Finding Conciliarism's Irreducible Minimum At Long Lost

Part Three

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Yesterday, Thursday, October 11, 2012, the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was a sad day as it was the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the "Second" Vatican Council by the first in the line of false "pontiffs," Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII.

The figure of Antichrist who suppressed ten feasts in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, adding to the devastation that had taken place under the direction of Fathers Annibale Bugnini, C.M., and Ferdinando Antonelli, O.F.M., in the last three years of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, and who broke the Roman Canon with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph established the entire tenor of the conciliar revolution that his recent and very worthy successor, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, seeks to institutionalize for all posterity in his opening address to the council fathers fifty years ago yesterday:

In these days, which mark the beginning of this Second Vatican Council, it is more obvious than ever before that the Lord's truth is indeed eternal. Human ideologies change. Successive generations give rise to varying errors, and these often vanish as quickly as they came, like mist before the sun.

The Church has always opposed these errors, and often condemned them with the utmost severity. Today, however, Christ's Bride prefers the balm of mercy to the arm of severity. She believes that, present needs are best served by explaining more fully the purport of her doctrines, rather than by publishing condemnations.

Contemporary Repudiation Of Godlessness

Not that the need to repudiate and guard against erroneous teaching and dangerous ideologies is less today than formerly. But all such error is so manifestly contrary to rightness and goodness, and produces such fatal results, that our contemporaries show every inclination to condemn it of their own accord—especially that way of life which repudiates God and His law, and which places excessive confidence in technical progress and an exclusively material prosperity. It is more and more widely understood that personal dignity and true self-realization are of vital importance and worth every effort to achieve. More important still, experience has at long last taught men that physical violence, armed might, and political domination are no help at all in providing a happy solution to the serious problems which affect them.

A Loving Mother

The great desire, therefore, of the Catholic Church in raising aloft at this Council the torch of truth, is to show herself to the world as the loving mother of all mankind; gentle, patient, and full of tenderness and sympathy for her separated children. To the human race oppressed by so many difficulties, she says what Peter once said to the poor man who begged an alms: "Silver and gold I have none; but what I have, that I give thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, arise and walk." 9 In other words it is not corruptible wealth, nor the promise of earthly happiness, that the Church offers the world today, but the gifts of divine grace which, since they raise men up to the dignity of being sons of God, are powerful assistance and support for the living of a more fully human life. She unseals the fountains of her life-giving doctrine, so that men, illumined by the light of Christ, will understand their true nature and dignity and purpose. Everywhere, through her children, she extends the frontiers of Christian love, the most powerful means of eradicating the seeds of discord, the most effective means of promoting concord, peace with justice, and universal brotherhood. (Angelo Roncalli/ John XXIII 's Opening Address)

 

Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII's belief that errors "often vanish as quickly as they came, like mist before sun" was and remains delusional. This is not a statement in accord with an authentic history of the Catholic Church. Errors have had to be exposed and fought by a multiplicity of means (prayer, fasting, sacrifice, penance, suffering, martyrdom and copious verbal and written condemnations.). Our Lady gave the Rosary to Saint Dominic de Guzman to be a weapon he could use in his preaching against the Albingensians, the forerunners of the Jansenists whose disciples persecuted then Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque so very much because of the revelations given to her by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ about the secrets contained in His Most Sacred Heart. Errors must be exposed and opposed.

Ah, how sad it is that many priests in various "Motu" communities are so possessed of the false spirit of conciliarism that they do not believe that they have any obligation at all to actively oppose things that are said and done by conciliar officials that they know are deeply offensive to God and injurious to the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross, no less to separate themselves from these conciliar officials and place themselves under the direction of true bishops who make absolutely no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds. The belief that it is not necessary to oppose error stands in open and direct contradiction to the entire patrimony of the Catholic Church, and anyone who believes himself to be a "priest," whether he is one or not, who reassures him that he has no such obligation must reckon not only with the words Pope Pius VI's Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775:

We thought it useful to speak to you lovingly on these matters in order to strengthen your excellent resolve. But a much more serious subject demands that We speak of it, or rather mourn over it. We refer to the pestilent disease which the wickedness of our times brings forth. We must unite our minds and strength in treating this plague before it grows rife and becomes incurable in the Church through Our oversight. For in recent days, the dangerous times foretold by the Apostle Paul have clearly arrived, when there will be "men who love themselves, who are lifted up, proud, blasphemous, traitors, lovers of pleasure instead of God, men who are always learning but never arriving at the knowledge of truth, possessing indeed the appearance of piety but denying its power, corrupt in mind, reprobate about the faith." These men raise themselves up into "lying" teachers, as they are called by Peter the prince of the Apostles, and bring in sects of perdition. They deny the Lord who bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. They say they are wise and they have become fools, and their uncomprehending heart is darkened.

You yourselves, established as scouts in the house of Israel, see clearly the many victories claimed by a philosophy full of deceit. You see the ease with which it attracts to itself a great host of peoples, concealing its impiety with the honorable name of philosophy. Who could express in words or call to mind the wickedness of the tenets and evil madness which it imparts? While such men apparently intend to search out wisdom, "they fail because they do not search in the proper way. . . and they fall into errors which lead them astray from ordinary wisdom." They have come to such a height of impiety that they make out that God does not exist, or if He does that He is idle and uncaring, making no revelation to men. Consequently it is not surprising that they assert that everything holy and divine is the product of the minds of inexperienced men smitten with empty fear of the future and seduced by a vain hope of immortality. But those deceitful sages soften and conceal the wickedness of their doctrine with seductive words and statements; in this way, they attract and wretchedly ensnare many of the weak into rejecting their faith or allowing it to be greatly shaken. While they pursue a remarkable knowledge, they open their eyes to behold a false light which is worse than the very darkness. Naturally our enemy, desirous of harming us and skilled in doing so, just as he made use of the serpent to deceive the first human beings, has armed the tongues of those men with the poison of his deceitfulness in order to lead astray the minds of the faithful. The prophet prays that his soul may be delivered from such deceitful tongues. In this way these men by their speech "enter in lowliness, capture mildly, softly bind and kill in secret." This results in great moral corruption, in license of thought and speech, in arrogance and rashness in every enterprise.

When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.

Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.

Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.

The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance," that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence.... A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection. (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

 

Pope Pius VI was writing about the naturalistic and Jansenists errors of his own day that had infiltrated the Catholic hierarchy. It is precisely those same errors that helped the shape the course of the "Second" Vatican Council, guided by such "experts" as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Father Karl Rahner, S.J., and Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., and Father Yves Congar, S.J., and, among many others, Father Henri de Lubac, S.J., each a Modernist in his own right. It is precisely those errors that were front and center when Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII spoke fifty years ago, and it is precisely those errors that were front and center yesterday when Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI spoke yesterday in glowing terms about the council whose revolutionary agenda he helped to shape and seeks to cement in his own Hegelian image:

We now turn to the one who convoked the Second Vatican Council and inaugurated it: Blessed John XXIII. In his opening speech, he presented the principal purpose of the Council in this way: “What above all concerns the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be safeguarded and taught more effectively […] Therefore, the principal purpose of this Council is not the discussion of this or that doctrinal theme… a Council is not required for that… [but] this certain and immutable doctrine, which is to be faithfully respected, needs to be explored and presented in a way which responds to the needs of our time” (AAS 54 [1962], 790,791-792). So said Pope John at the inauguration of the Council.

In the light of these words, we can understand what I myself felt at the time: during the Council there was an emotional tension as we faced the common task of making the truth and beauty of the faith shine out in our time, without sacrificing it to the demands of the present or leaving it tied to the past: the eternal presence of God resounds in the faith, transcending time, yet it can only be welcomed by us in our own unrepeatable today. Therefore I believe that the most important thing, especially on such a significant occasion as this, is to revive in the whole Church that positive tension, that yearning to announce Christ again to contemporary man. But, so that this interior thrust towards the new evangelization neither remain just an idea nor be lost in confusion, it needs to be built on a concrete and precise basis, and this basis is the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the place where it found expression. This is why I have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the “letter” of the Council – that is to its texts – also to draw from them its authentic spirit, and why I have repeated that the true legacy of Vatican II is to be found in them. Reference to the documents saves us from extremes of anachronistic nostalgia and running too far ahead, and allows what is new to be welcomed in a context of continuity. The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient. Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change.

If we place ourselves in harmony with the authentic approach which Blessed John XXIII wished to give to Vatican II, we will be able to realize it during this Year of Faith, following the same path of the Church as she continuously endeavours to deepen the deposit of faith entrusted to her by Christ. The Council Fathers wished to present the faith in a meaningful way; and if they opened themselves trustingly to dialogue with the modern world it is because they were certain of their faith, of the solid rock on which they stood. In the years following, however, many embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to accept as truths. (11 October 2012: Novus Ordo Service for the Opening of the Year of the Counterfeit Faith, Conciliarism.)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his band of conciliar revolutionaries  must premise their untenable contention that the doctrines of the "Second" Vatican Council do not represent a rupture with those of the Catholic Church on the basis of the philosophically absurd, dogmatically condemned and utterly blasphemous terms as "living tradition" or "the hermeneutic of continuity" to convince Catholics that what is a rupture is not a rupture:

• That what was once considered blasphemy is now pleasing to God--
• That false religions are indeed esteemed in the eyes of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity--
• That it is a matter of principle, not a necessary concession to the realities of the modern world, that the civil state has no obligation to recognize the true religion--
• That civil leaders are not expected to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity. (See Appendix A below for a review of this warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth, which is nothing other than a warfare against the very nature of God Himself)--
• That it is permissible to engage in "inter-religious" "prayer" meetings that the Catholic Church has always condemned--
• That it is no longer necessary to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of non-Catholics to the true Faith--.
• That the Sacred Liturgy may be gutted in order to make it a man-centered vessel of community self-congratulations.

The whole premise of conciliarism is based on a proposition that is false and from which flow all other falsehoods quite easily. It takes a complete ideologue not to realize that the ranks of the priesthood and religious life were thinned in the immediate aftermath of the "Second" Vatican Council.

It takes a person living on a planet in another solar system to ignore the fact that there are very large numbers of Catholics who do not bother to show up in our formerly Catholic church buildings to enjoy the thrills of the "renewed liturgy" with his sacramentally barren rites and its false bishops and priests.

Conciliarism has devastated the lives of ordinary Catholics, robbed the world of Sanctifying and Actual Graces and thus worsened the state of the world by celebrating its false spirit to such an extent that a significant share of Catholics worldwide have only a generic, Judeo-Masonic belief in God. Once proudly Catholic countries, including Ireland, have seem a recrudescence of their pagan past.

Yet it is that Ratzinger/Benedict, eschewing any suggestion of "ultra-progressivism" and of any attachment to an "anachronistic nostalgia" that equates fidelity to the authentic patrimony of Holy Mother Church with its outright rejection by the agnostics produced by Modernism, still contends that we are in the "springtime of the Church" that will retard the "dictatorship of relativism" as the "world's religions" "fight irreligion" together, a false, blasphemous contention that was rejected outright by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928 (see Appendix B below). Since when can relativism fight relativism? Perhaps the real question is this: since when can apostasy restore Catholicism? The "new evangelization" being "studied" by the recently commenced world synod of conciliar "bishops" (which includes true bishops from the various Eastern rites) ais a means to further advance the One World Ecumenical Church, not as a means to win souls for the Catholic Church.

Yet it is also that some of the leadership of the Society of Saint Pius X, who have been busy acting as ecclesiastical Stalinists in the arbitrary denial of Holy Communion to their critics (I am tempted to go on at length about how some clergy have condemned this Stalinism while wanting us to forget that they have threatened their own critics with police arrest if they ever show up on the properties again, which may not be a denial of Holy Communion at the altar rail, which has taken place in some sedevacantist venues, but is nevertheless an effort to chill what they consider to be "dissent" within their ranks), still believe that there can be some kind of "rapprochement" with the conciliar revolutionaries, hanging their hopes on what they believe to be a "hidden message" contained in "Archbishop" Gerhard Ludwig Muller's recent interview with the National Catholic Register:

Q, What stage have we reached in the dialogue between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X?

A. I wouldn’t call it a dialogue between two Church partners. This was a brotherly colloquium to overcome difficulties with an authentic interpretation of Catholic doctrine. This authentic interpretation is guaranteed by the Pope. The SSPX must accept the Holy Father, the Pope, as the visible head of the Church. They have a great respect for Tradition. They must, therefore, accept the position of the Pope as stated in the First Vatican Council. They must also accept the doctrinal pronouncements made since the Second Vatican Council, which have been authorized officially by the Pope.

Part of the problem is that, after 30 or more years of separation from the Church, some groups or persons can be very closed in their own dynamic, in their own groups, and very fixed on these points. I believe that these questions will be resolved in the long term. ("Archbishop" Müller on the SSPX.)

 

There is some "wiggle room" in there for Bishop Bernard Fellay's full surrender of the Society of Saint Pius X and its church buildings, schools, seminaries, rectories and priories to the conciliar revolutionaries. It may take a while. However, there would not be the kind of purges taking place in the Society of Saint Pius X at this time if a "reconciliation" or "full integration" was not still a definite possibility despite all of the well-documented errors of the "Second" Vatican Council and the writings and statements of the conciliar "popes," including the very long paper trail given us by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (see Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy). The differences between conciliarism and Catholicism are so stark that a group of the Society's priests in Latin America have even issued a letter to Bishop Fellay to demand his resignation, something that will not happen, of course.

While one could spend hours on the machinations within the Society of Saint Pius X at this time. I realize that it would be pointless to do so. What I will reminder the readers of this site is that We Must Abide By Truth, Not By Persons. To seek to "fight" within the structures of the Society of Saint Pius X in order to remain "loyal" to the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre s simply shifting the battle lines from one jungle on Mindanao to another. It is a losing proposition. The war is over, done with, finished. The counterfeit church of conciliarism is not the Catholic Church no matter how many times the conciliar revolutionaries tell us that the "Second" Vatican Council did not create a new church. a new religion. It did. Period. See The Chair is Still Empty.

It is simply opposed to the Divine Constitution of the Catholic Church to believe that a true Successor of Saint Peter can contradict one doctrine after another as he seeks to wave off any criticism by claiming that doctrinal pronouncements and papal statements are but time-conditioned provisional formulations that need "adjustments" from time to time, a false belief that makes Ratzinger/Benedict's own stated raison d'etre of "finding" the "true meaning" of the "Vatican II" documents to be impossible to realize. Why should a future conciliar "pope" be any more bound to his "authoritative" interpretation of "Vatican II" when he does not consider himself bound by dogmatic statements issued by the Council of Florence or the Council of Trent or the [First] Vatican Council or by papal condemnations of their very "new theology" and of its "doctrines" (the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, episcopal collegiality. separation of Church and State, religious liberty, modernist Scriptural interpretations, the jettisoning of Scholasticism in favor of the Hegelian paradox offered by the likes of Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, the reinterpretation of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the rewriting of Church history, the promotion of a "code of canon law" and a "catechism" that support multiple defections from the Faith in principle and in pastoral praxis)?

The Catholic Church cannot give us false, unclear or ambiguous doctrines.

The Catholic Church cannot give us liturgies that are incentives to impiety.

The Catholic Church is the spotless, virginal Mystical Bride of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Spouse, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

To believe that one is not "bound" to accept the teaching of a true pope or the decrees of a true ecumenical council is to believe in the very Gallicanism condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, and mocked by Bishop Emile Bougaud, the Bishop of Laval, France, from 1887 to 1888, as being contrary to the very nature of the papacy:

6. The doctrine of the synod by which it professes that "it is convinced that a bishop has received from Christ all necessary rights for the good government of his diocese," just as if for the good government of each diocese higher ordinances dealing either with faith and morals, or with general discipline, are not necessary, the right of which belongs to the supreme Pontiffs and the General Councils for the universal Church,—schismatic, at least erroneous.

7. Likewise, in this, that it encourages a bishop "to pursue zealously a more perfect constitution of ecclesiastical discipline," and this "against all contrary customs, exemptions, reservations which are opposed to the good order of the diocese, for the greater glory of God and for the greater edification of the faithful"; in that it supposes that a bishop has the right by his own judgment and will to decree and decide contrary to customs, exemptions, reservations, whether they prevail in the universal Church or even in each province, without the consent or the intervention of a higher hierarchic power, by which these customs, etc., have been introduced or approved and have the force of law,—leading to schism and subversion of hierarchic rule, erroneous.

8. Likewise, in that it says it is convinced that "the rights of a bishop received from Jesus Christ for the government of the Church cannot be altered nor hindered, and, when it has happened that the exercise of these rights has been interrupted for any reason whatsoever, a bishop can always and should return to his original rights, as often as the greater good of his church demands it"; in the fact that it intimates that the exercise of episcopal rights can be hindered and coerced by no higher power, whenever a bishop shall judge that it does not further the greater good of his church,—leading to schism, and to subversion of hierarchic government, erroneous. (Pope Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794.)

The violent attacks of Protestantism against the Papacy, its calumnies and so manifest, the odious caricatures it scattered abroad, had undoubtedly inspired France with horror; nevertheless the sad impressions remained. In such accusations all, perhaps, was not false. Mistrust was excited., and instead of drawing closer to the insulted and outraged Papacy, France stood on her guard against it. In vain did Fenelon, who felt the danger, write in his treatise on the "Power of the Pope," and, to remind France of her sublime mission and true role in the world, compose his "History of Charlemagne." In vain did Bossuet majestically rise in the midst of that agitated assembly of 1682, convened to dictate laws to the Holy See, and there, in most touching accents, give vent to professions of fidelity and devotedness toward the Chair of St. Peter. We already notice in his discourse mention no longer made of the "Sovereign Pontiff." The "Holy See," the "Chair of St. Peter," the "Roman Church," were alone alluded to. First and alas! too manifest signs of coldness in the eyes of him who knew the nature and character of France! Others might obey through duty, might allow themselves to be governed by principle--France, never! She must be ruled by an individual, she must love him that governs her, else she can never obey.

These weaknesses should at least have been hidden in the shadow of the sanctuary, to await the time in which some sincere and honest solution of the misunderstanding could be given. But no! parliaments took hold of it, national vanity was identified with it. A strange spectacle was now seen. A people the most Catholic in the world; kings who called themselves the Eldest Sons of the Church and who were really such at heart; grave and profoundly Christian magistrates, bishops, and priests, though in the depths of their heart attached to Catholic unity,--all barricading themselves against the head of the Church; all digging trenches and building ramparts, that his words might not reach the Faithful before being handled and examined, and the laics convinced that they contained nothing false, hostile or dangerous. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Re-printed by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 24-29.)

The whole foundation of the Society of Saint Pius X's "resistance" to the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes"  is false and without any justification in Catholic teaching. True popes must be obeyed. The whole "dance" between the Society of Saint Pius X and the conciliar officials has been an exercise in falsehood as the Society has sought to oppose with the "new ecclesiology" of with conciliarists with a false ecclesiology of its very own. None of this is from God. Fighting the falsehoods of conciliarism with the falsehood of Gallicanism of the Society of Saint Pius X can produce nothing other than chaos. Behold the chaos in which the Society of Saint Pius X finds itself at this time.

Giovanni Montini/Paul VI made it very clear at the close of the "Second" Vatican Council on December 8, 1965, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the decisions on the council had to be religiously observed by Catholics:

APOSTOLIC BRIEF "IN SPIRITU SANCTO' FOR THE CLOSING OF THE COUNCIL - DECEMBER 8, 1965, read at the closing ceremonies of Dec. 8 by Archbishop Pericle Felici, general secretary of the council.

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, assembled in the Holy Spirit and under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom we have declared Mother of the Church, and of St. Joseph, her glorious spouse, and of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, must be numbered without doubt among the greatest events of the Church. In fact it was the largest in the number of Fathers who came to the seat of Peter from every part of the world, even from those places where the hierarchy has been very recently established. It was the richest because of the questions which for four sessions have been discussed carefully and profoundly. And last of all it was the most opportune, because, bearing in mind the necessities of the present day, above all it sought to meet the pastoral needs and, nourishing the flame of charity, it has made a great effort to reach not only the Christians still separated from communion with the Holy See, but also the whole human family.

At last all which regards the holy ecumenical council has, with the help of God, been accomplished and all the constitutions, decrees, declarations and votes have been approved by the deliberation of the synod and promulgated by us. Therefore we decided to close for all intents and purposes, with our apostolic authority, this same ecumenical council called by our predecessor, Pope John XXIII, which opened October 11, 1962, and which was continued by us after his death.

We decided moreover that all that has been established synodally is to be religiously observed by all the faithful, for the glory of God and the dignity of the Church and for the tranquillity and peace of all men. We have approved and established these things, decreeing that the present letters are and remain stable and valid, and are to have legal effectiveness, so that they be disseminated and obtain full and complete effect, and so that they may be fully convalidated by those whom they concern or may concern now and in the future; and so that, as it be judged and described, all efforts contrary to these things by whomever or whatever authority, knowingly or in ignorance be invalid and worthless from now on.

Given in Rome at St. Peter's, under the [seal of the] ring of the fisherman, Dec. 8, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the year 1965, the third year of our pontificate. (APOSTOLIC BRIEF - IN SPIRITU SANCTO.)

 

Religiously observed? How can one who says he finds "mistakes" in the "Second" Vatican Council, particularly in Dignitatis Humanae (the Decree on Religious Liberty), be said to have religiously observed its decrees? He cannot. And that is really the "irreducible minimum" for one in the conciliar structures as one has to accept everything as taught by the "Second" Vatican Council and the conciliar "popes" without any dissent at all or to reject it entirely as the working of a false council and of pretenders to the papal throne.

 

Pope Gregory XVI wrote in Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834, that the truth can be found in the Catholic Church without "even a slight tarnish of error."

Pope Leo XIII stressed in A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902, that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity."

Pope Pius XI explained in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, that the Catholic Church brings forth her teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men."

Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitably as I can put the matter). If the conciliar church has brought forth its teaching "with ease and security to the knowledge of men," why, as noted earlier in this article, is there such disagreement even between the "progressive" conciliarists and "conservative" conciliarists concerning the proper "interpretation" of the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath? Or does this depend upon what one means by "ease and security"?

 

Perhaps the matter can be summarized even more simply:

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God, in three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost: I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, and died for our sins, and that He will come to judge the living and the dead.  I believe these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.  Amen.

 

This in and of itself, putting aside all of the weighty and quite binding dogmatic declarations about the nature of Divine Truth issued by the authority of the Catholic Church, should be an end to all discussion whatsoever of the "need" for "understanding" the dogmas of the Faith in different ways at different times because the language used to express those dogmas in the past was necessarily "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which they were pronounced. To assert that dogmatic expressions used in the past can be understood anew because the language that expressed them was "conditioned" by historical circumstances is to deny the nature of the Most Blessed Trinity, Who is immutable, and to blaspheme the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, Who has directed our true Popes and council fathers to express doctrine as they have been expressed consistently--and without even the shadow of ambiguity--prior to the "election" of Angelo Roncalli/John XIII on October 29, 1958.

The time has come for those within the Society of Saint Pius X to know all of this to be true to realize that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is not a Catholic and thus not a true pope, and that the church that he heads is not the Catholic Church. Merely hinting at this is not in the service of truth, which must be expressed clearly and without fear of the consequences.

May we cling to the Cross of Our Divine Redeemer, praying as many Rosaries each day in this month of October, the month Our Lady's Holy Rosary and of the Holy Angels, as our state-in-life permits. The sufferings of this present life will pass. Christ the King will triumph over His enemies in our world of naturalism and in the the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Every extra moment we spend in prayer before Our King in the Most Blessed Sacrament and every extra set of mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary that we pray will help us to be more and more conformed to the likeness of Our Divine Redeemer, Who endured the Cross, heedless of Its shame, to redeem us and to make us members of His Catholic Church.

We must always remember that this is the time that God has appointed from all eternity for us to live and thus to sanctify and to save our immortal souls as members of the Catholic Church. The graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us to handle whatever crosses--personal, social and ecclesiastical--that we are asked to carry. We must give thanks to God at all times for each of our crosses as we seek to serve Him through Our Lady in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now, especially as we observe tomorrow, Saturday, October 13, 2012, the Feast of Saint Edward the Confessor, the ninety-fifth anniversary of Our Lady's final apparition to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal?

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us now and the hour of our deaths. Amen.

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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

 

 

Appendix A

Une Fois Encore: Ratzinger/Benedict's Warfare Against Dogmatic Truth

As noted above, to accept conciliarism's claim false claim that there has been no rupture between the immemorial teaching of the Catholic Church on such matters as the new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and prayer services, the "new" definition between what purports to be the Catholic Church and "the faith of Israel," religious liberty, separation of Church and State and methodologies of interpreting Sacred Scripture that have been condemned repeatedly by true pope after true pope, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI coined a slogan, "the hermeneutic of continuity," as a means of repackaging his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned notions concern the nature of dogmatic truth. He has done this to justify the "teaching" of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes" even though his own whole approach has been condemned repeatedly by Holy Mother Church.

1971: "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.)

1990: The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types 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 the 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. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th 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 [on evolutionism]. 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 falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time.

(Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, cited at Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete)

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.)

 

Did God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, leave the Catholic Church in darkness about the "discovery" made by your "pope" of an "innovation in continuity" in which we have "learned" that certain decisions made by our true popes and/or under their authority are "contingent themselves because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself"? Did the Catholic Church, to whose infallible teaching authority Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted His Sacred Deposit of Faith, only "learn" about this "reality" in the 1960s?

If so, then was God the Holy Ghost wrong when He directed the Fathers of the Council of Trent and Pope Saint Pius X to issue the following condemnations of the exact same propositions advanced through the nearly sixty-one years of Joseph Ratzinger's priestly life?

• For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward

  • not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
  • but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
• Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)

 

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; see also Nothing Stable, Nothing Secure.)

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.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

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.

It is evident from what We have already said, that such tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it. The contempt of doctrine commonly taught and of the terms in which it is expressed strongly favor it. Everyone is aware that the terminology employed in the schools and even that used by the Teaching Authority of the Church itself is capable of being perfected and polished; and we know also that the Church itself has not always used the same terms in the same way. It is also manifest that the Church cannot be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of time. Nevertheless, the things that have been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on any such weak foundation. These things are based on principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things. In the process of deducing, this knowledge, like a star, gave enlightenment to the human mind through the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that some of these notions have not only been used by the Oecumenical Councils, but even sanctioned by them, so that it is wrong to depart from them.

Hence to neglect, or to reject, or to devalue so many and such great resources which have been conceived, expressed and perfected so often by the age-old work of men endowed with no common talent and holiness, working under the vigilant supervision of the holy magisterium and with the light and leadership of the Holy Ghost in order to state the truths of the faith ever more accurately, to do this so that these things may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow; this is supreme imprudence and something that would make dogma itself a reed shaken by the wind. The contempt for terms and notions habitually used by scholastic theologians leads of itself to the weakening of what they call speculative theology, a discipline which these men consider devoid of true certitude because it is based on theological reasoning. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

 

Appendix B

Fighting "Irreligion" with False Ecumenism? Condemned

 

 

Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be "one." And did not the same Christ will that His disciples should be marked out and distinguished from others by this characteristic, namely that they loved one another: "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another"? All Christians, they add, should be as "one": for then they would be much more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion, which like a serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely spread, and prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. These things and others that class of men who are known as pan-Christians continually repeat and amplify; and these men, so far from being quite few and scattered, have increased to the dimensions of an entire class, and have grouped themselves into widely spread societies, most of which are directed by non-Catholics, although they are imbued with varying doctrines concerning the things of faith. This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)