‘The two attacks on Our Blessed Lord, the first in the Council and the second in the New Order of the Mass, in virtue of the Divine excellence of their object and of their immeasurable spiritual damage to souls , must rank as the two greatest evils of the last century.’ Don Pietro Leone
Conclusion to Subsection (b): The Attack on Our Lord
Jesus Christ
We proceed to
set forth in schematic form the various aspects under which the Council attacks
Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ that we have been considering in this subsection
on supernatural theology [1]:
1.
Christ in His
Divinity, as ontological Truth in general;
2.
Christ as the
Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, as logical Truth;
3.
Christ as the
object of the Faith, as specifically supernatural ontological Truth;
4.
Christ as the
meaning of life, as moral Truth;
5.
Christ the King,
as Lord of the State and of the World;
6.
Christ
Crucified, as rendered present in the Mass;
7.
Christ the
Savior, as Redeemer of all mankind, in relation to other Christians, to other
religions, and to the World;
8.
Christ as the
One High Priest, as principle agent in the sacramental priesthood;
9.
Christ as the
Head of the Church, His Mystical Body;
10.
Christ as the
Head and the Spouse of the Church, in marriage;
11.
Christ as the
Spouse of the soul, in religious life;
12.
Christ as the
Church, in His Mystical Body.
Our Lord is once again arraigned before the Council, once again put on trial and condemned. We may compare this series of events under the aspects that follow, proceeding first to give the aspect, and then the way it was instantiated during the earthly life of Our Lord and during the Second Vatican Council respectively.
a) The
Identity of the Judges Representing the People of God:
i) the Elders and the High Priests,
ii) the Bishops;
b)The
Body to which they Belong:
i) the Synagogue,
ii) the Church;
c) Their
Preference of Man to God:
i) in favoring Barabbas [2]
to Christ,
ii) in
elevating man to Christ’s place in their anthropology and Christology [3];
d) Their
Preference of the State to God:
i) in crying out: ‘We
have no King but Caesar’,
ii) in elevating man to
Christ’s place as King of the Universe;
e) The Appearance of Christ before the
Council:
i)
in the flesh;
ii)
in Truth, ontological, logical, moral; as King; as
Savior; as High Priest; as Spouse of the Church and of the soul; as Head of the
Mystical Body; as the Mystical Body.
f) The
Condemnation of Christ:
i) in the flesh;
ii) by the repudiation of the doctrines
that concern Him.
g) The Mockery of Christ the King:
i) in the flesh as a false King by the purple
cloak, the crown of thorns, the reed, and the salutations;
ii)
in the teaching on Religious Liberty effectively denying His authority
over the world.
Ego propter te flagellavi Aegyptum cum primogenitis suis:
et tu me flagellatum tradidistis.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde
mihi!
Ego
eduxi te de Aegypto, demerso Pharaone in Mare rubrum: et tu me tradidisti
principibus sacerdotum.
Popule
meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde
mihi!
Ego ante te aperui mare: et tu aperuisti lancea latus
meum.
Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo contristavi te? Responde
mihi! [4]...
Here then is the
formal cause of the Council heterodoxy and its gravest evil: namely the attack
on Our Lord Jesus Christ under the aspects that we have listed above. One of
its aspects, as we remarked, was the attack on Christ Crucified, which the
Liturgical Commission was soon
afterwards to elaborate and to translate into action in the New Order of Mass,
where Our Lord was this time to be attacked not only doctrinally, but also
physically: in His Divinity and in His Humanity - in His Real Presence as the Christus totus.
These two
attacks on Our Blessed Lord, the first in the Council and the second in the New
Order of the Mass, in virtue of the Divine excellence of their object and of
the immeasurable spiritual damage to souls to which they were to lead, must
rank as the two greatest evils of the last century: greater than the two World
Wars and greater than the Communist régimes of Russia and of China together,
with all their attendant evils.
II The Council’s
Substitution of the God of Revelation with Man
The Council
repudiates Christ: it puts the principle of doubt in place of Christ the Truth;
it puts man in place of Christ under various other aspects. As to the last
point, it puts:
a) Man himself:
- in place of Christ the King, in the State and the World;
- in place of Christ Crucified, in the Mass;
b) The principle
of humanitarianism:
- in place of Christ the Savior in relations to those outside the Church;
- in place of Christ the High Priest, in the priesthood;
- - in place of Christ as the Spouse of the soul, in the religious life;
c) The principle of a merely human
association:
-
- in place of the Church Herself;
-
d) The principle of a merely human
interpersonal love:
- in place of Christ as the Head and the Spouse of the Church, in marriage.
In a word, Truth is abandoned and God is replaced with man.
[1] Now if we are correct in
saying that the formal object of the Faith is Christ, then all heterodoxy will
constitute an attack on Him in some way or other. Why then have we singled out
the Council’s attack on Christ as worthy of mention in our critique of its
teaching? Because the Council’s attack is no indirect and impersonal attack on
Him as a heresy would be about the sevenfold number of the sacraments or the
existence of Hell for example, but a direct and personal attack on Him in the
following ways: i) as Truth (cf. points 1-4); ii) as Jesus Christ according to
the very etymology of the Holy Names, for Jesus means Savior (cf. point 7), and
Christ means the Anointed One, that is Priest (cf. points 6 & 8), Prophet,
and King (cf. point 5); iii) as Head of the Church (cf. points 9 & 10); iv)
as Spouse of the Church and of the soul (cf. points 10 & 11).
[2] etymologically ‘the son of the father’, that is Fallen Man, the son of
the father who is the devil (cf. St. Alphonsus The Passion and Death of Jesus
Christ, TAN books).
[3] In attacking Christ and in deifying man, the Council in effect
substitutes man for God, or more precisely for the God-Man; for no man, while
yet encompassed by the flesh, could claim to be God in a purely spiritual
sense.
[4] Improperia from the liturgy of Good Friday. ‘I scourged Egypt with its firstborn for thee: and thou handedst me over to be scourged. My people, what did I do to thee? Or in what did I make thee sad? Answer me! I led thee out of Egypt and immersed Pharaoh in the Red Sea: and thou handedst me over to the High Priests. My people, what did I do to thee? Or in what did I make thee sad? Answer me! I opened the sea before thee: and thou opened with a lance My side. My people, what did I do to thee? Or in what did I make thee sad? Answer me! ...
