The Second Vatican Council was opened in Rome exactly 56 years ago, on October 11, 1962. John XXIII had chosen this day, the Feast of the Divine Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin, a memento of the Council of Ephesus, as the day of its beginning. Irony of ironies: the whirlwind generated by the Council that would almost extinguish the Traditional liturgy of the Roman Church included the abolition of the Feast on this day and the transformation of the Octave Day of Christmas in a similar solemnity.
There are several ways to understand Vatican II, but one has perhaps been overlooked. It is often said that the Council was a "reaction" of transformed European bishops, "horrified" by the Second World War. And yet... those were men of the 20th century, marked by the great movements of the 20th century, both of which -- Communism and Fascism/National-Socialism -- were characterized by a hatred of the past and tradition, and a love for the New Man, the New Society, the New World. All things, all traditions, all families, all institutions, and all individuals that were obstacles to the construction of the New Socialist State, the New People, the New Volk were to be abolished forever.
The Church had stood as a fortress against both menaces, but, within the Church, despite the best efforts of Saint Pius X, the yeast of Modernism had never been scoured away. No wonder that John XXIII's imprudent call for the Council woke up all men who were imbued with the spirit of the time, and this spirit was the same of the totalitarianisms: hatred of Tradition, an urge to purge the past, the need to build a new Church, actually a new "People of God": Das Volk Gottes.
We traditional and conservative Catholics have often thought that the end of the nightmare that began on that October 11, 56 years ago, was about to come. They tried to end everything, even the most cherished legacy of our Fathers in the Faith, the Traditional Latin Mass. And they almost succeeded, had it not been for a faithful remnant. Again and again, the hopes of faithful Catholics have been dashed.
And it has only gotten worse: Francis is practically a caricature of a Vatican II liberal. Just as all totalitarian regimes, the "Conciliar Church" creates a destructive vortex, in which the whole Volk has to be completely wiped out with the leader: in our case, the leader is an abstract idea, the "Spirit of Vatican II".
Yet our hope remains that this too shall pass: just as the peoples were not destroyed after their totalitarian leaders died, our Church, greater than any single national people, will remain standing, with the Cross of her Bridegroom, Savior of Mankind:
Dignus est Agnus, qui occisus est, accipere virtutem, et divinitatem, et sapientiam, et fortitudinem, et honorem, et gloriam, et benedictionem. Et omnem creaturam, quæ in cælo est, et super terram, et sub terra, et quæ sunt in mari, et quæ in eo : omnes audivi dicentes : Sedenti in throno, et Agno, benedictio et honor, et gloria, et potestas in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
