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.
________________________________________________________
[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.
