Can Paul VI be beatified?

On December 20, 2012, Benedict XVI authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree recognizing the “heroic virtues” of Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978. Now only a miracle obtained through the intercession of Paul VI is necessary to proceed to his beatification. Apparently the postulator for his cause, Fr. Antonio Marrazzo, has already chosen a case to present to the medical commission, the cure of an unborn child diagnosed with severe malformation. According to Andrea Tornielli of La Stampa’s Vatican Insider, the beatification could take place in 2013.

Paul VI is the pope who closed the Second Vatican Council, opened by his predecessor John XXIII. It was during Paul VI’s pontificate that the Novus Ordo Missae was developed. He wrote unhesitatingly to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1976, “The Second Vatican Council is no less authoritative than the Council of Nicea, and is even more important in some respects.”

Archbishop Lefebvre, who was suspended a divinis during Paul VI’s pontificate, gave his opinion of Paul VI to the seminarians of Ecône in the lecture series he gave on the Magisterium that provided the material for his book They Have Uncrowned Him (Angelus Press, 1994). Chapter 31, “Paul VI, a Liberal Pope,” provides a strong indication of what the Society of St. Pius X’s founder would have said about the pending beatification. Dici has introduced headings in the form of questions into Archbishop Lefebvre’s text, the better to follow his analysis.

Obviously, the Church will one day judge this council and these popes. How will Paul VI, in particular, fare? Some call him heretic, schismatic, and apostate; others believe themselves to have proved that he could not have acted for the good of the Church, and that therefore he was not in fact pope—the theory held by Sedevacantists. I do not deny that these opinions have some arguments in their favour. Perhaps, you will say, in 30 years secrets will have been revealed, or elements that should have been obvious to contemporary observers will stand out, statements made by this pope in complete contradiction to the traditions of the Church, etc. Perhaps. But I do not believe that such hypotheses are necessary; in fact, I think it would be a mistake to espouse them.

Others think, simplistically, that there were two popes: one, the true pope, imprisoned in the cellars of the Vatican, and the other, an imposter, his double, seated on the throne of Peter, working for the destruction of the Church. Books have been published about the two popes, based on the ‘revelations’ of a possessed person and on supposedly scientific arguments that state, for instance, that the double’s voice is not the same as that of the real Paul VI…!

The real solution seems entirely different to me, much more complex, more difficult, and more painful. It is given us by a friend of Paul VI, Cardinal Daniélou. In his Memoirs, published by a member of his family, the cardinal clearly states, “It is clear that Paul VI is a liberal Pope.”

Such is the solution that seems the most historically likely, because this pope was himself a fruit of liberalism. His whole life was permeated with the influence of the men he chose to surround him or to rule him, and they were liberals.

Paul VI did not hide his liberal leanings; at the Council, the men he chose as moderators to replace the presidents appointed by John XXIII, were Cardinal Agagianian, a cardinal of colourless personality from the Curia, and Cardinals Lercaro, Suenens and Döpfner, all three liberals and the pope’s friends. The presidents were sidelined at the head table, and these three liberals directed the conciliar debates. In the same way, Paul VI supported the liberal faction that opposed the tradition of the Church throughout the entire Council. This is a recognized fact. Paul VI repeated –I quoted it to you—the exact words of Lammenais at the end of the Council: “L’Eglise ne demande que la liberté” – the Church only seeks freedom—a doctrine condemned by Gregory XVI and Pius IX.

Paul VI was undeniably very strongly influenced by liberalism. This explains the historic evolution experienced by the Church over the last few decades, and it describes Paul VI’s personal behavior very well. The liberal, as I have told you, is a man who lives in constant contradiction. He states the principles, and does the opposite; he is perpetually incoherent.

Here are a few examples of the thesis-antithesis conundrums that Paul VI loved to present as so many insoluble problems, mirroring his anxious and conflicted mind. The encyclical Ecclesiam suam, (August 6, 1964), provides an illustration:

“If, as We said, the Church realizes what is God’s will in its regard, it will gain for itself a great store of energy, and in addition will conceive the need for pouring out this energy in the service of all men. It will have a clear awareness of a mission received from God, of a message to be spread far and wide. Here lies the source of our evangelical duty, our mandate to teach all nations, and our apostolic endeavor to strive for the eternal salvation of all men. (…) The very nature of the gifts which Christ has given the Church demands that they be extended to others and shared with others. This must be obvious from the words: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations,” Christ’s final command to His apostles. The word apostle implies a mission from which there is no escaping.”

“To this internal drive of charity which seeks expression in the external gift of charity, We will apply the word ‘dialogue.’ The Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make.”

“Before we can convert the world—as the very condition of converting the world—we must approach it and speak to it.”[1]

Of greater gravity are the words with which Paul VI suppressed Latin in the liturgy after the Council, and they are even more characteristic of his liberal psychology. After restating all the advantages of Latin: a sacred language, an unchanging language, a universal language, he calls, in the name of adaptation, for the “sacrifice” of Latin, admitting at the same time that it will be a great loss for the Church. Here are his very words, reported by Louis Salleron in his book La nouvelle messe [The New Mass] (Nouvelles Editions Latines, 2nd ed., 1976, p. 83)

“It is a sacrifice that the Church makes in renouncing Latin, a sacred language, beautiful, expressive, and elegant. The Church sacrifices centuries of tradition and unity of language in the name of an ever-growing desire for universality.”

The ‘sacrifice’ of which he spoke became a reality with the Instruction Tres abhinc annos (May 4, 1967) which established the use of the vernacular for reciting the Canon of the Mass aloud.

This ‘sacrifice,’ in Paul VI’s mind, seems to have been final. He explained it once again on November 26, 1969, when he presented the new rite of the Mass:

“The principal language of the Mass will no longer be Latin, but the vernacular. For anyone familiar with the beauty and power of Latin, its aptness for expression of the sacred, it will certainly be a great sacrifice to see it replaced by the vernacular. We are losing the language of centuries of Christianity, we become as intruders, reduced to the profane in the literary domain of expressing the sacred. We lose, too, the greater part of the admirable, incomparable wealth of art and spirituality contained in Gregorian chant. It is with good reason, then, that we experience regret and even distress.”

Everything therefore should have dissuaded Paul VI from imposing this ‘sacrifice’ and persuaded him to maintain the use of Latin. On the contrary, deriving a singularly masochistic pleasure from his ‘distress,’ he chose to act against the principles he had just set forth, and decreed the ‘sacrifice’ in the name of promoting understanding of prayer, a specious argument that was only a modernist pretext.

Never has liturgical Latin been an obstacle to the conversion of infidels or to their education as Christians. Quite the opposite: the simple peoples of Africa and Asia loved Gregorian chant and the one sacred language, the sign of their affiliation to Catholicism. And experience shows that where Latin was not imposed by missionaries of the Latin Church, there the seeds of future schism were planted.

“The solution seems banal and prosaic, but it is good, because it is human and apostolic. The understanding of prayer is more precious than the dilapidated silks in which it has been royally clad. More precious is the participation of the people, the people of today who want us to speak clearly, intelligibly, in words that can be translated into their secular tongue. If the noble Latin language cuts us off from children, from youth, from the world of work and business, if it is an opaque screen instead of a transparent crystal, would we fishers of men do well to maintain its exclusive use in the language of prayer and religion?”

Alas, what mental confusion. Who prevents me from praying in my own tongue? But liturgical prayer is not private prayer; it is the prayer of the whole Church. Moreover, another lamentable lack of distinction is present: the liturgy is not a teaching addressed to the faithful, but the worship the Christian people address to God. Catechism is one thing, and the liturgy is another. The point is not that we “speak clearly” to the people assembled in the church, but rather that these people may praise God in the most beautiful, most sacred, and most solemn manner possible. “Praying to God with beauty” was St. Pius X’s liturgical maxim. How right he was!

You see, the liberal mind is conflicted and confused, anguished and contradictory. Such a mind was Paul VI’s. Louis Salleron explained it very well when he described Paul VI’s physical countenance, saying “he was two-faced.” Not duplicitous—this word expresses a malicious intent to deceive which was not present in Paul VI. No, he had a double personality, and the contrast between the sides of face expressed this: traditionalist in words, then modernist in action; Catholic in his premises and principles, and then progressive in his conclusions; not condemning what he should have, and then condemning what he ought to have preserved.

This psychological weakness afforded an ideal opportunity for the enemies of the Church. While maintaining a Catholic face (or half-face, if you like) he contradicted tradition without hesitation, he encouraged change, baptized mutation and progress, and followed the lead of the enemies of the Church, who egged him on.

Did not the Izvestia, official newspaper of the Communist Soviet party, demand from Paul VI my condemnation and that of Ecône in the name of Vatican II? And the Italian Communist paper L’Unita followed suit after the sermon I gave in Lille on August 29, 1976; furious because of my attack on Communism, they devoted an entire page to their demand. “Be aware,” they wrote, addressing Paul VI, “be aware of the danger Lefebvre represents, and continue the magnificent approach initiated through the ecumenism of Vatican II.” With friends like these, who needs enemies? This is a sad illustration of a rule we have already established: liberalism leads from compromise to treason.

How should priests and faithful who are attached to tradition act under a liberal pope?

The psychology of a liberal pope is easy enough to imagine, but difficult to bear! Indeed, such a leader—be it Paul VI or John Paul II—puts us in a very delicate position.

In practice, our attitude must base itself on a preliminary distinction, made necessary by the extraordinary circumstances of a pope won over by liberalism. This is the distinction we must make: when the pope says something in keeping with tradition, we follow him; when he opposes the Faith, or encourages opposition of the Faith, or allows something to be done that attacks the Faith, then we cannot follow him. The fundamental reason for this is that the Church, the pope, and the hierarchy must serve the Faith. They do not make the Faith, they must serve it. The Faith cannot be made; it is immutable, and must be transmitted.

This is why papal teachings intended to validate actions opposed to tradition cannot be followed. In following, we would participate in the self-destruction of the Church, in the destruction of our Faith.

It is clear that what is unceasingly demanded of us—complete submission to the pope, complete submission to the Council, acceptance of the entire liturgical reform—is in opposition to tradition, in the sense that the pope, the Council and the reforms lead us far from tradition, as the facts show more overwhelmingly every year. Therefore, to demand these things is to require us to participate in the downfall of the Faith. Impossible! The martyrs died to defend the Faith; we have the example of Christians imprisoned, tortured, sent to concentration camps for the Faith. One grain of incense offered to an idol, and their lives would have been safe. I was advised once, “Sign, sign saying you accept everything, and then you can continue as before!” No! One does not play games with the Faith.

Translated from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Ils l’ont découronné, Clovis, 3rd ed., 2008; pp. 253-260. Available in English translation at Angelus Press as They Have Uncrowned Him (1994)

Paul VI to be Canonized?
The Triumph of Wayward Sentiment

By John Vennari

In 1980, while still new to the Traditionalist Movement, I heard an interview by Michael Davies on Vatican II. Speaking of Paul VI, Davies said he considered him to be the worst pope in Church history.

“If you look at the state of the Church when he took over (1963), and then look at the state of the Church when he died (1978),” said Davies, there has never been such a wholesale devastation of the Church in so short a time period. It all took place on his watch and was due to his revolutionary Conciliar policies.

The destruction of the Mass by means of implementing the Novus Ordo Missae is the most far-reaching act of Paul VI’s papacy. It affected the Catholic in his primary connection to the Church, Sunday Mass. Paul VI insisted on foisting a new liturgy upon the Church that was built on a Protestant model.

Journalist Jean Guitton, a close friend and confident of Pope Paul VI, confirmed that it was the aim of the Pope to protestantize the liturgy.

In a radio interview in the 1990s, Guitton said: “The intention of Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy – but what is curious is that Paul VI did that to get as close as possible to the Protestant Lord’s supper… there was with Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic, in the traditional sense, and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist Mass.” [1]

It was Paul VI who championed the entire new program of the Council, especially its novel policy of ecumenism that no longer seeks conversion of non-Catholics, but convergence with non-Catholics. Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism warmed the heart of Protestants. Lutheran Observer Robert McAffee Brown, a “minister” who favored divorce and birth control, celebrated the new orientation.

In his 1967 book, The Ecumenical Revolution, McAffee Brown applauds the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism: “The document makes clear how new is the attitude that has emerged. No more is there talk of ‘schismatics and heretics’ but rather of ‘separated brethren.’ No more is there an imperial demand that the dissidents return in penitence to the Church who has no need of penitence; instead there is recognition that both sides are guilty of the sins of division and must reach out penitentially to one another. No more are Protestants dismissed merely as ‘sects’ or psychological entities alone; instead it is acknowledged that there is a measure of ‘ecclesial reality’ to be found within their corporate life.”[2]

Worse, the two central papal documents of the early 20th Century on Ecumenism, Pope Pius XI’s 1926 Mortalium Animos and Pope Pius XII’s 1949 Instruction on the Ecumenical Movement, were neither mentioned nor footnoted in the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism. Paul VI’s Council pretended these texts did not exist.

These two papal documents state that the only true unity of Christians can be accomplished by the return of non-Catholics to the one true Church. This Catholic principle, founded on the words of Christ Himself, was at odds with Pope Paul’s Council.

Dr. George May noted the grave consequences of Vatican II’s ecumenical approach.

“Following this particular cherished ‘fruit’ of the Council, (ecumenism) a ‘revaluation’ of Protestantism got underway everywhere among Catholics, and certain lucid Protestants could not hide their surprise, ” notes Dr. May. “The Council had prepared the astonishing rehabilitation of Protestantism insofar as it described with great partiality, the religious communities resulting from the Reformation. Only the positive aspects were noticed. The immense evil that Protestantism brought upon the world and the aggressiveness against the Roman Catholic Church that even today it manifests everywhere where its affairs are not supported by the Catholic Church, all that was omitted. The Church will have to pay for this error of the Concilar Fathers.”[3]

Indeed, a Benedictine monk said to Jean Madiran that thanks to Vatican II we have passed from theocentrism (God-centeredness) to anthropocentrism (man-centeredness).[4]

As we recall the disastrous effects of the Council; as we remember the years 1963 to 1978, with its collapse of dogmatic and moral theology, the upheaval in Catholic schools, seminaries and religious orders, the breakdown of Church discipline, the scorn for scholastic philosophy, the persecution of traditional Catholics, the worldwide confusion, the mass defection of Catholics, and the appointment of countless revolutionary bishops, we gasp with disbelief at the latest news from Pope Benedict’s Vatican.

Theologians, cardinals and bishops of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints have given the go ahead for Paul VI’s beatification.

Andre Tornielli writes in the December 14 Vatican Insider, “The late pope’s Positio – the collection of documents used in the process by which a person is declared a saint – was approved unanimously by all present. All bishops and cardinals expressed themselves in favor of the ‘heroic virtues’ of Giovanni Battista Montini, elected Pope with the name Paul VI in 1963 and deceased in 1978. Theologians who voted separately also voted unanimously in favor”.

Tornielli concludes, “The Pope [Benedict XVI] intends to proceed as quickly as possible. The beatification is expected by the end of the Year of Faith. 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of Montini’s election as Pope and the 35th anniversary of his death.”[5]

The proposed beatification of Paul VI is nothing more than the triumph of wayward sentiment. Again we see Catholic terms stripped of their meaning. A beatification or canonization, once a sure sign of the heroic virtue of the person canonized, is now degenerated to the level of the Academy Awards. In the case of both Paul VI and John Paul II, it is a special achievement medal bestowed by revolutionary prelates on leaders who advance modernist causes.

Pope Benedict XVI, a life-long Vatican II progressive to this day, has shown himself first and foremost a disciple of the New Theology by agreeing to beatify its star icons.

The beatification of Paul VI and John Paul II also serve another purpose: it is a means of canonizing Vatican II and the conciliar revolution. The new program of Vatican II cannot withstand genuine Catholic scrutiny. It is a rupture with the past; it finds no support in Scripture, Tradition or reason.

The Conciliar revolution thus must be imposed by intimidation; not an intimidation at gunpoint, but an intimidation that overwhelms Catholics by proclaiming the alleged saintliness of its most determined innovators. “Blessed “ John XXIII, “Venerable” Paul VI, “Blessed” John Paul II, new saints for the new religion, all elevated to their exalted status by a new canonization process that dispenses with the devil’s advocate, and no longer insures the miraculous beyond all natural explanation.

The new conciliar program reveals its propagators as churchmen who publicly betrayed their Oath Against Modernism, solemnly sworn to God on the night before their ordination. The eminent theologian Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton warned in 1960 that the man who took the Oath Against Modernism, and who then promoted Modernism himself, or allowed it to be promoted, “would mark himself not only as a sinner against the Catholic Faith but also as a common perjurer.”[6] Pope Benedict’s Vatican “beatifies” such men.

The diabolic disorientation continues full gallop. While we heed the Message of Fatima to “pray a great deal for the Holy Father,” we also urge Catholics to resist this latest attempt to canonize conciliar confusion.

Notes:

1. Quoted from Michael McGrade, “Redemptionis Sacramentum, DOA, RIP”, Christian Order, August- September, 2004.
2. The Ecumenical Revolution, 2nd ed. Robert McAffee Brown (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 67-8. (emphasis added)
3. Quoted from A Layman’s Guide to Vatican II, Arnaud de Lassus (Winona: STAS Editions, 2012), p. 24.
4. Ibid., p. 28.
5. “Cardinals Vote Unanimously in Favor of Paul VI’s Canonization,” Andrea Tornielli, Vatican Insider, December 14, 2012.
6. The Sacrorum Antistitum and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism,” Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, American Ecclesiastical Review, October, 1960, p. 259.

Posted December 19, 2012
From the January 2013 Catholic Family News

to send Letter to the Editor, click here

Attention Facebook users:
I have started a group titled:
A Call for Caution against the beatification of Paul VI
https://www.facebook.com/groups/220774561390684/
The group is meant to be a resistance to the beatification,
as well as educational concerning the Catholic Faith.
Please feel free to join and follow the posts;
and posters may respectfully I ask you to please stay on topic.
- John Vennari

Note: Michal Semin, our friend in Prague, translated this article into Czech and posted it on his Saint Joseph Institute webpage. Go to:
http://www.stjoseph.cz/blahoreceni-pavla-vi-triumf-svevolneho-sentimentu/

Interview with Alice von Hildebrand: Should Pope Paul VI be Canonized?

I received this in an email and thought it was important enough to post it. The intro was written by Thom Nickels, a Philadelphia journalist. In reading this ask yourself whether Pope Paul VI should be canonized. I’ve highlighted some especially significant passages.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
“Pope Paul VI and the Slippery Slope

I recently came across this interview with Alice von Hildebrand. The interview was conducted by the Latin Mass Magazine (I am a subscriber). Alice von Hildebrand also writes for the New Oxford Review. Her words speak to the present crises in the Catholic Church.

[The interview, reproduced in part]

TLM: In terms of the present crisis, when did you first perceive something was terribly wrong?

AVH: It was in February 1965. I was taking a sabbatical year in Florence. My husband was reading a theological journal, and suddenly I heard him burst into tears. I ran to him, fearful that his heart condition had suddenly caused him pain. I asked him if he was all right. He told me that the article that he had been reading had provided him with the certain insight that the devil had entered the Church. Remember, my husband was the first prominent German to speak out publicly against Hitler and the Nazis. His insights were always prescient.

TLM: Did your husband think that the decline in a sense of the supernatural began around that time [1920s — from an earlier question], and if so, how did he explain it?AVH: No, he believed that after Pius X’s condemnation of the heresy of Modernism [1907], its proponents merely went underground. He would say that they then took a much more subtle and practical approach. They spread doubt simply by raising questions about the great supernatural interventions throughout salvation history, such as the Virgin Birth and Our Lady’s perpetual virginity, as well as the Resurrection, and the Holy Eucharist. They knew that once faith – the foundation – totters, the liturgy and the moral teachings of the Church would follow suit. My husband entitled one of his books The Devastated Vineyard. After Vatican II, a tornado seemed to have hit the Church ...

Even the pagan Plato was open to a sense of the supernatural. He spoke of the weakness, frailty and cowardice often evidenced in human nature. He was asked by a critic to explain why he had such a low opinion of humanity. He replied that he was not denigrating man, only comparing him to God.

With the loss of a sense of the supernatural, there is a loss of the sense of a need for sacrifice today. The closer one comes to God, the greater should be one’s sense of sinfulness. The further one gets from God, as today, the more we hear the philosophy of the new age: “I’m OK, You’re OK.” This loss of the inclination to sacrifice has led to the obscuring of the Church’s redemptive mission. Where the Cross is downplayed, our need for redemption is given hardly a thought.

The aversion to sacrifice and redemption has assisted the secularization of the Church from within. We have been hearing for many years from priests and bishops about the need for the Church to adapt herself to the world. Great popes like St. Pius X said just the opposite: the world must adapt itself to the Church.

TLM: From our conversation throughout this afternoon, I must conclude that you don’t believe that the accelerating loss of the sense of the supernatural is an accident of history.

AVH: No, I do not. There have been two books published in Italy in recent years that confirm what my husband had been suspecting for some time; namely, that there has been a systematic infiltration of the Church by diabolical enemies for much of this century. My husband was a very sanguine man and optimistic by nature. During the last ten years of his life, however, I witnessed him many times in moments of great sorrow, and frequently repeating, “They have desecrated the Holy Bride of Christ.” He was referring to the “abomination of desolation” of which the prophet Daniel speaks.

TLM: This is a critical admission, Dr. von Hildebrand. Your husband had been called a twentieth-century Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII. If he felt so strongly, didn’t he have access to the Vatican to tell Pope Paul VI of his fears?

AVH: But he did! I shall never forget the private audience we had with Paul VI just before the end of the [Second Vatican] Council. It was on June 21, 1965. As soon as my husband started pleading with him to condemn the heresies that were rampant, the Pope interrupted him with the words, “Lo scriva, lo scriva.” (“Write it down.”) A few moments later, for the second time, my husband drew the gravity of the situation to the Pope’s attention. Same answer. His Holiness received us standing. It was clear that the Pope was feeling very uncomfortable. The audience lasted only a few minutes. Paul VI immediately gave a sign to his secretary, Fr. Capovilla, to bring us rosaries and medals. We then went back to Florence where my husband wrote a long document (unpublished today) that was delivered to Paul VI just the day before the last session of the Council. It was September of 1965. After reading my husband’s document, he said to my husband’s nephew, Dieter Sattler, who had become the German ambassador to the Holy See, that he had read the document carefully, but that “it was a bit harsh.” The reason was obvious: my husband had humbly requested a clear condemnation of heretical statements.

TLM: You realize, of course, Doctor, that as soon as you mention this idea of infiltration, there will be those who roll their eyes in exasperation and remark, “Not another conspiracy theory!”

AVH: I can only tell you what I know. It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. She told my husband and me that when she was an active party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican “who were working for us.”

Many a time I have heard Americans say that Europeans “smell conspiracy wherever they go.” But from the beginning, the Evil One has “conspired” against the Church – and has always aimed in particular at destroying the Mass and sapping belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That some people are tempted to blow this undeniable fact out of proportion is no reason for denying its reality. On the other hand, I, European born, am tempted to say that many Americans are naïve; living in a country that has been blessed by peace, and knowing little about history, they are more likely than Europeans (whose history is a tumultuous one) to fall prey to illusions ... Judas had played his hand so artfully that no one suspected him, for a cunning conspirator knows how to cover his tracks with a show of orthodoxy.

TLM: Do the two books by the Italian priest you mentioned before the interview contain documentation that would provide evidence of this infiltration?

AVH: The two books I mentioned were published in 1998 and 2000 by an Italian priest, Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia, who at the request of Padre Pio has devoted many years of his life to the investigation of the possible infiltration of both Freemasons and Communists into the Church. My husband and I met Don Villa in the sixties. He claims that he does not make any statement that he cannot substantiate. When Paulo Sesto Beato? (1998) was published the book was sent to every single Italian bishop. None of them acknowledged receipt; none challenged any of Don Villa’s claims.

In this book, he relates something that no ecclesiastical authority has refuted or asked to be retracted – even though he names particular personalities in regard to the incident. It pertains to the rift between Pope Pius XII and the then Bishop Montini (the future Paul VI) who was his Undersecretary of State. Pius XII, conscious of the threat of Communism, which in the aftermath of World War II was dominating nearly half of Europe, had prohibited the Vatican staff from dealing with Moscow. To his dismay, he was informed one day through the Bishop of Up[p]sala (Sweden) that his strict order had been contravened. The Pope resisted giving credence to this rumor until he was given incontrovertible evidence that Montini had been corresponding with various Soviet agencies. Meanwhile, Pope Pius XII (as had Pius XI) had been sending priests clandestinely into Russia to give comfort to Catholics behind the Iron Curtain. Every one of them had been systematically arrested, tortured, and either executed or sent to the gulag. Eventually a Vatican mole was discovered: Alighiero Tondi, S.J., who was a close advisor to Montini. Tondi was an agent working for Stalin whose mission was to keep Moscow informed about initiatives such as the sending of priests into the Soviet Union.

Add to this Pope Paul’s treatment of Cardinal Mindszenty. Against his will, Mindszenty was ordered by the Vatican to leave Budapest. As most everyone knows, he had escaped the Communists and sought refuge in the American embassy compound. The Pope had given him his solemn promise that he would remain primate of Hungary as long as he lived. When the Cardinal (who had been tortured by the Communists) arrived in Rome, Paul VI embraced him warmly, but then sent him into exile in Vienna. Shortly afterwards, this holy prelate was informed that he had been demoted, and had been replaced by someone more acceptable to the Hungarian Communist government. More puzzling, and tragically sad, is the fact that when Mindszenty died, no Church representative was present at his burial.

Another of Don Villa’s illustrations of infiltration is one related to him by Cardinal Gagnon. Paul VI had asked Gagnon to head an investigation concerning the infiltration of the Church by powerful enemies. Cardinal Gagnon (at that time an Archbishop) accepted this unpleasant task, and compiled a long dossier, rich in worrisome facts. When the work was completed, he requested an audience with Pope Paul in order to deliver personally the manuscript to the Pontiff. This request for a meeting was denied. The Pope sent word that the document should be placed in the offices of the Congregation for the Clergy, specifically in a safe with a double lock. This was done, but the very next day the safe deposit box was broken and the manuscript mysteriously disappeared. The usual policy of the Vatican is to make sure that news of such incidents never sees the light of day. Nevertheless, this theft was reported even in L’Osservatore Romano (perhaps under pressure because it had been reported in the secular press). Cardinal Gagnon, of course, had a copy, and once again asked the Pope for a private audience. Once again his request was denied. He then decided to leave Rome and return to his homeland in Canada. Later, he was called back to Rome by Pope John Paul II and made a cardinal.

TLM: Why did Don Villa write these works singling out Paul VI for criticism?
AVH: Don Villa reluctantly decided to publish the books to which I have alluded. But when several bishops pushed for the beatification of Paul VI, this priest perceived it as a clarion call to print the information he had gathered through the years. In so doing, he was following the guidelines of a Roman Congregation, informing the faithful that it was their duty as members of the Church to relay to the Congregation any information that might militate against the candidate’s qualifications for beatification.

Considering the tumultuous pontificate of Paul VI, and the confusing signals he was giving, e.g.: speaking about the “smoke of Satan that had entered the Church,” yet refusing to condemn heresies officially; his promulgation of Humanae Vitae (the glory of his pontificate), yet his careful avoidance of proclaiming it ex cathedra [infallible doctrine]; delivering his Credo of the People of God in Piazza San Pietro in 1968, and once again failing to declare it binding on all Catholics; disobeying the strict orders of Pius XII to have no contact with Moscow, and appeasing the Hungarian Communist government by reneging on the solemn promise he had made to Cardinal Mindszenty; his treatment of holy Cardinal Slipyj, who had spent seventeen years in a Gulag, only to be made a virtual prisoner in the Vatican by Paul VI; and finally asking Archbishop Gagnon to investigate possible infiltration in the Vatican, only to refuse him an audience when his work was completed – all these speak strongly against the beatification of Paolo VI, dubbed in Rome, “Paolo Sesto, Mesto” (Paul VI, the sad one) ...

God alone is the judge of Paul VI. But it cannot be denied that his pontificate was a very complex and tragic one. It was under him that, in the course of fifteen years, more changes were introduced in the Church than in all preceding centuries combined. What is worrisome is that when we read the testimony of ex-Communists like Bella Dodd, and study Freemasonic documents (dating from the nineteenth century, and usually penned by fallen-away priests like Paul Roca), we can see that, to a large extent, their agenda has been carried out: the exodus of priests and nuns after Vatican II, dissenting theologians not censured, feminism, the pressure put on Rome to abolish priestly celibacy, immorality in the clergy, blasphemous liturgies (see the article by David Hart in First Things, April 2001, “The Future of the Papacy”), the radical changes that have been introduced into the sacred liturgy (see Cardinal Ratzinger’s book Milestones, pp. 126 and 148, Ignatius Press), and a misleading ecumenism. Only a blind person could deny that many of the Enemy’s plans have been perfectly carried out.

One should not forget that the world was shocked at what Hitler did. People like my husband, however, actually read what he had said in Mein Kampf. The plan was there. The world simply chose not to believe it.

But grave as the situation is, no committed Catholic can forget that Christ has promised that He will remain with His Church to the very end of the world. We should meditate on the scene related in the Gospel when the apostles’ boat was battered by a fierce storm. Christ was sleeping! His terrified followers woke Him up: He said one word, and there was a great calm. “O ye of little faith!” ...

TLM: So you see the only scenario for a solution to the present crisis as the renewal of a striving for sanctity?

AVH: We should not forget that we are fighting not only against flesh and blood, but against “powers and principalities.” This should elicit sufficient dread in us to make us strive more than ever for holiness, and to pray fervently that the Holy Bride of Christ, who is right now at Calvary, comes out of this fearful crisis more radiant than ever.”

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