by
Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi
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| Pope Pius IX |
Today
if you gather Novus Ordo Catholics, say one hundred people, and ask them, “Do
you really think there is salvation outside the Church?”, I simply don’t think, based on my various encounters with these "Catholics", that even one person will give you a “No” answer. Yet, they go about parading
themselves as Catholics and what they think that really makes them this Catholic remains a mystery.
In
the Athanasian Creed we read: “Whoever
wishes to be saved must before all else adhere to the Catholic Faith; unless one
keeps this faith whole and inviolate, he shall without a doubt perish in
eternity.”
This
“creed”, also called the Quicumque vult (from the opening words in Latin,
“Whoever wishes”), is, strictly speaking, a solemn definition rather than a
“creed”; it was used as a test of the orthodoxy of the clergy and as a simple
compendium of Catholic doctrine for instructing the laity in the earliest
times.[1]
So
the Church officially teaches — dogmatically as we see in the “creed” above — that
there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, and to reject a defined
dogma is to be lost forever. Put simply,
what this means is that the lives of many "Catholics" (those who don’t
believe this dogma), unless they convert,
are in serious danger — and likewise other innumerable heretics outside
the Church of Christ.
Clement of Alexandria wrote: “He
who does not enter through the door... is a thief and a robber. Therefore it is
necessary for them to learn the truth through Christ and to be saved, even if
they happen on philosophy.”[2]
Origen wrote: “If anyone of the people
wishes to be saved, let him come to this house, so that he can attain
salvation, to this house in which the blood of Christ is a sign of
redemption.... Therefore let no one persuade himself, let no one deceive
himself: outside this house, that is, outside the Church, no one is saved; for
if anyone goes outside, he becomes guilty of his own death.”[3]
St. Cyprian taught: “The power of
baptism cannot be greater or more powerful, can it, than confession [of the
faith], than suffering, such that someone who confesses Christ before men, is
baptized in his own blood. And yet, neither does this baptism profit a heretic,
even though after confessing Christ, he is killed outside the Church.”[4]
Lactantius: “Whoever does not enter
there [the Church] or whoever goes out from there, is foreign to the hope of
life and salvation.”[5]
St. Augustine: “If Christ did not
die for no purpose, therefore all human nature can in no way be justified and
redeemed from the most just anger of God... except by faith and the sacrament
of the blood of Christ.”[6]
Again, he wrote, in Against Julian: “Nor can you prove by them that which you want, that even infidels
can have true virtues.”[7]
[He is speaking of gentiles in Rom. 2. 14-16, whom he thinks must mean converted
gentiles. Other gentiles could not have true virtues, and so could not be
saved].
St. Cyril of Alexandria, “...
mercy is not obtainable outside the holy city.”[8]
St. Fulgentius of Ruspe: “Not only
all pagans, but also all Jews and all heretics and schismatics, who finish
their lives outside the Catholic Church, will go into eternal fire... . No one,
howsoever much he may have given alms, even if he sheds his blood for the name
of Christ, can be saved, unless he remains in the bosom and unity of the
Catholic Church.”[9]
Again, “Baptism can exist... even
among heretics... but it cannot be beneficial outside the Catholic Church.”[10]
Pope Innocent III: “We believe in
our heart and confess in our mouth that there is one Church, not of heretics,
but the Holy Roman Catholic apostolic Church, outside of which we believe no
one is saved.”[11]
Lateran Council IV: “There is one
universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved.”[12]
Pope Boniface VIII: “Outside of
which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins... . But we declare, state
and define that to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is altogether necessary for salvation.”[13]
(The second part merely means there is no salvation outside the Church, for it
is quoted from St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra
errores Graecorum 36. #1125 where
context shows the sense).
Pope Clement VI, “No man... outside
the faith of the Church and obedience to the Roman Pontiff can finally be
saved.”[14]
Council of Florence: “It firmly
believes, professes and preaches, that none who are outside the Catholic
Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can
partake of eternal life, but they will go into eternal fire... unless before
the end of life they will have been joined to it [the Church] and that the
unity of the ecclesiastical body has such force that only for those who remain
in it are the sacraments of the Church profitable for salvation; and fastings,
alms, and other works of piety and exercises of the Christian soldiery bring
forth eternal rewards [only] for them. 'No one, howsoever much almsgiving he
has done, even if he sheds his blood for Christ, can be saved, unless he
remains in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church. '”[15]
Pope Pius IX: “God... in His
supreme goodness and clemency, by no means allows anyone to be punished with
eternal punishments who does not have the guilt of voluntary fault. But it is
also a Catholic dogma, that no one outside the Catholic Church can be saved,
and that those who are contumacious against the authority of the same Church
[and] definitions and who are obstinately separated from the unity of this
Church and from the Roman Pontiff, successor of Peter, to whom the custody of
the vineyard was entrusted by the Saviour, cannot obtain eternal salvation.”[16]
But why must all become members of the Catholic Church? It’s
simply because the Church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is God. In fact,
even those who, in their ignorance, belong to other religions, are also under
the dominion of Jesus Christ — because there is only one God, and Christ is just that God. Pope Pius XI, the last truly
traditional pope, writes:
“...To
use the words of our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: ‘‘His empire includes
not only Catholic nations, not only baptised persons who, though of right
belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off
from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so
that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ’’. Nor is there any difference in this matter
between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether
collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ.’[17]
The reason why many people find it difficult to understand
this simple truth (that is, no salvation outside the Church) is just because of
the powerful influence of Protestantism—which has spread massive errors all
over the world, to the extent that people are now more familiar with error than
they are with the truth. Worst of all, these errors have now been consecrated by today’s heretical Church
leaders, who unanimously teach that men and women do not need Christ in other
to be saved.
The same Pope Pius XI opposed today’s false ecumenism championed by Vatican II heretics. In his Mortalium Animos he wrote:
“Therefore, since the
foundation of charity is faith pure and inviolate, it is chiefly by the bond of
one faith that the disciples of Christ are to be united. A federation of
Christians, then, is inconceivable in which each member retains his own
opinions and private judgment in matters of faith, even though they differ from
the opinions of all the rest. How can men with opposite convictions belong to
one and the same federation of the faithful: those who accept sacred Tradition
as a source of revelation and those who reject it; those who recognize as
divinely constituted the hierarchy of bishops, priests and ministers in the
Church, and those who regard it as gradually introduced to suit the conditions
of the time; those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist
through that wonderful conversion of the bread and wine, Transubstantiation,
and those who assert that the body of Christ is there only by faith or by the
signification and virtue of the Sacrament; those who in the Eucharist recognize
both Sacrament and Sacrifice, and those who say that it is nothing more than
the memorial of the Lord’s Supper; those who think it right and useful to pray
to the Saints reigning with Christ, especially to Mary the Mother of God, and
to venerate their images, and those who refuse such veneration as derogatory to
the honour due Jesus Christ, “the one mediator of God and men.”? (Cf. 1 Tim.
2:5).[18]
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Pope Pius XI, the last truly
traditional pope.
|
Compare this to Our Lord’s message to Rev. Sister Hermana
Guadalupe, a private revelation which vehemently condemns the same false ecumenism, in fact, where He specifically
mentions John Paul II as a promoter of false ecumenism, and makes it
clear that the dogma “Outside the Church there is no salvation” remains true
and unchanged. (See: FALSE ECUMENISM AND
IDOL WORSHIP REPUDIATED BY JESUS CHRIST IN "PRIVATE" REVELATIONS). The current apostasy wasn't
initiated by some mortal enemies of the Church, no. On the contrary, it started
gradually and both the good and the bad prelates were involved. As Our Lord
tells us in the above private revelation, “The
devil continued seducing them little by little until he gave a mortal blow to
the Church and to my sons, and today, my sons are preaching the unity of
churches saying that they are all the same, that they all save...” (Indeed,
those who are really blind at this time, and will continue to be so, are those
who despise “private” revelations).
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Pope Pius XII, the pope that
really started the mess.
|
The “break away” started with Pius XI’s successor, Pope
Pius XII — the same pope who, as we learned in my previous piece, Evolution compatible with the Bible?,
celebrated the Big Bang with secular scientists and the same pope that started
changing the Mass, that initiated a process which eventually led to current
Novus Ordoism.
This same pope, Pius XII, was quick to
excommunicate — as “an obstinate rigorist” — stubborn Fr Feeney who, though not
without some mistakes, sought to defend the dogma (“extra ecclesiam nulla sallus”) which was truly under attack in the twentieth century (and
is still under a massive attack in our own time), yet saw nothing wrong in
collaborating with the likes of the modernist (and perceived freemason) Annibale
Bugnini to change the Tridentine Mass — thus laying the foundation of future
“excommunications” of good Catholics such as that of Archbishop Lefebvre by the
apostate John Paul II.
Note: before the nineteenth century under Pius IX
there was nothing like “interpreting” this dogma. Before him, no pope ever did
that because they all knew it was clear and needed no “interpretation.” Imagine
“interpreting” such a dogma in the medieval period when almost the whole Western
world was Catholic! At a time when to be a Christian was understood as simply
being Catholic, when there were no Protestants and heretical terms like “non-Catholic
Christians” hardly existed! Of course, the idea of “interpretation” started
creeping in when the number of heretics and pagans in the world began to grow —
a growth which, of course, was partly as a result of the failure on the part of
Catholics to properly carry out Our Lord’s command of evangelising the world
and converting men and women to the one and true Church of Christ, Catholicism. Indeed, bad leadership has
caused the Church the loss of many members and the more this happens, that is,
the more faithless Catholics leave the Church and start professing fake
Christianity, the more those who remain within the Church begin to doubt this
dogma, and the more they begin to question other doctrines of the
Church—comparing them with those of the false churches invented by those heretics
who were themselves formerly Catholic!
The “interpretation” started thus: In 1854 — long
before Feeney’s case — Pope Pius IX reaffirmed the traditional doctrine, but
with a vital qualification — those who are ‘invincibly ignorant’ (i.e. whose
ignorance is not their fault) of the true religion are excepted.
But of course, Pope Pius IX “reinterpreted” the
dogma while he was known as “a liberal pope.” The first years of his pontificate were marked by liberalism and
political reforms in the administration of the Papal States; the constitution
granted by Pius in 1848 merely satisfied demands for popular representation,
however, and did not quiet the nationalism rising throughout Italy. But the
revolution of 1848 caused the pope to flee in exile to Gaeta, in the kingdom of
Naples. Two years later, after the newly established Roman Republic had been
dissolved by the intervention of France, Pius returned to the Vatican and
thereafter devoted himself to opposing all liberalism, both ecclesiastical and
political. No
doubt, by 1854, four years after his return, his liberalism could, to some
extent, still be discerned. But he certainly became a totally “changed man” some
more years after, as we read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
“…his return from exile left its mark on
his spiritual administration. For from this period onwards he set his face against
the influence of modernism on ecclesiastical life; showed his displeasure at
and distrust of the scientific theology and philosophy which marked a moderate
advance; and, entrenched in the stronghold of mediaeval ideals, combated the
transformations of the new order of society, and the changes in the
relationship between church and state, which obtained in most countries of
Europe since the French Revolution.’[19]
Hence, in 1863 — nine years after that
“reinterpretation” — he reaffirmed, as we saw in the above quote, the original
doctrine: “But it is also a Catholic
dogma, that no one outside the Catholic Church can be saved.”[20]
In
his 1864 syllabus Complectens praecipuos
nostrae aetatis errores, Pius affirmed that all culture and all science as
well as all educational system are under the control of the Catholic Church. He
rejected the liberty of faith, conscience and worship enjoyed by other false creeds; and “bade an easy farewell
to the idea of tolerance” (that is, his former approach while he was liberal).
He reaffirmed the complete independence of the Church from state control,
upheld the necessity of a continuance of the temporal power of the Roman See;
and finally, in the last clause, declared that “the pontiff neither can be nor
ought to be reconciled with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.”[21]
The
publication of this syllabus created a profound impression within the Church.
Cardinal Manning, archbishop of Westminster (a convert from Anglicanism),
described the syllabus as “an emanation from the highest doctrinal authority in
the Church.”[22]It
should be noted that, for the fact that the zenith of Pius’ pontificate was
attained on July 8, 1870, when the Vatican Council proclaimed the infallibility
of the pope and the universality of his episcopate, he was thus elevated to a
pinnacle which none of his predecessors had reached, and Pius’ pontificate
(1846-78), perhaps by divine arrangement, also recorded the longest in the
history of the Roman Catholic Church.
On
that infallibility of the pope, which is also under a massive attack in today’s
world not only by modernist “theologians” but also by the “popes” themselves!, Pius IX declared, at the First Vatican
Council:
“Faithfully
adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith,
for the glory of God Our Saviour, the exaltation of the Catholic religion and
the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the sacred council,
We [i.e. Pius IX] teach and define that it is a divinely revealed dogma that:
The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex
cathedra (that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of
all Christians and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a
doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church) by the
divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that
infallibility with which the divine redeemer willed that His Church should be
endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals. Therefore such
definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from
the consent of the Church.
“But
if anyone (which may God avert) presume to contradict this Our definition, let him be anathema.”[23]
There
are three points to be noted. First, it is only solemn ex cathedra pronouncements that are infallible. Secondly, the
infallibility extends only to the area of theology and ethics. Thirdly, the
Pope’s infallibility is immediate, that is, from God. The decree does not
require him to consult or listen to the cardinals, bishops, priests,
theologians or members of the Church’s faithful. We recall here the words of
Christ to Blessed Peter, on which the pope’s infallibility is based:
“Blessed
are you Simon Bar-Jona! Because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,
but my Father in heaven. And I say to you, you are Peter (πέτρος) and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever you
shall bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou
shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.” (Matt. 16:17-19)
To
the objections that the definition was contrary to earlier tradition, raised by
certain liberal prelates, such as Cardinal Newman and co, Pius’ attitude is
caught in his response to one of the bishops at the Council: “Tradition?” he asked, “I am
the tradition.”
Pope
Pius IX can in no way be compared to the Vatican II popes. For example, in 1851,
just a year after his return from self-exile — even before that
“reinterpretation” — the pope concluded a concordat with Queen Isabella II of
Spain, proclaiming Roman Catholicism the sole religion of the Spanish people,
to the exclusion of every other “creed”. The same provision is found in another
concordat with the South American Republic of Ecuador (1862). In another
concordat, which he negotiated with Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria (1855),
the supervision of schools and the censorship of literature were entrusted to
the clergy, the canon law recognised by the state, and all secular legislation
conflicting with it repealed. France came into line with the wishes of the pope
in every respect, but as Napoleon needed
clerical support in his political designs. Also, even in Germany, the pope
found no resistance and was able to secure advantageous compacts with
individual states.
Now back to Pius XII/Feeney. The main reason why Fr
Feeney was excommunicated was partly because of his mistakes and partly because
he was in fact challenging the 1854 teaching of Pope Pius IX, whom Feeney felt
watered down the dogma in the name of “reinterpretation”. Then Pope Pius XII
responded by pouring in more confusion!
To be precise, in 1949 Pope Pius XII taught that
being a member of the Catholic Church is
not always required! Hear him:
“It is not
always required that one be actually incorporated as a member of the Church, but this at least is
required: that one adhere to it in wish and desire...”![24]
He goes on:
“It is not always necessary that this be explicit... but when a man labours
under invincible ignorance, God accepts even an implicit will, called by that
name because it is contained in the good disposition of soul in which a man
wills to conform his will to the will of God.”[25]
Of course, many can show us how superbly Catholic
this teaching is, but that was just the origin of the mess. Hence Fr Feeney, a
hard-line Boston priest, insisted on teaching the traditional view. Rome
responded that the statement “Outside the Church there is no salvation” remains
true, but that it was for the magisterium to “interpret” it, not the private
individual — the same nonsense we are still being told today by Vatican II
modernists even though in reality no one, not even “popes”, believes the
dogma any more! The controversy dragged on and in 1953 Feeney was excommunicated as an “obstinate
rigorist”! Note: an obstinate rigorist is someone who is “obstinately rigid.”
Rigorism means “rigidity in principle or practice”
— the same kind of words which anti-pope Francis often employs while
denigrating today’s traditional Catholics who try to keep the Faith!
 Fr Feeney holding one of his books in 1963. |
There are many things people hold against Fr
Feeney, some of them true — such as his rejection of the baptism of blood/desire,
quite contrary to the 1917 Code of Canon Law which says that “Baptism may be received by desire — baptismus flaminis — and this is generally supposed in those who had received
instructions in the faith (catechumens).”[26]
[Note: “baptismus flaminis” is Latin for “baptism of
desire”]
Again,
Pope St. Pius
X's [Pope Approved] CATECHISM of
the Catholic Church 17: Q: “Can the absence of Baptism be
supplied in any other way? A. The absence of Baptism can be supplied
by martyrdom, which is called Baptism of Blood, or by an act of
perfect love of God, or of contrition, along with the desire, at least
implicit, of Baptism, and this is called Baptism of Desire.”
The dogma of the Council of Trent defines infallibly that the
grace of justification is received by the sacraments or the resolve (DESIRE) to
receive them; and the Decree on Justification set forth in Chapter 16 states that
all those who have been justified and die in the state of grace will enter
eternal life.
Nevertheless,
it is also important to point out that baptism of desire/blood has nothing to
do with non-Catholic “martyrs”, like those killed by the Islamic terrorists, Boko Haram,
who were declared “martyrs” by the Nigerian heretical bishops and priests even
without caring to find out what these “martyrs” believed while they were alive.
As Pope Eugene IV puts
it:
“No one, let his almsgiving be as
great as it may, no one, even if he pours out his blood for the name of Christ,
can be saved, unless he has remained within the bosom and unity of the Catholic
Church.”[27]
Feeney was essentially correct only in maintaining that the dogma (“extra ecclesiam nulla salus”) was under attack (it’s still under a
massive attack in our time) and needed to be defended.
Of course, other discerning minds
also shared this concern, about the dogma being under attack during the
pontificate of Pope Pius XII. Hence we see that even before the Second Vatican Council, in 1958 to be
precise, Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, one of the greatest American theologians
of the twentieth century, warned:
“In every age of the
Church there has been one portion of the Christian doctrine which men have been
especially tempted to misconstrue or to deny. In our own times, it is the part
of Catholic truth which was brought out with a special force and clarity by St.
Peter in his first missionary sermon in Jerusalem. It is somewhat unfashionable
today to insist, as St. Peter did, that those who are outside the true Church
of Christ stand in need of being saved by leaving their own positions and
entering the ecclesia [Catholic Church]. Nevertheless, this remains a part of
God’s own revealed message.”[28]
Pius XII counters: “It is not always required that one be actually incorporated as a
member of the Church”!
To say the truth, it was actually novel and
misleading teachings of this kind, initiated by Pius XII, that eventually
inspired Vatican II, an evil Council which was also clear in rejecting the
dogma — as we see in the scandalous Lumen
Gentium:
“For they who
without their own fault do not know of the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but
yet seek God with sincere heart, and try, under the influence of grace, to
carry out His will in practice, known to them through the dictate of
conscience, can attain eternal salvation.”[29]
Hence, also, John Paul II:
“The
universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who
explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the church. Since salvation is
offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today,
as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or
accept the Gospel revelation or to enter the church... . For such people,
salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a
mysterious relationship to the church, does not make them formally a part of
the church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their
spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the
result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each
person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation.”[30]
[emphasis added]).
And so on! What is the difference
between “Saint” John Paul II’s teaching that “The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to
those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the church” (but
also)“accessible (to those outside) by virtue of a grace which, while having a
mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formerly a part of
the Church?” and Pope Pius XII’s teaching that “It is not always required that one be actually incorporated as a
member of the Church”?
Today almost no one within Novus
Ordo, I mean no one, believes the dogma any more.
 |
John Paul II totally discarded this dogma and taught clearly that
non-Catholics are authentic “children of God” and will all be saved. For over
25 years he confused poor Catholics with this blatant heresy. (The above photo
is John Paul II’s interfaith worship in action—interfaith worship condemned by
Pope Pius XI).
|
“The Commission (for the reform of the Liturgy
instituted during the pontificate of Pius XII in 1948) enjoyed the full confidence of the Pope, who was kept informed by Msgr.
Montini, and even more so, weekly, by Fr. Bea, the confessor of Pius Xll.
Thanks to this intermediary, we could arrive at remarkable results, even during
the periods when the Pope's illness prevented anyone else from getting near
him.” (See: Liturgical Revolution: The New Mass just was the final
stage of a long process).
We learn from this quote that Pius
XII, the so-called anti-modernists, worked with Msgr. Montini (later Pope Paul
VI who eventually initiated Novus Ordoism) and co to change the Mass even years
before the Second Vatican Council! Those who condemn Paul VI but exonerate Pius
XII are therefore either being biased and dishonest, or are just ignorant.
As for those who also hastily
exonerate Pius XII but think that John XXIII was among the real enemy invaders, the following quotes from David Martin’s article
‘Was
The Vatican II Revolution Real, Or Just a Misinterpretation?’ should
also be considered:
“It is often voiced by
conservatives disheartened by the changes in the Catholic Church — changes that
seem to have accelerated exponentially in recent years — that Vatican II was a
good council, but that it was misinterpreted. If these good people were better
informed as to what took place at the Council, they would never say any such
thing. Vatican II indeed started with good intentions, but it was hijacked in
the opening session by rebel bishops because the pope had planned the Council
without their advice and against their designs.
“We gather that Cardinal
Tisserant, the key draftsman of the 1962 Moscow-Vatican Treaty who presided at
the opening session, was part of this scheme to usurp the
Vatican Council. According to Jean Guitton, the famous French academic and
personal friend of Pope Paul VI, Tisserant had showed him a painting of himself
and six others, and told him, “This picture is historic, or rather, symbolic.
It shows the meeting we had before the opening of the Council when we decided
to block the first session by refusing to accept the tyrannical rules laid down
by John XXIII.” (Vatican II in the Dock, 2003)
“Tyrannical rules”? Laid down by
the same liberal (or even freemasonic) John XXIII? Interesting.
The article goes on:
“At the center of this coup to
overthrow Vatican II were Cardinals Alfrink, Frings, and Liénart of the Rhine
Alliance. Their objective was to gain control of the conciliar drafting
commissions. A crucial vote was to be taken to determine the members of the
commissions when Cardinal Liénart, a suspected Freemason, seized the microphone
during a speech and demanded that the slate of 168 candidates be discarded and
that a new slate of candidates be drawn up. His uncanny gesture was heeded by
the Council and the election was postponed. Liénart’s action deflected the
course of the Council and was hailed a victory in the press. The date was
October 13, 1962, the 45th Anniversary of Our Lady’s last apparition at
Fatima. (Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber)
“In his February 14, 2013, address
to the clergy of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI brilliantly recounts this coup
d’ etat at Vatican II: “On the programme for this first day were the
elections of the Commissions, and lists of names had been prepared, in what was
intended to be an impartial manner, and these lists were put to the vote. But
right away the Fathers said: ‘No, we do not simply want to vote for
pre-prepared lists. We are the subject.’ Then, it was
necessary to postpone the elections, because the Fathers themselves…wanted to
prepare the lists themselves. And so it was. Cardinal Liénart of Lille and
Cardinal Frings of Cologne had said publicly: no, not this way. We want to make
our own lists and elect our own candidates.”
“The preeminent Romano Amerio who
had contributed significantly to the drafting of the original Vatican II
outline cites how the legal framework of the Council was violated by this act:
“This departure from the original plan” came about “by an act breaking the
Council’s legal framework” so that “the Council was self-created, atypical, and
unforeseen.” (Professor Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, 1985)
“After illicitly blocking the
vote, this rebellious “Rhine group” resorted to boorish methods to
force-install a number of their own members onto the drafting commissions, so
that overnight nearly sixty percent of the commissions were now chaired by
“suspect theologians” that previously had been restricted under Pius
XII. These would include dissenters like Hans Kung, Schillebeechx, Frings,
Danielou, and the pseudo-mystic Karl Rahner, the Council darling, who for the
entirety of Vatican II was dating the notorious feminist Luise Rinser who had
clamored for abortion and women priests. (Fr. Karl Rahner-Heresy and Amor,
John Venari). The enemies of the Faith had captured the key positions of
the Council, thus enabling them to draft perfidious documents for the
misguiding of the Church, i.e. the 16 documents of Vatican II.
“The true conciliar documents were
the 72 schemas which John XXIII had approved before the Council. According to
Archbishop Lefebvre, who had been appointed to the Central Preparatory
Committee for checking all the documents, the schemas were worthy and orthodox,
and should have been used, but to his great dismay the Council under the
direction of these conciliar pirates rejected Pope John’s outline. Consider
Lefebvre’s own words:
“From the very first days, the
Council was besieged by the progressive forces. We experienced it, felt it…We
had the impression that something abnormal was happening and this impression
was rapidly confirmed; fifteen days after the opening session not one of the
seventy-two schemas remained. All had been sent back, rejected, thrown into the
waste-paper basket…The immense work that had been found accomplished was
scrapped and the assembly found itself empty-handed, with nothing ready. What
chairman of a board meeting, however small the company, would agree to carry on
without an agenda and without documents? Yet that is how the Council
commenced.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused
Catholics, 1986).
The point to note is that John
XXIII, though a liberal pope, and a scandalous one for that matter, was not among the real enemies as often
assumed by some. He was rather “manipulated” by the real enemies. And, had he
been the one in charge, Pius XII who, as we saw, collaborated with Montini
(Paul VI), Bugnini and co to change the Mass years before Vatican II but was also
“manipulated” by them, would equally have been “manipulated” just as John XXIII
was “manipulated”.
Vatican II, of course, was first
conceived by Pius XII himself — not
John XXIII — and would have been called by him but for the fact that he felt
convinced of being advanced in years, and so resigned himself to the decision
that “this will be for my successor”. But who knows what he actually had in
mind? Some say his own Vatican II showed definite signs of being in line with Humani Generis and its condemnation of Modernist errors, and so he was
dissuaded from bringing it to realisation by some progressive elements in Rome,
as we read in Fr. Paul Kramer’s book The
Devil’s Final Battle. Well, as we have also seen from the quotes above,
John XXIII was equally seen by the same progressives as being “tyrannical” and
the true conciliar documents he approved, the 72 schemas, according to the
staunchly orthodox Archbishop Lefebvre, who had been appointed by John XXIII to
the Central Preparatory Committee for checking all the documents, were worthy
and orthodox, and should have been used, “but to his great dismay the Council
under the direction of these conciliar pirates rejected Pope John’s outline.”
In terms of being “orthodox”, the
difference between the two men — Pius XII and John XXIII — wasn’t really that
much. John XXIII called the Council
and consecrated ecumenism, Pius XII wouldn’t have tolerated that; John XXIII
tolerated and even promoted some suspect theologians, Pius XII equally
tolerated the likes of Bugnini and co; John XXIII was a friend of the world and
therefore an automatic enemy of God (James 4:4 ), Pius XII was not a friend of
the world; John XXIII compromised with Catholic doctrine in order to please the
world, Pius XII did something similar but
in a lesser degree — just to mention a few of the differences and
similarities.
To assume that Pius XII wouldn’t
have continued changing the Mass (from where he stopped together with Montini,
Bugnini and co) as well as teaching and laying more emphasis on the fact that “It is not always required that one be actually
incorporated as a member of the Church” is to be biased and dishonest.
Notes:
[1]
Tony Lane Exploring Christian Thought
(Nashville Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1996), p. 77
[3]
Origen, <Homily on Jesu Nave> 3.5:(c. 249-51 AD)
[5] Institutes> 4.30.11:(c. 305-10 AD)
[6]
On
Nature and Grace, 2.2:(c.
415 AD)
[7]
Against
Julian, 4.3.25:(c. 421 AD)
[8]
On
Psalms 30:22:(c. 428 AD)
[9]
<On Faith>, to Peter 38.81:(c.
500 AD)
[10]
Ibid. 36.79
[11]
<Profession of Faith for the
Waldensians> (1208: DS 792)
[12]
Lateran Council IV (1215: DS 802)
[13]
<Unam sanctam> (1302:
DS 870)
[14]
<Epistle of Sept 29>, 1351: DS
1051)
[16]
<Quanto conficiamur moerore> (1863: DS 2866)
[19] Encyc. Brit. Vol. 17, 1955, pp. 984-985.
[20]
Op. cit. <Quanto conficiamur moerore> (1863: DS 2866)
[21]
Quoted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Ibid.
[22]
Ibid.
[23] The Church
of Christ, Chapter 4.
[25] Ibid.
[26]
Canon 1239
[27] The Bull Cantate
Domino, 1442.
[28] Quoted by Mr. John Vennari in The Fatima Crusader, Autumn 2010, p.20.
