Our friends of Fratres in Unum send us this translation of a piece authored by a Brazilian priest who wishes to remain anonymous. They also ask you to pray for him, who, as a Traditional-minded cleric, is under great distress in his diocese.
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What do we ask of God when we pray for the unity of Christians?
A Brazilian Priest
For some unwary Catholics, the so-called “Prayer Week for the Unity of Christians”, which is annually celebrated in Brazil in the week from Ascension "Sunday" to Pentecost, purports to offer prayers so that all acknowledge the Truth taught by the Catholic Church and return to Communion with the Pope. These are the optimistic of all times - incapable of seeing the obvious before them. These meetings do not aim at converting anyone. Rather, they intend to place at the same level all religions and to minimize the importance of complete adhesion to Christian dogma, especially on matters such as the Eucharist, the Priesthood, the Papacy, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.
How long will these worshipers of Vatican II keep defending the false ecumenism that ends up destroying the foundations of Catholicism in the name of a chimerical unity around “charity”, understood in a manner unconnected to the truth? They live in a utopia that minimizes all doctrinal and moral points, avidly looking to what might unite them, as if someone could defend a counterfeit banknote, by saying that we should look at its similarities with a real banknote. This ecumenism corresponds to an authentically Protestant viewpoint, since, according to Protestantism, the Church of Christ is essentially invisible and is present where the Gospel is preached and the "Sacraments" are celebrated. Therefore, all those who admit being "Christians" already belong, both in law and in fact, to the Church of Christ. On the contrary, the Catholic view presupposes a communion of faith, Sacraments, and hierarchical submission in a visible unity.
Consider the difference in which these false ecumenists address, for instance, the priests of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and these protestant sects. Whereas they clamor to have Protestants understood and accepted as they are, it could well be said that the only group of which they demand complete capitulation and submission to Roman authority as they understand it is the SSPX. It is curious that there is such willingness to force the SSPX to embrace these principles of false ecumenism, religious freedom and unquestioning adherence to the “spirit” of Vatican II and the Novus Ordo, while always offering mercy and understanding to the other sects?
An unnamed priest once said: “If I go to a Protestant service or call a pastor to preach in my parish church, I will be called 'ecumenical' and churchmen will praise me. if I search for agreement with Muslims, they will call me 'open to interreligious dialogue.' If I go to a ceremony in a Masonic Lodge, they will say I have a spirit open to dialogue with the world. If, on the contrary, I befriend a priest who belongs to the SSPX - if I approach one of their chapels or seminaries, I am suddenly excommunicated, schismatic – a rebel... Why this double standard?” If someone can decipher this, I await their comments.
Below are some examples from the last few weeks:
In the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro
“Many churches which do not share this ecumenical agenda think it refers to all Christians belonging to the same institution. This is not possible. The unity happens precisely within the diversity of the existing gifts. These differences are what enrich them. Together, as united churches, we can build a new age for our society. Therefore, we are called Disciples of the Lord, in Baptism.”
Read the remainder of this here [in Portuguese]: http://www.arquidiocese.org.br/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm
In the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife:
“Being united around Apostolic teaching calls Churches to be organized as Pascal Churches, open to the mission of and capable of dialoguing with the current world. Fraternal communion and the sharing of bread remind us that the vocation of the Christian Church is a prophetic one and implies sharing in a new world, stressed Dom Fernando [Archbishop of Olinda and Recife]. Next, Protestant Minister Milton reinforced the unity proposed by Jesus. “My feeling is that as people of God we are one. We are part of the body of Christ, Who make us one. We are brothers. Speeches about development hide what is truly going on. There are people from all places working under questionable conditions and far from their families. In addition, there is the increase of child-juvenile prostitution networks and traffic of drugs at job sites. I very much believe in one thing: the only way that leads to unity is the service to life, to the needy ones”.
Read the remainder of this here [in Portuguese].
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"For which reason, since charity is based on a complete and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united principally by the bond of one faith. Who then can conceive a Christian Federation, the members of which retain each his own opinions and private judgment, even in matters which concern the object of faith, even though they be repugnant to the opinions of the rest? And in what manner, We ask, can men who follow contrary opinions, belong to one and the same Federation of the faithful?
"For example, those who affirm, and those who deny that sacred Tradition is a true fount of divine Revelation; those who hold that an ecclesiastical hierarchy, made up of bishops, priests and ministers, has been divinely constituted, and those who assert that it has been brought in little by little in accordance with the conditions of the time; those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist through that marvelous conversion of the bread and wine, which is called transubstantiation, and those who affirm that Christ is present only by faith or by the signification and virtue of the Sacrament; those who in the Eucharist recognize the nature both of a sacrament and of a sacrifice, and those who say that it is nothing more than the memorial or commemoration of the Lord's Supper; those who believe it to be good and useful to invoke by prayer the Saints reigning with Christ, especially Mary the Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who urge that such a veneration is not to be made use of, for it is contrary to the honor due to Jesus Christ, 'the one mediator of God and men.'[ (1 Tim. 2,5)”
Encyclical Letter Mortalium Animus by Pope Pius XI.
