They Have Uncrowned Him.
CHAPTER XXIX - A PACIFIST COUNCIL
The dialogue and the free searching advocated by the Council, of which I spoke to you before, are clearly marked symptoms of the Liberalism of Vatican II: they wanted to invent new methods for the apostolate among the non-Christians by dropping the principles of the missionary spirit. You can re-read
what I called the apostasy of principles, which characterizes the liberal spirit. The Liberalism which penetrated the Council went much further; it went as far as betrayal, by making peace with all the enemies of the Church. They wanted to make a pacifist Council.
Recollect how John XXIII, in his opening address at the Council, set forth the new attitude that the Church must have from then on with regard to the errors which threaten its doctrine: recalling that the Church had never failed to be opposed to the errors and that it had often condemned them with the utmost severity. The pope made the most of the fact, Wiltgen tells us, that it preferred now “to use the remedy of mercy rather than the weapons of rigor, and judged it opportune, in the present circumstances, to amply lay out the strength of its doctrine rather than have recourse to condemnations. “Now,these were not only deplorable words, showing moreover a very blurred thinking; they were a whole program that expressed the pacifism which was that of the Council.
It was said: we have to make peace with the Freemasons, peace with the Communists and peace with the Protestants. So we must finish with these perpetual wars, this permanent hostility! This is furthermore what Msgr.Montini, then the Substitute to the Secretariat of State, said to me when I asked him during one of my visits to Rome during the 1950s, for the condemnation of Moral Rearmament. He answered me, “Oh, we must not always condemn, always condemn! The Church is going to look like a cruel mother!” That is the expression that Msgr. Montini used, the Substitute of Pope Pius XII. I can still hear it! So, no more condemnations, no more anathemas! Let us at last get along together.
what I called the apostasy of principles, which characterizes the liberal spirit. The Liberalism which penetrated the Council went much further; it went as far as betrayal, by making peace with all the enemies of the Church. They wanted to make a pacifist Council.
Recollect how John XXIII, in his opening address at the Council, set forth the new attitude that the Church must have from then on with regard to the errors which threaten its doctrine: recalling that the Church had never failed to be opposed to the errors and that it had often condemned them with the utmost severity. The pope made the most of the fact, Wiltgen tells us, that it preferred now “to use the remedy of mercy rather than the weapons of rigor, and judged it opportune, in the present circumstances, to amply lay out the strength of its doctrine rather than have recourse to condemnations. “Now,these were not only deplorable words, showing moreover a very blurred thinking; they were a whole program that expressed the pacifism which was that of the Council.
It was said: we have to make peace with the Freemasons, peace with the Communists and peace with the Protestants. So we must finish with these perpetual wars, this permanent hostility! This is furthermore what Msgr.Montini, then the Substitute to the Secretariat of State, said to me when I asked him during one of my visits to Rome during the 1950s, for the condemnation of Moral Rearmament. He answered me, “Oh, we must not always condemn, always condemn! The Church is going to look like a cruel mother!” That is the expression that Msgr. Montini used, the Substitute of Pope Pius XII. I can still hear it! So, no more condemnations, no more anathemas! Let us at last get along together.
The Triple Pact
“Freemasons, what do you want? What do you ask of us?”
Such is the question that Cardinal Bea went to ask the B’nai B’rith (lodge) before the beginning of the
Council. The interview was announced by all the newspapers of New York, where it took place. The Freemasons answered that what they wanted was “religious liberty!”—that is to say, all the religions put on the same footing.
The Church must no longer be called the only true Religion, the sole path of salvation, the only one accepted by the State. Let us finish up with these inadmissible privileges and hence, declare religious liberty. Well, they got it: it was Dignitatis humanæ.
“Protestants, what do you want? What will satisfy you, so that we can pray together?”
The answer was this: “Change your worship, take out from it what we cannot admit!” Agreed! They were told that we would even have them come, when we work out the liturgical reform. They will formulate their wishes, and we will draw up our worship according to them! Well, that happened; it was the constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, the First document promulgated by Vatican II, which gave the principles and the detailed program of this liturgical alignment with the Protestants; and then the Novus Ordo Missæ promulgated by Paul VI in 1969.
“Communists, what do you desire? Tell us, in order that we may enjoy the happiness of having some representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church at
the Council as well as some emissaries of the KGB!”
This was the condition put down by the Patriarchate of Moscow: “Do not condemn Communism at the Council; do not speak of it!” (I would add: “Most especially, do not amuse yourselves by consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!”). Then, “Show openness and dialogue with us.”
The agreement3 was concluded, the betrayal completed: “Alright! We will not condemn Communism.” That was executed to the letter: I myself carried, along with Bishop de Proença Sigaud, a petition with 450 signatures of conciliar Fathers, to the Secretary of the Council, Bishop Felici, asking that the Council declare a condemnation of the most appalling technique of slavery in human history, which is Communism.
Then, since nothing was happening, I asked how it was going with our request. Someone looked, and banally answered me with an astounding off-handedness, “Oh, your request has been mislaid in a drawer…” Communism was not condemned; or, rather, the Council, which had given itself the responsibility of discerning the “signs of the times,” was condemned by Moscow to keeping silence on the most obvious and the most monstrous of the signs of this time!It is clear that there was, at the Second Vatican Council, an agreement with the enemies of the Church, so as to finish off with the existing enmity towards them. But this is an agreement with the Devil!
The Church Converted to the World
The pacifist spirit of the Council seems to me very well characterized by Pope Paul VI himself in his speech to the last public session of Vatican II,
December 7, 1965. The Church and modern man, the Church and the world — these are the themes approached by the Council with a new look that Paul VI here wonderfully defines:
The Church of the Council, it is true, has not contented itself with pondering over its own nature and over the relations that unite it to God; it has been very much occupied with man, with man such as in reality he presents himself in our time: the living man, the man entirely occupied with himself, the man who makes himself not only the center of all that concerns him, but who dares to assert himself as the principle and the ultimate reason for all reality…
There then follows a whole enumeration of the miseries of man without God and of his false grandeurs, which concludes thus:
…man the sinner and the holy man; and so on.
I truly wonder what the holy man is going to do at the end of this accumulation of uncleanliness! Especially as Paul VI sums up what he has just described, by mentioning secular and profane humanism:
Secular, profane humanism has finally appeared in its awful stature and has, in a certain sense, challenged the Council. The Religion of God, who became man, has met with the religion (for it is one of them) of Man, who makes himself god. What has happened? A shock, a Right, an anathema?
That could have happened: but it did not take place. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of spirituality for the Council. A sympathy without limits has completely overrun it. The discovery of human needs (and they are so much greater as the son of the earth becomes more grown-up) absorbed the attention of our synod. Grant at least this merit to it, you, the modern humanists; and know how to recognize our new humanism: we also, we more than anyone, have the cult of man.
There you have it then, explained, in an ingenuous and lyrical manner, but clearly and terribly, what was not the spirit, but the spirituality of the Council:
a “sympathy without limits” towards the secular man, for the man without God! Still, if it had been for the purpose of lifting up this fallen man, of revealing his mortal wounds to him, of dressing them for him with an effective remedy, of healing him and bringing him into the bosom of the Church, of submitting him to his God…but no! It was to be able to say to the world,
“You see, the Church also has the cult of man.” I do not hesitate to affirm that the Council brought to reality the conversion of the Church to the world. I leave it to you to reflect who the moving spirit of
this spirituality was: it is enough for you to remember the one whom Our Lord Jesus Christ calls the Prince of this World.
“Freemasons, what do you want? What do you ask of us?”
Such is the question that Cardinal Bea went to ask the B’nai B’rith (lodge) before the beginning of the
Council. The interview was announced by all the newspapers of New York, where it took place. The Freemasons answered that what they wanted was “religious liberty!”—that is to say, all the religions put on the same footing.
The Church must no longer be called the only true Religion, the sole path of salvation, the only one accepted by the State. Let us finish up with these inadmissible privileges and hence, declare religious liberty. Well, they got it: it was Dignitatis humanæ.
“Protestants, what do you want? What will satisfy you, so that we can pray together?”
The answer was this: “Change your worship, take out from it what we cannot admit!” Agreed! They were told that we would even have them come, when we work out the liturgical reform. They will formulate their wishes, and we will draw up our worship according to them! Well, that happened; it was the constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, the First document promulgated by Vatican II, which gave the principles and the detailed program of this liturgical alignment with the Protestants; and then the Novus Ordo Missæ promulgated by Paul VI in 1969.
“Communists, what do you desire? Tell us, in order that we may enjoy the happiness of having some representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church at
the Council as well as some emissaries of the KGB!”
This was the condition put down by the Patriarchate of Moscow: “Do not condemn Communism at the Council; do not speak of it!” (I would add: “Most especially, do not amuse yourselves by consecrating Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!”). Then, “Show openness and dialogue with us.”
The agreement3 was concluded, the betrayal completed: “Alright! We will not condemn Communism.” That was executed to the letter: I myself carried, along with Bishop de Proença Sigaud, a petition with 450 signatures of conciliar Fathers, to the Secretary of the Council, Bishop Felici, asking that the Council declare a condemnation of the most appalling technique of slavery in human history, which is Communism.
Then, since nothing was happening, I asked how it was going with our request. Someone looked, and banally answered me with an astounding off-handedness, “Oh, your request has been mislaid in a drawer…” Communism was not condemned; or, rather, the Council, which had given itself the responsibility of discerning the “signs of the times,” was condemned by Moscow to keeping silence on the most obvious and the most monstrous of the signs of this time!It is clear that there was, at the Second Vatican Council, an agreement with the enemies of the Church, so as to finish off with the existing enmity towards them. But this is an agreement with the Devil!
The Church Converted to the World
The pacifist spirit of the Council seems to me very well characterized by Pope Paul VI himself in his speech to the last public session of Vatican II,
December 7, 1965. The Church and modern man, the Church and the world — these are the themes approached by the Council with a new look that Paul VI here wonderfully defines:
The Church of the Council, it is true, has not contented itself with pondering over its own nature and over the relations that unite it to God; it has been very much occupied with man, with man such as in reality he presents himself in our time: the living man, the man entirely occupied with himself, the man who makes himself not only the center of all that concerns him, but who dares to assert himself as the principle and the ultimate reason for all reality…
There then follows a whole enumeration of the miseries of man without God and of his false grandeurs, which concludes thus:
…man the sinner and the holy man; and so on.
I truly wonder what the holy man is going to do at the end of this accumulation of uncleanliness! Especially as Paul VI sums up what he has just described, by mentioning secular and profane humanism:
Secular, profane humanism has finally appeared in its awful stature and has, in a certain sense, challenged the Council. The Religion of God, who became man, has met with the religion (for it is one of them) of Man, who makes himself god. What has happened? A shock, a Right, an anathema?
That could have happened: but it did not take place. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of spirituality for the Council. A sympathy without limits has completely overrun it. The discovery of human needs (and they are so much greater as the son of the earth becomes more grown-up) absorbed the attention of our synod. Grant at least this merit to it, you, the modern humanists; and know how to recognize our new humanism: we also, we more than anyone, have the cult of man.
There you have it then, explained, in an ingenuous and lyrical manner, but clearly and terribly, what was not the spirit, but the spirituality of the Council:
a “sympathy without limits” towards the secular man, for the man without God! Still, if it had been for the purpose of lifting up this fallen man, of revealing his mortal wounds to him, of dressing them for him with an effective remedy, of healing him and bringing him into the bosom of the Church, of submitting him to his God…but no! It was to be able to say to the world,
“You see, the Church also has the cult of man.” I do not hesitate to affirm that the Council brought to reality the conversion of the Church to the world. I leave it to you to reflect who the moving spirit of
this spirituality was: it is enough for you to remember the one whom Our Lord Jesus Christ calls the Prince of this World.
CHAPTER XXX
VATICAN II, TRIUMPH OF CATHOLIC LIBERALISM
I do not think that anyone can accuse me of exaggeration when I say that the Council was the triumph of liberal ideas. re preceding topics have
sufficiently displayed the facts: the liberal tendencies, the tactics and the successes of the liberals at the Council, and finally their pacts with the enemies of the Church.
Besides, the Liberals themselves, the liberal Catholics, proclaim that Vatican II was their victory. In his conversation with Vittorio Messori, Cardinal
Ratzinger, former periti of a liberal mind at the Council, explains how Vatican II posed and resolved the problem of the assimilation of liberal principles by
the Catholic Church; he does not say that that led to an admirable success, but he affirms that this assimilation was accomplished:
The problem of the 1960s was to acquire the best expressed values of two centuries of liberal culture. These are in fact values which, even if they were born outside the Church, can find their place—purified and corrected—in its vision of the world. This is what has been done.
Where was this done? At the Council, to be sure, which ratified the liberal principles in Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanæ. How was this done? By an attempt dedicated to failure, a squaring of the circle: to marry the Church to the principles of the Revolution. This was precisely the aim and the illusion of the liberal Catholics. Cardinal Ratzinger does not boast too much of this undertaking; he even judges the result with some severity:
Now the climate is different; it has indeed grown worse in comparison with the one which justified an optimism that was no doubt ingenuous. A new balance now must be sought.
The desired balance has not yet been found, twenty years later! It is still being sought: this is indeed forever the liberal illusion! Other liberal Catholics, in contrast, are not so pessimistic; they openly
celebrate victory: the Council is our victory. Read for example the work of Mr. Marcel Prélot, senator from Doubs, on the history of liberal Catholicism.The
author begins by contrasting two quotations, one from Paul VI, the other from Lamennais, the comparison of the two being significant. Here is what Paul VIsays in his conciliar message to the governors (I believe that I have already quoted this text to you), on December 8, 1965:
What does it ask of you, this Church, after almost two thousand years of vicissitudes of all sorts in its relations with you, the powers of the earth; what does it ask of you today? It has told you in one of the major texts of this Council: it asks of you only liberty.
Here is what Lamennais wrote, for a prospectus intended to make his newspaper L’Avenir known:
All the friends of religion should understand that it needs only one single thing: liberty.
Thus, you see: with Lamennais, as with Vatican II, it is the same liberal principle of “liberty alone”: no privilege for the truth, for Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the Catholic Church. No! The same liberty for all: for error as for the truth, for Mohammed as for Jesus Christ. Is this not the profession of the purest Liberalism (called Catholic)? Marcel Prélot next recalls the history of this Liberalism right up to its triumph at Vatican II:
Catholic Liberalism…knows victory; it pierces with the circular letter of Eckstein in 1814; it Sashes with the soaring of L’Avenir in the autumn of 1830; it knows victories, alternating with crises; until the message of Vatican II to the governors marks its end: its fundamental claims, put to the test and purified, were accepted by the Council itself. Therefore, it is possible today to contemplate liberal Catholicism, as it is in itself at last, changed over the ages. It avoids the confusions which have obstructed its course, which, at certain times, have nearly ended it. It seems thus, that it was really not a series of pious illusions, professed by diaphanous and ghostly shadows, but like a powerful thought, having, in the course of a century and a half, taken its hold on the minds and on the laws, before receiving the final welcome of that Church which it had so well served, but by which it had been so often unappreciated.
This confirms exactly what we are saying: Vatican II is the Council of the triumph of Liberalism.
The same confirmation is to be had by reading the book of Mr. Yves Marsaudon, Ecumenism Viewed by a Traditional Freemason, written during the Council. Marsaudon knows what he is saying:
The Christians must not forget, before all else, that every path leads to God…and must continue in this courageous idea of freedom of thought, which—one can now speak of revolution, setting out
from our Masonic lodges—has expanded itself gloriously above the dome of Saint Peter’s.
He triumphs. As for us, we weep! He adds these lines, terrible but still true:
When Pius XII decided to direct the very important ministry of Foreign Affairs himself, the Secretary of State, Msgr. Montini was elevated to the extremely burdensome post of archbishop of the largest diocese in Italy, Milan; but he did not receive the purple. It became not impossible canonically, but difficult from tradition, that at the death of Pius XII he should accede to the supreme Pontificate. It is for this reason that a man came, who, like the Precursor, was called John; and everything began to change.
This man, a Freemason and therefore Liberal, spoke the truth: all their ideas, for which they had struggled a century and a half, were confirmed by the
Council. These liberties—liberty of thought, of conscience, and of worship— were written down at this Council, with the religious liberty of Dignitatis
humane and the objection of conscience of Gaudium et Spes. This has happened not by chance but thanks to men, infected themselves with Liberalism, who have ascended to the See of Peter and have made use of their power to impose these errors onto the Church. Yes, truly, the Council of Vatican II is the ratification of liberal Catholicism. However, it is remembered that Pope Pius
IX, eighty-five years earlier, said and repeated to those who were visiting him in Rome, “Be careful! There are no worse enemies of the Church than the liberal Catholics!”—then can be measured the catastrophe that such liberal popes and such a Council represent for the Church and for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ!
VATICAN II, TRIUMPH OF CATHOLIC LIBERALISM
I do not think that anyone can accuse me of exaggeration when I say that the Council was the triumph of liberal ideas. re preceding topics have
sufficiently displayed the facts: the liberal tendencies, the tactics and the successes of the liberals at the Council, and finally their pacts with the enemies of the Church.
Besides, the Liberals themselves, the liberal Catholics, proclaim that Vatican II was their victory. In his conversation with Vittorio Messori, Cardinal
Ratzinger, former periti of a liberal mind at the Council, explains how Vatican II posed and resolved the problem of the assimilation of liberal principles by
the Catholic Church; he does not say that that led to an admirable success, but he affirms that this assimilation was accomplished:
The problem of the 1960s was to acquire the best expressed values of two centuries of liberal culture. These are in fact values which, even if they were born outside the Church, can find their place—purified and corrected—in its vision of the world. This is what has been done.
Where was this done? At the Council, to be sure, which ratified the liberal principles in Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanæ. How was this done? By an attempt dedicated to failure, a squaring of the circle: to marry the Church to the principles of the Revolution. This was precisely the aim and the illusion of the liberal Catholics. Cardinal Ratzinger does not boast too much of this undertaking; he even judges the result with some severity:
Now the climate is different; it has indeed grown worse in comparison with the one which justified an optimism that was no doubt ingenuous. A new balance now must be sought.
The desired balance has not yet been found, twenty years later! It is still being sought: this is indeed forever the liberal illusion! Other liberal Catholics, in contrast, are not so pessimistic; they openly
celebrate victory: the Council is our victory. Read for example the work of Mr. Marcel Prélot, senator from Doubs, on the history of liberal Catholicism.The
author begins by contrasting two quotations, one from Paul VI, the other from Lamennais, the comparison of the two being significant. Here is what Paul VIsays in his conciliar message to the governors (I believe that I have already quoted this text to you), on December 8, 1965:
What does it ask of you, this Church, after almost two thousand years of vicissitudes of all sorts in its relations with you, the powers of the earth; what does it ask of you today? It has told you in one of the major texts of this Council: it asks of you only liberty.
Here is what Lamennais wrote, for a prospectus intended to make his newspaper L’Avenir known:
All the friends of religion should understand that it needs only one single thing: liberty.
Thus, you see: with Lamennais, as with Vatican II, it is the same liberal principle of “liberty alone”: no privilege for the truth, for Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the Catholic Church. No! The same liberty for all: for error as for the truth, for Mohammed as for Jesus Christ. Is this not the profession of the purest Liberalism (called Catholic)? Marcel Prélot next recalls the history of this Liberalism right up to its triumph at Vatican II:
Catholic Liberalism…knows victory; it pierces with the circular letter of Eckstein in 1814; it Sashes with the soaring of L’Avenir in the autumn of 1830; it knows victories, alternating with crises; until the message of Vatican II to the governors marks its end: its fundamental claims, put to the test and purified, were accepted by the Council itself. Therefore, it is possible today to contemplate liberal Catholicism, as it is in itself at last, changed over the ages. It avoids the confusions which have obstructed its course, which, at certain times, have nearly ended it. It seems thus, that it was really not a series of pious illusions, professed by diaphanous and ghostly shadows, but like a powerful thought, having, in the course of a century and a half, taken its hold on the minds and on the laws, before receiving the final welcome of that Church which it had so well served, but by which it had been so often unappreciated.
This confirms exactly what we are saying: Vatican II is the Council of the triumph of Liberalism.
The same confirmation is to be had by reading the book of Mr. Yves Marsaudon, Ecumenism Viewed by a Traditional Freemason, written during the Council. Marsaudon knows what he is saying:
The Christians must not forget, before all else, that every path leads to God…and must continue in this courageous idea of freedom of thought, which—one can now speak of revolution, setting out
from our Masonic lodges—has expanded itself gloriously above the dome of Saint Peter’s.
He triumphs. As for us, we weep! He adds these lines, terrible but still true:
When Pius XII decided to direct the very important ministry of Foreign Affairs himself, the Secretary of State, Msgr. Montini was elevated to the extremely burdensome post of archbishop of the largest diocese in Italy, Milan; but he did not receive the purple. It became not impossible canonically, but difficult from tradition, that at the death of Pius XII he should accede to the supreme Pontificate. It is for this reason that a man came, who, like the Precursor, was called John; and everything began to change.
This man, a Freemason and therefore Liberal, spoke the truth: all their ideas, for which they had struggled a century and a half, were confirmed by the
Council. These liberties—liberty of thought, of conscience, and of worship— were written down at this Council, with the religious liberty of Dignitatis
humane and the objection of conscience of Gaudium et Spes. This has happened not by chance but thanks to men, infected themselves with Liberalism, who have ascended to the See of Peter and have made use of their power to impose these errors onto the Church. Yes, truly, the Council of Vatican II is the ratification of liberal Catholicism. However, it is remembered that Pope Pius
IX, eighty-five years earlier, said and repeated to those who were visiting him in Rome, “Be careful! There are no worse enemies of the Church than the liberal Catholics!”—then can be measured the catastrophe that such liberal popes and such a Council represent for the Church and for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ!
they_have_uncrowned_him._chpter_xxix___xxx.pdf |