Comprehensive Overview On The Errors of Vatican II
The "rap sheet" begins this time with a simple overview of the Council. Further installments will concentrate on specific issues of doctrine, theology, definition, the Sacred Liturgy, the so-called "separated brethren," the contemporary world, the missions, education, pastorality, and practice.
It will conclude with solutions.
In general, the mentality at the Second Vatican Council was little if at all Catholic. This can be said because of an inexplicable and undeniable man-centeredness and sympathy for the "world" and its deceptive values, all of which ooze from all of the Council's documents. More specifically, Vatican II has been accused of substantive and relevant ambiguities, patent contradictions, significant omissions and, what counts even more, of grave errors in doctrine and pastorality.
Vatican II's Ambiguous Juridical Nature
First of all, ambiguity pervades the Second Vatican Council's nature as to law (i.e., "juridical nature"). This remains unclear and appears indeterminate because Vatican II termed itself simply a "pastoral Council" which, therefore, did not intend to define dogmas or condemn errors. This can be seen from the address delivered at the Council's opening by Pope John XXIII on October 11, 1962, and in the Notificatio, publicly read on November 5, 1965. Therefore, the Council's two Constitutions, Dei Verbum (on Divine Revelation) and Lumen Gentium (on the Church), which, in fact, do concern matters of dogmas of the Faith, are dogmatic only in name and in a solely descriptive sense.
The Council wanted to disqualify the "authentically manifest and supreme ordinary Magisterium" (Pope Paul VI). This is an insufficient figure of speech for an ecumenical council since such councils always embody an extraordinary exercise of the Magisterium, with the Pope deciding to exercise its exceptional nature together with all of the bishops assembled by him in council. He acts therein as the suprema potestas of the entire Church, which he possesses by Divine right. Neither does reference to the "authentic character" of Vatican II explain things, because such a term generally means "authoritative" relative to the Holy Father's sole authority, not to his infallibility. The "mere authenticum"ordinary Magisterium is not infallible, while the ordinary Magisterium is infallible. In any case, the ordinary Magisterium's infallibility does not have the same characteristics as the extraordinary Magisterium. Thus, it cannot be applied to the Second Vatican Council. It is necessary to realize that the point in question is how many bishops throughout the Catholic world are teaching the same doctrine, and not how many are present at a Council.
Such being Vatican IFs actual juridical nature, it is certain that it did not wish to impart a teaching invested with infallibility. It is true that Pope Paul VI himself said that the Council's teaching ought to be "docilely and sincerely" accepted by the faithful, that is, with (we specifically note) what is always called "internal religious assent," something required of any pastoral document, for instance.
This assent is obligatory, but only on the condition that sufficient and grave reasons do not exist for not granting such assent. Might a question of "grave reason" be concerned when alterations in the deposit of Faith are evident? Already during Vatican IPs tormented discussions, cardinals, bishops, and theologians, faithful to dogma, repeatedly noted the ambiguities and errors which were infiltrating Council texts, errors that today, after 40 years of definitive reflection and study, we are grasping ever more precisely.
We do not pretend completeness for our synopsis of the errors ascribed to Vatican II. Yet it seems to us that we have specified in what follows a sufficient number of important ones, beginning with the first utterances such as those contained in the Council's October 20, 1962 "Address on Openness" by His Holiness John XXIII and the Council Fathers' "Message to the World." Though not one of the official, formal Council texts, nevertheless, these texts expressed the thinking wanted by the "progressive wing," that is, the neo-modernist innovators' line of thinking.
"Address on Openness"
Aside from its resoundingly divergent assertions denied by the facts, such as, "Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations that...are developing toward a fullness of superior and unexpected designs," Pope John XXIII's famous speech on opening up to the world contains three real and true doctrinal errors.
FIRST ERROR: & mutilated concept of the Magisterium.
This error is contained in the incredible assertion concerning the Church's renunciation and condemnation of error:
The Church has always been opposed to these errors [i.e., false opinions of men-Ed.]; She has often condemned them with the greatest severity. Now, however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to employ the medicine of mercy rather than that of harshness. She is going to meet today's needs by demonstrating the validity of Her doctrine, rather than by renewing condemnations.
With this renunciation of employing proper, God-given authority to defend the deposit of the faith and to help souls through condemning errors that ensnare souls and prevent their eternal salvation, Pope John XXIII kicked aside his duties as Vicar of Christ. In fact, condemning error is essential for maintaining the deposit of faith, which is the Pontiff's first duty, and with it, always confirming sound doctrine, thus demonstrating the efficacy of doing so with timely application. Moreover, from a pastoral point of view, condemning error is necessary because it supports and sustains the faithful, the well-educated as well as those less so, with the Magisterium's incomparable authority. By its exercise they are strengthened to defend themselves against error, whose "logic" is often astute and seductive. This is not the only point: condemning error can lead errant souls to repent, by placing the true sustenance of their intellect before them. The condemnation of error is, in and of itself, a work of mercy.
To hold that condemning error should never have occurred is to support a mutilated concept of the Church's Magisterium. In the main, the post-Vatican II Church, no longer condemning error, has substituted for it dialogue with those in error. This amounts to doctrinal error. Previously, the Church has always prosecuted dialogue with such errors and those in error. Pope John XXIII’s quote above enounces the error clearly: that demonstrating "doctrine's validity" is incompatible with "renewing condemnations." This is to suggest that such validity ought to be imposed only thanks to one's own intrinsic logic, and not from external authority. But in such an approach, faith would no longer be a gift from God, nor would there be any need of grace to fortify faith, nor any need to exercise the principle for sustaining faith via the authority in the Catholic Church. The essential error is concealed in Pope John XXIII's phraseology; it is a form of Pelagianism [i.e., that all men are, by nature, good-Ed.] which is typical of all "rationalistic conceptions" of the Faith, all of them repeatedly condemned by the Magisterium.
Not only heresies and theological errors in the strict sense have been objects of condemnation, but every one of the world's ideas that is not Catholic, not only those adverse to the Faith, but also those to whom Our Lord's words apply, "He who does not gather with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth" (Mt. 12:30).
The un-orthodox position taken by John XXIII, maintained by the Council and the post-Conciliar period has caused the collapse of the Church's ironclad armor. The Church's enemies-inside and out-appreciate this heterodox position. No doubt they agree with Nietzsche, who said: "The intellectual mark of the Church is essentially harsh inflexibility, by which the conception and judgment of values are treated as stable, as eternal."
SECOND ERROR: -The contamination of Catholic doctrine with intrinsically anti-Catholic "modern thinking."
Connected to this unprecedented renunciation of error is another flagrantly grave assertion made by John XXIII in his January 13, 1963, Christmas address to Cardinals. He said that "doctrinal penetration" must occur through "doctrine's more perfect adhesion to fidelity to true doctrine."
However, he followed this by explaining that
true doctrine ought to be expressed using the forms of investigation and literary style of modern thinking, since, to do so, is to sustain the depositum fidei's classic doctrine and is the way to recast it: and this ought to be done patiently, taking into great account that all must be expressed in forms and propositions having a predominantly pastoral character.1
Liberals and modernists had already long recommended that classical doctrine be re-cast in forms imported from "modern thinking." Doing so was specifically condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi2 and his decree Lamentabili which condemned the following:3
§63. The Church shows herself unequal to the task of preserving the ethics of the Gospel, because she clings obstinately to immutable doctrines which cannot be reconciled with present day advances.§64. The progress of the sciences demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine about God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, the redemption, be recast. (Lamentabili, July 3, 1907, dz 2063, 2064)
In Humani Generis4Pope Pius XII said the same thing. Thus, Pope John XXIII’s predecessors had condemned his proposed doctrine. This is a typical of all modernist errors.
In fact, it is not possible for the categories of "modern thinking" to be applied to Catholic doctrine. In all of its forms modern thinking negates-a priori- the existence of an absolute truth and holds that everything is relative to Man, who is his own absolute value, divinized in all of his manifestations, from instinct to "self-consciousness." This way of thinking is intrinsically opposed to the fundamental truths of the Catholic Church beginning with the idea of God the Creator, of a living God Who has been revealed and incarnated in His Second Person. In the end, modern thinking means only a politics and an ethic. By proposing a similar contamination, Pope John XXIII showed himself to be a disciple of the of the neo-modernists' "New Theology," already condemned by the Magisterium. Regarding the Catholic Church's salvation mission, the needs of the day required of the Second Vatican Council to reinforce the rejection of modern thinking found in the prior popes-from Pius IX to Pius XII. Instead, the Council gave full sway to "the study and expression" of "authentic" and "classic" doctrine via "modern thinking."
THIRD ERROR: The Church's goal is "the unity of humanity."
The third error of the Opening Address announced that "the unity of humanity" was the Church's own and proper goal. This was advanced by the Second Vatican Council, which quoted St. Augustine (Ep. 138,3) to purport that the Church be
preparing and consolidating the way toward that human unity which is a fundamental necessity because the earthly City is constructed to always resemble the heavenly one "in which truth and the law of charity reign, and is the extension of the Eternal One.
Here "human unity" is seen as the "fundamental necessity because the earthly City is constructed to always resemble the heavenly one." But the Church never taught that her expansion in this world had "human unity" as her goal, as affirmed by Pope John XXIII, simply. On the contrary, this is the guiding idea of the Enlightenment's philosophy of history first elaborated by the 18th century by secularists. It is not of the Catholic Church, but is an essential component of the religion of Humanism.
The error consists in mixing the Catholic vision with an idea imported into it from secular thought. Secularists do not look to extend the Kingdom of God through that part of it realized on earth by the Catholic Church. This vision is a substitute for that of the Church's. Humanism is convinced of the dignity of man as man (since humanists do not believe in original sin) and of his supposed "rights."
Besides these three errors in the Opening Address, two more theological errors were proposed in what followed.
Errors in the Council Fathers' "Message to the World"
The "Message to the World" was promulgated at the start of the Council. [Archbishop Lefebvre was one of the few to criticize it.-Ed.] In miniature, it contained the pastoral line of thought that would be developed to the fullest in Gaudium et Spes. "Human good," the "dignity of man" as man, "peace between people," a pastoral in which the preoccupation with "human good," "the dignity of man," as man, "the peace between people," are its central concerns, and left aside is man's conversion to Christ:
While we hope that through the Council's labors the light of faith shines more clearly and alive, we await a spiritual renaissance from which also comes a happy impulse that favors human well-being, that is, scientific invention, progress of the arts, technology, and a greater diffusion of culture.
"Human well-being" is characterized according to the century's reigning ideas, i.e., scientific, artistic, technological, and cultural progress.5 Should the Second Vatican Council have become so preoccupied with such things? Should it have expressed hope for the increase of these solely earthly "blessings," always shortlived, often deceptive, in place of those eternal ones founded on perennial values taught by the Church over the centuries? No wonder that, following this brand of pastoral, instead of a new "splendor" of the faith, a grave and persistent crisis has arisen?
The actual theological error, in the proper sense of error, occurs at the close of the "Message to the World" where it is said: "We invite all to collaborate with us in order to install in the world a more well ordered civil life and a greater fraternity." This is not Catholic doctrine. Any anticipation of the eternal kingdom in this world was constituted only by the Catholic Church, by the visible Church Militant, the earthly element of the Mystical Body of Christ, which grows slowly, not withstanding the opposition of "the prince of this world." The Mystical Body of ' Christ increases, but not strictly through the "union of all men of good will," and of all humanity under the banner of "progress."
The texts of Vatican II are infamous for being ambiguous and contradictory. Suffice it by the following serious example to show how profound the ambiguity is.
Vatican II's Dei Verbum (on Divine Revelation) is called a "dogmatic constitution" because it concerns the inerrant truth of dogma. In §9, however, it expounds in an obviously insufficient and unclear way [or else, why the confusion presented in § 11 ?-Ed.] how the truths of the Faith rest on two pillars of revelation-Sacred Scripture and Tradition-and on the absolute inerrancy of Sacred Scripture and the total historical authenticity of the Gospels.6 In §11, Dei Verbum lends itself even to opposite interpretations, one of which would reduce inerrancy only to "truth...confided to the Sacred Scriptures....":
...Since, therefore, all that the inspired authors, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures....(Dei Verbum, § lib, Nov. 18, 1965)
This is substantively equivalent to heresy because the absolute inerrancy of Sacred Scripture and the truth expounded there is the truth of the Faith constantly deduced and taught by the Church alone.
For an example of patent contradiction, let us look as §2 of the October 28, 1965 decree, Perfectae Caritatis (On the Up-to-Date Renewal of Religious Life). It states that the renewal of religious life "comprises both a constant return to the sources of the whole of the Christian life and to the primitive inspiration of the institutes, and the adaptation to the changed conditions of our time...."
This is a patent contradiction since, according to the three vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, the unique characteristic of religious life has always been that of being completely antithetical to the world, corrupted as it is by original sin and the very illustration of the fleeting and transient. How is it possible that the "return to the sources...and to the primitive inspiration of the [Catholic] institutes" be accomplished by their "adaptation to the changed conditions of our time?" Adaptation to these "conditions," which today are those of the secularized modern world of lay culture, are the very ones that impede, in themselves, "the return to the sources."
Paragraph 79 of Gaudium et Spes (On the Church in the Modern World, Dec. 7, 1965) grants governments the right "of lawful self-defense" to "defend the interests of the people." This substantively seems to conform to the traditional teaching of the Church, which has always granted the right of defense from an external or internal attack of the "just war" category, and conforms to the principles of natural rights. However, §82 of the same Gaudium et Spes also contains an absolute condemnation of war and, therefore, of every type of war, without making express exception for defensive war, justified three paragraphs earlier, which, then, the Council both permitted and condemned! Compare, yourself: first, the permission, then, the condemnation:
§79. War, of course, has not ceased to be part of the human scene. As long as the danger of war persists..., governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed. State leaders and all who share the burdens of public administration have the duty to defend the interests of their people and to conduct grave matters with a deep sense of responsibility....§82. It is our clear duty to spare no effort in order to work for the moment when all war will be completely outlawed by international agreement. This goal, or course, requires the establishment of a universally acknowledged public authority vested with the effective power to ensure security for all,....
Contradiction is also evident in Sacrosanctum Concilium (On the Consititution on the Sacred Liturgy, Dec. 4, 1963) regarding the maintenance of Latin as the liturgical language. We read in §36(1): "The use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites." In the next line,
§36(2). But since the use of the vernacular, whether in the Mass, in the administration of the sacraments, or in other parts of the liturgy, may frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use may be made of it, especially in readings, directives, and in some prayers and chants. Regulations governing this will be given separately in subsequent chapters.
But the regulations "established" in this document are left to episcopal conferences:
§22(1). Regulation of the sacred liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, that is, on the Apostolic See, and, as laws may determine, on the bishop.§22(2). In virtue of power conceded by law, the regulation of the liturgy within certain defined limits belongs also to various kinds of bishops' conferences, legitimately established, with competence in given territories.
This paragraph was given wide latitude. There are numerous cases where the Council authorized the partial or total use of the vernacular:
§54. A suitable place may be allotted to the vernacular in Masses which are celebrated with the people, especially in the readings and "the common prayer," and also, as local conditions may warrant, in those parts which pertain to the people, according to the rules laid down in §36 of the Constitution.... Wherever a more expanded use of the vernacular in the Mass seems desirable, the regulation laid down in §40 of the Constitution is to be observed. [Paragraph 40 discusses the procedure to be followed if "more radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed," which "entails greater difficulties."-Ed]§62(a): In the administration of sacraments and sacramentals the vernacular may be used according to the norm of §36.§65. In the mission countries, in addition to what is furnished by the Christian tradition, those elements of initiation rites may be admitted which are already in use among some peoples... [e.g., rites which are certainly in the vernacular-Ed.].§68. The baptismal rite should contain variants, to be used at the discretion of the local ordinary—Likewise a shorter rite is to be drawn up, especially for mission countries…§76. Both the ceremonies and texts of the Ordination rites are to be revised. The addresses given by the bishop at the beginning of each ordination or consecration may be in the vernacular…§78. Matrimony is normally to be celebrated within the Mass after the reading of the Gospel and the homily before "the prayer of the faithful." The prayer for the bride, duly amended to remind both spouses of their equal obligation of mutual fidelity, may be said in the vernacular.§101(1). In accordance with the age-old tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the divine office. But in individual cases the ordinary has the power to grant the use of a vernacular translation to those clerics for whom the Latin constitutes a grave obstacle to their praying the office properly. The vernacular version, however, must be drawn up in accordance with the provisions of §36.§113. Liturgical worship is given a more noble form when the divine offices are celebrated solemnly in song with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active participation of the people. As regards the language to be used, the provisions of §36 are to be observed;…
Contrary to firmly maintaining the use of Latin, the Second Vatican Council seemed to be preoccupied with opening the greatest possible number of avenues for the vernacular and, by doing so, laid down the premises of its definitive victory in the post-Conciliar era.
Among the Council's omissions, we shall limit ourselves to discussing the most relevant under two subtitles: five omissions on the dogmatic level and three on the pastoral level.
On the Dogmatic Level
On the dogmatic level, five points strike us:
failure to condemn the major errors of the 20th century;
absence of the notion of supernaturality and lack of mention
absence of a specific treatment of hell, mentioned only
once in passing (§48 of Lumen Gentium);
lack of mention of the dogmas of Transubstantiation and
of the propitiatory character of the Holy Sacrifice [In
those paragraphs of Sacrosanctum Concilium specifically
expounding on the Holy Mass (§§30, 47, 106), there is
a repeated failure to reinforce these dogmas.-Ed.];
disappearance of any mention of the idea of "the
poor in spirit."
On the Pastoral Level
The following points come to our attention regarding omissions at this level:
general, the absence of specifically Catholic
of such key notions as pastorality, the relation between
Church and State, the ideal models of individual, family,
and culture, etc.;
failure to condemn Communism, the greatest threat to Christendom,
on which so much has been written. This failure was noticeable
and resulted later in §75 of Gaudium et Spes which
weakly and generically condemns "totalitarianism,"
putting it on the same level as "dictatorship":
...The understanding of the relationship between socialization and personal autonomy and progress will vary according to different areas and the development of peoples. However, if restrictions are imposed temporarily for the common good on the exercise of human rights, these restrictions are to be lifted as soon as possible after the situation has changed. In any case it is inhuman for public authority to fall back on totalitarian methods or dictatorship which violates the rights of persons or social groups. (Gaudium et Spes, §75[c]).
The same omission reoccurs in §79 of the same document, in which the horrific crimes of the recent wars were addressed:
...Any action which deliberately violates these principles and any order which commands these actions is criminal, and blind obedience cannot excuse those who carry them out. The most infamous among these actions are those designed for the reasoned and methodical extermination of an entire race, nation, or ethnic minority. These must be condemned as frightful crimes; and we cannot commend too highly the courage of men who openly and fearlessly resist those who issue orders of this kind…
These 20th-century "methods" had been witnessed many times, for example, against the Christian Armenians (almost 70% exterminated by the Muslim Turks in the years before WWI) and by the neo-pagan Nazis. But such schemes were known also to have been performed by the Communists by their systematic physical annihilation of so-called "class enemies," that is, millions of individuals whose only crime was that of belonging to a social class deemed aristocratic, bourgeois, peasants-all extirpated in the name of a "classless society," Communism's Utopian goal. Clearly, in Gaudium et Spes (§79), "social class" exterminations should have been added. But the progressive wing that imposed itself on the Council guarded against this being done, proving itself politically left-wing. It did not want Marxism to be discussed as a doctrine born of Communism nor its actual political practice.
- the failure to condemn corrupt customs and hedonism, which had deeply spread within Western society.
1.These concepts were specifically repeated by the Council in the decree, Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism, article 6:
Every renewal of the Church is essentially grounded in an increase of fidelity to her own calling. Undoubtedly this is the basis of the movement toward unity.
Christ summons the Church to continual reformation as she sojourns here on earth. The Church is always in need of this, in so far as she is an institution of men here on earth. Thus if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in Church discipline, or even in the way that Church teaching has been formulated to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself, these can and should be set right at the opportune moment.
Church renewal has therefore notable ecumenical importance. Already in various spheres of the Church's life, this renewal is taking place. The Biblical and liturgical movements, the preaching of the word of God and catechetics, the apostolate of the laity, new forms of religious life and the spirituality of married life, and the Church's social teaching and activity: all these should be considered as pledges and signs of the future progress of ecumenism.
2. Pascendi, 1907, §2, c.
3. Lamentabili, §§63, 64.
4. Humani Generis, AAS 1950, pp.565-566.
5. Gaudium et Spes, §§60-62.
6. Gaudium et Spes, §§53, 74, 76, etc.
In Part 1 of what promises to be a lengthy serialization, we discussed the "mentality" of the SecondDOCTRINAL ERRORS
Vatican Council in general. In this overview, we especially highlighted its ambiguous nature as to the law, how at the outset it presented itself to the world, and some general contradictions and omissions in some of its texts.
In Part 2, we will begin to summarize the errors ascribed to Vatican II in particular, starting with a basic division of its errors into those which are doctrinal and those which are pastoral (recognizing that such a distinction is not always well-demarcated). This installment will concentrate on the doctrinal errors concerning: 1) notions of "Tradition" and "Catholic Truth," 2) the Catholic Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary, 3) the Holy Mass and the Sacred Liturgy.
The "Rethinking" of Tradition and the Doctrine of the Church
Vatican II's doctrinal errors emerge from propositions that, wholly or in part, contradict what has always been taught by the Church or that obscure, diminish, or alter it. These errors are formulated in all of the texts-and are treated in texts that in general concern fundamental truths-in which the Council wanted to express its own doctrine and its "rethinking" of sacred Tradition and Church teaching:
This Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. To this end, it searches into the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church-the treasury out of which the Church continually brings forth new things that are in harmony with the things that are old (Dignitatis Humanae).
To deduce how much this last assertion corresponds to reality we will discuss in the course of this series of articles the following topics of which the first three are treated here. The errors in doctrine concern: 1) the ideas of Tradition and Catholic truth; 2) the Holy Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary; 3) the Holy Mass and the Sacred Liturgy; 4) the Priesthood; 5) the Incarnation and Redemption, and the concept of "Man"; 6) the "Kingdom of God"; 7) the sacrament of Matrimony and the condition of woman; 8) the sects, heretics, and schismatics (i.e., the so-called "separated brethren"); 9) non-Christian religions; 10) politics, the political community; the relationship between Church and State; 17) the notion of "Religious Liberty" and the role of individual conscience.
A Permanent "Living-Together" Relationship with Heretics and Schismatics
Essentially, pastoral errors consist of proposing bad pastoral teaching-bad because the Council's bad doctrinal errors are put into practice and/or also wholly or in part, contradict or alter the Church's traditional pastoral teachings or appear per se to contradict them.
From a general point of view, Vatican II's entire pastoral outlook is polluted because it is founded on aggiornamento, that is, on the principle of dialogue with error, rather than with those who are in error in order to convert them.
When we begin to discuss them, we shall present the pastoral errors in the following way. Preliminarily, we shall make a synthetic analysis of the false value placed on man and the world, deprived as it is of any essential reference to Church teaching and Catholic thinking. This is primarily developed in Gaudium et Spes and comprises the theoretical basis for a major part of Conciliar pastoral teaching. Next, we shall go on to give some examples of this bad pastoral teaching as contained in Gaudium et Spes and in doctrinal documents.
From these examples we shall see how Vatican II's pastoral teaching always articulates its two basic policy lines and how they are connected, that is: 1) the clerical aggiornamento (or updating) in all of its components to be in line with modern, contemporary culture in all of its forms-humanistic, scientific, technical, artistic, etc.-, 2) the "ecumenical" collaboration of priests and faithful with the so-called "separated brethren," with other religions, with all men, not in order to convert them to the one true faith, but to ally with them on behalf of mankind's progress and unity.
For the rest, ecumenism, clearly understood in the sense of article 8 of Lumen Gentium (§8), and of paragraphs 1-4 of Unitatis Redintegratio, proclaimed as true and proper the general principle of the pastoral teaching in UR (§24):
It is the urgent wish of this Holy Council that the measures undertaken by the sons of the Catholic Church should develop in conjunction with those of our separated brethren so that no obstacle be put in the ways of divine Providence and no preconceived judgments impair the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit.
This invitation to permanent symbiosis with heretics and schismatics was naturally accepted and put into action. This practical implementation allows us to assert that the ecumenical degeneration in the celebration of worship and in pastoral activity that are today so widely diffused have their roots in the Second Vatican Council itself and not in the so-called "post-Conciliar period."
Errors in pastoral teaching concern the following of which we will treat separately later in this series: 1) the interpretation of the meaning and significance of the contemporary world; 2) aspects of the Sacred Liturgy; 3) aspects in the study and teaching of doctrine; 4) the formation of religious and seminarians; the office and duties of bishops and priests; 5) the formation of and directives given to missionaries; 6) directives given to the lay apostolate; 7) the aggiornamento in education.
So, let us now move on to speak of the first three doctrinal errors of Vatican II, beginning with its errors concerning ideas of Tradition and Catholic truth.
1) Errors Concerning the Ideas of Tradition and of Catholic Truth
>Vatican II sports an erroneous concept of SacreS Tradition as a complex of teaching, thanks to which
as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her (Dei Verbum§8).This is to make it sound as though Tradition, which guards the deposit of faith from the time of the Apostles' preaching, does not already possess "the fullness of divine truth!" In the reading of the above, one is led to believe there might be something else to be added or that what is already there can be modified.
This idea of the Church being in "incessant tension" with the "fullness of divine truth" openly contradicts the Church's idea of the "deposit of faith" (I Tim. 6:20). In turn, this error is connected to "subjectivism"-the signature of modern thinking-typified by the "New Theology," of which the reigning idea is that everything is always moving in a continual upward progression, and that absolute truth does not exist, rather, only the endless tending of a subject toward a truth whose endpoint is himself.
>Further, Vatican II teaches the incredible assertion, contrary to common sense, that all of Tradition, should be subjected to a "continual reform."
Thus if, in various times and circumstances, there have been deficiencies in moral conduct or in church discipline, or even in the way that church teaching has been formulated-to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself-these can and should be set right at the opportune moment (UR §6; Gaudium et Spes [hereafter GS] §62).This last statement, proclaimed in the vernacular version of John XXIII's October 11, 1962 Inaugural Address and which Pope Paul VI confirmed to the letter, is a principle condemned by St. Pius X (Pascendi §11; Lamentabili§§63,64} and Pius XII (Humani Generis) .
>The following proposition, professed by the Council to justify religious liberty, is completely false in relation to the truth of Catholicism, since divine truth surpasses the capacity of our intellect, and cannot be believed without the help of Grace.
[T] his Vatican Council likewise professes its belief that it is upon the human conscience that these obligations fall and exert their binding force. The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power (Dignitatis Humanae [hereafter DH], §1).The Church has always taught that faith is a gift of God. Moreover, this assertion negates the consequences of original sin in the intellect and will, because of which they are wounded and weakened and therefore prone to errors and deception.
2) Errors Concerning the Holy Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary
>Vatican II teaches a false notion of the Holy Church in its error known as the "subsistit in." Due to this error, the concept of the Church is no longer that of the one, true Church of Christ as was always taught. According to its bold assertion the "Church of Christ" subsists in the Catholic Church and also "through God's goodness" in "multiple elements of sanctification and truth" which are outside her (LG §8; DH§1; UR§3).
Contrary to the Faith, these statements amount to affirming that there can be salvation of souls outside the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Catholic Church is no longer the unique means of salvation. Thus, too, the communities of heretics and schismatics are also "instruments of salvation" (f/R§3), despite their "deficiencies," because "the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church" (UR §3).
Still left to the Catholic Church is that it is "the all-embracing means of salvation" since it is "the general means of salvation" (ibid). Therefore, the Church finds herself demoted from being the sole means of salvation to being just "a general means"-a very obscure phrase. Due to these statements, the Catholic Church now provides "the all-embracing means of salvation" yet, it provides only the fullness of means and not the only means. This means that, in the mind of the Second Vatican Council, there are means said to be less full which confer salvation. But salvation in itself cannot be "less full," since there is no idea of being "half-saved." Due to these less full means being now found among the brethren termed "separated" and due to their enjoying the Holy Spirit's assistance, salvation can be obtained through them not as individuals but in terms of their being separated communities of heretics and schismatics.
We find ourselves faced with a manifest theological error, since the "separated" communities are precisely so because they have refused the Holy Spirit's help in correcting their own errors which have led them to be separated. The Council's new doctrine is also incoherent at the level of logic because it is incomprehensible how means of salvation which contain "deficiencies" (and are thus less than those of the Catholic Church) can give the same salvation offered by the Catholic Church. Unequal means would have to correspond to unequal results, not the same result! [See Sidebar "Note on Dominus Jesus ',"— Ed.]
>The obscure notion of the "Church of Christ" as "Trinitarian mystery," which is the obscure Trinitarian ecclesiology according to which a succession takes place from the Church of the Father to the Church of the Son, and then to the Church of the Holy Spirit (LG §§2-4), a notion which is unknown in the deposit of Faith. According to it, apparently the result of a deformation of a passage of St. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. Ill, 24, 1), they openly profess a rejuvenation and renewal of the Church by the work of the Holy Spirit, as if we were in a final third age of the Church (LG §4). This perspective seems to reaffirm the errors of Joachim of Floris (d. 1202) condemned by the Fourth Lateran Council.
>An erroneous notion of collegiality. This idea is juridically abnormal because it recognizes, contrary to tradition and the Church's constitution, two subjects of the supreme power of jurisdiction: the Sovereign Pontiff and the College of Bishops with, at its head, the Pope, although only the latter can exercise it freely (LG §22; also Nota Praevia). Moreover, this erroneous collegiality entails the de facto disappearance of the personal responsibility of each bishop in the government of his diocese, and its replacement by the collective responsibility of the episcopal conferences (Christus Dominus [CD] §37), which now also are ascribed legislative powers (CD §38), and even a wide autonomy in numerous domains traditionally reserved to the exclusive competence of the Holy See.
>Vatican II presents a gravely erroneous and ambiguous representation of the traditional definition of the Catholic Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. This is especially clear in LG, which is dedicated to this point:
In the human nature united to Himself the Son of God, by overcoming death through His own death and resurrection, redeemed man and remolded him into a new creature (cf. Gal. 6:15; II Cor. 5:17) (Z,G§7).The idea here seems to express the Redemption as already having taken place for each man (!) and that from that moment it is declared that man was transformed "into a new creature," not because he believed in Christ, not because he was converted and became a Catholic with the help of the Holy Ghost, not by his faith supported by grace (as clearly stated in Gal. 6:15 and II Cor. 5:17 but improperly quoted by the Council), but through the fact, per se, of Christ's Incarnation, sacrifice, and even His Resurrection. Therefore, the "Mystical Body" will be made up of "new creatures," who are considered to have been remolded in this way. This is the error of the objective and universal redemption, the battering ram of the "New Theology." It makes a total abstraction of the roles of free will, faith, and works in obtaining salvation. Obviously, the aim of this concept is to assimilate the "Mystical Body of Christ" into humanity (Z,G§1).
>Another false notion of Vatican II is that of the "Church," which is newly conceived as "the people of God" and no longer as "the Mystical Body of Christ" (LG §§9-13) which is definitively more exclusive. On the one hand, the new definition takes the part for the whole, meaning that it takes the "people of God," mentioned in I Pet. 2:10, for the totality of the Church. This is a radical twist lending itself to a strictly "democratic" and "communitarian" vision of the Church herself, a vision alien to Catholic Tradition but close to the thinking and meaning of Protestant heretics. On the other hand, the hierarchy is included in the idea of "people," and so are defined simply as "members of the people of God" (Z,G§13). This is an unusual and indefensible "communitarian" perspective. According to this new perspective, the hierarchy is dumbed down and made to seem to participate in the Mystical Body of Christ along with "the people."
This false notion of "the people of God" is superimposed on the orthodox idea of the "Mystical Body." In this new conception, the hierarchy now participates in the "collective" as represented by the "people of God." In this new view, the priest loses his authentic meaning because he becomes a mere function of the "people of God" as a whole. This function is exercised under two forms: 1) the "common priesthood of the faithful," and 2) the "ministerial" or "hierarchic" priesthood, that is, the authentic priesthood of priests.
>Vatican II obscures the idea of the Church's holiness, which belongs to the deposit of faith.
Similarly, the Church encompasses with her love all those who are poor and who suffer, the image of the poor and suffering founder. She does all in her power to relieve their need and in them she strives to serve Christ. Christ, "holy, innocent and undefiled" (Heb. 7:26) knew nothing of sin (II Cor. 5:21), but came only to expiate the sins of the people (cf. Heb. 2:17). The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal (LG §8 [emphasis added]).This is an obvious theological error, since it is the sinner who is in need of purification, not the Church (!), thanks to whom the sinner obtains it. Holiness and perfection belong to the Catholic Church in as much as it is the Mystical Body of Christ, founded by Him and governed through the intermediary of the Holy Ghost, that is, always safeguarded by the Church through the deposit of Faith and the Sacraments. For us, these have a religious, metaphysical, and theological value, which the faults of Churchmen or the faithful cannot, by definition, damage. Therefore, it is completely erroneous to insist
that those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from the mercy of God for the offences committed against Him and are at the same time reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins (LG §11).It is also erroneous to insist that "the Church on earth is endowed already with a sanctity that is real though imperfect...." (LG §48) because of sin, which continually wounds her. This is wrong to say because sin offends God, but wounds and therefore damages only whoever commits it. Punishment only applies to the sinner since judgment is for the individual. It is not in the deposit of Faith that the Catholic Church herself can be "wounded" by the sins of her members.
>By its man-centeredness, Vatican II has deformed the notion of "sin."
For sin brought man to a lower state, forcing him away from the completeness that is his to attain (GS§13).In other words, sin prevents man from attaining his "fullness." Rather, it should say that, sin "prevents him from attaining his salvation." The error promotes the belief that man's "fullness" and the absence of contradictions within himself axe the principal values and, moreover, are elements of the idea of sin. On the contrary, the Church's perennial teaching is that sin is an offense committed against God because of which we merit legitimate punishment, including eternal damnation. This truth of the Faith was not recalled in any of the Council's texts.
>There is an attribution of a new mission to the Holy See-to bring about human unity-which does not correspond to anything ever taught before in the Catholic Church. LG§1 asserts:
Since the Church, in Christ, is in the nature of sacrament-a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and unity among all men [emphasis added] -she here purposes, for the benefit of the faithful and of the whole world, to set forth, as clearly as possible, and in the tradition laid down by earlier Councils, her own nature and universal mission. The condition of the modern world lends greater urgency to this duty of the Church; for, while men of the present day are drawn ever more closely together by social, technical, and cultural bonds, it still remains for them to achieve full unity in Christ.This is not surprising, since Article 42 of GS says "the encouragement of unity is in harmony with the deepest nature of the Church's mission..." and then quotes the above passage from LG to support itself.
But this does not mean unity in service of the salvation of souls, a unity that is therefore attained through conversion to Catholicism. Rather, this unity seems to result merely from the "intimate union with God" of the entire human race as such. This idea was introduced into the Council's texts thanks to a heterodox reinterpretation, typical of the "New Theology," of the dogmas of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Those texts were turned upside down to the extent of pushing them aside in order to put into place the idea of the so-called "objective" Redemption being realized, thanks to the Incarnation, in all men, independently of their conscience and will, as if they were "anonymous" Christians.
But the Church's mission is the one that Our Lord gave her: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptising them..." (Mt. 28:19). Thus, the Church's "intimate mission" is to convert the greatest possible number of souls to Christ before the Parousia, without caring about bringing about the unity of the human race, a chimeric ideal, and one that is intrinsically an ti- Christian because it is a form of the divinization of man, exalting him and gazing upon him, an ideal imported from Illuminist philosophy and piously professed by Freemasonry.
>Vatican II tells us "the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith" (LG §58), as if-for one could understand her "pilgrimage of faith" in this way-from the Annunciation, she did not know that Jesus was the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, the prophesied Messiah now announced.
>The Council documents teach another gravely inadequate idea of the Church, reducing her to just one sociological, descriptive, and simple aspect, which is summarized in this excerpt:
The Church also claims freedom for herself as a society of men with the right to live in civil society in accordance with the demands of the Christian faith (DH§13).This leads to complete amnesia of the fact that the Church has always been denned as a perfect society by nature and by law due to Her divine institution and exalted end:
And just as the end at which the Church aims is by far the noblest of ends, so is its authority the most exalted of all authority, nor can it be looked upon as inferior to the civil power, or in any manner dependent upon it (Immortale Dei, Leo XIII).Vatican II guarded against reaffirming this traditional doctrine of the Church's indirect power over civil society and the State.
3) Errors Concerning the Holy Mass and Sacred Liturgy
>Vatican II officially adopted the obscurantist idea of the "Paschal mystery," the battering ram of the "New Theology." Redemption is realized principally "in the paschal mystery of the passion, resurrection and ascension" of Christ (Sacrosanctum Concilium [hereafter SC] §5). Therefore, redemption is no longer principally the result from the Crucifixion's value as an expiatory sacrifice by which divine justice was satisfied. Moreover, the Holy Mass is identified with the "Paschal Mystery." The Council declared that the Church, from its beginning, was always brought together in an assembly "to celebrate the Paschal mystery" (SC§6) and that she "celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day"(SC§106)
Next, Baptism is treated. By baptism, "men are grafted onto the Paschal mystery of Christ" (SC§6), and not that it causes them to enter into the Holy Church, as if the "Paschal mystery" were the same thing as the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. It is a vague, indeterminate, irrational definition that (precisely because of these characteristics) permits altering the meaning of the Redemption and the Mass, thereby hiding the sacrificial and expiatory nature of the latter behind emphasis on the Resurrection and the Ascension-on the Glorious Christ instead of the Suffering Christ-contrary to what was affirmed at Trent.
>The Second Vatican Council is guilty of error in its unclear and incomplete definition of the Holy Mass as "a memorial of [our Lord's] death and resurrection..." with death and resurrection placed on the same level and without the least mention of the dogma of transubstantiation or of the character of the Mass itself as a propitiatory sacrifice (5'C§§47).
Because of this silence, this definition falls again into the category solemnly condemned by Pope Pius VI as being "pernicious, unfaithful to the explanation of Catholic truth on the dogma of the transubstantiation, favorable to heretics" (Auctorem Fidei). It also introduces a false concept of the Holy Mass, a concept which served as the basis for the new liturgy desired by the Council, thanks to which the errors of the "New Theology" were delivered to the faithful.
The Protestant taint of this definition devolves even more clearly in Article 106 of SC:
....the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh day, which day is appropriately called the Lord's day or Sunday. For on this day Christ's faithful are bound to come together into one place. They should listen to the word of God and take part in the Eucharist, thus calling to mind the passion, resurrection, and glory of the Lord Jesus, and giving thanks to God who "has begotten them again, through the resurrection of Christ from the dead, unto a living hope" (I Pet. 1:3).Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the original Latin text shows more clearly than the English that, according to SC, the Holy Mass's end is memorial and praise. For more proof of this prevailing mentality, see also Ad Gentes Divinitus (§14): catechumens participate in the Holy Mass, meaning that they "celebrate with all the people of God the memorial of the death of the Lord" in which the Holy Mass is simply the memorial of the death and resurrection of Christ celebrated by all Christian people. There is not the least mention of the renewed Sacrifice of the Cross offered in an unbloody way for the expiation and pardon of our sins.
It should be noted here that already in these Articles there is the definition of the Mass that will be again vigorously stated in the deadly Article 7 of the 1969 Institutio Generalis of the new Roman Missal. This was a definition which, at the time, elicited protests from many of the faithful and priests, including the famous positions taken by Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani because of these demonstrably Protestant words of heretical character: "The Lord's Supper is the assembly or meeting of the People of God, met together with a priest presiding, to celebrate the Memorial of the Lord."
Compare this definition with the orthodox one contained in the Catechism of Saint Pius X:
No. 159. What is the Holy Mass? The Holy Mass is the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ which, under the species of bread and wine, are offered by the priest to God on the altar in memory and renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross.>The spirit of Vatican II is to elevate the Eucharistic assembly, presided over by the priest, to being the center of the visible Church:
Therefore the eucharistic celebration is the center of the assembly of the faithful over which the priest presides. Hence priests teach the faithful to offer the divine victim to God the Father in the sacrifice of the Mass and with the victim to make an offering of their whole life (Presbyterorum Ordinis§5}.Notice, therefore, the function of the priest in the Holy Mass is reduced to that of teaching the faithful to offer the divine victim and themselves in union with that victim. Does this mean that the priest must "teach [the faithful] to offer the divine victim" and remain silent about the fact that, above all, the priest makes the offering in persona Christian behalf of sinful men for the expiation of their sins?!
Also manifested here is the idea of the concelebration of the priest and the people, expressly condemned by the pre-Conciliar Magisterium. This is an idea based on the Protestant false conception that the faithful are strictly all priests of the New Testament by reason of baptism, from which it follows that there can be no real distinction between the "priesthood of the faithful" and the "hierarchic priesthood."
>Vatican II is guilty of the specific meaning attributed to the "Liturgy of the Word," a meaning not limited to preaching and the sermon, but considered capable of realizing in itself Christ's presence in the Holy Mass! Thus, SC states: "[Christ] is present in his word since it is he who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in Church" (§7). The "word" is one of the sensible signs
by which man's sanctification under the guise of sign perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each to these signs...(SC §7; also see SC §10).
...[T]he preaching of the Word is required for the sacramental ministry itself, since the sacraments are sacraments of faith, drawing their origin and nourishment from the Word. This is of paramount importance in the case of the liturgy of the Word within the celebration of Mass where there is an inseparable union of the proclamation of the Lord's death and resurrection, the response of its hearers and the offering of itself by which Christ confirmed the new covenant in his blood. In this offering the faithful share both by their sacrificial sentiments and by the reception of the sacrament. (Presbytewrum Ordinis§4}.From this passage as well as from the previously quoted ones,
Scripture seen in this way is no longer meant for the instruction of faith, a faith from which mystical experience can flow. Now Scripture is meant to produce mystical experience, an experience which is supposed to nourish knowledge of the faith ([emphasis added] The Problem of the Liturgical Reform: A Theological and Liturgical Study, p.66. Angelus Press. Price: $9.95).This is an irrational concept of Protestant origin and does not conform to the deposit of Faith. It leads to thinking of the Holy Mass as merely spiritual nourishment of the collective of the faithful.
>The Second Vatican Council devalued the "private Mass" which the Holy Church always allowed, and which was celebrated without the presence and active participation of the faithful, but was individual and quasi-private. This devaluation was expressly disapproved^ Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei, yet Vatican II affirmed it:
It must be emphasized that rites which are meant to be celebrated in common, with the faithful present and actively participating, should as far as possible be celebrated in that way rather than by an individual and quasi-privately.Martin Luther was particularly hostile to the "private Mass" and attributed his fervor in opposing it to the Devil's inspiration.
This applies with special force to the celebration of Mass (even though every Mass has of itself a public and social nature) and to the administration of the sacraments (SC, §27).
>Vatican II promoted the adaptation of worship to secular culture, to the different traditions and temperaments of people, to their language, music, and art, through creativity and liturgical experimentation (SC §§37-40,90,119) and through simplification of the rite itself (^C §§21,34). This was against the constant teaching of the Magisterium according to which it was the peoples' cultures that must adapt to the exigencies of the Catholic rite, with nothing ever having been conceded to creativity or experimentation or to any idea of men's temperaments in any given time in history.
>The Second Vatican Council introduced the novel" unheard-of, and extraordinary competence attributed to episcopal conferences in liturgical matters, including a broad faculty for experimenting with new forms of worship (,SC §§22,39,40), as against the constant teaching of the Magisterium, which always reserved all competence in that area to the Sovereign Pontiff, and was always hostile to all innovation in the liturgical domain (Inter Gravissimas, Gregory XVI, Feb. 3, 1832.).
Translated by Suzanne M. Rini and edited by Fr. Kenneth Novak. All quotes from Vatican Council II and post-Conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Harry J. Costello and Rev. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Costello Publishing Co., Inc., 1975). All Scripture references are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (TAN Books and Publishers).
In Part 1 of what promises to be a lengthy serialization, we discussed the "mentality" of the Second Vatican Council in general. In this overview, we especially highlighted its ambiguous nature as to the law, how at the outset it presented itself to the world, and some general contradictions and omissions in some of its texts.
In Part 2, we began to summarize the errors ascribed to Vatican II in particular, starting with a basic division of its errors into those which are doctrinal and those which are pastoral (recognizing that such a distinction is not always well-demarcated). In Part III we will concentrate on the doctrinal errors concerning: 1) the "Priesthood," 2) the "Incarnation," "Redemption" and the "Idea of Man," 3)the "Kingdom of God."
4) Errors Concerning the "Priesthood"> Vatican II is inclined toward an erroneous idea of the priesthood, reducing it to a function of the "people of God," who are arbitrarily identified with the Church. Lumen Gentium §13 [hereafter LG], reads:
...Hence it is that the People of God is not only an assembly of various peoples, but in itself is made up of different ranks. This diversity among its members is either by reason of their duties-some exercise the sacred ministry for the good of their brethren-or is due to their condition and manner of life-many enter the religious state and, intending to sanctify by the narrower way, stimulate their brethren by their example....Therefore, the "sacred function" is conceived as an "order" of the "People of God," a term that literally expresses the idea of class, order, state, in itself and within the larger entity. And in keeping with the progressive mentality imposed during the Council, it also represents not only a part, but also and above all, a function, the latter term having no Latin equivalent. This "function" is realized in different "offices" (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum Ordinis§§2,4 [hereafter PO]). It is an "office" before being a "power." The priest is no longer the "priest of God"; on the contrary, he is the "priest of the people of God," which legitimates him in his "function." This is contrary to the entire tradition of the Church and her divine constitution.
> It is contrary to the historic truth of Tradition and the New Testament that, from the outset, Our Lord established some of His specific followers as ministers, as is stated in PO §2:
However, the Lord also appointed certain men as ministers, in order that they might be united in one body in which "all the members have not the same function" (Rom. 12:4). These men were to hold in the community of the faithful the sacred power of Order, that of offering sacrifice and forgiving sins, and were to exercise the priestly office publicly on behalf of men in the name of Christ....The above-quoted text seeks to legitimate attributing "power through orders" to the need for the unity of the society of Christians by making it substantively depend on the needs of an alleged "community" or "People of God." But Our Lord did not take His ministers from "the community of Christians." On the contrary, He began by choosing His ministers-the Apostles-and He formed them since, in turn, they formed Christians. He chose His "ministers" even before a "community of Christians" existed. He did not form the Christian militia by beginning with foot soldiers! He began with the officers, since they form the foot soldiers.
> As stated in Lumen Gentium (§10), Vatican II illicitly equalizes the proper meaning of the "ministerial priesthood" with that of the "common priesthood" of the faithful:
Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial priesthood are none the less ordered one to another; each in its own proper way shares in the one priesthood of Christ.Thus, the two forms of the "one priesthood of Christ" are placed on the same level. Nothing is said of "subordination," but rather, "reciprocal ordination." Thus, it speaks of two evidently equal functions of "the one priesthood of Christ." This parity, already in itself contrary to the deposit of Faith, seems to hide a subordination of the "ministerial" priesthood to the priesthood of the faithful, since, for the Council, the faithful seem to make up "the People of God," which has its own meaning. In Vatican II, the priesthood is legitimated by having a "function" within it. The difference in essence and degree between the two priesthoods is never explained: it remains at the level of a simple verbal statement.
> The Second Vatican Council plays with a deficient definition of "priest." Priests are defined, above all, in terms of their being the bishops' "cooperators" (PO §4). "Because it is joined with the episcopal order the office of priests shares in the authority by which Christ himself builds up and sanctifies and rules his Body" (PO §2; see also LG §28). Vatican II seems to have wanted, so to speak, to compress the figure of the priest into the "People of God," by erasing, to the extent possible, his difference from the faithful, and on the other hand, above all, by picturing his main quality as that of being the bishop's subordinate "cooperator."
> The false assertion, contrary to all of Tradition as well as to the Council of Trent (Sess. XXIII, ch. 1, Dz. 957) that, among priestly "functions," the premier one is preaching and not the celebration of the Holy Mass. PO (§4) states:
The People of God is formed into one in the first place by the Word of the living God, which is quite rightly sought from the mouth of priests. For since nobody can be saved who has not first believed, it is the first task of priests as co-workers of the bishops to preach the gospel of god to all men. In this way they carry out the Lord's command: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mk. 16:15), and thus set up and increase the People of God.On the contrary, in the first place, the priest is defined by "the power to consecrate, offer, and dispense... the Body and Blood" of Christ and, in the second place, by "the power to remit or retain sins" (Trent, op.cit). Preaching is not necessary to the definition of the priest. One need only think of the great saints whose mission was realized above all by their ministry of confession, e.g., St. Leopold of Padua or St. Padre Pio.
> Vatican II devalues ecclesiastical celibacy (PO § 16):
Perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven was recommended by Christ the Lord (Mt. 19:12). It has been freely accepted and laudably observed by many Christians down through the centuries as well as in our own time, and has always been highly esteemed in a special way by the Church as a feature of priestly life. For it is at once a sign of pastoral charity and an incentive to it as well as being in a special way a source of spiritual fruitfulness in the world. It is true that it is not demanded of the priesthood by its nature. This is clear from the practices of the primitive Church and the tradition of the Eastern Churches where in addition to those-including all bishops-who choose from the gift of grace to preserve celibacy, there are also many excellent married priests.That ecclesiastic celibacy "is not demanded of the priesthood by its nature" is false because it is contrary to all of Catholic Tradition, which has interpreted it in this sense because of Christ's "recommendation" in Matthew 19:12. St. Paul confirms to us that the early Church had the same opinion. He exalts virtuous celibacy, considering it to be the best state for "giving things to the Lord" equally for men and women (I Cor. 7:1, 29ff., 32ff.). To say that celibacy is not necessary to the nature of the priesthood only means that a married man could become a priest by keeping the juridical state of marriage but not its usage, i.e., by separating himself from his wife. In no way does this mean that priests can be married and have children, like the ministers of heretics and schismatics. In I Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6, St. Paul writes that, among other things, whoever wishes to become a bishop "must have only one wife." This has always been interpreted as saying that it is necessary for priests and bishops not to be remarried widowers.
> The Second Vatican Council repeatedly refers to the priest as the "president of the assembly," as if such a definition were essential to the priest's "function" in the Holy Mass. Sacrosanctum Concilium (§33) and LG (§26) refer to the "holy presidence of the Bishop."
For it is by the apostolic herald of the Gospel that the People of God is called together and gathered so that all who belong to this people, sanctified as they are by the Holy Spirit, may offer themselves a "living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God" (Rom. 12:1). [PO (§2)]
Therefore the Eucharistic celebration is the center of the assembly of the faithful over which the priest presides. Hence priests teach the faithful to offer the divine victim to God the Father in the sacrifice of the Mass and with the victim to make an offering of their whole life...(PO, §5).
5) Errors Concerning the "Incarnation," "Redemption/ and the "Idea of Man"
Vatican II is imbued with an erroneous conception of the "Incarnation."
In fact, this error asserts that, by His Incarnation, the Son of God somehow unites Himself to all men (Gaudium et Spes, §22 [hereafter GS]), as if the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, by incarnating Himself into a real man, into an individual having existed historically, was united by this to all other men; and as if each man, solely by the fact of being human, of having been born, finds himself united to Christ without knowing it. By this, the idea of the Holy Church is that it is no longer the "Mystical Body of Christ" and, therefore, no longer the Holy Church of those who believe in Christ and are baptized. Therefore, the "People of God" which is the Church (of Christ) tends to coincide simply with humanity itself.
> Vatican II is inspired with an erroneous concept of the "Redemption." Lumen Gentium §7 says:
In the human nature united to himself, the son of God, by overcoming death through his own death and resurrection, redeemed man and changed him into a new creation. For by communicating his Spirit, Christ mystically constitutes as his body those brothers of his who are called together from every nation.Here, the Redemption is incorrectly represented. "Redemption" is the possibility given all men through the Incarnation and by the sacrifice of the Cross of Our Lord to be saved, a possibility lost forever if one does not become or if one doesn't want to become sincerely Catholic, except in the case of invincible ignorance (with only God knowing the number of these cases) in which grace acts through the intermediary of baptism of desire. In this changed conception of the Redemption, it is seen as already realized for each man from the moment when it is declared that man has been transformed "into a new creation," not because he has become Catholic with the help of the Holy Spirit and guided by actual grace, but strictly by the fact of the Incarnation's advent and of Christ's "death and resurrection." This is the theory known as that of "anonymous Christianity," already presented by Maurice Blondel and developed by Henri de Lubac and, in particular, Karl Rahner. It is a very grave doctrinal error because it declares personal justification as being already realized for every man without any participation of his will or free choice and, so, without any need of his conversion, faith, baptism or works. Redemption is guaranteed to all, as if sanctifying grace were ontologically present in each man just because he is man. This false doctrine denies original sin because our Faith teaches that, by the inheritance of original sin with which they come into the world, men do not possess grace at birth.
> There is present in Vatican II an unjustified and non-Catholic exaltation of man just because he is man.
In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear. For Adam, the first man, was a type of him who was to come, Christ the Lord, Christ the new Adam, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings light to his most high calling. It is no wonder, then, that all the truths mentioned so far should find in him their source and their most perfect embodiment (G,S §22).What is affirmed in G/5"§22 is that Christ, having been incarnated, "fully reveals man to himself and brings light to his most high calling," elevated human nature to a "dignity beyond compare." This makes it sound as if our Lord did not come to save us from sin and eternal damnation, but to make us fully conscious of the unequaled dignity naturally inherent in us.
He who is the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1 : 15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin. Human nature, by the very fact that is was assumed, not absorbed, in him, has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his incarnation, he, the son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin (GS§7).
This assertion of the Second Vatican Council openly contradicts the Church's constant teaching according to which Jesus came into the world to save man, not to exalt him. Christ came to make man conscious of the fact that he is a sinner vowed to eternal damnation if he does not repent and convert to Him. There is no question in the mission of Christ of having him discover his "dignity beyond compare" in the meaning of Gaudium et Spes.
> The obvious theological error contained in Gaudium et Spes (§24) which states, "...if man is the only creature on earth God has wanted for its own sake, man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself," as if man possesses such value in himself that it would cause God to create him.
Here we put our finger on the man-centered turn taken by Vatican II. It is an obviously absurd assertion and incompatible with the idea of divine creation from nothing, which is a dogma of the Faith. The perennial teaching of the Church is that the infinitely just God created all things, including man, "for Himself," for His own glory, and not because of any intrinsically-possessed value rendering him independent of God (Who made man). Such a doctrinal deviation also alters the exact meaning necessary to define Creation. Moreover, it alters the true meaning that is necessary to attribute to the commandments of loving our neighbors as ourselves (for the love of God), and of considering all men as brothers. In the Council's changed definition, these commandments are no longer justified by the love of God, Who wants from us this charity toward our neighbor (since we are all sinners), and because of the fact that we all descend from Him, God the Father. Rather, this Council document asserts that these commandments are justified by a superior dignity accorded man because he is man.
The Church has never denied man's superior dignity in relation to other creatures, which belongs to him because God created him in His image and likeness. But this dignity lost its sublime character because of original sin, which stripped man of this likeness. Thus, it is by sanctifying grace that man is supernaturally able to know and love God and to enjoy the Beatific Vision. In the Catholic meaning, the dignity of man cannot be considered as an ontological characteristic [i.e., a characteristic of being-Ed.]that imposes respect for all choices, because this dignity depends on right will turned toward the Good and is therefore a relative and not an absolute value.
> Vatican II includes an erroneous concept of equality among men founded on its false idea of the Redemption discussed above.
All men are endowed with a rational soul and are created in God's image; they have the same nature and origin, and being redeemed by Christ, they enjoy the same divine calling and destiny; there is here basic equality between all men and it must be given ever greater recognition (GS§29).
The Church has always taught that men are equal before God, but certainly not because she believes that all men are already objectively joined to and already saved by the Incarnation as the above quote announces. The conception of the notion of "equality" in Vatican II is hardly orthodox, but this conception becomes the basis of the dignity of the person. The Council then uses this "dignity of the person" to defend a Protestant notion of "religious liberty" because it is based on freedom of conscience, that is, on individual opinion in matters of faith and not on the Catholic principle of authority.
> Vatican II devalues the effect of Original Sin and thereby obscures the notion of "Original Sin." In its Article 22, Gaudium et Spes states:
He who is the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1: 15), is himself the perfect man who has restored in the children of Adam that likeness to God which had been disfigured ever since the first sin.This, however, is not the Catholic Church's doctrine. On the contrary, she has always taught that after original sin, Adam and his descendants lost this likeness. It was hardly a simple "alteration." To declare that this likeness was conserved, although imperfectly, amounts to opening the way to a heterodox conception of the Incarnation already treated above.
6) Errors Concerning the Kingdom of God"
> The mentality of the Second Vatican Council alters the traditional notion of the "expansion" or "growth" of the Kingdom of God on earth by the visible Church. In fact, this "expansion" or "growth" is entrusted to the "People of God" and is described in LG §13:
The one People of God is accordingly present in all the nations of the earth, since its citizens, who are taken from all nations, are of a kingdom whose nature is not earthly but heavenly. All the faithful scattered throughout the world are in communion with each other in the Holy Spirit so that "he who dwells in Rome knows those in most distant parts to be his members." Since the kingdom of Christ is not of this world (cf. Jn. 18:36), the Church or People of God which establishes this kingdom does not take away anything from the temporal welfare of any people. Rather she fosters and takes to herself, insofar as they are good, the abilities, the resources and customs of peoples. In so taking them to herself she purifies, strengthens and elevates them — This character of universality which adorns the People of God is a gift from the Lord himself whereby the Catholic ceaselessly and efficaciously seeks for the return of all humanity and all its goods under Christ the Head in the unity of his Spirit.There is an alien element introduced here, represented by the "temporal welfare of any people" as an elevated and ennobled integral part of the "People of God" and, therefore, of the Kingdom of God which is realized on earth. This is an ambiguous and unacceptable notion because this "temporal welfare" is built not only on "customs" but also on "resources," that is, a people's material goods. This is an absurd idea that results in a naturalist vision of the Kingdom of God.
As a consequence of the two previous errors identified above, Vatican II inspires a collectivist vision of the Kingdom of God. In fact, from LG §13 it follows that the collective individuality of each people, with its "temporal welfare," becomes a member as such-as a value in and of itself-of the "People of God," so that it comes to be "introduced" into the Kingdom which is realized in this world.
> The Second Vatican Council incorrectly defines the contribution of the lay faithful in the "expansion" of the Kingdom of God on earth "so that the world might be imbued by the spirit of Christ." The value placed on the word "imbued" is very far from the true notion of "conversion." Above all, this contribution of the lay faithful is inevitably and wrongly meant to be in service of material progress, following the example of secular culture, which must make "human and Christian freedom" advance in the entire world:
...The faithful must, then, recognize the inner nature, the value and the ordering of the whole of creation to the praise of God. Even by the secular activity they must aid one another to greater holiness of life, so that the world may be filled with the spirit of Christ and may the more effectively attain its destiny in justice, in love and peace. The laity enjoy a principle role in the universal fulfillment of this task. Therefore, by their competence in secular disciplines and by their activity, interiorly raised up by grace, let them work earnestly in order that created goods may serve the utility of all men according to the plan of the creator and the light of his word. May these goods be more suitably distributed among all men and in their own way may they be conducive to universal progress of the Church, will Christ increasingly illuminate the whole of human society with his saving light. (LG §36)So, the naturalism treated immediately above is now admixed with another alien element represented by the lay myth of progress, with its constant exaltation of work, technology, "civil" culture, egalitarianism, and (human and Christian) freedom, which this effectively means.
> There is in Vatican II an unbelievable assertion regarding the Holy Ghost:
...Constituted Lord by his resurrection and given all authority in heaven and on earth (Acts 2:36; Mt. 28: 18) Christ is now at work in the hearts of men by the power of his Spirit; not only does he arouse in them a desire for the world to come but he quickens, purifies, and strengthens the generous aspirations of mankind to make life more humane and conquer the earth for this purpose.The text seem to say that, by the fact itself of our longing for future glory, the Holy Spirit also breathes into us the longing for earthly happiness, evoked by the expression "make life more humane."
> Incomprehensibly, Vatican II states that "the Paschal Mystery elevates human activity to its perfection."
In Gaudium et Spes (§38) the Holy Eucharist is defined as follows:
...Christ left to his followers a pledge of this hope and food for the journey in the sacrament of faith, in which natural elements, the fruits of mans cultivation, are changed into the glorified Body and Blood, a supper of brotherly fellowship and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.The Second Vatican Council does not mention "transubstantiation" and it introduces a Protestant idea of the Mass.
According to Vatican II, how does the "Paschal Mystery" elevate human activity to perfection? -Answer: by the fact that what is changed "into the glorified Body and Blood" are "natural elements" obviously refined by man. In cultivating the earth, man's activity produces the bread and wine which are then "changed" into the Body and Blood. Such a relationship insinuates the false idea of participation-whatever it might be-of man's activity in the conversion (more exactly, the "transubstantiation") of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ by the priest. This idea is also found in the "Eucharistic Liturgy" of the Novus Ordo Mass:
You are blessed, Lord, God of the universe: by your goodness we have received this bread, fruit of the earth and of men's work: we present it to you in order for it to become for us the nourishment of eternal life.> Vatican II is guilty of the deadly Article 39 in Gaudium et Spes which in the conclusion of its third chapter titled "Man's Activity in the Universe" (GS §§33-39), proposes a final perversion of the idea of the Kingdom of God taught by the Church. This Chapter III contains the outline of the idea of the collective salvation of humanity, and also that all of God's creation was made for man. This is achieved by misinterpreting Romans 8:21 to say that "all of creation," created by God to serve man, will equally obtain eternal salvation.
We know neither the moment of the consummation of the earth and of man nor the way the universe will be transformed. The form of this world, distorted by sin, is passing away and we are taught that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, whose happiness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in the hearts of men. Then with death conquered the sons of God will be raised in Christ and what was sown in weakness and dishonor will put on the imperishable: charity and its works will remain and all of creation, which God made for man, will be set free from its bondage to decay (LG §39).This appears to mean that the "new earth" is already present in the "present earth," since "the body of the new human family grows [here], foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come." Take note that the prefiguring of the Kingdom of God is not given by the Church Militant (which is the orthodox teaching), but by the growth of "the body of a new family." And this growth of the body of a new human family is calculated on universal progress, universal fraternity, and to human and Christian freedom (LG§§13,36; GS §§30,34,38). This is to say, the Kingdom of God which is partially realized is this world, is no longer made up of the Church Militant, but of humanity. Humanity is the subject which brings about the Kingdom, and which will enter it one day en masse. In fact, Article 39 of LG concludes:
Article 39 continues with another strange idea:
We have been warned, of course, that it profits man nothing if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself. Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectancy of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come. That is why, although we must be careful to distinguish earthly progress clearly from the increase of the kingdom of Christ, such progress is of vital concern to the kingdom of God, insofar as it can continue to the better ordering of human society.
When we have spread on earth the fruits of our nature and our enterprise-human dignity, brotherly communion, and freedom-according to the command of the Lord and in his Spirit, we will find them once again, cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ presents to his Father and eternal and universal kingdom "of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace." Here on earth the kingdom is mysteriously present; when the Lord comes it will enter into its perfection.This is a naturalistic, millenarian vision that calls for the religion of Humanity. It is completely foreign to anything the Catholic Church has ever taught. It is the complete antithesis to the exclusively supernatural reality of the Kingdom of God and of the consummation of the end of time which has been revealed to us by Our Lord and always maintained by the Church.
Translated by Suzanne M. Rini and edited by Fr. Kenneth Novak. All quotes from Vatican Council II and post-Conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Harry J. Costello and Rev. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Costello Publishing Co., Inc., 1975). All Scripture references are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (TAN Books and Publishers).
Throughout Parts 1-3 of this continuing series, we have been discussing the "mentality" of the Second Vatican Council, both generally and in particular. In Part 4 we will concentrate on the doctrinal errors of Vatican II regarding 1) marriage and the status of women, and 2) members of sects, heretics, and schismatics (i.e., the so-called "separated brethren").
7) Errors Concerning Marriage and the Status of Women
In the Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes [hereafter GS-Ed.], the married state is denned as "the intimate partnership of life and love which...has been established by the creator..." (GS§48), whose proper end is procreation:
By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowning glory (GS§48).Note that it does not find its "reason for being" in the procreation and education of children, but its "crown." This leads one to believe that the end of the state of matrimony is mutual perfection of the spouses, that is, the secondary end becomes the first, since the true end (the procreative one), becomes secondary because it is proposed as a consequence (or "crowning glory") of the personalist value of marriage.
> In §49 of GS, Vatican II offers a definition of conjugal love that opens the way to eroticism in marriage, as against the Church's entire tradition. It reads:
Many of our contemporaries, too, have a high regard for true love between husband and wife as manifested in the worthy customs of various times and peoples. Married love is an eminently human love because it is an affection between two persons rooted in the will...; it can enrich the sentiments of the spirit and their physical expression with a unique dignity and ennoble them as the special elements and signs of the friendship proper to marriage [emphasis added]. (GS§49)The love spoken about here, because it is "eminently human," enrich[es] the sentiments of
the spirit and their physical expression…." This can only refer to the ensemble of acts through which the spouses arrive at the conjugal act. Here, these acts, these "expressions," are justified exclusively as a corporal manifestation, that is, a sensual expression of conjugal love and, therefore, for their erotic value. On the contrary, the Church has always taught that these acts are permitted, and only within legitimate limits, solely as acts which favor the conjugal embrace, understood as a natural act committed to procreation and, therefore, allowed in relation to the first end of marriage, which is procreation, and not for satisfaction itself of conjugal love, understood as the secondary end of marriage and limited by its primary end (Casti Connubii, dz. 2241).
> Vatican II asserts:
But God did not create man a solitary being. From the beginning "male and female he created them" (Gen. 1: 27). This partnership of man and woman constitutes the first form of communion between persons (GS§12).This is a formally correct statement but it is incomplete and, for that reason, a source of doctrinal error. Its incompleteness is due to the fact that it doesn't quote what is written in Genesis 2:18-23 here. [Gen. 2:18-23 opens with "And the Lord God said: It is not good for a man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself." Verse 23 reads: "And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man."-Ed] By failing to do so at this propitious moment in the text, GS creates the false impression that God created man and woman at the same time, rendering them totally equal.
On the contrary, first Genesis sums up God's work (Gen. 1:27), and then explains in detail what actually took place (Gen. 2:18ff.). And in the initial exposition, inspired by the Spirit of Truth, the hagiographer justly puts man and woman on the same plane, in order to tell us that both were made by God in His image, and thus both are equal before God: "And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them." But he then specifies that woman was created after man, from his side, in order to be his companion:
And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself....Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam: and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh for it. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman: and brought her to Adam.Similar, but not equal, as St. Paul explains to us, speaking in the name of the Lord in the famous passage of I Cor. 11:3ff. (which Vatican II never quoted and today has fallen into obscurity) beginning with
[b]ut I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.Vatican II's entire pastoral on marriage (GS §§47-52) is completely silent on the natural difference between the sexes established by God. From the premise of a non-Catholic idea, it advances to a natural and total equality between the spouses-considered in the abstract as "persons"-as beings who express themselves freely in the "community of [matrimonial] love," completely ignoring the teaching of St. Paul and the Church throughout the ages, according to which, as we have seen, man is the natural head over the woman and, thus, over the family. This ignores the principle of nature that a woman's fundamental vocation is as spouse and mother, of bringing children into the world and educating them in a Catholic way.
> Vatican II opened the way to the preliminary dogmas of feminism, that particularly perverse contemporary sub-culture which, in the name of false equality, exalts false liberty and homosexuality and destroys marriage and family.
These overtures to feminism are evident in the Second Vatican Council documents. It is evident in the implicit recognition of the contention that in our day, "...women claim parity with men in fact as well as of rights, where they have not already obtained it;..." (GS§9). It is in the implicit recognition that women's life choices be accepted as expressions of alleged "basic personal rights."
It is regrettable that those basic personal rights are not yet being respected everywhere, as is the case with women who are denied the chance freely to choose a husband, or a state of life, or to have access to the same educational and cultural benefits as are available to men. (GS§29)A further overture to feminism is also present under the heading, "Recognition of Everyone's Right to Culture and Its Implementation" in GS.
[I]t is, therefore, one of the duties most appropriate to our times, above all for Christians, to work untiringly for fundamental decisions to be taken in economic and political affairs, on the national as well as the international level, which will ensure the recognition and implementation everywhere of the right of every man to human and civil culture in harmony with the dignity of the human person, without distinction of race, sex, nation, religion, or social circumstances. (GS§60)A subtle undermining of motherhood is found under the heading, "Fostering Marriage and the Family: A Duty for All." The slight shift of emphasis is dangerous and is especially manifest when considering what has happened to the esteem for generous motherhood over the last 40 years. In many way, genuine motherhood has been outright abandoned.
The family is, in a sense, a school for human enrichment. But if it is to achieve the full flowering of its life and mission, the married couple must practice an affectionate sharing of thoughts and common deliberation as well as eager cooperation as parents in the children's upbringing. The active presence of the father is very important for their training: the mother, too, has a central role in the home, for the children, especially the younger children, depend upon her considerably; this role must be safeguarded without, however, underrating women's legitimate social advancement. (GS§52)As a final exhibit to prove our point, we quote from Vatican II's "Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People," Apostolicam Actuositatem (Nov. 18, 1965):
The lay apostolate, in all its many aspects, is exercised both in the Church and in the world. In either case different fields of apostolic action are open to the laity. We propose to mention here the chief among them: Church communities, the family, the young, the social environment, national and international spheres. Since in our days women are taking an increasingly active share in the whole life of society, it is very important that their participation in the various sectors of the Church's apostolate should likewise develop (AA §9).Note the wider participation of women in society is not the necessity of a religious character, but by virtue of the simple fact that "women are taking an increasingly active share in the whole life of society." The more active participation is provoked, to a great extent, by the false "dogmas" that we have just related, and carried out under their signature, a participation that was condemned by Pius XI as "a grave disorder to eliminate at all cost" in his encyclical, Quadragesima Anno, because it takes "mothers of families" away from their proper duties (AAS23  200).
8) Errors Concerning Members of Sects, Heretics, and Schismatics (i.e., the So-called "Separated Brethren")
> In Unitatis Redintegratio §3, the Second Vatican Council promotes a historically baseless and pernicious thesis:
In this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church-for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame. (UR§3)In other words, men became heretics and schismatics through the fault of "men on both sides."
> This paragraph in UR continues:
However, one cannot charge with the sin of separation those who at present are born into these communities and in them brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers. (UR§3)The statement is theologically erroneous since the "sin of separation" remains to the present because the schismatic and/or heretic who "grows up" in the doctrines of his sect, once becoming an adult, gives these doctrines his conscious intellectual and willful belief. Thus he progresses from the state of a material heretic and schismatic to being a. formal heretic and schismatic, and, through a positive personal act, refuses to submit himself to Christ's revealed doctrine and to the authority He instituted.
> Further, from §3 of UR we read the statement:
For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Without doubt, the differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church-whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church-do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion. The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. (UR§3)Both statements contradict the Church's universal tradition, reaffirmed by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis:
Also, from §4 of the same Vatican II document:
Nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her sons who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all its aspects. (UR§4)
Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. (Mystici Corporis, §22)
In this regard, it is also necessary to recognize the falsehood of yet another sentence from §3 of UR:
But even in spite of them [i.e., the obstacles to the success of the ecumenical movement-.Ed.]it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in baptism are incorporated into Christ17 they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.This sentence introduces the idea that, by virtue of just being baptized, non-Catholics are to be counted among the members of the Catholic Church without any belief in the true Faith and without being obedient to legitimate pastors. This statement results from the manipulation of a passage from the Council of Florence (1429), referenced in a footnote Number 17 [see boldfaced footnote no. 17 in excerpt immediately above-Ed.] in Unitatis Redintegratio. The passage is excerpted from the famous pro Armenis decree that re-established unity with the Armenian Church. But that decree showcased the seven Sacraments as Catholics must understand them, that is, as all seven, without making any reference to the baptism of heretics nor giving it any heterodox meaning: "The first of all of the sacraments is Baptism, the door to spiritual life: thanks to it, we become members of Christ and part of the Body of the Church" (Dz- 696). Here, those who are "incorporated" into Christ and the Church are the Catholics and not heretics and schismatics.
> In Vatican II's Lumen Gentium (§8) there is a description of the false ideas of what constitutes the "separated brethren" patrimony:
This is the sole Church of Christ in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Savior, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care (Jn. 21:7), commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it (cf. Mt.28:18ff.), and which he raised up for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in the catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him. Nevertheless, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside its visible confines. Since these are gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity. (LG§8)In UR §3, this thinking marches on to its obvious and logical conclusions:
Moreover, some, even very many, of the most significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to him, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.Based on the above, however, it is impossible to understand how "the life of grace" and the three theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) could have been conserved in heretical and schismatic communities-rebels against the authority of the one legitimate Church of Christ-since here they are referred to as "communities," that is, foreign organisms opposed to the one Church of Christ, and not as individuals. Moreover, one would like to know what possibilities for "sanctification" and what "truths" are contained in the doctrines and manner of life of the heretical and schismatic communities who oppose the Roman Pontiff and all that is Catholic. Even the idea of "sanctification" is denied in many of these "communities" and some even defend a completely subjective idea of truth, including revealed truth.
The brethren divided from us also carry out many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. In ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or community, these liturgical actions most certainly can truly engender a life of grace, and, one must say, can aptly give access to the communion of salvation.
It follows that the separated Churches and communities as such, though we believe they suffer from the defects already mentioned, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church. (UR§3)
> In its § 15, the document Lumen Gentium speaks about non-Catholic Christians-that is, formal heretics and schismatics, or at least material ones-who are joined to the Catholic Church.
The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved the unity or communion under the successor of Peter. For there are many who hold sacred scripture in honor as a rule of faith and of life, who have a sincere religious zeal, who lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and the Savior, who are sealed by baptism which unites them to Christ, and who indeed recognize and receive other sacraments in their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them possess the episcopate, celebrate the holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion to the Virgin Mother of God. There is furthermore a sharing in prayer and spiritual benefits; for these Christians are indeed in some real way joined to us in the Holy Spirit for, by his gifts and graces, his sanctifying power is also active in them and he has strengthened some of them even to the shedding of their blood. And so the Spirit stirs up desires and actions in all of Christ's disciples in order that all may be peaceably united, as Christ ordained, in one flock under one shepherd.... (UR§15)This is false doctrine. The "separated brethren" are separated precisely because they rebel against the teaching of the Church and thereby resist the Holy Spirit. They therefore cannot be "united" to the Catholic Church as separated communities that live in rebellion. Nor can any of these heretics and schismatics, who have not professed the truth faith, a faith they even fought, have the title "martyr" conferred upon them. Murdered Protestant missionaries cannot be considered martyrs since they were not witnesses to the true Faith.
By God's grace a formal heretic can be converted and die for the true Faith, but then he dies a Catholic. In an invisible way, through votum Ecclesiae, the material heretic belongs to the Catholic Church. Therefore, if he is martyred, he also dies a Catholic and not a heretic and schismatic. That, however, as Pope Pius IX said, is "God's secret." But §15 of LG is not referring to heretics and schismatics in this way. On the contrary, it clearly enough states that non-Catholics, as such, have been assisted by the Spirit of Truth to the extent that a certain number among them have shed their blood, that is, undergone martyrdom for their faith. This amounts to saying that they have been martyred for their errors.
This text lends itself to the worst interpretation by alluding to "martyrs" who are not specified as to their faith-which, in any case, is a. false faith-to also refer to obstinate heretics, tenacious corruptors of souls, justly condemned in the past by the Church.
> A new pastoral task is entrusted to the Church, expressed especially in Gaudium et Spes§3:
In wonder at their own discoveries and their own might men are today troubled by questions about current trends in the world, about their place and their role in the universe, about the meaning of individual and collective endeavor, and finally about the destiny of nature and men....The Council will clarify these problems in the light of the Gospel and will furnish mankind with the saving resources which the Church has received from its founder under the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It is man himself who must be saved: it is mankind that must be renewed. It is man, therefore, who is the key to this discussion, man considered whole and entire, with body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will.This order is addressed to Catholics and, reinforced by other Vatican II documents, asks them to collaborate with heretics and schismatics in order to elaborate on commonly held translations of Holy Scripture (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Part III, Sec. A. "General Norms").
This is the reason why this Sacred Synod, in proclaiming the noble destiny of man and affirming an element of the divine in him, offers to cooperate unreservedly with mankind in fostering a sense of brotherhood to correspond to this destiny of theirs….(US§3)
In the name of "common patrimony of the Gospel," Catholics are told in the document
Apostolicam Actuositatem to collaborate with "other Christians" and "non-Christians" in the work of Catholic apostolate.
The common patrimony of the Gospel and the common duty resulting from it of bearing a Christian witness make it desirable, and often imperative, that Catholics cooperate with other Christians, either in activities or in societies; this collaboration is carried on by individuals and by ecclesial communities, and at the national or international level.In the following three excerpts from Unitatis Redintegratio the same ideas are espoused:
Not seldom also do human values common to all mankind require of Christians working for apostolic ends that they collaborate with those who do not profess Christianity by acknowledge these values.
Through this dynamic, yet prudent, cooperation, which is of great importance in temporal activities, the laity bears witness to Christ the Savior of the world, and to the unity of the human family. (AA §27)
sacred Council firmly hopes that the initiatives of the
sons of the Catholic Church, joined with those of the
separated brethren, will go forward, without obstructing
the ways of divine Providence, and without prejudging
the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Further, this
Council declares that it realizes that the holy objective-the
reconciliation of all Christians in the unity of the one
and only Church of Christ-transcends human powers and
the other hand, Catholics must gladly
acknowledge and esteem the truly Christian endowments
of our common heritage which are to be found among our
separated brethren. It is right and salutary to recognize
the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of
others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even
to the shedding of their blood. For God is always wonderful
in his works and worthy of all praise. (UR§4)
- This change of heart and holiness of life, along with public and private prayer for the unity of Christians, should be regarded as the soul of the who ecumenical movement, and merits the name, "spiritual ecumenism."
It is a recognized custom for Catholics to meet for frequent recourse to that prayer for the unity of the Church which the Savior himself on the eve of his death so fervently appealed to his Father: "That they may all be one" Qn. 17:20).All of this is totally new pastoral teaching because it is exactly the opposite of what the Apostles ordered regarding the proper attitude regarding willful heretics: "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: knowing that he, that is such an one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment" (Tit. 3:10,11), and "If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you. For he that saith unto him, God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works" (II Jn. 1: 10,11).
In certain circumstances, such as in prayer services "for unity" and during ecumenical gatherings, it is allowable, indeed desirable that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren—(UR §8)
It is evident that the false ecumenism promoted by the Second Vatican Council is the basis of the new pastoral teaching. Common "patrimony" and "values" do not exist and cannot exist with heretics and schismatics. Protestants do not recognize Tradition as a source of dogma nor the truth of Faith according to which it is incumbent on the Magisterium of the Church assisted by the Holy Spirit to define "the meaning and interpretation of the Scriptures" (Dz. 786). Moreover, the approach of heretics and schismatics to Scripture is to deform it since they believe in individual free interpretation, to which they dare submit the meaning of one or another revealed truth.
Martin Luther, their primary leader, destroyed doctrine and morality. He denied the authority of the Pope, of Tradition, of the Priesthood. He changed Scripture, denatured the very idea of the Church, reduced the number of Sacraments from seven to two, and these two were bastardized. He denied transubstantiation and the propitiatory meaning of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, and the perpetual virginity of Mary. He derided the principle of sanctity, virginity, and chastity. He allowed divorce. He denied free will and the meritorious value of good works. He fomented hatred among Christians and incited them to revolt against the principle of authority. The Anglicans have maintained the Episcopate. However, it is as if they had not done so because their consecrations and ordinations are null and void. Pope Leo XIII declared this in a dogmatic judgment in 1896 (Dz. 1963). They are null because of the lack of form and intention. They are a sect that submits to political power, a "civil religion" with a Christian fagade. The presence of "priestesses" has spread among today's Protestants. This is a form of neo-paganism resulting from the penetration of feminism among heretics which they would also like to see installed in the Catholic Church.
> Vatican II uses the title "Church" ambiguously. In UR §3, the ambiguous term "Churches or communities," or, again "separated Churches and communities," referring to non-Catholic denominations. Also in LG §15 we read, "their own Churches or communities."
Such terminology describing heretical and schismatic sects as "Churches" qualifies as an obvious theological error since only the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ. No communities separated from this Church, founded by Christ on Peter, can pretend to be-either individually or in union with other separated communities-the one Catholic Church that Jesus Christ instituted. Nor can they allege to be a member or part of it since they are visibly separated from Catholic unity. And this same condition pertains to the Eastern schismatics, as was reaffirmed by all of the Roman Pontiffs from Pius IX to Pius XII, thus countering the pretensions of non-Catholic ecumenism.
> In Vatican II’s UR §11, there is the following exhortation addressed to Catholic theologians. We quote part of it here; the rest is quoted in our next point.
Furthermore, in ecumenical dialogue, Catholic theologians, standing fast by the teaching of the Church yet searching together with separated brethren into the divine mysteries, should do so with love for the truth, with charity, and with humility. When comparing doctrine with one another, they should remember that in Catholic doctrine there exists an order or "hierarchy" of truths, since they vary in their relation to the foundation of the Christian faith.... (UR §11)This contains the erroneous idea, expressly condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos (DZ 2199), that there are revealed truths and dogmas that are more or less important to accept, and that by reason of God's authority we are bound to accept, with the same obligation, all of the truths contained in Divine Revelation, because "it is repugnant to reason that, even in one thing, one not believe God who speaks" (Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum).
The above-cited excerpt from UR leads to the absurd conclusion that in "ecumenical dialogue," "doctrinal truths" can be discussed with heretics which in this alleged "hierarchy" occupy a less important position. This is the opening for the false principle contained in the conclusion of § 11 of Unitatis Redintegratio which is the next error of Vatican II we cite.
> Vatican II establishes the principle that, in discussing the Church's doctrines by way of comparing them with those of the "separated brethren," account must be taken that there is a "hierarchy of truths," as was noted above in the first part of UR§11. The conclusion?-
...Thus the way will be opened whereby this kind of "fraternal rivalry" will incite all to a deeper realization and a clearer expression of the unfathomable riches of Christ. (UR§11)This is an unheard-of principle, bordering on heresy, because it entrusts the task of inciting a "deeper realization and a clearer expression of the unfathomable riches of Christ," to theological study done with heretics as if it is not the role of the infallible Magisterium to faithfully transmit and define revealed truth! It would be as if Catholic truth could go hand in hand with the errors of members of sects and schismatics, and even allow a "fraternal rivalry" to make us know better Our Lord's unfathomable riches! Here, UR§11 treasonously quotes Ephesians 3:8 to support its fallacy. What does St. Paul actually say?
To me, the least of all the saints, is given the grace, to preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8).
Note that the Gentiles, the heathen, do not preach to St. Paul! The Epistle to St. Timothy reiterates the same principle:
Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears. And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables (II Tim. 4:2-3).
There is nothing to be said for "dialogue" with heretics and schismatics in order to learn something from them, which St. Paul and St. John (and all the Popes) specifically forbid.
> Vatican II weakened the dogma of the Council of Trent that only the Catholic Church can "judge the true meaning and interpretation of Holy Scripture" (DZ. 786). The weakening of this dogma occurs in UR§21:
A love and reverence-almost a cult-of Holy Scripture leads our brethren to a constant and diligent study of the sacred text. For the Gospel "is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and then to the Greek" (Rom. 1:16).The operative paragraph is the third one above. The Catholic Church has only a "special place in expounding and preaching the written Word of God"? But the Magisterium denotes more than this. It is supernaturally founded and assisted. It is the only judge of the true meaning and of the interpretation of Holy Scripture.
While invoking the Holy Spirit, they seek in these very scriptures God as he speaks to them in Christ, the one whom the prophets foretold, the Word of God made flesh for us. In the scriptures they contemplate the life of Christ, as well as the teachings and the actions of the Divine Master for the salvation of men, in particular the mysteries of his death and resurrection.
But when Christians separated from us affirm the divine authority of the sacred books, they think differently from us-different ones in different ways-about the relationship between the scriptures and the Church. For in the Church, according to Catholic belief, its authentic teaching office has a special place in expounding and preaching the written Word of God.
> There is an essentially erroneous conception of Protestants' use of Scripture in Unitatis Redintegratio §23:
And if in moral matters there are many Christians who do not always understand the Gospel in the same way as Catholics, and do not admit the same solutions for the more difficult problems of modern society, they nevertheless want to cling to Christ's word as the source of Christian virtue and to obey the command of the Apostle: "Whatever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (Col. 3:17). Hence, the ecumenical dialogue could start with the moral application of the Gospel. (UR §23)This statement is erroneous because Protestants "cling to Christ's word" not as Catholics do, that is, as the Catholic Church teaches, but according to the false principle of free interpretation which allows "freely proclaiming anything that seems true [to them]," formally condemned as heretical in 1520 by Pope Leo X, in the Bull, Exurge Domine, which outlaws Luther's heresies (Dz- 769).
Translated by Suzanne M. Rini and rewritten by Fr. Kenneth Novak with inclusion of full Vatican II texts. All quotes from Vatican Council II and post-Conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council 11: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Harry J. Costello and Rev. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Costello Publishing Co., Inc., 1975). All Scripture references are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (TAN Books and Publishers).
Throughout Parts 1-4 of this continuing series, we have been discussing the "mentality" of the
Second Vatican Council, both generally and in particular. In Part 5 we will concentrate on the doctrinal errors of Vatican II regarding 1) the false representations of non-christian religions, and 2) errors concerning politics, political community, and relations between Church and State.
9) The False Representation of Non-Christian Religions
Falsely attributing to non- Christian religions that, like us, they believe in God the Creator.
Gaudium et Spes §36 states: "...[All] believers of whatever religion have always heard His revealing voice in the discourse of creatures."1 To attribute this to non-Christian religions is false. Citing just the two examples of Hinduism and Buddhism, both completely ignore the idea of a God who created from nothing and who reveals Himself in His creatures, since both are convinced that reality proceeds through emanation of an impersonal, cosmic, eternal force which is identically replicated in all things, from which force all comes and to which all returns, becoming a part of it, dissolving into it.
► Likewise, inconceivably awarding the marks of truth and holiness to all the non-Christian religions, whereas they do not contain revealed truth, but are the fruit of the human spirit and, so, neither redeem nor save anyone.
Nostra Aetate §2 states:
It is necessary to note the contradiction in the above, noting too its decidedly Deist tone. That is, if these religions "differ... in many particulars" from the Catholic Church's teaching, how can they "often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men"? This means that, for the Council, the truth "which enlightens all men" perhaps comes through rules and teachings that differ "in many particulars" from the Church's teaching! (How could an authentic ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church have been inspired to articulate such an idea?)The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy (vera et sancta) in these religions. She looks with sincere respect upon those ways of conduct and of life, those rules and teachings which, though differing in many particulars from what she holds and sets forth, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.
► The baseless assertion, always denied by Tradition and Holy Scripture (e.g., Ps. 95:5: "For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils"; and I Cor. 10:20), that pagan religions, past and present, would have in some way been included in the plan of salvation.
In fact, §18 of Ad Gentes, on missionary activity, states:
Here, "ancient cultures" whose gods were "devils," and whose sacrifices were offered "to devils and not to God" (I Cor. 10:20), are unjustly re-evaluated by the Council, which wants to recognize in them a salvific presence of "semina Verbi" of the "seeds of revealed Truth." But that violates a truth always held to belong to the deposit of Faith. In Lumen Gentium §17 and in Ad Gentes §11, the same idea is applied to all contemporary non-Christian peoples, including pagans: missionaries must discover the "hidden seeds of the Word" in the people whose evangelization has been entrusted to them.Working to plant the Church, and thoroughly enriched with the treasures of mysticism adorning the Church's religious tradition, religious communities should strive to give expression to these treasures and to hand them on in a manner harmonious with the nature and the genius of each nation. Let them reflect attentively on how Christian religious life may be able to assimilate the ascetic and contemplative traditions whose seeds were sometimes already planted by God in ancient cultures prior to the preaching of the gospel.
► The false representation of Hinduism, because Nostra Aetate §2 states:
Thus in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery and express it through an unspent fruitfulness of myths and through searching philosophical inquiry. They seek release from the anguish of our human condition through ascetical practices or deep meditation or a loving, trusting flight toward God.This is a false representation because it leads the Catholic to see Hindu mythology and philosophy as valid, as if they might effectively "search for" the "divine mystery," and as if Hindu asceticism and meditation bring about something similar to Christian asceticism. On the contrary, we know that the mix of mythology, magic, and speculation that characterizes Indian spirituality from the Veda era (16th to 10th centuries B.C.) was responsible for a totally monist and pantheistic conception of the divinity and the world, because by conceiving of God as a cosmic, impersonal force, it does not admit the idea of creation, and, consequently, it does not distinguish between sensible reality and supernatural reality. Nor does it distinguish between material and spiritual reality, nor between the whole and specific elements. Because of this, all individual existence dissolves into the amorphous cosmic One, from which all emanates and to which all eternally returns. Thus, the individual "I" is, per se, purely appearance. The Council characterizes this thought as "penetrating," yet it lacks the idea of the individual soul (which was well recognized by the Greeks) and what we call free will and free choice.
Add to this the doctrine of reincarnation, a particularly perverse idea. Reincarnation was explicitly condemned in the schema of the Dogmatic Constitution De Deposito Fidel Pure Custodiendo, which was elaborated during the preparatory phrase of the Council. But John XXIII and the progressives saw to it that it was run aground during the Council because of its paucity of "ecumenical" character. There is also the fact that so-called Hindu "asceticism" is nothing more than a form of Epicureanism for Brahmins, an egotistical and refined search for a superior spiritual attitude toward all desire, even good, and toward all responsibility, an indifference justified by the idea that all suffering makes up for the faults committed in one's former life, etc. One would really like to know how anyone could want to lead Catholics into such a conception of the world?
►The false representation of Buddhism, an autonomous variant partially purified of Hinduism. In fact, in Nostra Aetate §2, one reads:
Buddhism in its multiple forms acknowledges the radical insufficiency of this shifting world. It teaches a path by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, can either reach a state of absolute freedom or attain supreme enlightenment by their own efforts or by higher assistance.This is a portrait of Buddhism a la de Lubac, one revised and corrected so that ignorant Catholics can think well of it. Such Catholics do not know that "the radical insufficiency of this shifting world" is enshrined by Buddhists in a veritable "metaphysics of nonbeing," according to which the existence of the world and the self are illusory and appearance only. Therefore, Buddhism does not just say that the self and the world are decaying and transient, but still truly real, as for the Christian. For the Buddhist, everything "is being made and is decaying" simultaneously. Life is a continual flux filled with universal pain and grief. In order to banish this sadness, it is necessary to persuade oneself that all is vain. It is also necessary to free oneself from all desire and to entrust oneself to undergo an intellectual initiation, a gnosis similar to the Hindus' (going so far as to permit "sexual magic" in Tantric Buddhism). This gnosis must make us arrive at complete indifference to everything, which is termed, Nirvana, meaning "disappearance," "extinction": a final condition of absolute privation, in which there is nothing but nonexistence, the void, in which the self is totally extinguished in order to be anonymously dissolved into the All and the One. This is the "state of absolute freedom" or "supreme enlightenment" that Vatican II dared to offer to the attention and respect of Catholics.
►In Lumen Gentium §16, the statement:
But the plan of salvation ( propositum salutis ) also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place ( in primis ) among these there are the Moslems, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind ( qui fidem Abrahae se tenere profitentes, nobiscum Deum adorant unicum, etc. ).This statement falsely attributes adoration of our God to the Moslems, and includes them, per se, in the plan of salvation. This statement is contrary to dogma because those who do not worship the true God are not included in the plan of salvation. And the Moslems do not adore the true God because, although they attribute to God (Allah = "God"), the creation of "the world" and "man" from nothing, and accord traditional attributes of omnipotence and omniscience to Him, and although they recognize him as Judge of human beings at the end of time, Allah is not thought of as God the Father, who in His goodness created man "in his image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26; Deut. 32:6, etc.). Further, Moslems do not believe in the Holy Trinity, and their abhorrence of it repeats the Jews' error. Consequently, they deny grace, our Lord's Divinity, Incarnation, Redemption, His death on the Cross, and His Resurrection. They deny all of our dogmas and refuse to read the Old and New Testaments. Because they obviously contain no mention of Mohammed, the Moslems consider the Old and New Testaments to be falsified texts.
Too, Moslems deny free will (defended only by a few minority Moslem exegetes who are viewed as heretics), while professing an absolute determinism which admits of there being no place in the world for true relationships between cause and effect, so that, out of time, all of our actions, good or bad, have already been "created" by Allah's inscrutable decree (Koran 54: 52-53).
Lumen Gentium §16's recognition of Islam is repeated in an even more detailed and gravely erroneous way in the Declaration Nostra Aetate's §3:
This goes so far as to state that the God in whom the Moslems believe "has spoken to men"! Therefore, by this does the Council demonstrate that it views as authentic the "revelation" transmitted by Mohammed in the Koran? If so, isn't this implicit apostasy from the Christian faith, given that the "revelation" in the Koran specifically contradicts all of Christianity's basic truths?Upon the Moslems, too, the Church looks with esteem. They adore one God, living and enduring, merciful and all-powerful, Maker of heaven and earth and Speaker to men (qui unicum Deum adorant etc...., homines allocutum). They strive to submit wholeheartedly even to His inscrutable decrees (cuius occultis etiam decretis toto animo se submittere student), just as did Abraham, with whom the Islamic faith is pleased to associate itself.
Moreover, it also represents the Moslems' way of believing precisely as they themselves understand it, as if to approve it. In fact, it employs the usage, "submission to God," which is the meaning of the term "Islam" (submission), and whose substantive adjective is muslim (Mussulman = submission [to God]). In its entirety, this passage seems to reflect the Koran's own 4:124: "And who has a better religion than he who submits himself entirely to Allah, doing good and following the belief of Abraham, like a pure monotheist (hanif)?" Finally, the allusion to obedience to the decrees of Allah "even if they are hidden" has a strong Islamic aura because it reminds us that in the Koran, Allah is defined as "the visible and the hidden" (57:3), visible in his works and hidden in his decrees. Therefore it seems that the Council wanted to have its "esteem" understood, rather than shrink from according such esteem to the Koran and Islam because of the ambiguous, troubling, impenetrable quality of the entity spoken of in the Koran.
Vatican II praise of the Moslems' profession of the "faith" of Abraham, as if it constitutes a quality linking them to us, obscures the truth, since we know that the Abraham of the Koran, who is infused with a legendary and apocryphal quality, does not correspond to the real Abraham, who is evidently the Abraham of the Bible. This, because the Koran attributes a "pure monotheism" or anti-Trinitarianism, anterior to Judaic and Christian monotheism, to Abraham. Thus, as an Arab prophet and a descendant of Abraham thanks to Israel, Mohammed would have been sent in order to restore this pure monotheism by liberating it from the so-called Jewish and Christian falsifications!
► Nostra Aetate §3 also takes into serious consideration the veneration that the Moslems accord Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary: "Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they call on her, too, with devotion."
But it is well known that the Koran's "Christology" is founded on an altered and deformed Jesus of the apocryphal gospels and of all sorts of Gnostic heresies that proliferated in Arabia in Mohammed's time. The Koran's Jesus (Isa) was born of a virgin through a divine intervention (of the angel Gabriel), a prophet particularly appreciated by Allah, a simple mortal whom Allah permitted to work numerous miracles, a prophet who thus preached the same monotheism as that attributed to Abraham (57:26-27), whose recited formula is: "There is no God but God, one, lord" (38:65). This is why, for the Moslems, Jesus was a servant of God (19:31), submissive to Allah, that is, a Moslem, a Mussulman, to the point that, like Abraham, he announced the coming of Mohammed (51:6)! Therefore, when the Moslems venerate Jesus as a prophet, they mean that he is a "prophet of Islam," a lie that any Catholic, provided that he still has the Faith, obviously cannot accept.2
As for the Moslem veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that they "sometimes call on her with devotion," from a practical standpoint, it must be said that this "devotion" is meaningless and based on superstition. Such as it is, this "devotion" to Mary is such only in terms of her being the mother of a "prophet of Islam," and not because she is the Mother of God. Therefore, it is offensive to Catholic ears.
Moreover, it is necessary to repeat that the Koran's "Mariology" is also entirely corrupted because its origins are in apocryphal and heretical sources. The existences of St. Joseph and the Holy Ghost are completely ignored. And Mary is called "sister of Aaron," "sister of Moses," and "daughter of Imram" (Hebr. Amram), who was their father (Num. 26:59), thus confusing her with the prophetess Mary (Ex. 15: 21) who lived circa 12 centuries before Christ! And as if this weren't enough, she is introduced into the Christian Trinity, so detested, and which is denied with such aggressiveness, because, according to the Koran, it is made up of God (the Father), Mary (Mother) and Jesus (the Son): "Jesus never said: take me and my mother as two divinities, before God"! (5:116).
► Finally, Nostra Aetate §3 seems to praise the Moslems and to present them as an example to Catholics because "they await the day of judgment when God will give each man his due after raising him up. Consequently, they prize the moral life and give worship to God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting." The article concludes:
Although in the course of the centuries many quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this most sacred Synod urges all to forget the past and to strive sincerely for mutual understanding. On behalf of all mankind, let them make common cause of safeguarding and fostering social justice, moral values, peace, and freedom.Historical facts are also overturned here, since the bloody, long, and cruel battles, faith against faith, that we have had to launch over the course of the centuries to repulse Islam's assault, are adroitly reduced to the size of simple "quarrels and hostilities." Passed over in silence are the abysmal differences that exist between Catholic and Moslem eschatology (the absence of a Beatific Vision, the luxury of paradise, the eternity of infernal punishments reserved only for infidels), as well as the abysmal differences between our and their conception of "moral life" and of "veneration": Islam is a religion which not only allows unacceptable moral structures, such as polygamy, with all of its corollaries, but also alleges to guarantee salvation simply by carrying out legalistic practices of worship: therefore, it is an exterior and legalist religion, even more so than Pharisaism, expressly condemned by our Lord (cf. Mt. 6:5).
All of this is passed over in silence in order to invite us into collaboration that is impossible for the simple reason that the meaning the Moslems give to the words "social justice," "peace," "freedom," etc., is merely that which can be drawn from the Koran or from the words and deeds of Mohammed, a meaning established over the course of the centuries by "orthodox" interpretation: an Islamic meaning totally different from our own. For example, Moslems do not understand peace in the way that the currently reigning Pope understands it. They do not believe that Moslems can live under infidels. This is why they divide the world into two parts, one where Islam rules (the house of Islam) and the rest of the world, necessarily an enemy unless it converts and submits (house of war), the rest of the world with whom the Islamic community believes itself to be perpetually at war. Therefore, for them, peace is not an end in itself that allows them to coexist with different nations and religions; it is only a means, imposed by circumstances which oblige them to make truces with infidels. But the truce must have a limited duration; it must never exceed ten years; and every time they have the means, then war must be resumed. For the Moslem, this is a juridical, religious, and moral obligation. It is in force until the final, inevitable battle that results in the installation of a world Islamic State.
NOTEThe Council seems to justify its statement that "the Moslems adore with us the one true God, etc." by the quote contained in a note of personal gratitude sent by St. Gregory VII, Pope from 1073 to 1085, to Anazir, Emir of Mauritania. The Emir had been well disposed to oblige certain of the Pope's requests and had also been generous concerning some Christian whom he had taken prisoner. In this letter, the Pope stated that this act of "goodness" was "inspired by God," who commanded us to love our neighbor, and specifically asks "from us and you...that we believe in and confess the same God, although by different modes (licet diverso modo), that we praise and venerate each day the Creator of the ages and master of this world" (PL, 148, 451 A). How can such a statement be explained? The answer: by that era's ignorance regarding the religion founded by Mohammed.
At the time of St. Gregory VII, the Koran had not yet been translated into Latin. This is why basic aspects of its "credo" were not understood. It was known that the Moslems, those fierce enemies of Christianity, who suddenly emerged from the Arabian desert in 633 with a conquering violence, would sometimes demonstrate a certain respect for Jesus, but only as a prophet, and for the Virgin Mary; that they believed in one God, in the inspired nature of Sacred Scripture, in the Judgment and in a future life. Consequently, they could have been taken for an heretical Christian sect ("the Mohammedan sect"), an equivocation that was held for a long time since, at the beginning of the 14th century, Dante placed Mohammed in hell among heretics and schismatics (Hell, XVIII, V. 31 ff.).
It is in this context that the praise privately addressed to the Emir by Gregory VII ought to be seen: praise for someone held to be a heretic who, on this occasion, had behaved charitably, as if the true God, in whom he thought he believed, had touched his heart. Thus, in effect, one can speak of a heretic who believes in the same God as ours, but in a different way. Nevertheless, St. Gregory VII's praise of the Emir did not prevent him from defending, in a perfectly coherent way, the idea of an expedition launched from all of the Christian countries against the Moslems, in order to help Eastern Christianity when it was threatened with extinction. This idea was carried out shortly after his death with the first crusade, preached by Urban II.
The first Latin translation of the Koran did not take place until 1143, fifty-eight years after the death of St. Gregory VII, by the Englishman Robert de Chester for the Abbot of Cluny, Peter the Venerable, who added a strong refutation of the Islamic creed. Actually, this translation was a summary of the Koran, and remained the only translation for many centuries, until the critical and complete version was done by Fr. Marracci in 1698. In the first half of the 15th century, the Cardinal of Cusa set the stage for this first translation by writing his famous Cribatio Alcorani, a critical study of the Koran. This preceded by a few years the Bull issued in October 1458 by Pius II (Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini) for the purpose of launching a crusade (which was never carried out) against the Turks who surged into the Balkans after having seized Constantinople. In this Bull, the Pope referred to the Moslems as disciples of the "false prophet Mohammed," a definition that he reasserted on September 12, 1459, in a remarkable speech in the Mantua Cathedral, where the Diet charged with approving the crusade was convoked. In this speech, he referred again to Mohammed as an impostor; he also said that if the Sultan Mehmed were not stopped, after subjugating all of the Western princes, he would then "destroy the Gospel of Christ and impose the law of his false prophet on the entire world."3 Therefore, this speech rectified the former perception and constituted the Pontifical teaching's clear and strong condemnation of Islam and its prophet. Once and for all, it eliminated the equivocation which had defined Islam as a Christian "heresy."
► In Nostra Aetate §4, the propositions:
Necessary to note here is the attempt to limit the responsibility for Deicide to a small group of quasi private individuals, whereas the Sanhedrin, the supreme religious authority, represented all of Judaism. Therefore, in the rejection of the Messiah and Son of God, it had collective responsibility for the Jewish religion and the Jewish people, and this irrefutably is stated in Holy Scripture: "And from then on, Pilate was looking for a way to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying, 'If thou release this man, thou are no friend of Caesar; for everyone who makes himself king sets himself against Caesar'" (Jn. 19:12); and "And all of the people answered and said, 'His blood be on us and our children'" (Mt. 27:25).True, authorities of the Jews and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ (cf. Jn. 19:6); still, what happened in His passion cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by God, as if such views followed from the holy Scriptures.
Also striking is the statement that "the Jews should not be presented as repudiated or cursed by God, as if such views followed from the holy Scriptures." This lacks the necessary distinction between individuals and the Jewish religion. If the subject is individual Jews, the statement is true, and is exemplified by the great number of converts from Judaism in all eras. But if the subject is Judaism as a religion, the assertion is both erroneous and illogical: erroneous, because it contradicts the evangelical texts and the Church's constant faith from her origins. (Cf. Mt. 21:43: "Therefore I say to you, that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people yielding its fruits.") And it is illogical, because if God did not reject the Jewish religion or the Jewish people in the religious sense (which in Jesus' time was one and the same thing), then the Old Testament has to be viewed as being still valid, and contiguous and concurrent with the New Testament. This, then, would sanction the unjustified awaiting of the Messiah, a hope still entertained by today's Jews! All of this is a totally lying representation of Judaism and its relationship to Christianity.
► The unacceptable statement, contrary to the eternal doctrine of the Church as well as to all Catholic exegesis, that the books of the Old Testament clarify and explain the New, whereas it has always been taught that the opposite is true, without reciprocity, and, therefore, that the New Testament sheds light upon and explains the Old Testament. Dei Verbum § 16 states:
The inversion of Catholics' mission regarding the members of other religions.God, the inspirer and author of both testaments, wisely arranged that the New Testament be hidden in the Old and the Old be made manifest in the New. For, though Christ established the New Covenant in His blood (cf. Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25), still the books of the Old Testament with all their parts, caught up in the proclamation of the gospel, acquire and show forth their full meaning in the New Testament [a true affirmation up to this point. -Ed.] and in turn shed light on it and explain it [a false affirmation, contradicting the preceding one].
Rather than exhort the faithful to a renewed energy for converting the greatest number of unbelievers possible by wresting them out of the shadows they are in, in Nostra Aetate §2, the Council exhorts her sons:
Prudently and lovingly, through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, and in witness of Christian faith and life, acknowledge, preserve, and promote the spiritual and moral goods found among these men, as well as the values in their society and culture.In other words, it is saying that [the Church's sons] should conduct themselves in such a way that the Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, and Jews, etc., remain Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, and Jews, etc., and that [the Church's sons] should even "promote" the social and cultural values of their respective religions, all hostile to revealed truth. This exhortation expresses a general principle set forth by the Council to the "Church" which was to be born of its reforms and which defines itself as "the Conciliar Church" (cf. Cardinal Benelli), a principle which tells "the people of God"-priests and laity-the attitude that they are to take concerning the "separated brethren" and all non-Christians. This and other pastoral exhortations (for example in Lumen Gentium §17'; Gaudium et Spes §28; Unitatis Redintegratio §4) constitute overt treason against the order given by the Risen Christ Jesus to the Apostles: "Go then, teach all nations" (Mt. 28:19), an order which, mutatis mutandis, is valid for all believers, insofar as they are able, because every believer, as miles Christi, must bear witness to the faith according to the works of corporal and spiritual mercy.
How can anyone be surprised that the application of this deadly exhortation has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Catholics having already become Buddhists or Moslems, whereas the conversions of Buddhists or Moslems to Catholicism are practically nonexistent? How can anyone deny that this exhortation is one of the factual proofs that the post-conciliar crisis has its roots in the false doctrines which suffused the Council's texts?
10) Errors Concerning Politics, Political Community, and Relations Between Church and State
►A non-Catholic idea of "political life" that seems to conform to the secular principle of humanity. Gaudium et Spes §73 states:
No better way exists for attaining a truly human political life than by fostering an inner sense of justice, benevolence, and service for the common good, and by strengthening basic beliefs about the true nature of the political community, and about the proper exercise and limits of public authority.Obviously, the text is not concerned with "political life" marked by Christian values, but "political life" marked by human values, that is, by values that are generally characterized by "an inner sense of justice, service for the common good." In fact, in this scheme, it is not a question of intellect and will adhering to principles of "justice" and "charity" and to "service" founded on revealed Truth, principles that are objectively set forth by God and taught by the Church throughout the centuries, and necessitate our adherence to them. Rather it is a matter of values merely heeding to an "inner sense" (interiorem...sensum) which the subject can have regarding these values, so that they are consequently based on the subject, on his opinions: a subjectivist idea of "political life," of praxis in general, or of orthopraxis (right conduct). Totally foreign to Catholicism, and even mortally contrary to it, this is typical of modern thinking.
► The definition of "the true nature of political community" which must contribute to the installation of "truly human political life" (GS §73, cit.) is situated within the same perspective marked by secularism and immanentism, and is not Catholic. In fact, it does not define what a "political community" is per se, but only states that it exists "as a function of the common good." Gaudium et Spes §74 sets forth the relationship between the two:
Individuals, families, and various groups which compose the civic community are aware of their own insufficiency in the matter of establishing a fully human condition of life. They see the need for that wider community in which each would daily contribute his energies toward the ever better attainment of the common good. It is for this reason that they set up the political community in its manifold expressions.Is this an idea of the common good that harmonizes with the traditional teaching of the Church? No, because this conception identifies the common good with "conditions of social life" that allows individual and collective "accomplishment" that demonstrate no connection to the supernatural. This then is a doctrinal error because the Church has always insisted on the fact that, although enjoying a certain autonomy, the pursuit of the temporal common good must, nevertheless, always work toward the pursuit of the "highest good" which, for everyone, is salvation and the Beatific Vision. In Immortale Dei, Leo XIII, in wrote:
[W]hile favoring public prosperity, civil society...must provide for the good of the citizens not only by opposing every obstacle, but by assuring all of the possible means for the pursuit and acquisition of this supreme and immutable good to which they aspire. The first of these means consists in according respect for the holy and inviolable observance of religion whose just acts unite man to God.4.The "accomplishment" spoken of by the Council, on the contrary, concerns human values and not Christian ones. Too, the existence of authority presiding over the realization of the common good is justified, but with one reservation: it must not exercise its function "in a mechanical [?] or despotic fashion, but by acting above all as a moral force which appeals to each one's freedom and sense of responsibility" (GS §74). This means that there is a reservation in favor of democracy, expressed in the emphasis placed on "liberty" and "the sense of responsibility" understood as the presiding authority's determinate values in the exercise of its power.
It is only after this clarification that the conciliar text recalls Rom. 13:1-5, which establishes the divine origin of all constituted authority. But the text invokes this passage by deforming and reversing it, since it states: "It is therefore obvious that the political community and public authority are based on human nature and hence belong to an order of things divinely foreordained" (GS §74). The distortion, and even the inversion, are found in the statement that the "political community" and authority have their basis in "human nature" and thus (ideoque) "belong to an order of things divinely foreordained [praefinitum]." This amounts to placing man before God, and views him as being the "basis" in the "human nature" of the political community of the democratic type (because it is founded on "liberty" and a "sense of responsibility"). This, then, is a substantive condition of his "belonging" to the order fixed by God. But in this, there is nothing of the Apostle of the Gentile's idea that the Holy Ghost teaches us that all "potestas" comes from God, on which all government takes its form, and which has its "foundation" in human nature, and in human nature corrupted by original sin, and so always needing the sword of civil power to restrain it.
► The obscure explanation that:
It also follows that political authority, whether in the community as such or in institutions representing the state, must always be exercised within the limits of morality and on behalf of the dynamically conceived common good, according to a juridical order enjoying legal status. When such is the case citizens are conscience-bound to obey (GS §74).This is an obscure statement because it does not say which "morality" this concerns. Also, it is impossible to understand what "the dynamically conceived common good" means. This dynamism is the quality so much desired as the backdrop of the myth of progress, growth and expansion of human activity in the universe, in sum, the values of the age, but not Catholic values.
► A type of ideal individual that the so called "political community" ought "to form." This is not at all Catholic, since, as Gaudium et Spes explains in article 74:
The practical ways in which the political community structures itself and regulates public authority can vary according to the particular character of a people and its historical development. But these methods should always serve to mold men who are civilized, peace-loving, and well disposed toward ail-to the advantage of the whole human family.Let us compare this portrait with that of the perfect Freemason as it appears in one of the Order's many Constitutions:
The Mason is a peaceful subject of the civil powers, where he resides and works, and he ought never to become involved in plots or conspiracies against the public peace or the good of the nation, nor disobey his superior. (Grand Loge des Sept Provinces Unies des Pays-Bas, S'Gravenhage, 1761, in an appendix of G. Fay's, La Franc-maçonnerie et la revolution intellectuelle du XVIII siècle, whose article 43 invites Christians to conduct themselves as "citizens of the world."; cf §17.5.)► A definition of love of country that flows more with the meaning of humanitarianism and
Masonic fraternity than the traditional Catholic meaning:
Citizens should develop a generous and loyal devotion to their country, but without any narrowing of mind. In other words, they must always look simultaneously to the welfare of the whole human family, which is tied together by the manifold bonds linking races, peoples, and nations. (GS §75).Catholic tradition has never seen in "the human family" any value superior to that which is inherent in Christian societies and nations, which, on the contrary, must be defended-sometimes militarily-against the assault of a world hostile to Christ (for example in the case of Islamic expansion into Europe).
► An ideal type of politician (one who exercises the "most honorable art of politics") which has nothing Catholic about it, since he is just the democratic political stereotype of both the past and present:
Let those who are suited for it, or can become so, prepare themselves for the difficult but most honorable art of politics. Let them work to exercise this art without thought of personal convenience and without benefit of bribery. Prudently and honorably let them fight against injustice and oppression, the arbitrary rule of one man or one party, and lack of tolerance. Let them devote themselves to the welfare of all sincerely and fairly, indeed with charity and political courage. (Gaudium et Spes §75)This is a cloying and rhetorical portrait, generic and banal. It is completely devoid of the fundamental qualities proper to any Catholic statesman, as the spirit of an ecumenical Council ought to define him: engagement on behalf of the defense and affirmation of the Catholic religion and of the morality the Catholic religion teaches.
The idea that the independence of the "political community" is such that it excludes all, even indirect, subordination with regard to the Church. According to GS §76:
In their proper spheres, the political community and the Church are mutually independent and self-governing. Yet, by a different title, each serves the personal and social vocation of the same human beings. This service can be more effectively rendered for the good of all, if each works better for wholesome mutual cooperation, depending on the circumstances of time and place. For man is not restricted to the temporal sphere. While living in history he fully maintains his eternal vocation.If it is just to state, in a general way, that "in their proper spheres, the Church and the political community are mutually independent and self-governing," for, from the point of view of organization, they have independent structures (cf. Immortale Dei, Denzinger 1866), on the other hand, it is false to state that, all that they have in common is the fact that they "serve" a generic "personal and social vocation of the same human beings," which should lead them to seek "wholesome mutual cooperation, depending on the circumstances of time and place"-in other words according to a simple criterion of opportunity.
This doctrine contradicts all previous teaching, which has always affirmed the primacy of the Church, in as much as it is a societas perfecta, over civil society or the so-called "political community," and therefore her potestas indirecta (indirect power) over it. This primacy, as regards the end, is justified because of the necessary subordination of the temporal common good, towards which the "political community" tends, to the supreme good towards which the Church aims. But the end which Vatican II attributes to the Church is an earthly one. Therefore, of itself, this end is not any different from that of the "political community" as it appears in GS §76, where, quoting Lumen Gentium §13, it is repeated that the Church does "foster and take to herself, insofar as they are good, the ability, resources, and customs of each people. Taking them to herself, she purifies, strengthens, and ennobles them."
The "healthy collaboration" of the "political community" with the Catholic Church cannot be left to the mercy of circumstances, nor can it be a function of so-called "human" values. On the contrary, it is necessary to reaffirm that this "collaboration" is a duty for the States because they have the obligation to defend the one true, revealed Religion and to achieve the social Kingship of Christ by imprinting Catholic values on the common good. It must also be noted that the false doctrine of the independence and separation of the "political community" and Church was already condemned by Pius IX in proposition 55 of the Syllabus, as well as by St. Pius X in the Encyclical Pascendi, against modernism.
1. Quotations are from The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter M. Abbott, SJ. (NY: America Press, 1966).
2. Cf. R. Arnaldez, Jesus, fils de Marie, Prophete de I'lslam (Jesus, Son of Mary, Prophet of Islam), (Paris, 1980), pp.11-22, 129-141.
3. Cf. C. DeFrede, La premiere traduction italienne du Coran (The First Italian Translation of the Koran), (Naples, 1967); F. Babinger, Mahomet le conquerant (Mohammed the Conqueror), 1947.
4. Leo XIII, ImmortaleDei, Nov. 1, 1885, and St. Thomas De Reg. Princ. I, XV.
In Parts 1-5 of this continuing series, we have been discussing the "mentality" of the Second Vatican Council, both generally and in particular. In Part 6 we will concentrate on its doctrinal errors regarding 1) religious liberty and the role of moral conscience, and 2) the first part of a treatment on its interpretation of the meaning of the modern world (which we will conclude in Part 7).
11) Errors Concerning Religious Liberty and the Role of Moral Conscience
The announcement of a "right to religious freedom" that "has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person, for this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and through reason itself": "This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right." (Dignitatis Humanae §2) [hereafter abbreviated DH-Ed.]
This announcement is presented as being in agreement with the pre-conciliar magisterium. On the contrary, the documents of Popes Pius XII, Pius XI, and Leo XIII cited in a note in DH demonstrate that the right of the person to freely profess his faith, as invoked by those Popes, only concerns the profession of the true religion, thus of the Catholic Faith, and refers to the freedom of conscience of Christian souls, and not to a religious "liberty" simpliciter without further clarification and applying to all religions.
► In DH §3, the following:
Further light is shed on the subject if one considers that the highest norm of human life is the divine law-eternal, objective and universal [the adjective "revealed" is missing -Ed.]-whereby God orders, directs and governs the entire universe and all the ways of the human community by a plan conceived in wisdom and love. Man has been made by God to participate in this law, with the result that, under the gentle disposition of divine Providence, he can come to perceive ever more fully the truth that is unchanging. Hence every man has the duty, and therefore the right, to seek the truth in matters religious, in order that he may with prudence form for himself right and true judgments of conscience, under use of all suitable means.This principle causes the truth "in matters religious" to be something that is "discovered," found by the conscientious individual via inquiry done with "others," through reciprocal "communication and dialogue." In this process of inquiry, "others" are not simply other Catholics, but others in general, all other men, no matter what their faith, who, significantly, have for their object the divine law, etc....placed by God in our hearts, the eternal law of natural morality, as do Deists. In fact, by including everyone, revealed Truth cannot be the object, and this revealed Truth is denied in toto by non-Christians and, in part, by heretics.
Truth, however, is to be sought after in a manner proper to the dignity of the human person and his social nature. The inquiry is to be free, carried on with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication, and dialogue. In the course of these, men explain to one another the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth.
This doctrinal statement openly contradicts traditional teaching legislating that, for Catholics, in "religious matters" (and also in moral ones), God reveals the truth, and it is conserved in the deposit of the Faith safeguarded by the Magisterium. It is a truth that requires and necessitates the consent of our intellect and will, a consent possible with the determinant help of grace: the believer must recognize and accede to it. Thus, he cannot "find" it through his own efforts. The conciliar document does not speak of the Holy Spirit's help. Moreover, the conciliar document recommends communal inquiry with heretics, non-Christians and unbelievers!
Substituted for an objective and properly Catholic criterion of the truth "in matters religious" which is such because revealed by God, is the subjective criteria of truth that is of Protestant origin and typical of modern thought. Truth is then truth because it is "found" by individual conscience in his "inquiry" along with "others" as a result, then, of collective and individual inquiry. In Catholicism, this then opens the door to an eruption of an anomalous, individual "religiosity," a "religiosity" of inquiry of the "heart," human feeling, of "conscience," dialogue. Much in the way of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this is cloying, sugary.
►An idea of "moral conscience" tainted by Pelagianism, viewed as the basis of the idea of "truth as inquiry," which in turn is founded on "religious liberty," defended by the Council.
Gaudium et Spes §l6 [hereafter abbreviated GS -Ed] reads:
In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor. In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more that a correct conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality.What truth is this? In all likelihood, truth concerning religion and customs. Yet, wouldn't truth have to come from the infallible teaching of the Church, of Tradition? But, for the sure possession of the truth of faith and customs, established over the course of the centuries by the Magisterium, the Council substitutes "inquiry" into the truth as a general criterion of a general truth, something indeterminate. However, we know that this conforms to the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, which loves "inquiry," experience, novelty, and perpetual motion.
But that is not all. Always conforming to the spirit of the age, this inquiry ought to be done in union "with other men" and thus also and above all with non-Catholics and non-Christians, with those who deny all or almost all of the truths taught by the Church. How can this type of inquiry arrive at positive results for the faith and believers, in as much as it must also be applied to "moral problems"? Henceforth, "Christians" and Catholics ought to resolve these "moral problems" ecumenically through dialogue, and not by applying the rules transmitted by their faith and morality. In effect, an entente "with other men is entrusted to the certitude of the existence of objective norms of morality" which can be generally found by all men of good will who are faithful to their moral conscience.
The absurdity of this thesis is obvious. For example, it is impossible to understand how a general moral norm for healthy family life might be found by Catholics, for whom the indissolubility of marriage is a dogma of the Faith, and by Protestants and the Orthodox who, on the contrary, deny it. Here we have not even included those allowing polygamy, concubinage, repudiation, and trial marriage. But, above all, what is important is the stated principle: the "objective norms" of morality no longer depend on Revelation, but on "moral conscience" which finds these objective norms of morality through inquiry done with "other men."
Naturally, GS §16 also refers to the law written by God in "man's heart," in the "objective norms" of morality, man will verify the truth of this law. However, it is not revealed Truth, but (dialoguing) conscience that causes the law to emerge from the depths of "the heart." Thus, conscience is the authority determining the end applied to moral norms: again, Rousseau's shadow emerges, the Savoyard Vicar's "profession of faith," a faith that is both Deist and Pelagian.
The conciliar text specifies that, when "right conscience" leads him, man moves away from "blind choice." But in order to resist the "blind choice" of the passions and temptations, mustn't man be aided by grace? That's what was always the Catholic truth, founded on Tradition and Scripture: without grace, without the help of the Holy Spirit, man does not come to observe either natural or revealed morality. But the Council makes no allusion to this grace. "Conformity" to "objective" norms of the moral law, placed in our hearts by God, now exclusively depends, for Catholics too, on "right" conscience, and therefore on the individual being plunged into his "search for the truth" along with everyone else. So, as with the Deists, it is in fact stated that "moral conscience" unites men above and beyond revealed religions. In fact, then, to a greater degree, isn't conscience represented in what is human, in these "human values" so dear to Vatican II's progressive wing? So, this amounts to asserting that we no longer possess the "truth," even the truth that ought to apply to practical moral questions. Thus, this arrives at asserting that we can no longer know the "truth," even that truth that applies in practical moral questions. Rather this truth must result from communal and communitarian effort involving each person's "conscience."
► The principle, comprehensible only in terms" of non-Catholic ideas of conscience and truth, that states the necessity of granting "free exercise of religion in society" to all men, who are defined as individuals. At the same time, nothing must be done to "cause harm to the human person" so that the "just demands of public order" [a vague term] are safeguarded (DH §3). Also stated is that it is necessary to grant to "religious bodies" the right to public worship of the "numen supremum" (an expression that refers to the Supreme Being of the Deists and revolutionaries, of Robespierre).
For its sole generic limitation, this principle has always had "the just demands of public order" (DH §4). And finally, and most importantly, "[R]eligious bodies should not be prohibited from freely undertaking to show the special value of their doctrine in what concerns the organization of society and the inspiration of the whole of human activity" (DH §4).
According to the above stated idea, Catholicism is also defined as being one among "religious bodies," on a completely equal level with other groups. According to the Council, then, the result is that revealed Religion's "special virtue" is not to cause itself to occupy a position of absolute supremacy in relation to other religions, which are not revealed! This amounts to stating that all other religions have the same right to public worship as does Catholicism. This openly contradicts Proposition 78 of the Syllabus of Errors which condemned this right.
This is a grave doctrinal deviation because it gives error the same rights as the one revealed Truth, thus making the difference between truth and error, as well as the difference between light and darkness, disappear for believers. The meaning of the Church's constant teaching was that there is practical tolerance of false religions, who are understood to be in a position necessarily juridically inferior relative to the one Revealed Religion. This tolerance originated from reasons traceable to social peace and public order, and had the reservation that such worship would not include any immoral elements. And in fact the Pope, in his States and throughout Christendom, always tolerated Jewish worship, protecting it against possible over-zealousness, opposition, and attempts to persecute it: but this was a matter of tolerating an error, not of papal recognition of the same freedom of expression accorded to the authentic, revealed truth.
► By unjustly including the Church's parity with "religious bodies," that is, of equalizing Catholicism with false "religions," the Council came to the logical conclusion that the religious liberty which by right belongs to the Catholic Church is only a "particular case of religious liberty" which must be indiscriminately extended to all "religious bodies."
This conclusion results in the phrase: "The Church also claims freedom for herself in her character as a society of men who have the right to live in society in accordance with the precepts of the Christian faith" (DH §13). This sentence seems to be from a letter of Pius XI (Firmissimam Constantium, March 28, 1937, A.A.S., 29 , p.196). But in it, the Pope prevents himself from making an ad hominem argument on the subject of those States that deny the Church even the right to exist, with the Pope wanting the Church to be justly recognized like all other legitimate organizations and associations.
But Vatican II transforms this request for minimal and preliminary freedom into a fundamental principle of the Church's civil rights, as if it only requests a general type of freedom, as if she were simply an association comparable to other associations existing within the State (Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, Leo XIII, Acta, vol. V, p.118).
This is a grave doctrinal error that the Popes always condemned, since it misapprehends the Church's superior nature, i.e., that of its being the perfect society, as well as its necessary primacy over all other societies, in themselves imperfect, that works in a subordinate way to procure the temporal common good for the "political community." Moreover, on the historical level, this also amounts to an unbelievable regression: after nearly two millennia, in the middle of the 20th century, the hierarchy asks that the Church, even in countries where she is recognized as the sole State religion, be reduced to the status of simply a "licit religion." Furthermore, the hierarchy accepts the designation of the Church as a cult permitted alongside all the others, as it was at the time of the Edict of Constantine, which put an end to the persecutions (313 AD).
► The false statement that "freedom of the Church," as we have discussed herein, is "the fundamental principle in what concerns the relations between the Church and governments and the whole civil order" (DH §13).
The statement is erroneous because the fundamental principle of the public right of the Church has always been that the State has the duty of recognizing the social kingdom of Christ (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei; St. Pius X, Lettre sur le Sillon, Aug. 29, 1910). "For He must reign..." (I Cor. 15:25), in the relations between the State and the Church, and is at the heart of society itself. With and since Vatican II, the hierarchy has allowed this principle to be forgotten. This has resulted in the State illegitimately reducing the aid it must give the Church by only recognizing her freedom and independence in a reductive way so that all that remains is a single negative aspect of non-interference. Whereas, on the contrary, the Church has an equal right to positive aid, which consists of supporting her in every possible way.
12) Errors in the Interpretation of the Meaning of the Contemporary World
► In GS §3, the Council alleges that contemporary man agonizingly questions his role and meaning, and the meaning of the major problems of the day:
Though mankind today is struck with wonder at its own discoveries and its power, it often raises anxious questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the universe, about the meaning of its individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity.
These ideas are reprised elsewhere, for example, in GS §10:
Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, more and more people are raising the most basic questions or recognizing them with a new sharpness: what is man? What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress? What is the purpose of these victories, purchased at so high a cost? What can man offer to society, what can he expect from it? What follows this earthly life?Actually, the profound metaphysical question "What is man?" hadn't been posed by almost anyone at that time. Communism and its left wing allies (in all of their colors) were attacking on all fronts, the models being the Soviet Union, Mao's China, and Cuba. Marxism raged in the universities, the schools, and throughout the culture. Emerging subcultures, typified by the "hippy" drug subculture, were suffused with hedonism as well as consumerism. Thus, the revolutionary spirit birthed in the US and Europe by the large student movements of 1966-68 and beyond came into being less than three years after the close of the Council, their model being the 1966 Chinese Red Guards. The problem of man would now have to be viewed and resolved in the light of revolutionary utopianism. Man had to be seen as a product of his environment and of history. Marxism's revolutionary praxis replaced existing structures by creating the new man, liberated from all of his faults and all contradictions. Even those who looked to define man according to his individuality, by reverting to the fluid and imprecise categories of existentialism and psychoanalysis, always ended up by finding the solution to the problem of Man in Marxism, and therefore, in social revolution. That was the then-dominant "humanism."
Today, the 1960's of the 20th century are unanimously recognized as the years during which finally launched women's liberation and "sexual liberation." Its subversive force was at the time felt mainly in the politico-economic arena as well as in that of morals. These were the years of the "student movement" and of the organized and systematic "confrontation" of the principle of authority in all its forms. The storm was already brewing when Vatican II began, and it was at our doors when it ended. But the Council seemed immune to it. What, in fact, did GS say about youth?
A change in attitudes and in human structures frequently calls accepted values into question. This is especially true of young people, who have grown impatient on more than one occasion, and indeed become rebels in their distress. Aware of their own influence in the life of society, they want to assume a role in it sooner. As a result, parents and educators frequently experience greater difficulties day by day in discharging their tasks.Less than three years afterward, it could be well observed just how the young masses searched "to take responsibility."
The institutions, laws and modes of thinking and feeling as handed down from previous generations do not always seem to be well adapted to the contemporary state of affairs. Hence arises an upheaval in the manner and even the norms of behavior. (§7)
In order to protect youth from the seduction of the world, the Council could have begun by condemning the dominant false doctrines of existentialism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, etc. Rather than do so, it abandoned the distinction between Nature and Grace by explicating and proffering a new "social" and "human" religion that was, therefore, necessarily open to all of the world's "values," including those belonging to the revolutionaries' "humanism." By referring to the "men who are truly new and artisans of a new humanity," believers in the "values" of progress, liberty, and Man (GS§§30,39J, the Council contributed to the revolutionary overthrow that began to manifest itself a little later. At the same time, it ridiculed the optimism and triumphalism that this same revolution articulated in its celebration of Man and the World. Yet, the Council contributed to this overthrow by demolishing the rampart of the Church's eternal doctrine and sane, healthy shepherding to the extent that many Catholics and non-Catholics saw the Council as a component of the revolutionary movement. In the broadest meaning of the term, "opposition" involved, pervaded and overthrew an important sector within Catholicism, beginning with the Church hierarchy itself.
► GS §4 makes the following stupefying statement on man:
Today, the human race is passing through a new stage of its history. Profound and rapid changes are spreading by degrees around the whole world. Triggered by the intelligence and creative energies of man, these changes recoil upon him, upon his decisions and desires, both individual and collective, and upon his manner of thinking and acting with respect to things and to people. Hence we can already speak of a true social and cultural transformation, one which has repercussions on man's religious life as well. As happens in any crisis of growth, this transformation has brought serious difficulties in its wake. Thus while man extends his power in every direction, he does not always succeed in subjecting it to his own welfare. Striving to penetrate farther into the deeper recesses of his own mind, he frequently appears more unsure of himself. Gradually and more precisely he lays bare the laws of society (leges vitae socialis) [emphasis added] only to be paralyzed by uncertainty about the direction to give it.One would like to know to which laws it is referring. "Social life" in the last half of the 20th century evolved in a more hedonistic and anti-Christian way, thanks to great progress in science, technology, and thus in the development of unprecedented material well-being. We must say that all of these came about following the "progressive discovery" of the "laws of social life," until then little known. Must one suppose that they were also little known to the Church's Magisterium over the course of the centuries? Since the Council praised development, progress, and "humanity's achievements" (Lumen Gentium §36; GS §§4,34,39, etc.), and was only disturbed by whatever concerned humanity's unity and its achievements in the realm of "human rights" (GS §4), are these then what was enshrined and made flesh in the "laws" so gradually discovered? Are these the laws and values that would, in and of themselves, constitute the "laws of social life," all of them conceived in complete opposition to the social Kingdom of Christ?
In the 1950's, there was absolutely no trace of that "hesitation" evoked above. In the West, the development of "social life" would demonstrate a clear tendency to orient itself toward consumer society in all of its forms. Behind the revolutionary slogans, the masses were also pressured to participate in materialism's banquet, predicted as being sumptuous as never before. For those who well remember that era, the following sentence, from GS §4, rings totally false: "Marked by a situation so complex..., anxiety took hold [of many of our contemporaries] and they questioned themselves regarding the evolution of the world with a mixture of hope and anxiety." The only real fear, the only authentic anxiety in the West, was provoked by Communism due to China's and the Soviet Unions' powerful military presence, as well as their subversive activity on the world scale. These two powers utilized national Communist parties to hold specific countries (for example, Italy) hostage through permanent blackmail threatening civil war, prevented only-as most believed-by the military presence of NATO and the US.
► GS §11 expresses the relativist perspective that claims to seek to "purify" the world's values in order to link them to Christ:
The People of God believes that it is led by the Lord's Spirit, who fills the earth. Motivated by this faith, it labors to decipher authentic signs of God's presence and purpose in the happenings, needs and desires in which this People has a part along with other men of our age. For faith throws a new light on everything, manifests God's design for man's total vocation, and thus directs the mind to solutions which are fully human.This Council, first of all, wishes to assess in this light those values which are most highly prized today, and to relate them to their divine source. For insofar as they stem from endowments conferred by God on man, these values are exceedingly good. Yet they are often wrenched from their rightful function by the taint in man's heart, and hence stand in need of purification.
What "values" are invoked here? It's easy to see they are indicated in G/S"§39. Here again, the Council wants us to believe that we shall find them "purified" in the Kingdom of God, and that they I are "the dignity of man, fraternal unity, and liberty" which must serve "universal progress in human and Christian freedom" (LG §36). But it is necessary to comment:
1) These laicist values are said to be "exceedingly good." The purely lay ideal of progress, which includes the idea of humanity's "education" through "reason alone" and exalts worldly happiness and earthly well being, is totally anti-Christian and cannot be "exceedingly good." Nor can "human dignity," "universal brotherhood," and "liberty" be "exceedingly good" since they are the French Revolution's well-known triad. Therefore, under the banner of the "rights of man," they signal Deism's and Illuminism-Masonry's philosophy of rationalism, which inspired the famous Charter of Rights based on "Immortal Principles."
2) The same text that asserts that these values are "good," although "deflected from the rightful order," is the result of an equivocation and relativism that has spread widely among liberal Catholics as well as among their modernist and neo-modernist counterparts. It is well known that these values, as was said about the French Revolution, "apply Christianity's ideas which, however, await their application and are not recognized as such before that application" (Romano Amerio, Iota Unum). Actually, laicist-driven fraternity, equality and liberty are a distortion of their Catholic equivalents because they derive from a vision of the world based solely on man, seen as being exempt from the stain of original sin, and, so, superior, exalted, and proud. Consequently, these values are opposed in themselves to the equivalent Catholic ones, which they negate and attack in every way. This does not even include a discussion of the ideal of progress which, in concept and meaning, is alien to Catholicism. Actually:
a) Christian freedom is interior and comes from faith in Christ (Jn. 8:31-32). It has nothing to do with freedom of the individual, who makes every choice in terms of absolute self-determination, in the absence of all law and constraint. This is the basis of contemporary democracy and the "rights of man." And it is precisely to this laicist liberty-value that the Council continually referred.
b) From the Christian point of view, brotherhood among all men is authentically felt because all men come from God the Father, Creator. It presupposes belief in the Blessed Trinity and is nourished by love of neighbor loved for the love of God, not for man's alleged "dignity." This means that we are connected, each of us to the other, because we are tainted by original sin and are all sinners.
c) Therefore, Catholic brotherhood has nothing in common with the political type of brotherhood based on the ideology of egalitarianism, which spread through the world beginning with the American and French revolutions, and which is also the foundation of contemporary democracy. This is why it is legitimate to judge laicist equality as the reigning political value. Oppositely, Catholic equality has always been our equality as sinners before God, and of Christians before the promises of our Lord, thanks to which they are made potential "co-heirs" of the Kingdom (Eph. 3:6).
In the Catholic meaning, equality, fraternity and liberty are, above all, religious values, founded on revealed Truth. The same values, such as the world defines and understands them are, above all, political, the fruits of the Deism and rationalism of the Enlightenment, and of a world willfully hostile to the Catholic Faith. Therefore, the Council's desire "to purify" these values appears to be stripped of all meaning. How should they be "purified?" In order to be in harmony with ageless teaching, the Council would have had to condemn them because of their opposition to their authentic Christian meaning. In reality, there was no "purification." As we have seen, there was only the bastardization of the Church's doctrine through its adapting these values of the world. And that was done as a result of adopting the false idea of man, his "dignity," his "vocation," all of these taken from a doctrinally erroneous idea of the Incarnation and Redemption. It was an idea of man that, rather than being "purified" of its laicist origin, introduced "humanism" born of revolutionary ideas into the Church's doctrine.
► GS §41 expresses the unjustified evaluation of the "rights of man" and of struggles on their behalf, already going on at the time of the Council:
Modern man is on the road to a more thorough development of his own personality, and to a growing discovery and vindication of his own rights—Therefore, by virtue of the gospel committed to her, the Church proclaims the rights of man. She acknowledges and greatly esteems the dynamic movements of today by which these rights are everywhere fostered. Yet these movements must be penetrated by the spirit of the gospel and protected against any kind of false autonomy. For we are tempted to think that our personal rights are fully ensured only when we are exempt from every requirement of divine law. But this way lies not the maintenance of the dignity of the human person, but its annihilation.We know that the "rights of man" are not the same as "natural rights," which the Holy Church has always conceded. Actually, natural rights come from God, but the "rights of man" are based on the (non-Catholic) idea of the self-sufficiency and intrinsic perfection of Man as man and is commensurate with the rejection of the dogma of original sin.
"Human nature is governed by two laws: natural law and custom. Natural law is contained in the Holy Scriptures and in the Gospel" (Deer. Grat). The basic precept of natural law or natural rights is "do good and avoid evil" (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q;94, Art.2). This is an ethical precept of divine origin, perfectly understood and integrated by right reason, and posited as the basis for obeying the Ten Commandments. It is also the basis of all juridical and natural relationships. As well, individual rights or law ought always to have for their object "what is just" (ST, II-II, Q.57, Art.l); just according to the moral order established by the eternal and divine law of God, confirmed by revelation and Church teaching and not configured to man's personal opinions and desires.
On the contrary, the "rights of man" are "affirmed" by their subject (Man) as universal claims supporting the acquisition and enjoyment of all that the subject (again, Man) desires because he believes it conforms to his individual dignity, seen as being morally and intellectually self-sufficient and capable, of itself, of determining what is just and good. These rights even include the right "to happiness," sanctioned by the US Declaration of Independence. Because of these things, the claim to these rights is often manifested in extreme, subversive and even violent ways because, in reality, they express the will to power and the drive for individual and mass domination which particularly characterize our era's type of barbarism and corruption.
How did the Council "impregnate" the movement for the rights of man with the spirit of the Gospel? Did it do so by reaffirming the teaching of the Church on law and natural law and rights? Certainly not. On the contrary, it sought to give the "rights of man" a Catholic ideological platform built on the false doctrine, already cited here, of the dignity of the extremely elevated and sublime rights of man. These are said to result from Christ's union with each man by virtue of the Incarnation and Redemption which has already been produced in every man, as expressed in GS §41:
But only God, who created man to His own image and ransomed him from sin, provides a fully adequate answer to these questions. This He does through what He has revealed in Christ His Son, who became man. Whoever follows after Christ, the perfect man, becomes himself more of a man.But wasn't it revealed that those who follow our Lord by faith and works receive the "power to be made the sons of God" (Jn. 1:12)? Now we are told that, on the contrary, "whoever follows after Christ...becomes himself more of a man"! Isn't this an inversion doctrine?
Note well that the Council did not at all combat the false idea of the superior dignity of man just because he is man (which derives from the equally false idea of his perfection and intrinsic self-sufficiency) . Rather, it reinforced this false idea by ascribing to every man objective and anonymous redemption by Christ. Because of this, it is not the movement for the "rights of man" that is under the influence of the spirit of the Gospel; rather, it is the spirit of the Gospel as interpreted by the progressive wing of the Council that has become imbued with the subversive, revolutionary spirit of the movement for the "rights of man."
► An evaluation and appreciation of culture, identified, in short, by a neo-Illuminist, scientist idea, popular at the time, which included the exaltation of the "conquest of the cosmos." Having adopted this outlook, the Council was led, at the outset, to praise mass culture as evocative of a "new humanism." This cultural revisionism is defined in GS §53:
The word "culture" in its general sense indicates all those factors by which man refines and unfolds his manifold spiritual and bodily qualities. It means his effort to bring the world itself under his control by his knowledge and his labor. It includes the fact that by improving customs and institutions he renders social life more human both within the family and in the civic community. Finally, it is a feature of culture that throughout the course of time man expresses, communicates, and conserves in his works great spiritual experiences and desires, so that these may be of advantage to the progress of many, even of the whole human family.► GS §54 finds the Council affirming, with satisfaction, the development of "a more universal form of human culture, one which will promote and express the unity of the human race to the degree that it preserves the particular features of the different cultures." This allegedly provides us with "evidence of the birth of a new humanism," raised to the level of being our currently assigned mission, namely, that "we build a better world based upon truth and justice" (GS §55).
One can hardly imagine an evaluation more erroneous or more far removed from the reality contained therein: to see "mass culture" as the bearer of a new humanism, whose characteristic mark was to consign our customs to a return of barbarism that destroyed all true culture, and bring us to the sad domination of whatever is "politically correct" at any given moment.
And behold the bad shepherding that resulted. For shouldn't Catholics be opposed to this laicist culture (envisioned, it must be said, according to its worst features), already completely developed after the Council? What about Catholics' supernaturally based world vision? In no way did the Council uphold the Catholic vision. In fact, GS §56 states the actual mission:
[H]uman culture must evolve today in such a way that it can develop the whole human person harmoniously and at the same time assist men in those duties which all men, especially Christians, are called to fulfill in the fraternal unity of the one human family."Culture" exists for the "person," for "man's dignity," and not for God's glory. "Culture" is anthropocentric. And Catholics ought to open themselves to this culture, cooperate with it. They have the "the obligation to work with all men for the construction of a more human world" (GS §57). They ought to fight for a "human culture favorable to personal dignity and free from any discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, nation, of religion, or social condition" (GS §60}. This is the type of culture programmed by the UN and its institutions, and whose characteristics necessarily mandate the disappearance of the entire idea of Catholic culture.
According to the Council, there has to be the attempt to construct "a human person in his totality," who must be educated by a "universal culture." Consequently, all collective cultural activity must be impregnated with "the Christian and human spirit" (GS §61). This is expressed throughout the Council's documents: as we have seen, LG §36 affirms that the lay faithful ought to cooperate "in universal progress in human and Christian freedom." What is human is placed on the same level as what is Christian, and even above it, because collaboration in the dialogue with the world-now the main mission-has its basis in human values, to which Catholic values must adapt themselves. The decree on the apostolate of the laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem §27) verifies that cooperation with non-Catholics is proclaimed by "common human values," which ought, therefore, to unite men beyond religions. Thus, it also wants to affirm the religion of humanity.
In Parts 1-6 of this continuing series, we have been discussing the "mentality" of the Second Vatican Council, both generally and in particular. In Part 7 we will concentrate on its doctrinal errors regarding 1) the concluding part of a treatment on its interpretation of the meaning of the modern world, 2) bad pastoral policy in a broad range of issues.
As expressed in Inter Mirifica §5, the Council expresses an appreciation of the "right to information" on the basis of a Utopian evaluation of its advantages:
For an open and timely revelation of events and affairs provides individuals with a grasp of them which is sustained and considerably detailed. As a result, men can actively contribute to the common good and all can more easily foster the development of the whole civic community.But experience has demonstrated that none of this corresponds to the reality. The daily bombardment of all types of news by the mass media has absolutely not produced in the mass of individuals a "grasp of [events] which is sustained and considerably detailed" and capable of favoring their contribution to "the common good" and to progress. On the contrary, it has produced a sort of mental saturation and, therefore, a general tendency to a weakened ability to discern, to really understand the meaning of facts, which in general are forgotten as quickly as they are consumed. In fact, at the time of the Council it was already obvious that the planetary information circus was a factory for producing nothingness.
►The optimistic evaluation of man is described in nearly every article of Gaudium et Spes, as if man's intelligence and will were not wounded by original sin. This evaluation is obviously very far from reality because it again proposes a Utopian and non-Christian idea of man who is good by nature, of a human species naturaliter filled with the best sentiments.
Spurred only by his inner forces, the man of GS (§§4-11) seems plunged into the exercise of employing his will and intellect to scrutinize himself and the signs of the times, to understand and conquer nature through a positive realization of his "dignity," his "rights," limited, at best, by "contradictions" provided by social development. Nothing is ever said about him in terms of his having any basic tendency toward evil, which obscures his judgment and diverts his will, so that, without the help of grace ("without Me you can do nothing" Qn. 15:5]), neither clear judgment nor right will is possible. If this is not expressed, it is because the supernatural is completely excluded from the "humanism" extolled by Vatican II. The Council's optimism presents us with a cloying image, rhetorical and false, of man and his aspirations. The following passage, from GS §9, proves this point:
Persons and societies thirst for a full and free life worthy of man-one in which they can subject to their own welfare all that the modern world can offer them so abundantly. In addition, nations try harder every day to bring about a kind of universal community.Such an edifying image, so "politically correct" regarding individual and social claims generically proclaimed in the name of "the rights of man," neglects reality. Actually, the more "full and free life" (a generic expression) that persons and groups have, the more they continue to thirst for power, domination and pleasure, the more they thirst to impose themselves, to launch wrongs, and to avenge wrongs suffered, whether real or imagined. Moreover, from a Catholic point of view, has this portrait of life drawn according to "the dignity of man" satisfied his claims, above all the material ones, or has it satisfied the claims of a life that wishes, above all, to do everything according to God's will and our Lord's teachings, a life that consequently leads, in the world's eyes, to being neither "full" nor "free" but is so in God's eyes?
As expressed in GS §61, the optimistic vision of man led the Council to present a definition of universal man or "the whole person" which is not Catholic:
Nevertheless it remains each man's duty to preserve a view of the whole human person in which the values of intellect, will, conscience and fraternity are pre-eminent. These values are all rooted in God the Creator and have been wonderfully restored and elevated in Christ.From a logical point of view, this is an incoherent portrait, because intelligence, will, and conscience are faculties of man, rather than values, whereas fraternity can only be a value. Nevertheless, they are all placed on the same level. But as for charity, the Christian value par excellence, where is it? Where are humility, obedience, the spirit of sacrifice, the desire to please God in everything? Asserted again is that Jesus came "to elevate man," "curing" all of his imperfect qualities, whereas He was incarnated not to exalt our qualities, but to cure our infirmities, so that we might be able to be cured of these by believing in Him: "...For I came not to call the just, but sinners" (Mk. 2: 17).
►GS §5 presents an evaluation of the historical process, viewed as being in progress, as one tending toward the unity of the human species, through which, finally, nations will be dissolved:
History itself speeds along on so rapid a course that an individual person can scarcely keep abreast of it. The destiny of the human community has become all of a piece, where once the various groups of men had a kind of private history of their own: Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence, there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis.Do the facts confirm Vatican II's "philosophy of history" thesis? Today they would seem to do so. However, it is necessary to make the following points:
1) Socioeconomic unity of the human species was already in the process of being formed thanks to the development of science, technology, economy, and the convergence of mass culture. Today, that development seems to have resulted in a type of global economic model represented by the "world market," that is capitalism in its worst form, the ultraliberal and speculative type, an economic and financial monster that no State can any longer restrain or control.
2) Once the Communist Utopia disappeared, the global political form of this process was consolidated into democracy, mass democracy based on the "rights of man," corrupted and corrupting, which weighs heavily on our shoulders and is the enemy of all Christian truths, realities and teachings.
3) Therefore, the point is that this is an artificial process, jointly advanced by human greed pushed to its extreme, by the power politics of certain nations, and by the Church's adherence to the ideas of the century's Zeitgeist, and not born of the people's own desire, nor by objective political and economic exigencies.
4) This process, with all of its evils, was still embryonic at the beginning of the 1960's, when the dualism of democracy and communism dominated the scene with their frontal opposition provided by "blocs." If the Council had condemned this process, it is practically certain that it would not have attained the quantitative and qualitative depth and breadth that we witness today. In fact, the Catholic hierarchy's adherence to this process has favored its advancement. That is, the Catholic hierarchy's "ecumenical" activity has powerfully contributed to the "unification" of the human species, so that today the "conciliar" Church has become one of the factors converging to maintain that artificial "unity" of the human species.
5) In reality, there is no such unity, and this is demonstrated by the fact that Islam, which has become rich thanks to oil, has been allowed, after many centuries, to resume its offensive on a worldwide scale through its massive penetration into all countries and in particular into European countries, where it has set up numerous and strong colonies, cohesive and aggressive. Thus, the political dualism of "blocs" has resurged but in a more cunning form. The enemy is now inside the walls, and without declaring war. On the contrary, it is there under the banner of peace, unity, brotherhood, in a word, the "rights of man." Islam, which combines religion and politics, is constitutionally impermeable to all forms of democracy, and sees the conquest of the entire world for Allah and Mohammed as one of its "religious" tasks. In view of that, as never before, the human species, "unified" by peace, material progress, and democracy, is a race open to Islamic conquest. (And this critique even excludes, given the ambiguous quality of Russia's support for "democracy," an unforeseen return of Communism).
6) The question of the impossibility of a "separate history" for each nation. This might appear to be valid but in reality is, above all, unacceptable from a Catholic point of view for the simple reason that the Church had and has as its premier task that of caring for all Catholic nations and societies, and of defending their individuality, as much on the level of principles as on the political one, in the strict sense of the term. Therefore, the Church should not shrink from being concerned that the history of Catholic nations should be, to the extent possible, "separate" from the rest of the world that is largely hostile to them. That is to say: to keep and defend national Catholic individuality requires a recognition of the right of a "separate" history, a right that God, all powerful, has always guaranteed-to give an example-to ancient Israel, so small and fragile as it was, as long as it faithfully observed His commandments. These rights guaranteed by God require the recognition of the right to build a society that conforms to the principles of Christianity: The Council never discussed that right, rather, it opted for a "pluralist" society (GS§75) Gravissimus Educationis §6.7).
13) Bad Pastoral Policy in the Reform of the Sacred Liturgy
►Despite the recommendation of prudence in the reform of the Sacred Liturgy given in Sacrosanctum Concilium §23:
That sound tradition may be retained, and yet the way be open for legitimate progress, a careful investigation [a process that takes a lot of time-Ed] is always to be made into each part of the liturgy which is to be revised.... There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing,the order is given in §25: "The liturgical books are to be revised as soon as possible...."
►In SC §§27 is found the exhortation to prefer the communal celebration of rites to individual or private celebration:
It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, as far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.
The hostility of Luther against "private Masses" resonates in this devaluation of "individual and quasi-private" celebration.
►The numerous articles that encourage adapting the Roman Rite (by means of experimentation and creativity) to the vernacular languages, to modern mentalities and cultures (and thus to the spirit of the world), to national and local usages, or which revive archaic forms of these: Sacrosanctum Concilium §§24, 36:2-3, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 50, 53, 54, 63, 65, 66, 67, 77, 79, 90, 101, 119, 120, 128, etc.
►The invitation to multiply the occasions on which Communion under both kinds may be granted (SC55):
The dogmatic principles which were laid down by the Council of Trent remaining intact, communion under both kinds may be granted when the bishops think fit, not only to clerics and religious, but also to the laity, in cases to be determined by the Apostolic See, as, for instance, to the newly ordained in the Mass of their sacred ordination, to the newly professed in the Mass of their religious profession, and to the newly baptized in a Mass following their baptism.►The extension of permission for concelebration, a liturgical practice formerly reserved to certain particularly solemn ceremonies (especially priestly ordinations) and which necessitates further theological investigation (see Denzinger 3928, May 23, 1957); together with the order to draw up a new rite of concelebration (SC §§57, 58).
►The mitigation of the absolute ban on the communicatio in sacris with the "Orthodox" or "Eastern" schismatics (Orientalium Ecclesiarum §§26-29) and with the "separated brethren" in general (Unitatis Redintegratio §8):
Divine Law forbids any common worship (communicatio in sacris) which would damage the unity of the Church, or involve formal acceptance of falsehood or the danger of deviation in the faith, of scandal, or of indifferentism. At the same time, pastoral experience clearly shows that with respect to our Eastern brethren there should and can be taken into consideration various circumstances affecting individuals, wherein the unity of the Church is not jeopardized nor are intolerable risks involved, but in which salvation itself and the spiritual profit of souls are urgently at issue.►Bishops are given the permission to set up the rules for "concelebration" in their Dioceses (SC §57:1,2 and 2,1). "Rules concerning concelebration within a diocese are under the control of the bishop."
Hence, in view of special circumstances of time, place, and personage, the Catholic Church has often adopted and now adopts a milder policy, offering to all the means of salvation and an example of charity among Christians through participation in the sacraments and in other sacred functions and objects.... (OE§26)
In certain special circumstances, such as in prayer services "for unity" and during ecumenical gatherings, it is allowable, indeed desirable, that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren. (UR §8)
►In OE §20: The Holy Feast of Easter can be celebrated on the same Sunday as the "Orthodox" schismatics celebrate it: "Until such time as all Christians are agreed on a fixed day for the celebration of Easter, with a view meantime to promoting unity among the Christians of the same area or nation, it is left to the patriarchs or supreme authorities of a place to come to an agreement by the unanimous consent and combined counsel of those affected to celebrate the feast of Easter on the same Sunday."
►In OE§15: "If any separated Eastern Christian should, under the guidance of the grace of the Holy Spirit, join himself to the unity of Catholics, no more should be required of him than what a bare profession of the Catholic faith demands."
14) Bad Pastoral Policy in the Study and Teaching of Doctrine
►Bishops rather than the Holy See are granted control over the translations of the Holy Bible into the vernacular (SC §36:4; Dei Verbum §25).
►It is ordered that the reading of the Bible during the liturgy be "more abundant, more various, more adaptable," and that all the faithful have a broad direct contact ("broad access") with the Holy text (SC§§35, 51; D7§§22, 25). This order is contrary to all preceding teaching which, as against Protestants and Jansenists, always surrounded this reading of the Bible with prudence because of the notorious difficulty of many of the passages of the Old and New Testaments, in all cases entrusting them to the mediation of the liturgy, catechesis and preaching (Dz 1429, Clement XI in the condemnation of Quesnel, 1507, and Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei).
►The directive to translate the Holy Scriptures in collaboration with "the separated brethren" (DF§22): "And if, given the opportunity and the approval of Church authority, these translations are produced in cooperation with the separated brethren as well, all Christians will be able to use them."
►In Dei Verbum §25, the order to "compose editions of the sacred Scriptures, provided with suitable footnotes, [which] should be prepared also for the use of non- Christians and adapted to their situation."
►In UR §9, the directive to "meet with the separated brethren for discussion of theological problems-where each can treat with the other on an equal footing-provided that those who take part in them are truly competent and have the approval of the bishops."
In GS §62, the directive to employ the findings of secular sciences in pastoral care:
For recent studies and findings of science, history and philosophy raise new questions which influence life and demand new theological investigations.... In pastoral care, appropriate use must be made not only of theological principles, but also of the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology and sociology. Thus the faithful can be brought to live the faith in a more thorough and mature way.
15) Bad Pastoral Policy in the Formation of Religious, Seminarians, Priests and in the Episcopal Office
►In Perfectae Caritatis §21 it is affirmed:
The adaptation and renewal of the religious life includes both the constant return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of the institutes and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time.
Therefore: at one and the same time there is to be both a return to "the original spirit" of the religious Institutes and, "their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time," which today are those of a secularized world, a laicist culture, etc. Can the spirit breathe in two opposite directions, one good and the other bad, at the same time?
►In Perfectae Caritatis §3:
The manner of living, praying and working should be suitably adapted everywhere, but especially in mission territories, to the modern physical and psychological circumstances of the members and also, as required by the nature of each institute, to the necessities of the apostolate, the demands of culture, and social and economic circumstances....According to the same criteria let the manner of governing the institutes also be examined. Therefore let constitutions, directories, custom books, books of prayers and ceremonies and such like be suitably re-edited and, obsolete laws being suppressed, be adapted to the decrees of this sacred synod.
In practice, as anyone can see, this is on the order of bringing about a blank slate, of erasing the past.
►The principles articulated above and other similar directives must be also applied to institutes dedicated to the contemplative life (PC §7):
...Nevertheless their manner of living should be revised according to the principles and criteria of adaptation and renewal mentioned above. However their withdrawal from the world and the exercises proper to the contemplative life should be preserved with the utmost care.
►The members of the "lay religious life" are equally "urged...to adjust their way of life to modern needs" (PC §10).
►The Superiors of Religious Orders "should govern those who submit to them as sons of God, respecting their human dignity. In this way they make it easier for them to subordinate their wills" (PC §14). And if, in certain cases, those submitting do not wish to do so voluntarily, what should the "superiors" do?
►Papal cloister should be maintained in the case of nuns engaged exclusively in the contemplative life. However, it must be adjusted to conditions of time and place and obsolete practices suppressed. This should be done after due consultation with the monasteries in question. (PC §16)
►And here is the article which sanctioned the Zeitgeists irruption in the convents and monasteries:
Adaptation and renewal depend greatly on the education of religious....In order that the adaptation of religious life to the needs of our time may not be merely external and that those employed by rule in the active apostolate may be equal to their task, religious must be given suitable instruction, depending on their intellectual capacity and personal talent, in the currents and attitudes of sentiment and thought prevalent in social life today...Religious should strive during the whole course of their lives to perfect the culture they have received in matters spiritual and in arts and sciences. Likewise, superiors must, as far as this is possible, obtain for them the opportunity, equipment and time to do this. (PC §18)►This Council favors conferences or councils of major superiors, established by the Holy See. These can contribute very much to achieve the purpose of each institute; to encourage more effective cooperation for the welfare of the Church; to ensure a more just distribution of ministers of the Gospel in a given area; and finally to conduct affairs of interest to all religious. Suitable coordination and cooperation with episcopal conferences should be established with regard to the exercise of the apostolate. Similar conferences should also be established for secular institutes. (PC §23)
►Since the proper use of the media of social communications which are available to audiences of different cultural backgrounds and ages calls for instruction proper to their needs, programs which are suitable for the purpose-especially where they are designed for young people-should be encouraged, increased in numbers and organized according to Christian moral principles. This should be done in Catholic schools at every level, in seminaries and in lay apostolate groups. (Inter Mirifica §16)
►Since only general laws can be made where there exists a wide variety of nations and regions, a special "program of priestly training" is to be undertaken by each country or rite. It must be set up by the episcopal conferences, revised from time to time and approved by the Apostolic See. In this way will the universal laws be adapted to the particular circumstances of the times and localities so that the priestly training will always be in tune with the pastoral needs of those regions in which the ministry is to be exercised. (Optatam Totius §1)
In fact, this rule removed the Holy See from the actual "program" of priestly formation: the Holy See is constrained to take note of the substance approved by the Episcopal Conferences. The principle, reiterated in Article 2 of the Decree, is that "all priestly formation... will... be adapted to the particular circumstances of the times and localities...."
►"The entire pastoral activity of fostering vocations" should be aware that "...no opportune aids are to be overlooked which modern psychological and sociological research has brought to light" (OT §2).
Modern psychology believes neither in the existence of the soul and the spirit nor conscience and reduces them to one of the body's biological functions. Sociology's "scientific" claim is purely descriptive and it deeply questions nothing. The reality is that both of these "sciences" were in fashion at the time of the Council and this is why they have made their mark on the "new theologians."
►Studies undertaken by the students should be so arranged that they can easily continue them elsewhere should they choose a different state of life. (OT §3)
►In seminaries, the "norms of Christian education are to be religiously observed and properly complemented by the newer findings of sound psychology and pedagogy" (OT §11 ; also see OT §20).
Conforming modern pedagogy to the principles of Catholicism is, at the very least, debatable.
►Before beginning specifically ecclesiastical subjects, seminarians should be equipped with that humanistic and scientific training which young men in their own countries are wont to have as a foundation for higher studies. (OT §13)Seminary students enter the seminary because they want to become priests and not to become cultivated persons in terms of the world. Doesn't the profane culture actually present an obstacle to vocation? Shouldn't it be that the seminarians not be the ones to adapt themselves to this culture, but that the culture ought to be adapted to them to the extent possible whenever the opportunity arises, and in carefully calibrated doses?
In the teaching of philosophy in the seminary, it would also be necessary to keep in mind modern philosophical currents:
The net result should be that the students, correctly understanding the characteristics of the contemporary mind, will be duly prepared for dialogue with men of their time. The history of philosophy should be so taught that the students, while reaching the ultimate principles of the various systems, will hold on to what is proven to be true therein and will be able to detect the roots of errors and to refute them. (OT §15)The erroneous organization of this pastoral teaching results from two considerations:
1) Knowledge of modern thought is not required in view of the goal of more readily converting souls to Christ, but rather for the purpose of "dialogue."
2) Seminaries ought to have a "good understanding of the mentality of their century," separating its good from the bad, in order to be able to better appreciate the good therein. This is why, in matters concerning philosophy, they should able to distinguish within the different philosophical systems "what is true" from what is false, and even to "detect the roots of error and to refute them." Therefore, the mission given to ordinary seminarians is beyond their capacity. Given their real capacity and limitations, it would not be easy for them to refute the errors of modern philosophy, which is a complex of ideas inimical to all of Christianity's fundamental truths. To do that, one would have to have a highly speculative intellect and a broad cultural background, which is not the case for everyone. Moreover, in philosophy, error is often connected to truths articulated in an appropriate and even intellectually fascinating way. Its refutation would have to be entrusted to the overall plan of instruction and to the instructors and not left to the still weak seminarians, in the name of some absurd notion of personal freedom.
This being the case, note in the above quoted section of Optatam Totius the New Theology's perverse intentions, marked by its affection for modern thought, which it wanted to enter the seminaries, where it has been nominally preserved, in order to corrupt the traditional Thomist formation of the clergy.
►But since doctrinal training ought to tend not to a mere communication of ideas but to a true and intimate formation of the students, teaching methods are to be revised both as regards lectures, discussions, and seminars and also the development of study on the part of the students, whether done privately or in small groups. (OT §17)
This amounts to accusing all previous pedagogy of being just "notional." Is this accusation legitimate? We do not believe it is the least bit legitimate. It is a typical accusation of those who are preparing to revolutionize the basis of a didactic method. Otherwise, this accusation, classic in the milieu of dominant modern pedagogy, revolves around experience and reform, the declared enemy of the exercise of systematic knowledge.
►[Priests] should hold in high honor that just freedom which is due to everyone in the earthly city. They must willingly listen to the laity, consider their desires in a fraternal spirit, recognize their experience and competence in the different areas of human activity, so that together with them they will be able to recognize the signs of the times. While trying the spirits to see if they be of God. ..priests should uncover with a sense of faith, acknowledge with joy and foster with diligence the various humble and exalted charisms of the laity. Among the other gifts of God, which are found in abundance among the laity, those are worthy of special mention by which not a few of the laity are attracted to a higher spiritual life. (Presbyterorum Ordinis §9)
►In today's world, roiling in a great transformational process, "priests' constrained by so many obligations of their office, certainly have reason to wonder how they can coordinate and balance their interior life with feverish outward activity." This notion is reprised in PO §22: "The ministers of the Church and sometimes the faithful themselves feel like strangers in this world, anxiously looking for the ways and words with which to communicate with it."
These assessments and judgments do not correspond to reality. In the second half of the 1950's, there began to be anxiety over a reduction in vocations, the emerging dechristianization of society, and modernist tendencies which again began to spread among the clergy. There was a certain malaise as luke warmness became generalized, the tacit formation of an opinion, but only amongst a minority, that pushed towards a relaxation of vigilance against the world and openness to it. But the existential type of anxiety, again in fashion after the Second World War, was only felt by the "new theologians," of uncertain faith, under the ascendancy of contemporary thought and the seductions of the world. But no one, especially among the faithful, felt any need, for example, for a liturgical reform, certainly not one that was as radical as that imposed by a minority of destroyers, with the complicity of the then-reigning pope, John XXIII. No one felt the anguished need for an "adaptation" or "opening" to the world.
►[S]purred on by charity, [priests] develop new approaches and methods for the greater good of the Church. With enthusiasm and courage, let [them] propose new projects and strive to satisfy the needs of their flocks. (PO§15)
►"In their friendly and brotherly dealings with one another and with other men, priests are able to learn and appreciate human values and esteem created goods as gifts of God" (PO §17). But relations between the faithful and priests are not, nor can they be, "amicable and fraternal," as if they were relationships of equals to equals! It is to the priest, who has the privilege of performing the consecration of the sacred Host, that the faithful confess their sins and that God with the priest as intermediary absolves them. The faithful certainly cannot see the priest as their equal. And in fact, they always reserve for the priests, to whom they even often go for advice concerning important material questions, a respect that they would never have for an equal. Otherwise, what "human values" is the priest warned to learn to respect? All of them? All of this mythology about progress, democracy, freedom that is so abundantly spread throughout the Council's documents?
►Besides the documents of the Magisterium and me works of the "best theologians, whose science is recognized," priests must recognize "human culture" and the "sacred sciences" since these "currently progress and are being renewed." For them, these are the "best preparation for dialogue with their contemporaries" (PO §19).
Through these "sacred sciences" which are progressing and being renewed, what is really desired is to rubber stamp the New Theology's point of view, which presents the inventions and wild imaginings of the exegeses of Protestant theology as "discoveries," and which were condemned by Church authority at the last Council.
►The revolutionization of the diocese, which s no longer "the charge or the district whose head is the Bishop" (Encyclopedic du droit [Milan: 1964], XII, "Diocese"). Rather, a diocese is just "a portion of the people of God which is entrusted to a bishop to be shepherded by him with the cooperation of the presbytery" (Christus Dominus §11). This refiguration of the diocese also demands "a proper determination of the boundaries of dioceses and a distribution of clergy and resources that is reasonable and in keeping with the needs of the apostolate" and therefore "with prudence" but also "quam primum" meaning "as soon as possible" (CD §22).
This is a revolution because the revision of dioceses ought then take place "by dividing, dismembering or uniting them, or by changing their boundaries, or by determining a better place for the episcopal see or, finally, especially in the case of dioceses having larger cities, by providing them with a new internal organization" (CD §22).
The Council unleashed a veritable whirlwind on the dioceses because it wanted to change everything in a basic way and as rapidly as possible: territory, episcopal sees, internal organization. The new diocese, "a portion of the people of God," must be born immediately, with no consideration for the old one.
►In the exercise of his ministry, the bishop must teach how it is necessary to respect, in addition to traditional values-for example, family values-lay values which are "the human person with his freedom and bodily life, the family and its unity and stability, the procreation and education of children, civil society with its laws and professions, labor and leisure, the arts and technical inventions, poverty and affluence" (CD §12). Moreover, conforming to the directives given by Pope John XXIII in the encyclical Pacem in Terr is, bishops must "set forth the ways by which are to be answered the most serious questions concerning the ownership, increase, and just distribution of material goods, peace and war, and brotherly relations among all countries" (ibid).
In applying Pope John XXIII's directives, the Council did not hesitate to state that one of the bishops' duties (who, by vocation, should, above all, be pastors of souls), is to teach (those who govern) how to resolve the basic problems of modern nations! This is pure dilettantism and a politicization of the bishops' office. And, of course, bishops should "present Christian doctrine in a way adapted to the needs of the moment" and "to ask for and promote dialogue with all men" (CD §3). To this end (CD §16), a bishop ought "to order his life in a way that corresponds to the needs of his times." It is well to reflect upon this statement which is mysterious enough: what exactly does it mean? Too, in order "to well recognize the needs of the faithful in the social milieu in which they live," the bishop ought to resort to "proper methods, particularly sociological inquiry" (CD §13). The Council had a real fixation on sociology: (in Article 17 of the decree Christus Dominum) even advocating installation of "pastoral social services" charged with "social and religious investigation" And too:
Assuredly, while sacred pastors devote themselves to the spiritual care of their flock, they also in fact have regard for their social and civil progress and prosperity. According to the nature of their office and as behooves bishops, they collaborate actively with public authorities for this purpose and advocate obedience to just laws and reverence for legitimately constituted authorities. (CD §19)The bishop as artisan of our material well being? Is this the goal for which bishops, the Apostles' successors, are consecrated?
Translated by Suzanne M. Rini and edited by Miss Anne Stinnett and Fr. Kenneth Novak. All quotes from Vatican Council II and post-Conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Harry J. Costello and Rev. Austin Flannery,O.P. (Costello Publishing Co., Inc., 1975) or the Vatican web site. All Scripture references are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (TAN Books and Publishers).
In Parts 1-7 of this series, we have discussed the "mentality" of the Second Vatican Council, both generally and in particular. In the final installment we will conclude with the ending treatment of its doctrinal errors regarding bad pastoral policy across a broad range of issues.
► Equally, in the formation of indigenous clergy, the pupils must► Missionary activity ought to be born of the word of God, particular autochthonous churches should be sufficiently established and should grow up all over the world, endowed with their own maturity and vital forces. Under a hierarchy of their own, together with the faithful people, and adequately fitted out with requisites for living a full Christian life, they should make their contribution to the good of the whole Church. (Ad Gentes §6)► Therefore, let the missionaries, God's coworkers,... raise up congregations of the faithful such that, walking worthy of the vocation to which they have been called (cf. Eph. 4:1), they may exercise the priestly, prophetic, and royal office which God has entrusted to them. ...The ecumenical spirit should be nurtured in the neophytes [!], should take into account that the brethren who believe in Christ are Christ's disciples, reborn in baptism, sharers with the People of God in very many good things. (AGS15)
in coordination with the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity,... search out ways and means for bringing about and directing fraternal cooperation as well as harmonious living with missionary undertaking of other Christian communities [with no directive to convert them], that as far as possible the scandal of division may be removed (AG §29).[T]he common requirements of priestly training, including the pastoral and practical ones prescribed by the council. ..should be combined with an attempt to make contact with their own particular national way of thinking and acting (AG §16).► Religious institutes, working to plant the Church, thoroughly imbued with mystic treasures with which the Church's religious tradition is adorned, should strive to give expression to them and to hand them on, according to the nature and the genius of each nation. Let them reflect attentively on how Christian religious life might be able to assimilate the ascetic and contemplative traditions, whose seeds were sometimes planted by God in ancient cultures already prior to the preaching of the Gospel. (AG §18)
One would like to know what these "ascetic and contemplative traditions" "whose seeds were sometimes planted by God in ancient [pagan] cultures" are. This is the same error contained in Lumen Gentium §8, which speaks of "elements of salvation" outside the Church, not only those within the "separated brethren" but also in the pagan religions.
► But in order that the missionary activity of the bisnops may be exercised more effectively for the good of the whole Church, it would be expedient for the episcopal conferences to take charge of those affairs which concern the orderly cooperation of their own region. In their own conference, the bishops should deliberate about..." (AG §38)
Following this passage is a rather long list of matters reserved to the bishops' competence, carried out without any control on the part of the Holy See.
17) Bad Pastoral Teaching in the Directives on Lay Apostolates
► That in the "organization of lay apostolates" there ought to be instilled a "specific education, theoretical and practical" for "good use of the means of social communication" (Inter Mirifica §16).
► The lay faithful ought to contribute to "universal progress in human and Christian liberty" (Lumen Gentium §36). Here is another example of the lay myth of progress accepted by the Council, with its exaltation of "liberty."
Let everyone consider it his sacred obligation to esteem and observe social necessities as belonging to the primary duties of modern man. For the more unified the world becomes, the more plainly do the offices of men extend beyond particular groups and spread by degrees to the whole world. But this development cannot occur unless individual men and their associations cultivate in themselves the moral and social virtues [Which? The definition is generic. -Ed.] and promote them in society; thus, with the needed help of divine grace men who are truly new and artisans of a new humanity can be forthcoming. (Gaudium et Spes §30)
So, the Council invokes the help of Divine Grace in a paragraph dedicated to "surpassing or overtaking the individualistic ethic"-without being at all specific-and to the exaltation of a "social" vision of ethics, which echoes the false doctrines of Socialism and Communism!
Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design. (GS§34)
And what are these "triumphs of the human race"?-The Suez Canal? The advent of the 8-hour work day? Universal right to vote? The discovery of penicillin? A cure for AIDS? At that time of the writing of Gaudium et Spes, it was Communist propaganda that often spoke of "triumphs of the humanity on the move."
Human activity, to be sure, takes its significance from its relationship to man. Just as it proceeds from man, so it is ordered toward man. For when a man works he not only alters things and society, he develops himself as well. He learns much, he cultivates his resources, he goes outside of himself and beyond himself. (GS§35)
But shouldn't "human activity" be ordered to God, at least indirectly, from the moment when all that we do is always in relation to the glory of God, and to finally obtaining the Supreme Good?
Christians should rather rejoice that, following the example of Christ who worked as an artisan, they are free to give proper exercise to all their earthly activities and to their humane, domestic, professional, social and technical enterprises by gathering them into one vital synthesis with religious values, under whose supreme direction all things are harmonized unto God's glory. (GS§43)
In carrying out this unification, the laity will be
acting as citizens in the world, whether individually or socially, [and] they will keep the laws proper to each discipline, and labor to equip themselves with a genuine expertise in their various fields. They will gladly work with men seeking the same goals. (Ibid)...For whoever promotes the human community at the family level, culturally, in its economic, social and political dimensions, both nationally and internationally, such a one, according to God's design, is contributing greatly to the Church as well, to the extent that she depends on things outside herself. (GS§44)
The reversal of the Church's mission thus reaches its zenith in the praise of the world, which converts the Church to its values.
► May the faithful, therefore, live in very close union with the other men of their time and may they strive to understand perfectly their way of thinking and judging, as expressed in their culture. Let them blend new sciences and theories and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and the teaching of Christian doctrine, so that their religious culture and morality may keep pace with scientific knowledge and with the constantly progressing technology. Thus they will be able to interpret and evaluate all things in a truly Christian spirit. (GS§62) [Emphasis added.-Ed.]
Here is a form of pastoral style which proceeds in an exactly opposite sense to that of St. Paul who wrote: "Being of one mind one towards another. Not minding high things, but consenting to the humble. Be not wise in your own conceits" (Rom. 12: 16).
The only response to this little "summary" of Conciliar pastoral teaching for the laity is to label it a "mystery of iniquity."
► Today's youth have a much more important role and influence in society:
Their heightened influence in society demands of them a proportionate apostolic activity, but their natural qualities also fit them for this activity.... Adults ought to engage in such friendly discussion with young people that both age groups, overcoming the age barrier, may become better acquainted and share the special benefits each generation can offer the other. (Apostolicam Actuositatem §12)
The representation of youth's "natural qualities" has no apparent connection to reality, and neither does the type of "discussion" between adults and young people proposed here, sentimental and cloying as usual.
► Catholics should try to cooperate with all men and women of good will to promote whatever is true, whatever just, whatever holy, whatever lovable (cf. Phil. 4:8). They should hold discussions with them, excel them in prudence and courtesy, and initiate research on social and public practices which should be improved in line with the spirit of the Gospel. (AA§14)
GS§78 states: "...all Christians are urgently summoned to do in love what the truth requires, and to join with all true peacemakers in pleading for peace and bringing it about." At the time, the expression "peacemakers" or "men of peace" were common buzz-phrases Communist propaganda.
The collaboration of the Catholic faithful with "the separated brethren" is demanded by "the quasi-common heritage of the Gospel and the common duty of Christian witness..." [with heretics and schismatics -Ed.]. And this in turn "requires the cooperation of Catholics with other Christians on the part of individuals and communities within the Church, either in activities or in associations, in the national or international field...." Moreover: "Common human values not infrequently call for cooperation between Christians pursuing apostolic aims and those who do not profess Christ's name but acknowledge these values" (AA §27). Thus: "By this dynamic and prudent cooperation..., which is of special importance in temporal activities, the laity bear witness to Christ, the Savior of the world, as well as to the unity of the human family"(ibid).
So, authentic Catholic Christian values are viewed as a function of human values, which are therefore superior to them: in fact, these are the human values which permit the unity of the "human family" so dear to the Council.
To cultivate good human relations, truly human values must be fostered, especially the art of living fraternally and cooperating with others and of striking up friendly conversation with them. (AA §29)
18) Bad Pastoral Teaching on Education
► All men of every race, condition and age, since they enjoy the dignity of a human being, have an inalienable right to an education...that is in keeping with their ultimate goal, their ability, their sex, and the culture and tradition of their country, and also in harmony with their fraternal association with other peoples in the fostering of true unity and peace on earth. (Gravissimum Educationis §1)
Aside from the fact that it presents nothing Catholic, the educational ideal proposed here appears both Utopian and contradictory. In fact, what should one do if the "culture" and the "tradition of their country" prove to be opposed to what is expressed in "fraternal association with other people"?
► Children and young people ought to "be given also, as they advance in years, a positive and prudent sexual education"(GE§1)
No comment. Public sex education, introduced into the school system, was explicitly condemned as being immoral and corrupting by Pope Pius XI in the encyclical Divini Illius Magistri (1929; Denzinger 2214) and by Pius XII in his September 18, 1951 allocution to fathers of families. The popes required that sex education be left to parents' private assessment and prudence.
The Church is bound as a mother to give to these children of hers an education by which their whole life can be imbued with the spirit of Christ and at the same time do all she can to promote for all peoples the complete perfection of the human person, the good of earthly society and the building of a world that is more human. (GE §3)
The help offered by the Church to all people therefore does not in any consistent way include being imbued with "the spirit of Christ."
Therefore the Church esteems highly those civil authorities and societies which, bearing in mind the pluralism of contemporary society and respecting religious freedom, assist families so that the education of their children can be imparted in all schools according to the individual moral and religious principles of the families. (GE§7) [Emphasis added. -Ed.]
Isn't this just an elegant way of promoting religious and moral indifference?
► Theology faculties ought to make more penetrating inquiry into the various aspects of the sacred sciences so that an ever deepening understanding of sacred Revelation is obtained, the legacy of Christian wisdom handed down by our forefathers is more fully developed, the dialogue with our separated brethren and with non- Christians is fostered, and answers are given to questions arising from the development of doctrine. (GE §11)Since it is altogether necessary in scholastic matters, every means should be employed to foster suitable cooperation between Catholic schools, and between these and other schools that collaboration should be developed which the good of all mankind requires. (GE§12)
The Council held in highest esteem and among its first principles what it ambiguously called "the good of all mankind."
Conclusion: Return to True Doctrine or Perish
I. It is bold to have accused a Council of the Catholic Church of so many grave doctrinal and pastoral errors. It might seem we are guilty of grave sin and suspect of heresy. However, as we have reported, heresy is "the obstinate negation, after having received Baptism, of truths which must be believed by divine and Catholic faith, or obstinately doubting them" (7983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 751). But the Second Vatican Council did not condemn any error or define any "truth" of the "divine and Catholic" Faith. It didn't want to. It declared itself to be purely pastoral and reduced its extraordinary Magisterium to the level of what is canonically undefinable. Finally, it called itself merely "authentic," and maybe not even that. The authentic Magisterium has a right to the believer's assent, but never with the consent given to dogmas of the Faith, the willful denial of which is a mortal sin. Inasmuch as what is "new" and good in Vatican II, it deserves the consent one owes to a "pastoral" Council. If not good, one can legitimately withhold consent. Consent granted to elements of a "pastoral" Council is founded on the rules of prudence to which the believer's healthy reason and his sensus Fidei, his "sense of the Faith," lead. Prudence, supported by sound reason, demands that we listen to the voice of the sensus fidei, which urges us to refuse our assent to the deliberations of an ambiguous Council marred by error.
The believer's prudence leads him to be constantly careful not to offend God and to save his soul. The fear of God is reflected in this caution and is one of the ways that grace acts in us. The refusal of ambiguous and erroneous doctrines promulgated by Vatican II is therefore not only licit and legitimate according to canonical form and all of Tradition, it is also imposed on us by the task of defending the deposit of Faith. Each of us is "soldier of Christ" and must fight for the Faith.
II. The rejection of the false teachings of Vatican II does not put us outside the Church. This refusal does not make us heretics-neither formally nor materially-nor does it make us schismatics, since we do not refuse our assent to the legitimate orders given by authority. Nor do we have any intention of leaving the Church in order to set up or follow another. In fact, we judge the Council in light of what the Church has always taught for 20 centuries, beginning with our Lord and the Apostles. There is no shadow of a doubt that the aggiornamento desired by Pope John XXIII introduced novelties incompatible with what has always been taught by the Church, and therefore, irreconcilable with the deposit of faith.
We have witnessed the overturning of the notions of the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body, the Holy Sacrifices of the Mass, the Priesthood, Catholic marriage, the Kingdom of God, Tradition, the Incarnation, the Redemption, the Annunciation, of true Religious Liberty, of man himself, of the just relationship between Church and State, of what objectively constitutes a heretic, schismatic, or non-Catholic.
From Pope John Paul II, we have heard praise for the modern thought condemned by his predecessors, modern thought to which the Holy Father would like to certify as a way of enunciating the eternal doctrine of the Church because the Church wants to submit itself to a "continual reform" marked more and more by the world's false values. This is intrinsically hostile to Catholicism and negates all truths. The Council should have condemned this modern thought; on the contrary, it became complicit with it. Vatican II’s documents are a dossier of the intellectual decadence of the Catholic hierarchy, which, until the end of the reign of Pope Pius XII, the Popes battled.
Those who in good faith accept these false doctrines certainly remain in the Church, but they live there like trapped animals, objectively constrained by infidelity, without realizing that they have no defense against the danger of losing or gravely corrupting their faith. To accept Vatican II with its tangle of contradictions, ambiguities, and errors, barely masked by some purely formal homage to tradition, is consequently impossible for anyone who realizes this and intends to remain in the Catholic Church. This is not the Church conceived by Vatican II, which defined itself as the Church "of Christ," the "ecumenical" or "conciliar" Church, and reduced to the minimum the use of the adjective "Catholic." We are not ashamed of being or defining ourselves as Catholics, and we are not ashamed to affirm the truth that the acceptance of Vatican II causes us to be distanced from Tradition and therefore from healthy doctrine with grave danger to our soul. Without healthy doctrine it is extremely difficult to observe the morality taught by our Lord and keep the Faith.
III. The fruit of Vatican II in the Church and Catholic nations is corrupt. If it were otherwise, why is the hierarchy still looking to discover the Council's "true meaning" 40 years later?-It is because they are convinced Vatican II was a "super-Council" and because of its "new orientation" behave as though true Catholic doctrine never existed before it. This is the refrain of those who only worry about correcting its "abuses," probably in order to dampen the reactions. The truth is that the current crisis in the Church has its origins in the Council, and not in the degenerations of the post-Conciliar era. The current hierarchy has but to re-establish authentic Catholic doctrine. One day it will have to invalidate or correct the Council in light of Tradition.
It is not for us to define how the Pope would have to intervene in relation to Vatican II. Even less is it our purview to provide a date for him doing so. But allow us to remind the hierarchy that in the visions communicated to the seers at Fatima, God showed us the chastisement His justice will inflict on us if the offenses of grave infidelity continue, perpetrated by those who ought "to guard the doctrine of the faith." If no one has the courage to change the course, God will renew the Church by "a witness of blood" (Heb. 12:14).
If no one has the courage to change course for fear of a violent reaction from the world, if no one has the courage to lead a return to the dogmas of the Faith because they fear they will foment the persecution announced at Fatima, let them ask the help of the Holy Ghost to give them the strength to vanquish their human fears:
Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you who you shall fear: fear ye him, who after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell..." (Lk. 12:4-5).
1. Quotations in Sections 15-18 are taken from the Vatican website.
This is the final installment of the serialized analysis entitled, "The Errors of Vatican II," begun in the SiSiNoNo feature of The Angelus (Jan. 2003) and continued every second month since then. Translated exclusively by Suzanne M. Rini and edited throughout by Miss Anne Stinnett and Fr. Kenneth Novak. All quotes from Vatican Council II and post-Conciliar documents are taken from Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, Harry J. Costello and Rev. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Costello Publishing Co., Inc., 1975) or the Vatican web site. All Scripture references are from the Douay-Rheims Bible (TAN Books and Publishers).
Fr. Hesse, "Exposing the Worst Statements of Vatican II"