Vatican II

Drexel’s Return

Drexel’s Return on July 18, 2020

The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) was a huge event in Church history, designed by its movers and shakers to deceive a mass of Catholics, clergy and laity, into replacing the true Catholic Church with their own Newchurch, adapted to modern times. But the agony for believing Catholics from then on was that the betrayal of Catholic Truth had come from the true Church authorities, whom they had learned from their Catholic cradles always to obey and never to criticise. Even Our Lord and Our Lady when they spoke to human beings would, to avoid scandalising Catholic souls, rarely criticise their own priests.

But here was the particular interest of Faith is greater than Obedience. For if these Messages which came through Fr Drexel truly came from Our Lord Himself, as they purported to do, then here was God Himself scathing in His criticism of the bishops, theologians and priests responsible for the Newchurch emerging from the Council, and obviously dispensing Catholics from their normal duty never to criticise priests. Here was God telling Catholics that a mass of their shepherds – not all – had turned into wolves. “I know what agony you faithful souls are suffering,” say the Messages, “but hold on to your faith and do not let these traitors change it. They are wrong, you are right, as time will tell, and great will be your reward if you persevere.”

Such a message was apt to solve one agony of true believers after the Council, but it was apt also to create another agony: what then of the unfaithful Church authorities? In particular, what of the Pope? The popular perception of papal infallibility goes way beyond the reach of its strict definition in 1870 with the four conditions. Then how could John XXIII have convened the Council of wolves, and how could Paul VI have guided it to its conclusion and presided over its being put into practice afterwards? This agony is such that many serious and believing Catholics from the end of the 1970’s, soon after Fr Drexel died, began resorting to sedevacantism for instance, whereby the Conciliar Popes have not been true Popes at all. The solution of Fr Drexel’s Messages is rather that Paul VI was not himself one of the wolves. He is clearly criticised (in at least two of the Messages), but he also had good intentions, he was not aware of all that his subordinates were doing, he agonised over what was happening to the Church.

Yet one must say that Paul VI’s personal responsibility for the Conciliar disaster was huge. Then some followers of Catholic Tradition will draw the conclusion that Fr Drexel’s “Our Lord” was certainly not truly Our Lord, but emerged somehow from Fr Drexel’s own “pious” reflections. In that case we would explain the leniency of the Messages towards Paul VI as being the solution of many “good” bishops and priests at the time to their agony, namely, the Conciliar bishops were terrible but not the Pope himself. On the other hand if the Messages did come from Our Lord Himself, then one might guess that Our Lord was being lenient in them towards Paul VI maybe in order to head off the reaction of Catholics being tempted more or less to despair of Our Lord’s own structural Church – He Himself was saying that he was still behind it, and He needed to say nothing untrue in order to say that.

Deo volente, this issue of these “Comments” is prelude to a second little series drawn from Faith is Greater than Obedience because of the value found by these “Comments” in the Messages given to Fr Drexel in the 1970’s. There should be three issues, on the Church Crisis, the Bishops and Paul VI, all as presented in Faith is greater than Obedience. Whether the Messages did then come from Our Lord Himself or not, readers of these “Comments” should be better able to judge. In any case it is clear that in this Church crisis they must make up their own minds.

Kyrie eleison.

Admirable Reorientation

Admirable Reorientation on June 20, 2020

Here is a summary of the June 9 public letter of Archbishop Viganò on the Second Vatican Council:—

Bravo, Bishop Schneider, for your recent essay on the Council and its false religious liberty. People talk of “the Spirit of the Council.” But when was there talk of “the Spirit of Trent,” or of any other Catholic Council? There never was, because all other Councils simply followed the spirit of the Church. However, the good Bishop should beware of exaggerating “errors” that needed “correcting” in past teachings of the Church, because whatever these may have been, they were nothing like what the Second Vatican Council did, which was comparable (even in content) with the Council of Pistoia (A.D. 1786), later condemned by the Church.

At Vatican II, many of us were fooled. In good faith, we made too many allowances for the supposed good intentions of those promoting an ecumenism which turned later into false teaching on the Church. Today many Catholics no longer believe that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, and it is in the texts of Vatican II that the ambiguities are to be found which opened the way to this undermining of the Faith. It began with inter-religious meetings, but it is due to end in some universal religion from which the one true God will have been banished. This was all planned long ago. Numerous errors of today have their roots in Vatican II, to the texts of which it is easy to trace back today’s multiple betrayals of truly Catholic belief and practice. Vatican II is now used to justify all aberrations, whereas its texts prove uniquely difficult to interpret, and they contradict previous Church Tradition in a way no other Church Council has ever done.

I confess serenely now that I was at the time too unconditionally obedient to the Church authorities. I think that many of us could not then imagine the Hierarchy being unfaithful to the Church, as we see now especially in the present Pontificate. With the election of Pope Francis, at last the conspirators’ mask came off. They were finally free from the philo-Tridentine Benedict XVI, free to create the Newchurch, to replace the old Church with a Masonic substitute for both the form and substance of Catholicism.

Democratisation, synodality, women priests, pan-ecumenism, dialogue, demythologising the Papacy, the politically correct, gender theory, sodomy, homosexual marriage, contraception, immigrationism, ecologism, – if we cannot recognise how all these have their roots in Vatican II, there will be no cure for them.

Such a recognition “requires a great humility, first of all in recognizing that for decades we have been led into error, in good faith, by people who, established in authority, have not known how to watch over and guard the flock of Christ.” Those shepherds who in bad faith or even with malicious intent betrayed the Church, must be identified and excommunicated . We have had far too many mercenaries, more concerned with pleasing Christ’s enemies than with being faithful to His Church.

“Just as I honestly and serenely obeyed questionable orders sixty years ago, believing that they represented the loving voice of the Church, so today with equal serenity and honesty I recognize that I have been deceived.” I cannot now persevere in my error. Nor can I claim that I saw clear from the start. We all knew that the Council was more or less a revolution, but none of us imagined just how devastating it would be. We could say that Benedict XVI slowed it down, but the Pontificate of Francis has proved beyond all possible doubt that among the shepherds at the top of the Church there is sheer apostasy, while the sheep below are abandoned and virtually scorned.

The Declaration of Abu Dhabi (“God is pleased with all religions”) was unforgivable for a Catholic. True charity does not compromise with error. And if one day Francis refuses any longer to play the game, he will be removed, just like Benedict XVI was removed, and replaced. But the Truth remains and will prevail: “Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.”

Kyrie eleison.

Modernism’s Malice – IV

Modernism’s Malice – IV on June 6, 2020

These “Comments” of March 21 last claimed to be bringing into view “the incredible perversity, pride and perfidy” of Kant. That may seem strong language coming from a Catholic concerning a famous and merely worldly philosopher, but he is not merely worldly. Who that really knows the Revolution in the Church of Vatican II (1962–1965) would not recognise perversity, pride and perfidy as being its hallmarks? Strong language again? Let us see firstly how each of these three hallmarks applies to the principle that the mind is incapable of knowing its own object, extra-mental reality, for which it was designed by God (but Kantism was designed by Kant as a fortress precisely to shut out God, said the great theologian, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange [1877–1964]). And secondly, how the three marks apply to 1960’s Conciliarism.

PERVERSITY of Kantism When in his Summa Theologiae (2a2ae, 154, art.12) St Thomas Aquinas wishes to prove the supreme malice of homosexuality amongst the sins of impurity, he does it by comparing it with the denial of the principles of thinking inborn in the nature of the mind. But Kant denies not just one or two natural principles of the mind, he denies the application of every single inborn principle of the mind to external reality. Kantism is supremely perverse, and is not that conclusion corroborated by how widespread is the sin against nature among students in our Kantian “universities”?

and of Conciliarism Among Council documents, Dei Verbum section 8 paragraph 2 gives an ambiguous definition of living Tradition, in the name of which John-Paul II condemned that unchanging Catholic Tradition in the name of which Archbishop Lefebvre had just consecrated four bishops in June of 1988. In other words, Catholic Truth so changes down the ages that the Archbishop’s version of objective and unchanging Tradition is no longer acceptable. This melting of Catholic Truth is totally perverse.

PRIDE of Kantism If the “Thing in itself” created by God is unknowable to me on the other side of the appearances, where my mind cannot reach, and if, as Kantism holds, I recompose the thing from the sense appearances in accordance with the prior laws of my own mind, then I become the creator of things, they are fabricated by me, and I take the place of God. For indeed God very rarely makes Himself perceptible to the human senses – even Incarnate and touched by St Thomas, the Apostle still needed an act of faith to believe in His godhead (Jn. XX, 28) – so God is behind the sense-appearances, so, for Kant, He is inaccessible to my mind. He depends on my will to believe in Him, thus: Not what I know but what I want is what is real. Now I want God. So God is real. If this is the basis of God’s existence, could it be more fragile? And if God depends on me to want Him for Him to exist, could pride be more insane?

and of Conciliarism As Fr Calderón makes abundantly clear in his study of Vatican II, Prometheus, the key to the modern man to whom it is the Council’s purpose to adapt the religion of God, is liberty. Modern man will accept no objective truth imprisoning his mind, no objective law commanding his will, no grace healing his nature for any other purpose than nature’s own freedom. In brief, modern man will have nothing and nobody superior to him. He is the supreme creature by his freedom. Also, he is more free than God because he is free to choose evil, which God is not. Again, could pride be more mad?

PERFIDY of Kantism To deny, as does Kantism, that the mind can know anything beyond the sense-appearances, is not to deny that things are what they are, it is merely to make the utterly absurd pretention that they depend on my mind to be what they are. Thus for purposes of living, even surviving, my great mind is bound to fabricate meals on the appearance of my kitchen-table, otherwise I will get rather hungry. And similarly I will fabricate all things necessary for daily existence. So I can behave in daily life just like a normal non-Kantian, and deceive people that I am not crazy at all. Only if I tell them that my mind fabricated the breakfast will they realise that they are dealing with a madman. Thus I can hide from view my radical inward betrayal of outward reality. This is potentially perfidious.

and of Conciliarism Vatican II is not just potentially but actually perfidious because, again as Fr Calderón makes abundantly clear, its very essence was to create a new man-centred humanism which would be able to pass itself of as being still God-centred Catholicism. Objective disguise and deceit were written into the Council’s charter from the very beginning.

Kyrie eleison.

Daniel’s Prayer

Daniel’s Prayer on April 18, 2020

The Internet these days is full of commentaries and analyses, each more interesting than the last, about the corona-virus and the turbulent state of finance all over the world, but few of these commentaries touch on what is most important of all in this double – or single – upheaval, and that is what it shows of relations between all men and their God: world-wide apostasy. This is a huge crime, for which the corona-collapse is a punishment not remotely as heavy as the scourges that will follow if men do not return to God. But as things stand, a mass of His own Chosen People by Faith, the Catholics, are gladly following Vatican II, because it loosened the old discipline and enabled them to adore themselves instead of God. We should all be on our knees, begging God for forgiveness, as did Daniel in the Old Testament. Here is his mighty prayer of IX, 3–19, needing little adaptation to the New Testament today:—

3 Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and terrible God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from thy commandments and ordinances; 6 we have not listened to thy faithful Popes before Vatican II, who spoke in thy name to our kings, our presidents, and our fathers, and to all the peoples of the world. 7 To thee, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us confusion of face, as at this day, to the men of the Church, to the inhabitants of Rome, and to all Catholics, those that are near and those that are far away, in all the lands where thou hast raised them, because of the disguised apostasy which they have committed against thee. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our presidents, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. 9 To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness; because we have rebelled against him, 10 and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by following his laws, which he set before us by his faithful servants. 11 All the Church has transgressed thy law and turned aside, refusing to obey thy voice. And the curse and oath which are written in the law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. 12 He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity; for under the whole heaven there has not been done the like of what has been done against the true Rome. 13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favour of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and giving heed to thy truth. 14 Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. 15 And now, O Lord our God, who didst bring thy Church down two thousand years with a mighty hand, and hast made thee a name, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. 16 O Lord, according to all thy righteous acts, let thy anger and thy wrath turn away from thy city of Rome, thy holy hill; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Rome and thy people have become a byword among all who are round about us. 17 Now therefore, O our God, hearken to the prayers of thy servants and to their supplications, and for thy own sake, O Lord, cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary, which is desolate. 18 O my God, incline thy ear and hear; open thy eyes and behold our desolations, and behold the Church which is called by thy name; for we do not present our supplications before thee on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of thy great mercy. 19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, give heed and act; delay not, for thy own sake, O my God, because thy city and thy people are called by thy name.”

Kyrie eleison.

Pope Indispensable – I

Pope Indispensable – I on February 1, 2020

As the years slip by, one after another, without the insane situation of the Church seeming to improve, Catholics who follow Tradition keep asking themselves, why cannot at least our Traditional priests get together and stop fighting one another? They all believe in the same Tradition of the Church, they are all agreed that the Second Vatican Council was a disaster for the Church. They all know that fighting among priests is unedifying and discouraging for the followers of Tradition. Why then can they not forget their differences and concentrate on what unites all of them, that is, on what the Church teaches and does, and has always taught and done, to save souls? This question has an answer, and to help Catholics to persevere in the Faith, they may need to be reminded of it at regular intervals.

Always assuming that this crisis of the Church is nothing normal in Church history but is an integral part of the one and only lead-up to the one and only end of the world, then if there is in these “Comments” a pair of words most often chosen to pin down the structure of that crisis, it is “Truth” and “Authority.” The crisis had its origins much further back than Vatican II, notably in the “Reformation” let loose by Luther (1483–1546), but whereas up until Vatican II the Catholic Church fought to keep the Protestant poison out, at Vatican II the highest Catholic Authority, two Popes and 2,000 bishops, gave up the fight and let the poison in. This meant that the Council texts are characterised by ambiguity, because Catholic appearances had to be maintained, but underneath the appearances the real thrust of the texts, the “spirit of the Council,” is towards assimilation of the liberalism and modernism which followed on Protestantism, and which will empty out any remaining Catholicism as soon as it is allowed to do so.

This means that at the Council, Catholic Authority essentially abandoned Catholic Truth to adopt a doctrine more in tune with modern times. And since Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth had now parted company, then Catholics, to remain Catholic, had – and still have – to make a terrible choice: either they cleave to the Church authorities from the Pope downwards and let go of Catholic doctrine, or they cleave to the doctrine and let go of Catholic Authority, or they choose one of the many possible compromises anywhere between the two poles. In any case the sheep are scattered, through no fault of their own when compared with the fault of the two Shepherds and 2,000 shepherds who were responsible for Church Authority betraying Church Truth at the Council. In this split between Truth and Authority lies the heart of today’s half-century old crisis.

And since Truth is vital to the one true religion of the one true God, and His own authority is essential for the protection of that one Truth from all the effects in men of original sin, then the only possible solution for the crisis that will put an end to the schizophrenia and scattering of the sheep is when the Shepherd and shepherds, Pope and bishops, will return to the Catholic Truth. That is certainly not happening yet, in the Church or in the Society of St Pius X, which is still – to all appearances – striving to get back under the authority of the Conciliar churchmen. (And Archbishop Lefebvre? “He’s dead,” some will say!)

Therefore until Almighty God – nobody less can do it! – puts the Pope back on his feet, and the Pope in turn, “once converted, strengthens his brethren” (Lk.XXII, 32), in other words straightens out the world’s bishops, until then this crisis can only go on getting worse, until we have learned our lesson and God has mercy upon us. Until then, as the English proverb has it, “What can’t be cured, must be endured.”

Kyrie eleison.

Professor Drexel – I

Professor Drexel – I on January 4, 2020

As the crisis of Church and world continues relentlessly from one year to the next, at another New Year’s beginning it may be the moment to return to messages of Our Lord from the early 1970’s when countless good Catholics were starting to suffer seriously from the confusion and distress following on the imposition upon them of the new religion of the Second Vatican Council, which had just come to an end in 1965. One such victim of Vatican II was Fr. Albert Drexel (1889–1977), a prestigious professor of philology from the Vorarlberg in Austria but also a devout Catholic priest, to whom from 1922 Our Lord appeared with a message on every First Friday of the month, to guide his devotion.However, only from 1970 were the messages written down, to be gathered together until his death, after which they were published in a little book still available today, entitled “Faith is greater than obedience.” No Catholic is obliged to believe that these are words of Our Lord Himself, but the First Friday messages from 1970 to 1977 are their own validation for many sheep that recognise in them the Master’s voice. Here for instance is the message of March 5, 1976, from which the words above are taken, just when the Faith of the true Church and obedience to the false Church were coming into sharpest conflict:— “The future looks dark for you. Your interior struggle for true perception and the way to take in the confusion is known to me. And so I shall enlighten you. My faithful son Marcel (Archbishop Lefebvre), who suffers a great deal for the faith, is going on the right path. He is like a light and pillar of truth, which many ordained priests of mine are betraying. Faith is greater than obedience. Therefore it is my will that the work of theological education for priests continues in the spirit and will of my son Marcel, for the salvation and great help of my one and true Church. “The spirit of the world has infiltrated the Church, and the Spirit of God has abandoned many hearts who were called to proclaim His Spirit. They talk about other things and lose themselves in the tricks and snares of Satan. And thus they corrupt the people and even the children ( . . . ) This spirit has penetrated the ecclesiastics and monasteries and convents, because the monks and nuns have lost and deserted the spirit of the Founders of their Orders. They have become a scandal for the people and the world. They have lost not only love towards My most holy Mother, but also reverence towards My sacramental presence. Instead the monks preach about things of the world, of luxury, of a life of pleasure, and the nuns do not talk about the holy angels, and many not even about the most holy Virgin and Mother Mary. Still, places do exist of quiet and of prayer, special shrines in which Mary, My Mother and the Mother of grace, is honoured.” Perhaps this message of 1976 is a little dated, insofar as the difference between the fruits of Vatican II and those of Archbishop Lefebvre have had time to make clear to many souls where the true Spirit of God is to be found. Today in fact the Archbishop is bearing more and more fruit outside of the limits of the Society he founded. Nevertheless, God’s true Church is still being torn to pieces by the modernist wolves in sheep’s clothing, and many souls are still being tempted to abandon the true Faith and the true Church. Let them heed one of many extracts from the messages to Fr Drexel, e.g. from New Year’s Day, 1971:— “A darkness hangs over my holy Church. The confusion is growing; more and more priests become unfaithful to their mission and grace ( . . . ) but while the fruit of the wicked and godless ends in corruption, the fruit of the faithful souls shall blossom into a purer and more beautiful Church. Hail to those who understand the hour and remain in my love, confess My Mother, follow the path of the saints, and who confide in the guidance of the angels; these faithful souls shall shine in the darkness, shall not waver under attack and shall not crumble amidst trials . . .” Kyrie eleison.