conciliarism

Masterly Confusion

Masterly Confusion on November 15, 2008

Ever since Vatican II (1962–1965), a number of intelligent and serious Catholic souls have striven to prove that the changes made to the Latin Church’s sacramental rites by Pope Paul VI in particular render these rites automatically invalid. One might reply, if only it were that simple! But simplicity is no substitute for truth.

Here is how one such soul seeks to prove that the new rite of priestly Ordination is automatically invalid, and his argument is not without value:

Major: Wherever the words of a sacramental Form, essential to the validity of the sacrament, are significantly changed, or wherever the same words are being given in context a significantly different meaning, the Form, and with it the sacrament, can only be invalid.

Minor: Now the words themselves of the new Form of priestly Ordination have not been significantly changed, but in the context of the new rite taken as a whole, the same word of “priest” is being given a significantly different meaning, in accordance with the Council’s total revolutionizing of the Catholic priesthood.

Conclusion: Therefore never can a priest be validly ordained with the new rite.

In this argument, there is no problem with the Major, which is Catholic doctrine. As for the Minor, it is true that the words of the Form have remained essentially intact. It is also true that the whole drift of Vatican II and the post-Conciliar reforms is towards an emptying out of the Catholic priesthood, as of the whole Catholic religion, to replace it with a religion of man. But the argument above, to arrive at its conclusion, would have to prove that Conciliar documents and reforms in themselves positively exclude the Catholic priesthood and religion, because so long as the new rite can be taken not to exclude the true priesthood, it can still be used validly to ordain a true priest.

Alas (for purposes of clarity), the will of Paul VI as seen in all his reforms (and now of Benedict XVI) is so to introduce the new religion of man alongside the Catholic religion of God as to include and not exclude the latter! Now any sane mind cannot stand the idea of 2 and 2 being 5 in such a way as not to exclude their being 4. But Conciliar minds are not sane. They want to apostatize while still remaining Catholic! Thus the new rite of Ordination may omit many features of the Catholic ordination, but it introduces nothing that positively excludes a true ordination. If only it did! Then it could no longer deceive so many souls into thinking that it presents no problem for Catholics. Here is the problem: the drift of the text is to invalidate the true priesthood (2+2=5), but the text may still be used validly (2+2=4)! Sister Lucy of Fatima called it “Diabolical disorientation.”

Kyrie eleison.

Fatal Turn – II

Fatal Turn – II on August 30, 2008

To say that the “turn to man” is the key-note of Vatican II is not an insult to Vatican II. Was not “die anthropologische Wende” (“the turn to man” in German) at the heart of Fr. Karl Rahner’s thinking, and was not Rahner one of the very most influential minds at work in the Council? The question is not whether or not Vatican II turned to man. The question is whether that turn was a good or bad thing.

The Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae(Of Human Dignity), argues that every civil government must grant to all its citizens the civil right to practise in public whatever religion those citizens choose to practise, because even if they misuse that right by choosing to practise a false religion, still their intrinsic dignity or worth as human beings demands that they be granted that liberty to choose. No liberty, no dignity.

Here is the key quotation: “The right to (civil) religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person” (broadly equivalent to what we call “second nature”) “but in his very nature” (what we might call, as against second nature, man’s “first nature”). “In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it . . .” In other words, where the Catholic Church always used to teach that the prime worth of a human being so consists in his getting closer to the true God that a State may – wherever it will not be counter-productive for the salvation of souls – forbid the public practice of false religions, i.e. all non-Catholic religions, the Conciliar Church henceforth teaches that the prime worth of a human being so consists in his making his own choice of religion, true or false, that no State should place any civil hindrance in the way of any citizen practising in public the religion of his own choice.

The difference may seem slight at first sight, but the implications are enormous: man in the place of God. For Catholicism, a man’s prime worth or dignity consists in the right use of the free will intrinsic to his (first) human nature. Free will is not an end in itself but merely a means of so choosing good as to get to Heaven. God’s good is the end, man’s freedom is merely the means. Man’s first nature is for his second nature. First nature is not enough for eternal salvation.

On the contrary, for Conciliarism a man’s prime worth so consists in his first nature that the mere exercise of his free will, regardless of the good or evil he chooses, is more important for the human person and therefore for the State than the right use of his free will. In other words man’s free will comes before God’s right or wrong, before God’s Heaven or Hell. The mere exercise of freedom is becoming an end in itself. “First nature” now has priority over second nature. If “God” condemns men to “Hell” for “misuse” of their free will, that is God’s problem (or a problem of the old religion), not a problem for man!

Could any doctrine put men more surely on the road to Hell than such a “turn to man”?

Kyrie eleison.

Carrot Again

Carrot Again on July 5, 2008

So it looks as though I guessed right last week. On the one hand the Society of St. Pius X did not comply with the June 5 “ultimatum” of Cardinal Castrillón as the Cardinal might have wished. It replied instead with a letter of Archbishop Lefebvre to Pope Paul VI in which in 1975 the Archbishop explained why he was defending Tradition, yet with no disrespect intended towards the Church authorities in Rome. Once again, the Society may have raised a few anxieties, but it has not “given away the store”

On the other hand, the Cardinal did not proceed to any further official exorcism of the Society, but – reportedly – declared that he had never intended his text of June 5 to be an “ultimatum.” And so the situation returns to where it was before. I think we may expect the past pattern to go on repeating itself. The loving son will continue to try to get close to his leprous mother, the leprous mother will continue to try to hug him, the loving son will continue to jump back, then try to get close again, and so on.

What confusion! A distinguished Italian journalist cannot understand the Society’s rejecting Rome’s “generous advances.” Reportedly Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Castrillón have both been sincerely hurt by recent statements coming from the Society about Rome or about Romans suffering from leprosy. “What? Lepers? Us???” “Ay, there’s the rub,” as Hamlet said. Leprosy is an Old Testament figure of heresy, and Vatican II is not only heresy, it is a total new religion.

A Catholic is a Catholic primarily by his faith. He chooses with his mind to adhere to a series of true propositions which are supernatural, i.e. beyond the reach of his merely natural mind. His will is therefore needed to push his mind to submit to these truths above it. But these truths are not merely wishful thinking. They are revealed by God, transmitted by the Church, and may not be tampered with. Did or did not Vatican II tamper with them? Hamlet again: “That is the question.”

The leader of the Traditional Redemptorists based in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, who has just led as many of them as will follow him back into the embrace of Conciliar Rome, writes ecstatically of how “sweet” it “tastes” to be once more in “peaceful and undisputed communion” with the Vicar of Christ. Good luck, dear Father, with avoiding the leprosy! But at least you must be giving some consolation to Cardinal Castrillón! What confusion!

Kyrie eleison.

Anti-Culture Antidote

Anti-Culture Antidote on May 31, 2008

In the recent April 15 issue of “ The Remnant,” there appeared an article “Windy Blather and Lies” by a young man that I don’t think I have ever met, but saying what I have been saying for many years: movies are far and away the most formative influence on young people’s hearts and minds today, and they constitute a tremendous obstacle to the youngsters’ either growing up or acquiring any sense of reality, let alone getting to Heaven.

The author of the article, E.Z., teaches at a Traditional Catholic school for boys which is outstanding in the USA today, yet he says that when the boys come back from a vacation, the one question they are all asking one another is what movies they have seen! I am not surprised, nor do I blame the school. What else does the anti-culture of today’s dissociety have to offer to the youngsters for the feeding of their minds? Worse, what real grip can the Catholic religion have on minds and hearts marinated in such silliness and unreality? As Marcel de Corte puts it, how can someone who has no idea of real being have any real idea of the Supreme Being?

Not that reality will let itself be overwhelmed. Through finance, economics, soon politics and war, it is coming back at a rate of knots. The danger is rather of our children being so progressively caught up in the wilfully immature fantasy that it will be too late for them to re-adjust to reality. “Movies are all they know,” says E.Z., “they aren’t learning anything about life except from movies. How can they reconcile a phony Hollywoodian perception of reality with their Catholic Faith?” No wonder Conciliarism took over from Catholicism!

The whole of E.Z.’s article, especially for adults who may never have thought about the matter, needs to be read and pondered on (four copies available for 4 from Remnant Reprints at PO Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025, USA), because not only was E.Z. himself in his youth, as he tells, totally trapped in movie-mania, but also he found a wholly practical way out – recordings of lectures on the classics, especially Shakespeare, by Dr. David White.

Says E.Z., “You’ll learn more about the world and more about yourself and more about your Catholic Faith by listening to those hundred lectures than in any school anywhere.” Strong words, but they make sense. Dr. White knows both where youngsters (and adults) are at today. and he knows his Faith, so that his tapes can provide an incomparable bridge between the two. Get the article, get the tapes (I get no commission).

Kyrie eleison.

Deadly Mush

Deadly Mush on April 19, 2008

I have never believed any of the Conciliar Popes not to be truly popes. Modern thinking turns minds into mush, and I have always held the Conciliar Popes to be too modern to be capable of the clear firm thinking in matters of Faith necessary to make them such clear firm heretics as could no longer hold their high office in the Church.

By no means everybody agrees with me when I say this, but I do believe Archbishop Lefebvre was making the same point in a different way when he said that these popes were liberals, but being liberals did not necessarily put them out of the Church. Here for example is what he said in an interview he gave in 1987:

“I think we must judge of today’s churchmen in Rome, and of all churchmen and bishops coming under their influence, in the same way that Popes Pius IX and Pius X judged of liberals and modernists. Pius IX condemned liberal Catholics, going so far as to say that they were “the Church’s worst enemies.” What worse could he say of them? Yet he did not say that all liberal Catholics were excommunicated, or were out of the Church or had to be refused Communion . . . Pius X in ‘Pascendi’ was just as severe on modernism, saying it was “where all heresies come together.” Could any movement be more severely condemned? Yet he never said that henceforth all modernists were excommunicated, out of the Church and to be refused Communion. In fact he only excommunicated a few of them. So, following Pius IX and Pius X, I think we should judge of these churchmen in Rome severely, but without concluding that they are necessarily out of the Church.”

Two objections immediately come to mind. Firstly, how can a liberal Catholic be worse than the formal heretic who flatly refuses the Faith which is the foundation of Catholic living and of eternal salvation? Answer, the enemy without can never do so much damage as the enemy within. Whereas the heretic puts himself out of the Church, the liberal Catholic stays within, from where the higher his office, the more he can harm the Church. Is not the very havoc wrought upon the Church by recent popes better accounted for by their being the enemy within rather than, as “sedevacantists” would have it, the enemy without?

But then – second objection – if the Church cannot excommunicate such damaging enemies within, what means does she still have to her to defend herself? Answer, that is perhaps the most serious reason of all for thinking that only a divine chastisement comparable to the Flood can clean out the present corruption in Church and world. Catholic Tradition is today’s Ark.

Kyrie eleison.

Romans Measured

Romans Measured on March 29, 2008

From France I received earlier this month what seems to me a well-balanced assessment of who exactly today’s Roman churchmen are and what they are trying to achieve. Here are extracts:

” . . .The churchmen in Rome are battling with us (clergy and laity of the Society of St. Pius X) to bring us around to accepting their Conciliar religion. Cardinal Castrillon and even the Pope are convinced that we are mistaken, and that it is their duty by all means fair and borderline foul to get us to accept the essence of the Second Vatican Council, which has become their Credo. To this end they work on us with determination and patience, but also with authority, always “for our own good.”

“On our side, because we insist on sane thinking as an essential pre-condition to staying faithful to the irreformable doctrine that has been handed down to us, we find ourselves obliged to resist their pressure and so to disobey today’s Magisterium in order to obey the God who does not change. However . . . we must never forget that despite their courtesy and subjective kindness, these Romans are, objectively speaking, our enemies. Beneath the appearance of good they are motivated by a spirit that is not good. An old proverb says that if you sup with the Devil, you need a long spoon . . .”

The writer’s conclusion is also wise: “ . . .On our side we should be devoting all our energies and abilities to keeping our faithful informed, to strengthening them spiritually and to forming them doctrinally . . . by not doing this enough, we lose in men and resources every time Rome attacks. In the trials lying ahead of us, reinforcing the quality of our troops will have more effect than trying to amass large numbers of Catholics who do not understand the need to fight.”

“As Archbishop Lefebvre said on September 4, 1987, in Econe, “We must hold on, absolutely, through thick and thin . . . Rome, I declare, has lost the Faith, Rome has apostatized.” End of the writer’s quote.

Kyrie eleison.