by
Thomas A. Droleskey
False premises always lead to bad results, no matter the sincerity with which those who promote false premises believe in their ability to produce "change" for the better. The near-religious belief in false premises produces false "hope" in the minds and the hearts of those who accept falsehoods as true.
To wit, the false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles of the founding of the United States of America has resulted in hundreds of millions of Americans pinning their "hopes" on money or success or the outcome of "elections" as the means by which the lives of individuals and/or the life of the nation itself will be "changed" for the "better." Those supporting the losing candidate in one election regroup in most cases and start "planning" how to "win" in the next election.
No matter who wins the presidential election one hundred eight days from now (and it appears right now that the losing side will be the Republican Party ticked of John McCain and Mitt Romney (?!)) If it winds up being the case that the Republicans are the losers on November 4, 2008, then supporters of Mitt Romney (whether he is or he is not McCain's vice presidential running mate) and Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul will start planning for 2012. And if Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) does what seems most unlikely at this writing, that is, lose, the presidential election against John McCain, who is by his gaffes and utter lack of any intellectual orientation even on the level of pure naturalism beginning to make the thirty--three Mason named Robert Joseph Dole, Jr., seem like a sage philosopher, then it is just mildly possible (as in perhaps--or a strong maybe) that a certain junior United States Senator from the State of New York might just keep her "options" open for 2012. Indeed, a domain name for "HRC2012" has been purchased by this junior Untied States Senator from the State of New York. Oh, of course, that's just for his senatorial re-election campaign
Yes, there's always the "next election" in which naturalists can place their hopes. Naturalism cannot resolve a single thing, of course. The naturalism of Judeo-Masonry is the principal problem of Modernity, one of those logical consequences of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King that the fomenters of the Protestant Revolt, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, did not foresee because of the blindness that had overcome them as the rebelled against the very Divine Plan that God Himself has instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church. (See Even Luther Had Regrets at the End.) The devil wants Catholics to participate in this madness by spinning their wheels and spending their time and money on fruitless exercises that wind up convincing well-meaning citizens that our "hope" (or at least some approximation thereof) for the future can be realized by the means of the ballot box, a proposition that I subscribed to for far too long but came to realize was but an illusion of the lie that is Modernity.
Pope Leo XIII, writing in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November, 1, 1900, explained that naturalistic systems are bound to result in a situation where public life is stained with crime:
This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)
Pope Pius XI, writing in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, amplified this point:
To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922)
Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Period:
But, on the contrary, by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)
"True believers" in the myths of the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry (that trace their proximate roots to the Renaissance and to the Protestant Revolt) will continue to hold out "hope" in the naturalistic electoral process, believing that they can "beat the system" as the "system" demonstrates more and more the perfection of the inherent degeneracy of its false founding premises. Those who point that that the emperor, that is, the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry, has no clothes and that it is impossible to use his false principles as the means to defeat those false principles must be denounced as "insane" or "unrealistic" or unwilling to make "pragmatic" compromises. Promote the Social Reign of Christ the King by the restoration of the Catholic Church as the fruit of the Triumph of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart? How is that going to "help" us in the "real" world right now?
In like manner, of course, it is an adherence to the false premises of Protestantism that is keeping "hope" alive in the minds and hearts of "Anglo-Catholics" in the heretical and schismatic Anglican sect. A group of such "Anglo-Catholics" has announced that it intends to find "some way" to work within the "worldwide Anglican 'communion'" even if the Lambeth Committee approves the "ordination" of women as "bishops." Oh, yes, "hope" must be maintained that a "church" founded as a result of the lust of King Henry VIII and on the blood of thousands upon thousands of Catholics who refused to compromise the Faith for the sake of acceptance by the "real" world. This is madness, and a madness being encouraged by the leaders of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.
Naturalists and Protestant rationalists are not the only ones who "keep hope alive" in their falsehoods. Oh, the conciliarists are quite capable of doing this themselves. Believe me, I know this first-hand. I kept hoping that Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II would "wake up" and remove the "bad bishops" who were responsible for undermining his "defense" of the Catholic Faith, blind--and, yes, willfully blind--to the simple fact that he was the worst bishop (and he was a true bishop in the world, a man who had defected from the Faith in his youth. (See
"Connecting" with Betrayal.) Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II was a thorough supporter of conciliarism, being one of its founding fathers, as can be seen in this description of his work there provided by Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki in Tumultuous Times:
His [Wojtyla's] stand on atheism puzzled many of the bishops, especially those from Communist countries. Archbishop Wojtyla believed that the human person should find the truth on their own and that conversion was unnecessary:
"Wojtyla was deeply convinced that personalist ethics--which stresses the uniqueness and inviolability of the human personality--would never allow the imposing of ideas on anyone. He took the same line when the council discussed the problems of atheism--a question that vexed the Council Fathers almost from the beginning to the end of Vatican II. 'It is not the Church's role to lecture unbelievers,' Wojtyla declared on taking the floor on October 21, 1964. 'We are involved a quest along with our fellow men. ...Let us avoid moralizing or suggesting that we have a monopoly on the truth.' ...Talk at the council of actual 'relations with atheism' meant dialogue with Marxists." (Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi, His Holiness, pp. 102-103, quoted in Tumultuous Times, p. 540.)
These were revolutionary ideas, especially at a time when the West braced for nuclear war and when much of the world was held captive under Communist tyranny. He further expressed his ecumenical and Modernist persuasions a week later.
"He began with several previously expressed comments on the Church and the world and the president of the session was on the point of stopping him, when he quickly and skillfully captivated his audience and silenced all the noise in the auditorium. In a loud and distinct voice, he clearly explained that the Church should no longer pose as the sole dispenser of Truth and Goodness... She should, he went on, be in the world but not above it. ...The Church must alter her teaching; she should encourage Revelation and no longer dictate it." (Catherine and Jacques Legrand, John Paul II, p. 68.)
"Although he was only forty-two when the council opened, Wojtyla made eight oral interventions in the council hall, a rather high number, and often spoke in the name of large groups of bishops from Eastern Europe. (Altogether he made 22 interventions, oral and written.) He was an unusually active member of various drafting groups for Gaudium et Spes, and even a chief author of what was called the 'Polish draft.' His voice as crucial to the passage of the document on religious liberty.''"(William Madges and Michael Daly, Vatican II: Forty Personal Stories, p. 33)
The Modernists Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou worked closely with Archbishop Wojtyla to draft the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World [Gaudium et Spes]. In his speeches of September 23 and 28, 1965, Wojtyla championed the heresy of religious liberty and encouraged dialogue with atheists.
"Archbishop Wojtyla then took up the question of atheism as a pastoral issue, as part of the Church's 'dialogue with everyone.' ...The Church's dialogue with atheism should begin not with arguments or proofs about the existence of God, but with a conversation about the human person's interior liberty." (Tumultuous Times, pp. 540-541.)
My "hopes" in a Catholic "restoration" under John Paul II in the 1980s and early 1990s prior to the altar girl fiasco were delusional. I permitted to be deceived by a very good and charismatic actor as I rejected the repeated efforts made by many friends, including a few conciliar priests who are now rather silent about their former criticisms of conciliarism and the "F.M." (false mass, Freemasonic mass) that is the Protestant and Novus Ordo service. I convinced myself that John Paul II was an "enigma." He was not. He was a Modernist, and Modernists live in a world of contradiction and paradox. It is that simple.
It was that simple about Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. It is that simple about Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, one of the chief architects and principal defenders of conciliarism. there is nothing enigmatic about Joseph Ratzinger at all. Nothing. He is a Modernist who rejects the nature of dogmatic truth and hence rejects the very nature of God Himself. One cannot claim to preach the Gospel of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ when he rejects dogmatic definitions about the nature of His Divine Revelation. It is really, really that simple, as I have tried to demonstrate so many times in the past few years (see just one such article,
Once Again, It is All About Truth).
No amount of Joseph Ratzinger's exhortations to have "hope" in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ have a Catholic meaning to them. Mr. James Larson, who is very much opposed to sedevacantism, has explained quite succinctly that Ratzinger/Benedict understands "hope" through the prism of the "New Theology," whose tenets were assessed and condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950:
At this point I think we need to understand how much this way of thinking is integral to Pope Benedict XVI. We may have been surprised that the subject of his second encyclical was Hope. It should not have surprised us at all, however, if we had understood this basic structure of his thinking – a structure which entailed the overturning of virtually all the intellectual content (doctrine) of our faith in favor of a faith rooted not in knowledge, but rather in hope and trust. For Pope Benedict XVI, "'hope' is equivalent to 'faith'." (Spe Salvi, #2). There is no way, however, in which this "hope" of Benedict XVI can be seen as necessarily related to an assent to all the previously defined doctrines of the Church.
To understand how wrong all this, we need the help of St. Thomas. Thomas teaches us that hope is an act of the will (the intellectual appetency) which, like all acts of the will, is a choice based on knowledge which resides in the intellect. Now, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not." (Heb 11:1). The knowledge which we call faith is, in other words, not ordinary knowledge. It does not originate through the senses or in our own thinking, but rather through Revelation and Sacred Doctrine. In speaking of Sacred Doctrine as a science, St. Thomas quotes St. Augustine:
"to this science alone belongs that whereby saving faith is begotten, nourished, protected, and strengthened." (ST, Pt. I, Q.1, A.2)
Hope, in other words, is totally rooted in Faith as its substance, and Faith is rooted in the content of what God has revealed to us. This is why in order to possess Catholic faith, submission to all the defined doctrines of our faith is necessary. Faith is constituted by a submission of both intellect and will to the Sacred Deposit of Faith which God has revealed to us through His Church. Because all doctrine is not, and cannot, be fully understood does not mean that this submission is, or should be, or may be, any less. Faith is not, therefore, equivalent to hope, but rather its requisite. And contrary to what Fr. Ratzinger said in regard to a man remaining a Christian despite the fact that he may "find many of the details of faith obscure and impracticable” (read: cannot be used, accepted or practiced), the absolute obligation to accept the entire Deposit of Faith in order to retain Catholic Faith is still imperative. St. Thomas writes:
"Just as mortal sin is contrary to charity, so is disbelief in one article of faith contrary to faith. Now charity does not remain in a man after one mortal sin. Therefore neither does faith, after a man disbelieves one article." (Ibid, II-II, Q.5, A.3).
In the entire length of Spe Salvi, not a single reference is made to Revealed Truth, the Deposit of Faith, Doctrine, or Dogma as having any relation whatsoever to our Hope.
Having sundered both hope and faith from the absolutely objective content of the Deposit of Faith, Joseph Ratzinger is left merely with the existential choice of continuing to believe in the "You" of Jesus Christ, but not the "something" of this Divine Deposit. And since (Christ's) claim to be both man and God is just as absurd from the positivistic viewpoint as transubstantiation or original sin, then this choice, this hope, this trust, this faith becomes essentially an existential choice with no objective foundation. As such, it can make no claims to exclusivity, and therefore demand no conversion. It must, in other words, adjust itself to pluralism and ecumenism. Again, from Faith and the Future:
"As things are, faith cannot count on a bundle of philosophical certainties [thus Thomism is sent entirely packing) which lead up to faith and support it. It will be compelled, rather, to prove its own legitimacy in advance by reflecting on its own inner reasonableness and by presenting itself as a reasonable whole, which can be offered to men as a possible and responsible choice. To say this is to imply that faith must clearly adjust itself to an intellectual pluralism that cannot ever be reversed, and within this intellectual climate must present itself as a comprehensible offer of meaning, even if it can find no prolegomena in a commonly accepted philosophical system. That means, in the end, that the meaning which man needs becomes accessible in any case only through a decision for a meaningful structure. It may not be proved, but can be seen as meaningful." (p. 74-75)
Imagine trying to teach such a faith to all the little children who Our Lord instructed us to "suffer" to come unto Him. The victim in all this is not only the Truth. It is also the Innocent. (James Larson, Article 12: The Quintessential Evolutionist.)
Here's just a basic reminder of how Joseph Ratzinger deviates from the Catholic Faith's defined teaching on the nature of dogmatic truth:
In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute.
The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes. (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)
The text [of the Second Vatican Council] also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms -- perhaps for the first time with this clarity -- that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.
“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (L'Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990.)
Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.
Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.
These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.
It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.
On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)
Once again, my very few readers who still access this site, here is how the Catholic Church has condemned such views, which are also opposed to pure reason itself:
Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. [Vatican Council, 1870.]
Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.
It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts." On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason"; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth." Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation." (Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .
Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.
I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)
In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.
Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.
Anyone who does not see that these assessments and condemnations apply to the consistent thought of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is either as willfully blind as I was twenty years ago--or simply intellectually dishonest. There is nothing enigmatic at all about Joseph Ratzinger. He has told us in his own words, yes, even as Benedict XVI, what he believes, and what he believes is contrary to the Catholic Faith and to natural reason. Everything else beyond this is just "details." Yes, the details are important, to be sure, to demonstrate the nature of Ratzinger/Benedict's multiple apostasies. The simple fact of the matter is, however, that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's view of the "Christian faith" is based on a rejection of defined Catholic teaching on the immutable nature of her dogma, making him unqualified to speak as a "Catholic" because he does not accept this defined teaching as binding upon him.
There is nothing enigmatic or unclear about this whatsoever.
There are Catholics, however, who continue to make the same mistakes that many of us did in the 1980s, holding out "hope" that this "pope" or some future "pope" will change things for the better. There is as little rational foundation for such a "hope" in the next conciliar "pope" as exists for having "hope" that the next "election" is going to "change America" and the world. Permit me a brief moment to explain.
As I have discussed on this site, those who believe that their ill-conceived "libertarianism," which concedes that human legislative bodies have the "right" to permit or restrict such evils as the chemical or surgical assassination of innocent preborn children, will "win the day" in the future must perforce live in a delusional world of their own making as they do not realize or accept the fact that the trend of naturalism must always be in the direction of more and more statism. It is the Catholic Faith alone that can provide us the necessary balance for there to be the properly constituted civil state, leaving to men the details of the specific nature of the institutional arrangements by which they seek to be governed. No naturalistic force on the face of this earth can retard naturalism's logical degeneration into total state control of every aspect of civil governance and popular culture. Indeed, future voters are being shaped by the statists. Even in terms of the simple number of raw demographics, you see, there is no rational foundation for a "hope" that the "libertarian movement" will prevail (not that that would be a good thing, obviously).
Similarly, the false premises of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have so infected the minds and hearts of most Catholics that even the "conservatives" among them are not at all shocked at the spectacle of a "pope" esteeming the symbols of false religions or participating in alleged liturgies replete with pagan rituals and outright indecency. The understandable Catholic desire to "obey the pope" has been abused by the conciliarists to prevent ordinary Catholics from recognizing the simple fact that the conciliar "popes" do and say things that have been anathematized by the Catholic Church, a clear sign that these pretenders are not Catholics by virtue of having expelled themselves from the Church by having violated the Divine Positive Law (see Number 9 of Pope Leo XIII's Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.) Even sacrilege and blasphemy must be indemnified in the name of "obeying the pope." Modernity's attack on even the use of natural reason and Modernism's attack on the nature of dogmatic truth, coupled with its rejection of Scholasticism, have combined to make it very difficult for the ordinary Catholic to know what it is the Church truly teaches and how to be justifiably outraged for the honor and glory of God when offenses are committed against Him by men posing as her "leaders."
This infection of the minds and hearts of ordinary Catholics extends to the "bishops" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. How many of these "bishops," including members of the conciliar college of cardinals, reject false ecumenism and the new ecclesiology and religious liberty and the separation of Church and State and episcopal collegiality? How many of these men understand the nature of dogmatic truth and reject Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's condemned Modernist notions of such truth? From whence, therefore, is the "pope of the restoration" in the conciliar ranks is supposed to come? Who among these men believes in every jot and tittle of the Catholic Faith has it has been handed down to us by the Apostles under the infallible guidance and eternal protection of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost? Who? The belief in the "pope of the restoration" from the conciliar circles is as illusory as the belief that the next presidential "election" will see a groundswell of support for some "conservative" or "libertarian" naturalist.
Catholicism does not mix truth and error. Period. Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Pascendi Dominic Gregis, September 8, 1907, that Modernists want to falsify the character of tradition. This is what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has done with his absurd, Hegelian "hermeneutics of continuity in discontinuity," and it is what his proteges have taught to scores of the "bishops" who populate the ranks of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. We need to keep this passage from Pascendi in mind when those who believe that a Vicar of Christ can have a un-Catholic mind and that the Catholic Church can give us sacrilege and blasphemy in her liturgical ceremonies:
They [the Modernists] exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''
Anyone who does not believe that that this one passage from Pascendi Dominci Gregis does not apply to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is as blind as I was about Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II twenty years ago. Perhaps the near-sightedness of Mister Magoo is a better description (Magoo's Surprise Party). The Catholic Church cannot give us the apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges and errors that have been visited upon ordinary Catholics in the past nearly fifty years with a resultant corruption in the sensus Catholicus (a corruption to which the Society of Saint Pius X's false ecclesiology has played a significant role, as will be discussed once again the next article on this site). To place "hope" in the "restoration" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to Catholicism is as delusional as believing that the naturalistic system of American electoral politics can be used to "restore" "constitutional values" and as delusional as the belief of "Anglo-Catholics" that they can still work "within" the structures of their own false church.
It took me long enough to realize this for myself. I am not about to throw stones at anyone who does not as of yet see the truth of our situation. I am, however, grateful to the "nine" and to the priests of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen and to Father Martin Stepanich, O.F.M. S.T.D., and to His Excellency Bishop Robert McKenna, O.P., for helping us to remove the blinders by the work that they had done to defend the Faith in the 1980s when I was a sappy, muddle-headed papaloter who was projecting Catholicism into the mind and the heart of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II.
Sharon and Lucy and I owe a particular debt of gratitude to His Excellency Bishop Daniel Dolan and the aforementioned Bishop McKenna and His Excellency Bishop Mark Pivarunas and His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn Father Stepanich and Father Anthony Cekada for helping us to break our break from the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and to seek out the sacraments from true bishops and true priests in the catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds. We will take the calumny that has come our way from so many quarters in the past twenty-seven months as but a small price to be paid in consideration of the reparation we must make for our sins, each of which we know has wounded the Church Militant on earth. It is a joy to be able to have the Catholic Faith taught without having to sort out the errors of conciliarism and without believing that we could, as Bishop McKenna puts the matter so very well, "have our pope and eat him too."
Our Lady is our sure refuge in this time of apostasy and betrayal. She is truly our life, our sweetness and our hope (vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra). We must cling to her as we offer up our daily prayers and sufferings and sacrifices and the humiliations we suffer in this passing, mortal vale of tears as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
Enrolled in our Brown Scapular and wearing our Miraculous Medal, may we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit and make sure to pass out blessed Green Scapulars to help the non-Catholic souls who have been abandoned by the counterfeit church of conciliarism into finding their way to the true Church--and to help those within the conciliar structures to recognize that blasphemy and abomination and apostasy and the defiance of the Catholic Church's anathematized propositions come not from her but from Hell itself.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, pray for us!
Viva Cristo Rey!
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.
The Martyrs of Gorkum, pray for us.
Saint James the Greater, pray for us.
Saint Christina, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
