pluralism

Benedict’s Feelings

Benedict’s Feelings on May 7, 2016

When two months ago an interview given in October of last year by Benedict XVI to a Jesuit priest was published in Italy, some misguidedly “pious” Catholics took it to mean that the former Pope was returning to Traditional doctrine on the absolute need to belong to the Catholic Church for salvation. Alas, the interview shows in reality an unrepentant modernist measuring not modern man by Catholic Truth, but that Truth by what modern man can or cannot understand and accept. In fairness, the interviewer raised four serious questions, and Benedict did not dodge them. Here is another cruelly brief but not essentially unjust summary of the interview, with comments added in italics:—

Q: Does FAITH come through a community, which is in turn a gift of God?

A: Faith is a personal living contact with God, mediated through a living community, because in order to believe I need witnesses to God, i.e. the Church, which is not just a set of ideas (true, but a set of ideas is the very object of faith believed in. Benedict shares in modern subjectivism). Through the Church’s sacraments (in accordance with the Faith’s objective parameters) I enter into living contact with Christ .

Q: Can modern man understand Paul’s JUSTIFICATION by FAITH? (Notice modern man’s priority) A: For modern man, God cannot let most men suffer eternal damnation (same comment). The concern for personal salvation has mostly disappeared (so what? So the doctrine must change?). But modern man still perceives his own need of mercy, so he does know his own unworthiness. In fact he expects a saving love, which is God’s mercy, which justifies him (so man sins, expects God’s mercy, and that justifies him? This is sheer Protestantism!). On the contrary the classic idea of God the Father killing his own Son to satisfy his own justice is incomprehensible today. Rather, the Father and the Son had the same will (but Jesus as God and man had two wills!), and the mass of the world’s evil was overcome as it needed to be by God’s sharing in the world’s suffering, in which Father and Son shared alike (but the Father as God could not suffer, and only as man could Christ suffer! This new doctrine empties out the Incarnation, the Cross, mankind’s sin, God’s justice, our Redemption! What is left of Catholicism?).

Q: Has the Church’s teaching on HELL evolved in modern times?

A: “On this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma” (sic! But dogma cannot evolve. As a modern man, Benedict has no notion of a truth unchanging and unchangeable). “After Vatican II, the conviction that the unbaptised are forever lost was finally abandoned” (as though Vatican II could change Church teaching!). But then arises a problem – why still be a Christian (good question!)? Rahner’s solution of all men being anonymous Christians leaves out the drama of conversion (only “drama” – not “absolute necessity”?). The Pluralists’ solution whereby all religions suffice for salvation is inadequate (true). De Lubac’s solution is that Christ and the Church somehow stand in for all mankind, let us say by believing in, practising and suffering for the truth. At least a few souls are needed to do so.

Q: If evil must be repaired, does the sacrament of CONFESSION repair it?

A: Christ alone can repair evil, but Confession does always put us back on the side of Christ.

In view of such an interview, can any one still doubt that the Society of St Pius X leaders are seriously deluded who think the Society can safely put itself under these Romans? From humanism and Protestantism a false view of the Redemption has soaked into modern bones, and from modern bones finally into the Catholic churchmen. Vatican II teaches and preaches a Christianity without the Cross. It is highly popular, but utterly false. May God have mercy on these churchmen.

Kyrie eleison.

Rector’s Letters – II

Rector’s Letters – II on April 23, 2011

Several readers of “Eleison Comments” may not be familiar with the “Letters from the Rector” referred to here a little while back (EC 190, March 5). Written between 1983 and 2003 as monthly newsletters from St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary where priests are trained in the USA for the Society of St Pius X, the Letters have been brought together in four paperback volumes, available through the Internet at truerestorationpress.com/4volsletters. A Scottish convert of 18 years back read them recently. Here are some of her comments. They are interesting:—

“These Letters have both astounded and astonished me . . . I was a New Age “dippy hippy” that ran from the New Age Devil into the Catholic Church, only to discover that he was right there in her sanctuaries . . . It is not just that the cardinals, bishops and priests of the Conciliar Church are lily-livered and mealy-mouthed in their defence of Catholicism. There are many who seem to take a positive and malicious delight in tearing her traditions and beliefs to pieces.”

On the contrary, “These Letters are wonderfully and gloriously Catholic . . . They explain the folly of the Conservative and Ecclesia Dei Catholics attempting to solve the crisis of the Church without criticizing the Council. Are not such Catholics considering the appearances of the Conciliar reforms, e.g. in liturgy and discipline, while ignoring their essence, the fundamental internal shift in thinking on Church doctrine that has taken place, as demonstrated by the Council’s documents on Religious Liberty and Ecumenism?

“The Rector’s Letters on Pluralism and on the Liberal view of human dignity wonderfully explain the nature of this shift. As they repeatedly demonstrate, it is impossible to understand the modern world and the situation of the Church within it if one does not understand this radical shift in the thinking of modern Rome. And if the Ecclesia Dei people object that any such radical criticism of the Council amounts to saying that we have no valid Pope, the Letters provide arguments amply demonstrating the wisdom of the position of the SSPX, veering neither to the left with the Liberals, nor to the right with the “Sedevacantists.”

“As for reaching out to the modern world, the men of the Conciliar Church have little useful to say. They are too wrapped up in their revolutionary dream to be capable of addressing its wretched consequences. They could never write Letters like those of the Rector on Pink Floyd, the Unabomber, Oliver Stone or the Children in the Forest, because the mainstream Church, instead of being deeply dissatisfied with today’s materialistic world, always seems to be going along with it. The Letters should be read for the historical record alone, but maybe their true worth will not be apparent until later, perhaps only when the 6th Age of the Church has dawned with the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”

And here is the feminine clincher: “What’s more, and I never thought I would say this, the Letters on Slacks have encouraged me to consider re-thinking my ‘wardrobe solutions’.” When women stop wearing trousers, truly the Church will rise again!

Kyrie eleison.