subjectivism

Faith Killers

Faith Killers on May 12, 2012

But if Rome offers the Society of St Pius X all that it wants, why should the SSPX still refuse? Apparently there are Catholics still believing that if a practical agreement fulfilled all the SSPX’s practical demands, it should be accepted. So why not? Because the SSPX was brought into existence by Archbishop Lefebvre not for its own sake, but for the sake of the true Catholic Faith, endangered by Vatican II as it has never been endangered before. But let us see here why the Newchurch authorities will seek any practical agreement as much as the SSPX must refuse it.

The reason is because the Newchurch is subjectivist, and any merely practical agreement implies that subjectivism is true. According to the new Conciliar religion, dogmas of Faith are not objective truths but symbols that serve subjective needs (Pascendi, 11–13, 21). For instance if my psychological insecurity is calmed by the conviction that God became man, then for me the Incarnation is true, in the only sense of the word “true.” So if Traditionalists have their need of the old religion, then that is what is true for them, and one can even admire how they cling to their truth. But in justice they must agree to let us Romans have our Conciliar truth, and if they cannot make that concession, then they are insufferably arrogant and intolerant, and we cannot allow such divisiveness within our Church of luv.

Thus Neo-modernist Rome would be happy with any practical agreement by which the SSPX would even only implicitly renounce its radical claim to the universality and obligation of “its” truths. On the contrary the SSPX cannot be happy with any agreement that in an action speaking louder than words would deny the objectivity of “its” religion of 20 centuries. It is not “its” religion at all. To come to an agreement with subjectivists, I have to stop insisting on objectivity. To insist on objectivity, I cannot accept any terms at all proposed by subjectivists, unless they renounce their subjectivism.

These Romans are doing no such thing. Yet another proof of their crusading insistence upon their new religion came in the form of their recent “Note on the conclusions of the canonical visit to the Institute of the Good Shepherd” in France. Readers will remember that this Institute was one of several founded after the Council to enable Traditional Catholicism to be practised under Roman authority. Rome can wait for a few years before closing in, to make sure that the poor fish is well on the hook, but then –

The “Note” requires that Vatican II and the 1992 Catechism of the Newchurch must be included in Institute studies. The Institute must insist on the “hermeneutic of renewal in continuity,” and it must stop treating the Tridentine rite of Mass as its “exclusive” rite of Mass. The Institute must enter into official diocesan life with a “spirit of communion.” In other words, the Traditional Institute must stop being so Traditional if it wants to belong to the Newchurch. What else did the Institute expect? To keep to Tradition, it would have to get back out from under the Newchurch’s authority. What chance is there of that? They wanted to be swallowed by the Conciliar monster. Now it is digesting them.

So why, in Heaven’s name, would it be any different with the SSPX? Rome’s temptation may be rejected this time round by the SSPX, but let us be under no illusions: the subjectivists will be back and back and back to get rid of that objective truth and objective Faith which constitute a standing rebuke to their criminal nonsense.

Kyrie eleison.

“Enlightenment” Darkness

“Enlightenment” Darkness on April 28, 2012

Whether or not the Society of St Pius X finally decides to by-pass the doctrinal disagreement and to enter into a purely practical agreement with the authorities of the Conciliar Church in Rome, souls concerned for their eternal welfare must understand as fully as possible what is at stake. In this connection a friend of mine just sent me an admirable synthesis of the heart of the matter:—

“From 2009 to 2011 so-called “Doctrinal Discussions” took place between Vatican experts and four theologians of the SSPX. These discussions made clear just how firmly the Roman authorities are attached to the teachings of Vatican II. That Council attempted to reconcile Catholic doctrine with the concept of man as developed by the “Enlightenment” of the 18th century.

“Thus the Council declares that by reason of the dignity of his nature, the human person has the right to practise the religion of his choice. Accordingly society must protect religious liberty and organize the peaceful co-existence of the various religions. These are invited to take part in ecumenical dialogue, since they all possess their own part of truth.

“In effect, such principles deny that Christ is truly God, and they deny that his Revelation, the deposit of which is guarded by the Church, must be accepted by all men and all societies. Thus the doctrine of religious liberty, as expressed in the Conciliar document Dignitatis Humanae#2, contradicts the teachings of Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, of Pius IX in Quanta Cura, of Leo XIII in Immortale Dei and of Pius XI in Quas Primas. The doctrine expressed in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium #8, according to which divine Providence uses non-Catholic sects as means of salvation, contradicts the teachings of Pius IX in the Syllabus, of Leo XIII in Satis Cognitum and of Pius XI in Mortalium Animos.

“These novel doctrines which along with many others contradict the formal and unanimous teachings of Popes before the Council, can only be qualified in the light of Catholic dogma as heretical.

“Therefore since the unity of the Church rests on the integrity of the Faith, it is clear that the SSPX cannot come to any agreement – be it only “practical” – with those who hold such doctrines.”

When my friend accuses the 18th century movement of intellectual emancipation known as the “Enlightenment” of being at the root of the churchmen’s 20th century collapse, he is making essentially the same point as Archbishop Lefebvre when he said to priests of his, half a year before he died in 1991: “The more one analyzes the documents of Vatican II . . . the more one realizes that what is at stake is . . . a wholesale perversion of the mind, a whole new philosophy based on modern philosophy, on subjectivism . . . It is a wholly different version of Revelation, of Faith, of philosophy . . . It is truly frightening.”

So how does one get one’s mind back in subjection to God’s reality? One way might be to get hold of the papal Encyclicals mentioned by my friend above, and study them. They were written for bishops, but Conciliar bishops are not reliable. Today’s laity must take in hand their own formation – and their own Rosary.

Kyrie eleison.

Atheists’ Theism?

Atheists’ Theism? on October 8, 2011

There is a fascinating quote of the famous German composer, Johannes Brahms (1833–1899), which shows how a man may have no religious faith at all, yet still recognize that there is an objective order. Such a recognition is a handle on reality, and it gave to Brahms access to a great deal of beauty, shown forth in his music. The crisis of countless modern souls is that they are convinced that there is nothing objective at all. They are imprisoned within their own subjectivity, which makes for a very bare prison, and for suicidal music!

In 1878 Brahms wrote for an outstanding violinist, his friend Joseph Joachim (1831–1907), one of his loveliest and most beloved works, the Violin Concerto in D. When he heard Joachim play it, he said, “Hmm – yes . . . it could be played that way.” In other words while Brahms was composing the Concerto, he had been hearing it in his mind’s ear being played in such and such a way, but he recognized that the somewhat different use that somebody else might make of his composition was also legitimate.

Now undoubtedly there are ways of performing the Concerto which Brahms would not have accepted, but so long as a performer made use of his composition to approach by a different way the goal he had himself approached in composing, then Brahms felt no need to insist on his own approach. The objective goal mattered more than the subjective approach, so that if by composing he had provided all kinds of performers with an access to that goal, then – within certain limits – they were all of them welcome to play the Concerto how they liked. Object above subject.

Ultimately that means God above man, yet Brahms was no believer. The Catholic Czech composer, Antonin Dvorak (1841–1904), friend and admirer of Brahms, once said of him, “What a great man! Such a great soul! And he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!” Brahms was no Christian – he deliberately left out of his German Requiem any mention of Jesus Christ. Nor did he admit to being any kind of believer – he said that the Bible texts he had used in the Requiem were there for their expression of feeling rather than for any profession of religion. Subject above object. And to this professed disbelief on the part of Brahms corresponds, one may hold, the lack of a certain spontaneity and joy in much of his music.

But how much autumnal beauty it contains, and carefully crafted order! This craftsmanship and reflection of the beauties of Nature, for instance in the Violin Concerto, call to mind Our Lord saying how there are souls that deny him in word but honour him in deed (Mt.XXI, 28–29). Today when almost all souls deny him in word, how many there are that still in some way or other, for instance in music or in Nature, honour at least the order that Our Lord has planted throughout his universe. Such faithfulness is by no means yet that Catholic Faith which alone can save, but it is at least that smouldering wick which should not be extinguished (Mt.XII, 20).

Let all Catholics gifted with the fullness of the Faith have discernment for such souls around them, and let us have compassion on the multitudes being led away from God by his enemies, in music and in all domains (Mk.VIII, 2).

Kyrie eleison.

Benedict’s Thinking – III

Benedict’s Thinking – III on July 23, 2011

After studying the roots of Pope Benedict’s thinking (EC 209), Bishop Tissier in his Faith Imperilled by Reason proceeds to study its fruits. If that thinking is rooted above all in the systematic subjectivism of Kant (1724–1804), those fruits cannot be good. How can the objective truths of the Faith be made in any way intrinsically dependent on the participation or reactions of the subjective believer? The Gospel, dogma, the Church, society, Christ the King and the Last Ends will be, one after another, mortally stricken.

Let us start with the Gospel. Its value lies no longer in telling the historical facts of the life and death of Our Lord, but rather in the power of its narrative to evoke existential problems of our own time. For instance whether Our Lord’s very own body sprang re-united with his human soul out of the tomb on Easter morning is not important. What matters is the modern meaning behind the narrative: love is stronger than death, Christ lives on by the force of love, and guarantees that we too will survive by love. Forget the reality or the facts. “All you need is love.”

Dogma needs likewise to be purified of the past and enriched by the present. Now the present-day philosopher Heidegger teaches that the person is a “self-surpassing.” Then Christ was the man so totally self-surpassing, so completely striving for the infinite beyond himself, that he fulfilled himself to the point of becoming divine. So the dogma of the Incarnation no longer means that God became man, but that man became God! Similarly the Redemption must mean no longer that Jesus paid to his Father by his terrible Passion the debt for all men’s sins, but that by his Cross he loved God in our stead as God should be loved, and he attracts us to do the same. Sin has ceased to be a mortal offence against God, it is merely a selfishness, a lack of love. So Mass no longer needs to be a sacrifice, and the priest becomes merely the animator of the communal celebration. No wonder Benedict believes in the Novus Ordo Mass.

As for the Church, since the existent person is the supreme value (cf. EC 209) and all persons are equally existent, then away with a Church of hierarchical inequalities, and away with the Catholic Church as the one and only Ark of Salvation, because the followers of every religion are existent persons. Let ecumenism replace all Catholic missionary efforts. Also, making the person into the supreme value will dissolve society by subordinating the common good to the individual’s rights, and it will undermine both marriage and society by putting the mutual company of the male and female persons in front of children. As for Christ the King, he will be dethroned by the bestowing upon every person such dignity that the State must protect that person’s right to choose his own religion.

Finally death, from a penalty, becomes a remedy for our ills. The particular judgment means only a reward. Hell is no more than an irrevocably selfish state of soul. Heaven will be “an ever new immersion in the infinity of being” – what being? – and so on. Here is a new religion, comments Bishop Tissier, rather more comfortable – at least vhere below – than the Catholic religion.

Kyrie eleison.

True Pope? – II

True Pope? – II on May 7, 2011

By no means everybody agrees with the opinion laid out here one week ago (EC 198) whereby subjective good faith or good will on the part of Conciliar Popes prevents their hair-raising objective heresies from invalidating them as Popes (see Prof. Doermann for John-Paul II’s teaching of Universal Salvation, see Bishop Tissier for Benedict XVI’s emptying out of the Cross). The opposite opinion is that these heresies are so hair-raising that #1, they cannot possibly have been uttered by true Vicars of Christ, or #2, no amount of subjective good faith can neutralize their objective poison, or #3, subjective good faith is excluded in the case of Conciliar Popes trained in the old theology. Let us gently take each argument in turn:—

Firstly, just how far the Lord God can allow his Vicars to betray him (objectively), God alone knows for sure. However, we do know from Scripture (Lk. XVIII, 8) that when Christ returns, he will hardly find the Faith still on earth. But is the Faith yet, in 2011, reduced to that point? One may think not. In which case God may allow his Conciliar Vicars to do worse yet, without their ceasing to be his Vicars. Does not Scripture declare at exactly the moment when Caiphas was plotting the crime of crimes against God, namely the judicial murder of Christ (Jn. XI, 50–51), that he was High Priest?

Secondly, it is true that the objective heresy of well-intentioned heretics is much more important for the Universal Church than their subjective good intentions, and it is also true that many objective heretics are subjectively convinced of their own innocence. For this double reason when Mother Church is in her right mind she has a mechanism for forcing such material heretics either to renounce their heresy or to become fully-fledged formal heretics, and that is her Inquisitors, whom she endows with her God-given authority to define and condemn heresy, to maintain the purity of doctrine. But what happens if it is the highest authority in the Church that is swimming in objective heresies? Who is there above the Popes that has authority to correct them? Nobody! Then has God abandoned his Church? No, but he is putting it through a severe trial, all too deserved by the tepid mass of today’s Catholics – and, alas, Traditionalists?

Thirdly, it is true that both John-Paul II and Benedict XVI received a pre-Conciliar training in philosophy and theology. But by their time the worms of Kantian subjectivism and Hegelian evolutionism had already for over a century been eating the heart out of the concept of objective and unchanging truth, without which the concept of unchangeable Catholic dogma can make no sense. Now one may well argue that both those Popes were morally at fault – say, love of popularity, say, intellectual pride – for falling into material heresy, but moral faults cannot replace authoritative doctrinal condemnation for purposes of turning them from material into formal heretics.

Therefore since only formal heretics are excluded from the Church, and since the only sure way of proving someone to be a formal heretic is not available in the case of Popes, a certain range of opinion on the problem of Conciliar Popes must remain open. “Sedevacantist” does not deserve to be the dirty word that liberal “Traditionalists” have made of it, but on the other hand the arguments of the sedevacantists are not as conclusive as they might wish or pretend. In conclusion, sedevacantists may still be Catholic, but no Catholic is yet obliged to be a sedevacantist. I for one believe the Conciliar Popes are valid Popes.

Kyrie eleison.

Conciliar “Theologian” – II

Conciliar “Theologian” – II on June 12, 2010

When last week “Eleison Comments” laid out six errors of one of the leading theologians of Vatican II, Fr. Marie-Dominique Chenu, it said that the order of the errors had been changed from the original order in Si Si No No, and it suggested that thereby hangs a tale. That tale is the disastrous dethroning of the mind by modern times.

In Si Si No No, Sentimentalism ranked first among the errors. Then came Subjectivism, Historicism, the Turn to Man (Anthropocentrism), Evolutionism and Immoralism. To start with Sentimentalism is to start with man as one finds him today, i.e. wallowing in his feelings. Here are two examples amidst hundreds, or thousands: in religion, “God is much too nice to send a single soul to Hell”; in politics, “It is not patriotic to question who was behind 9/11.”

“Eleison Comments” chose rather to rank the errors in order not of immediacy but of depth. Then Anthropocentrism in the sense of turning away from God comes first, because turning away from God is at the root of all sin and error. Next come the three errors attacking the mind, Subjectivism, Historicism and their consequence, Evolutionism. They too come before Sentimentalism because – and here is the interesting point – only after the rightful king has been dethroned can the usurper take his place. Only after the mind is disabled can feelings take over. Ranking last on both lists is Immoralism, or the denial of right and wrong, because all disorder in the soul and mind ends up in disorder in action.

To grasp the natural primacy of the mind over feelings, a primacy which for many a modern soul is not obvious, let us resort to a comparison with a sailing-ship. If the captain by deliberately letting go of the rudder leaves his ship at the mercy of wind and wave until eventual shipwreck, nevertheless whenever he chooses to take the rudder in hand again, it belongs to the nature of the rudder to enable him to steer the ship, and by making good use of wind and wave to reach port. Similarly if a human being by deliberately letting go of his reason leaves his soul at the mercy of feelings and passions, adrift towards eternal Hell, it nevertheless belongs to the nature of his mind, whenever he chooses to re-activate it, to guide him to Heaven, however precarious at first may be his reason’s command of his passions and feelings.

Then how is a man to put his mind back on its throne? By turning back to God, because it was his turning away from God that let loose the dethroning of his mind in the first place, since to turn away from God he soon after had to begin dismantling his reason. And how does a man most easily turn back to God? Let him start with one “Ave Maria,” let him move on to a few, then to a decade of the Rosary, and finally to five decades a day. If he does that, he will begin to think again.

Mother of God, save our minds!

Kyrie eleison.