Rorate Caeli

The Council and the Eclipse of God by Don Pietro Leone: CHAPTER 10 (Part 6b). III. FEATURES OF THE TEXTS INFLUENTIAL FOR PROMOTING THE COUNCIL’S WORK (continued): 4. Novelty; 5.Deceit;

 



III    Features of the Texts Influential for promoting the Council’s Work

 

 

We here consider:

 

-         4. Novelty;

-         5. Deceit;

 

4.     Novelty

 

We observed above that the Council’s mandate was from the very beginning presented as an aggiornamento, or bringing up-to-date, of the Catholic Church, and we have seen an explicit example of this in the section on religious reform. The same intent, as we also mentioned above, is expressed by the use of the phrase ‘signs of the time’ (and ‘our times’), which originates in the attack on Antimodernism: ‘Une école de théologie, le Saulchoir’ condemned by the Church.

 

Novelty, supposed, in accord with the Council’s advocacy of the optimistic principle of evolution, to be good in itself, is a typical ideal of the World: of purely natural associations or companies seeking permanently to provide new products or to improve old products and images [1] for the sake of gain; it corresponds to the erroneous image of the Church that we have noted in earlier chapters as a purely natural institution in a state of flux, and in need of constant reformation [2], although, as Romano Amerio says, there is nothing new in the Catholic Church except for Grace.

 

To attempt to propose a new doctrine to the faithful for belief is an enterprise entirely vain and otiose, by reason of the fact that the Faith in all its articles is immutable and True. Inasmuch as an article is immutable it cannot be renovated; and even if per impossibile it could be renovated, then, inasmuch as the Faith is True, the new doctrine would be false.


 

The great Italian philosopher and perito of the Second Vatican Council, Romano Amerio : ‘….there is nothing new in the Catholic Church except for Grace.’


Truth, Being, and the Most Blessed Trinity are immutable; they constitute the object and goal of the Faith which is therefore also immutable. The expression of this immutable object of the Faith in terms of dogmas is immutable [3]; the means to attain this immutable goal of the Faith, that is to say the sacraments, the virtuous life, and prayer, are immutable; even the forms that the sacraments have taken over the centuries, the forms that the virtuous life and prayer have taken over the centuries (we think notably of the religious life), inasmuch as they correspond perfectly to the Truth (humano modo), may also be said to be immutable [4]. There is no space for change, nor for movement, nor for evolution; the object and goal of the Faith is the One, the Eternal and the Immutable, the means to attain it intellectually and morally are likewise immutable.

 

5.    Deceit                                        

 

‘… be we no longer children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive’ [5].

 

In this subsection we shall briefly show how the devil’s trickery, which we have identified in the first subsection above, was concretized by the Council Fathers. We have recounted the deceit and dishonesty of Council progressives in falsifying information, in obstructing Council procedures and Papal instructions [6], as well as in formulating mendacious [7] or ambiguous and hereticizing texts. A Dutch weekly journal [8] recorded the statement by Father Schillebeeckx regarding Council texts: ‘We will express it in a diplomatic way, but after the Council we will draw out the implicit conclusions.’ As Romano Amerio remarks, ‘diplomatic’ derives from the Greek root diplous or two-fold, expressing the duplicity of Modernism.

 

We noted in our essay on Modernism [9] that one of the strengths of Catholic teaching is its clarity, which favors the acceptance of the Truth, whereas one of the strengths of Modernist teaching is its obscurity, which favors the acceptance of falsehood. Obscurity is indeed one of the chief methods of the Modernists for achieving their questionable ends. Leaving aside the mendacity referred to in the footnote to the last paragraph, we may say of the 40 heterodox statements listed above, that no heterodoxy can be found in the texts expressis verbis, but rather in the form of ‘a conglomeration of ambiguities, inexactitudes, vaguely expresses feelings, terms susceptible of any interpretation and opening wide all doors’ [10]; or in the form of implicit denials, castings into doubt, and in changes of accent [11] as Michael Davies says; or, as we have observed above, simply by passing over a relevant dogma in silence. In short the heterodoxy takes the form of craft, suggestions, and insinuations: ‘... full of fraud, like a sponge with its winding and hollow hiding-places’ [12]

 

Effects of the obscurity are that the uninformed reader will find it hard to identify error; if he is pious and benevolent, he will moreover not want to call into question texts of the Magisterium; if he does so, he will not be able to persuade many on the basis of individual texts. To show the malice of the texts it is necessary, rather, to make an exhaustive critique of a large quantity of them and bring to light their common heterodoxy, as indeed we have attempted to do in this book.

 

The Protestant scholar and observer Professor Oscar Cullmann wrote: ‘All the texts are formulated in such a manner that no door is closed and that they will not present any future obstacle to discussion among Catholics or dialogue with non-Catholics, as was the case with the dogmatic decisions of previous councils’ [13].

The Protestant scholar and observer Professor Oscar Cullmann wrote: ‘All the texts are formulated in such a manner that no door is closed and that they will not present any future obstacle to discussion among Catholics or dialogue with non-Catholics…’

 

Conclusion to chapter 10

 

In our search for the causes of Council teaching, we presented the metaphysical, theological, religious, and psychological sources of its principle, that is to say Antirealist Subjectivism; thereafter we considered the main agents of the Council and various features of the texts that promoted this same principle. We saw how it entered the mind of the Council experts and Bishops:

 

-            -  through the Gnosis of Talmudic Judaism and of Freemasonry,

-           - through Modern Philosophy (especially Rousseauism) [14]) in which Council members were formed;

-            - through Modern Theology (especially Protestantism) in which they were likewise formed;

-          - through the tendencies of Fallen Nature which form the psychological basis of that same principle: the detachment of the Will from the Good, the recoiling before hardships in pursuit of the good, and the concupiscences, above all pride and the concupiscence of the flesh [15]; and lastly

    - through the untiring efforts of the devil to bring the Church and indeed the whole world to their ruin by the insinuation into their hearts of that self-same principle of all error and evil.


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[1] a lamentable enough attitude even in the World, when old-fashioned companies, shops or restaurants replace the modest and respectable modes of yesteryear with clothing such as unisex black ‘tea-shirts’ and jeans, typically to the droning of background ‘love’ music   

[2] Introduction B, I (b) 3

[3] in a substantial sense, as we have said above concerning the expression of the Faith.

[4] in a substantial sense

[5] Ephesians 4.14

[6] in the questions of collegiality and of the condemnation of Communism and contraception for example

[7] for example purporting to justify the novel concept of Religious Liberty on the basis of  ‘Revelation’ and  of the putative teaching of ‘recent Popes’ (ch. 4 A III); referring to the doctrine of a ‘hierarchy of truths’ as Catholic rather than as Protestant (ch. 1.C, 1. (c)); stating that Our Blessed Lord chose priests from among the faithful  (ch.1. B, (iii)); insinuating that the Church was at fault in Her conflicts with Islam

[8] de Bazuin, no. 16, 23rd January 1965, quoted in Itinéraires, no.155, 1971, p.40. Monsignor Bugnini spoke in a similar way: ‘...proposals must be formulated in such a way that much is said without seeming to say anything. Let may things be said in embryo. And in this way let the door remain open to legitimate and possible postconciliar deductions and applications.’ Yves Chiron, ‘Annibale Bugnini, Reformer of the Liturgy’

[9] on Rorate Caeli

[10] Monsignor Lefebvre MD pjc p.53

[11] as Michael Davies says. For example in lending greater importance to the second finality of marriage over the first; to the priest’s duty to preach over his sacramental ministry;  to the Holy Scriptures over Oral Tradition; to coercion of non –Catholics in general over coercion on them to accept the Faith

[12] Cornelius a Lapide, commentary on St. Matthew 27.48 of the sponge offered to Our Lord on the Cross by the Jews

[13] MD pjc, p.57

[14] we have noted the overtures of the Council to the Jews (in Nostra Aetate), to the Freemasons (particularly in the New Rite of Mass), the Protestants (in hosting them at the Council), as well as to the Communists (in their policy of ‘the outstretched hand’). They may be viewed as the four principal enemies of the Church.

[15] we refer to our earlier comments on the experts’ moral conduct. We add that the tendencies of Fallen Nature not only go towards explaining the Council’s texts but also their acceptance by the faithful, already contaminated by the nascent materialism, pride, and eroticism of the Modern World. 

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End of Chapter 10
Next and Final Chapter: 
CHAPTER 11: THE EFFECTS OF COUNCIL TEACHING