It was a privilege and a pleasure to have posted in installments this exceptional book over the last two years, for which Rorate Caeli had exclusive right, prior to its official publication in a corrected and expanded version which Don Pietro hopes to publish soon. He wishes all readers a Holy Lententide in preparation for a Holy Celebration of the Resurrection of Our Thrice Blessed Lord, and imparts to them all his priestly blessing.
F.R.
Chapter 12
CONCLUSION OF THE BOOK
We here offer:
A. The Conclusions to the Individual Chapters
B. The Conclusion to the Book as a Whole
A. Conclusion to the Individual Chapters
In
the Introduction we presented the Council's attack on Being: as the
True in both the ontological and the logical sense; as One; as Immutable; as
entire; as objective, as the supernatural object of the Faith.
In
chapter 1 we presented its attack on the Church ad intra: on the Mystical Body of Christ, on the Church Militant;
on the Church as a Hierarchy encompassing the monarchical status of Pope,
Bishops, and priests; as One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; as oriented to,
and absolutely necessary for, salvation. We present its attack on the dogma of
Hell as the place of those eternally excluded from the Church.
In
chapters 2-5 we present its attack on the Church in Her relations ad extra: in Her relations to the
non-Catholic Christians, to the other Religions, to the Modern State, and to
the World. In its quest for unity at the expense of Truth we saw it in each
case progressively relinquish its duty to evangelize, and progressively degrade
the Church. In chapter 4 we witnessed its betrayal of Christ the King in the
face of the modern State and of Communism; in chapter 5 its attempt to absorb
the Church into the World.
In chapters 6-8 we considered the Council's anthropology. We saw it
naturalize and eroticize marriage;
secularize the priesthood; desecrate, laicize, and dilute the Religious Life;
protestantize the Sacraments, and in particular protestantize and
anthropocentrize the Mass; we saw it attempt to ascribe to man in general the
properties of the practicing Catholic, and to deify him on 10 distinct counts.
In
chapters 9-12 we offered an overview of Council teaching. In chapter 9, in the metaphysical analysis, we showed how it offends against 10 principles of
Metaphysics of which we offered over 100 examples; in the theological analysis, we enumerated 44 heresies. The Council’s
denial of these dogmas, that is to say its heresies, were not formal but
material: their heretical nature consisted in the fact that they either entail
or intimate heresy or that they silence dogmas. We showed how all these
heresies were crystallized in 12 attacks against Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
where it presumed to repudiate Him [1]
and to replace Him with man [2].
Finally, in the moral analysis, we showed how the Council
abused its offices of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling. In this same chapter
we identified as the ground of all the Council's error what we have designated
as the principle of Antirealist Subjectivism [3].
In
chapter 10 we indicated the metaphysical, theological, religious, and psychological
sources of this principle: in Modern Philosophy, Modernism, Gnosis, and Fallen
Nature respectively. We expounded the devil's role in creating this principle
in the beginning and in introducing it into the minds of the Council members.
The antirealist-subjectivist attack on Being instigated by the Council
constitutes on the level of natural theology an act of ‘self-deifying atheism’,
and on the level of supernatural theology the substitution of Our Lord Jesus
Christ by man.
In
chapter 11 we presented an overview of the consequences of the Council in terms of
heterodoxy, idolatry, chastisement of the world (particularly by the virus /
vaccine scourge), and of what we can only describe as ‘the demonic possession
of the Mystical Body of the Church.’
(Matthias Grünewald, c. 1505)
B. Conclusion to the Book
The conclusion to the book as
a whole is as follows: The Council has
deposed Our Lord Jesus Christ from His Divine Throne, and elected man as
God-Man in His place. Man, a body which of itself gives forth no light, but
is destined to shine forever in Heaven by reflecting the Uncreated Light of
God, has eclipsed that primordial and essential Light of God and shrouded the
Heavens and the whole earth in darkness.
Postscript: The Goal of the
Book
The Goal of the book is
twofold: to uncover the Council’s evil and to contribute towards it
definitively being set aside.
Having terminated our exposition of what we might call the Council’s ‘Gnostic texts’, even to give an account of which has been truly, in the words of St. Irenaeus ‘as thou seest, a tedious affair’, we are unable to express the first goal better than by making our own the comments of that great Doctor of the Church [4]: ‘…I have labored to bring forward, and make clearly manifest, the utterly ill-conditioned carcass of this miserable little fox. For there will not now be need of many words to overturn their system of doctrine, when it has been made manifest to all. It is as when, on a beast hiding itself in a wood, and by rushing forth from it is in the habit of destroying multitudes, one who beats round the wood and thoroughly explores it, so as to compel the animal to break cover, does not strive to capture it, seeing that it is a truly ferocious beast; but those present can then watch and avoid its assaults, and can cast darts at it from all sides, and wound it and finally slay that destructive brute. So, in our case, since we have brought their hidden mysteries, which they keep in silence among themselves, to the light… it is now in thy power, and in the power of all thy associates, to familiarize yourselves with what has been said, to overthrow their wicked and undigested doctrines, and to set forth doctrines agreeable to the truth.’
‘… and finally slay that destructive
brute’ St. Irenaeus
(18th century French engraving of the Hunt and Slaying of the 'Beast' of Gévaudan)
The most important distinction
to be drawn between the doctrines which we have ourself attempted to criticize
in the course of this book and those which St. Irenaeus treated, is of course
that the latter were taught by formal apostates and the former were taught by a
Church Council. This means that it is not sufficient simply to bring the errors
of these doctrines to the light, but also definitively to set them aside, as we
stated at the beginning of the book [5].
As to our second goal, we say
only this: Only the Church Herself has
the power to set aside the Council, so that we terminate this work with a call
to the reader to do all that he can to this end, whether by the use of any
authority or influence that he might possess, or simply by prayer: because the Council is an inordinate offence
against God and an inordinate danger to the salvation of immortal souls for
whom Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ took flesh, suffered unspeakable torments,
and died.
Epilogue
‘Domine, quo
vadis?’
(Annibale Carracci, 1601)
Domine, Quo
vadis?
Romam eo
iterum crucifigi [6]
We saw the Council’s doctrinal
attack on Our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as on His Mystical Body, the Church;
we noted a physical attack upon Him in the ensuing Order of Mass; to-day we are
witnesses of a physical attack on the Church Herself, which we referred to with
the quotation at the beginning of this book.
Just as each of the members of
the Church must share in Christ’s sufferings individually, so must all of Her
members collectively, and therewith Church has entered into the Garden and into
Her Passion. The fact is confirmed by the surname of the present Supreme
Pontiff. As any German-speaker with some knowledge of Italian will know,
‘Bergoglio’ designates the Garden of Gethsemani. Berg means ‘Mount’ in German and oglio (olio) means ‘oil’
in Italian, which when translated into German becomes Bergöl or Ölberg, which
latter means the Mount of Olives, the term by which the Garden of Gethsemani is
known in German. In this connection we note the entry in St. Faustina’s diary
for the day of birth of Pope Francis: December 17th 1936. ‘I have
offered this day for priests. I have suffered more to-day than ever before…I
did not know it was possible to suffer so much in one day. I tried to make a
Holy Hour, in the course of which my spirit had a taste of the bitterness of
the Garden of Gethsemani…’
In that same Garden we can see
Pope Francis, the Pope ‘who will sit in the final persecution of the Holy Roman
Church’, together with Pope Benedict, ‘Gloria Olivae’, the glory of the olive,
according to the symbols attributed to each of them respectively by the
interpreters of St. Malachias. Both of them represent the Church in Her
Passion, Pope Benedict like an olive-tree bearing silent witness to the
persecution of the Church, with the olive-branch-like peace which that great
prelate has always irradiated, and with which we, the faithful, are called to
undergo the present trial.
‘Our Lord bequeathed to [the
Church] the heritage of His sufferings; yea it is He Who continues to suffer in
His Church… She is the Spouse of Jesus Christ Crucified…She [is] likewise
ladened with the Cross… with brow encircled with a crown of thorns; She too
journeys through many tribulations to the glory of Heaven… the Church must here
below pass through Her Holy Week, must endure a bloody sweat on the Mount of
Olives, and upon Calvary She must abide the torment of the Cross… the bloody
and unbloody martyrdom is a prominent feature and a special characteristic of
the Catholic Church, by which She resembles Her Divine Master and Founder, and
is distinguished from all religious sects…
Let the world rage and the
nations threaten, let the nations devise vain things, let the princes of the
world rise up and unite themselves against Christ and His Church. The Church
however always looks with confidence to the future, for the roaring of the
waters does not terrify Her and the power of Hell does not prevail against
Her…. Because She always preaches, sacrifices, and dispenses Jesus Christ
Crucified, it behooves Her in Her own life
to copy, to portray, and to represent Him Crucified…
‘Where is the source of all
this self-sacrifice? In our churches, on our altars, in the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass. There day after day the boundless, sacrificing love of Christ reveals
itself. Thence gushes forth strength into poor human nature to sacrifice itself
as well. There also the higher and nobler souls thirst after this Holy
Sacrifice… When the Holy Sacrifice no longer exists, there also disappears the
grand Catholic spirit and self-sacrifice and love. To us has come down the
sacrifice of the Cross and along with it, as our heritage, the mystery of our
own sacrifice, the mystery of the strength of patience and obedience, as also
of freely self-sacrificing love. Let us then go to assist at the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass, daily offering as a sacrifice to Jesus Who offers Himself therein
for us, ourselves, our thoughts, our words and actions, our joys and
sufferings.’ [7]
And so, Dear and Gentle
Reader, let us unite the sacrifice of our lives to His Own, in the Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass, to the Glory of God the Father, to glorify Whom all
things were made: angels, men and, yes, the entire world, for ‘…as Jesus Christ
is for the entire Church, yea, for the whole Creation, the never-failing
fountain of blessings and the vivifying sun of Grace, there also through Him,
and With Him and in Him, especially inasmuch as He offers Himself and is
offered on the altar, there is given to the Father Almighty in unity the Holy
Ghost, all honor and glory: that is the most perfect homage, veneration, and
glory: pasa he doxa: the entirety of the highest and absolutely perfect
honor and glory.’ [8]
Amen.
[1] ch. 9, B.2 (b) I Conclusion
[2] ch. 9, B.2 (b) II
[3] ch. 9, Conclusion to Section A
[4] Adversus
Haereses I. 31
[5] Preface, conclusion to Section A
[6] When St. Peter, on the entreaty of the Christians fled
the Mamertine prison, he was supposed to have beheld a vision of Our Lord on
His way to Rome. ‘Where goest Thou, O Lord?’ asked the Prince of the Apostles,
‘I go to Rome, to be crucified once more’, came the reply. St. Peter returned
to the prison at Rome, understanding the words to refer to himself. The
tradition derives from the Apocryphal Acts of Peter, 35, the source also for
the tradition that St. Peter was crucified with his head to the ground.
[7] Eberhard, quoted in The Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass, Father Nikolaus Gihr I, ch.3, A. 3
[8] The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass op.cit.
II ch.2, S. 2, A. 2
