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                May 14, 2011

 

"Scholarship" in Conciliarism's Land of Oz

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Men may come and men may go, because God has left plenty of room for the to and fro of their free-will; but the substantial lines of nature and the not less substantial lines of Eternal Law have never changed, are not changing and never will change.  There are bounds beyond which one may stray as far as one sees fit, but to do so ends in death; there are limits which empty philosophical fantasizing may have one mock or not take seriously, but they put together an alliance of hard facts and nature to chastise anybody who steps over them.  And history has sufficiently taught, with frightening proof from the life and death of nations, that the reply to all violators of the outline of "humanity" is always, sooner or later, catastrophe.

From the dialectic of Hegel onwards, we have had dinned in our ears what are nothing but fables, and by dint of hearing them so often, many people end up by getting used to them, if only passively.  But the truth of the matter is that Nature and Truth, and the Law bound up in both, go their imperturbable way, and they cut to pieces the simpletons who upon no grounds whatsoever believe in radical and far-reaching changes in the very structure of man.

The consequences of such violations are not a new outline of man, but disorders, hurtful instability of all kinds, the frightening dryness of human souls, the shattering increase in the number of human castaways, driven long since out of people's sight and mind to live out their decline in boredom, sadness and rejection.  Aligned on the wrecking of the eternal norms are to be found the broken families, lives cut short before their time, hearths and homes gone cold, old people cast to one side, youngsters willfully degenerate and -- at the end of the line -- souls in despair and taking their own lives.  All of which human wreckage gives witness to the fact that the "line of God" does not give way, nor does it admit of any adaption to the delirious dreams of the so-called philosophers! (Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, Men's Dress Worn By Women.)

 

Yes, I included that exact quotation at the beginning of my Open Letter to Pretended Catholic Scholars, two days ago now. There is a reason why it is appropriate to appropriate it once again.

It takes a great deal of tortured reasoning on the part of Catholics who understand the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church on subjects such as the separation of Church and State and religious liberty to try to dismiss conciliarism's teachings to the contrary as being either "non-binding" because of what is asserted to be the "noninfallible" nature of the "Second" Vatican Council or not representing any kind of "rupture" because we have to "understand" the "true meaning" of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict's XVI philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity." Heedless of the tortured reasoning that it takes to try to deal with the contradictions between the immutable Social Teaching of the Catholic Church and the propositions of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" of the conciliar "popes," some believing Catholic scholars continue to try to find some way to explain the inexplicable or to defend the indefensible. I know all about this as I have done quite enough of it in my own time. Georg Hegel, call your office.

Such is the case with two Catholic scholars in Italy. One, Roberto de Mattei, has attempted to claim that the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council are not binding, that the "novelties," shall we say, contained in Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965, that "councils" have made mistakes:

"Even a Council can make mistakes," de Mattei wrote. And in fact – he and others maintain – Vatican II made some serious ones.

One of the doctrinal errors attributed to the last Council by these traditionalist thinkers is the affirmation of the freedom of every citizen to profess any religion, even if it is "false." (Sandro Magister, Chiesa.)

 

Roberto de Mattei's assertion that the teaching contained in Dignitatis Humanae is false is, of course, correct. His rationalization to justify his correct conclusion is false.

The twenty councils of the Catholic Church have met under the inspiration and guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost. Each of the decrees issued a true council of the Catholic Church was formulated under the guidance and protection of God the Holy Ghost, ratified by a true pope. God the Holy Ghost cannot make "mistakes." He is God.

Professor de Mattei's contention that Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which he thinks is the Catholic Church, are not bound to accept the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council because they were not infallibly pronounced. Giovanni Montini/Paul VI, however, did say that those decrees were to be faithfully observed and not called into question, something that it is impossible for one who believes that that "council" made "mistakes" to do. Here is what Montini/Paul VI decreed on December 8, 1965:

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. Oops.

Professor Roberto de Mattei's argument was countered by another Italian scholar, Massimo Introvigne, who believes that the teaching of the "Second" Vatican Council must be understand according to the paradigm of Ratzinger/Benedict's "hermeneutic of continuity in renewal" wherein what appears to be a rupture in Catholic teaching is only "apparent," that it must be understood according to the "pope's" explanation, believing that he, Introvigne, has correctly understood the mind of Benedict XVI:

In the last lines of his exposition, in summarizing his theses, Introvigne affirms that he subscribes in full to the hermeneutic proposed by Benedict XVI for correctly interpreting and applying Vatican Council II: the hermeneutic of "renewal in continuity."

Introvigne, however, also maintains that when Benedict XVI says – as in the case of religious freedom – that the Council departed from the previous Magisterium of the Church, the pope means to say that this departure, this discontinuity, is only "apparent." (Sandro Magister, Chiesa; you are invited to read Professor Introvigne's mind-numbing and logic-killing article in its entirety at this link.)

 

A third scholar, Professor Martin Rhonmeier, who teaches at Opus Dei's "Pontifical" University Academy of the Holy Cross in Rome, disagrees with both Roberto de Mattei and Massimo Introvigne, claiming that Ratzinger/Benedict does believe that there is a real "discontinuity" in teaching on religious liberty and separation of Church and State, a rupture that can be understood, please follow the illogic here, by accepting the "pope's" conception of "permanent" and "transitory" parts of such teaching wherein one can understand that truth can never be expressed adequately in human language at any one time, requiring occasional modifications as a result in areas that are not covered in the Deposit of Faith. Here is Professor Rhonmeier's absurd line of thought:

At the same time, however – Benedict XVI adds – alongside this merely "apparent" discontinuity there is a real discontinuity. The pope affirms this when he explains that Vatican II had proposed 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 he adds that precisely in this – not on the nature and identity of the Church, but regarding the conception of the state and of relations between Church and state – "some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed."

For Pope Benedict, there is therefore in the Council a real discontinuity with respect to past conceptions of the state, and at the same time a continuity that is also real – in spite of appearances to the contrary – of the subject Church. This because Vatican II, "recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern state with the decree on religious freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church."

As a result, the true hermeneutic of the Council is not a "hermeneutic of discontinuity," which would presuppose a rupture and new beginning for the Church. Nor is it a mere "hermeneutic of continuity," as Introvigne also recognizes: because there is not full harmony on this point between what the popes of the nineteenth century taught and what Vatican II teaches.

The true hermeneutic is precisely a "hermeneutic of reform." Reform – again citing the pope who clearly contradicts Introvigne here – distinguishes itself by the fact that it is a "combination of continuity and discontinuity," but "at different levels." The two levels are in this case, as I tried to explain in my article, on the one hand the level of principles (where there is continuity), that is, the nature and identity of the Church and the unicity and fullness of its truth; and on the other the historical applications of these principles (where there is discontinuity with respect to the previous rejection of religious freedom in terms of freedom of conscience and worship as civil rights, a rejection that presupposed the idea that the state is the secular branch of the Church and has the task of enforcing its salvific truth in human society).

It is therefore false to suggest – as Introvigne does and as is also typical of other defenders of Vatican II against the traditionalists – that Benedict XVI does not also speak of true discontinuity. In my view, the audacity, the pastoral sincerity and intellectual honesty of Pope Benedict have led him to identify, and at the same time to neutralize dogmatically in a theologically correct way, the point that the progressives use as a pretext to affirm a "rupture," and that for the traditionalists constitutes instead the stumbling block. It is therefore a matter of recognizing that there exists a level, not essential for the Church's understanding of itself and dogmatic identity, on which there can be, and in fact is, a discontinuity and incompatibility between the magisterium of the popes of the nineteenth century and that of Vatican II. At the same time, however, the pope has clarified that there does not exist that which both the progressives and the traditionalists, with opposite assessments, affirm: a rupture in what is constitutive for the Church, that is, its dogma and its identity as "one, holy, catholic and apostolic."

The most profound reason in support of this "innovation in continuity" – another formula used by Benedict XVI – is that the doctrinal development of the Magisterium of the Church on religious freedom, although it is a real shift, is not a case of the development of dogma. The development of Catholic dogma must always be homogeneous, and therefore take place in complete continuity, as a mere explication and deepening of what already exists in the previous formulations; at the level of dogma, that is, there cannot be reform, but only homogeneous development and therefore continuity. Nonetheless, in what the Council affirms about religious freedom there is no development of dogma, because this is not in any way a question that touches on dogma. Here the development concerns the understanding of that which, in the past, was thought to belong to dogma because it was considered essential for resisting modern religious relativism and indifferentism; while in reality it was not part of dogma – that is, it was not necessary to guarantee the rejection of religious relativism and indifferentism – and therefore it could be abandoned.

To be precise, this is a case of abandoning a certain conception of the state – of the temporal power – a conception that Vatican II implicitly declared to belong to the world of the past, and therefore to be cast off as historical dead weight. This old conception of the state and of its relationship with the Church was not part of the patrimony of the "depositum fidei." Its abandonment, therefore, does not entail any dogmatic discontinuity. Such dogmatic discontinuity – referring to the nature and to the very identity of the Church – is, as the pope says, only "apparent." What really happens, in fact, is entirely different: by casting off the historical dead weight, the truly traditional core of the Church's doctrine on religious freedom shines again in all its purity, in what is essential from the dogmatic point of view and in that belongs to natural law; the doctrine, that is , that in matters of religion, and always excepting the just demands of public order, no human power can limit the freedom to adhere, including publicly and in community form, to the religion that each considers in conscience to be true, and to propagate it. This is what the first Christians asked, and it is what Benedict XVI clearly affirms, saying that with the doctrine on religious freedom Vatican II "has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church" and finds itself "in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time." (As found in (Sandro Magister, Chiesa.)

 

Let me introduce Professor Rhonmeier to Paragraph Three of Pope Saint Pius X's Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, where he termed "separation of Church and State a thesis absolutely false:"

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

Logic 101, Professor Rhonmeier: What is absolutely false in 1906 cannot become true in 2011. It cannot become true at any time because truth is unchanging.

Pope Pius IX, quoting Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, to remind us in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, that religious liberty is insanity, an insanity that leads men and their nations to ruin:

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

 

Logic 102, Professor Rhonmeier: What is insane in 1832 and 1864 does not become sane and thus normative in 2011.

Each of the three men cited above fail to take any account whatsoever of this simple passage from Pope Pius XI's Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that explains everyone is bound to hold to the teachings of his predecessors on Church-State relations:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

What about Professor Rhonmeier's absurd notion that the Catholic Church's "past" teaching on separation of Church and State and religious liberty are not part of the Sacred Deposit of Faith? Permit me to introduce Professor Rhonmeier, not that he's reading this website, you understand, to Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, which condemned the very "new theology" that had already corrupted the mind of a German subdeacon by the name of Joseph Ratzinger:

20. Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me";[3] and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950; please see the Appendix A below for Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani's own critique of the Modernist effort to disparage the binding nature of the Church's teaching concerning religious liberty and the separation of Church and State, followed by Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton's own treatise on the matter in Appendix B.)

Lost upon each of these three men who are considered to be respected Catholic scholars is the very simple truth that it has never been the case before in the history of the Catholic Church that men have had to debate amongst themselves for years on end as to what a particular "pope" or set of "popes" have taught that places them in contradiction, real or apparent, of their predecessors and of Holy Mother Church's true councils. The Catholic Church brings forth her teaching in an clear and easily understood manner:

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Also lost on each of these three men is that the answer to their dilemma is staring them right in the face: the Catholic Church has identified and condemned the very Modernist methodology that Ratzinger/Benedict has used throughout the course of his nearly sixty years of priestly life to throw into question almost everything to do with the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church as he has attempted to make the Fathers and Doctors of the Church witnesses in his behalf as he does so:

  • 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 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." (Pope Saint Pius X, 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. (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

 

It is amazing that learned men cannot see the truth that is plainly in front of their eyes, arguing ad infinitum, ad nauseam about things that can never issue forth from the Catholic Church, whether from her true popes or her true councils. This kind of "scholarship" belongs in the Merry Old Land of Oz as it stands logic and truth, both, supernatural and natural, in order to maintain the "legitimacy" of the conciliar "popes" and/or the validity of their teaching.

Ah, the hour is late yet again. Another important project, to be read, no doubt, by the usual small numbers of people who read this website, looms concerning the new "instruction" issued by "Pontifical" Council Ecclesia Dei that attempts to "clarify" the implementation of the Summorum Pontificum motu proprio (July 7, 2007) of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The work never ends.

Perhaps the following passage from Yves Dupont's Catholic Prophecy will help to put the insanity of the arguments in a bit of perspective:

"I see that the century which begins in 1800 will not be the last.

"The reign of Antichrist is approaching. the thick vapors which I have seen rising from the earth and obscuring the light of the sun are the false maxims of irreligion and license which are confounding all sound principles and spreading everywhere such darkness as to obscure both faith and reason. . . .

"One night I saw a number of ecclesiastics. Their haughtiness and air of severity seemed to demand the respect of all. They forced the faithful to follow them. But God commanded me to oppose them: 'They no longer have the right to speak in my name,' Jesus told me. 'It is against My wish that they carry out a mandate for which they are no longer worthy.'

"I saw a great power rise up against the Church. It plundered, devastated, and threw into confusion and disorder the vine of the Lord, having it trampled underfoot by the people and holding it up to ridicule by all nations. having vilified celibacy and oppressed the priesthood, it had the effrontery to confiscate the Church's property and to arrogate to itself the powers of the Holy Father, whose person and whose laws it held in contempt." (Revelations given to Sister Jeanne le Royer, 1731-1798, as found in Yves Dupont, Catholic Prophecy, TAN Books and Publishers, 1970, pp. 52-54.)

 

The conciliarists have confiscated the Church's property and arrogated unto itself and its false "popes" the powers of a true Holy Father while the words of our true popes and their very persons (see entry for May 11, 2011, at RORATE CÆLI) are held in contempt. We must not be in communion with them at all for any reason whatsoever.

For our part, of course, we must continue to pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, especially during this month of May, seeking to making reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our own many sins that have contributed more than we realize to the worsening of the problems of the world and to the apostasies, blasphemies, sacrileges and outrages committed in the name of the Catholic Church by the spiritual robber barons of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Take heart, though. The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph. Take heart!

Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

 

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, 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.

Saint Boniface Martyr, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix

Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani on the Modernist Methodology to Dispense with the True Social Teaching of the Catholic Church

 

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, however, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)

Appendix B

Monsignor Joseph Clinton Fenton on the Binding Nature of Papal Declarations

(As Extracted From a Previous Article)

 

The late Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, who had taught my own late seminary professor, Father John Joseph "Jackie Boy" at Saint Bernard's Seminary in Rochester, New York, in the late-1930s, wrote a superb explication of the teaching authority of encyclical letters a year before Humani Generis, and I thank Mr. Jerry Meng, the author of Joseph Ratzinger Is Not the Pope, for providing me with information about Father Fenton's material, which appeared in the American Ecclesiastical Review, that I had read several years ago but had faded into the deeper recesses of my memory in the meantime. Thank you, Mr. Meng. To Father Fenton:

It would manifestly be a very serious fault on the part of a Catholic writer or teacher in this field, acting on his own authority, to set aside or to ignore any of the outstanding doctrinal pronouncements of the Rerum novarum or the Quadragesimo anno, regardless of how unfashionable these documents be in a particular locality or at a particular time. It would, however, be a much graver sin on the part of such a teacher to pass over or to discountenance a considerable section of the teachings contained in these labor encyclicals. In exactly the same way and for precisely the same reason it would be seriously wrong to contravene any outstanding individual pronouncement in the encyclicals dealing with the relations between Church and State, and much worse to ignore or disregard all of the teachings or a great portion of the teachings on this topic contained in the letters of Pius IX and Leo XIII.

It is, of course, possible that the Church might come to modify its stand on some detail of teaching presented as non-infallible matter in a papal encyclical. The nature of the auctoritas providentiae doctrinalis within the Church is such, however, that this fallibility extends to questions of relatively minute detail or of particular application. The body of doctrine on the rights and duties of labor, on the Church and State, or on any other subject treated extensively in a series of papal letters directed to and normative for the entire Church militant could not be radically or completely erroneous. The infallible security Christ wills that His disciples should enjoy within His Church is utterly incompatible with such a possibility.
(Doctrinal authority of Papal Encyclicals.)

 

To wit, Pope Saint Pius X wrote the following about the falsehood represented by the separation of Church and State:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. . . . Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

Gee, I wonder who has spent a great deal of the past seventy-three months endorsing this false thesis: Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, that's who. This cannot be. It is impossible for a true Roman Pontiff to contradict another on a matter that is part of the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

Some glib commentators might protest that not every papal statement demands our assent, that we can "sift" through what a true pope says. This is false, which is one of the reasons why true popes never spoke in interviews as they knew that their words, which were carefully chosen and vetted by theological advisers (yes, the rendering of this word as "advisors" is also accepted usage), carried the weight of their papal office, that the faithful weren't and could not be expected to make unnecessary distinctions between "official" and "unofficial" words and deeds, which was the whole point of Words and Actions Without Consequences.

Monsignor Fenton elaborated on this point when applying the teaching stated by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis to the authority of papal allocutions:

Despite the fact that there is nothing like an adequate treatment of the papal allocutions in existing theological literature, every priest, and particularly every professor of sacred theology, should know whether and under what circumstances these allocutions addressed by the Sovereign Pontiffs to private groups are to be regarded as authoritative, as actual expressions of the Roman Pontiff's ordinary magisterium.  And, especially because of the tendency towards an unhealthy minimism current in this country and elsewhere in the world today, they should also know how doctrine is to be set forth in the allocutions and the other vehicles of the Holy Father's ordinary magisterium if it is to be accepted as authoritative.  The present brief paper will attempt to consider and to answer these questions.

The first question to be considered is this: Can a speech addressed by the Roman Pontiff to a private group, a group which cannot in any sense be taken as representing either the Roman Church or the universal Church, contain doctrinal teaching authoritative for the universal Church?

The clear and unequivocal answer to this question is contained in the Holy Father's encyclical letter Humani generis, issued Aug. 12, 1950.  According to this document: "if, in their 'Acta' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."[6]

Thus, in the teaching of the Humani generis, any doctrinal decision made by the Pope and included in his "Acta" are authoritative.  Now many of the allocutions made by the Sovereign Pontiff to private groups are included in the "Acta" of the Sovereign Pontiff himself, as a section of the Acta apostolicae sedis.  Hence, any doctrinal decision made in one of these allocutions that is published in the Holy Father's "Acta" is authoritative and binding on all the members of the universal Church.

There is, according to the words of the Humani generis, an authoritative doctrinal decision whenever the Roman Pontiffs, in their "Acta," "de re hactenus controversa data opera sententiam ferunt."  When this condition is fulfilled, even in an allocution originally delivered to a private group, but subsequently published as part of the Holy Father's "Acta," an authoritative doctrinal judgment has been proposed to the universal Church.  All of those within the Church are obliged, under penalty of serious sin, to accept this decision. . . .

Now the questions may arise: is there any particular form which the Roman Pontiff is obliged to follow in setting forth a doctrinal decision in either the positive or the negative manner? Does the Pope have to state specifically and explicitly that he intends to issue a doctrinal decision on this particular point?  Is it at all necessary that he should refer explicitly to the fact that there has hitherto been a debate among theologians on the question he is going to decide?

There is certainly nothing in the divinely established constitutional law of the Catholic Church which would in any way justify an affirmative response to any of these inquiries.  The Holy Father's doctrinal authority stems from the tremendous responsibility Our Lord laid upon him in St. Peter, whose successor he is.  Our Lord charged the Prince of the Apostles, and through him, all of his successors until the end of time, with the commission of feeding, of acting as a shepherd for, of taking care of, His lambs and His sheep.[7]  Included in that responsibility was the obligation, and, of course, the power, to confirm the faith of his fellow Christians.

And the Lord said: "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."[8]

St. Peter had, and has in his successor, the duty and the power to confirm his brethren in their faith, to take care of their doctrinal needs.  Included in his responsibility is an obvious obligation to select and to employ the means he judges most effective and apt for the accomplishment of the end God has commissioned him to attain.  And in this era, when the printed word possesses a manifest primacy in the field of the dissemination of ideas, the Sovereign Pontiffs have chosen to bring their authoritative teaching, the doctrine in which they accomplish the work of instruction God has commanded them to do, to the people of Christ through the medium of the printed word in the published "Acta."

The Humani generis reminds us that the doctrinal decisions set forth in the Holy Father's "Acta" manifestly are authoritative "according to the mind and will" of the Pontiffs who have issued these decisions.  Thus, wherever there is a doctrinal judgment expressed in the "Acta" of a Sovereign Pontiff, it is clear that the Pontiff understands that decision to be authoritative and wills that it be so.

Now when the Pope, in his "Acta," sets forth as a part of Catholic doctrine or as a genuine teaching of the Catholic Church some thesis which has hitherto been opposed, even legitimately, in the schools of sacred theology, he is manifestly making a doctrinal decision.  This certainly holds true even when, in making his statement, the Pope does not explicitly assert that he is issuing a doctrinal judgment and, of course, even when he does not refer to the existence of a controversy or debate on the subject among theologians up until the time of his own pronouncement.  All that is necessary is that this teaching, hitherto opposed in the theological schools, be now set forth as the teaching of the Sovereign Pontiff, or as "doctrina catholica."

Private theologians have no right whatsoever to establish what they believe to be the conditions under which the teaching presented in the "Acta" of the Roman Pontiff may be accepted as authoritative.  This is, on the contrary, the duty and the prerogative of the Roman Pontiff himself.  The present Holy Father has exercised that right and has done his duty in stating clearly that any doctrinal decision which the Bishop of Rome has taken the trouble to make and insert into his "Acta" is to be received as genuinely authoritative.

In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own "Acta."  Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner?

The text of the Humani generis itself supplies us with a minimum answer.  This is found in the sentence we have already quoted: "And if, in their 'Acta,' the Supreme Pontiffs take care to render a decision on a point that has hitherto been controverted, it is obvious to all that this point, according to the mind and will of these same Pontiffs, can no longer be regarded as a question theologians may freely debate among themselves."

Theologians legitimately discuss and dispute among themselves doctrinal questions which the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church has not as yet resolved.  Once that magisterium has expressed a decision and communicated that decision to the Church universal, the first and the most obvious result of its declaration must be the cessation of debate on the point it has decided.  A man definitely is not acting and could not act as a theologian, as a teacher of Catholic truth, by disputing against a decision made by the competent doctrinal authority of the Mystical Body of Christ on earth.

In line with the teaching of the Humani generis, then, it seems unquestionably clear that any doctrinal decision expressed by the Sovereign Pontiff in the course of an allocution delivered to a private group is to be accepted as authoritative when and if that allocution is published by the Sovereign Pontiff as a part of his own "Acta."  Now we must consider this final question: What obligation is incumbent upon a Catholic by reason of an authoritative doctrinal decision made by the Sovereign Pontiff and communicated to the universal Church in this manner? (The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions.)

 

The crashing sound you hear in the background is the whole facade of the false ecclesiology of the "resist but recognize" movement that has been propagated in the past forty years as the "answer" to "resisting" the decrees of the "Second" Vatican Council and the "encyclical" letters and statements and allocutions of the conciliar "popes" crumbling right to the ground.

The rejections, for example, of the clear and consistent Catholic condemnation of religious liberty and separation of Church and State while endorsing the sort of false ecumenism condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, and while propagating the "new ecclesiology" of the "new theology" that is a public and manifest rejection of the very nature of the Church as summarized by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943, are no mere acts of "modification" of past papal statements as they are applied in the world today. They are a wholesale rejection of Catholic truth, which is why they have been shrouded in a cloud of ambiguity and paradox as to deceive many of the elect.

Perhaps Professors de Mattei, Introvigne and Rhonmeier ought to familiarize themselves with the true scholarship of Alfred Cardinal Ottaviani and Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




© Copyright 2011, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.