Without A Catholic Leg To Stand On

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The conciliar revolutionaries cannot justify any of their apostasies, novelties, blasphemies, sacrileges, innovations, heresies or errors by making reference to the decrees of Holy Mother Church's twenty legitimate councils. They cannot do so by citing encyclical letters issued by our true popes.

Lacking any legitimately Catholic foundation upon which they can stand as they promote anathematized propositions and engage in excommunicable acts of sacrilege with members of one false religion after another, the conciliar revolutionaries must seek to turn Sacred Scripture upside down, twisting and perverting and distorting the words that were inspired by the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, as they "reinterpret" various passages so that they can serve as instruments in their propaganda campaigns to advance and institutionalize their false doctrines and false pastoral practices. The conciliar revolutionaries, who are led, of course, by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, at this time, believe that it is essential for them to "liberate" Sacred Scripture from the "prison" of Scholasticism in which It has been held for centuries so that "new air" can be breathed into Its passages. They have used this same methodology to falsify the teachings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, something that Ratzinger/Benedict has been doing in many of his "general audience" lectures in the past seventy-four and one-half months.

Although readers of this site should know by now that the methodology described just above is of the essence of Modernism and of its latter day incarnation in the "new theology" that is near and dear to the heart of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, it is useful, I believe, to point out how Pope Saint Pius X and Pope Pius XII warned us very specifically about this methodology. It does not take advanced degrees to "connect the dots" on this one:

 

2. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on these they wage unrelenting war. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX: "The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science."They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''

The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To the entire band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our predecessor sorrowfully wrote: "To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light, science, and progress.''This being so, Venerable Brethren, there is little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. This policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause. For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium. When one of their number falls under the condemnations of the Church the rest of them, to the disgust of good Catholics, gather round him, loudly and publicly applaud him, and hold him up in veneration as almost a martyr for truth. The young, excited and confused by all this clamor of praise and abuse, some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant, others ambitious to rank among the learned, and both classes goaded internally by curiosity and pride, not infrequently surrender and give themselves up to Modernism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

23. Further, according to their fictitious opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation, carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes, should yield now to a new exegesis, which they are pleased to call symbolic or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis the Old Testament, which today in the Church is a sealed book, would finally be thrown open to all the faithful. By this method, they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures.

24. Everyone sees how foreign all this is to the principles and norms of interpretation rightly fixed by our predecessors of happy memory, Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Providentissimus," and Benedict XV in the Encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus," as also by Ourselves in the Encyclical "Divino Affflante Spiritu."

25. It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology. It is now doubted that human reason, without divine revelation and the help of divine grace, can, by arguments drawn from the created universe, prove the existence of a personal God; it is denied that the world had a beginning; it is argued that the creation of the world is necessary, since it proceeds from the necessary liberality of divine love; it is denied that God has eternal and infallible foreknowedge of the free actions of men -- all this in contradiction to the decrees of the Vatican Council[5]

26. Some also question whether angels are personal beings, and whether matter and spirit differ essentially. Others destroy the gratuity of the supernatural order, since God, they say, cannot create intellectual beings without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision. Nor is this all. Disregarding the Council of Trent, some pervert the very concept of original sin, along with the concept of sin in general as an offense against God, as well as the idea of satisfaction performed for us by Christ. Some even say that the doctrine of transubstantiation, based on an antiquated philosophic notion of substance, should be so modified that the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist be reduced to a kind of symbolism, whereby the consecrated species would be merely efficacious signs of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union with the faithful members of His Mystical Body.

27. Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter of a few years ago, and based on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.[6] Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian faith.

28. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among certain of Our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science. To them We are compelled with grief to repeat once again truths already well known, and to point out with solicitude clear errors and dangers of error.

29. It is well known how highly the Church regards human reason, for it falls to reason to demonstrate with certainty the existence of God, personal and one; to prove beyond doubt from divine signs the very foundations of the Christian faith; to express properly the law which the Creator has imprinted in the hearts of men; and finally to attain to some notion, indeed a very fruitful notion, of mysteries[7] But reason can perform these functions safely and well, only when properly trained, that is, when imbued with that sound philosophy which has long been, as it were, a patrimony handed down by earlier Christian ages, and which moreover possesses an authority of even higher order, since the Teaching Authority of the Church, in the light of divine revelation itself, has weighed its fundamental tenets, which have been elaborated and defined little by little by men of great genius. For this philosophy, acknowledged and accepted by the Church, safeguards the genuine validity of human knowledge, the unshakable metaphysical principles of sufficient reason, causality, and finality, and finally the mind's ability to attain certain and unchangeable truth.  (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

It is only by the use of the presuppositions of Modernism and the specific methodology of the "new theology" that the conciliar revolutionaries can continue to seek to justify the forthcoming sacrilege represented by the "Assisi III" event that will take place in a little over three months from now. Men such as Tarcisio "Cardinal" Bertone, the Secretary of State for the Holy See in conciliar captivity, and Jean-Louis "Cardinal" Tauran, the president of the "Pontifical" Council for Interreligious Dialogue, continue to find some legs upon which to stand as they repeat one lame justification for the "Assisi III" event after another. They can find only conciliar legs upon which to stand as the "novelty" of interreligious prayer services is an abomination in the sight of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity.

Here is but a brief excerpt from a recent news report that was sent to me by my good friend, Mr. Mark Stabinski, whose efforts to mine these stories from the muck and mire of conciliardom for his own e-mail list are greatly appreciated:

"As Christians, we profess to have received in Christ the full and definitive revelation of God's face," he said. "We know that the gift of salvation is for all men and we want the Father's plan of love to be manifested and realized in its totality." However, at the same time, "we know that we will never be able to exhaust the profundity of Christ's mystery. Not only that, we acknowledge that our fragility can at times obfuscate the splendor of the treasure that has been revealed to us and make knowledge of it more difficult."

"Having received truth as a gift does not impede us, therefore, from knowing ourselves to be fellow travelers with every man and every woman," stressed the cardinal.

Nostra Aetate

In some way, this meeting is an attempt to translate to action Article 2 of the declaration "Nostra Aetate," in a more explicit and direct way than in previous meetings, Cardinal Bertone continued. "The Catholic Church does not reject anything in these religions that is holy and true. She considers with sincere respect the ways of acting and living, the precepts and doctrines that, no matter how much they differ in much that she professes and teaches, not infrequently reflect a spark of that Truth that illumines all men."

Cardinal Tauran, for his part, pointed to three elements in the October meeting: "We are all creatures of God and, hence, brothers and sisters," he recalled. Hence, "God acts in every human person, who through the use of reason can have a premonition of the existence of the mystery of God and recognize universal values."

Thirdly, the meeting points to "the patrimony of common ethical values that enables believers, as such, to contribute in particular to the affirmation of justice, of peace and of harmony,."

Dialogue, stressed Cardinal Tauran, is not a "conversation between believers" or "a diplomatic negotiation." It does not enter the terrain of marketing "or even less so of commitments;" it is not motivated by political or social interests, "it does not seek to stress or erase differences," "it does not want to create a universal religion, accepted by all."

True dialogue "is a space for reciprocal testimony between believers of different religions, to know better the other's religion and the ethical conduct that stems from it," which makes it possible "to correct erroneous images and to surmount stereotypes": "to know the other as he is, as he has a right to be known," the cardinal explained. (False Cardinals Explain Assisi Travesty.)

 

This apostasy can be dealt with rather quickly.

First, the Catholic Church, being the sole repository of Divine Revelation contained in Sacred Scripture and Sacred (or Apostolic) Tradition, has a perfect understanding of the teaching that has been entrusted to her. This teaching, protected in Its precise dogmatic formulation by the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost, is easily knowable and understood, admitting that there are great mysteries in our Holy Faith that will defy human comprehension that we accept according to the simple words of the Act of Faith that we should pray every morning:

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 canst neither deceive nor be deceived.

 

We do not need "dialogue" with others to help us understand to the truths of the Holy Faith.

Second, the Catholic Church rejects any and all signs of "respect" for false religions and their false beliefs, recognizing that each of these religions is from the devil himself. Catholics do not have to "travel" to discover the truth, and non-Catholics need to convert unconditionally to the true Church before they die upon the peril of the loss of their immortal souls for all eternity.

The Catholic Church does not create events whereby the worship of false gods can be made to appear more "sober" and "frugal" as she knows that the worship of false gods is condemned by the very words of the First Commandment:

I am the LORD thy God: thou shalt not have strange Gods before me.

For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 95: 5)

 

All you need to have is a simple review of Catholic teaching before saying a few prayers for the conversion of these infidels to the Catholic Faith from Which they have defected to understand that the protestations of the conciliar revolutions about not engaging in syncretism and/or not forming a "universal religion" are but hollow as they are doing precisely what they claim not be doing by holding such events as Assisi III.

From this passage the learned translators of the Rheims New Testament, in their note, justly observe, "That, in matters of religion, in praying, hearing their sermons, presence at their service, partaking of their sacraments, and all other communicating with them in spiritual things, it is a great and damnable sin to deal with them." And if this be the case with all in general, how much more with those who are well instructed and better versed in their religion than others? For their doing any of these things must be a much greater crime than in ignorant people, because they know their duty better. (Bishop George Hay, The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

The spirit of Christ, which dictated the Holy Scriptures, and the spirit which animates and guides the Church of Christ, and teaches her all truth, is the same; and therefore in all ages her conduct on this point has been uniformly the same as what the Holy Scripture teaches. She has constantly forbidden her children to hold any communication, in religious matters, with those who are separated from her communion; and this she has sometimes done under the most severe penalties. In the apostolical canons, which are of very ancient standing, and for the most part handed down from the apostolical age, it is thus decreed: "If any bishop, or priest, or deacon, shall join in prayers with heretics, let him be suspended from Communion". (Can. 44)

Also, "If any clergyman or laic shall go into the synagogue of the Jews, or the meetings of heretics, to join in prayer with them, let him be deposed, and deprived of communion". (Can. 63) (Bishop George Hay, (The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion.)

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which they found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. But Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged, but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbor flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting.

Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness. . . .

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. The new Sillonists cannot pretend that they are merely working on “the ground of practical realities” where differences of belief do not matter. Their leader is so conscious of the influence which the convictions of the mind have upon the result of the action, that he invites them, whatever religion they may belong to, “to provide on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions.” And with good reason: indeed, all practical results reflect the nature of one’s religious convictions, just as the limbs of a man down to his finger-tips, owe their very shape to the principle of life that dwells in his body.  (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here there is question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world in order that they might permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and, lest they should err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by the Holy Ghost: has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose ruler and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel was to continue not only during the times of the Apostles, but also till future ages, is it possible that the object of faith should in the process of time become so obscure and uncertain, that it would be necessary to-day to tolerate opinions which are even incompatible one with another? If this were true, we should have to confess that the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of Jesus Christ, have several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and use, to affirm which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of God, when He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged all men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by "witnesses preordained by God," and also confirmed His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned." These two commands of Christ, which must be fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe, cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches from all danger of erring. In this matter, those also turn aside from the right path, who think that the deposit of truth such laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and discussion, that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take possession of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken through the prophets and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a few, and those stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed through them, and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and morals, by which man should be guided through the whole course of his moral life. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

 

Peace? There can be no peace without Christ the King, Who has entrusted the cause of world peace to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. She has told us so in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, ninety-four years ago.

Peace? Here's what the Catholic Church teaches about peace:

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

What's the source for treating false religions and their symbols and their places of false worship with esteem and respect? The "Second" Vatican Council's Nostra Aetate, October 28, 1965. Nothing else. A work of apostasy and other past "Assisi" events are the "legs" upon which "Assisi III" stands. Those legs do not belong to the Catholic Church. They belong to the devil.

Nothing more needs to be said.

May the time we spend in prayer before the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Rosaries of reparation we pray and the sacrifices we make help us to see the truth that the Catholic Church cannot give us liturgies that offend God and she cannot be the author of events that offend His greater honor and glory and majesty.

It is that simple.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

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.

Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints