(7) Is the Pope a good man?
(8) If the Pope is not a good Pope, what do I [we] do?
(9) Will the Pope do anything about the seminaries accepting men who are homosexual? How can the Church do this? Why does it seem that there are so many priests who are "gay"?
Only God can read the hearts of men. We are counseled throughout Tradition by the Doctors and Fathers of the Church, by Holy Scripture, the Roman Pontiffs and the Saints who wrote spiritual treatises, to be careful whom we associate with lest we lose our faith or good morals. When attempting to convert others we are to avoid those who remain obstinate as heretics; the Bible calls these last anathemas. St. Paul tells us to flee those who come in the name of Christ but teach another Christ. Thus we know that while we do not judge persons as such, we judge objective situations and the objective actions of men. The Catholic Faith is the pearl of great price, not to be cast before swine. It isn't that we cannot judge, but how, in what context we judge, provided that we know that by the standards we judge, so shall we be judged also. Modernism has been so effective in convincing Catholics that in order to avoid the sin of judging we have to deny truth itself or the evidence of our senses. Bear this in mind: he who accuses you of judging---in a sinful way---is himself judging you as he accuses you of doing. To accuse another of deliberate sin is to judge the heart, not the objective situation.
Moreover, we must be careful in judging the Supreme Pontiff because of the august nature and dignity of the Vicar of Christ, even when a particular Pope gives little evidence of appreciating it himself. I am speaking of a general principle here, and not Pope Benedict XVI, who is anything but undignified. All Popes, no matter how weak merit our deference as to their person, although we may have to disagree strenuously with some of their policies. The faithful have a dignity, and a duty, too. However, we are limited here. If I make an error of judgment it is in caution. I share the wounded heart of the faithful crying out for bread, but to be given stones, time and time again. Pain is its own memory, apart from forgiveness--- an unholy wound in the side of the human condition itself. It is easy to forgive because we are all sinners, and because we are all sinners it is hard to forget.
You are really asking me if I think the Holy Father is objectively a good man. I can only offer my opinion of the situation of the Papacy in the person of the Vicar of Christ and no more. There are many who will disagree, I make no apologies for my divergence. Yes, absolutely, without reserve, I think the Pope is a good man; he is humble, there can be no doubt. He wants to do the right thing. He is learned and gentle of spirit and pious, he has not abandoned the Rosary as became fashionable following the Second Vatican Council. Pray for him, unceasingly. Pray for him to Mary.
We have had many good men who were Popes but who governed weakly. One of the contributing factors of the Protestant revolt were Pontiffs who did not reckon with the exigencies of the tasks before them, not because they were bad men necessarily, but because they had allowed worldly matters and the opinions of more worldly men, both clergy and laymen, to unduly influence them. Their judgment is not ours but God's. Nevertheless, facts are facts and we insult God and our neighbor if we ignore them or try to cover them up, to rewrite history. We have an intellect and God expects us to use it, for our salvation above all else. Because of the protection of the Holy Ghost, a morally corrupt man who is the Pontiff is prevented from teaching---in a formal binding way, upon the faithful to be believed and practiced---doctrines that are pernicious and false. In his ordinary duties and ordinary statements he has no guarantee of infallibility. The Pope is never impeccable, free of sin; he may have bad judgment. He is always in danger of failing. Recall that Our Lord told St. Peter, that "But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." [Luke 22:32] This is is what infallibility means, to not fail in faith. To not fall.
Until 1978, the Papacy of John Paul II, the Papal Oath was taken as recorded in Church records, by every Sovereign Pontiff of the Catholic Church since Pope Saint Agatho in 678. Many believe it was even taken by several predecessors of St. Agatho. It is not known who composed it. What is known is that at least 185 Supreme Pontiffs took this solemn oath over the past 1300 years. In this oath, the Vicar of Christ vows to never contradict the Deposit of Faith, or change or innovate anything that has been handed down to him. Now you may ask, if Christ promises the Church the safeguard of the Holy Spirit's protection against formal error [infallibility], why was this oath necessary? Because every Pope is under the effects of Original Sin---is imperfect, no matter how holy he may be. The protection of infallibility is only for the declaration on matters of faith and doctrine promulgated to the whole Church for all to believe and accept under pain of sin and for those teachings handed down from the Apostles directly to all generations. This special protection is not promised to a Pope's ordinary decrees, speeches to groups of academics and others, imprudent decisions in everyday matters, such as adding five decades to the Holy Rosary, among other non-infallible acts. It behooves us to bring to mind the Council of Jerusalem, the first Church council: St. Paul had to rebuke St. Peter, the first Pope, in public, because Peter was in error over a matter concerning the Jews who had converted. So the possibility that Popes can make mistakes in judgment, even big ones, is not only real, but has actually occurred from the beginning.
Let's look at the matter by analogy:
You and I made a promise at our Confirmation, and took vows when we married, because those two Sacraments cannot protect us completely from the weaknesses of the effects of Original Sin. So too, the papal oath was devised, to help the Pontiff remain faithful to the Deposit of Faith, to safeguard it in his ordinary decrees and governing actions, lest that by imprudent actions or careless words he might give scandal by appearing to contradict this Deposit of Faith, or by laxity fail to defend it.
This is why we have Holy Tradition as our guide. St. Paul's admonition. In his ordinary words and works the Pope is to be measured by the rule of Tradition. If his statements or actions do not comply with Tradition we are to disregard them. This is not disobedience. The Holy Father cannot command us to violate Tradition. Since the modern Papacy not one Supreme Pontiff, no matter how weak a Vicar, has ever commanded us to do so. Can you name one? No. When John Paul II added the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary he told us that they were optional. This did not involve doctrine per se, but it was a novelty, not in keeping with traditional practices concerning long-standing devotions fostered by the Church. When I refused to include them, a member of the group I prayed the Rosary with said I was being disobedient to the Pope. Actually I was in full accord with the Pope who said they were optional. No one was forced to accept them. Pope John Paul could never have done such a thing and he knew it, whatever faults he may had as Head of the Church.
When Pope Paul approved the New Mass, he did not abrogate the Traditional Mass; he could not as Pope Saint Pius V encoded that Mass for all time, attaching anathemas or the wrath of God to anyone who would attempt to do so. This was in response to the Protestant "Mass" and the confusion about the Mass, period. You now ask, well if this is true, how come we only had the Novus Ordo? Because of the animating spirit of Protestantism that flowed from Vatican II. Bishops took it upon themselves to order their priests to say it or did not provide them with the truth, that they had an option. Some Bishops, to be fair, did not know any better. The same for the priests. But in every diocese there was somewhere some priest saying the Immemorial Mass. Actually, at the time of the promulgation of the New Mass, the Holy See issued celebrets for priests who asked for them. This was redundant because as we have always known but has been confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI, priests have always retained the right to say the Mass of Tradition. They require no celebrets. The Pope has no authority from God to do otherwise. Then the celebrets stopped so people assumed the Ancient Mass was forbidden. Bad policy from a very weak Pope. After a while it became a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. There was nothing in Canon Law either about this. Priests who continued to say the old Mass were never disobeying the Church even if mistaken Bishops thought they were. Some Bishops were renegades who despised Tradition. They knew better but forbade their priests from saying the old Mass. Let God judge them. Some priests gave in because they were innocently mistaken, not bad. The highest law of Canon law and always the law of the Church is that the good of souls comes first and lesser laws and ordinances and practices come second. This is why priests who have had their faculties for hearing Confessions withdrawn as a penalty for some offense requiring this withdrawal, may hear the Confession of a dying penitent if he is the only priest available. He is a priest forever. The reason the Church says: his penalty is remitted in such a case for the good of souls. The appearance of disobedience to those who are not well-informed and actual, culpable disobedience can be two different realities.
If ordinary statements are in accord with the constant teaching and practice of the Church, we are to accept them as if from the Chair in a dogmatic way. Apostolic Tradition is infallible for it was given directly to the Apostles from Christ Himself. Not everything He taught them is in the Bible. In fact, it was some 400 years before we had the full canon of the Bible. It was the Church, in accord with Apostolic Tradition which determined that canon. Tradition was before all, not the Bible. Scripture says so itself by telling us that all that we are to believe is not contained in the Bible, only that all that is in the Bible is to be believed. When the Holy Father speaks through a sacred doctrinal Church Council or in his own right from the Chair of Peter and imposes for belief a doctrine, he cannot err. If he chooses not to expound further on a previous teaching his decision may be wise or unwise, but it is not a heresy.
A Pope's personal goodness or sanctity has no official bearing, although of course, these qualities draw men to Christ more easily and to the true Faith.
St. Vincent of Lerins wrote:
I also know that when some people ask me if the Pope is a good man, they actually mean, is he a good Pope in that his exercise of the Papal office is all that it ought to be. The judgment on this Papacy is still out, for we have only three years of a course of time we know not. You want to know essentially, what do you do if the Pope gives the appearance of failing in some important regard, apart from his personal sanctity, and how does this happen in the first place."But some one will say, why then does Providence very often permit certain distinguished in the Church, to broach novelties to Catholics? ... Because the Lord your God trieth you, that it may be made manifest whether you love Him or not in all your heart, and in all your soul. ..." ---Adv. Hæres., n. xi. xii.
Now there are four matrices by which to assess a Papacy. [1] The historical period and the conditions of the world that impact that Papacy; [2] The needs of the particular individual making the assessment---how a Pope's governance has brought either a personal trial or benefit; [3] The Papacy itself in relation to the needs of the whole Church at that time; and [4] The effect a single Papacy or series thereof have on the Papacy itself, how it is viewed---subsequent expectations for later Popes and so forth.
I will be employing a combination of the last two, in limited and modified form. I know you did not ask this question. It is not possible to understand the Church times we live in if we do not know the influences that prevail from the recent past. This is why I quoted from the Pinay book, the previous page, with this Query set in mind.
The Pope who called the Second Vatican Council was a liberal, known to be friendly with some who were either known to be Masons themselves or of the same view of looking at the world. He was attracted to the writings of Rudolf Steiner, a former adept of the occult sect Ordo Templi Orientis, to which Cardinal Rampolla belonged, for instance. He said the idea for the Council came to him like a sudden inspiration. He would open the windows of the world to the Church and that the spirit of the Council was to be a pastoral one, where dogma did not play a role. The general term he used was aggiornamento, or "updating". John XXIII was not a sophisticated man, nor particularly learned, although a seminary professor, and had a simple piety. I do not know he if he was a good man or a bad man. I was so disappointed that he did not reveal the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima that I turned inward and glanced scarcely at Rome. When I looked up at last, he was dead.
The Council was a bad idea. By its fruits you shall know it. No such kind of Council had ever been called before and as such it was a rupture with Tradition. Historically, all previous Councils were called for one of four reasons: [1] to end a schism; [2] to condemn heresies; [3] dogmatic purposes; and [4] to address laxity in morals or discipline. All of these involve dogmatic principles in some aspect. Ironically, although Pope John said that the Council was for pastoral reasons and not doctrinal, there is by definition no clash between the pastoral and the doctrinal because Truth is Truth and Church practice [pastoral] cannot conflict with Truth traditionally speaking. What the Pope intended was to avoid anathemas or dealing with heresy. Because of the Pontiff's choice of words, the spirit of a dichotomy set in---that is, pastoral would not be concerned with doctrine, which ought to have been impossible. But the Council broke with Tradition itself. The irony was compounded by more irony because after the Council closed, modernists taught the Council opinions as if dogmatic definitions had been declared. Before he died John XXIII was grieved that the Council had gotten away from him; he did not live to see the close of his Council even. The Pinay book was well known by this time, but the Council Fathers chose to ignore its warnings. They indeed had been deceived.
There was already a spirit of revolution in the air by the time of Vatican II. This spirit of "progressivism" or "reform" as they called it was gaining strength in some of the more influential intellectual circles of the hierarchy and among theologians, especially in Europe. Recall that the Protestants called their revolution "reform" also. The theologians who were selected to attend the Council were called in Italian, periti or experts. They wielded a lot of power because unwisely Pope John's plan for the Council included long preparatory sessions where groups of periti and Bishops met to gather together their submissions to be discussed and adopted by the Council Fathers. These sessions grew more political as the theological stakes increased. These submissions were called schemas or groups of themes for discussion, such as the Mass, Our Lady, world issues, etc. The Rhineland group of periti was especially skillful and liberal and it played a dominant role which determined the results. Part of its acuity was in maneuvering for advantage. Two of the liberal theologians in this group were the heretic Karl Rahner and Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Fr. Ratzinger had been a student of Rahner's and was the theologian for Cardinal Frings, also named Joseph. Rahner was never formally declared a heretic, but it was acknowledged by the Holy See that he had "questionable ideas". For the layman who operates in the world of everyday confluences, theory and theological nuances are not helpful. Rahner believed, contra the teaching of the Church, that there were two Revelations, not one, for example. Ratzinger gave some indication at the time that he was not opposed to this idea. Formal or not, nuanced or not, this is heresy for the plain spoken man of simple integrity. It is interesting to note that as Pontiff he admits that Catholic exegesis has effectively become Protestant, but that the way to resolve such matters is to never to go back. Like saying "I have gone west when I should have gone east. I will continue going west, but deviate my path so as to approach the east if possible. No matter what, I will not reverse course and turn around; instead I will hope for the best." "Going back" tends to be impossible in that Rhinelandic milieu or way of looking at things. He decided that the best way to handle the conundrum was to have a more authentic interpretation, without regard for the reason for erroneous conclusions in the first place. These falsehoods are not false because of bad interpretation, they are false because the approach to Scripture in the Protestant mode must necessarily lead to erroneous interpretation. The future Pontiff later served on the Biblical Commission consisting of like-minded liberals, such as Cardinal Lehmann [who denied the bodily Resurrection], Georges Cottier [who advocated dialogue with the Masons], and Albert Vanhoye [who denied the priesthood of Jesus Christ]. A friend and I who were studying Vatican II were aghast, horrified, for this was beyond comprehension. I said, and he agreed, "God is chastising us!" Lerins, supra.
Pope Benedict is still enamored with the idea that the problems in the Church at present are due to incorrect interpretations, because the Council is too much of his own heart, his own making, so it is very difficult for him to imagine that the crisis is inherent in Vatican II itself. Human nature for anyone but a Saint who has perfected the virtue of humility. Like Pope Paul VI, he laments the effects, without seeing the cause. It must also be noted that as Father Ratzinger, he laid much of the groundwork on which Pope John Paul II would devise his system of theology, ranging from topics like universal salvation to reinterpreting Humani Generis [in re evolution]; the "theology of the body" and so on. These are all novelties and cannot be squared with Tradition. Church teaching cannot change. The Church can have a deepened appreciation of a doctrine, but the doctrine itself cannot be altered. Even "updating" to revamp phrases to modernize can be unwise because it can give the appearance of a change. Once a mistaken idea has solidified it is hard to correct matters.
I do not expect Benedict's reign to be much different from his immediate predecessors. He is not a bad man, but a man with a terminal blind spot. He has a better understanding of the necessity of Tradition, certainly, but not the will to enforce it apart from "permissions". Benedict XVI has done more good in his brief pontificate than John Paul II did in his 27 year reign. For this alone I pray that God will bless him abundantly.
O Mary, Queen of Pontiffs, protect him under thy mantle and guide him the way a mother guides her child.
But we must be realistic, for he, too, while more erudite than John Paul II, a man of lucid, less rambling encyclicals, is very much in the the mold of the previous Pontiffs of the age. He cannot bring himself to condemn the erroneous opinions of the Council which have served to deCatholicize the faithful who are in the hands of priests and Bishops who have adopted the Council as their own manifesto to "change" doctrine and erase Tradition from the memory of their flocks. No, Benedict seems to be a Pope who wants to fine tune things a bit, as if a change in motor oil will fix a burnt out engine. Like John Paul II he appears to be lacking in spiritual discernment and discretion. He endorses World Youth Day, a semi-charismatic, rock festival with a "Catholic" veneer. He has given his nod to the Charismatic movement itself, a hybrid infestation of Protestantism. One of the more disturbing ideas of the present Pontiff is a statement he included in an interview on EWTN while Cardinal Ratzinger. The topic was the Mass. He offered his assessment that the Traditional Roman Mass and the Novus Ordo would one day be blended together. Death by slow strangulation, not by a swift blade. I still have nightmares about this. When his Motu proprio was released and I read that the Immemorial Mass of Tradition was the extraordinary usage and the pitiful stump of a barely valid Mass, the New Mass, would be ordinary, my hopes were dashed. He was announcing that he was one with the Council. Just as disquieting is his talk about needing an anti-Syllabus, referring to the Syllabus of Errors, a doctrinal list of heresies, given as an infallible instruction to the whole Church by Bl. Pope Pius IX. It assails with precision, damning point by point, the errors of Modernism. IT IS A MASTERPIECE OF PAPAL PERFECTION. To even suggest such an anti-Syllabus is inexplicable! Beyond this, as if this is not enough, I take no comfort in his talk of moderating the Papacy to be more collegial. For now it is talk. Collegiality was the modus operandi of John Paul II, the effect of which was decline, decline, deny the decline and proclaim a springtime, decay, decay, repray with the Luminous Mysteries while all around us the Bishops were independent in practice if not by law. There was no where to turn, just words signifying nothing but the spirit of Taize, ultimately the spirit of naturalism, culminating in his man-centered "theology of the body". Repulsive, theologically speaking. Side shows, freak circuses at Assisi and endless tracts leading where, who knows! History will give its judgment on the Papacy of Benedict XVI; God will judge him as He has done with John Paul. If I had to guess, we continue to be chastised by God for our own sins with a Pope who will not lead as Popes ought, instead serve overall in the capacity of an ambassador of good will, or mere head of State on a par with other heads of State. There are those who want me to condemn him outright, I cannot and would not anyway. My duty is to save my soul as best I can, to uphold Tradition, and to pray for the Supreme Pontiff without fail. I know what I know, and I also know that I don't know everything, not nearly. Having said this, it is not important to know everything, it is only necessary to know what is important.
Again Lerins:
"What shall a Catholic do if some portion of the Church detaches itself from communion of the universal Faith? What other choice can he make if some new contagion attempts to poison, no longer a small part of the Church, but the whole Church at once, then his great concern will be to attach himself to antiquity [Tradition] which can no longer be led astray by any lying novelty." [Saint Vincent of Lerins (c. 445 A.D.) cited from A Theological Vindication of Roman Catholic Traditionalism, Fr. Kramer, (1st edition), pp. 28-29.] Notice he did not say declare the Pope a non-Pope or leave the Church, just turn to Tradition.
One of the schemas that most disturbed Rahner and Ratzinger was the one on the Blessed Virgin Mary, specifically her title and role in salvation as the Mediatrix of All Graces. They held it would impede evangelization. Actually it would impede Freemasonry's seductive blitzkreig against salvation. However they thought in their own minds and hearts, they did argue against this part of the Marian schema. More so Rahner than Ratzinger, whose reservation was in general and less about the title itself. As liberal as he was, he said at the close of the Council that he held some reluctance about some of the liberalization, "resolving in his own mind to determine his own course". Be that as it may, he was active in promoting "progressive" ideas. The liberals prevailed, in that the separate schema on Mary's title did not perdure, but instead was included as a part of the schema on the Church, as "Mother of the Church" instead. Recall what I wrote about Satan's hatred for the Immaculata, and again the Pinay citation. Of the hundreds and hundreds of pages of Vatican II, a scant three pages on the great Mother of God! How could the Spouse of the Immaculate Conception, the Holy Ghost, give His seal of approval to this insult of insults????This sort of pressure or persuasion, if you will, on the various schemas carried the day. But not without some opposition. In fact, Fr. Ratzinger observed that the opposition from the Traditionalists was giving them some trouble and that they had to moderate some views as a result. Tactics unbecoming a Christian were occasionally applied. I do not attribute this to Fr. Ratzinger, a man of circumspection, modesty and propriety: One of the more memorable events was the deliberate cutting off of the microphone of one saintly Cardinal, so that his imploring for Tradition could not be heard by all the Fathers. Later it was claimed it was a glitch, the only one of its kind and the only such speech with implications tantamount to a judgment on the Council itself and its courtship of bad fruits, to so suffer. Coincidence? To ask is to answer. If it had been truly a glitch those who controlled the floor would have granted him another chance, simple courtesy and fairness. A traditionalist priest who attended the Council, late at night, had found a document of some kind that had fallen to the floor of one of the rooms. If he knew who had written it, he did not reveal the name, but the contents convinced him that there were those who were determined to hijack the Council for their own ends. My source for this was Father Malachi Martin, a liberal himself who later saw the errors of his ways.
The schema on religious liberty, a triumph of the Masonic spirit, was particularly troubling with implications for today's Papacy and that of John Paul II's. [John Paul II, Bishop Karol Wojtyla, was a peritus at the Council.]. While only a pastoral approach and not doctrine, the Council's declaration on religious liberty has hamstrung, paralyzed the Papacy ever since in my opinion. It is taught as if dogma. The heart of this schema was that religious liberty not only meant that religion could not be imposed as a belief on men by threat or physical punishment, but that all religions were equally free as if equal and that man is morally free to choose unwisely. It did not say this literally, but in practice and human psychology it might as well have. By their fruits you shall know them. That document was shocking at the time to almost everyone. The fact that so many now consider it tame and righteous gives credence to Pinay. A number of Bishops had serious misgivings, such as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, but in the end they signed the document, under the mantle of misguided obedience I presume or perhaps too much optimism. We are never obliged to violate Tradition. Their judgment belongs to God. We have had endless pointless dialogue with false religions ever since and in a manner that violates Tradition [Assisi I and Assisi II for starters] and the wisdom of the sainted Popes. Most Catholics today see nothing wrong with attending Protestant services with relatives. After a time, the truth about salvation is blunted. We believe as we pray or we pray as we want to believe. Lex orandi, lex credendi. Far too much of the modern Papacy is concerned with dialogue while the Catholic people languish from liturgical and theological distortions and much worse.
Many Catholics in the pew do not know any of these things. They also do not know that the World Council of Churches, the liberal Protestant group had an advisory role which served to propel the Council into dangerous waters. Unprecedented in the history of the Church! And vile! And even fewer know that Protestants had a direct role in advising the theologians on the liturgy. And that the Russian Orthodox came only after the Holy See promised not to condemn Communism. Recall Pinay. Can you imagine the World Council of Churches asking the Pope to advise them on religious services? Of course not, they are too serious for that. Beyond belief! This is very abbreviated but it is not possible short of a major presentation to treat of these matters adequately. Always keep in mind as you read these paragraphs the Pinay quotation.
The insidious nature of this liberalism or what I call naturalism [the Masonic spirit] that infected every pore of the Church was its inability to articulate anything but inarticulation itself. It is in the nature of liberalism that it always manifests the ability to say one thing while meaning something else again, permitting the liberal to have it both ways if "caught". Or as a priest once said to me: "The modern Holy See is afraid of the truth. If it should stumble upon it, or issue a statement that is Catholic truth too forcibly, it immediately applies a remedy, a nuance, so as to take it back or mean two different things at one and the same time."
Perhaps the most destructive document in this mode was the one on the liturgy. It is a study in legerdemain, "On the one hand .... on the other hand." For instance, Latin is to have pride of place it is to remain the language of the liturgy, but ... The buts became the rule and the rule became the exception. Backwards. A disorientation.
One of the more subtle but most tragic of the statements in this vein was the declaration that the true Church of Jesus Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, rather than is the Catholic Church. Doesn't this mean the same thing? you ask. Actually no, but the distinction is most subtle. To subsist is to to continue to exist or endure on something else it depends on. I am me. I exist, but I subsist on a small retirement income. To say that the true Church of Jesus Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, is to shift the total equivalency and or identity of the true Church with the Catholic Church, to the idea that she is part of a Church she is dependent on, exists on or by. The subtlety is that the shift is more psychological than actual. Now the sign of sanity is: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was no need to change from is to subsists except to muddy the waters. Words mean something subtle or not. Or as President Clinton once quipped, "It depends on what you mean by is." He was apparently taking a page out of Vatican II.
The spirit of liberalism was now triumphant. It is part of Tradition that the Church, while possessing a liberality of generosity---to forgive the repentant sinner and welcome him with open arms, to aid the poor, etc.---is in of itself not liberal, but conservative, by definition and necessity, a priori. Conservative in that it must preserve [conserve] Tradition and pass it down faithfully. And no more was this spirit of liberalism, in contradiction of Tradition, more felt, having more disastrous impact than on the Mass.
Indeed, having slighted Our Lady in her title, Mediatrix, and her unique place in salvation, as the dispenser of grace, the locus became the Mass, the summit of the work of sanctification and from there the contagion poisoned almost everything. Confusion in other words, the mass contagion [pun intended] of confusion epitomized by the exchange of the natural in place of the supernatural. Again, I repeat, a dislocation or disorientation. Pandemonium and euphoric claims reverberated around the world. Within months of the close of the Council, and the release of the documents pertaining to the Council later, some 16 in all, dancing girls appeared in the sanctuary, marble altars jack hammered to smithereens and tossed away, experimentation of any and every kind as if the Mass was a toy in the hands of self-appointed theologians and those who despised Tradition. Nothing in the Council documents permitted these sacrileges and blasphemies, but nothing in them prevented them either. The operative phrase, "unless for the good of the Church" was used by the Bishops and theologians to mean, "as we the progressives intend it to mean, even if it harms the faithful." Then we were told not only was it for our own good but that we had requested the changes ourselves. The audacity!
In an interview, Pope Benedict XVI said that he was “too timid” in the period immediately after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) in challenging avant-garde theological positions, in a time that he described as “extremely confused and restless.” That interview is to be published in a book dedicated to the works of the late Cardinal Leo Scheffczyk, a personal friend of the Pope's who died in December 2005. I do not know anymore of the book or its title. The quote is from a journalist who covers the Vatican, John Allen, himself a liberal.
Nowhere were the wounds inflicted on the Mystical Body of Christ by this pastoral Council more deeply felt than in the priesthood itself, which has custody of the Holiest of Holies. Adam the first priest violated the sanctuary in Paradise by not guarding the Tree of Knowledge. Christ, the new Adam, the great high priest, through His other Christs---His priests---guards the sanctuary---His abode among men today. When priests were willing to defile the sacred womb of the Tabernacle, they lost many graces and with it the people did so also. Many many Masses were impure and even invalid. The loss of grace is incalculable! Still so today, although even contempt for the sacred has had its limits, once insouciance set in. There is no need for unceasing change now that the Masonic religion of the New Mass has been instilled. Priests became corrupted in their own temple, their own bodies, having debased the Temple of Christ. In the extreme form this filth culminated in the scandals we have recently witnessed to our horror. An oversimplification? Of course. I am only giving an overview to set the perspective.
Pope Paul VI, another liberal, succeeded John XXIII. Before we look at his Papacy, I want to stop here to discuss the name John XXIII itself. There was another prelate of that name, another who claimed the office of Pontiff. He was an antipope, from 1410 to 1415---the last antipope of the Western Schism. It is often speculated about his deliberate choice, to honor an antipope. No one has an answer. He did, however, to his credit take the Papal Oath. John Paul II would not.
The
Papacy of Paul VI was puzzling at best. As I understand it, he did take
the Oath, but he did not keep it. A sin against the Holy Ghost, if this
is true! He was a
liberal at pains to resist his own worst instincts. Having closed the
Council and given us the atrocity called the New Mass, the Novus Ordo,
unrecognizable in and by and through Tradition, he bewailed that
"somehow the smoke of Satan has entered a crack in the Church." An
understatement if I ever have heard one. He was an Italian, not a
Rhinelander, but he might as well have been. Rather than turn around
and go back, he persisted in the course that he recognized as a
disaster. Insane! He, too was seized by the euphoria of the
times it seems. What a chastisement from God to have such a Pope! And
yet, when push came to shove he did not permit contraception although
pressured to. He did form a commission to look into it, which shows how
little faith he had left objectively speaking. But enough to continue
to condemn contraception. The teaching of the Church is clear, no
commission need be called to examine the teaching. It is a mortal sin
to commit fornication. Because pressure is brought to bear by
cohabiting couples ought the Pope call a commission to examine
whether it might be permissible to allow some couples to cohabit as
if married? Of course not! The marital act must always be open to life,
that is, place no barrier in the way by any deliberate means, the rest
being up to God.
Paul was succeeded by John Paul I, another liberal peritus, who lived 30 days. He
was followed by John Paul II who had one of the lengthier reigns. I
believe that he presided over a Church structure that specialized in
auto demolition. Paul VI had used that term and I adopt it. While this
Pontiff spent time traversing the globe and saying "Be not afraid", and
subjecting himself to pagan cult practices in the name of openness, the
seminaries were being besieged by the homosexual collective,
disobedience was the rule and every aspect of Church life took on the
disquieting atmosphere of the cruder characteristics of politics.
As
one Bishop told me during a meeting, "Pauly, you don't understand
ecclesiastical matters. What may be disobedience today is permission
tomorrow. I have it on good authority from Rome, that if the pressure
to permit altar girls keeps up, we will have altar girls. I know this,
this is why I am disobeying now." So the faithful who obeyed the rules
were made to look like fools and the dissenters rewarded because they
would
not relent. What a lesson to teach Catholics! Let alone the media which
has no use for Tradition. Later when that same Bishop suggested I was
supposed to obey him on some matter that
violated my conscience I told him, "Your Excellency, you can
disobey
the Vatican, but expect that I will obey you." He had no
comeback. He had not
foreseen
the trajectory of his failed leadership---the consequences of his
operating "principle". I wasn't being hypocritical, I was following the
Holy See, which supersedes a Bishop. He was superseding the Holy See. I
just wanted him to realize his contradiction. He was
correct in his prediction. Although John Paul had promised Mother
Angelica that there would never be altar girls [in holding to
Tradition], we had altar girls. Now we really have them, in spades, I
mean in jeans, with fewer altar boys than ever.
Meanwhile Pope John Paul's books and
encyclicals were infected with the phenomenon of phenomenology more
often than not, rather than the clear and precise philosophy and
theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, the standard used by the Church ever
since that Doctor of the Church was bestowed as a blessing to the
Church. He, too, like Paul and Benedict had reservations. He saw the
devastation, the implications that stemmed from the rashness of
abandoning Tradition. He wrote a short and clear encyclical, for once,
in
which he apologized to Catholics who had been made to suffer so many
liturgical abuses. We thought, oh, now things will get better. We were
too optimistic---the last time I have permitted myself such a moronic
luxury. Things not only did not get better, they got worse. Whenever he
issued a disciplinary note to correct an abuse, the Bishops disobeyed.
They had gotten used to this way of life and liked it. It was easier,
no conflicts except from those few
persistent little pests called
Traditionalists. The mantilla group, we can handle them okay. Where
else do they have to go. Besides they are dying out now.
Sound familiar
to those of you who are Republican and Catholic? I will give an
example. Communion in the hand was permitted years after it had become
the illicit practice in countless dioceses in the English-speaking
world. Eucharistic ministers, who were titled extraordinary, not
ordinary, became everyday practice or ordinary. When the Catholic
people began to lose their belief in the Real Presence, the Holy See,
under John Paul issued a clarification to the US Bishops in which they
were informed that priests were to distribute Holy Communion. The use
of Eucharistic Ministers was to be limited to those times of
extraordinary need. It was clear from the text that most parishes in
the US do not
require them at all. After all, if a large Traditional Mass that does
not use the unordained for Communion has no problem, why should any
other Mass? It shouldn't. And the Holy See knew it. A local pastor read
the document and pouted because of it. He said: "I know I am supposed
to obey, but I will not. I
have gotten used to ministers and I am going to keep the practice." He
did, too. Let God judge him. That priest is legion. Those Catholics who
attend the Novus Ordo
because it is valid, if not good for the faith necessarily, and who
read the document for themselves, obey it. They do not receive Holy
Communion from anyone but a deacon or a priest. Sometimes they cannot
go to Communion as a result. They know their duty before God and their
witness before men.
Those of us who are diehards, determined to defend the Faith from treachery within, wrote tons of letters, big fat ones with lots of photocopies for documentation, registered letters, to Cardinal Ratzinger and other prelates in the Vatican, year after year, the cost of the postage would have purchased a villa on Lake Como at least. The only Cardinal who ever responded was Cardinal Gagnon who headed the Congregation on the Family. I know that I personally sent most of my letters to Cardinal Ratzinger. Zilch. Nada. No Si Si. No. Not even Tomorrow, Mañana, or Domani.
When we are faced with a Papacy and or a Pope that is detrimental to the Faith, or our own faith through weakness, whatever it is, we must not become discouraged or confounded, we press on, holding to Tradition, teaching our children and our friends the best we can. We pray and pray, but not obey bad example or doubtful courses of action. We flee the contagion of novelty, but remain in the Church abiding with Tradition along with St. Vincent, recalling the counsel of St. Peter in his first Epistle:"Unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that can not fade, reserved in Heaven for you, Who, by the power of God, are kept by faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein you shall greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in divers temptations: That the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ."
Saint Peter was speaking of the hardship of Christians in the world, and the possibility of Martyrdom. There is another Martyrdom, the one we endure still, all these years. We ought to think of ourselves as privileged as hard as it is to do this. We enlist in Mary's militia, her army of little ones and trust in her promises. This is more than enough. The Japanese Catholics who suffered government persecution for 400 years had no Mass. No anything by way of a church. They endured, keeping the Faith. They Baptized their children and said the Rosary. They kept the Faith. If need be, we shall do the same.
THE LAST TWO QUESTIONS IN THIS QUERY SET
St. Pius V:
That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.
Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: "Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery" (chap. 4, X, V, 31). So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.
Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which we have decreed since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss.
[Constitution Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568, in Bullarium Romanum, Rome: Typographia Reverendae Camerae Apostolicae, Mainardi, 1738, chap. 3, p. 33]
Today we debate whether practicing homosexuals ought to be ordained; if they are, but are free of the practice of the vice for three years, is it acceptable policy then? To even suggest that the attraction to the same sex, which is a grave disorder is to invite invective; the shame is not the vice, it is the declaration that the predisposition to the vice disqualifies from ordination. The Bishop advocating the three year rule is himself an avowed homosexual. It has come to this that the fox is guarding the sheepish while the chickens fly the coop. Men are declined ordination because of a number of disorders that have no moral import. Physical impairment of a certain degree is another disqualifier. Yet the man who is inflicted with a severe disorder that affects his whole person is not to be disqualified on this basis alone, that would be "insensitive". No one hardly ever stops to think that non-homosexually tempted priests take a vow of celibacy---they could marry. The other kind take a meaningless vow, because they are bound by the Sixth Commandment to be celibate until marriage---as we all are. Then, too, priests live together, vacation together, are trained in the seminary together. Those inclined toward depravity are thrown into the near occasion for sin. This is bad for the priest and the seminarian. What about their souls? Don't they count? The Holy See has essentially abandoned these poor men who need our prayers. The Vatican may not think of this, but folks like me do.
Vatican II unleashed the fury of Hell upon us. The vagueness of its many non-doctrinal statements were part of an overall distancing from Traditional morals in that we looked at mortal sins differently even if we still called them sins. The very name "mortal" was substituted by the adjective "serious". As with all things Vatican II this led to preposterous questions, largely due to ignorance combined with common sense. The laity were to ask, "Is a serious sin somewhere between a mortal and a venial one?" In all seriousness. The Church no longer is in her own right, she subsists; to call a sin mortal or deadly is too harsh, so let's call it serious in order to not frighten anyone. No mention that all sin is serious, even the smallest venial, because it predisposes the soul to be lax in more grave matters. If a sin is serious enough and unrepented, it is still a ticket to Hell. Mortal sin, anyone?
Simultaneously---concupiscence never comfortable in a vacuum---as priests defiled themselves in the sanctuary filled with sacrilege or outrageous neglect of sacred things, so the seminaries were turned over to apostates and dissenters, vocation directors with an agenda for radical change had infiltrated the chanceries and homosexual Bishops flexed their "muscle", throwing pretense to the wind, openly accepted sodomites as candidates for ordination or as Randy Engle so keenly put it, "the Rite of Sodomy". Soon it was a common insider joke [some joke!] that the priesthood was a "gay profession". Once seminary rectors were willing to look the other way at the very least or openly recruit them, homosexuals who were being pressured by their parents to "find a nice girl" took refuge therein. So many normal men had fled the Church in the heady atmosphere of self-empowerment after the Council, there were lots of slots available. It was a nice boys club after all with well-paid vacations to sunny isles for a week or more among other perks---not a bad sinecure at all. Bishops with no stomach to curb liturgical sacrilege or to preach on the mortal sin of contraception---the US Bishops by and large openly revolted against Paul VI---as did the Canadian Bishops---are hardly going to go up against the sodomite gang spilling over the cesspool gate. The current Benedictine policy has gaping holes by which almost any non-flagrant sodomite who does not sport an earring can be ordained in at least three or four dioceses today. Even John XXII would not permit the Bishops to relax standards. So they did their own end-run against the sublime purity requisite for the priest and prelate. You see, the dirty little secret is that while the sodomite priests who brought open scandal have been ousted, their like-afflicted Bishops have not, unless caught in the act or some other such scandal. We are here, We are -----, Get used to it, is the expectation. It did not help matters that Pope Paul VI is thought to have been "blackmailed" to remain quiet and not push too much. Normally personal sins are not to be revealed unless by not doing so a greater harm will occur. I will leave this subject here, except to add from the Randy Engel book with comprehensive documentation, that:
"In the summer of 1993, the Abbe Georges de Nantes, founder of the League of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Troyes, France in 1969, expounded on the charges of homosexuality against Pope Paul VI in the June-July issue of The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the XXth Century.
"The Abbe said that his comments were in response to the announcement of Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1993, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, that the canonization process for Pope Paul VI was going forward following the preliminary diocesan proceedings carried out in Milan in 1992.
" 'I have received the news of the opening of the canonization process of my predecessor Paul VI. For me, he was a father in a personal sense. That is why I cannot express my great joy and gratitude,' declared Pope John Paul II.
"The charge of homosexuality against Pope Paul VI in Counter-Reformation begins with the Abbe recalling the charges of Paul Hofmann's concerning la Mafia Milanese, that is, Archbishop Montini's notorious connections to the Mafia and Freemasonry syndicate in Milan.
"Abbe de Nantes then makes a reference to a quote taken from an unnamed paperback in his possession that refers to a non-Italian Cardinal, 'a big man, affable and keen eyed,' whom Pope Paul VI had appointed to a key Vatican post and who had a reputation for pederasty with the ragazzi, the boys in the quarter behind the Vatican. He says that he was aware that after the election of Montini to the Chair of Peter there was an inordinate rise in the numbers of homosexual seminarians and priests in the United States and the Netherlands. Yet Rome did nothing, he says.
"Finally the Abbe recalls an incident that occurred on the eve of the 1963 conclave that elected Montini pope. He said, Reverend Father de Saint-Avit of St. Paul-Outside-The-Walls Basilica informed him the evening that the conclave opened that the morality section of the Milan police had a file on Montini. Therefore, the new pope could not and would not be Montini. But it was Montini!"
The Abbe de Nantes then addresses Pope John Paul II:
"So, after the scandal of the election of an avowed homosexual to the Throne of Saint Peter having poisoned the Church, You, Most Holy Father, would have him relive and gain strength by having this same wretch of a Paul VI raised to the altars, and his bones offered as relics to the faithful for their pious kisses, and his tormented face presented to their fervent gaze in Bernini's Gloria? Ah no, that is impossible. It will not be!" [page 1155] I omitted the footnotes Mrs. Engel had for the above passages because you do not have the book here on the web for reference.
I do not know for certain about Paul VI's predilection for the vice, though widely circulated with some credibility as we can see, but I do know one thing with no doubt whatsoever. The disorientation of the Mass parallels to a frightening degree the disorientation or disorder of sodomy. Subject for an in-depth treatise.
UPDATE
Since posting this page the Vatican has re-affirmed the 1995 ban on the admittance of homosexuals to seminaries. While not as firm as in former times it is as good as we will have for now. This is a large relief, thanks be to God, for the last statement left more wriggle room. Here is the policy:
Rome, May. 20, 2008 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has affirmed that a policy barring homosexuals from admission to seminaries applies to all Catholic dioceses and religious orders.
In a brief letter to the world's bishops, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio - news), the Vatican Secretary of State, underlined that a November 2005 policy statement from the Congregation for Catholic Education is "valid for all formation houses for the priesthood," including those administered by religious orders, the Eastern Catholic churches, and missionary territories.
Cardinal Bertone's letter-- which, he noted, was specifically approved by Pope Benedict XVI --- refers to the Instruction released by the Congregation for Catholic Education in November 2005, saying that neither active homosexuals nor celibate men with "profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies" should be ordained to the priesthood or allowed to begin seminary training.
That Vatican document, which has now been reinforced, instructed bishops and religious superiors to use "painstaking discernment" in appraising the candidates for priestly training. Candidates who are identifiably homosexual are not qualified for ordination, the Vatican said. "In the case of a serious doubt in this respect, they must not admit him to ordination," the document added.
Since
the release of the Instruction in November 2005, some bishops and
religious superiors had questioned whether the policy was to be applied
universally throughout the Church. Cardinal Bertone's letter, which he
wrote to all the world's bishops and religious superiors in response
"to numerous requests for clarification," answers those questions in
the affirmative.
Also since the original posting of this section, Pope
Benedict has endorsed the beatification of Pope Paul VI, considered by
many of those with more knowledge than I possess a rash, imprudent and
even disastrous move. The "Saint Factory" as the canonization process
has become since Pope John Paul II and during Benedict's reign is
a scandal in that the once "devil's advocate" aspect in which the
candidate's heroic virtues are sifted and tested, has been reduced to a
sham and the usual three miracles, 1 for beatification and 2 for
sainthood have been reduced to 1, period, lends credence to the
supposition that the latest round of saints in the papacy is part
of the promotion of Vatican II as these popes up for canonization were
major figures in the most unprecedented council in the history of the
Church and whose pontificates presided over what Paul VI himself called
the "auto destruction" of the Church. Under normal circumstances these
pontiffs would still be on hold if for no other reason they did little
to nothing to halt this "auto destruction", which they had every power
and every right to do as Supreme Pontiffs, rather than preside as
collegial heads of state. In contrast, the cause of Ven. Pope Pius XII,
hailed by even non-Catholics of his day as a saint is stalled; In
all likelihood simply because his canonization is not significant to
the powers to be who are hell-bent on keeping Vatican II on hallowed
ground. When Christ comes again, He asked, will He find faith still
left? Vatican observers who maintain Tradition in all seriousness as
only a serious Catholic must, ask, will He find any faith left in Rome?
I add only this, it is known that Ven. Pius XII was against
calling another council just before he died in 1958, for he already
recognized the signs of the times and that such a council would be ripe
for exploitation as we now know occurred.
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