THE PAPACY BETRAYED (No. 27)
January 1978 and the Vatican II show goes on. Evil follows evil; or so it would seem. The latest distress for those who insist on closing their eyes to the Vatican II evil as a whole is communion in the hand and the psychiatric new rite of Reconciliation, by which it is intended to do away entirely with the Sacrament of Penance. Of course there is no sign of a reversal of policy on the part of the man chiefly responsible, no sign of an inclination to face the evil reality on the part of his defenders, one of whom has written a dull and dishonest book which I shall comment on.
My concern is not with this tiresome book in itself. I use it only to demonstrate the first of two ways in which, since Vatican II, the Papacy is being betrayed by Catholics. Catholics are throwing out the Papacy to defend or apologize for a pope who has himself rejected the Papacy; and these Catholics are of two parties: 1, those who call themselves Progressives and the simple laity who follow them in their so-called updating and "ecumenism"; and 2, the Traditionalists who express loyalty to Paul VI while they disregard the Papacy and throw out the Law.
I say that it would seem that evil follows evil, for the latest apparent evil is only a part of the whole. It cannot be that only the latest in the long chain of Vatican II changes are evil. It has to be that these latest innovations are only a part -- an advanced part -- in a totally evil design.
This book I mentioned can serve to illustrate how the Progressives and the unthinking have rejected the Papacy. It is titled, curiously, "We Are Peter", by a Dr. Sean O'Reilly, and is loaded with selected quotes from Paul VI. On the jacket and in the first paragraph of the Introduction appear these lines: "It would seem unnecessary to justify the legitimate claims of the supreme pastor of the Church, the pope, but seldom has the teaching authority of the Holy Father been subject to such attacks from outside the Church, and even from within it by those who still claim to be Catholics". In that statement we have the most pernicious of heresies and false charges against faithful Catholics. It expresses that weakness of mind of Catholics today, which weakness -- that "spiritual blindness" of which St Paul spoke -- has been the main advantage since the Council in the work of the Church's enemies to obliterate from within the Church the whole of Catholicism. Step by step since the Council, Catholic practices have been thrown out and the doctrine obscured and even denied in the name of total unquestioning necessary obedience to Paul VI. Not for O'Reilly St. Paul's "not even if an angel from heaven", or the First Vatican Council's definition of papal infallibility as circumscribed by Catholic tradition and the teachings of the true popes.
After reading this sentence of O'Reilly's about attacks on the Holy Father, the reader might hope to be enlightened as to the reason for such attacks, as the author calls them, but O'Reilly doesn't take up this matter at all. He merely implies that all criticism of Paul VI is unwarranted, and, indeed, a sin. Why, then, do I bother to notice such an absurd book as this? After all, the O'Reilly mentality is common enough in our time; it needs no demonstrating. I decided to write this short review because in "We Are Peter" I see expressed at length, in response to warnings against unCatholic reforms, the false doctrine which appears in such often-heard replies as "I follow the pope". This reply is presumed to contain the whole law and doctrine of the Catholic Church, not bothering to consider whether or not Paul VI follows the Popes. Another common form of this heresy is to accuse those who do not follow blindly, regardless of the popes of the past, of exercising private judgement; thus denying in this way the limits of papal infallibility. But such twisting of Catholic truth, namely, that in nearly all cases Catholics can place full confidence in even the ordinary teachings or interpretations of the popes, our enemies have the main tool for overthrowing the Catholic Church. Whatever O'Reilly's motives, he lends himself to this method of deceit. Let us have a look at his book, which, thank heaven, is thin enough considering the enormity of the lie the author undertakes to promote. Because O'Reilly does not attempt to answer the many well-founded charges of heresy, schism and scandal against Paul VI but sings hosannas to him, I shall review only briefly the chapters of this pollyanna and deceitful defense of Paul which sets aside the papacy.
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I dislike to be sarcastic, but there are certain pietist humbugs, both Modernist and Traditionalist, whose words are so much hot air packages that can best be disposed of by deflating their authors. Anyway, as a not very saintly character I've grown a bit tired of Modernists and Traditionalist windbags. No wonder the young people walk out on the whole show.
[...]
Then from the author: "As we know, most of the general councils of the Church were called to restate (?), defend, and frequently define, solemnly and infallibly, the central doctrines of the faith, nearly always in response to the denial of one or more of the doctrines. . . Then there was Vatican II" . . . Here again an attempt to associate Vatican II with a true council. On and on and no word yet in answer to the serious charges by such theologians as Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci and their thirty-two associates, Fr. Saenz y Arriaga, S.J., and many others, made in writing against the words and works of Paul VI destructive of the Church. No word of those "heresies, schisms and scandals" of which Fr. de Nantes accused Paul publicly. No attempt by O'Reilly to justify his rash judgement against the many Catholics who for obvious reasons are concerned because of the post-Vatican II total reform -- what Pope St. Pius X called a "reforming mania".
[...]
Chapter 9, "The Pope and The Mother of God". I'll waste no time on this one. Mary ever Virgin and Mother of God has always been unquestionable Catholic doctrine. But the Vatican II heretics don't like that, so, hypocritically, they loudly proclaim Mary Mother of the Church, which adds nothing to what Catholics have known her to be, Mother of God so also Mother of the Church.
[...]
So, if I might appear to some readers to treat Dr. O'Reilly's book flippantly, fail to take him seriously, I would not deny the truth of this: I do not take him seriously; nobody should. My complaint is with that kind of mentality, a sentimentalist religiosity upon which the Vatican II phony "charisma" is founded. The minds of Catholics were being destroyed before it was evident that a general loss of the Catholic sense and doctrine accompanied the modern mental deterioration. As already mentioned, I use the O'Reilly book as merely an example of this general state of mind fatal to Catholicism in our time.
Anyway, Paul VI with his "new economy of the gospel", his constant references to Vatican II as a new beginning, and his actions which follow from such a conception -- a total reform condemned in method and content by Pope Pius X in advance -- has betrayed the papacy, the Popes, Christ the invisible Head of the Church, as do also those who defend this great betrayal from the papal chair in our day. It is a work of our enemies of which Catholics were warned long ago.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS BAD COIN: Early in the post-Vatican II years, those whom I have called moderates or hand-wringers began by defending Paul VI, then when defense became impossible they gradually eased into apology. Actually these Traditionalists have a new doctrine of the papacy, which is pretty much that of the Modernists: the pope is there, he talks and talks to all kinds of people, but who can take him seriously unless to pick up a handy quote from him occasionally. It is Montini's "new style of papacy". And for new church organizers and their publishers, also for traditionalist cash operators, it is to invite certain loss of financial support to speak the self-evident truth about "our Holy Father", this destroyer of the Catholic Church; and so they set the pope aside and go their own pious way, protesting loyalty to the pope. The Jansenists in the 17th century assumed the same attitude. They said that the pope was mistaken about their being in error, that they were of course good Catholics, implying, if we may read between the lines, that they were very superior Catholics. I see the same high self-regard in the latest issue of the paper published by the U.S. Traditionalist chief organizer.
Worse by far than all the fancy dancing or tight rope walking of the professional Traditionalists, is their disregard not of certain positive laws of the Church but of the divine law itself, as papal jurisdiction. "Upon this Rock I will build My Church. . . The gates of hell shall not prevail. . . I will be with you all days, even until the end of the world". Yes, but, they say, this foundation has become unsettled, the Promise doesn't seem reliable, so now we will start our own Church. Of course we hear the pious protest that their Traditionalist Church is not a Church but only an emergency measure, Jesus Christ having slipped up, or gone to sleep in the boat. There is one other possibility, that we are near the End, in the time of the Great Apostasy, but that explanation doesn't fit in with the schemes of builders of new churches and publishing houses; so don't mention it.
At a recent banquet table meeting of U.S. Traditionalists, one of the three main speakers eases his audience into what is certain to be their last and fatal step as Catholics, an implicit denial of Christ's promise to remain with His Church. This speaker employs the usual modernist method of many words and gradualism, first seeming to dispose of a similar case as not relevant or analogous with that of a present scheme to start a new Church. In Jansenist style he protests that in doing this the charge of schism could not rightly be directed at those who break off today, because today the bishops are not doing their job. He then carries the argument into a next stage, in which, it is said, lay Catholics have a certain freedom to organize in the "temporal order", leaving aside the question of how far they may organize independently under the Catholic name. From this last point then, the speaker concedes that "NORMALLY" it is the bishops who make or supervise whatever arrangements are necessary to provide "the elementary services to which Catholics have a right by virtue of Baptism".
Of course that NORMALLY opens a wide door, open to most any group of Catholics who think it justifiable to start their own Church, if only they can find a few priest, most importantly of course, a bishop, to provide what the lay Catholics cannot, Mass and Sacraments. And to illustrate his gospel further, this speaker without citing any definite teaching of the Church on such matters, and relying on the Jansenistic philosophy again, brings in some of that truth without which it is impossible to deceive. He points out that every baptized child has a right to Catholic truth, etc., omitting the truth about the primary rights and duties of parents to educate their children; also that for every right there is a corresponding responsibility, without which there would be no rights -- in this case the responsibility attached to the office of the bishops. It would seem then that this argument would lead up to this: that we must demand our rights from pope and bishops. But no, that is not what the speaker is leading into. The last step, it can be seen, was the one whereby we go from certain presumed legitimate rights to organize as Catholics for temporal ends (leaving aside the question whether there can be such a sharp division between spiritual and temporal), to a presumed right to set up not only catechetical arrangements but a veritable new Church.
As I remarked at the beginning of this section of my Letter, the thing is carried out by a gradual transition in words, the main method of those who have brought on the present state of chaos in the Church and world. Paul VI does it all the time. The whole Traditionalist thing adds up to a curious twist of loyalty to the pope while disregarding the papacy. It was carried out amid an impressive number of the loyal reverend Clergy, who by their silence apparently approve.
The traditionalists say that these new Churches must be organized because of the present chaotic state of the Church, and because loyal Catholics need the Mass. To those who have heard this repeated cry of the Traditionalists, "give us the Mass", there can be no question about which of these concerns takes precedence in their minds, Church or their own religious consolation following the order of Simon Magus.
Incidentally, the main speaker at the banquet, the one who spun out the doctrine for leaving out the Papacy, is a convert from Communism, publisher of a small Traditionalist magazine in Scotland. As such he ought to have known something of the method of argument he used. Another of the three main speakers at this affair is also an adult convert, an Englishman. The third, a woman, an accredited reporter at the Vatican. The bishop-leader of this particular crowd of Traditionalists was consecrated by a bishop who was at the time a Freemason. Among the Traditionalist leaders are to be found many such oddities, including one 'bishop' with bootleg orders from the schismatic Old R.C.C.; followers of the atheistic head of a naturalistic political society; a chaplain of an ecumenical order of "knights"; a man-and-wife operation of a chapel-school in Pennsylvania; other cash operators, such as the one who used to write of his "going on business for the order" but who belongs to no order. A new sect is now forming around this man in western Oregon.
What we are witnessing is the well known hegelian thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis operation used by the Communists. There was first the Modernist Vatican II thesis, then the Traditionalist anti-thesis. It was a foregone conclusion that there would be resistance to Vatican II. Some of it was already well organized early in the game, with chapels, communes, bookstores. Then the synthesis, led by a bishop, his hour having come; he begging Paul to take the Traditionalists into his syncretist (ecumenical) church. That was a year and a half ago. For reasons best known to himself Paul has stalled the operation at that point. This is certainly to his advantage, gaining time while diverting attention from himself to the scandalous rebellion of the Great Traditionalist Leader. In the meantime influential pious dupes act the part of Judas goat in leading on the pious faithful.
The cry of the Traditionalists that they cannot keep the faith without the Mass over a long time, constitutes an implicit denail of the doctrine of sufficient grace, as though God would deny His grace to those who uphold the Juridical order Christ established. To put it crudely, we are being led to believe by the Traditionalist promoters that only those who have the cash resources for chapels, etc., will be saved, we others lost. And of course divine providence goes out the Traditionalist window, as it does also in the Modernist Vatican II church of Man.
Under "Canon Law and Common Sense" we get from another Traditionalist publication (4 Jan. 1978) yet another specious argument about the Law, comparing those who would uphold even the divine law of papal jurisdiction, the power of the Keys, to Pharisees. This too comes from those who have never spoken forthrightly against Paul VI's deviations from the Law. The writer cites the spirit of the law, which recalls to my mind the Modernist "spirit of Vatican II". There are very few modern Catholics who need to be held back from the pharisaic rigidity and rabbinical concern for minutiae that called forth St. Paul's strictures on certain Jewish converts; the tendency is all the other way. It is not common sense about canon law that moves the Traditionalists. What they are talking about is throwing out the Law completely. In effect this is to again fall in with the Modernists, in their rejection of the "institutional Church".
It is not common sense about canon law that approves of dozens of Traditionalist Churches, or of the one big Econe umbrella, but insanity. For if the juridical order Christ established could be without law and permit the setting up of separate Churches, it could never have been an institution. Anyway, which Traditionalist common sense "solution" ought one to follow? That is, of the separate church variety.
In any case, as Paul VI and his Modernists have done, so also the Traditionalists in betraying the Papacy.
What about the Conservatives, such as those Catholics who read The Wanderer, Register, Christian Order in England? The answer is simple: the "conservative" publishers and those who support them are Modernists. After foot dragging on some, they have accepted every one of the Modernist reforms. Adhering blindly to their "I follow the pope" single firm doctrine, they will go all the way into the new world church for all religions, the Great Apostasy. Nothing they have done gives evidence to the contrary.
I started this Letter by mentioning the evil of Vatican II. That evil remains with us. But as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, following St. Augustine, and in fact giving the common doctrine of the Church, "evil is permitted for a greater good, and so it is declared that all things are 'for the sake of the elect'." As Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange comments in his book "The One God", page 642, Chapter "The Providence of God", well worth reading every six months or so, "There is no contradiction in the chiaroscuro effect of this mystery, but in it these certain principles are preserved intact: moral evil cannot even indirectly be willed by God; God commands not impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you to do what you are able, and to ask for what you are not able (to do), as said by St. Augustine, whom the Council of Trent quotes."
Those of us who have kept the Faith without compromise and self-seeking, and who have tried to warn others, as have most of my readers, have done what we could. The rest is in God's hands. It is true that when, or if, He acts to turn the tide of evil in the Church and world, He will in the main act through human agents. But it is not for us to choose such agents, nor to welcome "one who comes in his own name". No one has ever had nor ever will have a mandate to act outside the juridical order established by Christ.
