MORE OF THE SAME (No. 91)
I had written some notes in May, more or less carrying on from my last Letter, then later, having read them, I felt discouraged -- for surely I must be getting tiresome. The same old stuff about the dreary actors on the rickety stage thrown up by the Vatican Two dishonest workmen. Incidentally, how many hundreds of times have I mentioned that fraudulent council? As many times as would tire a tin ear, I suppose. Yet it has been my only reason for writing.
Having begun, I have wanted to complete my explanation of how the Vatican Two revolt could happen. Part of the reason I have been slow to resolve certain questions of detail, is that like most of our readers I was quite unprepared for anything so totally disruptive of our life as Catholics. So then, with apologies I shall go over some of the same ground as in other Letters.
An opinion piece from the "Cleveland Jewish News" informs its readers that "The American Jewish community is on the threshold of a golden age." The secular Jew press is not crowing so loudly, possibly because most of its readers do not see the age as golden for them. We see it as an age of increasing disorder and impoverishment all around. An age of gold for the Jews, yes, but its duration will be short. According to St. Paul, When they shall say 'peace and security', even then shall sudden destruction come upon them. It is not certain that this destruction will fall only on those who call themselves Jews today; certainly many Catholics are more guilty because of having had the Faith. But it is the Jews who are bragging, meanwhile shouting shalom, shalom. The Benedictine Sisters at Mount Angel have what they call a "Shalom Prayer Center".
From the time of Christ the Catholic Church, especially the papacy, has been the great obstacle to realization of the Jews' demand for their kingdom of this world. That the obstacle no longer exists has been shown spectacularly by John Paul's visit to the Rome synagogue. In this connection I am reminded againof some words of Cardinal Newman: "If the Church falls sick, the world shall utter a wail for its own sake; for, like Samson, the Church wll bury all with it." I quote Cardinal Newman as a prophet because he had always taken the long view of God's dealings with men, and because his "last days" views are sound. Already a great Christian scholar as an Anglican, it was surely his Catholic sense of history which led him into the Church.
Catholics divided. There's no end to divisions, which might seem remarkable to those who took seriously the Vatican Two promise of one flock, one shepherd as the aim of the Council. That was indeed the intention of the Council, but not as we Catholics understood them to say. A double meaning can be found in just about all that the Council spokesmen said then and since.
One flock, one Shepherd
Upon reading the Gospel for the second Sunday after Easter, that in which Christ says: And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd, I could not help thinking of how the Vatican Two reformers have twisted the meaning of this text, so that it would appear to apply to their "ecumenism". It has been perhaps one of their most effective confusers among those of weak faith. It is of course Christlike, the desire of good Catholics for only one flock and one true Shepherd here on earth, as it will be in Heaven. But Catholic teachers understand this desire of Christ differently than do those who think, or pretend to think, that a broad religion of Humanity was meant by this text. The "ecumenism" of the Council is a basic Gnostic twist of the truth.
Our Lord made it very plain to the Apostles that He had come first to the House of Israel, and that it would become the work of the Apostles to bring in the Gentiles -- His "other sheep". But until that time when the religious leader of the Jews and the people would reject Him, He confined His mission (with the exception of one short journey into Phoenicia and the Decapolis) to Palestine and the Jews. Only reluctantly, it would seem, because of their great fait, does our Lord perform a miracle for the Canaanite woman and for the pagan centurion, friend of the synagogue whose words have come down to us a countless number of times in the Mass: Oh Lord, I am not worthy that Thou should come under my roof . . .
And one more thing that comes through on reading the Gospel texts, is the constant insistence of Christ on belief. This requirement of faith that our Lord can perform a miracle will in time require belief in all that the Church has taught since Pentecost. Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
And so we have believed and acted as Catholics, more or less faithfully observing "all things".
What now? We know about the recent affair at Assisi, at which place John Paul assembled representatives schismatic, Jew, pagan, and diabolist in a "prayer summit". Warning of evils to come, even then taking shape eighty years ago, Pope Pius X spoke these words: "It is well to note at once that, given this doctrine (of the Modernists) of experience united with that other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held true."
Was there ever a major prophecy so detailed seen to be fulfilled within a lifetime? But many who are aware of the evils will not face up to what must follow, the shortness of time remaining. They run to fake seers, schismatics and illicit mass arrangements, and they hide the truth from themselves and their children. Thus it is seen that our time will indeed be like those of "the days of Noe". Never mind that the self-blinding of many comes from their desire for spiritual consolations. As one of the great mystical doctors wrote in his time, "the devil destroys the spiritual with the spiritual."
The majority of baptized Catholics simply go along with what's going, thinking how nice it all is. Many will say they believe as they always have, but not really, as their Catholic sense becomes weak and confused by the reforms, and by the insanities of our modern commercial society. Actually the Vatican Two reform (deformation) is the ultimate expression of the modern sickness of mind. (See my Letter No. 84, "Catholics After Vatican Two".)
Anyway, John Paul showed in a way that no one can fail to understand, what kind of flock the New Order thieves had in mind. He is the new kind of 'pope' desired by the younger Catholics who, in a wash of false prosperity after World War II, have put out of mind sin, death and the Judgement. As Catholics we can survive open persecutions and material hardship, but not the evil insanities that come with easy prosperity, soft living, and organized atheist propaganda on all sides. It starts in the schools, including nearly all of those which still pretend to be Catholic. Consider how John Paul and the lunatic nuns were able to turn on the young people at Madison Square Garden -- with his growls and his "we shall destroy the program" slight variation of the Communist "we shall overcome".
These Letters are an outcome of my own concern to keep the Faith. I knew more than fifty years ago that to remain sane and Catholic I must abstain from watching movies and reading secular publications, most of them, which I have done. These things gradually erode the faith of Catholics. If our bodies need proper nourishment, more so do our minds. Since the time I became aware of all this, there has appeared television, a deadly educator. Catholics forty or so years old have grown up with it. The younger ones are a flock ready for the Marxist fold. The age of maximum confusion drifts in that direction.
Of course we won't call it Marxism to begin with. And only a few of the reformed Sisters will know what they are doing. They were weak in their faith, and so they just had to get television into their convents -- "to watch Bishop Sheen". Not that there weren't a certain number of tough females come in to do a job, as seems evident from a reading of The Battle For The American Church, book by Msgr. George A. Kelly, a review of which appears in my Letter No. 47.
Gnosticism, Masonry, Bolshevism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, Vatican Two ecumenism, the Synagogue, all thrive in our commercial Jew society. In these Letters I have cited the ancient source of the others in parent Gnosticism. Here is an interesting comment on that, applicable to our time, by Fr. William G. Heidt, O.S.B., from his The Book of The Apocalypse: "There was no need for denying the christian faith as such; but to get along in business, with neighbors, at the games, in government, one simply had to rationalize a bit." So at least went the thinking of the Nicolaites and the Jezebel crowd. Elsewhere in his book he cites this state of mind as leading to Gnosticism. This also from Fr. Heidt: "It is interesting to note that some years later a letter by St. Ignatius of Antioch to this same church (of the Nicolaites) refers to the dangers arising from Judaizing Christians rather than from outside Jews." This is precisely our situation today.
I have written about the Sunday morning when the narrative Consecration was spoken loudly in our church. A lesson I failed to learn then was this: I expected that outside after Mass there would be much wonderment and discussion about what we had all heard inside. But not a word was said about it. There was the usual friendly exchanges in front of the church; that was all. The indifference of these people, at one prosperous parish in Nevada, was a fair sample of the lack of faith of the Catholic body as a whole.
My thought was, even as I saw and heard, "someone who has no love for the Mass has gotten hold of it". How could it have happened? Certainly the integrity of the Mass and Sacraments come under the divine protection from error promised to Peter and his successors. And then there was this thing of "ecumenism" which pope and council were engaged in, a virtual denial of the Church's divine commission to "teach all nations". That a pope and council would thus deny their authority to teach and to govern could mean only one thing, that we are in the time of the Great Apostasy. It is interesting that the Jews are claiming this time as especially theirs.
That the Mass had ended -- that I had not heard Mass that Sunday morning or since -- I learned only later. And evidence piled up of a conspiracy to destroy the Mass and end the papacy, which has been done, God permitting. It is the deprivation and punishment of a people too busy keeping up in an age of increasingly wretched materialism.
For those Catholics who would prefer some old things -- candles, incense, congenial company and consolation, but not doctrine or the law -- I was sure the devil would provide. From the smoldering Old Catholic and occult underworld came the self-styled traditionalist sects -- Feeneyites, ecumenical knights, vagrant priests, operators of communes and strange monasteries, all preaching Fatima. It was one of the prescriptions of occultist Leadbeater "for those who would love His older Church", that a new form of Mariolatry be propagated. If they would not go with him to the Left, the devil would open an avenue to the Right, that of schism.
Yet there must be more to come, I thought. I looked for a big one, an "attractive personality", as I put it in one of my early Letters. It was the underlying thought in mind when I assembled my "Strange New Church" papers in a booklet under the title "From Rome to Econe".
After ten years of silence while Paul VI was tearing down the Church, my "big one" appeared. Marcel Lefebvre, a bishop lacking a diocese and therefore without authority. It was easy to see that he was a fake, one of the same party as the Johns and Pauls whom he upheld. Even so, I felt sure he would rope in many or most of those Catholics, having an emotional attachment to the "old Mass" (which we all have), and who were ready to compromise on obedience. And rope them in he has been doing.
There is no more certain and grievous religious crime (of schism) than that of a bishop who starts his own line of ordinations; this regardless of what kind of man sits on the papal chair, or even if it be empty. Lefebvre does not even speak the fallacious argument that false Popes occupy the Chair; not at all, but openly defies those he has held to be true popes. Thus he carries with him into religious crime hundreds of young, illicitly ordained young men; and into the same schism thousands of the laity.
There are a few priests who feel called upon, so they tell us, to save the Church and valid Orders for the future, and who had persuaded an old Vietnamese retired bishop to consecrate new bishops. I could write on about this strange affair and the scandals among the operators of communes and Trad monasteries, but will not do so. Those Catholics who refuse to be convinced on doctrinal grounds will go from one to another of this crowd. My reason for mentioning these things here, including the Lefebvre operation, is to reject the absurd notion that God will take away the Mass, as foretold, only to leave it with men of dubious motives and no authority. These are men who make the simple truth complex, shadowy and distressing to thousands of earnest Catholics who have seen the falsity of Vatican Two.
Some objections
We received a number of objections to my Letters 89 and 90, most of them citing the Law. I will reply to one of them here, an objection that more or less contains the others. Here it is. "Paul VI wasn't eligible for election, therefore his acts are invalid." This sentence is only one from six paragraphs of Hutton Gibson's TWIN No. 25, tentative copy sent in advance to me as a courtesy. This paper may be obtained by writing to Mr. Gibson at 7 Harkness Road, Oakville 2765, Australia.
Hutton Gibson has read my Letters, so that, as it seems to me, I should here only mention points of basic disagreement between us.
I do not believe that invalidly elected popes can explain the present condition of the Church. I say that such men could not occupy the papal chair unless God permitted it. Why God has allowed it is explained by St. Paul's prophecy of an operation of error, to come as part of a great apostasy.
Gibson writes of the priest as "continuing as through any other interregnum". I don't see that twenty-five years of popes valid or invalid, leading millions astray, can be written off as an interregnum in the usual sense. It also presupposes a true pope to come, an event which seems to me quite impossible.
And this sentence: "His permanent assignment (a priest forever) has not been canceled by his bishop's or pope's apostasy." True, a priest forever, but he can have only the parish or other office his bishop assigns him to. Invalidly elected popes and apostate bishops do not make priests free agents. I will not mention here the kinds of priests that turn up when the free agency door is opened. But surely this is one of the practical reasons why God will take away the Sacrifice all at once.
It is useless to prove on paper that Paul VI and the Council couldn't have done it legally. That they did it is what counts.
It might be argued with some reason that Paul VI could not have ended the Mass completely by his open destruction of the Mass rite. But I say he did more, that he ended the papacy, as Caiphas ended the Jewish Church, and that with the end of the papacy came the end of the Mass. This is the argument presented in Letters 89 and 90, based on the doctrine of the Church as the "essential font" of validity for Mass and all the Sacraments requiring a priest.
As the destruction of Jerusalem is the type of the end of the world, so then is the rejection of the divine Redeemer by the Jewish high priest and Sanhedrin type of the betrayal by Paul VI and the Vatican Two Council. Both demanded a kingdom of man, of this world.
Caiphas was appointed High Priest by the Roman governor, so that it might be argued his appointment could not have been valid. But invalid or not -- and this is perhaps the most significant fact in the case -- Caiphas was, like Paul VI, the spiritual leader and chief spokesman for a people ready to reject Christ, a rejection which Almighty God could not fail to accept, and to punish.
The only reason I am responding here to the "popes invalid" argument, is that it comes from Mr. Gibson who usually speaks hard Catholic sense. I will admit that in this matter Gibson has on his side most of the vagrant and chapel priests, Feeneyites, Shickshinny Knights, Schuckardtites, Nugentites, the Thuch "new bishops" and others, and that I seem to be alone in speaking out against both the New Order and the schismatic sects.
Naturally it is an idea to boggle the mind of nearly all Catholics, that a pope (or popes) and council could lead millions astray. I do not know of any theologian or even an imaginative writer who has thought of it. But what I say is not the product of imagination. It is fact, demonstrated in every way. God has allowed the devil every trick of intended deception and destruction, but surely, only to show the damage already within. Each successive move -- from the Council's search and dialogue, the radical change of the Mass rite and forms of the sacraments, several revealing encyclicals, notably Redemptor Hominis, John Paul's abject appearance in a Rome synagogue, and the affair at Assisi -- each of these moves and many others show the diabolical character of the Vatican Two reform to those who do not close their eyes to it, or deny the consequences.
On the Titanic, with only an hour yet to remain afloat, the passengers were telling each other, "This ship is unsinkable." The Church of Christ cannot be compared to the Titanic itself, a work of man. But human nature is so constituted as to find it difficult to believe in imminent disaster when exterior conditions seem quite normal. The long gash which resulted in the sinking of the Titanic was underwater, cutting through the boiler rooms, out of sight of the passengers. Pius X and others had seen the underwater damage to the Bark of Peter and warned of the probable fatal consequences.
Interesting in this connection are some lines from a book by Douglas Reed, The Controversy of Zion. "The appearance was deceptive, for the two maggots were in the apple, and today's scene shows the result. The eighteen Christian centuries which, despite ups and downs showed a total sum of human betterment greater than that of any earlier time known to man, were coming either to an end or an interregnum; which, we still do not know, though believers have no doubt about the good resumption, sometime. However, one eminent man of that period, from whom confidence in the outcome might have been expected, foresaw what was to come in our century and thought it would be the end, not a transient Dark Age.
"This was Henry Edward Manning, the English clergyman who was converted to Rome, become Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster . . ."
Douglas Reed, not a Catholic, wrote his The Controversy of Zion in the years 1951 to 1954. Cardinal Manning wrote at about the time of the First Vatican Council, 1870. We who have lived since Vatican Two have immensely more, and that of a doctrinal kind, upon which to base our conclusions about the End.
I have passed over some objections received as not worth our notice. Of expressions of agreement I shall quote just part of one. "You are absolutely correct in your agreement with Fr. de la Taille that the Church is 'the essential font' . . . The radical changes in the Mass and the Sacraments made by Vatican Two, amount to a rejection of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And, for this reason, their house has been left to them desolate. You were right in saying that the Holy Spirit would not, and could not, tolerate such a rejection."
The gentleman who wrote that sent us much more, including dozens of Scriptural texts in support of our conclusion, enough to fill one of my pages. But we need not prove the self-evident, what John Paul II is busily demonstrating. That the destruction can be repaired is contrary to the pain-words predictions of St. Paul. It is in our time that the revolt predicted by St. Paul can be seen as an accomplished fact.
