and Art. 14 of the “Institutio Generalis.” Art. 7 reads:
«Coena dominica, sive Missa, est sacra synaxis, seu congragatio populi Dei, in unum convenien-
tis …»
This is a truly heretical definition that brings to mind St.
Ambrose’s words in regard to Herod’s crime:
«Quanta, in uno facìnore (…) sunt crimina!» [“How many things one does … which are crimes!”]
(29 August, in “decollatione S. Jo. Baptistae”)
Art. 14 even more blatantly tries to teach that:
«Missae celebratio (…) natura sua (?!) indolem habet communitariam.» (!!)
So that no one can say my argument is unfounded, let’s compare the “Institutio Generalis” with the infallible doctrine from the Council of Trent and Pius XII’s teachings.
The logical disposition of the terms in Art. 7:
«Coena Dominica, sive “Missa” est sacra Synaxis, seu Congregatio Populi Dei”; makes it clear “concepts” such as in the Scholastic philosophy, “convertuntur”: “Coena est Missa: Missa est Coena: Missa est Congregatio Populi: Congregatio Populi Dei est Missa …»
The relevance of these “identifications” is more than evident! The term “supper”, highlighted in this article, is the very heretical concept condemned by Canon 1, Session XXII of the Council of Trent:
«Si quis dixerit (…) quod offerri non sit aliud, quam nobis Christum ad manducandum dari
(…) anathema sit!»
The concept of “supper” does not include the concept of “sacrifice” of the victim; in fact, it excludes it because the “Latreutical Sacrifice” completely destroys the victim, making the offerer unable to enjoy the flesh. Because of that, the term “supper” means none other than “supper” and not a “true and real sacrifice”!
Therefore, the definition of “Mass-Supper-Gathering of God’s people” is another rejection of the dogmatic definition contained in St. Pius X’s Catechism:
«The Mass is the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, who represented by the bread and the wine, offers Himself to God in memory and in representation of the Sacrifice of the Cross.»
“The main element of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is when Christ intervenes as a ‘seipsum offerens'”, as clearly stated by the Council of Trent.
“This takes place during consecration” (rather than in the “communion”-supper!), when during the act of “transubstantiation” of the Lord, the Priest is “personam Christi gerens.” The consecration must be carried out without any splendor, with simplicity, because “it (the consecration) remains the main focus of the entire Liturgy of the Sacrifice”; it is the main point of the “actio Christi, cuius personam gerit sacerdos celebrans”. This is exactly the opposite of what Art. 1 of the “Institutio Generalis” says, where we can read “celebratio Missae”, ut actio Christi et “Populi Dei”!
Whatever one may say, we are standing in front of an unbelievable landslide of the dogmas of the faith that have been thrown away by the Liturgical Reform of Vatican II, managed by the Mason Monsignor Annibale Bugnini!
For this purpose I quote the official interpretation of the Liturgical Constitution made by Cardinal Lercaro in the fourth Instructio, the “Eucharisticum Mysterium”, Art. 17:
«… In liturgical celebrations, we must avoid dividing and scattering the community. Because of this, we must try to make sure that the same church does not offer two concurrent liturgical celebrations that attract people’s attention to different things. This is particularly applicable to the Eucharistic celebration …»
«Therefore, when we celebrate the Holy Mass for the people, we must be careful to ensure we are preventing the “dispersion” that typically arises from a concurrent celebration of more Masses in the same church. It is also necessary to make attention to this all on other days!..» These words reflect actual Conciliar delirium!.. Pius XII, in his “Mediator Dei”, stated that:
«… We must notice that there are those who do not follow the truth and the path of reason and mislead by false opinion, attribute to all these circumstances such value that leads them to state that without it, the sacred act could not achieved its purpose. In fact quite a few faithful are incapable of using the “Roman Missal” even if it is written in their language, and not all of them are capable of properly understanding the rites and liturgical ceremonies!
The intelligence, character and nature of men are so diverse and different that not all can be similarly impressed and guided by prayer, chants or sacred acts performed in common. The needs and dispositions of the souls are not the same in all of us and the audience is not always formed by the same type of people!
Who can then say, based on this preconception, that many Christians cannot participate in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and enjoy the benefits of it? These can certainly do it in another way that may be easier for some, such as for instance, by piously meditating on the mysteries of Christ, or performing pious exercises and doing other prayers that are different in terms of form from the sacred rites but are more appropriate for these people’s nature!»
What great “pastoral” wisdom, psychological and deep, penetrating the fibers of the human soul with these words by Pius XII!
However, another result of Modernism is the “mutilation of the Mass” by the Mason Monsignor Annibale Bugnini who managed to receive Paul VI’s approval.
This way, we now have a Bugnini-Masonic Mass with a “God of the Universe”, with the “panis vitae”, the “potus spiritualis” (…) In the “German translation” of the Latin version, the Latin word “hostia” (= victim, bloody sacrifice) was translated as a “gift” (Gabe), whereas in Italian, it was translated sometimes as “sacrifice.”
Whereas in the Italian tradition, the new mini-Offertory (also called “preparation of the gifts”!) maintains the “Orate, frates” prayer, where apart from the concept of “sacrifice” there is also a trace of a difference between the priest and the people (“my sacrifice and yours”!), in German the priest says: “Let us pray for God Almighty to accept the “gifts” of the Church as worthy of praise and for the health of the entire world”! and then further on it says: “that is, another ideal invitation to prayer”, which means, full freedom for fantastic inventions!
Even the “New Missal” is a great scandal! It would be worth mentioning here the “Brief Critical Examination of the Novus Ordo Missae” by Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani, in collaboration with great “experts”, published in 1969 and which contains a serious statement from the then-Prefect of the Holy Church!
Let’s begin by the definition of the Mass (paragraph 7: “De structura missae”, in the “Istitutio generalis”, or preamble of the Missal:
«The “Coena dominica” or Mass is the sacred assembly of God’s people gathered in the presence of the priest to celebrate the ceremony of the Lord. This local assembly of the Holy Church is based on Christ’s promise: “where two or three people gather in My name, I will be among them”»!
This is the comment made by Card. Ottaviani:
«The definition of “Mass” is thus limited to that of “supper”, which is then constantly repeated.
This supper is also defined by the assembly, presided by the priest, and by performing “the remembrance of the Lord”, remembering what happened on Holy Thursday. None of this implies “real presence” or “reality of the sacrifice”, the Sacrament – quality of the officiating priest, or the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic sacrifice, regardless of the presence of the assembly; in other words, it does not imply any of the essential dogmatic values of the Mass that constitute the real definition of Mass. Here, – concludes the cardinal – the voluntary omission is equivalent of their surpassing or at least in practice, of their refusal!»
That is enough to say that this definition of “Mass” was a “heresy”! Pope Paul VI, reading the text written by both cardinals, was afraid of it and made changes to “paragraph 7”, correcting it;
however, he did it only in part, because “the text of the Mass” remained exactly the same! Not even one word was changed!
With this “cunning” amendment, the “errors” in that paragraph would seem corrected. However, this was not the case! The “Mass” remains “supper” like before; “sacrifice” is only a “remembrance” like before; “the presence of Christ” in both species is basically similar to the presence in the assembly, in the priest and in the Holy Scriptures. The lay people (and a lot of the clergy!) have not noticed the subtle distinction of the “sacrifice of the altar”, now called “long lasting”; but the “mens” [mind] of the compilers is what Rahner described in his comments to “Sacrosanctum Concilium”, Art. 47:
«Art. 47 includes – it was already in the Concilium! – a theological description of the Eucharist. Two elements are particularly worth noting; they talk about allowing the sacrifice of Christ “endure” and the expressions “repraesentatio” (Council of Trent) and “renovatio” (more recent papal texts) have been intentionally avoided. The Eucharistic celebration is defined with one word taken from recent Protestant discussions, «remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus”.»
This is a deviation from the bloodless renewal of the sacrifice of the Calvary! In fact, based on this “new definition”, Christ’s sacrifice would have only happened once, forever and would endure. That is Luther’s doctrine!
If the “sacrifice” is only a “remembrance” in which the effect of the only sacrifice still lasts, then Christ is only spiritually present; this reduces the meaning of the reintroduced expression “in persona Christi”; and the “real presence” is only symbolized in the two species! Proof of this is also found in the statements made by German theologians Lângerlin, collaborating with J. A. Jungmann, and Johannes Wagner, who, when talking about the “new version” of the paragraph (7), said:
«Despite the new version, granted in 1970 to the militant reactionaries (who would be Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci (…) and us!), and in spite of all that it was not a disastrous one (!!) Thanks to the skills of the editors, the new theology of the Mass avoids the dead-end paths of the post-Tridentine sacrifice theories and is in line with certain interfaith documents written in recent years.»
It is clear: the current worship is crippled, especially in these two issues: “the purpose of the Mass” and the Essence of the Sacrifice.
1. Purpose of the Mass
-
The “ultimate purpose” or “Sacrificium laudis” of the Holy Trinity, as explicitly stated by Christ (Ps. XL, 7-9 in Hebr. 10, 5), has disappeared from the Offertory, from the Preface and from the end of the Mass (“Placeat tibi Sancta Trinitas”);
-
The “regular purpose” or “Sacrificio propiziatorio” has been changed: instead of emphasizing forgiveness of the sins of the living and the dead, the emphasis is on the nourishment and sanctifying of the people in attendance (N. 54). It is true that Christ, as a victim, joins us in HIS victim status; but this is before the “consumming” phase, so much so that the people attending the Mass are not required to communicate sacramentally;
-
The “immanent purpose” is that the only sacrifice appreciated and accepted by God is the sacrifice of Christ. In the “New Missal” (Bugninian-Paulian Mass) this “offering” is turned into some sort of exchange of gifts between men and God. Men bring the “bread” and God turns it into “the bread of life.” Men bring the “wine” and God turns it into a “spiritual beverage.”
However, this “panis vitae” and this “potus spiritualis” are truly open-ended concepts that can mean almost anything! Here, there is the same crass error of the definition of Mass; in it, Christ is only spiritually present in that “bread and wine” that have been spiritually changed!
This is a real set of errors. It is a game of equivocation. For this, they eliminated two beautiful prayers: “Deus qui humanae substantiae mirabiliter condidisti …” and “Offerimus tibi, Domine, Calicem salutaris …” Therefore, there is no longer any distinction between divine and human sacrifices! Therefore, since they had eliminated the “true purpose”, they invented fictional concepts: “offerings for the poor,” “for the church” and offering of the host to be sacrificed. After this, participation in the Immolation of the Divine Victim has become something between a gathering of philanthropists and a charity banquet!
2. Essence of the Sacrifice
-
“Real presence”: whilst the “Suscipe” specified the “purpose” of the offering, it is not mentioned here. Therefore, the change of formulas reveals a change in the doctrine. Not explaining the Sacrifice means – like it or not! – eliminating the main role of the “Real Presence.” In fact, they never mention this “Real” and permanent presence of Christ – Body, Soul and Divinity. Even the word “transubstantiation” is ignored!
-
“Consecratory formulas”: The ancient Consecration formula was not a “narrative” like the “new consecratory formulas” said by the priest as if they were “historical narratives” rather than expressions of a categorical and affirmative judgment made by Him through the person in whom He is represented: “Hoc est Corpus meum”, rather than “Hoc est Corpus Christi”. Therefore, the words used in the Consecration that have been introduced in the context of the “Novus Ordo” can be valid in terms of the priest’s intention, but could also not be valid because they are not “ex vi verborum”, based on the “modus significandi” they used to have during the Mass.
This could lead one to wonder: Are today’s priests who follow the “Novus Ordo” in “doing what the Church does,” performing valid consecrations?
***
In conclusion, a further analysis of the constitutive elements of the Sacrifice (Christ, priest, Church, faithful) in the “Novus Ordo” would result in a series of omissions, eliminations, odd formulas and desecrations that form a set of more or less serious deviations from the theology of the Catholic Mass. Therefore, it is obvious that the “Novus Ordo” has broken away from the Council of Trent and, we could even say that with our traditional Catholic Faith!
NOVUS ORDO MISSAE
On November 30, 1969 the NOVUS ORDO MISSAE became mandatory.
The Italian Episcopal Conference, the most important in the world, imposed the obligation to adopt the Novus Ordo Missae Celebrandae on November 30, 1969, which violated the sacred right of Italian Catholic priests and their freedom of conscience to which they are legitimately entitled (also pursuant to Declaratio de Libertate Religiosa, N. 2, of the Second Vatican Council) to remain faithful in the most rigorous way to the Ordo Missae [Order of the Mass] celebrated in all the previous centuries, restored and imposed by Pope St. Pius V‘s Supreme Authority.
The Novus Ordo Missae, inspired by unsettling doctrinal principles (in reality, by heretical principles) of the “Institutio Genarlis Missalis Romani”, does not only represent an astonishing and colossal Pastoral imprudence, carried out in the shadows (really unsettling in any possible sense) of the Liturgical Reform based on the aforementioned “flowing, ambiguous, uncertain” (and thus insidious), of the Council’s “Sacrosanctum Concilium” Constitution, but above all, it has brought up an incredible array of questions, very serious doubts and threatening dangers related to the integrity of the Catholic Faith in the entire Eucharistic dogma; questioning in many cases, the validity of the Mass and in the long term, the unreal eventuality of the gradual elimination of the entire Hierarchy of the Church, successive to the invalidity of the conferment of the Holy Orders (for Priests and Bishops) .
It is easy to point out the very serious rifts of the Eucharistic Faith brought up by the amazing adulteration of the Tridentine dogmatic doctrine in regard to the Mass, surprisingly adulterated by the very Liturgical Constitution, where we can read in Article 6, with infinite astonishment and indignation, the reckless and arbitrary interpretation of St. Paul’s 1 Epistle to the Corinthians, 11, 26 (n. 18 in the Liturgical Constitution), where it said:
«… quotiescumque enim manducabitis Panem hunc et Calicem bibetis: mortem Domini annuntiabitis, donec veniat …» [as often as you eat bread this and the cup you shall drink; you shall announce the death of the Lord, until he comes]
And these other words in the Council’s text:
«… similiter quotiescumque cenam manducant
…» [… In like manner as often as they eat dinner… ]
(Ah! That word, “cenam manducant,” instead of “panem” and “Calicem,” that do not convey exactly the same concept as Supper because it is not allowed by Canon 1, Sess. XXII of the Council of Trent, with anathema sit for whoever has the intention of confusing things (and therefore including Vatican II!!).
The very serious flaws in the faith of the Eucharistic, as I mentioned before, leads to (in a hidden way) the demon of an agonizing doubt in the minds of the priests (disgustingly deceived by the Authority of the Council), which is a doubt that, “sensin sine sensu,” could lead them straight to the loss of their Faith, “tout court,” [in short] and to have an influence, at the same time, in the “lack of intention” when consecrating the Eucharist.
Whenever the intention to consecrate is missing (which is hypothetical, although it is not impossible in a priest or in a group of priests, to lose Faith in the Eucharist, in the sacrificial nature of the Mass and in the very real presence over the consecrated species!) the validity of the Mass is terminated and, tomorrow, the validity of the priests and bishops’ orders, performed by Bishops who abuse their Faith and therefore, are always “suspect” of not having the intention of consecrating, or are using consecration formulas arbitrarily; formulas that have basically been falsified, just like what happened in the 16th century after Cranmer’s apostasy and that of the entire British episcopacy.
For all of these reasons, the Novus Ordo Missae is in the paradigm that has been condemned in the first erroneous proposal of the Morale Laxioris, decree dated March 2, 1679, sanctioned by Pope Innocent XI, which reads:
«Non est illicitum, in sacramentis conferendis (…) sequi opinionem probabilem (…) relicta tutiore …» (V. Denzing. 2101) [It is not unlawful, in the conferring of the sacraments (…) To follow the opinion of probable (…) rely on the safer …]
Therefore it is “sub gravi” obligation to follow the “pars tutior” [safer part], rejecting the Novus Ordo Missae Celebrandae, that puts everything in danger of being illicit and invalid. Every priest has the right to exclusively use the Ordo Missae [Order of the Mass] used throughout the centuries and adopt the concepts published in the Dedica Latina, attached to the cover of the Roman Missal book as required, according to the restoration and obligation in perpetuity ordered by St. Pius V’s supreme authority.
The Liturgical Constitution:
“Sacrosanctum Concilum”
It was enacted on December 4, 1963, sixteen years after Pius XII’s “Mediator Dei” of 1947. In that encyclical, Pius XII strongly defended some doctrinal principles that are insurmountable because they are founded on the dogma and two millennia of tradition and are necessary to preserve the Faith and protect it from violation or abrogation.
In his encyclical, Pius XII defines Liturgy as:
«The Sacred Liturgy is the public worship that Our Savior and Head of the Church offers to the Heavenly Father and that the community of believers in Christ offers to His Founder, and through Him, to the Heavenly Father; in sum, it is all the public worship of the Body of Jesus Christ, Head of the church.»
The liturgical revolution in the context of the “Roman rite” of the Catholic Church has managed to destroy not only that rite, but also the Catholic faith of many believers. There are numerous examples of this, such as this one.
Archbishop Dwyer of Portland, wrote in a letter:
«People who take Holy Communion are flocking together to the Communion rail in every type of clothing, from short pants to other clothes that are similar to bathing suits (…) Music, nowadays, is jazz with the tempo of rock-androll; many no longer genuflect. Many, even adults, wander around the church and then sit down on benches without making any sort of sign of recognition of Our Lord in the Tabernacle. However, the changes keep moving forward. Many Bishops not only tolerate, approve and even promote these aberrations, but also take part in them. “The Catholic Herald Citizen” of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee talks about a “Gospel Mass” that is the type of celebration that gives you goose bumps and chills and creates joyful clapping and moves people to tears.
The clothing they wear has been designed to accentuate their proportions. It is no secret that both men and women in many churches of the United States have publicly displayed their impure sins as a way to publicize their perversions and to find new accomplices in their vice.»
The text of the “Liturgical Constitution” of Vatican II answers to the name of Monsignor Annibale Bugnini, who in March 23, 1968, wrote an article for the “L’Avvenire di Italia”, where he clearly says without any room for doubt that the Council Commission on Liturgy had the explicit intention to deceive, using suspicious, insipid, and perhaps uncertain wording, and it edited the text of the Constitution to allow for a wide array of possibilities in the application stage so as not to close the door on the Spirit’s invigorating action (without the Divine attribute “Holy”!). If this is not “deception” …
In regard to this “working” document, Msgr. Bugnini in “Sabato” of March 23, 1968, wrote that the Liturgical Constitution «is not a dogmatic text but rather a “working document”.» Is that clear? It is an a “working document” on dogmatic matters because it was the first text published by Vatican II in “Spiritu Sancto Legittime Congregatum.” Unfortunately, it was this text that set the tone for all subsequent documents and therefore, it was not infallible!
In any case, this document initiated the program of “Reform” which reminds us of the “Reform” of Luther. This is a term with a “Protestant connotation” which after four centuries, became the watchword of Vatican II for its nefarious program against the Catholic Faith.
Actually, the Liturgical Constitution reads:
«Anyone can see the structure of a giant construction that calls post-conciliar entities to define the details.»
The boasted revival of the Church as “a giant construction” was already present in the giant devastation performed by the “Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani”! It referred to the “post-conciliar entities to define the details” which is like saying it called on some troublemakers!
When we read Bugnini‘s fraudulent arguments, we can see the legal monstrosity described with audacity:
«… The same way of expression (of the Lit. Const.) … suspicious (…) at times insipid (…) and therefore uncertain, in some cases, and those who took part in it are very aware of it (…) chosen by the Council Commission that edited the text of the Constitution to allow for a wide array of possibilities in the application stage (…) instead of closing the door on the invigorating action of the Spirit!”»
He did not dare say “Holy Spirit” because He is only the “Spirit of truth”, which could not, for certain, endorse the art of lying!
As you can see now, it is truly a “New Liturgy”!
Mons. Annibale Bugnini, author of the Liturgical Reform.
«The Vatican is an authentic hoax to damage the Revealed Truth.»
(Mons. Prof. Francesco Spadafora)
***
«I don’t want anything to do with the Vatican.
There is the Devil in the Vatican!»
(Card. Albino Luciani, 1977)
***
«We cannot ignore the Council and its consequences.»
(The Mason, Yves Marsaudon, in “Oecuménisme vu par un Franc-Macon”
[“Ecumenism as Seen by a Freemason”])
Chapter IV
DECREE:
“UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO”
– Ecumenism –
The term “Ecumenism” is a Greek word (oikumène) that means “all the inhabited world.” Indeed, today this word means it is the duty of all Christians to not only restore their union with the only Church founded by Jesus Christ through Peter, but also it is the duty of these “errants,” to Catholic truth to convert as the Church had always desired with Her preaching and prayers.
Instead, in this ecumenism of Vatican II, a union is sought based on the common characteristics of each confession, in order to reach solidarity and peace, considered to be the supreme good.
In fact, the “Decree on Ecumenism” teaches that while, for the world, the division of Christians is a reason for scandal and an obstacle to the preaching of the Gospel to all men, it also teaches that the Holy Spirit does not refuse to use other religions as instruments of salvation. It is an error, however, that is repeated in the document “Catechesi Tradendae” (On Catechesis In Our Time) by John Paul II.
Although the Decree was corrected it seems by the Holy Father’s own hand, Father Congar chose to be its ‘sponsor,’ stating that the Papal changes did not change any of the text, and would not have prevented anything that had already been decided. Indeed, from that Council forward everything was allowed, so much so that Cardinal Willebrands dared to state that now the Council had rediscovered Luther’s deepest intuitions!
In fact, Vatican Council II proclaimed “a true union of the Spirit” with the heretical sects (see “Lumen gentium”, 14) and “a certain communion, though still imperfect, with them.” (“Decree on Ecumenism”, 3)
This Ecumenical unity however contradicts Leo XIII’s Encyclical “Satis Cognitum”, which teaches that Jesus did not found a Church that embraces a generically similar plurality of communities, but which are distinct and not bound by ties forming a “sole Church.” In the same way, this Ecumenical unity is contrary to Pope Pius XII’s Encyclical “Humani Generis” that condemns the idea of reducing the need to belong to the Catholic Church to any kind of formula whatsoever.
Now those who followed this process that seems to have implemented the Pauline Prophecies (Thess. 2, 2.3 and following) to the letter, cannot help but notice that in the “new Teachings”, the most innovative Vatican II documents (especially the “Nostra Aetate”, the “Dignitatis Humane” and the “Gaudium et Spes”) have practically replaced the previous Councils and even the Holy Scripture, especially the Gospels which are referred to less and less.
With this premise, it is also worth recalling that the Catholic doctrine of “justification” was repudiated by the October 31, 1999 “Joint Declaration” in Augusta (Germany).
The most serious and profound cause of the Catholic Church’s disastrous state is undoubtedly the Ecumenical spirit permeating all the vital nerve centers of ecclesiastical life. One sees this in our writings on this theological theme.
Now here we see how the Protestant Revolution in the Church marches on; after the new social doctrine, the new Mass, the new Canon Law, the new Marian doctrine (… )with the new doctrine on the “justification of the Faith” which was drawn up with Pope John Paul II. (see the 12/09/1999 “Osservatore Romano”).
This doctrine of “justification through the Faith” is one of the most important themes in the Pauline texts as well. The Doctrine contained in it offers a theological and spiritual teaching, marked by the charism of perpetuity, both in the Letter to the Romans (3. 21-26), as well as in one to the Galatians. The text to the Romans is fundamental to the Pauline concept of “Divine Justice,” and for the correlation of the “justification” of the sinner. Let us read it:
«Divine justice has never manifested itself to the present day, independently of the law; the law and the prophets bear witness to this. The justice of God, I say, is by means of faith in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe – since there is no distinction; all of us have sinned and are deprived of God’s grace – and are freely justified through His Grace by virtue of the redemption accomplished in Jesus Christ, whom God destined as an instrument of propitiation with His own blood, through the faith; He wished to demonstrate His justice in these present times so that it is just and justified in being founded on the faith of Jesus.»
The Pauline text announced the establishment, through the propitiary sacrifice of Christ, of a divine economy marked by the “redeeming justice of God,” as a specific category of the theology of the “story of salvation,” in which the believer in Christ receives its redemptive Fruit: the justification, that is a Divine grace that confers the quality of “just” on whomever receives it.
So then, what is this doctrine of justification?
Luther founds his doctrine on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans.
Hans Küng writes: «One may say without exaggeration that the Doctrine of Justification is at the root of that immense theological confrontation involving the true form of Christianity; a conflict that has lasted to the present; this is at the root of the greatest catastrophe inflicted on the Catholic Church throughout its two thousand year history».
This doctrine was thus defined: “justice imputed,” summarized in the formula: “simul justus et peccator”; this is the core of Lutheranism.
Therefore a Christian is not intrinsically just, but rather a being who is both just and a sinner.
Luther uses expressions from Saint Paul, such as the term from Psalm 32, where it speaks of “covered” sins (Romans 4.7), of the term “imputation,” taken from the Vulgate, “logizein”, at times as “to deem,” at others with “to impute.” But Luther lifts the main Biblical argument from c.7 of the same Letter, where it reads:
«I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do … I may wish to do good, but do not act on it, since I do not do the good that I want to, and I act on the evil that I do not want …». (7. 15-19)
This concept of the Church’s ecumenism and “latitudinarianism” sprung from Vatican II: in the “Decree on Ecumenism”; in “Lumen Gentium,” in the “new Canon Law” (C. 201,1), in John Paul II’s Letter “Catechesi Tradendae,” in the Allocution held in the Anglican Church of Canterbury, in the Ecumenical Directory “Ad Totam Ecclesiam” of the Secretariat for Promoting Unity Among Christians, etc…
But this is an unorthodox concept that unfortunately was validated with the authorizations given to construct assembly rooms for the purpose of “religious pluralism,” to publish “Ecumenical Bibles” which are no longer compliant with Catholic exegis or interpretation, and for “Ecumenical ceremonies” (like the one in Canterbury) …
The same error is repeated in “Catechesi Tradendae.”
In the Allocution by John Paul II held on May 25, 1982 in the Cathedral of Canterbury, he declared that:
«the promise of Christ inspires us with the faith that the Holy Spirit will heal the divisions introduced in the Church in the early days following Pentecost.»
These affirmations are certainly contrary to the traditional Faith; they seem to say that the Catholic Church’s Unity of “Creed” never even existed! (…) From all this one may conclude that Protestantism is nothing more than a “particular form” of the same Christian religion!
Therefore, Vatican II proclaims «a true union of the Holy Spirit»
with all the heretical sects!, and «a certain communion with them, still imperfect»; in practice, it has turned against traditional doctrine as taught by the centuries-old teachings of the Church. In fact, this “ecumenical unity” wanted by Vatican II contradicts for example the Leo XIII Encyclical “Satis Cognitum” which teaches that:
«Jesus did not found a Church that embraces a plurality of communities which are generically similar, but distinct and not bound by ties forming only one Church.»
Moreover this “ecumenical unity” is contrary to Pope Pius XII’s “Humani Generis” that condemns the idea of reducing the need of belonging to the Catholic Church to any kind of formula [agreement].
It is also contrary to the Encyclical “Mystical Corporis” by the same Pope, which condemns the concept of a “Pneumatic Church,” which would constitute the invisible bond among the communities separated by Faith.
And again: this “ecumenical unity” is also contrary to the teaching of Pius XI in his Encyclical “Mortalium animos” which states:
«On this point it is appropriate to expose and reject a certain false opinion that is at the root of this problem and of that complex movement with which “non Catholics” strive to realize a union among Christian churches. Those who adhere to such an opinion constantly cite the words of Christ: “That they may be only one thing (…) one flock and only one Shepherd” (John 17.21 and 10.16), and pretend that with such words the Christ expressed a desire and a prayer that has never been realized. They pretend in fact that the unity of Faith and of Governing, which are the “characteristics” of the true Church of Christ, basically have never existed to this date and still does not exist.»
As you can see, we are faced with “two Teachings” which are in conflict. Quid dicendum?..
Let us continue in this reasoning: this Vatican II ecumenism, while still being condemned by Morality and by past Canon law, today, instead, has allowed the Sacraments of Penance, of the Eucharist and of Extreme Unction to be received as well by “non-Catholic ministers (Canon 844 of the “New Canon Law”,) and has favored “ecumenical hospitality” authorizing Catholic priests to give the Sacrament of the Eucharist to “non-Catholics”!
This too is patently contrary to Divine Revelation, which prescribes “separation” as well as rejects the mixing «of the light and dark, between the faithful and unbelievers, between the temple of God and that of sects.» (II Cor. 6, 1418)
Therefore, this pan-christian Council of the new millenium would be in stark contrast with the previous two millenia preceeding it, dividing factions opposed to Christianity.
Now, one notes in reading the April 22, 2001 document “Charta Oecumenica” that it might as well be a declaration by any political group with a series of good proposals, elaborated over the last century and a half, in a sort of “traditionalism” of retrograde ideas, despite the fact that there is an official Church document to compare to the teachings of the previous Church, in terms of doctrine and of morality. In the introduction, it is states that:
«all the Churches» are committed to «the Gospel for the dignity of the human being, created in the image of God, to contribute together as churches of reconciliation of peoples and cultures.»
This would involve a committment of “all the Churches,” that is, of those structures which over the last half a millenium spread all over Europe, starting in the 1300’s, demolishing Christianity and the religion of God. Modern culture, therefore, is the sum of all this dissolution and ruin. Without a return to God therefore, human dignity cannot rise again.
At the beginning of the document, we are called again to follow in St. John’s footsteps, in which Our Lord prays to the Father that all the disciples be one “like you, Father, you in Me and I in Thee.” The Evangelical Declaration was presented for signing by all of the Churches present, almost as if the signers were all disciples of Christ. The contradiction of “announcing together” the Evangelical message must be noted however, knowing that among them there is no concordance at all in learning it and confessing it, so their faith has no value.
The same document says so:
«Essential differences on the level of faith still prevent visible unity. Different concepts exist primarily regarding the Church and Her unity, as well as regarding the sacraments and min-
istries.»
On the second point, we specify that:
«The Church’s most important task in Europe is to announce together the tidings of the Bible through word and deed for the salvation of all human beings.»
But how does one announce “the Bible together,” perhaps to those who do not believe, or who have formed their own, only human ideas, based on their own philosophical and sociological convictions?
On the third point, it is said that it is necessary:
«to revise the story of the Christian Churches together.»
Therefore, it is necessary to “revise” in order to justify everything, without any respect for the historic truth, in favor of a historical functionality, because the “credibility of the Christian testimony” has been subjected to “divisions,” to “enmity,” to “combative confrontation.” And it continues saying that:
«the spiritual gifts of the various Christian tra-
ditions, is to learn from each other to and to accept gifts from each other.»
The aim therefore is that Ecumenism must be achieved at all costs, even [at the cost] of truth. And to realize this, the “Churches” must learn to:
«overcome self sufficiency and set aside any prejudice», as well as «promote an ecumenical opening and collaboration in the field of Christian education, of initial and ongoing theology, as well as in the field of research.»
Therefore, the post-Conciliar Church must demolish Catholic teaching, because “heresies” are a common prejudice.
This cooperation, therefore, in the fields of Christian and theological education, must be changed in “search” of the revealed and taught truth, coming out of two thousand years of cultural oppression by the Church.
The fourth point of the “Declaration” seeks to:
«defend the rights of minorities and to help reduce misunderstandings and prejudices amongst the major and minor churches in our countries.»
The fifth point states that:
in order to «pray together» it is first necessary to
«work together.”»
But how can we “pray together”, allowing “the Holy Spirit to work within us and through us,” if a true faith does not exist before praying with anyone, even a self-proclaimed Christian? The Holy Spirit works only within those who are true disciples of Christ. But this sort of ecumenism, along with Vatican II becomes misconstrued until it reaches the point of maintaining that the grace of God is present everywhere.
Everyone is equal, therefore, “to learn to know and appreciate the celebrations and forms of spiritual life of other churches.” For instance, a priest who celebrates the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass would be on the same level as a friendly person who meets with others who call them “pastors” or lay presidents. But in order to do this [be on the same level], isn’t it necessary to have been preceded by the Incarnation of the Son of God, the teachings of the Apostles, the thousands of martyrs, saints, doctors and 2000 years of the Church!
On the sixth point, the Document reminds us that
«there also exist differences of opinion on doctrine, ethics and church law.” It then concludes:
“There is no alternative to dialogue.»
No comment! But an alternative does exist. It is the Gospel of Christ, taught by the Catholic Church, even though today, after Vatican II, the most important values are unity, world peace, and comfort on this earth. Meanwhile wandering through “this valley of tears,” suffering for sins, avoiding other occasions for sin, being on guard against the temptations of the world, and the salvation of the soul are all things that belong to the past, and have already long been buried and forgotten.
This type of ecumenism, therefore, has the goal of any sociological or political project.
Is this not true, perhaps, of the current false messiahs and prophets who preach about “social responsibility,” as stated in the eighth point, writing that:
«We consider the diversity of regional, national, cultural and religious traditions to be enriching for Europe»?
The Document also emphasizes:
«Our common endeavors are devoted to evaluating, and helping to resolve political and social issues and to strengthen the position and equal rights of women in all areas of life and to foster partnership in church and society between men and women.»
From the naturalism of the ninth point, in which environmentalism becomes “safeguarding the creation,” renouncing original sin, taking care of the “Garden” again as new Adams, it moves onto point 10, on archaelogy, to say:
«A special communion binds us to the people of Israel with whom God made an eternal alliance,»
or rather, the true people of Israel are the Christian people, since inauspicious archeologism which seeks to justify the stupidest innovations of the modern world, cancels what we have been taught for thousands of years after the Coming of Jesus, and ignores what St. Paul wrote to the Romans, pages of condemnation of the Jews for refusing to recognize Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and in verse 6 of Chapter 9, where he says:
«For all are not Israelites that are of Israel. Neither are all they that are the seed of Abraham, children.» (Rom. 9,6-8)
Obviously, we must deplore all examples of anti-semitism and persecution, but there is no tie between the Christian faith and Judaism, because there is no common measure between one who believes in Jesus Christ and a non-believer, as declared in the Gospels: “He who believes shall be saved, whoever does not believe shall be condemned!” Finally, in point 11, the hypocrisy is as evident in the call for relations with Islam, as there was with Judaism: but this mean that it involves “religious relations.” Using the excuse of faith in one God, means teaching the Catholic faithful that, in the end, there is nothing wrong with converting to Islam. This means continually repeating that everyone is free to choose whichever faith they want. But isn’t the idea of everyone choosing whichever faith they want, in effect, a wish for the destruction of the Church?
The effects of this mentality can only be “religious relativism” that considers the various religious denominations as legitimate “ways” to search for God. Everyone, therefore, is free to follow a presumed way to salvation that seems to be the most favorable to their religious aspirations. This, however, is the Masonic belief, expressed by the “New Age” that wants to devaluate the Redemption of Christ!
This belief gives every missionary and apologetic act a final notice; this is the dissolution of the Church itself!
May the Lord, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, preserve
His Church and Her faithful – those of the one true Church, that is, Catholic – from “error!”
***
But to return to the problem of “justification,” since this theme of Justification by faith is one of the most important themes discussed in the vast works of St. Paul on salvation.
The importance and the relevance of the theme can be divided in the following way:
-
St. Paul sees the essential difference that exists between the Gospel of Christ from the Mosaic and Rabbinical Judaism, the difference between the Justification by Faith with the exclusion of works of the Law.
-
The justification of St. Paul’s catechesis on the Justification by Faith, is contained in the Gospel as the Good News of the salvation through God, reserved to all those who believe. (Rom. 1,16 s.)
-
The theme of “Justification by Faith” is built on foundations of St. Paul of the “justice of God,” of “grace” and gift of redemption …
-
The “Justification by Faith” is one of the major themes of the “Letter to the Romans.”
-
It is a theme that directly regards the disposition with which Man is called to accept the grace that Christ offers him in the Gospel.
-
The “Justification by Faith-not through works” is a theological doctrine extensively discussed since the era of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
THE LUTHERAN DOCTRINE ON JUSTIFICATION
Even Luther, as a basis for his doctrine, refers principally to the “Letter of St. Paul to the Romans.”
Hans Küng himself wrote: «Without exaggerating, it can be said that the doctrine of justification is at the root of the immense theological confrontation surrounding the true form of Christianity; a confrontation that continues until today; it is at the root of the greatest catastrophe that has hit the Catholic Church in Her two thousand year history.»
Luther defined this doctrine as “imputed justification.” The same doctrine can be summarized in the expression: “simul iustus et peccator.” It is the backbone of Protestantism.
Luther constantly repeated that a Christian is not intrinsically just. His justice is that given by Christ; Man remains a sinner, only God regards him as renewed even following justification, not charging him any longer for his sins. Therefore, the sin does not condemn him anymore, but it still remains.
More concretely, this doctrine blurs the Christian concepts
of “purification,” “sanctification,” and “salvation.” This status, according to Luther, can be attained only in the afterlife, in the glory of Heaven.
The principal written basis for his argument is that of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, in which he says “For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate (…) So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me (…) The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want …” (Rom. 7, 15-19)
Therefore, everything comes from God, whether it is merit or good works. Sin comes from Man; not merit nor good works.
In his comment on the Letter to the Romans, Luther quotes St. Augustine: “Accordingly, by the law on works, God says to us: ‘Do what I command you’; but by the law of faith, Man says to God: ‘Give me what You command’; because if the law commands, it is to recall to the faith; because if the law gives its command, it is to admonish us what faith ought to do: that is, he to whom the command is given, if he is as yet unable to perform it, may know what to ask for; but if he has at once the ability and complies with the command, he ought also to be aware from whose gift the ability comes.” (Chap. 13)
St. Augustine, therefore, studies two possibilities: in one, Man, because he is a sinner, cannot fulfil his duties, because he lacks grace; in the other, a just man, can carry out his obligations, because this power come from God, “quo donante posse.”
Luther, instead, contemplates only one possibility: the Law of good works declares: Do that which I command, whereas the law of faith says: “Give me that which You command.”
Therefore, one says: I have done it; the other: I ask to be able to do it. One says: command as you will and I will do it; the other says: one trusts in an already received justice; the other, instead, hopes in a justice to be received.
According to Luther, a man of faith is not just unless he
is hopeful of attaining justice. This is primary difference that divides Catholic and Lutheran theology, which is reflected in the sayings “peccator in re, iustus autem in spe” (sinners in deed, but righteous in hope) and “simul iustus et peccator” (simultaneously saints and sinners).
This belief of Luther, however, is debated today, seeing that external imputed justice, is irreconcilable with the efficacy of divine actions, especially in the context of the redemptive mystery of Christ.
Through those sayings Luther believe that he had correctly conveyed St. Paul’s texts on “Justification by Faith.” Instead, it is a true “heresy” for what it affirms and what it excludes.
***
The doctrine on justification that we find in the Council of Trent is, on the other hand, very clear, not as an inter-religious dialogue, nor as a theology on the controversy, but rather a result of a heresy that had invaded the Church. The motive for the Decree on Justification was not a scientific explanation without any claims, but rather a heresy that raided the Church. The introduction of the Decree demonstrates clearly the point of view of the Council:
«Since there is being disseminated at this time, not without the loss of many souls and grievous detriment to the unity of the Church, a certain erroneous doctrine concerning justification (…) the Council of Trent (…) intends to expound to all the faithful of Christ the true and salutary doctrine of justification …» (cfr. Dz. 792 a).
The Tridentine Decree, therefore, was directed against a doctrine that needed to be fought, since it had, according to their interpretation, provoked a certain undeniable anthropocentrism. On the “nature” of justification of the sinner and the “causes” for this, the Decree, in Chapter 7, states:
«(Justification) (…) is not merely remission of sins, but also sanctification and renewal of the inner man (…) whereby unjust man becomes just, and an enemy, a friend, so that he may be an “heir” according to hope in life everlasting. (Tit. 3,7).
Of this Justification the causes are these: the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting; while the efficient cause is a Merciful God who “washes” and “sanctifies” gratuitously (1 Cor. 6,11), signing and anointing “with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance” (Ef. 1, 13 s.); but the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, “when we were enemies” (Rom. 5,10), “for the exceeding charity wherewith He loved us” (Ef. 2,4), merited Justification for us by His Most Holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father; the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the “sacrament of faith”, without which no man was ever justified. Lastly, the alone formal cause is the “justice of God, not that whereby He Himself is just, but that whereby He maketh us just” (St. Augustine), that, to wit, with which we being endowed by Him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which “the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills” (1 Cor. 12,11)».
A key concept in the Catholic doctrine on justification, is that everything that Man has within himself, in terms of justness, was given to him by the grace of God. Everything is “grace”. At every moment, therefore, the justness remains that which was received from God as grace. Therefore, a justified man is truly just, intrinsically and positively, a new being. For this reason, our belief about “simul iustus et peccator”, cannot be the same as that of Luther and his followers, because it would put in doubt the authenticity of the justification coming from God.
Already in the Council of Carthage (in the year 418) the saying “simul iustus et peccator” was defined. It was stated:
1° basing itself on the text of John 1,6, the Council condemns whoever believes that we must acknowledge ourselves to be sinners only out of humility, not because we are really such (can. 6);
2° it condemns anyone who believes that the saints say the words “forgive us our trespasses”, not for themselves, because for them this petition is unnecessary, but for others, who are the sinners (can. 107);
3° it condemns even the opinion of those who say the saints pronounce the words “forgive us our trespasses” of the Lord’s Prayer out of humility and not in their literal meaning (can. 108).
But this virtually negates the interior and effective justification of man.
The expression of Luther, therefore, “simul iustus et pecator” was condemned by the Council of Trent because it is presented as a concrete and historic affirmation. So, a justified man, upon being renewed internally into a new being, is no longer guilty with respect to his sin, as he was cleansed of it Regardless, even the justified man wrapped in his fragility, remains almost united with his past, since although the sin may have been cancelled from his current state of guilt, it remains an event in the history of a specific individual who received the gift of justification but must assume the responsibility of his sins, until the point that, for the grace of God, he has no more future, but an eternal present in the complete giving of himself to God who offers Himself to man in Jesus Christ.
It was Cardinal Cassidy who, along with other Catholic and Lutheran representatives, wrote a “Joint Declaration” on the doctrine of “justification”, all of which can be considered heretical.
It was thought that Card. Cassidy would be strict with the Lutherans, who had been excommunicated by the Council of Trent, by arguing with heretics on revealed and defined doctrines, and instead… he did not have, certainly, the spirit of St. Paul who fought all the false doctors who argued theoretical and practical errors. He was “ready to punish every disobedience (…) and render every intellect free in obedience to Christ.” (2 Cor. 10, 5-6)
However, it was already a reprehensible idea to argue the doctrine on equal ground, when it was known that the Lutherans profess a different doctrine, thereby, a false religion, as Pope Pius XI affirms in “Mortalium Animos,” because they were and are in their doctrine, government, religion, and thought, against the principle of authority, of obedience to the One Triune God and to the Church.
When talking about justification, therefore, one should not argue, denying the purification of the soul, mysteriously transformed into one of a saint, united with God, Himself, who caused it to happen..
Luther, considered human nature to be totally corrupted by original sin, causing man to be incapable of cooperating with the current Grace that moves him and prepares him for justification.
Man, according to Luther, remains totally corrupt, incapable of issuing an act of faith in God, while according to Catholic doctrine, man, even though he is tempted by evil, through the Sacraments, he becomes transformed, made holy, capable of living morally, and Jesus Christ has even declared him to be becoming perfect, that it can be said along with St. Paul: which is Christ, with His Grace, living in him.” (Col. 2, 20)
Point No. 23 of the “Joint Declaration”, instead, confirms the Lutheran doctrine that “justification remains free from human cooperation,” going against the Council of Trent.
And No. 24, it is repeated that “God’s gift of grace in justification remains independent of human cooperation,” which was repudiated by the infallible Council of Trent.
No one can disregard that there is an indissolubility among Faith, the Sacraments and Salvation, which means that believing in Jesus means doing His will, as the Gospel indicates.
St. Paul says: “For we are His handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.” (Ef. 2, 10)
Even though the Lutheran opinion on non-imputation was not repudiated, in the “Joint Declaration,” in No. 22, it states that “Catholics and Lutherans profess together the doctrine of non-imputation,” opposing the infallible sentence that the Council of Trent emanated:
«If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism (…) or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only imputed, let him be anathema.» (Cfr. Ds. 15,15)
According to this, Card. Cassidy and his followers would have been excommunicated by the Council of Trent, which excommunicated those who affirmed that grace is only a favor of God: “esse tantum favorem Dei, anatema sit!”
In the “Joint Declaration,” even emphasizing the words: faith, grace, sacraments, however, the ideas of the Catholics and Lutherans are radically contradictory and contrary to each other, since, while for Catholics, Faith is an intellectual agreement with all the dogmatic truths, for the Protestants, it is rather an unconditional voluntary act of faith in God and they do not believe in the sanctifying grace that renews the baptized individual. However, St. Paul affirms that Jesus was predestined to sanctify us: “as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over to sanctify Her.” (Ef. 5, 26)
Now, the “Joint Declaration” since having ignored the entire Catholic tradition, one can state it is not theological. The Holy Fathers, St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, and St. Thomas, spoke often of the relationship between nature and grace, for which there was already in the sixteenth century a definite doctrine being taught regarding justification, without any dissent.
Let us remember, here, Jesus’s prayer to His Father, so that His followers, and not others, could live the union and the holiness of the Trinity, “keeping them in the truth revealed to them” (John 17,12), and remembered by the Holy Spirit, whose language is not understood by those who are slaves of Satan, and who are victims of modern criticism that believes itself to be scientific, while it is only polluted and deceitful.
Jesus Christ founded His Church and not other churches, giving only His Church the instruments of grace and salvation. Dogmatically, therefore, outside His Church there is no salvation. The “sister churches” are not anything other than Modernist churches, destined to perish if they do not reenter into the only fold of Christ, or rather through the unity of the Faith, cancelling all other transformations of the revealed doctrine.
On October 31, 1999, after signing the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, together with Card. Cassidy, Pastor Noko referred to the event as “having changed the view of ecumenical relations.”
It was, in fact, a document that reopened one of the most important doctrinal problems that led – in the 1500s – to the Reformation and then the Counter-Reformation, on the topic of “justification.”
History of Ecumenism, from Its Origins until Vatican II
1910 World Missionary Conference to discuss the problems of missionary work in the non-Christian world, held in Hamburg.
1921 The International Missionary Council is created.
1925 The Universal Christian Council for Life and Work is created.
1927 The World Conference for Faith and Order is created.
1937 The two above-mentioned organizations merge and create the World Council of Churches also known as the Ecumenical Council.
1948 The Ecumenical Council formalizes its organization during the assembly in Amsterdam, in which many Orthodox churches participate.
1954 Second world conference in Evanston (USA) with the participation of delegates of 161 churches from 48 countries.
-
In Rome, Pope John XXIII creates the Secretariat for Christian Unity, headed by Cardinal Bea. This insti-
tute is later transformed into the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity by Pope John Paul II in 1988.
-
In New Delhi, the International Missionary Council merges with the Ecumenical Council. Catholic officials partecipate for the first time as observers. The Council defines itself as: «A fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.»
-
(1962-1965) The Second Vatican Council is held, in which delegates from non-Catholic Christian denominations are invited to attend the discussions as observers.
Hans Urs von Balthasar, the “Father of the New Ecumenical Apostasy”.
«Even if I have all the Bishops against me,
I have yet with me all the Saints and Doctors of the Church!»
(Saint Thomas More)
***
«By condemning us, you condemn all your ancestors. For what have we taught that they did not teach?»
(Saint Edmund Campion)
Chapter V
“GAUDIUM ET SPES” CONSTITUTION
– The Church and the World –
As we know, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” was born out of the French Revolution. (1789)
Pope Pius IX said: “The revolution is inspired by Satan himself. His goal is to destroy the Foundation of Christianity.” (Dec. 8, 1849) The principles of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” are not bad in and of themselves, but they are, however, because they are falsified by the fact that they are not subordinate to God and to His law.
In fact, in 1789, the Constitutional Assembly destroyed the ancient Constitution of the Church in France; on August 4, it suppressed the canons on which it was founded; on September 27, it stripped the churches of their sacred objects; on October 18, it annulled the Religious Orders; on November 2, it appropriated the church proprieties to itself, thus preparing the heretical and schismatic act of the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy”, which was promulgated the following year.
The same Assembly formulated, in 17 articles, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, suppressing the “Rights of God”. The famous principles mask the true intent, which was successfully confused with lies.
Now, in the Constitution: “The Church in the Modern World”, it states: “The Church, therefore, by virtue of the Gospel (?) committed to Her, proclaims the “rights of man”; She acknowledges and greatly esteems the dynamic movements of today by which these rights are everywhere fostered.”
If so, then one cannot be surprised by Paul VI’s declaration in Manila: “I feel the need to profess, here more than anywhere, the “rights of man” for you and all the poor of the world.” (Nov. 27, 1970)
We would expect that a Pope would feel the need to profess the Gospel, but instead, reading the writings of Pope Paul VI, it is clear that, for him, being a messenger of the Gospel and “the Declaration of the Rights of Man”, are one and the same thing.
And again: “The Church strongly believes that the promotion of “human rights” is a requirement of the Gospel and as such it must occupy a central position in Her ministry” (Nov. 17, 1974).
He insists: “Wishing to convert fully to the Lord and better fulfil Her ministry, the Church intends to show respect and diligence for the “rights of man,” within Herself as well.” (Message to the Synod, Oct. 23, 1974)
And continues: “In light of what we perceive to be our duty to evangelize, and with the force that comes from our duty to proclaim the Good News, we affirm our determination to promote human rights and reconciliation everywhere, in the Church and in the contemporary world.”
Therefore, this was the opinion of Paul VI. In his eyes, the “Declaration on the Rights of Man” was a sort of modern version of the Gospel, whereas it was the complete opposite!
The Gospel, in fact, does not teach human rights, but rather teaches the duties that we have towards God, although while respecting those duties to GOD, the rights of our neighbors are also respected. “Whatever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do unto Me.” (Mt. 25,40)
Therefore, considering the “saving project of God” and putting a priority on Jesus Christ, one must reject the doctrine of Vatican Il, such as in the Constitution: “Gaudium et Spes,” which wants the Church to open up to everything that is included in the concept of “World.”
Now, we can say that the principal work of Vatican II was that contained in the speech of John XXIII, during his opening of the Council: “Aggiornamento.”
The opening to “Modernism”, for example, was an encounter between “the Church and the World”, held in peace and serenity. With the aggiornamento of the Council to update Her structures, methods and language, the Church stripped itself of Her position of supremacy.
The Church, therefore, opened Herself to the world, to contemporary society, but also to other churches and faiths, in other words, Syncretism, which Paul VI and John Paul II gave life to, with their travels. Let us recall the visit of the Pope to the Synagogue of Rome, the prayer to the “One God, in Casablanca, with 40 thousand Muslims present; the meeting in Assisi, where the representatives of the various religions were invited not to “pray together,” but “to be together to pray,” as if to encourage the idolaters to practice their cult; to teach us, in any case, to defend the “rights of man.” A surrender to the world that made us lose our Christian identity!
Among the texts of Vatican II, written in the “Acts” are two Constitutions that were not dogmatic, theological or pastoral, titled: “Lumen Gentium” and “Dei Verbum”. There is also the “Gaudium et Spes” Constitution, considered pastoral, which is the text that is most at the heart of the Council, even though it is the most argued and impassioned work to come out of it.
This idea of worrying about the contemporary world, has succeeded in diminishing evermore, love towards Jesus. While the past Councils gave the world the richness of the Christian experience, Vatican II, instead, has used another method, undertaking an analysis of the world, of its worries and desires. It is an old apologetic method, from Saint Justin to Vatican II, that always uses the same effort: establishing a bridge between the world and the Catholic truth.
So, “dialogue” has replaced “anathema.” But while the ancient Councils held long theological expositions, and then in brief summaries, clearly defined the condemned positions, instead, during Vatican II the officials, preferring “dialogue”, surrendered to the world!
In the outline of “The Church in the Modern World” one can, in fact, find implicitly all the liberal and modernist themes, that would make one think that the authors were certainly not of the Catholic faith, for the simple fact that they presented, without any shame, the Fathers of the Council with an outline that clearly shows the progress of those false ideas. In fact, the pastoral doctrine, presented in this Constitution, does not agree at all with the doctrine of pastoral theology that had always been taught by the Church. The consequences were immediately serious. In many places ambiguous and dangerous proposals were affirmed, that demand a clear explanation in order to be admissible.
The unity of the Church, for example, isn’t unity in the human sense, as is seen on page 38 in lines 22 and 23, where the Church is defined “as a sacramental sign and an instrument of intimate union with God, and of the unity of the whole human race.”
There are many ambiguous phrases that demonstrate that the doctrine of the authors is not the traditional Catholic one, but a new one, made of a mix of Nominalism, Modernism, Liberalism and Teilhardism.
There are many serious omissions, such as keeping silent on original sin and its consequences on personal sin. On the vocation of the human being, it imagines man without using moral law. So, it speaks of the calling of man, without one word on Baptism, Justification and Supernatural Grace.
The doctrine of the Catechism, therefore, is modified from beginning to end.
Even the Church is not presented any longer as a perfect society, into which all men must enter to be saved; it is not even a sheepfold, because there no longer exist mercenaries, thieves, bandits, but only “the evangelical stirrings of the entire human race.”
In conclusion, it must be said that this “Gaudium et Spes” Constitution is neither pastoral nor that which has been issued from the Catholic Church.
In fact, the article of the “Gaudium et Spes” Constitution on the contemporary world, explicitly deals with the “new earth and new heaven,” that have as the final goal the Kingdom of God. This article concludes with Chapter III (Art. 33-39 GS) titled “De Novitate Humanae in Universo Mundo.” It is the chapter that expresses a true exaltation of human activity, with the goal of the Kingdom of God.
Here, however, it forgets that human activity is corrupted by sin, which tends to bend progress to egotistical human goals, whereas it should be purified by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ.
It is a “new doctrine” different from that which had always been taught by the Catholic Church by saying that the “new command of love” is the “basic law of human perfection” and, therefore, also the transformation (transformatio) of the world.
In Art. 39 of GS, speaking of the “new earth” and the “new heaven”, that is fulfilled at that end of times, Vatican II, referring to the eternal salv ation of “all the creatures”, reflects the abnormal idea that all rational creatures will indistinctly enter into the Kingdom of God.
Therefore, the Kingdom of God, proposed by Vatican Il, does not conform at all to what the Church has always taught, because it did not only obscure, but also deformed the vision of the Forthcoming Century [21st Century], that belongs to Faith, by putting a worldly content of human activity into the text and giving it an almost cosmic meaning, in which the Kingdom of God would be the final arrival point, “eternal and universal” of all of man’s activities! It is clear, therefore, the distinction between the kingdom of nature and the Kingdom of Grace, between what belongs to man and what is only of God.
It is also clear that this Kingdom does not conform with the supernatural Kingdom explained to us during the Sermon on the Mount, a clear exhortation to “seek first the “Kingdom of God” and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt. 6,33)
The transcendence of the Kingdom of God, therefore, is complete and absolute. The Lord pushes us to throw ourselves with all our soul against it, trusting in Him with all our problems, diffulties, needs and suffering. It is the final goal, therefore, of our life, as it has always been taught by the Church of Christ.
Vatican II, instead, insinuates the idea of the social nature of Salvation, which the Church had always previously denied, because after death, the soul submits to a specific and individual judgment. This is shown through Tradition and in the Holy Scriptures (Mt. 5,25-26; 12,36;22,11-14; 25,30 Rm. 2,16; Ebr. 9,27;10,21-27). But for the “New Theology”, it has become a new battleground!
In fact, “Gaudium et Spes” appeared to many Council Fathers to be a kind of “counter Syllabus.”
The concept of Incarnation in Article 22 appeared notably ambiguous, affirming that “the Son of God has united Himself ‘in some fashion’ with every man”, where the adverb “in some fashion” would mean that every man has become “in some fashion” divinized by the Incarnation of Our Lord, while we know from dogma that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, and He alone, was united in the hypostatic union, exclusively to human nature. And so, why did Vatican II come to tell us about the Incarnation as a union of Our Lord “with every man”? Is it not, maybe, a desire to divinize man? I believe that Article 22.2 of “Gaudium et Spes” crosses the limits of heresy!
Again, the heading of Art. 24.4, in which man is “the only creature that God wanted for Himself,” has a heterodoxical character that shows an anthropocentrical tendency that appears in the Council’s writings, as is clearly shown in Art. 12 and 24 of “Gaudium et Spes,” in which the article is considered with man being “in the image of God.” However, the central role of man as part of creation has been excluded from the new theology. The affirmation that man is the only creature that God wanted for Himself (GS 24,4), contradicts the passage in Prov. 16,4: “Universa propter semetipsum operatur est Dominus”. However, the doctrine of the Church has always been, in regard to creation, that God did everything for His glory, even if He wanted man to be the “king of creation”, and gave him “dominion” over the Earth and all the animals.
Therefore, man was wanted by God, with his “humanitas”, for the glory of God, as everything else He created. The anthropocentrism of “Gaudium et Spes” that brings us, in effect, to identify man with God, is only an aberrant goal to which many of the crazy ambiguities in the documents of Vatican II lead, as we will now see, in a brief analysis of various parts of “Gaudium et Spes”:
-
In regard to “sin” it can be said that the Conciliar text of “Gaudium et Spes” summarizes the traditional doctrine of the Church on sin; however, the definition of sin lowers its meaning to a human dimension and obscures its supernatural implications. In fact, here is the meaning of sin in “Gaudium et Spes”: “for sin has diminished man, blocking his path to fulfillment.” (GS 13.2) It is a definition that puts the objective meaning of sin in second place, without explicitly referring to the supernatural consequences.
-
Whereas the Constitution of a Council should have had the concept of sin conform with the traditional teaching, or rather, that sin is also “a diminishment (of one’s own humanity), that blocks man’s path to salvation”, “Gaudium et Spes”, instead, replaces “salvation” with “fulfillment.” How is “fulfillment” involved, and what type of “fulfillment” are they referring to? And why does Vatican II not remind us clearly, that, because of sin, humanity will be divided forever at the end of time, by Our Lord Jesus Christ, into the chosen and the damned, because the ultimate consequence of sin is that of closing the doors to eternal life to unrepetent sinners?
This “fulfillment”, then, seems like gnosticism, or profane thinking, that sees the world as anthropocentric, where self-knowledge and “me” are the important matters, while forgetting the theology of Judgment Day!
-
We can now conclude that sin, blocking man’s path to his own “fulfillment”, also blocks him from understanding his own “innate greatness,” constituted by the dignity he received from God. Then, why does “Gaudium et Spes” dedicate two entire articles, 19 and 20, to Atheism, even while admitting that Atheism is still considered a sin (GS 21.1), but does not, however, remotely try to refute them [atheists], rather, it calls them to “dialogue”, and “courteously invites atheists to examine the Gospel of Christ with an open mind” (GS 21.8); not to convert them, then, but to work for the rightful betterment of this world (GS 21.7). One must reflect: Why convert them, then, if even they will be equally saved, as can be ascertained from an ambiguous passage of Art. 16 of the “dogmatic” “Lumen Gentium” Constitution of the Church?
-
According to the heterodoxical doctrine of the “anonymous Christians” of Karl Rahner, all men have already been saved, without being aware of it, through the Incarnation. According to this perspective, “salvation” (the Redemption) is universal, without any distinction between the elect and the reprobate.
The task of the Church, then, would only be to make them conscious of the salvation that they have already received. Therefore, no more conversions to Catholism, nor any type of confrontation, but only “dialogue” in this universal acceptance of consciousness. A similar conception, however, has us face a theology that cannot call itself Catholic because it has shown itself to not correspond with what the Church has always taught in Her ministry on the dogma of original sin, as defined by the Council of Trent.
-
The text of Vatican II (GS 22.2) affirms that the Incarnation has elevated “us,” human nature, to a “divine dignity.” But the teaching of the Ecumenical Councils of Constantinopole Il and III, and of Calcedonia, teach that the Incarnation did, in fact, elevate human nature, but not within ourselves, but rather in Our Lord Jesus Christ, in Him, that is, who is the Incarnate, because he is perfect and without sin. The dogmas of Calcedonia and Constantinopole do not include at all the idea of an Incarnation that unites such a Christ with “every man.”
In one of his epistles, St. Leo the Great reaffirms this concept: “the union (Incarnation) did not diminish the divine characteristics with the human ones, but rather elevated the human characteristics to the divine ones.” The “elevation,” though, is not in every man, but in itself, in human nature, that was united in the person of the Word. The elevation of human nature to a great dignity, therefore, occurs in Christ, but not “eo ipso, [by the same token] also in us,” as affirmed in “Gaudium et Spes.” (22.2)
Jesus Christ, in conclusion, has reformed the dignity of the nature of man by raising that dignity of human nature in the flesh assumed by the Son of God!
-
There are not just a few negative consequences of thedoctrine of GS 22.2. Whereas, on one hand, it leads to the divinization of man, skipping over the dogma of original sin, on the other hand, it reduces one to uncertainty about the dogma of the Incarnation itself, since it mixes the divine with the human, in Jesus and in us.
St. Paul affirms that Christ came to save all men; so, “whoever invokes the name of the Lord will be saved,” precisely because he believed in Him. Therefore, whoever converts himself to Christ, will have the grace to persevere in a Christian life, the only one that leads to eternal life. This doctrine of St. Paul does not resemble at all the idea of “Gaudium et Spes” 22, which states that Christ became incarnate uniting Himself with every man, since we have seen that St. Paul never taught that Jesus did so through His Incarnation.
It is clear, then, that the meaning of “salvation” has become twisted using the name of Jesus, that “divine name that brings about salvation.”
-
Art. 22.5 of “Gaudium et Spes” applies to all men a concept that St. Paul, instead, clearly applies only to those chosen by Christ and, therefore, distinguishes between the good and the bad. The argument, therefore, does not agree with the traditional teaching of the Church that affirms that the Holy Spirit gives all men “the possibility” of salvation, always with the condition, however, of the cooperation on the part of each man. Therefore, the teaching of “Gaudium et Spes” is truly a “new doctrine” affirming that, in the Incarnation, the Lord “united Himself ‘in some fashion’ with every man” ; this presents a “new doctrine.”
The supposed existential union between Christ and all men, guarantees everyone with the possibility of salvation without the need to become Christian. For this reason, the Christology found in “Gaudium et Spes” is outside the tradition of the Church, because it insinuates that the “Mission” of Christ is not to reveal to men that they are sinners, to redeem them and lead them to eternal life, but to give them a consciousness of their dignity and their mission in life, outside any supernaturality!
In fact, the anthropology outlined in “Gaudium et Spes” signals, above all, the “disappearance of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural”, thus being more similar to the concept of man found in Protestantism. Therefore, this New Christianity has created a “new ecclesiology,” according to which there is no distinction or separation between “the Church and the World,” so the
Church would not need to exist for Herself, but rather for the World, being at its service, and would not need to seek affirmation by creating “Catholic works,” but should make Herself available for the World.
In many propositions of the Pastoral Constitution “Gaudium et Spes,” anthropologic and scientific progress are exalted, while ignoring Divine Grace and Creation completely.
For instance: in Article 63, “man’s increasing domination over nature” is praised. For man, it affirms: “Modern man is on the road to a more thorough development of his own personality, and to a growing discovery and vindication of his own rights.” (art. 41). These words are childish and ignorant. It would be enough if whoever had written them had thought about all of the slavery forced on us by these modern and Satanic ideologies of sex, drugs, and atheism!
Futhermore, Art. 44 attests that: “The Church admits (?) that She has greatly profited and still profits from the antagonism of those who oppose or who persecute Her and knows how richly She has profited by the history and development of humanity.” Words, even these, of a discreditable knowledge of the world of yesterday and today! Why didn’t Paul VI go to celebrate Communist atheism with the KGB, in some little corner of Siberia, to witness “de visu” [firsthand] the development of humanity in the more than 2000 “gulags” where our brothers of the “Church of silence” suffered torture and death?
It is important to note, however, that this “Declaration of the Council” was handled by the Jesuit Card. Bea, surrounded by other crypto-Jews, such as Osterreicher and Baum (who had defrocked himself!) and the omnipotent Card. Willebrands!
This “new humanism” was proclaimed by Paul VI in the closing speech of Vatican II on December 7, 1965, but he had already mentioned it during his speech on October 11, 1962.
He said: «WE MORE than anyone, WE HAVE THE “CULT OF MAN”!»
Since then, the Catholic faith in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three Divine Persons, is nothing more that a fixed point around which secular humanism can reach its two-fold ideal of perfection of the human being, in all its dignity, and world unity on a peaceful earth.
These two goals “reek of heresy.” In the Gospel, in fact, we read: “You cannot serve God and Satan, money and the world.” Heresies, therefore, in regard to the final two goals, that express a break with a Christianity that professes the need to believe in Jesus Christ, not to improve human life, but to avoid Hell and have the right to enter into Heaven.
Whereas the Church, prior to Vatican Il, had always worked “within the World” only on behalf of Her Lord, today, instead, with “aggiornamento”, it has adapted itself to a world that “Christ did not pray for” (John 17,9), but for which, Paul Vl says he has a “a fondness without limits.”
But this is a spirit of adultery, that submits divine faith to the whims of the masses, inspired by the “Prince of this World.” (2 Tim. 4,3) An attitude, that seems to be more “marketplace” than “aggiornamento”!
Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens.
Cardinal Josef Frings.
Cardinal Achille Lienart.
«Liberty can be sacrificed only to God.»
(His Excellency Giambattista Bosio)
***
«Not to oppose error is to approve it;
and not to defend truth
is to suppress it!»
(Pope Felix III)
Chapter VI
“DIGNITATIS HUMANAE” CONSTITUTION
– Religious Freedom –
No topic has been argued so much as that of “religious freedom,” because no other topic has so interested the enemies of the Church, since “freedom” has always been the most important goal of liberalism. Liberals, Masons and Protestants know extremely well that by using this argument they can strike at the heart of the Catholic Church.
By having it become accepted in “common law” in civil societies, it would reduce Her [the Catholic Church] to that of a single sect, and could possibly make Her disappear altogether, since the “truth” cannot give rights to an error without negating itself.
But this “Declaration” on religious freedom is the offspring of a “Revolution,” albeit one conceived in the Christian realm. Naturally, many men of this “New Church” applauded the fruits of this Revolution, regardless of the anathemas of the Popes prior to Vatican II and the disastrous consequences [of this Revolution].
In a message “of peace,” Pope Benedict XVI himself raised many eyebrows with his unusual affirmation, “Everyone is free to change their religion if their conscience requires it.”
Let us try to understand this Papal puzzle. Fr. Congar (who was later named a Cardinal!) had to confess that “on the Pope’s request, I participated in the last paragraphs of the Declaration on ‘Religious Freedom’; which involved demonstrating that the theme of ‘religious freedom’ appeared in the Holy Scriptures, even though it does not.”
It can be said, therefore, that “Religious Freedom” opened the way to “Freedom of thought” and to the world. This caused Prof. Salet, when commenting on the Declaration of “Religious freedom” for “Corriere di Rome,” to say that “the Declaration is heretical!”
In the Declaration, at N° 1044, it says, in fact, that:
«The Council intends to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights of the human person and the constitutional order of society.»
Vatican II, therefore, was concerned with serving “the inviolable rights of the human person”, without saying, though, that before the rights of the “human person,” there are the rights of God, Creator and absolute Master of the “human person,” who had established and imposed the obligation – with the penalty of Hell! – to accept the only religion created by Him. And even in doctrinal documents of recent Supreme Pontiffs, regarding the inviolable rights of the human person, it is enough to remember the “Syllabus” by Pius IX in which, in proposition 15°, paragraph III, he solemnly condemned this fundamental error of “Dignitatis Humanae Personae”:
«Liberum cuique homini est, eam amplecti, ac profiteri religionem quam rationis lumine, qui ductus (…) veram putaverit.» (“Every man is free
to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”)
It is evident, then, that Pius IX put absolute superiority on the rights of God, expressing with precision and force his rejection of every reform regarding faith! So, it remains, a crime of Vatican II to have deliberately ignored “Mediator Dei,” “Pascendi,” and “Syllabus,” three pillars of Catholic dogma!
Therefore, the doctrine of “Dignitatis Humanae” does not reconcile with previous Papal documents. In fact, in N° 2, it states:
«This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom.»
Obviously! This represents the right of everyone to immunity from coercion. The text, though, avoids citing concrete facts, even though it establishes as a “principle” that every man has the right to act according to his own conscience, because it would be a natural right, ignoring that such a principle is contrary to the teachings of previous Popes and goes against all traditional teachings, which have always taught that the true religion must be favored and supported by the State.
Furthermore, the Council’s “Declaration” is the religious claim, not only for those of other religions, but also for those who deny the existence of God, so that they could also publicly profess their errors and and promote their irreligiosity. How could “Dignitatis Humanae” not have seen this “strange right” of atheistic proselytism as contrary to Catholic doctrine?
“Religious freedom,” therefore, was the weapon of those who wanted a modern evolution to demand new positions, even if they were in contrast with the doctrine and the steadfast Magisterium of the Church.
It was to be expected from the outline by Cardinal Bea,
an expression of the liberal position, that it would be supported by many, such as the Bishop of Bruges, Msgr. de Smedt, who distinguished himself in his aggressiveness and firmness, followed by Fathers Murray, Congar, Leclerc (…) all representatives of the liberal themes of “human dignity,” of “conscience,” of “non coercion,” without distinction to internal and external acts, or private and public ones, thus, confusing psychological freedom with a moral one, arriving at expressing absurdities, as when Fr. Congar said, in the Bulletin of Studies and documents of the Secretariat of the French Bishops’ Conference (June 15, 1965, N°5, p.5), that religious freedom does not relate anymore to a relationship with God, but rather a relationship with man!
It is surprising, then to read at the end of the Declaration, on page 6:
«This Holy Council declares that the current constitutional regime is respectable and truly indispensable for the effective safeguarding of society and personal and civil human dignity.»
But, then, the doctrine taught by the Church until now, would have been considered false, especially by the recent Popes! In fact, the principles of the “Declaration” on “Religious Freedom”, affirm:
«Founded on the dignity of the human person, religious freedom demands equality of rights for all religions in a civil society. It must be neutral and assure the protection of all religions, within the limits of public order.»
The author himself writes:
«A long historical, political and moral evolution led to this conclusion, in force only since the
18th century.»
This conclusion destroys “ipso facto” every argument of the Declaration, because, in the name of dignity of human reason, the philosophers of the 18th century, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire (…) had already attempted to destroy the Church, with the massacres of bishops, priests, religious figures and the faithful. With Lamennais, in the mid19th century, there was an attempt to adopt this concept of the Church’s doctrine, but they were condemned by Pius IX and Leo XIII in the encyclical “Immortale Dei,” making us reflect on the fact that even Jesus Christ was crucified precisely in the name of public order, as were all of the martyrs; this also reminds us that only Divine Law is the key to the question on “religious freedom,” because it is the fundamental law, so one cannot speak about “religion” while ignoring Divine Law.
“RELIGIOUS FREEDOM” ON THE THEOLOGICAL PLANE
This expression of “religious freedom” became popular after Vatican II issued “Dignitatis Humanae,” which was precisely on “religious freedom.”
It is a fact that the contradiction between Vatican II and the previous traditional teaching is more than evident. It is enough to compare two official texts: “Dignitatis Humanae” and “Quanta Cura” by Pius IX.
The discussion that occurred in the Council meetings between the two factions was a true dialogue that fell on deaf ears. Everyone, even though using the same text, gave it a different interpretation. I will limit myself here to mention the “heterodoxy” of the teaching of “Dignitatis Humanae,” in its form and application, and, for example, in Spain.
In my opinion, the rift with Vatican II was on the issue of “Religious Freedom.”
Let us immediately consider its application in Spain.
The Fundamental Law of the Spanish State, “Fuero de los Espagnoles,” adopted on July 17, 1945, authorized only the private practice of non-Catholic religions, and forbid any type of propaganda of “false” religions.
In fact, Art. 6, paragraph 1 states:
«The profession and practice of the Roman Catholic religion, which is that of the Spanish State, will enjoy official protection,» and in paragraph 2:
«No one will be disturbed for their religious beliefs, nor for the private practice of their faith. No other ceremonies nor public manifestations will be permitted other than those of the Catholic religion.»
Following Vatican II, however, the “Organic Law of the State” (January 10, 1967) replaced paragraph 2 of Art. 6 with this disposition:
«The State will assume the protection of religious freedom, which will be guaranteed an equal judicial protection and safeguard of the moral and public order.»
Furthermore, the Preamble to the “Charter of the Spanish People”, modified by the above-mentioned Organic Law, explicitly states that:
«… given the changes introduced in article 6 of the Organic Law of the State, ratified by national referendum, with the purpose of adapting the text to the Council’s Declaration on “Religious Freedom,” promulgated on December 7, 1965, and requesting the explicit recognition of this right, and in conformity with the fundamental principles of the Movement, according to which our legislation is inspired by the doctrine of the Church.»
Therefore, it was precisely to realize explicitly the agreement with the “Declaration” of Vatican II that paragraph 2 of Art. 6 from 1945 was replaced with that from 1967!
Now, we wonder: on which basic principle of “natural law” was Vatican II’s rupture based?
The answer: According to traditional Catholic doctrine (that is, pre-Vatican II!) paragraph 2 of Art. 6 from 1945 completely conformed to natural law.
Now, considering that there does not exist any natural right to “religious freedom” for man, that would allow him to practice a “false religion” in public; considering that Pius IX, in his “Quanta Cura” (Dec. 8, 1864), solemnly reminds us of this perpetual doctrine of the Church and condemns the double affirmation that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society,” so why would Vatican II ever, with its Declaration in “Dignitatis Humanae”, make paragraph 2 of Art. 6 of the law from 1945 inherently evil, by directly saying that it is officially contrary to the fundamental right of man?.. that is, to the civil right of freedom in religious matters… that Vatican II is proclaiming this right as valid for everyone, whichever religion they practice, be it a true or false one?..
Worse still: Vatican II, to avoid the risk of a false interpretation, was very careful of explicitly considering the case of a country (such as Spain, Italy…) where a religion is already officially recognized! This, in fact, as we have seen, happened in Spain with the law of 1967, that keeps paragraph 1 of Art. 6:
«If, by reason of special circumstances in which people are found, an order is given obtaining special civil recognition to one religious community in the constitutional order of society, it is at the same time imperative that the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom should be recognized and made effective in practice.”» (“Dignitatis Humane”, art. 6 – responsibility regarding religious freedom
– paragraph 3)
This is dangerous! This, in fact, shows that a legal disposition, such as the one established by Art. 6, paragraph 2 of the “Fuero de los Espagnoles” of 1945:
-
essentially “conforms” to natural law, according to traditional Catholic doctrine;
-
essentially “contrary” to natural law, according to the doctrine of Vatican II.
Conclusion: here, it must be said that there is a real contradiction between Vatican II and the traditional doctrine of the “pre-Vatican II” Church – even on a principle of natural law!
Let us reflect on this serious dissension by Vatican II on the question of “Dignitatis Humanae,” that closed the Proceedings of Vatican II, which despite some revisions were left unresolved. In cauda venenum!
In this “Council Declaration,” in fact, “religious freedom” is presented as a right to freedom of religion toward the Catholic Church, Guardian of the Truth, in respect to the command by Jesus Christ: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16,16).
Now, believing in the Truth is a duty; not believing it, however, is not liberty, but lawlessness, or rather, a bondage to sin, because it refuses the good and chooses evil.
The concept of Catholic liberty was written in the Declaration “Dignitatis Humanae” in a verbose manner, so that the first few lines would be passed over and ignored, yet it destroys freedom in the Catholic sense, presenting it as a liberty that is due to the individual facing error:
«Therefore the concern of the right to ‘religious freedom’ is entrusted to the whole citizenry, upon social groups, upon government, and upon the Church and other religious communities, in virtue of the duty of all toward the common welfare, and in the manner proper to each.»
Therefore, all religious communities, even false ones, would have the right of freedom in religious matters. Many bishops of Vatican II, especially those from Communist countries, did not take note of the misinterpretation of the concept of “religious freedom,” thus, ended up taking the side of libertarian liberty, which was intended to be interpreted as license with its moral and social consequences.
That idea of not restraining [anyone] from taking all licenses was immediately a disaster, especially in the area of the clergy: liturgical massacre, rejecting the cassock, opening up to marriage, betrayal of “Religious Vows” …
A lay jurist and magistrate, viewed that “religious freedom” as:
«Speaking about the right to religious freedom, therefore to the choice of the wrong religion, as well, means theorizing the right to dogmatic (theoretical) and moral (practical) error, since, as the Truth coincides with Good, falsehood co-
1 Cfr. “Dignitatis humanae”, 6.
incides with evil. Therefore, whoever supports the right to an error, also supports the right to evil and, in particular, to offend. (One considers the religions that allow human sacrifice, vengeance, slavery.)»
The “religious freedom” of Vatican II, therefore, is understood as a right of all men to choose whichever religion they desire. But, perhaps, couldn’t a secular, agnostic State, or even atheistic, pave the way to Satanism?
And, what can we say then about John Paul II’s declaration in the “message for the celebration of the World Day for Peace” (December 8, 1998):
«Religious freedom is (…) the heart itself of human rights. It is such an inviolable right to demand that a person recognize the freedom even to change religion, if his conscience demands it.»
This phrase by a Vicar of Christ does not refer to one who wishes to pass from a false religion to the true one as revealed by history, but unfortunately, it includes any man, even a Christian, because John Paul II was going back to the rights of man as seen by Enlightenment and the French Revolution of 1789. A Pope cannot, in the name of conscience, authorize an apostasy of the faith. We are physically free externally and internally, but not morally. A moral freedom presumes that God does not exist with His Law. But now we are in a secular State, which means an agnostic, atheist [State], in which every religion is practiced. We, however, examining the discordant texts of Vatican II with other texts of the Magisterium, find that “Quanta Cura” by Pius IX explicitly condemns “religious freedom,” whereas Vatican II approves it!
To conclude, I refer to the book “Essere Nella Verità” by Hans Küng (Swiss heretic, protected by Paul VI), in which he writes:
«It is enough to compare the authoritarian doctrinal documents of the 1860s, published immediately before Vatican I – ie. the “Syllabus,” or catalogue of the major errors of our time, published by Pius IX in 1864 – with the doctrinal documents of Vatican II of the 1960s, to immediately see that, thanks solely to the methods of partisan totalitarianism (“because the ‘party’ is always right!”), they could reach the point of transforming all the contradictions into a logical development.»
There is no more development where one explicitly states otherwise. In giving the approvals to modern progress, to the recent acquisitions of freedom and modern culture by the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965), it is impossible to see any improvement of the doctrine of 1864, that officially condemns the view of “the Pope could and should reconcile himself and come to terms with progress, liberalism and the new culture.” (civilitas) (Denz. 1780) Even the habitual opposition in explaining the dogmatic development between the explicit (expressed) and implicit (in an inclusive way), cannot be invoked in this case. The consent to “religious freedom,” given by Vatican II, is not contained neither implicitly nor explicitly in the condemnation of religious freedom by Pius IX. One cannot avoid referring to the constantly changing times and then not want to condemn the negative excesses (and similar modern achievements).
***
The compilation of the document “Dignitatis Humanae” was due, in great part, to then-Msgr. Pietro Pavan.
In a chapter of “Concilio Vivo” (ed. Ancora, Milano 1967, pp. 283-294), he wrote:
«Every citizen of any State, in his essence as a person, that is, on the basis of natural law, has always and everywhere the inalienable right to profess and propagate any religion of his choice, free from coercion and protected by civil laws” (op. cit. pp. 284-285); “this right does not extend only to those who profess the Catholic religion, but also to those who profess any other faith, since it is true that only that which has Reason gives the basis for the right, but immunity from coercion is based on reason” (op. cit. p. 291); “violating that right goes against a natural need, against the rights of the person, against the order established by God” (op. cit. p. 291); “such a right can be limited by the civil authorities on the basis of a moral objective.» (op. cit. p. 292)
Msgr. Pavan does not explain, though, when Morality is “objective” and when it is not; instead, he continues:
«It is legitimate to assume that, at least in the long run, the practice of this right serves the Truth, so that the truth, without coercion and only in virtue of its light, finally prevails upon error” (op. cit. p. 293); “such a right was violated for centuries in Christian civilization (that is, in the Catholic Church!), because they lacked the necessary premises to impede such an environment: that is, men lacked a full awareness of their dignity as a person and there was a lack of democratic order in the State. Now, in the modern era (or modernist?) such premises have matured, as a result of a difficult, complex, historic process that was racked by profound contrasts; a process in which, the light of the Gospel undoubtedly made a positive impression on the immense value of the human person.”»(op. cit. p. 255-296)
Now, a Moral cannot be anything but “objective”, because if it were not, it would be subjective and, therefore, not metaphysically based, so it would be intrinsically immoral.
But since the law of nature, existing in every conscience, morally obliges it to do what is good and not evil, the law of nature morally obliges every person to act along that line, even while leaving it psychologically free to sin.
Now, the awareness of good is the “final end” and everything that is necessary to obtain it. The rest is evil, and wanting it is a sin.
For this reason, no action is morally indifferent; that is, human activity is always psychologically free, but it is never morally free. Every human action, thereby, sanctifies or taints us.
Continuing: every psychologically free act can be specified as “spontaneous” and “conscious.”
The first ends with the person performing the act; the second, performed as a result of other wishes, can be coerced or contested; whereas the spontaneous act is not subject to any form of coercion.
Therefore, the conscious act can only be completed if one has the awareness of good; otherwise, there cannot exist a right to do it and it can be impeded with the right constraints.
The moral evil, then, does not have any rights whatsoever, independent of every subjective and erroneous evaluation.
Instead, according to Msgr. Pavan, resting on the protection that civil law gives even to false religions, affirms that “one side might receive, in such a way, the ability to spread even lies, but the others have the liberty to spread the truth; and in the confrontation between truth and error, it is legitimate to assume that, at least in the long run, the error will fade away and the truth will end up being accepted.” (op. cit. p. 293)
Here, we face the Rousseau-style utopia of “the goodness of nature unpolluted by civilization”; the dogma of Mazzinian on “progress of the people”; the hallucination of Teilhard on the “cosmic evolution of Christ”; but also the cancellation of the Catholic dogma on “original sin” that accompanies the history of humanity, to the point of causing Christ Himself to ask: «Veruntamen Filius hominis veniens putas, inveniet fidem in terra?» (When the Son of Man comes again, will He still find faith on the earth?)
Instead, according to Msgr. Pavan, immunity from coercion extends even to those who spread falsehoods, “because this immunity has the awareness of good, and that which has the awarness of good is the basis of rights.” (op. cit. p. 286)
Now, if this immunity has a metaphysical awareness of good, it cannot have enough of it to give the basis for a right. For example: the “human sacrifices” of the Aztecs were against the objective Morality, therefore, the coercive measures of the “Conquistadores” that put an end to them were more than legitimate.
The same goes for whoever spreads the errors and horrors of false religions, because they are contrary to the objective Morality. «Quae peior animae mors quam libertas erroris.» (St. Augustine – Ep. 166)
Msgr. Pavan, instead, wrote that “every citizen of any State, in his essence as a person, that is, on the basis of natural law, has always and everywhere the inalienable right to profess and propagate any religion of his choice, free of coercion and protected by civil laws.” (op. cit. pp. 284-285)
We, however, repeat that, in order to make an action morally acceptable, its object must be good, not only metaphysically but also morally. That is not the case for false religions, whose errors are parasites of the truth. Certainly, every religion has something good in itself, but that little goodness is not enough to make them morally good! «Bonum morale ex integra causa, malum ex quovis defectu». Therefore, the false religions, regardless of the small amount of goodness they contain, remain, as a whole, false, void of moral goodness and therefore their activites are not legitimate. So, professing and spreading them remains illegitimate, because they are intrinsically immoral, regardless of the good faith of those who practice them.
It is not true that prohibiting the errant believers from professing and promoting their errors “goes against their natural existence, prejudices their rights, and goes against the order established by God.” (op. cit. p. 291)
So, when the civil authorities permit false religions, they profess their own, they protect them and persecute the Catholic religion, which goes against the moral order and the rights of that order.
On the other hand, professing and spreading the Catholic religion, the only true one wanted by God, is within its full rights «ex lege naturae et ex lege positiva Dei.» [From natural law and from the positive law of God]. Consequently, the State must protect with civil laws its existence and propagation; whereas it must ban the profession and spreading of the other religions, because they are erroneous and against the will of God, who wants only His religion.
The Lord is not for religious pluralism, but demands the serious obligation, at the price of martyrdom, to “proselytize” and destroy other religions.
It is so much empty rhetoric, therefore, by Msgr. Pavan when he affirms that this civil right, even by mistake, had been oppressed for centuries even by the Church, even though it was due to the lack of the conditions to prevent this deplorable misfortune. (op. cit. pp. 295-296)
Some of the most intelligent and well-advised Fathers had already warned about this stupidity, even during Vatican II. Cardinal Ottaviani, in fact, reminded that no one could be forced to profess the true religion, but that no man could have a right to religious freedom that was in conflict with the rights of God, and that it was dangerous, then, to affirm the legitimacy of the right of evangelization of other religions.
Cardinal Ruffini pointed out that the Council’s Declaration “Dignitatis Humanae” would need to be corrected, since, as it was written, it favored religious indifference and prohibited the State from favoring the true religion.
Cardinal Quiroga y Palacios noted that the declaration, in order to favor other religions, damaged the faith of Catholics, who would be put in great dangers of faith, because the text was in contradiction with the traditional doctrine, so that the Council, by approving “Dignitatis Humanae,” would have formally sanctioned the same religious liberalism that had always been condemned!
Cardinal Buenos y Monreal, as well, declared that the text of the declaration was “ambiguous”; that only the Catholic Church had received the command from God to preach the Gospel to the world, and that no one could obligate Catholics to be subjugated to a mistaken propaganda and that they had the right to demand that the law forbids the propagation of other religions.
The same was said by Cardinal Browne, supported by Cardinal Parente (both of the Roman Curia). Both of them rejected the “declaration,” because the rights of God became subordinate to those of man.
The Superior General of the Dominicans, Fr. Fernandez, also rejected this “declaration” because it was affected by “naturalism.”
Unfortunately, the “Fathers” of the two Americas were favorable to this religious freedom, maybe out of a false ecumenical “charity” toward schismatics and heretics.
Even Paul VI’s theologian, Cardinal Carlo Colombo, saw in that “religious freedom” a type of new application to unchangeable principles. But no one ever knew what those “unchangeable principles” were!
Catholic tradition was entirely determined by the Popes.
It was in the Epistle “ad Jubaianum” that St. Cyprian formulated the axiom “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus,” which was then infinitely repeated by the “Fathers” and Pontiffs, until Vatican II.
Let’s look at some more recent documents. I found these comments by Denzinger (edition 1963):
«Now we condemn that other fertile cause of evil that the Church suffers over, that is, indifferentism, or that evil opinion (…) that regardless of the faith one professes, eternal salvation can be reached, as long as one’s practices conform with the norms of integrity and honesty… Now, from this loathsome origin of indifferentism comes that absurd and erroneous sentence, or nonsense, that demands that the “freedom of conscience” be affirmed and claimed for everyone (Denzinger n. 2730); for that reason, the Church, by the power given to it by its Creator, not only has the right, but also the duty not to tolerate and even forbid and condemn all these errors, if that is needed for the integrity of the Faith and salvation of souls (…) As far as the statement that teaches the contrary is concerned, we proclaim it entirely erroneous and highly offensive to the Faith, the Church and its authorities» (Denz. 2861).
In Denzinger’s work, the following statement was also condemned:
«In truth, it is false that the civil liberty of any cult and the full authority given to anyone to openly and publicly practice any opinion or doctrine easily leads to the corruption of the practices and souls of the people and propagates the menace of indifferentism.» (Denz.
2970)
Then, why does “Dignitatis Humanae” (n. 3) cite, in its footnotes, the Encyclical by Leo XIII, “Libertas Praestantissimum,” to substantiate the claim that the right to religious freedom, understood as a right to profess and propagate any religion, under protection of civil laws, and is based on the dignity of the person, exactly as stated in the Divine Revelation and as intended by human reason?
But who are they trying to fool? Because Leo XIII says precisely the opposite:
«The norm and rule of freedom, not only that of single individuals, but also of communities and of human society, is entirely founded upon the eternal law of God” (Denz. 3248); “for this reason, in the society of men, freedom, that is deserving of the name, does not mean that everyone is able to do whatever they please (…) but this: that, thanks to civil laws, one can more easily live according to the precepts of eternal law. The freedom of those who preside over society is not that they can recklessly impose their will (…) since the force of human laws emanate from eternal law and decree that nothing in those laws sanctions whatever is not contained in the universal origin of rights.» (Denz. 3249) And also:
«People proclaim emphatically about a so-called “freedom of conscience,” which is understood as a licence for everyone to honor or not to honor God according their whims by the above-mentioned arguments, which has already been refuted sufficiently. Nevertheless, “freedom of conscience” can also mean that we recognize in man the ability to fulfil those duties that his conscience requires of him, to comply with Divine Will and carry out its precepts, without finding obstacles in civil society. This is the true freedom of the children of God, a noble protection of the dignity of people that must remain immune from any coercion or offense. This is the desired and highly-valued freedom of the Church. This is the type of freedom that the Apostles claimed with perseverance (Denz. 3250); “nevertheless, in such circumstances (those contingent on the various events in the lives of the people) human law may be forced to tolerate evil, but it can never approve it or wish it for itself; because evil, being void of any good, is contrary to the common good: a common good that the law-makers must lay down and protect as much as possible” (Denz. 3251); “from this we conclude that it is not all permitted to ask for, defend or concede the freedom to think, to write, to teach a promiscuous freedom for religions, as though it involved any other type of right given to men by nature. Since, if nature truly had given those rights, it would be permitted for man to disobey God’s command and forbidden to change any law regarding human freedom.» (Denz. 3252)
As we can see, Leo XIII clearly condemns as erroneous and disastrous, precisely the declaration from “Dignitatis Humanae”!
Pius XII expressed the same judgment (Speech
12/6/1953) affirming that whatever does not correspond to moral law, does not objectively have any right to exist, to be promoted or acted on.
St. Thomas Aquinas (S.Th.1 11, q.96, a.4 et alibi), believed the same, affirming that if human laws oppose the laws of God, whether natural or positive, they are not obligatory and they cannot concede any right to anyone.
The Holy Scriptures are also clear.
In Exodus 22,20 we find:
«Whoever sacrifices to any god, except to the LORD alone, shall be put to death!»
And so, the worshippers of the “golden calf” were killed:
«Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Each of you put your sword on your hip! Go back and forth through the camp, from gate to gate, and kill your brothers, your friends, your neighbors!» (Exodus 32,27).
And yet, the golden calf was not a representation – also illegal! – of the God of Israel!
«When the Lord, your God, brings you into the land which you are about to enter to possess, and removes many nations before you (…) And you defeat them, you shall put them to death (…) tear down their altars, smash their sacred statues, chop down their groves and destroy their idols by fire.» (Deuteronomy 7, 1-5)
Even the Prophets demanded from the people of Israel that they forbid every other religion aside from that of the true God. This makes us think: is it possible that God, promulgating such a joint religious and civil law, and demanding its observance, was going against a law of nature that He Himself had created?
Nor did Jesus ever rescind such a severe law. He could have done so, if ever, during the “Sermon on the Mount” (Mt. 5 ss.), in which he scaled down different dispositions of the ancient law and various distortions caused by the Rabbis. Instead, he never did so!
The Apostles, later, shouted in a full Synagogue, that they must first obey God, even against the highest religious and civil authorities. (Acts 5,29)
St. Paul did the same, even though he would have expected respect for the Roman laws; but not on matters of faith!
In conclusion:
Professing and evangelizing false religions, even if protected by civil authorities, is not at all the “freedom” referred to by the positive law nor the natural one; on the contrary, it would be licentious and, therefore, an inherently immoral “freedom”!
Therefore, the Pope is not allowed to remain silent in order not to disturb the good faith of the people, but rather, he is obliged to speak, to preach, to spread the Gospel, to call people back to the “true faith” and, thereby, to the Church, at least as an implicit desire to include faith and supernatural charity.
Wasn’t it, perhaps, the Lord Himself who gave to Peter and the Apostles the command to go and preach His faith, the only true faith, in order to win over all souls of good faith to the Gospel? And this, because – according to the “doctrine” of the Church since the beginning – those who belong to the Church only “in voto”, or rather, with an implicit or explicit wish, do not have the assurance of their eternal salvation, nor of the ordinary means (doctrine and Sacraments) to attain it.
Thus, all the Apostles did so. They became “martyrs”, precisely because those who refused the true faith, – therefore, in bad faith! – killed them!
Certainly, the “truth”, because it is uncompromising, always upsets and offends those who do not want the light and perform evil works [John 3,19: “… the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil”]. But those that, like the Apostles, remain faithful to the “mandate” of Christ, also become “signum cui contradicetur”, to the point of martyrdom!
At this time, fifty years have passed since the closing of
Vatican II, and we can see its “fruits.”
The Council, which wanted a “Reform” for the betterment of the Church, instead, opened the doors to all the “errors” of modern society, that had already been denounced by the centuries-old Magisterium of the Popes, thereby undermining the doctrine and the structure of the Church itself.
Vatican II, in fact, promoted doctrines in open contradiction with the Catholic faith. These doctrinal deviations are contained in Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations.
Vatican II, therefore, taught and applied the “errors” and “heresies” that the Church had previously banned.
And, now we will show that these Council documents are not only in apparent contradiction with the documents of previous Popes, but that there is, unfortunately, a real dichotomy, such as, for example, the document “Dignitatis Humanae
Personae,” where the discrepancies are more than evident.
Let’s examine this.
Paul VI signed the “Dignitatis Humanae Personae” on December 7, 1965, which teaches that the State must not intervene in the religious faith of its citizens; furthermore, the document of the Council asserts that every human person has the right to publicly practice their own religion without any prohibitions.
Now, this new doctrine of Vatican II had already been condemned by the saintly Pius IX in his Encyclical “Quanta Cura” dated December 8, 1864, in which it stated that the State must have an established Church, and thereby condemned “religious freedom.” To prove the complete divergence, I compare the following two texts:
QUANTA CURA
The proposition Pope Pius IX condemned is:
«And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.” (…) that the liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society.»
DIGNITATIS HUMANAE PERSONAE
«In religious matters, no one (…) is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits (…) This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. (…) This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.»
But, these affirmations of “Dignitatis Humanae”, had already been condemned by the centuries-old Magisterium of the Church. In fact: Clement XII, with “In Eminenti” Constitution; Benedict XIV, with “Providas Romanorum” Constitution; Pius VII, with “Ecclesiam”; Leo XIII, with “Quo graviora”; Gregory XVI, with the Encyclical “Mirari Vos”
…
All of these Popes had already sanctioned that only the true religion of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church had the right to be professed openly, without any infringement and protected by the State, whereas this right had to be denied to the other false religions.
Unfortunately, those who took a stand against these liberal-modernist deviations were never heard. Vatican II had already moved forward with the “new era” of the Church, in which the Masonic-style “new universal religion,” had already laid its foundations in such a way, that no one, humanly speaking, could disturb. Those who still believe in a repentance of the moderate Hierarchy, must take into account that the “Truths” of the Catholic faith have already been replaced by an ecumenical “new doctrine” that is discarding the “Truths” in a world of the darknesss of error!
“RELIGIOUS FREEDOM”
ACCORDING TO SOME COUNCIL FATHERS
Cardinal Ottaviani made the Council officials note that the Church had always admitted that no one could be forced to profess a certain faith; but that no true right could be claimed by whomever is at odds with the rights of God; that a real and authentic right to religious freedom objectively belongs to only those belonging to the true faith showing that it is extremely dangerous to allow the right of promoting any religion one wishes.
Cardinal Ruffini, Archbishop of Palermo, noted that the Council’s declaration under debate would need to be corrected; since as it was written, it forbid the State to favor the true religion, and expressed the same indifference to religion that was sanctioned by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, promulgated by the United Nations in 1948.
Cardinale Quiroga y Palacios, Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, noted that the declaration, in order to favor other religions, exposed the faith of Catholics to great danger; that the text, an entire series of ambiguities, presented a doctrine at odds with the traditional and true; and that the Council, by approving it, would have formally sanctioned religious liberalism that which the Church had so often equally condemned.
Cardinal Bueno y Monreal, Archbishop of Seville, declared that the entire text of the declaration was ambiguous; he affirmed that only the Catholic Church had received the command from God to evangelize to the world; that no one could obligate Catholics to be subjugated to a mistaken propaganda and that they had the right to demand that the law forbids the propagation of other religions.
Cardinal Browne, of the Roman Curia, supported by Monsignor Parente, also of the Curia, rejected the declaration; since it made the rights of God subordinate to the presumed rights of man and his freedom; and Fr. Fernandez, Superior General of the Dominican order, rejected it on the grounds that it was corrupted with naturalist thought.
Hans Küng.
Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro.
«Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions
that we taught you, whether
by word of mouth or by letter!»
(2 Thessalonians 2, 15)
Chapter VII
“NOSTRA AETATE” CONSTITUTION
– Non-Christian Religions –
This Constitution is a declaration of the Church in regard to non-Christian religions.
It is a missionary problem that concerns the situation of those who profess a non-Christian religion and are, therefore, exposed to ignorance, errors, superstitions and moral degradation; it also regards men who have a vague religious beliefs (animism and ethnological religions) subject to polytheism and idolatry. Today, 80% of people do not know Christ. The “mission,” therefore, is essential to the Church and has the greatest and holiest goal, so all Christians are involved and must feel committed to participating in the evangelization of the world.
However, salvation is not something purely internal, but must be realized in certain external and visible ways. The only sure form is that which is found only in the Church. God does not abandon even these multitudes who do not know the Gospel, asking them to accept, at least internally and implicitly, the message and salvation of Christ; but this imperfect, precarious, initial acceptance of Christ and the Church, must be led to completion through preaching.
The Jesuit professor Karl Rahner (1904-1984), wrote about “anonymous Christianity” in these terms:
«Grace, as an everlasting gift to man, becomes a characteristic of his being, to the point that he can no longer stay far away from it.»
«If it is so, the grace of God is in every religion, not only in the Christian one, even in a hidden or distorted way.»
«Thus, every man is Christian, even if they are unaware of it. Even the non-Christian religions are paths to salvation, along which men can go to encounter God and Christ. These are Christologies of seeking.»
«The non-Christian religions do not follow Christ as Christians do, but they seek him, without knowing it and following a different course.»
«Even atheists can be “anonymous Christians.» «If they follow the pressing voice of their conscience, they can attain salvation.»
«The essential element of man penetrated even into Marxism. In his true and authentic love for living and poor persons, the spirit of God was in action.»
It is impossible to not be taken aback by these affirmations by Karl Rahner. If they were really true, the news of the Gospel would not have so much difficulty in being received and accepted, whereas, from the time of the Apostles until today, we have observed the exact opposite.
Furthermore, if the non-Christian religions were really natural paths to Christianity, Jews and Muslims would not have any reluctance in accepting Christ as their only Saviour. However this doesn’t happen; on the contrary, there are, unfortunately, not just a few perversions and apostasies in the true Christian religion itself!
Even atheists, if they could be considered “anonymous Christians,” would not be so obstinate in their atheism.
If, even in Marxism, there is the work of the spirit of God, how can one explain the more than 200 million victims of Communism?
The missionary theology of Karl Rahner is a real drain on the missionary spirit which has always animated the Catholic Church.
His invention of “anonymous Christians” is an authentic theological heresy, as well as historical, because it would cancel the command by Jesus: “Preach the Gospel to every creature”: a command that remains valid and imperative until the end of the world and does not allow for exceptions. It would not be invalid, therefore, if all men were truly and naturally following a path to salvation. There is no doubt, therefore, that this is in God’s plan, whereas it would not be in the minds of men at all without the announcement, as St. Paul writes:
«But how can they (the pagans) call on Him (God) in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? And how can people preach unless they are sent? But not everyone has heeded the good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what was heard from us? Thus faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.» (Rom. 10,14 ss.).
Upon reading this, it is clear that it is the exact opposite of Karl Rahner’s incoherent thoughts. His affirmations are, therefore, false and unacceptable. Unfortunately, his extravagant doctrine had a decisive influence on the Council Fathers, and the “Religious Orders” suffered an unimaginable loss of vocations! In the Jesuit Order itself, to which Rahner belonged, which had almost 30 thousand before Vatican II, approximately 15 thousand left the Society and even abandoned the priesthood! These are the disastrous consequences when pride and foolish initiatives begin to lead, leaving behind the guiding paths of Jesus, the Apostles and the Church, along which the Fathers of the Church had been admirable witnesses and advocates of Divine Revelation over the course of centuries!
Now, instead, Benedict XVI says:
«The Declaration “Nostra Aetate” is of great importance, because it concerns the attitude of the Ecclesial Community toward non-Christian religions. Based on the principle that “all men form one community”, and that the Church “has the duty to foster unity and love” among various peoples, the Council “rejects nothing of what is holy and true” in other religions and announces Christ to all as “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” in which all men find “the fullness of religious life.»
Furthermore, the Decree “Unitatis Redintegratio” affirms that non-Catholic Christian churches “have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation,” for “the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation.”
For this reason, the “New Liturgy” of the Mass transforms this ecumenical concern by even creating a “New Rite” in such a way to make it acceptable to both Catholics and Protestants. The “New Mass”, in fact, (created with the help of six Protestant pastors!) was the most poisonous fruit of ecumenism, that manifests itself by giving the faithful the idea that all religions are equal, thus, leading them to indifferentism.
Such a doctrine has almost destroyed the missionary spirit, because if all religions had values of salvation, there would no longer be the need to preach the Gospel to the world, as Jesus commanded, to convert them to the only true religion revealed to us.
Then, why at the National Eucharistic Congress, held in Bologna from September 3 to October 4, 1997, did Cardinal Ratzinger, then-Prefect of the “Congregation for the Faith”, tell journalists that:
«the Church must only announce Christ. It does not need to attract to Herself, nor add to Her flock, nor procure holy clients, but only show the face of Jesus. Faith is not a good for sale, nor the property of a group intent on expanding. We do not own anything. We are simple administrators of a gift!»
In the newspaper “Avvenire”, dated September 25, 1977 (p. 17), the Cardinal affirmed that “it is possible and right to offer Christ to all peoples.”
Here, there is a real theological deficiency, because the infallible Catholic doctrine has always taught propagation of the truth, not of error. The moral decay of today is due to the propagation of perverse ideologies. Furthermore, the sovereignty of Christ is a revealed truth, thus, ineliminable from the deposit of Faith, whose goal is the conversion of souls and for the societies, incorporated into His Kingdom, to create a Christian civilization to morally reform nations.
For this reason, it is necessary to not only offer Christ to people, but also to baptize and govern them, thanks to “Jesus Christ, who is the sole cause of their redemption” (Rom. 5,19).
Therefore, it is a theological error to maintain that «the freedom of conscience is inviolable and must be respected, even when they change religions.»
Pius IX condemned this in the “Syllabus,” because it is in dialectic opposition to the Gospel. Certainly, acceptance of the truth is voluntary, but only physically and psychologically, not morally.
Perhaps Jesus always kept his twelve disciples with him? No! In fact, He sent them to preach and cast off demons, because He came to Earth to redeem humanity from bondage, from the sinister forces. Even to Satan who said to him: “You have come to destroy us!” Jesus ordered: “Quiet! Come out of him!” (Mark 1, 24-25)
It [Unitatis Redintegratio] is highly ambiguous, because it stripped the “Mission” of its character, giving it a vague and generic sense of evangelization, cancelling the only important aspect: converting people and baptizing them, as Our Lord ordered. Its result in the Council was a scandalous relativism, that caused vocations to whither away and removed missionaries from their apostolic work, replacing the sovereignty of God with a “cult” of man!
In this scheme, one finds serious deficiencies: a deficiency in the definition of the function of the Pope and the Bishops, who “were consecrated not only to head the diocese, but also for the salvation of the entire world.” (p. 25, n° 36)
The Bishops do not have jurisdiction over the entire world, otherwise it would be in contradiction with the universal tradition of the Church. Only Peter and his Successors, in fact, possess the “strict right” of guiding the entire flock. Furthermore, there is the incomplete aspect of the principle of missionary activity. That aspect has given us the whithering away of every vocation and apostolic fervour for the salvation of souls, through Jesus Christ the Saviour, in place of the method that depended upon the will of God; the need of Faith and Baptism and the need for preaching in order to complete the saving mission of Christ. In the presentation of this plan, these are all ignored, perhaps because they [the founders of this plan] are strangers to the economy of salvation by means of the Church.
It is a new theology. The apostolate is no longer based on supernatural principles, but only on naturalistic ones for “well-disposed souls,” as indicated at N° 13, whereas Jesus and the Apostles preached to men!
On page 13, line 5, in the outline it states: “The Church prohibits forcing anyone to embrace the Faith, or to press or induce them with unwelcome ploys.” This is a phrase, though, that is offensive to missionaries and anything but eager for the salvation of souls! On page N° 8, one reads: “That Christ be (…) of a new humanity”! But of which “new humanity” if not an earthly one?
There is a hidden poison in this that has aroused a pagan spirit among the faithful and even among the clergy, dissuading them from religious work in order to focus on the “construction of the world” and its “consecration,” giving a push to the soul of the faithful that makes them forget their religious and moral obligations, no longer thinking about the ideal of the search for the “Kingdom of God” and His justice and to base everything in Christ forming a Catholic civilization.
In the history of the Church, the missionary push had always been a sign of vitality. Today, its reduction is a sign of a serious crisis of faith!
Since the Decree “Unitatis Redintegratio” affirms that non-Catholic Christian churches “have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation,” for “the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation,” which puts the idea in the minds of the faithful that all religions are equal, – creating indifferentism in many believers! – I believe it is necessary to discuss, even briefly, the problem that is posed: whether all religions are equal.
On many charts of religions, Christianity is noted, without any emphasis, equal with the other religions, as if it were a religion like the others, similar to a valuable diamond being mixed with some dirt in a bottle, or an ornament of pure gold, degraded, by being placed in the midst of some worthless coins.
It is true, then, that Jesus Christ is still “Deus absconditus” [“A hidden God”] (…) It is also true that “He came to
His own and His own people did not accept him.” (John 1,11)
But the Lord also said: “To whom would you liken me as an equal, compare me, as though we were alike?” (Is. 46,5)
I have heard more than a few times: “One religion is the same as another.” And also: «If I were born in India, I would be Hindu. If I were born in a Muslim country, I would also be a Muslim. We are Christians because we were born in Italy! Therefore, one religion is the same as another; so Christianity is one of many religions!»
This type of reasoning seems lightweight and superficial. It is as though one says: “all coins are good, whether they are real or counterfeit, it’s all the same!” Even the counterfeit coins seem real, but they remain false!
Therefore, saying that “all religions are good” is a gross mistake, even recognizing that even in mistakes there might be shreds of truth; that is, in all religions, we find some points in common.
For example:
-
all religions have a belief in a Supreme Being, omnipotent and a judge of “evil.”
-
all religions believe, in different ways, in an afterlife.
-
all religions have their moral code.
That being said, it is still wrong to say: “one religion is same as another,” because it is one thing to contain an element of truth, yet mixed with gross mistakes, and another to have the truth in its integrity.
Therefore, the phrase “one religion is same as another” is like killing the missionary energy of the Church. Maybe at the time of Jesus and the Apostles there weren’t other religions? Christ did not want to “dialogue,” but, when sending the Apostles out to the people, He used the imperative: «docete omnes gentes», [teach all men] to announce to them the “Good News,” His Gospel; to convert them and, thus, save their souls.
Christ, in fact, was sent by the Father for us, “to expiate our sins” (1 John 4,10), and not to cure man in the human sense (poverty, sickness, death), but to raise him up to Divine life, through the gift of Grace. Christianity is, therefore, a new generation (Gv. 3,7), a new life that allows us “to share the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1,4)
Christianity is not a liberal theology that wishes to give us a Christ who is friend of the poor and redeemer of the exploited, who preaches an economic-social humanitarianism and teaches us to do good to others, even our enemies. This religion would only be a human one, on a human scale, or philanthropy.
The Christian religion, instead, is infinitely higher, because it elevates man to divine heights, to the love of God. It, thus, realizes a mysterious “graft”, suggested by Christ “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15,5), “until we are one with the Father.” (John 17,11,21)
Luise Rinser ex wife of musician Karl Orff and mistress of Karl Rahner, who wrote her 1.800 letters always most ardent and passionate.
Cardinal Walter Kasper.
«Therefore, I say to you…
blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.»
(Mt. 12, 31-32)
Chapter VIII
“LUMEN GENTIUM” CONSTITUTION
– The Church –
It is the Constitution (called “dogmatic”) on the Church. It was promulgated on November 21, 1964.
It consists of eight chapters: The Mystery of the Church – On the People of God – On the Hierarchical Structure of the Church and in Particular on the Episcopate – The Laity – The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church – Religious – The Eschatological Nature of the Pilgrim Church and its Union with the Church in Heaven – The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God in the Mystery of Christ and the Church. Our particular attention will be on the “Hierarchical Structure of the Church.”
In the introduction, the Council declares that “it will again propose to the faithful the doctrine of the First Vatican Council on the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff” and immediately adds:
«Continuing in that same undertaking, this Council is resolved to declare and proclaim before all men the doctrine concerning Bishops, the successors of the Apostles, who together with the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ, the visible Head of the whole Church, govern the house of the living God.»
Now, saying that “with the Successor of Peter, the Bishops govern the house of the living God” is more than a misunderstanding, because it can lead us into an error, in a serious way, for not having emphasized the subordination of the Bishops to the Pope, which would contradict the First Vatican Council.
At N° 19 we read: “Jesus formed the Twelve after the manner of a college or a established group, over which He placed Peter chosen from among them.” And further ahead:
«And the apostles (…) gather together the universal Church, which the Lord established on the Apostles and built upon blessed Peter, their chief, Christ Jesus Himself being the supreme cornerstone.»
As we can see, it does not refer to the text: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church”, so that the phrases “put Peter at its head,” and “their chief,” or “head,” have the meaning of a simple “primacy of honor.” At N° 20, the misunderstanding remains; in fact, it says:
«And just as the office granted individually to Peter (…) so also the Apostles’ office of nurturing the Church is permanent, and is to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of Bishops. Therefore, the Sacred Council teaches that bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the Church …»
Even here, the text does not differentiate the successor of Peter from simple Bishops, nor does it clear up the nature of the Hierarchy.
In N° 22, even while affirming that the College of Bishops has authority only if united with Peter, it still does not explain the nature of this power; moreover, this power can be exercised by Bishops throughout the world, provided that the head of the college invites them to do so, or, at least, approves and accepts their action.
It is clear that, here, the confusion increases. Whereas Vatican I writes clearly «Jesus conferred to Simon Peter the jurisdiction of Pastor, supreme head of all His flock …” Vatican II, instead writes of a “subject of supreme and full power,” but that he cannot act without the initiative and approval of Rome.
Another more puzzling oddity is the phrase that “the Roman Pontiff is always free to exercise his supreme power,” joined by the order of Bishops. It’s absurd!
If the Pope must join the order of Bishops in the exercise of his power, what happens to the “supreme” aspect of his power? Perhaps the Head of the College cannot do certain acts that are the responsibilities of the Bishops? And maybe the head of the entire flock is not free to act on his own, unless it is done collectively?
“Lumen Gentium” does not contain the two unquestionable truths, according to the Holy Scriptures and Tradition, from which we cannot stray without losing Faith.
They are:
-
«Jesus Christ conferred on the Pontiff, in the person of Peter, the full power to shepherd, head and govern the Universal Church;»
-
«it is an ordinary power over all the Churches (…) a power of truly episcopal immediate jurisdiction, not only concerning Faith and customs, but also the discipline and the government, requiring submission and true obedience by all.»
These truths, which are found in the prepared outlines before the Council, were put up for debate by the Mason Cardinal Lienart, supported by Cardinal Frings and other liberal Fathers.
So, ambiguity was the order of the day, in vague and diplomatic texts; orthodox in appearance, but modernist in reality!
All of the following years demonstrated to us how this ambiguous language led to true doctrinal catastrophes.
“Lumen Gentium,” thus, does not present Jesus Christ any more as perpetuating in His Church, founded by Him upon Peter, who was divinely appointed, but instead [presents the Church] as a “mystery” of the people of God, that accepts the ideology of religious sentiment within an undefined evolution.
The satanic leaders of Vatican II certainly knew that, with this maneuver, they could undermine the Primacy of the Pontiff, submerging him in the “collegiality” of the Episcopate.
Now, this would be a sacrilegious attack against God and His Son!
For this reason, I would like to quote the anathema pronounced by Vatican I:
«So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema!» But then, which “theological qualifications” can be attributed to “Lumen Gentium” and “Dei Verbum”?
To put it bluntly, the text of Vatican II is fairly cryptic and mysterious, whereas, one would demand a clear writing style for an official response to theological matters.
The theologian, therefore, would have the right to find the official texts explicitly affirmed without any misunderstandings, whereas, in all of the Conciliar documents (Constitutions, Declarations, Decrees, etc…) there is not a single dogmatic definition, nor anathema: there are even statements contrary to them, so it seems that Vatican II does not have any charism of infallibility. There remain only “dogmas of faith” that were defined by other Councils “de fide.”
This is a point that one should remember well, because this refusal to engage themselves without the charism of infallibility, gives us the explanation for the ambiguities and, worse yet, heresies that one discovers here and there, aside from the catastrophes that the post-conciliar Church fell into.
Some traditionalist Fathers, who had seen the ugly turn that Vatican II was taking, due to the content of the writings of the two dogmatic Constitutions, – “Lumen Gentium” and “Dei Verbum” on the role of the Holy Scriptures, – requested a “theological qualification” to be given to those two Constitutions; but the leaders in question refused this undertaking. Why?
Attentively reading “Lumen Gentium” – on the Constitution on the Church, we find the launch of an attack against the dogmatic Constitution “Pastor Aeternus” of the Ecumenical-Dogmatic Council Vatican I (July 18, 1970, IV session) by Vatican II when it speaks of the Church as “people of God” and proposes “the Collegiality” of the Bishops.
Finally, we see that the definition itself of the Church in “Lumen Gentium” is wrong.
At N° 8, in fact, it says:
«… This is the one Church of Christ, (the earthly Church and the heavenly Church; the society made up of hierarchical structures and the Mystical Body of Christ; the visible community and the spiritual one), which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, and which our Savior, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, (John 21,17) and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority (cfr. Mt. 28, 18 …), which He erected for all ages as “the pillar and mainstay of the truth.» (1 Tim. 3, 15).
«This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, “subsists” in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements (elementa plura sanctificationis et veritatis) of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.»
On the contrary, the Catholic Doctrine of Faith has always held the undisputed identification of the one Church of Christ, His Mystical Body, the Catholic Church. This is also expressed clearly by the Theological Commission in the outline (N° 7) that was prepared in the preparatory phase for the vote.
But this affirmation on the uniqueness of the Church, is necessarily in conflict with the fact that many Christian churches claim to be the true Church of Christ, so “this text, designed and organized in this way, on how a society subsists in the Catholic Church (subsistit in Ecclesaia cattolica) … when contrasted with the encyclical letter “Mystici Corporis” of Pius XII, published on June 29, 1943, results in a striking discrepancy, because “it is one thing to establish that the peaceful identity between the Mystical Body of Christ and the Catholic Church is the only Church of Christ, it is quite another to say that the Church of Christ ‘subsists’ in the Catholic Church.”
In fact, Pius XII used the word “est”, whereas the dogmatic Constitution (?) of Vatican II used “subsistit”!
Could one say that this change from “est” to “subsistit” occurred for ecumenical purposes and that ecumenical goals are enough to justify such a profound “correction in course” in doctrinal issues?
The replacement of “est” with “subsistit in”, in the final version of “Lumen Gentium,” betrayed Catholic doctrine and the specific directive, given by Pope John XXIII to the Council and, later, by Paul VI.
«It is necessary – said John XXIII – first of all, that the Church does not stray from the sacred heritage of the truth» (…) and later: this concerns the «renewed, serene and calm adherence to the whole teaching of the Church in its entirety and precision, that still shines through in conciliar acts from Trent until Vatican I …»
Therefore, the doctrine of the Church should have been conveyed as pure and integral, without attenuations or distortions. Besides, since Vatican II, instead, it operated in the opposite way, giving a possibility to many presumed neo-modernists and liberal theologians of every kind to misinterpret and even alter the ecumenical formula of “subsistit in.”
I cite only the heretic, Küng, who, basing himself on the ambiguous “subsistit in” of “Lumen Gentium,” affirmed that, after such a Constitution, the Catholic Church “simply does not identify with the Church of Christ,” as there was on this point, “a specific revision” by the Council.
This excessiveness, however, obliged the ex-Holy Office to re-affirm some truths about the mystery of the Church, now denied or obscured1.
The light on this comes from Vatican I, a true Ecumenical and Dogmatic Council, in “De Unica Christi Ecclesia” [of the one Church of Christ], where it says:
«Catholics themselves must, nevertheless, profess to belong, as a merciful gift from God, to the Church, the only Church founded by Christ and led by the successors of Peter and of the other Apostles, where the original apostolic tradition still persists, intact and alive, which is the everlasting heritage of truth and holiness of the Church. Therefore, it is not permitted to the faithful to imagine the Church of Christ as a differentiated whole and in some manner unified part of the churches and ecclesiastical communities; nor do they have the authority to maintain that the Church of Christ must only be an object to pursue on the part of all the churches and communities.”
This is the doctrine formally defined by Vatican I in the Dogmatic Constitution “Pastor Aeternum” of July 18, 1870, IV Session, in which there was the mark of the Gospel texts of Matthew (16, 13-20), Luke (22, 31ss), John (1, 35-42; 21, 15-20), the “Acts of the Apostles” (first 12 chapters), in which St. Peter, the undisputed head of the Council of Jerusalem, pronounced the first formal dogmatic definition: “We have decided, We and the Holy Spirit …” (c. 15).
But here, in Vatican II, the doctrinal Commission, composed primarily of neo-modernists and liberals, substituted the dogmatic “est” with the arbitrary “subsistit”, in “Lumen Gentium,” putting in doubt the absolute identification
1 Cfr. AAS 65 (1983) 396-408, “Declaratio Mysterium Ecclesiae circa catholicam doctrinam de ecclesia contra nonnullos errores Hodiernos tuendam”.
of the one and only Church of Christ with the Catholic Church, as it had already done with the expression “nostrae salutis causa” in “Dei Verbum”; putting in doubt the Catholic doctrine on the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures.
Both of them were, thus, an authentic fraud to the detriment of the revealed Truth!
In fact, after Vatican II, the idea that the Church of Christ is solely the Catholic Church is not taught anymore, but rather, that it only “subsists” in Her and that, outside the Church as well, the Gentiles can find salvation in other (false) religions, and that there are elements of sanctification and truth in these, so they are means to salvation as well!
Thus, the heresies proliferate in the Church. It is pointless to recall the instruction, as in “Dominus Jesus”, because no one wants to deny the formulas of Vatican II, but only accuse the deviations and inaccuracies of the post-conciliar “new theology.” Meanwhile, [they believe that] the Holy Spirit doesn’t refrain from using these “separated communities” as a means of salvation, allowing heresies to cohabitate with the truth!!!
St. Augustine, instead, said: “outside the Church, one can have everything: the Episcopate, the Sacraments, the Gospels, preach the Faith; no one, however, can have salvation unless he enters into the Catholic Church!”
Therefore, the elements of truth that can also be found in the false religions, become elements of condemnation if they do not convert. So, the communities that are separate from the Catholic Church cannot have the assistance of the Holy Spirit, precisely because their resistance to enter into the Church of Christ puts them against the Holy Spirit Himself.
For this reason, the false religions are anything but a means to salvation, but an obstacle to it. Therefore, wishing to unite the Catholic Church with false doctrines, signifies a real contradiction, for which the obstinacy of wanting to deny the existence of errors in Vatican II, impedes a return to Tradition and will misfire if Vatican II is not put to the test by the perpetually sound doctrine, the authentically Catholic one!
THE “SUBSISTIT” IN “LUMEN GENTIUM”
Pius XII, in his encyclical “Mystici Corporis” dated June 20, 1943, expresses himself with inequivocable clarity, with his teaching up until Vatican II. Speaking about the unity and the uniqueness of the Church, Pius XII uses the word “est”, whereas the Constitution of Council “Lumen Gentium” uses the word “subsistit in.” It says:
«This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, “subsists” in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of
Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.»
This variation generates noticeable tolerance. But then, if it is still the revealed truth: “Ubi Petrus ibi Ecclesia”, or rather, if the Church of Christ is “one and only” with the Roman Pontiff at its head, why did the “Lumen Gentium” replace “est” with “subsistit in”? For an ecumenical goal? But the conclusion that cannot be denied is that between “Lumen Gentium” and “Mystici Corporis” there are problems raised for different purposes. They want to have it both ways? Of course, but one cannot deny that there is a true “change in direction.” Everything is summed up in the vague “subsistit” or rather in affirming that the Church of Christ “subsists” in the Catholic Church, because this latter affirmation implies She realized the way to exist, but which, however, can also be found elsewhere.
It is a “change of direction,” if we know the revealed truth, namely Catholic doctrine.
It is still evident that this substitution of “est” with “subsistit in” also betrayed the precise directive of John XXIII to the Council and repeated, then, by Paul VI: “It is necessary – affirmed John XXIII – first of all, that the Church does not stray from the sacred patrimony of the truth” (…) and later: «this concerns the renewed, serene and calm adherence to the whole teaching of the Church in its entirety and precision, that still shines in Conciliar acts from Trent until Vatican I.»
But it was easy to foresee the abuses that neo-modernists and liberals of all kinds would have made of the ecumenical formula “subsistit in.” For example, H. Küng, basing himself on this phrase “subsistit in,” affirmed that after such a Constitution, the Catholic Church “does not identify simply as the Church of Christ.” The Catholic doctrine, since then, has been enlightened by Vatican II.
After the Council, there were various attempts to again propose the idea of the “only” Church, even if it is currently divided among different Christian churches, as if they were different «branches. (pan-Christian, worked up by Protestant ecumenism and condemned by Pius XII in “Mortalium Animos”).»
«Paul VI talks like a conservative, but acts like a liberal.»
(Father Congar, Dominican)
Chapter IX
COLLEGIALITY
The word “Collegiality” derives from the latin verb “colligere”, that is, to gather, reunite, put together, which gives us the noun “college”, from “collectus”, or meeting, assembly, that has two meanings: that of “meeting” and of “moral person,” expressing a collective personality, where the individual person is not of a specific type, because the truth is not conditioned by a number. One hundred wrongs do not make a right. However, even one bishop can make history. In fact, when the Church finds itself in peril, it has always been saved by an individual, never by an episcopal collegiality. One thinks of Germany: only a few courageous bishops defended the rights of the Church against Hitler, while the body of Bishops never exposed themselves, even though they were organized in a collegial group. We also think of St. Athanasius who, alone, isolated, persecuted, with the Pope against him, saved the Church from Arianism.
There is only one head in the Church of Christ, the “PETRUS”, and not the cryptic and quibbling “Collegiality” that makes up a “new idea” from Vatican II.
However, the Collegiality has also removed the personal responsibility of the priest-Shepherd of souls!
Still reflecting on this issue of Collegiality, or rather on the democratic collegial Government, accepted in the Church at this point, we can say that, today, we have a de facto twofold supreme power in complete contrast to the practice that had always been in effect by the Supreme Magisterium and which is contrary to Vatican Council I
and the encyclical [on the Unity of the Church] “Satis Cognitus” by Leo XIII. Both, in fact, teach that only the Pontiff has such supreme power and he gives it to the Bishops at the level that he feels appropriate and only in extraordinary circumstances.
Therefore, this Collegiality is a serious error, connected with the democratic orientation of the Church of Vatican II, which, in the New Canon Law dwells in this “democratic power” of the so-called “people of God.” This is also a “Jansenist error,” condemned in the Bull “Auctorem Fidei” of Pius VI.
Today, Contrary [to “Auctorem Fidei”], with Vatican II, they try to arrange a “base” with would have an office of authority. As proof, consider the instituting of the Synods and Episcopal Conferences; the Presbyteral and Pastoral Councils; the multiplication of the Roman and national “Commissions”; those within the Religious Congregations; the New Canon Law (Canon 447) …
It is an ecclesial framework that is everything but encouraging. One could say that anarchy and disorder that rule everywhere within the Church of today have their roots in the deterioration of authority in the Church, whose motto, practically speaking, is no longer “cum Petro et sub Petri capite”, but the inauspicious “Collegiality” that generates the deterioration of authority and is one of the principal causes of the anarchy and disorder.
The principle of “Collegiality”, therefore, has been quite an attack on Catholic unity, precisely because the “democracy” of the majority vote has replaced, in practice, the “Monarchy” of Peter and the Truth.
The Episcopal Conferences, in the name of ethnic and cultural pluralism, have claimed for themselves new liturgical, sociological and theological freedoms (as in “Dignitatis Humanae”!) with initiatives, decisions and Decrees that are decided on by majority vote and opinion.
As a consequence, there is “subversion” that introduces all types of errors, due to its terminology with multiple meanings that can be interpreted in many different ways, because the desire of “pluralism” masks the ambiguity of the language.
It was certainly not honorable for 2400 Bishops to scheme against the Church. Their principal objective was precisely “Collegiality,” and were forced, then, to add a “Note of Explanation,” to explain clearly what they meant by this term “Collegiality”!
Whereas the Councils had always been “dogmatic,” instead, Vatican II was not.
Pope John XXIII said so clearly. Its “subject matter,” in fact, was different from that of other Councils.
To avoid ambiguities – such as the ones that came later! – it would have been necessary to issue at least two texts: one doctrinal, and the other on pastoral considerations. Unfortunately, the idea of the doctrinal text was excluded. Cardinal Felici himself had to admit: “There are, to be honest, many misunderstandings in the writings of the Council!”
This helps us understand the situation in which we now find ourselves. This “post-conciliar spirit” provoked rebellions among the clergy, raised objections and fostered theological and liturgical aberrations.
Nor can it be said that the “post-Conciliar” [spirit] does not have anything to do with the Council itself, because that would be childish and absurd. The first necessary consequence of a Council must be an increase of Faith.
In fact, it is always necessary to rebuild Christianity on Faith and Tradition, obviously with texts of secure, unambiguous, undoubting faith, not an uncertain or contradictory one.
This is the problem that Vatican II poses for theologians. For instance, consider “Gaudium et Spes” and “Libertà Religiosa,” which have extremely evident internal contradictions.
This was done by Modernism, which, after having struck a blow to the unity of the Faith, is now doing it to the unity of the Government, suffocating the ecclesial structure.
The new doctrine of “Collegiality,” suggested in “Lumen Gentium” and then, revived in the “New Canonical Spirit,” is precisely the doctrine on dual “power,” that had been condemned as a Jansenist error and condemned by the Bull “Auctorem Fidei” of Pius VI
and also by the encyclical “Satis Cognitum” of Leo XIII.
It is necessary to remember, therefore, what the Council Fathers of Vatican I had declared:
«We, on behalf of the defense, the preservation and the growth of Catholicism, judge it necessary to propose that, in conformity with the ancient and steadfast faith of the Universal Church, all the faithful believe and hold the doctrine of the holy Apostolic Primacy, on which the vigor and solidarity of the entire Church rests and judge it necessary to prohibit and condemn human errors, so harmful to the sheepfold of God.»
The institution of the Primacy in the person of St. Peter, in Vatican I, is also more than clear:
«We teach and declare, in conformity with the testimony of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ promised and conferred immediately and directly on the Apostle Peter the primacy of the jurisdiction over the universal Church (…) and that only on Peter, the Risen Jesus conferred the jurisdiction of Pastor and Supreme Head of His flock.»
To doubt or deny this signifies a wavering of our Faith on the cornerstone that is Christ. In fact, this deterioration of the authority of the Church has changed the motto “cum Petro et sub Petri capite” into that of “Catholicity.”
However, we must follow the first motto, if we want our Christian life to still be worth living!
As we have seen, the “episcopal collegiality” is a doctrine that attacks the Divine Constitution of the Church, to transform it from a monarchy into a democracy, attributing the supreme power not only to the Pope, but also to the college of Bishops.
After having shook the unity of the Faith, the Modernists did their best to upset the unity of the government and hierarchical structure of the Church.
The doctrine, already suggested by “Lumen Gentium” of Vatican II, was continued explicitly in the new “Canon Law” (C. 336), a doctrine according to which the college of Bishops, united with the Pope, enjoys the same supreme power in the Church and in a habitual and constant way. But this doctrine of twofold supreme power is contrary to the teaching and practice of the Ecclesiastical Magisterium, especially in Vatican I (cfr. Dz. 3055), and the encyclical of Leo XIII “Satis Cognitum.” Therefore, only the Pope has such supreme power, and he delegates it at the level that he feels appropriate and only in extraordinary circumstances.
This serious mistake is tied to the ecclesial democratic orientation, basing the powers in the “People of God,” as sanctioned in the new Law. However, this “Jansenist error” was condemned by the Bull “Auctorem Fidei” of Pius VI (cifr. Dz. 3161, in the new Canon Law, can. 447).
Unfortunately, this undertaking on “Collegiality” was introduced into the doctrine of the Church, concerning the relative powers of the Pope and the Bishops. It was an abstract and generic action to a particular College. It was immediately clear that its aim was to affirm a permanent collegiality to oblige the Pope not to act unless he was surrounded by a Senate participating in his power in a habitual and permanent way, to the point of effectively diminishing the exercise of his papal power.
Whereas “moral collegiality” generates only moral relations, “juridical collegiality,” as well said by H. E. Monsignor Carli, “cannot be proven with the Scriptures, theology, nor history.”
We repeat that the doctrine of Collegiality means that the Episcopal College (with the Pope) has, by divine right, full and supreme power in the entire Church.
However, this doctrine is false, as can be proved with the Constitution “De Ecclesia,” understood in light of the “Note of Explanation,” and with the speech by Paul VI of November 21, 1964.
-
The Constitution “De Ecclesia”: the Constitution recognizes the dignity of the Bishops, their office in teaching, sanctifying and governing the faithful, and forming a type of Episcopal College, but never affirms that the Episcopal College has, iure divino, the supreme power in the Church, and if it has certain powers, they are under the supreme authority of the Pope. Therefore, as the Vicar of Christ and Shepherd of the flock, he also has power over the Episcopal College. It also says that only Peter received the authority of the keys, or rather, that only he has supreme power. However, this doctrine was attenuated and some ambiguous terms remained in it and created the necessity for a “Note of Explanation.”
-
This “Note of Explanation” was conveyed to the Council Fathers by the Pope, so it is an authentic source of interpretation of the Constitution “De Ecclesia.” It says: “[Episcopal] College” should not be understood in a strictly juridical sense, that is, as a group of equals, but the power of the Bishops is inferior to that of the Pope. In virtue of a necessary hierarchical communion, “ex natura rei,” the Bishops are necessarily subordinate to the Pope, their Head, who, in the College, keeps the office of the Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the universal Church intact. Therefore, the power of the Episcopal College is only rarely exercised and has no value without the consent of the Pope.
It is evident, therefore, that the College of Bishops does not have, iure divino, supreme power in the Church, so that giving them such power, is an openly false doctrine.
-
The speech by Paul VI, on November 21, 1964, specifically states that he would promulgate the dogmatic Constitution “De Ecclesia,” keeping in mind the explanations given on the interpretation of the terms used. Therefore, if the Council had attributed the supreme power of the Church to the College of Bishops as well, the changing of the Constitution of the Church from a monarchic one to a collegial one would have been a decision contrary to the wishes of Jesus Christ; it would have been contrary to the traditional teaching and to the spiritual well-being of the faithful, since it would have made the preservation of the unity of the Faith more difficult.
In conclusion, we must state that the doctrine of Collegiality is false and contrary to the traditional teaching of the Church and constitutes a real danger to the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff. None of the Popes prior to Vatican II ever recognized that presumed right of the Bishops, instead, many of them, such as Pius VI and Gregory XVI explicitly condemned it.
This reminds me of Our Lord who has never abandoned His Church, having promised to remain with Her until the end of time. When Peter’s boat was sinking, Christ intervened at the right moment to save it from danger. We are also reminded that when Peter was walking on water and was scared of drowning, Our Lord reached out with His hands and miraculously saved him!
Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger: the “mind” and the “arm”.
«Wreaking havoc on the opinions of a people
is a diabolical game of one year;
putting them back in order takes centuries.»
CONCLUSION
The terrible drama that all of humanity is living through is that of a Church deeply fractured on issues of Faith, the Sacraments, the Rites, the interpetation of the Holy Scriptures, and the frightening catastrophe of the Liturgical Reform.
On the human and practical scale, Vatican II in its adaptation to the world, with its Pastoral Documents, inspired by and even arranged with the high Jewish Masonry of B’nai B’rith, effectively repudiated the Faith in a radical way, as seen by those who follow the developments of the process of self-destruction by Vatican II.
The destruction of Catholicism is, at this point, reaching the final stages. Nothing is being saved, not a single Institution nor a single Canonical book. We were given a new Missal, a new Papacy, a new Ritual, a new Canon Law, a new Catechism, a new Bible, Christian charity replaced with “solidarity.” A large part of the Hierarchy, today, propagates every type of error, already condemned by Councils and the Magistrature of the Pontiffs, that had always sought, above all, the “Kingdom of God and His Justice.” After the Council, the faith of the faithful was so shaken that Cardinal Ottaviani asked all the Bishops of the world and the Superior Generals of the Orders and the Congregations, to respond to the inquiry on the danger for the “fundamental truths” of our Faith.
The Popes, before Vatican II, had always called to order and even made condemnations. Catholic liberalism was condemned by Pius IX; Modernism by Leo XIII; Syllogism by St. Pius X; Communism by Pius XI; Neo-Modernism by Pius XII. Thanks to this episcopal vigilance, the Church became strengthened and developed. There were numerous conversions by pagans and protestants; heresy was in retreat and countries had sanctioned a more Catholic legislation.
Following Vatican II this position taken by the Church was rejected which became a tragedy never before experienced by the Church. The Council permitted people to doubt the truth. The consequences, therefore, were ever more serious.
The doubts on the necessity of the Church and the Sacraments caused priestly vocations to disappear. The doubts on the necessity and nature of “conversion” were the ruin of the traditional spirituality in the Novitiates with the disappearance of religious vocations. It injected futility into the missions. The doubts on the legitimacy of authority and obedience, on the reasons for autonomy of conscience, of freedom, shook up all the social factions: the Church, religious societies, dioceses and civil societies, and especially the family.
The doubts on the necessity of Grace in order to be saved led to the lack of respect for Baptism, and the abandonment of the sacrament of Penance. The doubts on the necessity of the Church as the only source of salvation destroyed the authority of the Magisterium of the Church, as no longer “Magistra Veritatis”! [“The Teacher of Truth”!]
All of this makes us think about the correct reactions by Catholic Rome, where compromises of the Truth were never tolerated. Pius IX maintained that it would be better to have a vacant Diocese, rather than have a Bishop who was liberal, tolerant, and conciliatory between truth and falsehoods and accepting of minor evils for the eventual greater good.
Catholic Rome was characterized for its resoluteness and deliberation in its dispositions. Nothing was ever left to chance. Vatican II, however, tried to impede a return to the “status quo ante”, that is, a return to the Rome of the Apostles and the Rome “Mother and Guide of the Faithful.”
Instead, it is precisely a return that is needed! It is necessary for a Pope, to have the courage, tomorrow, to declare Vatican II “null and void” in every sense!
Only liars would wish for this conformity to the “new,” as if the Church had become old and left behind, no longer with the times. Christianity, however, is always “new.” The doctrine of Christ is always the “new wine” (Mt. 9,17); His blood continuously sanctions the “New Alliance.” (Mt. 26,28; Mk.14,25; Lk. 22,20; 1 Cor. 11,25)
The great Commandment of Christ is the “New Commandament.” (J. 13,34; 1 Jo. 2,7; 11 Jo. 5)
Every believer in Christ is always “a new creature” (11 Cor. 5,17), “a new man” (Ef. 2,15) who must live “a new life” (Rom. 6,4), with a “new spirit” (Rom. 7,6), in a “new universe.” (11 Pt. 3,13)
It is this news that emphasizes the continuous activity of Christianity, of Christ’s words, that is, “dead to sin once and for all” (Rom 6,10), of His Redemption, within and beyond history, so it never opposes any positive value acquired by man. “Finally, brothers, let your minds be filled with everything that is true, everything that is honorable, everything that is upright and pure, everything that we love and admire – with whatever is good and praiseworthy.” (Phil 4, 8-9) It opposes only falsehoods, because there cannot exist a Christ of yesterday and another of today, or a truth of yesterday and another of today, since different degrees of truth do not exclude each other, but are added together.
The conflict that exists today is between “new” and “old.” Therefore, it does not make any sense except in the human aspects of the Church, in which it is personified, and in the forms in which it is included in the history of man. There is an irreconcilable conflict of the old and the new. Therefore it is a sin against the Holy Spirit, who willed that the everlasting new idea of Christianity remain unchanged!
Benedict XVI.
«The power of the Pope is not unlimited:
not only can he not
change anything that is divinely instituted,
but, being put there to build and not to destroy,
he is held by natural law to not throw confusion
into the flock of Christ.»
(Cfr. Diet. De Th. Cath. T. 11, cell. 2039-40)
APPENDIX
If the Pope falls into heresy or schism…
Today, could one also say that the Hierarchy of the Roman Church is destroying the Catholic doctrine, to give us a “new religion”? But, how is this possible? How is it possible that whoever follows the new doctrinal guidelines, which are often in contradiction with Catholic doctrine, is outside the Faith of pre-Vatican II?
One could point to all of the documentation of the Council and all of the acts of Paul VI and John Paul Il, if the limited space of this text were sufficient to show “facts” and “words” that would prove the contrast to the doctrine and practice of the traditional Church.
One can obviously not believe that Paul VI and John Paul II did not know Catholic doctrine, holding degrees in Theology, and after having been warned by many of their mistaken steps in their continuation on the new path of their “new Church,” demonstrating an irremediable conflict between their new doctrine and the traditional dogmas of the Catholic faith, disturbing the faithful with many diverse theological opinions.
And so…? How can one forget that the Church of Christ has always been essentially traditional, based on “Depositum Fidei,” transmitted by the Apostles until today…? How does one not consider what has been said and done over centuries…?
For this reason, many theologians have posed the question of what happens if a Pope were to become a heretic or schismatic, as happened with Popes Liberius, Honorius, Paschal II, and John XXII.
A few opinions:
Uguaccione wrote: «When the Pope falls into heresy, he can be judged by his subjects. In fact, when the Pope falls into heresy he makes himself not greater than, but inferior to any other Catholic.»
Giovanni the Teotonic, a great decretist, asks the question of whether it is allowed to accuse “the Pope” in case he falls into heresy, and answers that yes, it is, because, otherwise «it would endanger the good of the entire Church, which is not lawful” and furthermore, “due to the heresy the Pope would cease to be the Head of the Church, as long as the crime is known for “confessionem vel pro facti evidentia.»
Cardinal Giovanni di Torquemada (not the Inquisitor), commenting on “Corpus iuris canonici”, affirms: «I respond to this conclusion by saying that the Pope has no superior judge on Earth, except in cases of heresy.» He also affirms: «Deviant from the faith means, when one departs from the faith persistently and falls from the Rock of the Faith, on which it was founded.» (cfr. Mt. XVI)
(The Pope) becomes minor and inferior to any of the faithful and can, therefore, be judged by the Church, or rather, declared already condemned, according to what has been written that whoever does not believe has already been judged, and the Pope cannot establish a law that he cannot be accused of heresy, since it would jeopardize the entire Church and confuse its general status.”
Innocent III, explicitly declared in three sermons that in case he himself fell into heresy, he would become guilty of a crime against the Faith.
St. Robert Bellarmine, in his “De Romano Pontifice”, writes that in case (the Pope) makes doctrinal errors, it must be said that Pope had not been validly elected; and in case he were to fall into heresy, he would cease being the Pope, since «whoever is outside the Church cannot be its Head.»
Even in our times, the question becomes equivalent to that of medieval ones.
In fact, in 1969, Cardinal Journet declared: «The medieval theologians said that the Council would not even have to depose him, but only ascertain the fact of heresy and signify to the Church that he who had been Pope had forfeited his principal function. Who had removed him? No one, apart for himself. The same way he can abdicate with an act of will, he can also, on his own, decree voluntarily his decline with an act of heresy.
The reason is that by denying the faith, he who had been Pope ceased to be a part or member of the Church. From the moment that the fact is declared publicly, he could not continue to be its Head. In such a case, an eventual sentence by the Council would only declare the fact, and not proclaim, in any way, the supremacy of the Council over the Pope.»
In “Enchiridium Juris Canonici”, written by Stefano Sipos, such a sentence is reassumed in different ways.
A document of theological importance is the Apostolic Constitution “Cum ex Apostolatus officio” of Pope Paul IV, in which he uses the fullness of his powers:
«Hence, by this Our Constitution which is to remain valid in perpetuity, in abomination of so great a crime (heresy), than which none in the Church of God can be greater or more pernicious, by the fullness of our Apostolic Power, We enact, determine, decree and define” openly that “even the Roman Pontiff, prior to his promotion or his elevation as Cardinal or Roman Pontiff, has deviated from the Catholic Faith or fallen into some heresy, or incurred or provoked a schism, the promotion or elevation, even if it shall have been uncontested and by the unanimous assent of all the Cardinals, shall be null, void and worthless.»
The same arguments are given in the Bull “Inter Multiplices” of St. Pius V.
At this point, one can ask whether John Paul II pronunced heresies “ex Cathedra” or, if he, personally and privately, were a heretic or not. After everything that we have denounced about his actions, how could John Paul II have been a “Pope”? If “agere secuitur esse”, it can be proved that his actions did not correspond to those that they should have been.
How could he, as “Pope”, have received the sign of the worshippers of Shiva on his forehead…? What could he have said to the worshippers of the “snake-god” of their faith in the one and true God…? How could he have presided over meetings, such as the one in Assisi and other similar ones…?
Pius XI, in his encyclical “Mortalium Animos”, says:
«(…) Certainly such attempts can nowise be approved by Catholics, founded as they are on that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgment of His rule. Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to Naturalism and Atheism.»
Now, the dogma of faith is that the Church is Holy, so the Holy Church cannot give us Sacraments, a Faith, and laws that are not holy.
And so, why does the “New Code” of Canon Law, and the “Nuovo Ordo Missae” contain “errors”?
The only answer could be this: if a Pope promulgates universal laws contrary to the traditional Faith and the sanctity of the Church, his authority would not be legitimate.
Reconsidering the the speeches and “facts” of John Paul II, one must say that Karol Wojtyla is certainly a heretic, and that would confirm the absence of authority in himself, from the beginning. We ask ourselves, then, where is the true Church? If we accept the prophecy of the Virgin of La Salette, the true Church is visible in those who flee from heresy, still keeping the Faith.
This, however, poses the problem that the Church, tomorrow, will need to clear up this dark period of its History and must, therefore, also verify the invalidity of the documents of Vatican II, of the false liturgical reform, of the vacuous Canon Law, of heretical Catechisms and the twenty encyclicals.
May Jesus Christ-GOD, Founder of His Church, enlighten and direct this solution for His Church!
Categories: Eastern Meditation, Hinduisation of the Catholic Church in India, Liturgical Abuses, new age, PROTESTANTISM
Leave a Reply