Tag: Vatican II

Fatal Turn – II

Fatal Turn – II posted in Eleison Comments 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.

Colonial Charm

Colonial Charm posted in Eleison Comments on August 23, 2008

A brief visit to Goa, former Portuguese colony half-way down the western coast of the Indian sub-continent and now a full member-state of the Republic of India, revives within me a great nostalgia, a great debate and always the same great conclusion: the Lord God is not a little lap-dog to be put on a leash!

The 1,429-square mile enclave of Goa was conquered by the Portuguese in two stages, in 1510 and 1546, as an essential link in a chain of supply-stations for their ships travelling between Europe and the Far East for the spice trade, which then brought with it immense wealth. The conquest still shows in a ring of well-designed and well-built forts surrounding the Old City of Goa, and largely visible today. The wealth still shows in a few sumptuous churches of the Old City, dating back to the early years of the Portuguese settlers when the spice trade and their Catholic Faith were in their hey-day. Goa was the base of operations in the Far East for St. Francis Xavier, whose body rests in one of the great churches. Goa is where he wanted to be buried. He still watches over it.

From the 18th century onwards Goa lost its importance for trade, but the Portuguese remained, because they had put down deep roots and had created what some have called the “Rome of the Orient.” They had successfully converted the local population. At one point they even destroyed all Hindu temples. The result was a Catholic enclave in the warmth of the tropics, peaceful and happy, with an administrative order typical of the colonies prior to their de-colonisation, and with a special charm of which traces remain to this day. Hence the nostalgia.

But time moves on. By mid-20th century the adoration of “liberty” and the onward march of “independence” was spelling the death of the European colonies and empires. At least in the Portuguese, Spanish and French empires the conquest of souls for Heaven had been a driving motivation, evident in Goa, but it is now failing in “Rome of the Occident” itself, as it puts into practice the revolutionary Second Vatican Council. Where God the Father was being stripped of His Fatherhood, any kind of paternity or paternalism was being correspondingly outlawed, and that included all paternalism of colonies and empires. “Colonialism” and “imperialism” were to be replaced by scruffy tourism and disordered socialism. Religion, or irreligion, rules.

So in 1961 the combined army, air force and navy of the new Indian Republic took over the enclave of Goa. Hinduisation is proceeding apace, Goa has been moved into the modern world, and Hindu temples are being built everywhere, with the encouragement of the Catholic priests. But is it the fault of the children or the fathers? Was not a mosque built recently right next to St. Peter’s in Rome?

Kyrie eleison.

Fatal Turn – I

Fatal Turn – I posted in Eleison Comments on August 16, 2008

Man, says Vatican II (Gaudium et Spes), is the only creature that God wants for its own sake. Typically for Vatican II, this statement has two possible meanings, one orthodox and the other profoundly revolutionary. Unfortunately for the “conservatives” who try to maintain that the Council was Catholic, it is the revolutionary meaning that clearly corresponds to the key doctrine of another Council document, Dignitatis Humanae, and is therefore the Council’s true meaning.

Amongst all the material creatures on this earth, man alone is rational, i.e. endowed with faculties capable of knowing and loving God. All the rest of material creation serves only as a trampoline for man to bounce his short life on, until either he jumps to Heaven or crashes into Hell, and as soon as the last soul appointed by God to make that choice has done so, then all material creation will be consumed by fire, says Scripture (II Peter), because it will have served its purpose. In this sense it is true that God wills all creatures for man, and man alone for himself.

But that God wants man for man’s own sake is absolutely false in relation to God because God cannot want any creature, even man, for anything other than for the sake of God himself. God is Self-Being, Self-Good, totally Self-Sufficient, totally Self-Perfect. He can be in no want outside of His Divine Self-Being, because that would be in Him a need, a lack, an imperfection. That does not exclude his wanting to create creatures other than himself – look around! – but it does exclude his wanting them ultimately for anything other than for his own Goodness. Penultimately, i.e. prior to ultimately, he may want them for their own sake, for instance man to share in his Bliss, but ultimately he can only want them for his own Goodness, otherwise he would be needing them to perfect him – blasphemy!

St. Thomas Aquinas explains this ultimate and penultimate willing of God by a comparison with sweet and sour medicine, Ultimately I take the medicine, sweet or sour, only for my health, but if the medicine is sweet then penultimately I can be taking it also for its sweet taste. Ultimately God can want nothing but his own Goodness. Only penultimately can he want any creature for its own sake, e.g. man, to share in the Divine Bliss.

Does the distinction seem subtle? In the present case it is all the difference between man being centred on God, as the true Catholic religion knows, or God being centred on man, which is what the false religion of Vatican II is promoting – the “turn towards man.” Stay tuned for the proof from Dignitatis Humanae that the centring of God on man is the Council’s true meaning.

Kyrie eleison.

Carrot Again

Carrot Again posted in Eleison Comments 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.

Stick Again

Stick Again posted in Eleison Comments on June 28, 2008

Rumors abound once more: before the end of June, in other words in a few days’ time, either the Society of St. Pius X will begin to give way to Rome’s demands to conform to Vatican II and the New Mass, or Rome will declare to Church and world that the Society and its followers are in formal schism and out of the Church.

As to rumors of the Society taking any action that would imperil the defence of the Faith, I think they are to be wholly discounted. On May 5 of 1988 in particular, Archbishop Lefebvre went as far as the Faith would allow him, and even a little bit further, to come to terms with the Church authorities, but their terms finally persuaded him that they could no longer be trusted to look after the Church’s immutable Tradition, which is why he went ahead with the episcopal consecrations of 20 years ago.

Similarly, ever since the Society’s Jubilee Pilgrimage to Rome in 2000, the Society has gone as far as it could to correspond to the goodwill gestures of Cardinal Castrillon, and even a little bit further, but in eight years it has never given to the Cardinal that abandonment of the Society’s stand on Tradition that he wanted. On the contrary, the latest Letter to Friends and Benefactors of the Society’s Superior General reiterated firmly that stand, which is surely where the rumors come from of the Cardinal losing patience with his eight years of carrot, and of his turning once more to the stick.

Catholics should in no way be frightened by any threat of being declared formally, i.e. properly and officially, in schism, or out of the Church. Proper Catholic officialdom would judge, like Our Lord tells us to judge (Jn. VII,24), by reality and not by appearances. The reality is obvious: it is the Conciliar “Renovation” and not Catholic Tradition that has broken with the Catholic Church.

However, when in the next few days the Society makes no gesture towards Rome sufficient for Rome’s purpose of dissolving the resistance of Catholic Tradition, I am for my part not at all sure that Rome will really go ahead with any declaration of formal schism. Maybe after eight, or 20, or 38 years of the Society’s resistance they really are losing patience, but does not all past experience tell them that each time they use the stick, it stiffens rather than dissolves that resistance?

And if they did go ahead with such a declaration, Catholics should rejoice, because after several years of some ambiguity there would once more be some clarity! Twenty years ago, all Society Superiors gathered in Econe rejoiced in the “excommunication” of their bishops. Would not the same thing happen this time round if Rome also cast priests and laity into its outer darkness? Not that any of us would rejoice in Rome’s self-abasement . . .

Kyrie eleison.

Masking Apostasy

Masking Apostasy posted in Eleison Comments on May 3, 2008

Question: Why do so many politicians of modern times talk right-wing while acting left-wing? Because the people want to go left while pretending to stay right. And why do the crowds want to slide leftwards while pretending not to do so? Because they want to bask in a godless future even while they pay hypocritical homage to a godly past.

For if there is one word to sum up the last 500 years of world history, it is the word “apostasy,” i.e. a falling away from God. Now, ever since God revealed himself in the Incarnation, that has meant a falling away from the Incarnate God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Catholic Church. Before the Incarnation, apostasy could never be so clear. Ever since the Church established Christendom, if one wished to descend from those medieval heights, it made such apostasy necessary.

But from the end of the Middle Ages onwards it was so clear that those heights were truly high, that all those choosing to descend had to honour what they were quitting even while they were quitting what they claimed to honour. Hence the hypocrisy intrinsic to, for instance, liberal and socialist politicians. For instance, when somebody tried to sing the praises of Communism to Winston Churchill, he snorted: “Christianity with a tomahawk!”

However, as usual since the Incarnation, the heart of the problem lies not in politics but in the Church. “Left-wing” and “right-wing” are terms arising from the division of the French Revolutionaries of 1789 into violent and only semi-violent, destroyers of the Old Order, that of throne and – altar. Now King Louis XVI was guillotined, but the real target was the altar. Therefore what differentiates left-wingers from right-wingers is their more or less explicit apostasy.

So when Cardinal Suenens described Vatican II as the French Revolution of 1789 within the Church, it is not surprising if the mass of churchmen divided into extreme or only moderate destroyers of the Old Order, i.e. of the true religion. But, as in 1789, the moderates were, and remain, destroyers still. Woe then to churchmen of today who would try to blend with these “moderates”! They risk adding themselves on to the end of a 500-year list of hypocritical traitors, however well-meaning!

Kyrie eleison.