Posted on 06/26/2003 8:23:31 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
VATICAN CITY, JUNE 25, 2003 (Zenit.org).- Love is the secret that explains the mission of the Church's pastors, John Paul II said as he reminisced about his predecessor Paul VI.
Today's general audience became a tribute to the pontificate of Giovanni Battista Montini, "firm and wise guide of the Church, ...strong and meek apostle," who died 25 years ago, the Pope said.
Addressing 10,000 people gathered in St. Peter's Square, John Paul II said that his "concern has been to continue the pastoral action begun by him [Paul VI], being inspired by him as by a father and a teacher."
As an example he pointed to "the innovative initiative of apostolic trips" of Paul VI which "today is an integral part of the ministry of the Successor of Peter."
Cardinal Montini, archbishop of Milan, was elected Pope 40 years ago, on June 21, 1963. He led the Church for 15 years, until his death on Aug. 6, 1978. His most important task was to guide the development and conclusion of the Second Vatican Council.
"I was able to appreciate personally the commitment that Paul VI did not cease to show for the necessary 'aggiornamento' of the Church to the exigencies of the new evangelization," John Paul II recalled. The Polish Pope, then archbishop of Krakow, played an important role in the council.
"He wanted the ecclesial community to open itself to the world without, however, giving way to the spirit of the world," John Paul II said of his predecessor. "With prudent wisdom, he knew how to resist the temptation to adapt himself to the modern mentality, facing with evangelical fortitude difficulties and lack of understanding and, in some cases, even hostility."
Recalling the evangelical foundations of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and, in particular, the words Jesus addressed to Peter after his resurrection -- "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" -- John Paul II added: "Love is the secret of Peter's mission!"
"And love is also the secret of those who are called to imitate the Good Shepherd in guiding the People of God," he said.
John Paul II reflected on a homily Paul VI delivered shortly before his death. "Before the dangers that we have delineated," Paul VI said, "we feel driven to address Christ, as the only salvation, and to cry out to him: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.' He alone is the truth, he alone is our strength, he alone is our salvation. Comforted by him, we will continue our way together."
"the new evangelization"
So much for Tradition.
I guess this explains it.
II – HETERODOXY: THE CULT OF MAN
In the Discourses you gave to the Fourth Session of the Council, we see how your sympathy for man, and your desire to understand and meet him halfway, to respect, admire and love him – which were "apostolic" and "pastoral" to begin with – have developed into a veritable cult of man himself.
THE LOVE OF MAN
On 14th September 1965 you expressed the Church's love for man in very strange terms: "And what was the Church doing at that particular moment? the historian will be asking; and the reply will be: The Church was filled with love... The Council puts before the Church, before us in particular, a panoramic vision of the world: how can the Church, how can we ourselves, do other than behold this world and love it? (Cf. Mark 10.21) It will be one of the chief acts of the Session which is now beginning to take such a look at the world: once again, and above all else, love; love for the men of today, whoever and wherever they may be, love for all... The Council is a solemn act of love for mankind. May Christ come to our aid, in order that it may indeed be so."
What is new about this love? That it adores its object. It is a love which has no regard for the Truth of God, or His Law, or His Grace, but looks upon man, and upon the world, as worthy of admiration, service, and devotion, in their own right. As you quote, once again, Mark 10.21, I must protest at this repeated misapplication. Jesus did indeed love the rich young man, because the latter was one of the rare human beings who could claim that he had always observed the law of God. Does this apply to the world today? And because He loves him, Jesus proposes to him the greater perfection of the Evangelical Counsels. This pains the man, and he turns away, for he remains attached to the goods of this world. There is nothing here to justify the adulation which you make into a characteristic of the Conciliar Church.
This is the idolatrous love which led to Religious Liberty being proclaimed as a fundamental and absolute right of man. I say absolute, because the limitations which might be imposed upon it by the police seem to me not worthy of mention. The same love led to the promulgation of the notorious Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the World of Today, which you referred to as "the crowning achievement of the Council", entirely inspired by the cult of Man, "the apex of nature".
FAITH AND CONFIDENCE IN MAN
Such a love knows no constraint because it is no longer dependent on and controlled by the love of God, and soon turns into idealisation and idolatry of its object. This applies in your case as in any other, and leads you, in your blind and unbridled passion, to preach a faith and confidence in man which are little short the absurd. Thus, on 2nd December 1970, to the journalists in Sydney:
"For we have faith in Man. We believe in the good which lies deep within each heart, we know that underlying man's wonderful efforts are the motives of justice, truth, renewal, progress and brotherhood – even where they are accompanied by dissension or sometimes even, unfortunately, by violence. It is your task, not to flatter him but to help him become conscious of his true value and his true potential. It is up to you to plant in man the seeds of this ideal – not for the pursuit of selfish interests which ultimately only reduce him and sometimes degrade him – but an ideal by virtue of which he is able to attain the true stature of a creature made in the image of God, who desires him to aim higher and higher, to build together a city of brotherhood for which all yearn and to which all have the right... The Catholic Church, in particular since the impulse given her by the Conciliar Aggiornamento, goes out to meet this same man whom it is your ambition to serve."
Is it not written: "CURSED BE THE MAN THAT TRUSTETH IN MAN AND MAKETH FLESH HIS ARM AND WHOSE HEART DEPARTETH FROM THE LORD!" (Jer. 17.5)? And again, "FOR WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING." (John 15.5)? But you would encourage him to aim higher and higher, to outstrip himself... perhaps even to seek to be the equal of God?
THE CULT OF MAN WHO MAKES HIMSELF GOD Yes, Most Holy Father, it was you who, on that historic day of 7th December 1965, addressing the entire assembled Council, gave a Discourse unlike any other in the annals of the Church and unlike any other that is ever to come, a Discourse which enthroned within the Church of Christ, the CULT OF MAN:
"The Conciliar Church has also, it is true, been much concerned with man, with man as he really is today, with living man, with man totally taken up with himself, with man who not only makes himself the centre of his own interests, but who dares to claim that he is the end and aim of all existence...
"Secular, profane, humanism has finally revealed itself in its terrible shape and has, in a certain sense, challenged the Council. The religion of God made man has come up against a religion – for there is such a one – of man who makes himself God.
"And what happened? An impact, a battle, an anathema? That might have taken place, but it did not. It was the old story of the Samaritan that formed the model for the Council's spirituality. It was filled only with an endless sympathy. Its attention was taken up with the discovery of human needs – which become greater as the son of the earth (sic) makes himself greater
… "Do you at least recognise this its merit, you modern humanists who have no place for the transcendence of the things supreme, and come to know our new humanism: we also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man."
This shows how your heteropraxy is slipping into a heterodoxy which I must refer to not so much as heresy as apostasy. And all through your apostolic generosity! Against all the wise counsels and infallible teaching of your Predecessors, you play the Good Samaritan, nodding good-naturedly to every man his brother… And in your unfettered love you make friends with the Goliath of the Modern World, kneeling before the Enemy of God who only feels hatred and defiance for you. Instead of fighting, like David, against the Adversary, you express yourself full of love for him, you flatter him, and end up in his exclusive service! Your charity towards the Enemy of God turns into adoration and service, to the extent even of rivalling him in his error and blasphemy.
For you have allied yourself with Man-who-makes-himself-god! You vie with the pride-intoxicated atheistic humanists of our day in the cult of man. Just read again this HYMN TO THE GLORY OF MAN which you intoned on the occasion of one of the voyages to the Moon and which is a blasphemous parody of the HYMN TO CHRIST THE KING OF THE AGES (Angelus, 7 February 1971):
"Honour to Man!
"Honour to his thought; honour to his scientific knowledge;
"Honour to his technical skill; honour to his work;
"Honour to human endurance;
"Honour to that combination of scientific activity and organisation by which man, unlike the other animals, can invest his spirit and his manual dexterity with instruments of conquest;
"HONOUR TO MAN, KING OF THE EARTH, AND TODAY PRINCE OF THE HEAVENS!
"Honour to our living being, in which is reflected the image of God and which, in its triumph over matter, obeys the biblical command: increase and rule."
It was on a similar occasion that you said:
"Man is both giant and divine, in his origin and his destiny. Honour, therefore, to man, honour to his dignity, to his spirit, to his life." (13 July 1969)
Compare this Discourse with that of St Pius X in his first Encyclical which served also as the blueprint of his pontificate:
"He who considers these things is entitled to fear that such a perversion of minds might represent the beginning of those evils foretold for the end of time, forming as it were, their stepping stone on to the earth, and that the Son of Perdition, of whom the Apostle speaks, might already be coming amongst us. For religion is being attacked with the greatest boldness and vigour, the dogmas of the Faith are being battered, and no effort is spared to tear asunder man's link with the divine. Moreover – and this is what the same Apostle tells us is typical of Antichrist – man in his unspeakable temerity is usurping the place of the Creator, and placing himself above all that bears the name of God. Powerless to extinguish within himself entirely the concept of God, he yet shakes off the yoke of His majesty and dedicates to himself a temple in the form of the visible world, where he receives the homage of his own kind...
"That is why all our efforts must be directed towards bringing mankind back under the rule of Christ. To achieve the result of Our hopes, it is vital to spare no efforts in uprooting entirely this monstrous iniquity peculiar to the times we live in, which leads man to set himself up in place of God." (E Supremi Apostolatus, 4 October 1903)
The teaching and sentiments expressed here are totally different – are they not? – in their inspiration and indeed in their SPIRIT. St Pius X, for whom you have little affection and whom you avoid quoting, even when such quotation would be imperative upon you, St Pius X preaches Christ in accordance with the fullness of the Catholic Faith and Law. He resists the temptation by Satan and bravely takes up the battle against him... And you, Most Holy Father? Your liberalism has moved from the pastoral sphere into the doctrinal, and from the practical level to the theoretical. Was this done deliberately? It was already evidence of greatest temerity to override the condemnations of your Predecessors in order to adopt this liberal policy, even for the best of apostolic intentions. But taken in its entire context, it seems rather that, having first yielded to the second of the three temptations – that of tempting God through foolhardiness – you have let yourself fall into the third, which consists in abandoning God in order to serve Satan, so that you finish up by adoring man who puts himself into the place of God – and this is a mark of Antichrist.
NYer, You posted an article and picture the other day in which you speculated that some of our schismatic brethren viewed Paul VI as the "antichrist."
UR denied it, but here it is, the ultra-trad postulation that Paul VI bore the mark of the beast.
The schismatics on this forum are becoming proximate occasions of sin.
– I – OF MAN'S TRANSCENDENCE AND KINGSHIP YOUR BLASPHEMY
You have dealt with the Kingship of Our Lord on several occasions but always from the same approach. I shall follow you closely here and quote in full from your Dialogue with André Frossard – from his book N'ayez pas peur (Be not afraid), in which the part attributed to you was, in fact, written, revised and carefully amended by you before being published in 1982. This book has given rise to the most flattering reviews all over the world, at least to my knowledge. It truly expresses your own thinking. You wished it to be a revelation, or rather a communication, to the whole Church of your personal religious experience. Your faith is bound up in it.
Now, this is what I read on pages 222 to 227 and what I incriminate. André Frossard poses the following question: "Is there a political doctrine and, if need be, are there social institutions to be drawn from the Gospel?" By way of answer, you recall "the dialogue between Christ and Pilate":
"Accused of wanting to make himself king, Jesus of Nazareth first of all answered his judge negatively: 'My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would strive that I should not be delivered to those who pursue me (the sacred text says, "to the Jews"), but my kingdom is not from hence.' Pilate rightly observes that this negation includes an affirmation. He therefore asks a second time, 'Art thou a king then?' To which Christ answers in the affirmative: 'Yes, I am a king. For this was I born and for this came I into the world that I should give testimony to the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.'"
From there you pass over the centuries from the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Second Vatican Council. You leap over the centuries regardless of the flagrant anachronism; you jump from centuries old Christianity to modern humanism. And yet you affirm that the link connecting the two is 'transparent'! Should we balk at this point and even now cease to believe you? Frossard prefers to follow Pascal's advice: take holy water and then fall stupid in order to preserve one's basic papism. Let us continue our reading with him:
"I think the path from those words to these of Gaudium et Spes is transparent: 'the role and competence of the Church being what it is, she must in no way be confused with the political community, nor bound to any political system (all of which is easily granted; it is the truth which disposes us to swallow the falsehood). For she is at once a sign and safeguard of the transcendence of the human person' (there is the falsehood to which we succumb, with no warning). The field of application for these two declarations, the one by Christ and the other by the Church in 1965, is not exactly the same."
What an understatement! It is not the same at all. There is no logical connection, no ontological relationship between the Divine Word of Christ and the Council's confused declaration. To link them by using the immense prestige and authority of your Person is an act of "institutional violence" as they say nowadays, or an alienation of the worst kind, a mental alienation of a slave subject to his master's whim. But you know what you want: to divinise the Council in its boldest and most revolutionary propositions and to humanise Jesus Christ in even His most obviously divine words and deeds. In order to effect this, you proceed by stages....
CHRISTIANITY IS A HUMANISM
... In effect, you now enter upon the second stage of your demonstration. The role of Christ and of the Church is not political. What is it then? Well, it is what Jesus declared it to be before Pilate and what the Second Vatican Council declared it to be to the modern world, for, as you assure us, their two languages are in agreement with each other:
"Let us return", you say, "to our parallel. The second part of the answer given to Pilate and the Council's declaration seem even more closely in agreement: to bear witness to the truth and to safeguard the transcendent character of the human person, it is all one."
You begin by making a suggestion, "they seem", and end by imposing your proposition as self-evident, "it is all one." And so you lead your docile readers, in a state of complete mental alienation, from the TRUTH witnessed to by the Son of God, and for which He is going to die, to an absurd and infernal ERROR, borrowed by this ill-fated Council from God's worst enemies, from the antichrists of our day, who make of man a god. Between the one and the other, "between Christ and Belial" (2 Cor. 6.15), what connection is there? None whatsoever. And yet you present the identity of divine Revelation and this revelation of Satan's as though it were a fact.
The transcendent character of the human person is, therefore, a truth! a gospel truth! to which Christians have witnessed and for which they have suffered persecution down the ages? To read and to re-read you, it would appear to be the whole truth and the only truth for which Christ died on the Cross!
You deign to give the semblance of a proof: "For man expresses and realises the transcendence proper to him through his relationship to the truth." This alignment of words is a suspension bridge, a dream bridge, a chain of idealist concepts, whereby we pass from Catholic Christianity to contemporary atheistic humanism, or in other words: from Christ's Gospel to secular humanism.
The TRUTH for which Our Lord Jesus Christ died concerns His Father and Himself, in His unique, sacred, inviolable and inaccessible Holiness, in other words, in His "transcendence" as Son of God, only King of the whole world and Saviour of His people. The FALSEHOOD, with which you claim to identify Him, consists in proclaiming, by means of the Kantian concept of transcendence, that man is beyond everything and all things and that there is no proportion or relationship between him and the other beings of this world other than one of sovereignty. Thus, you snatch from the head, shoulders and right hand of Jesus Christ His crown, mantle and sceptre, His hand of justice and all the attributes and insignia of kingship, with which you proceed to clothe Man. "This transcendence of the human person", you say, as though it were self-evident, "manifests His 'kingship'. We are dealing here with a universal truth concerning every single man and therefore all men."
As many words as there are incongruities. "Man's relationship to the truth"... what does that mean? Nothing very clear, for sure.... "expresses the transcendence proper to him..." through relationship to whom and to what? To things, to animals, to social groups, to political powers... to ecclesiastical power? It is not known. "…and realises it." But how can one, or should one, realise a transcendence already in one's possession? If one is not transcendent to begin with, could one become so, unaided?
Finally, you say, "this transcendence manifests his kingship," – the kingship of man, of each and every man. But is this kingship one of birth or of conquest? Does one acquire it before realising one's transcendence or only afterwards? A kingship over whom and over what? Is it political, ethical, metaphysical, religious? If every man is king, are all men kings? Being transcendent, each man is a god and therefore a king – certainly a very flattering gospel! Perhaps every man is a pope also? The whole thing is absolutely absurd and suddenly turns out to be monstrous.
A HUMANISM AND NOT A RELIGION
It is now, Most Holy Father, that you utter this blasphemy: "Christ is king in the sense that in Him, in the testimony He rendered to the truth, is made manifest the 'kingship' of every human being, the expression of every person's transcendent character. Such is the Church's proper inheritance."
This blasphemy is the culminating point of all that you have to say. It is sacrilegious. It dispossesses God of His kingship in order to confer it on Man, on this idol whom every man and all men of our time are invited to worship, honour, cherish and serve within themselves in place of and instead of the God-Man, Jesus Christ. What is more, you make Our Lord the prophet of this idolatrous humanism and the martyr to this most impious of causes: man's dignity, kingship and transcendence. And this is the mission you say the Church has inherited. You make the Church preach the kingship of Man; you make her practise the cult and service of Man, the transcendent King, in place of and instead of God, and God alone until it kills her!
It cannot be said that I have misunderstood you, when the entire retreat you preached before Paul VI in 1976, which was published under the title of Le signe de contradiction, is based on the substitution of man for God, through the intermediary of Jesus Christ. What I mean is that you have used the Catholic doctrine of the duality of nature in the person of Jesus Christ, and have effected the strangest "communication of idioms" ever made, so as to make the attributes of Christ's divine nature become those of His purely human nature, and thence to persuade us that they are proper to His purely human nature and therefore also proper to every man. It is an odious theft, like that of Satan's proposal to the first man!
This is what you said in your retreat to Pope Paul VI by way of pious commentary on the Third Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary: the Crowning of Thorns:
"Here we have before us the Christ in the truth of His kingship. Pilate says: 'Behold the Man.' Precisely. All the kingship of man, all man's dignity, which Jesus Christ came to express and renew, are here summed up in Him. Now it is well known that this is a kingdom that is frequently overpowered, thrown to the ground and thrust deep into the mud. It is also well known that this is a dignity that is subjected to every kind of humiliation. We are reminded by the Second Vatican Council (cf. Lumen Gentium 9, 10, 26, 31, 36) that Jesus came in order to reveal the kingship of man, and here He is confronting humanity, crowned with thorns! Man's kingship is redeemed and his dignity is paid for, all by the blood of the Son of God". (Le signe de contradiction, p. 107)
It is the same blasphemy and the same sacrilege, whereby Jesus is made to hold His dignity and His kingship not from His Heavenly Father, but from Adam. And the role proper to Jesus and the salvation He has come to offer would be no more than to "express", to make "manifest", and therefore to teach, men's own transcendence and kingship, even if it means "restoring" or "redeeming" it if ever lost or alienated.
Further on, you present this same blasphemy as though it were both Our Lord's Gospel and the message of the Council. Of the Council maybe, but of Our Lord, never!
"If the mystery of Christ – the historical Christ and the mystical Christ (?) – reveals the mystery of man to himself, that is to say mankind through the ages (and therefore of all religions and irreligions, presumably?), then everything that is essentially human is summed up in the mystery of Christ, and is expressed by Christ in either word or deed... This idea in Lumen Gentium has to be linked with the central theme in Gaudium et Spes, where Christ is presented as the Revealer of the full mystery of man and human dignity. The Council stresses that man's essential dignity is inextricably bound up with Christ's message, His Gospel, which acts like leaven, either causing a stronger awareness of that dignity or else awakening a need to seek and attain it.
"Whoever follows Christ, the perfect man, becomes himself more of a man (Gaudium et Spes, 41). And further on: 'No human law can guarantee man's personal dignity and freedom as does Christ's Gospel, entrusted to the Church'." (Ibid. p. 152-153)
And here we are brought straight back "before the Roman tribunal presided over by Pontius Pilate", "the setting for an encounter that brought into the full light of day the nobility of the Truth and the dignity of Man (with a capital letter!) who bore witness to it..."
"There is no doubt that truth emerged from that encounter as something real, constituting both Jesus' kingship and the dignity of man (without a capital letter: of each and every man). Christ the great Prophet (sic!) is the one who proclaims divine truth; and He is also the one who shows the dignity of man to be bound up with the truth." For "truth has a divine dimension; it is one with the divine Word. At the same time it constitutes an essential dimension of human knowledge and human existence, of science, wisdom, and the human conscience. Every man is born into the world to bear witness to the truth according to his own particular vocation." (Ibid. p. 155-156)
Jesus, just the same as all the others! "The words spoken during that encounter with Pilate ensure that Jesus the Christ is ever present in the mystery of man." (Ibid. p. 155-156) When will you tell us that Jesus is ever present in the mystery of God, in the bosom of His Father?
You return yet again to this kingship of man, so close to your heart, in chapter XVI of this Retreat, which so much pleased Paul VI and the cardinals present that you were thereafter regarded as papabile, in the chapter evocatively headed The Mystery of man: Conscience. Recalling this mystery – that of man's kingship – you reiterate your habitual blasphemy and, what is most important, you state that it is the very doctrine of the Council, which we do not doubt. But you add, and in so doing you reveal whom this Council strove to please and who it was that inspired you with so much blasphemy and sacrilege:
"The Conciliar teaching concerning this kingly function seems remarkably akin to present-day man's thinking and feeling, and in this sphere where it might have been expected to give rise to serious positive (!) difficulties or at least verbal (!) difficulties. For especially in our democratic societies – democratic in name if not always in fact – people now fight shy of categories such as king and kingdom or reign." (Ibid. p. 175-176)
No need to be shocked by the kingship referred to in the Gospel. It is not contrary to modern man, who has no room for God, and who, being a democrat, has no room for a king either, because the democrat, the modern man, any man whatsoever, can be arrayed in this transcendence and in this kingship! "The royal function", which Jesus claimed before Pilate, is not, according to you and the Council, "the right to exercise dominion over others; it is a manifestation of the kingly character of man. This kingly character is embedded within the structure of the human personality." (Ibid. p. 176)
I would rather believe you to be mad than idolatrous to such an extent. Confronted with such a blasphemy, the Holy Spirit within me cries out, Anathema! Anathema!
Paul VI with Patriarch of Constantinople, a church in schism with Rome --- January 5, 1964 A schismatic is one who separates from the Catholic Church, or from the authority of the pope. The Eastern Orthodox churches have for centuries separated themselves from Rome. Yet this anti-pope, Paul VI, accepts their leaders as one with the Novus Ordo church which he leads.
Ah yes, the civilization of "love."
"THE YEAR OF RECONCILIATION WILL HAVE ITS VICTIMS"
As desired by Paul VI, the Holy Year celebrated in 1975 was to be a year of reconciliation, with God no doubt, but also with our fellow men, all men! in respecting their beliefs, passionately recognising their dignity, satisfying their rights, and struggling for their collective, economic, social and cultural liberation…
Now, since the beginning of 1974, the Abbé de Nantes had predicted that this reconciliation in love would have "its victims"14. Then, following the plenary assembly of the French episcopate at Lourdes in November, he showed why and how this jubilee year of "reconciliation" would be one of exclusion for traditionalists. In his conference at the Mutualité on 12 December, he explained that the recent ruling by the French bishops on the use of the Missal of Paul VI was to be the cover for an implacable persecution against priests who refused to celebrate the novus ordo. It was true that the bishops had mentioned the accusations of the traditionalists, but they had rejected them with offensive disdain....
The old Roman rite was more than ever proscribed. "It is a juridical ruling, not a pastoral one", remarked the Abbé de Nantes. "The bishops oblige, forbid and condemn in the name of canon law, basing their legislative decisions on Rome and claiming the infallible sovereign authority of the Pope.17"
Moreover, on 12 December, at the Mutualité, the Abbé de Nantes warned his audience that the visit of the two apostolic visitors to the seminary at Ecône in November appeared to him to be a very bad sign. It was true that those close to Mgr Lefebvre said that the report of the two investigators would be very favourable. But the Abbé de Nantes was persuaded that this was "in no way a routine canonical visit. This enquiry", he explained, "must be understood in the context of a process aiming to eradicate the Sacerdotal Fraternity of Saint Pius X. The countdown to the end of Ecône’s legal existence has probably already started."
The forebodings of the Abbé de Nantes were confirmed by an inidiscreet remark from an archbishop who informed him that Rome was determined to decree the closure of the seminary at Ecône within three months.
"the new evangelization"
So much for Tradition.
Please note following excerpt from the CRC
A DECEPTIVE SUPER-INFALLIBILITY
The Abbe de Nantes has often remarked ... that having emancipated themselves from the traditional, canonical rules of their infallibility, the Fathers of Vatican II availed themselves of a super-infallibility and indefectibility, to which none of their predecessors had ever laid claim, but which allowed them and still allows them to impose their dubious novelties as a matter of authority. By acting in this manner, they have aimed too high and have fallen miserably short in the exercise of their office – clear proof that to emancipate oneself from the Catholic order established over the centuries leads to the worst of disorders. The Abbé de Nantes made this statement on 15 September 1965, in his Letter to my Friends no 212 (published in the English CRC no 70, January, 1976, p. 3-10). The demonstration consists of three points:
1. «From the very first day, the Council “liberated” itself from that strict submission to ecclesiastical tradition to which the living Magisterium had previously appeared bound. Freed by John XXIII from all scrupulous docility to the very expression of the faith, it voluntarily decided to forego any infallible exercise of its magisterium, and to this day no one has been able to tell for sure the exact degree of authority attaching to its decrees and debates […]. For the first time in history, the Supreme Magisterium in solemn conciliar session had rendered itself incapable of exercising its infallible authority by failing to subordinate all its projects and to direct all its energies to the study and proclamation of divine Truth alone…
«And right away procedural abuses multiplied. Does something in the Acts of the Council or in the decisions of the Hierarchy displease our modernists? In that case they contest their authority: these are, they say, but steps in an ever-evolving faith… the future stages of which they themselves have prophetic knowledge! And what, on the other hand, if a point of their new theology should win acceptance? Then right away, they force us to accept it in the name of their infallible Magisterium!» Our first unavoidable observation, then, is this: «The Council failed to meet those conditions of human application, of rigorous submission to the deposit of faith, and of precision and clarity, which alone assure us of God’s infallible guarantee.»
2. The Fathers of the Council laid claim to an infallibility of quite another nature and origin: that of acting under the exclusive “guidance of the Holy Spirit”, taking no account of anything other than their “experience of the Gospels”, as if, like the holy Apostles, they were enjoying a contemporary public revelation of the Word of God, inspiring them to renew the Church, to open her up to the world, and forcing her to work with other religions for the establishment of peace in the world.
«A strange kind of prophetism, noted our Father. And this claim is all the more suspect in that it is combined with the announcement, equally infallible and exorbitant, that this renewal will on every point conform to the spirit of the World and will fulfil its aspirations! By concealing the sources of this new Revelation in the depths of their conscience, by exempting these inspirations of the Spirit from all control and dogmatic qualification, have not these prophets taken upon themselves the liberty of putting forward as the Spirit of God what is in fact the Spirit of the world inhabiting them, and of putting forward as Christ’s Word fables that have been invented to please contemporary ears? In a quite unexpected and terrifying manner, we must therefore have arrived at the great apostasy described and foretold by Saint Paul.»
3. The result is an immense collapse, «a field of ruins», as the Secret of Fatima says. We have a striking example of this in the “Decalogue for Peace” promulgated by John Paul II at Assisi last month, an abstruse, ungodly compendium of his ecumenical fantasies. The lesson will remain engraved for centuries to come: «In the fallibility of human minds, in the defectibility of human hearts lies the simplest possible explanation of all the terrible crises to have shaken the Church from one century to the next, that none might boast before the Lord of their personal infallibility or indefectibility!»
THE FAITH OF SAINT SOPHRONIUS
«The year was 634. For almost ten years a great pontiff, Honorius I, had reigned. A worthy emulator of Saint Gregory the Great, he successfully continued his administrative, disciplinary and missionary work. Unfortunately, however, a single act of weakness was soon to make his name the obloquy of the papacy. Here are the circumstances…»
Our Father went on to describe the Christian Orient weakened by various heresies, the latest of which, Monophysism, along with its successor Monothelism, were still wreaking havoc at the beginning of the 7th century. At Constantinople, the Emperor Heraclius for his part was troubled by the divisions within his empire, which risked being broken up under the double pressure of the rival Persians and the Arabs from the South. Following the advice of the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, he undertook to rally the subjects of his immense empire around a “formula of union” which was sufficiently vague to satisfy all opposing parties, attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable, that is to say true doctrine with heresy. The vast majority of Catholics had already accepted this out of obedience to the Emperor and to their Patriarchs, when «a monk from Jerusalem called Sophronius rose up indignantly and pointed out the contradiction between the essentially political views of the Patriarchs Sergius and Cyrus and the imprescriptible requirements of the faith. Stirred by his courage, which dared defy the imperial supremacy, and disdaining the whimsical plans for reconciliation, the people of Jerusalem chose him for their Patriarch, and it was with this new authority that Sophronius solemnly denounced the offer of union as a veiled call to heresy, an execrable capitulation of the faith.»...
The Patriarch of Constantinople wrote to Pope Honorius asking him to bring this turbulent monk in Jerusalem to his senses, this arrogant rebel who, by his outbursts and resistance, was compromising the work of union already well on its way to success. And the Pope, alas! took the side of the Patriarch: he wrote a letter to Sophronius to which he added this surprisingly modern directive: «We must be careful not to rekindle ancient quarrels.»
What? The defence of the dogma of Chalcedon, defining the union of two natures in the unique and perfect Person of the Son of God become man, nothing more than an «ancient quarrel»? For a theologian of the calibre of Sophronius, such an argument was worthless.
Our Father writes: «Honorius chose the party of the Politicians against that of the Theologian, failing thus in his supreme duty as guardian of the Word of God.» Sophronius rose up and accused the Pope not only of favouring heresy through his compromises, but of being a heretic himself. The fact that he allowed error to be freely propagated meant that he no longer adhered to orthodoxy, to correct doctrine…
The Pope, it seems, belatedly recovered a sense of his duties, but he died without repairing the immense damage he had caused the universal Church by his fluctuating opinions. Saint Sophronius, reduced to silence in Jerusalem which had fallen into the hands of the Arabs, died a short while later. For many years, the Emperor continued to impose his false «union» throughout the East. The persecution spread, in the name of the Pope, against the very best Christians, true Catholics, who were accused of rebellion, while, for their part, the fanatical Monophysites preferred to hand their cities over to the Arabs! With the help of the holy Abbot Maximus, Pope Martin I, who succeeded Pope Honorius, attempted to clear his predecessor of all responsibility and to interpret his writings in an orthodox manner. It was in vain. Exiled to Ukraine, they both died martyrs of the persecution.
A POPE DECLARED ANATHEMA
At last, Byzantium, weary of it useless schism and its sterile heresy, came to its senses, and it was immediately followed by the flock of Oriental bishops for whom the wishes of the Basileus were the supreme law. In 680, an ecumenical Council was held at Constantinople, under the pontificate of Pope Agathon, to proclaim the true faith, the faith of Saints Sophronius, Martin and Maximus, the faith of the martyrs and the Christian people. It anathematised those who, for various reasons, appeared to it responsible for the tragic interlude. It was only right that Honorius should be included in the condemnation, and he was. For almost a thousand years, in official Roman texts, popes had to prove their fidelity by renewing the anathema brought against their predecessor.
«A pope who favours heresy, a pope anathematised by an ecumenical council, the condemnation being recorded and approved by the sovereign pontificate, here indeed are historical facts which demand the fullest attention of theologians…», opines the Dictionary of Catholic Theology. (art. Honorius, vol. 7, p. 94).
Our Father adds: «… and also a serious reflection by the men constituted in dignity in the Church for the preservation of the faith. Let them ensure that they do not place their desire for unity above everything else, that they never rashly embrace the views of new political and social powers, that they give no ground to the demands of those from outside the Church and in the World, that they accept none of those murky agreements and spectacular rallyings which are proposed to them from all sides! Let them tremble lest, in a moment of weakness and error, they throw the Church and society as a whole into new convulsions and unending dissensions. Let them fear to see political powers seize upon their confused decrees in order to exterminate, in their Names, the only remaining true Catholics. And should such threats not suffice, should the fear of God’s judgements still mean so little to them, let them call to mind that far-off Vatican III, beyond a sea of misfortune, when, in the presence of a new Agathon, their definitive condemnation will be pronounced! Let them heed this threat inscribed in the principal texts of our faith, a text from the Sixth Ecumenical Council: “We agree to banish from the Holy Church of God and to anathematise along with the other heretics Honorius, formerly pope of ancient Rome, for we have found in the letters which he sent to Sergius that he followed the opinion of the latter and that he sanctioned his wicked teachings.” That was on 28 March 681. Despite some laudable efforts, no one had managed to exonerate him, and since then no one has dared to contest the sentence of the imperial edict posted at Saint Sophia, declaring him a “confirmer of heresy”. His letters were solemnly thrown on the fire along with the other writings of the heretics who had taken him as their reference.»
Admittedly, Honorius had not used his infallibility to propagate heresy, but «his error, explains our Father, was to have clung to this ambiguous language, which, without being totally erroneous, gave formidable support to error». He had failed to acquit himself of his duty as Sovereign Pontiff, supreme guardian of the faith, charged to confirm his brothers therein; he was therefore guilty, more so than all the rest, before God and before the Church.
One of his successors, Saint Leo II, would state this in explicit terms: «Honorius made no effort to make this apostolic Church illustrious through the teaching of the apostolic tradition, but, by an execrable betrayal, he allowed the spotless Church to be sullied. He did not, as befitted the apostolic authority, extinguish the nascent flames of heretical dogma, but by his negligence fanned them still higher.»
One single act of negligence therefore earned him expulsion from the Church. «What a prodigious mark of truth the Church of Rome thus gives by keeping one of her Pontiffs under anathema for heresy over the centuries, at the same time as serenely declaring herself infallible.» (French CRC no 69, p. 8) For heresy! Pope Hadrian II would write in 869: «It should be known that the reason for the anathema is this: Honorius had been accused of heresy, the only grounds on which it is licit for inferiors to resist their superiors and to reject their perverted opinions.»
GOD ONLY GIVES HIS GRACE TO THOSE WHO ENTER THE FRAY
«We must meditate, he wrote in November 1964, on those truly dark hours of our Church, for once again we have been plunged into them.» For four centuries (4th-7th), the Church valiantly defended her faith in God made man. «Our era is drawing to a close on another great dispute: it is now a question of faith in man who makes himself God.» The means by which this ferment of apostasy has spread are identical:
«A powerful party within the Church demands peace through negotiation, reconciliation through dialogue. Leading individuals favour formulas of union on the basis of which it should be possible to reach a broad agreement with all humanists in the world, whether believers or unbelievers. All the Authority of the Church needs to do is to take a small step in this direction, and our enemies of yesterday will then see that our disarmament is sincere. Above all, those who refuse to make concessions on the faith at any price need to be reduced to total silence. Before such formidable pressure the body of bishops puts up a weak resistance, any courage it might display being totally dependent on that of the Popes…
«Let us suppose that they had all surrendered the faith out of obedience and a desire for unity. Let us suppose that Sophronius had submitted out of respect for Honorius and humility, that he had obeyed by standing aside in silence. Would not the return of the peoples to unity be worth this act of renunciation? Absit! No! let no one ever sink to this kind of reasoning in the Church! And first of all because we are here dealing with the divine Absolute! Never will any authority or the wishes of billions of men avid for the goods of this world be able to prevail over our Faith! Should the Credo of a single poor woman come to trouble the order of the world, her voice would still make itself heard, courageous and pure, for the honour of God. Sophronius acted well! Sophronius dictates our duty!
THE CORRECT NOTION OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE SUCCESSOR OF SAINT PETER
Six years later, our Father returned to this capital question, “concerning the Pope”, this time considering it from a theoretical point of view, in keeping with the most exact Catholic doctrine. «Oportet hæreses esse», said Saint Paul: heresies are necessary to try the Church. «The one which is agitating us today will undoubtedly have the providential consequence of once again teaching Catholics the correct notion of the divine authority of the Vicar of Christ and of the Episcopal Body in all its fullness but also in its true nature and its precise definition. The Pope holds the place of God, a stupefying thought, but he is not a god.» (CRC, November 1970, Concerning the Pope)
And for support our Father calls on Father Feuillet, «one of the most illustrious exegetes of what I like to call our French School of exegesis», in an article entitled: “The prerogatives of Peter and his successors according to the Gospels”. It is of a wonderful clarity:
«What makes the text of Matthew 16.13-23 [“You are Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church…”] particularly valuable, is that it consists of two violently antithetical scenes: Simon Peter the Rock of the Church (13-20) and Simon Peter becoming a rock of scandal, that is to say an obstacle on the path that leads to God (21-23).» Shaken by the announcement his Master had just made concerning His approaching Passion, the apostle Peter stood in the way: «Heaven preserve you, Lord! This must not happen to you!» He drew upon himself this sharp reply: «Get behind me, Satan!»
«This passage puts paid to the common error that confuses infallibility with impeccability. Peter, inasmuch as he is enlightened by the Father and professes his faith in Christ the Son of God, is the Rock upon which Christ wished to build His Church. But the same Peter, once divine assistance is taken out of the equation, is no more than a poor man like the rest; far from being a Rock, he can even be a stumbling block and entertain satanic thoughts: “Get behind me, Satan. You are a scandal to me (that is to say a snare and an obstacle), because the way you think is not God’s way, but man’s.”» In other words, just because he has received the name “Peter” (or is the successor of Peter), this does not mean that his thoughts, his words, his acts are inspired by God. They can come from man and therefore be subject to Satan’s control. All that matters is in whom he will place his trust and his faith: in God or in Man?
St. . John the Evangelist tells us that "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. "[I John, 4: 8 ].
We love because God loves us.
1. MANKIND TAKES THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH
Your philosophy, Most Holy Father, takes no account of the distinction, or rather that irreconcilable opposition, the existence of which was affirmed authoritatively by your Predecessors, for instance by Leo XIII in Humanum Genus: "The human race is split into two hostile camps, both of which are engaged in a constant battle, the one for truth and virtue, and the other for all that which is opposed to these. The one is the true Church of Jesus Christ... and the other is the Kingdom of Satan." (Encyclical dated 20th April 1884) You make it clear in Ecclesiam Suam that you will have nothing to do with what Rev. Congar refers to as the "Catholic ghetto", nor of course with the idea of the Church having authority over secular society – the origin of what we know as "Christendom". You acknowledge only an autonomous purely secular society, or "the world", existing on a merely human level, independent of the Church and apart from it, and neither Christian nor Satanic. When you quote St Paul to the Corinthians in that Encyclical you deliberately leave out these two passages: "And what concord hath Christ with Belial... And what agreement bath the temple of God with idols?" (2 Cor 6.15-16) As you can hardly preach – in so many words – a truce with the forces of evil, you pretend that they do not exist. (Ecclesiam Suam, 62. The cited passages are omitted from the quotation of the relevant verses of 2 Cor)
All men are brothers.
As far as you are concerned, all divisions, wars and rivalries are mere misunderstandings, misfortunes, "still remaining" among "men of goodwill" but which are on the way out. The world is gradually moving towards unity, men are discovering their common origin, aspirations and destiny. Good and evil is found in all, in similar proportions, but all are equally anxious for a total regeneration of humanity:
"Man must go out to meet man, and the nations come close to each other as brothers and sisters, as the children of God. In such mutual friendship and understanding, in this sacred communion (sic) we must all join together in working for the common future of humanity... Such union cannot be built upon terror or upon the fear of mutual destruction, it must be based on a common love which embraces the whole world and has its roots in God who is love", is what you said in Bombay on 2nd December 1964.
This is the first article of your new humanistic Credo: All men are brothers because they have God for their Father: "Man devotes himself to his fellow-man, because he recognises him as his brother, as the son of one and the same Father." (Discourse to World Food and Agriculture Organisation, 16 November 1970) And again: "This then is Our message for the year 1971. It echoes, this new voice born of the civilised conscience (?), the Declaration of the Rights of Man: 'All men are born free and equal in rights and dignity; they are endowed with reason and conscience and should conduct themselves towards each other as brothers'. The philosophy of our civilisation has at last reached this summit. Let us not turn back. Let us not lose the treasure we have gained by this victory of reason. Let us strive rather to apply, with logic and courage, this formula which forms a landmark of human progress: 'Every man is my brother'. This is essentially what we mean by peace. And it is something that applies to all." (Message for World Day of Peace, 14 November 1970)
This is a transposition into humanistic terms of the wonders of Grace, the Mysteries of Filial Adoption and the Communion of Saints. You have despoiled the Church of the gifts bestowed on her by Christ in order to adorn with them the whole "civilised" mankind of today.
All men are essentially good.
Moreover, all men are good, and all share the desire for peace, justice and progress. As an "expert in humanity" (Discourse to the UN, 4 October 1965) you are prepared to stand bail for them; and assure us that nothing is impossible, for they are all essentially good at heart.
"Yes indeed, peace is possible, because men are essentially good and look towards reason, order, and the common well-being; it is possible because it already exists within the heart of men of the new type, of the young, and of all who understand the forward march of civilisation..." (Message for the first World Day of Peace, 1st January 1968) "At the present time fraternity asserts itself; friendship is the basis of every modern human society... Democracy, which is so widely acclaimed by human societies today, must take on a wider, universal form, in order that the barriers that still stand in the way of an effective human brotherhood shall be broken down." (Christmas Message 1964) It is one of the axioms of your thinking that man is good, that all peoples are desirous of peace and that the democratic form of modern society allows them to impose this desire for peace upon their rulers who stand in its way. And so you sometimes indulge in wishful thinking:
"You, the people, you have the right to make yourselves heard... You have a lawful and sacred right to insist that your leaders arrange things so that you do not have to suffer… We live under a system of democracy... That means that it is the people who command, that power is vested in numbers, in the people as a whole. If we are conscious of the social progress which this represents all over the world, then we must allow democracy to have its say: the people do not want war. The masses must insist that there shall not be any more wars in the world." (Discourse of 1st January 1970)
And so you take it for granted that all men possess those virtues which exist in Christian society in a supernatural manner thanks to the merits of Christ, acquired through the Sacraments and obedience to God's commandments; and you see this UNIVERSAL DEMOCRACY as automatically bringing the progress of mankind in its wake. You speak as if there were no Demon reigning in the world, nor such a thing as Original Sin, or indeed actual sin and disorder to any significant extent! You see nothing but goodness in the hearts and natures of all who are alive today.
Your one and only hope, the United Nations.
And so you place your hope, not in God's own One and Holy Church, but in the United Nations, which you proclaim to be mankind's supreme hope, the model, in the temporal sphere, of what the Church is in the spiritual! Whereas your Predecessors had denounced as evil any such parody of that Unity which is founded upon Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit, for you it constitutes a mystery and miracle in its own right. You are prepared to place your trust and hope in that Masonic Tower of Babel rather than in the Church. Did you not say at Manhattan, on 4th October 1965:
"The peoples turn to the United Nations as their last hope for peace and concord. We make bold to bring here with Our own their tribute of honour and hope".
"You exist and work to unite nations, to bring States into association. Let Us put it in the form that you exist to get people together with one another. You are... a bridge between peoples... We are tempted to say that your characteristic is to reflect in the temporal order what our Catholic Church is in the spiritual order – the sole organisation of its kind, and universal. Nothing higher on the natural plane can be imagined in the ideological edifice of humanity...
"There is being established here a system of solidarity which receives the regular and unanimous support, for its supreme civilising objectives, of the whole family of peoples for the good of each and all.
"This is the finest aspect of the United Nations Organisation, this is what gives it its most genuinely human guise; this is the ideal that mankind has dreamed of in its journey through history. We would venture to call it the world's greatest hope, for it is the reflection of God's design – a design transcendent and full of love – for the progress of human society on earth, a reflection in which We can see the gospel message, something from heaven come down to earth."
In your dreams, the UN – that noisy Tower of Babel, ineffective in any good cause, all too effective in evil ones – replaces the Church, indeed it takes a more important place. It becomes the realisation of God's design, the fulfilment upon earth of the prophecies. But what contempt for the Church is implied in your reference to this organisation as the last chance of mankind: And also what contempt for Christ when He has been left entirely out of account in the construction of this vast edifice and all its subsidiaries – UNESCO, WFAO, and so on, all militantly anti-Christian. You are being led into error by your "cult of man". You despoil God of His works and perversely adorn with them the ludicrous, venomous creations of Satan!
"There is no need for Us to point out," wrote St Pius X in his Letter on the Sillon, "that the advent of World Democracy can have no relevance to the work of the Church in the world... the reform of civilisation is essentially a religious task, for true civilisation presupposes a moral foundation for it, and there can be no morally based civilisation without the true religion: this is a truth which can be demonstrated from the evidence of history."
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