SELECTIONS BY PAULY FONGEMIE
From Liberal Shock Troops
Douglas Woodruff, one of England's outstanding Catholic scholars, was editor of The Tablet during Vatican II. In one of his reports on the Council, he remarks: "For in a sense this Council has been the Council of the periti, silent in the aula, [hall] but so effective in the commissions and at bishops' ears." This is an exceptionally perceptive comment and it would be hard to improve on "the Council of the periti" as a one-phrase description of Vatican II. Fr. Wiltgen has already been cited as explaining how a single peritus could impose his views upon the whole Council if he could win the approval of the German bishops. [The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 80] Bishop Lucey of Cork and Ross (Ireland) has admitted that the periti were more powerful than most bishops even though they had no vote "because they had the ear of a Cardinal or the head of a national group of bishops, and they were influential in the drafting of Council documents. The expert ... is the person with power. [The Catholic Standard, Dublin, Oct. 17, 1973] Indeed, as Cardinal Heenan reveals, there were occasions on which the Fathers were so overwhelmed with material to read concerning the drafts for conciliar documents, and particularly with amendments to them which could run into hundreds of pages, that they "were called upon to cast their votes before they could possibly have studied the text and context, much less the implications, of the amendments." However silent the periti may have been in the aula they certainly had no qualms about making themselves heard during private meetings of the commissions. Cardinal Heenan mentions one such meeting in which: "The only discord came from the advisers (periti) in attendance. A German theologian addressed us in a voice often rising to a scream."
Periti power cannot be illustrated better than by referring to the fate of the preparatory schemae (drafts for the conciliar documents) prepared on the instructions of Pope John. They were totally orthodox and in full accord with the traditional teaching of the Church. They were the fruit of an intensive two year effort by 871 scholars ranging from cardinals to laymen. Mgr. Vincenzo Carbone, of the General Secretariat, was able to claim with perfect accuracy that no other Council had had a preparation "so vast, so diligently carried out, and So profound." [The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 22] Emphasis in bold added.
"Prior to the opening of the Council," writes Mgr. Lefebvre, "I was a member of the Central Preparatory Commission, and for two years, therefore, I attended all the meetings. The task of the Central Commission was to verify and examine all the preparatory schemae which were sent to us by the other commissions, consequently I was in a position to know what had been done, what had to be scrutinized, and what had to be presented to the Council.
"This work was done most conscientiously and with meticulous care ... A very fine work had been completed for presentation to the Council; these schemae conform to the doctrine of the Church, though adapted to the mentality of our generation, adapted after careful thought and with much prudence. [Une Eveque Parle, 1974, p. 190]
After these two years of conscientious work, what actually happened at the Council will seem quite incredible. On 13 July 1962, Pope John decreed that the first seven preparatory schemae should be sent to the Council Fathers throughout the world. The first four were dogmatic constitutions entitled: "Sources of Revelation", "Preserving Pure the Deposit of Faith", "Christian Moral Order", and "Chastity, Matrimony, the Family, and Virginity". The titles alone were sufficient to send any self-respecting liberal screaming to his psychiatrist! The fifth schema came into a very different category. It concerned the liturgy and had been prepared by a commission dominated by bishops and periti from the Rhine countries who had inserted their own ideas into it. [The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 23] The first four schemae were anathema to the liberals who resolved that they should not even be discussed. The Dutch hierarchy issued a commentary which was printed in Latin, French, and English and was distributed to the Fathers from all countries as they arrived at the Council. This commentary contained a strong attack or the first four schemae and suggested that they should be rewritten completely and the liberal-inspired liturgy schema should be considered first. Most of the Fathers had arrived in Rome with no preconceived ideas and were thus liable to accept well-argued policies presented to them by those who already had definite aims and definite plans to implement them. A majority voted in favour of both these demands.
It so happened that a majority vote was not enough. To quote Mgr. Lefebvre again:
In the rules governing the Council it had been laid down that there must be a two-thirds majority vote "against" if a preparatory schema was to be rejected. In the sixth or seventh sitting of the Council, a vote was taken as to whether the preparatory schemae should be accepted for discussion or not. A two thirds majority "against" was necessary to reject them. In fact, 60% voted "against' and 40% "for." Since this was not the two thirds majority required by the Council rules, the schemae should have gone forward.
Unfortunately, it must be admitted that even at this early stage there already existed a highly organized and powerful organization which had been formed by the bishops of the dioceses bordering the Rhine; their secretariat was also most efficient. This organization brought pressure to bear upon Pope John, saying: "It is inadmissible that you should insist on our discussing schemae which have not been passed by a majority vote; they must be rejected." The Pope then let it be known that since these schemae were not acceptable to even half the members of the Assembly. they must be withdrawn.
Once again the liberals had known what they wanted and how to obtain it. The conservative Fathers had about as much chance of stopping them as did the Polish cavalry who drew their sabres and charged the German panzers in 1939. And the result? The liberal-inspired liturgy schema was brought forward to be first on the list for discussion - and as for the schemae condemned by the Dutch bishops, Mgr. Lefebvre writes:
A fortnight after the opening of the Council, not a single one of these carefully prepared schemae remained; not one. All of them had been discarded, thrown into the wastepaper basket; there remained nothing, not a single sentence. All had been discarded. [Une Eveque Parle, 1974, p. 190]
Fr. Wiltgen comments that this was the third important victory won by the Rhine group. "Although the first two victories - the postponement of elections and the placing of hand-picked candidates on the Council commissions - were given extensive coverage, this third victory passed unnoticed." [The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 24]
The most astonishing aspect of this scandalous affair, the relegation to the wastepaper basket of a preparation "so vast, so diligently carried out, so profound," is that it really took place in response to the wishes of a single peritus. Yes, just one "expert" had the power and influence to secure the rejection of the most meticulous conciliar preparation in the entire history of the Church, the painstaking work of 871 scholars! It is true that the commentary which secured the rejection of the preparatory schemae was circulated in the name of the Dutch bishops, but, as Fr. Wiltgen reveals, it was the work of just one man, "Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, D.P., a Belgian-born professor of dogmatics at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, who served as the leading theologian for the Dutch hierarchy." [The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 23] This instance alone more than substantiates Fr. Wiltgen's assertion concerning the power a single peritus could wield.
However, although most of the Council Fathers tended to ride the bandwagon, the majority were orthodox and would not have voted for any document containing evident heresy. The tactic of some periti was simple. They proposed to insert ambiguous phrases into the conciliar texts which they could exploit after the Council provided they could gain control of the post-conciliar commissions. To his credit, Fr. Schillebeeckx disapproved of these tactics. He was an extreme liberal and he wished the texts to state the extreme liberal position openly. Fr. Congar, another well-known liberal, had also objected to a conciliar text being deliberately ambiguous. ...
During the debate on the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World), Cardinal Heenan warned the Fathers to scrutinize texts with great care before voting upon them because of the danger that "the mind of the Council will have to be interpreted to the world by the periti who helped the Fathers of the Commission to draw up the documents. God forbid that this should happen! I fear periti when they are left to explain what the bishops meant. . .It is of no avail to talk about a College of Bishops if periti in articles, books and speeches contradict and pour scorn on what a body of bishops teaches." [The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 210] He cites the Liturgy Constitution as an example of a text which was open to an interpretation very different from that intended by the Fathers who passed it by an almost unanimous vote. "At the close of the first session little had been decided but many ideas had been ventilated. The subject most fully debated was liturgical reform. It might be more accurate to say that the bishops were under the impression that the liturgy had been fully discussed. In retrospect it is clear that they were given the opportunity of discussing only general principles. Subsequent changes were more radical than those intended by Pope John and the bishops who passed the decree on the liturgy. His sermon at the end of the first session shows that Pope John did not suspect what was being planned by the liturgical experts." [A Crown of Thorns, Card. Heenan, 1974, p. 67]
...The ordinary magisterium of the Pope is exercised in his writings and allocutions. But today what the Pope says is by no means accepted as authoritative by all Catholic theologians. An article in the periodical Concilium is at least as likely to win their respect as a papal encyclical. The decline of the magisterium is one of the most significant developments in the post-conciliar Church.
The audacity with which some periti have attacked the most fundamental articles of our faith, and the contempt with which they reject any censure from the Holy See almost defies credibility. The scandal their views and their acts have given to the ordinary faithful cannot be calculated, and equally scandalous is the manner in which the Holy See allows them to say and do what they wish with impunity from any sanction. Any teacher or parent is well aware of what will happen if children are allowed to break rules and the adult charged with their care does no more than say that they must stop what they are doing while allowing them to continue. Hans Kung is probably the most obvious example. The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration, approved by the Pope, on 14 February 1975, listing several opinions in his works which "to varying degrees, are in conflict with the doctrine of the Catholic Church which must be professed by all the faithful." The declaration expressed regret that he had declined several invitations "to explain in writing how such opinions did not contradict Catholic doctrine." He had already declined an earlier order to explain his views in person, as he was "too busy" to come to Rome. No action was taken to discipline Fr. Kung in any way, or to deny him the status of an approved teacher of Catholic doctrine. Apart from listing what the Sacred Congregation politely suggested appeared to be his errors, the matter was closed. "This declaration for the time being concludes the action of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on this matter ..."
... Yet for Catholic liberals no praise can be too high for Dr. Kung and his fellow periti. Robert Kaiser writes in ecstatic terms of "theologians like Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger, Yves Congar, M. D. Chenu, Henri de Lubac, Edward Schillebeeck:x, Hans Kung. All of them were theologians on the march, men well equipped with the ideas that dovetailed neatly into the needs of pastors around the world. The joint effort of bishops and theologians together in group conferences and dinner conversations had an incalculable effect. Mr. Kaiser failed to inform his readers exactly where he thought his favoured theologians were marching. It is worth noting that all the theologians he mentions, with the exceptions of Fathers de Lubac and Ratzinger, were members of the editorial board of Concilium in 1968. Fr. Ratzinger is at present trying to group theologians of his own moderately progressive views together in what is seen as an opposition movement to the Concilium group and has even helped to found a rival journal, Communio.
It is hard to believe that St. Pius X did not have some of the Vatican II periti in mind when he wrote Pascendi Gregis on the doctrines of the Modernists. (It must be stressed that throughout this chapter only some of the periti have been referred to, subsequent chapters will show that a number were totally orthodox and did all in their power to ensure that the conciliar documents reflected traditional teaching.) Pascendi Gregis even refers to the conditioned reflex of pained surprise, still affected by liberal theologians, that anyone (the Pope included) should venture to question either their theology or their motives. This encyclical has never been more relevant than at the present time - not least for the fact that all the so-called "new insights" of contemporary theologians will be found listed there, and condemned as already very old liberal Protestantism.
"Although they express their astonishment," writes St. Pius X, "that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that we should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their action. Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibres. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance ... Finally, there is the fact which is all but fatal to the hope of cure that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy. [Pascendi, pp. 4-5]
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