"Demos II" Tries to Save Conciliarism From Its Logical Consequence: Jorge Mario Bergoglio

An anonymous “cardinal” within the false entity that has been referred to on this site as the “counterfeit church of conciliarism” has authored an assessment about the “papacy” of the man he believes to be is “Pope Francis.” The document is deserving of some commentary only because, while making some very good points about the “pope’s” desire to please people rather than to adhere to Catholic doctrine, the entire letter is premised upon the belief that said doctrine, if taught according to the “hermeneutic of continuity,” is in accord with the Catholic Faith, which it is not.

Indeed, the anonymous “cardinal” does not once raise any concerns about ecumenism, inter-religious “prayer” services, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, the “renewed” liturgy, the new ecclesiology, nor episcopal collegiality.

Now, the ostensible purpose of the anonymous “cardinal’s” letter was to address his fellow non-cardinals about the flaws of the Bergoglio “papacy” so that they might be better informed when choosing his successor, which, as we know, would be the seventh in the current line of antipopes barring a direct intervention by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself.

Once again, the “Demos II,” the pseudonym chosen by the anonymous “cardinal,” does not concern himself with the entire ethos of conciliarism, only with finding a candidate who might continue the legacy of Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, each of whom, of course, was at war with the patrimony of Holy Mother Church, starting with the very nature of dogmatic truth, which was an remains nothing other than an attack upon the very immutable nature of God Himself. “Demos II” believes that the “papacy” of Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been an aberration, not the logical consequence of the conciliar revolution that began under the regime of the Rosicrucian Mason named Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII, who wanted a “reconciliation” with the world. To believe that the conciliar ship can be righted by someone who is committed to its foundational errors is identical to the belief that a just constitutional order can be “restored” in the United States of American by returning to its own foundational errors that have led inexorably to the point of totalitarianism in which political opponents are indicted and even journalists covering news events can be handcuffed and paraded about as though they are latter day John Gottis.

With this brief overview, permit me to take up just a few moments of your time on this Saturday in the Second Week of Lent to offer a few comments about Demos II’s “profile” of what the next presider over what the thinks is the Catholic Church should look like.

Omitting Demos II’s preface, which discussed the late George “Cardinal” Pell’s 2022 letter published under the pseudonym “Demos,” the current anonymous “cardinal” explained the reason for his tome:

The concluding years of a pontificate, any pontificate, are a time to assess the condition of the Church in the present, and the needs of the Church and her faithful going forward. It is clear that the strength of Pope Francis’ pontificate is the added emphasis he has given to compassion toward the weak, outreach to the poor and marginalized, concern for the dignity of creation and the environmental issues that flow from it, and efforts to accompany the suffering and alienated in their burdens. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number One:

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “compassion toward the weak” and “outreach to the poor and marginalized is based on naturalistic principles, and his concern for the “dignity of creation and the environmental issues that flow from it” are warmed over Marxism based upon disproved pseudo-scientific ideologies. Demos II’s attempt to offer some faint praise for the Argentine Apostate by identifying “strengths” is very flawed as those “strengths” have nothing to do with faithful representation of Holy Mother Church’s teachings about the poor, whose spiritual needs must be addressed along with their temporal privations. Bergoglio does not address those spiritual needs whatsoever.

To the next passage of Demos II’s essay:

Its shortcomings are equally obvious: an autocratic, at times seemingly vindictive, style of governance; a carelessness in matters of law; an intolerance for even respectful disagreement; and – most seriously – a pattern of ambiguity in matters of faith and morals causing confusion among the faithful. Confusion breeds division and conflict. It undermines confidence in the Word of God. It weakens evangelical witness. And the result today is a Church more fractured than at any time in her recent history. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Two:

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is certainly autocratic. He is a hypocrite and a pathological liar who cares nothing for the discipline of Catholic Faith, Worship, and Morals. Granted.

However, ambiguity in matters of faith and morals that causes confusion among the faithful is one of the cornerstones of the “Second” Vatican Council and of the “magisterium” of the conciliar “popes.”

Indeed, ambiguity is built into the structure and the collects of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical abomination, which was designed by its Masonic architect, Annibale Bugnini, aided and abetted by the likes of homosexual Consilium worker bees such as Rembert George Weakland, to accustom the faithful to ceaseless changes and instability in the Sacred Liturgy in order to condition them to accept ceaseless changes in matters of Faith and Morals. The Novus Ordo is a vessel of false ecumenism, and false ecumenism has convinced many Catholics to become de facto religious indifferentists who do not believe that they have any responsibility to help non-Catholic family members or friends to convert to the true Faith.

How many Catholics within the conciliar structures today believe that the Catholic Church is the only means of human sanctification and salvation?

How many Catholics within the conciliar structures today believe that interreligious “prayer services are offensive to the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity.

More importantly than anything else, how many Catholics within the conciliar structures today believe in the Real Presence of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour in the Most Blessed Sacrament as a dogma of the Catholic Faith, not that Our Lord is present in the Novus Ordo, of course?

These are only some examples of the ambiguity and confusion caused not by Jorge Mario Bergoglio but by the entire legacy of the “Second” Vatican Council and its aftermath.

I return now to the next passage from Demos II’s essay:

The task of the next pontificate must therefore be one of recovery and reestablishment of truths that have been slowly obscured or lost among many Christians. These include but are not limited to such basics as the following:  (a) no one is saved except through, and only through, Jesus Christ, as he himself made clear; (b) God is merciful but also just, and is intimately concerned with every human life, He forgives but He also holds us accountable, He is both Savior and Judge; (c) man is God’s creature, not a self-invention, a creature not merely of emotion and appetites but also of intellect, free will, and an eternal destiny; (d) unchanging objective truths about the world and human nature exist and are knowable through Divine Revelation and the exercise of reason; (e) God’s Word, recorded in Scripture, is reliable and has permanent force; (f) sin is real and its effects are lethal; and (g) his Church has both the authority and the duty to “make disciples of all nations.” The failure to joyfully embrace that work of missionary, salvific love has consequences. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.” (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Three:

First, providing just one example for the sake brevity, did the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believe that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the only means of human salvation? Not at all:

saying that Christians and Jews "pray to the same Lord." He has cited, as "Pope" Benedict XVI, his own Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible the conclusions reached by the belief that a "Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one:"

5. Many lessons may be learned from our common heritage derived from the Law and the Prophets.  I would like to recall some of them: first of all, the solidarity which binds the Church to the Jewish people “at the level of their spiritual identity”, which offers Christians the opportunity to promote “a renewed respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament” (cf. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish people and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, 2001, pp.12 and 55); the centrality of the Decalogue as a common ethical message of permanent value for Israel, for the Church, for non-believers and for all of humanity; the task of preparing or ushering in the Kingdom of the Most High in the “care for creation” entrusted by God to man for him to cultivate and to care for responsibly (cf. Gen 2:15). (Ratzinger at Rome synagogue: ‘May these wounds be healed forever!’ )

The former conciliar "Petrine Minister" spoke as he did seventy-one months ago now as "Pope" Benedict XVI because he believed then what he had believed as "Cardinal" Ratzinger, which he why he cited the following Preface in his talk at the Rome synagogue on January 17, 2010:

In its work, the Biblical Commission could not ignore the contemporary context, where the shock of the Shoah has put the whole question under a new light. Two main problems are posed: Can Christians, after all that has happened, still claim in good conscience to be the legitimate heirs of Israel's Bible? Have they the right to propose a Christian interpretation of this Bible, or should they not instead, respectfully and humbly, renounce any claim that, in the light of what has happened, must look like a usurpation? The second question follows from the first: In its presentation of the Jews and the Jewish people, has not the New Testament itself contributed to creating a hostility towards the Jewish people that provided a support for the ideology of those who wished to destroy Israel? The Commission set about addressing those two questions. It is clear that a Christian rejection of the Old Testament would not only put an end to Christianity itself as indicated above, but, in addition, would prevent the fostering of positive relations between Christians and Jews, precisely because they would lack common ground. In the light of what has happened, what ought to emerge now is a new respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. On this subject, the Document says two things. First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Cyhristian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible.) 

Apostasy.

The "Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament" is blasphemous in that it denies that God the Holy Ghost, who inspired the words of Sacred Scripture, including the Old Testament, directed the human authors to write the books of the Old Testament with clarity so that they pointed unequivocally to the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by His own power. And what in the world is "Israel"? The country? A way of referring to Talmudic Judaism? If it is the latter, Ratzinger/Benedict once again reaffirmed the validity of a false religion that is hateful in the eyes of God and that has the power to sanctify or save not one human being on the face of this earth.

You are blind, Demos II, to Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s denial of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church as the only means of salvation.

Moreover, did Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paull or Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI ever invite Jews to convert to the true Faith during their visits to synagogues (Wojtyla/John Paul II, Rome, 1986; Ratzinger/Benedict, New York, 2008, Rome, 2010)?

I can ever do you one better than that, did “Saint John Paul II” ever once urge any kind of non-Catholics to convert unconditionally to the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order?

Here are just two examples of how proponent of universal salvation refused to do his duty as a putative Successor of Saint Peter:

1. I am very pleased to have this opportunity during my visit to Sri Lanka to meet representatives of the various religions which have lived together in harmony for a very long time on this Island: especially Buddhism, present for over two thousand years, Hinduism, also of very long standing, along with Islam and Christianity. This simultaneous presence of great religious traditions is a source of enrichment for Sri Lankan society. At the same time it is a challenge to believers and especially to religious leaders, to ensure that religion itself always remains a force for harmony and peace. On the occasion of my Pastoral Visit to the Catholics of Sri Lanka, I wish to reaffirm the Church’s, and my own, deep and abiding respect for the spiritual and cultural values of which you are the guardians.

Especially since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has been fully committed to pursuing the path of dialogue and cooperation with the members of other religions. Interreligious dialogue is a precious means by which the followers of the various religions discover shared points of contact in the spiritual life, while acknowledging the differences which exist between them. The Church respects the freedom of individuals to seek the truth and to embrace it according to the dictates of conscience, and in this light she firmly rejects proselytism and the use of unethical means to gain conversions.

2. The Catholic community hopes that through a continuing "dialogue of life" all believers will co–operate willingly in order to defend and promote moral values, social justice, liberty and peace. Like many modern societies, Sri Lanka is facing the spiritual threat represented by the growth of a materialistic outlook, which is more concerned with "having" than with "being". Experience makes it clear that mere technological progress does not satisfy man’s inner yearning for truth and communion. Deeper spiritual needs have to be met if individuals, families, and society itself are not to fall into a serious crisis of values. There is ample room for co–operation among the followers of the various religions in meeting this serious challenge.

For this reason, I appeal to you and encourage you, as the religious leaders of the Sri Lankan people, to consider the concerns which unite believers, rather than the things which divide them. The safeguarding of Sri Lanka’s spiritual heritage calls for strenuous efforts on the part of everyone to proclaim before the world the sacredness of human life, to defend the inalienable dignity and rights of every individual, to strengthen the family as the primary unit of society and the place where children learn humanity, generosity and love, and to encourage respect for the natural environment. Interreligious co–operation is also a powerful force for promoting ethically upright socio–economic and political standards. Democracy itself benefits greatly from the religiously motivated commitment of believers to the common good.

3. Perhaps nothing represents a greater threat to the spiritual fabric of Sri Lankan society than the continuing ethnic conflict. The religious resources of the entire nation must converge to bring an end to this tragic situation. I recently had occasion to say to an international group of religious leaders: "violence in any form is opposed not only to the respect which we owe to every fellow human being; it is opposed also to the true essence of religion. Whatever the conflicts of the past and even of the present, it is our common task and common duty to make better known the relation between religion and peace" (John Paul II, Address for the Opening of the Sixth World Assembly of the World Conference on Religion and Peace, 2) . The only struggle worthy of man is "the struggle against his own disordered passions, against every type of hatred and violence; in short against everything that is the exact opposite of peace and reconciliation" (John Paul II, Message for the World Day of Peace 1992, 7).

4. Very dear esteemed friends: I am certain that the principles of mercy and non–violence present in your traditions will be a source of inspiration to Sri Lankans in their efforts to build a peace which will be lasting because it is built upon justice and respect for every human being. I express once more my confidence that your country’s long tradition of religious harmony will grow ever stronger, for the peace and well–being of individuals, for the good of Sri Lanka and of all Asia.

[At the end of the meeting the Holy Father added the following words:]

And now I offer you a gift memorable of these days and of the meeting. I am very grateful for your presence and very grateful for this meeting with you that we are together... not against, but together!

Not to be together is dangerous. It is necessary to be together, to dialogue. I am very grateful for that. I see in your presence the signs of the goodwill and of the future, the good future, for Sri Lanka and for the whole world. And so I can return to Rome, more hopeful. Thank you. (Meeting with representatives of other religions (January 21, 1995)

It is a great joy for me to visit once again the beloved land of India and to have this opportunity in particular to greet you, the representatives of different religious traditions, which embody not only great achievements of the past but also the hope of a better future for the human family. I thank the Government and the people of India for the welcome I have received. I come among you as a pilgrim of peace and as a fellow-traveller on the road that leads to the complete fulfilment of the deepest human longings. On the occasion of Diwali, the festival of lights, which symbolizes the victory of life over death, good over evil, I express the hope that this meeting will speak to the world of the things which unite us all: our common human origin and destiny, our shared responsibility for people’s well-being and progress, our need of the light and strength that we seek in our religious convictions. Down the ages and in so many ways, India has taught that truth which the great Christian teachers also propose, that men and women “by inward instinct” are deeply oriented towards God and seek him from the depths of their being (cf. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q. 60, art. 5, 3). On this basis, I am convinced that together we can successfully take the path of understanding and dialogue.

2. My presence here among you is meant as a further sign that the Catholic Church wants to enter ever more deeply into dialogue with the religions of the world. She sees this dialogue as an act of love which has its roots in God himself. “God is love”, proclaims the New Testament, “and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. . . Let us love, then, because he has loved us first. . . no-one who fails to love the brother whom he sees can love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn 4:16, 19-20).

It is a sign of hope that the religions of the world are becoming more aware of their shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family. This is a crucial part of the globalization of solidarity which must come if the future of the world is to be secure. This sense of shared responsibility increases as we discover more of what we have in common as religious men and women.

Which of us does not grapple with the mystery of suffering and death? Which of us does not hold life, truth, peace, freedom and justice to be supremely important values? Which of us is not convinced that moral goodness is soundly rooted in the individual’s and society’s openness to the transcendent world of the Divinity? Which of us does not believe that the way to God requires prayer, silence, asceticism, sacrifice and humility? Which of us is not concerned that scientific and technical progress should be accompanied by spiritual and moral awareness? And which of us does not believe that the challenges now facing society can only be met by building a civilization of love founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice and liberty? And how can we do this, except through encounter, mutual understanding and cooperation?

3. The path before us is demanding, and there is always the temptation to choose instead the path of isolation and division, which leads to conflict. This in turn unleashes the forces which make religion an excuse for violence, as we see too often around the world. Recently I was happy to welcome to the Vatican representatives of the world religions who had gathered to build upon the achievements of the Assisi Meeting in 1986. I repeat here what I said to that distinguished Assembly: “Religion is not, and must not become a pretext for conflict, particularly when religious, cultural and ethnic identity coincide. Religion and peace go together: to wage war in the name of religion is a blatant contradiction”. Religious leaders in particular have the duty to do everything possible to ensure that religion is what God intends it to be – a source of goodness, respect, harmony and peace! This is the only way to honour God in truth and justice!

Our encounter requires that we strive to discern and welcome whatever is good and holy in one another, so that together we can acknowledge, preserve and promote the spiritual and moral truths which alone guarantee the world’s future (cf. Nostra Aetate, 2). In this sense dialogue is never an attempt to impose our own views upon others, since such dialogue would become a form of spiritual and cultural domination. This does not mean that we abandon our own convictions. What it means is that, holding firmly to what we believe, we listen respectfully to others, seeking to discern all that is good and holy, all that favours peace and cooperation.

4. It is vital to recognize that there is a close and unbreakable bond between peace and freedom. Freedom is the most noble prerogative of the human person, and one of the principal demands of freedom is the free exercise of religion in society (cf. Dignitatis Humanae, 3). No State, no group has the right to control either directly or indirectly a person’s religious convictions, nor can it justifiably claim the right to impose or impede the public profession and practice of religion, or the respectful appeal of a particular religion to people’s free conscience. Recalling this year the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I wrote that “religious freedom constitutes the very heart of human rights. Its inviolability is such that individuals must be recognized as having the right even to change their religion, if their conscience so demands. People are obliged to follow their conscience in all circumstances and cannot be forced to act against it (cf. Article 18)” (Message for the 1999 World Day of Peace, 5).

5. In India the way of dialogue and tolerance was the path followed by the great Emperors Ashoka, Akbar and Chatrapati Shivaji; by wise men like Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekananda; and by luminous figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Gurudeva Tagore and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who understood profoundly that to serve peace and harmony is a holy task. These are people who, in India and beyond, have made a significant contribution to the increased awareness of our universal brotherhood, and they point us to a future where our deep longing to pass through the door of freedom will find its fulfilment because we will pass through that door together. To choose tolerance, dialogue and cooperation as the path into the future is to preserve what is most precious in the great religious heritage of mankind. It is also to ensure that in the centuries to come the world will not be without that hope which is the life-blood of the human heart. May the Lord of heaven and earth grant this now and for ever. (Meeting with the Representatives of the Other Religions and of the Other Christian denominations, Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi, November 7, 1999)

Lest you contend, Demos II, that this not a fundamental change in Holy Mother Church’s missionary endeavors, permit me to remind you of what Pope Saint Gregory the Great wrote about Saint Benedict’s hatred of pagan religions and their temples before quoting Pope Pius XII’s encyclical about the work of Saint Boniface, the Apostle to Germany:

The castle called Cassino is situated upon the side of a high mountain which riseth in the air about three miles so that it seemed to touch the very heavens. On Monte Cassino stood an old temple where Apollo was worshiped by the foolish country people, according to the custom of the ancient heathen. Round about it, likewise grew groves, in which even until that time, the mad multitude of infidels offered their idolatrous sacrifices. The man of God, coming to that place, broke down the idol, overthrew the altar, burnt the groves and of the temple made a chapel of St. Martin; and where the profane altar had stood, he built a chapel of St. John and, by continual preaching converted many of the people thereabout.

But the old enemy, not bearing this silently, did present himself in the sight of the Father and with great cries complained of the violence he suffered, in so much that the brethren heard him, though they could see nothing. For, as the venerable Father told his disciples, the wicked fiend represented himself to his sight all on fire and, with flaming mouth and flashing eyes, seemed to rage against him. And they they all heard what he said, for first he called him by name, and when the make of God would make no answer, he fell to reviling him. And whereas before he cried, "Benedict, Benedict," and saw he could get no answer, then he cried, "Maledict, not Benedict, what hast thou to do with me, and why dost thou persecute me?" (Pope Saint Gregory the Great, The Life of Saint Benedict, republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1995, pp. 24-25.)

Then it was that this holy man saw that the time, ordained by God's providence, had come for him to found a family of religious men and to mold them to the perfection of the Gospels. He began under most favorable auspices. "For in those parts he had gathered together a great many in the service of God, so that by the assistance of Our Lord Jesus Christ he built there 12 monasteries, in each of which he put 12 monks with their Superiors, and retained a few with himself whom he thought to instruct further".

But while things started very favorably, as We said, and yielded rich and salutary results, promising still greater in the future, Our saint with the greatest grief of soul, saw a storm breaking over the growing harvest, which an envious spirit had provoked and desires of earthly gain had stirred up. Since Benedict was prompted by divine and not human counsel, and feared lest the envy which had been aroused mainly against himself should wrongfully recoil on his followers, "he let envy take its course, and after he had disposed of the oratories and other buildings -- leaving in them a competent number of brethren with superiors -- he took with him a few monks and went to another place". Trusting in God and relying on His ever present help, he went south and arrived at a fort "called Cassino situated on the side of a high mountain . . .; on this stood an old temple where Apollo was worshipped by the foolish country people, according to the custom of the ancient heathens. Around it likewise grew groves, in which even till that time the mad multitude of infidels used to offer their idolatrous sacrifices. The man of God coming to that place broke the idol, overthrew the altar, burned the groves, and of the temple of Apollo made a chapel of St. Martin. Where the profane altar had stood he built a chapel of St. John; and by continual preaching he converted many of the people thereabout".

Cassino, as all know, was the chief dwelling place and the main theater of the Holy Patriarch's virtue and sanctity. From the summit of this mountain, while practically on all sides ignorance and the darkness of vice kept trying to overshadow and envelop everything, a new light shone, kindled by the teaching and civilization of old and further enriched by the precepts of Christianity; it illumined the wandering peoples and nations, recalled them to truth and directed them along the right path. Thus indeed it may be rightly asserted that the holy monastery built there was a haven and shelter of highest learning and of all the virtues, and in those very troubled times was, "as it were, a pillar of the Church and a bulwark of the faith". (Pope Pius XII, Fulgens Radiatur, March 21, 1947.)

Thus is it was in the better time of Catholicism that true popes praised Saint Benedict for the destruction of idols and their temples, knowing that they were places of devil worship that God Himself wanted to be eliminated. Saint Benedict was not a prisoner of the times in which he lived, and he did not engage in a mere pastoral practice that has grown “obsolete” with the passage of time. Saint Benedict of Nursia understood that false religions, their idols and their temples were loathsome in the sight of the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity.

The other Benedict, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, had kind words for false religions, esteemed their symbols with his priestly hands, enters their temples and calls them sacred places. He even went so far in God and the World to denounce "Christian hotheads and fanatics who destroyed temples, who were unable to see paganism as anything more than idolatry that had to be radically eliminated." Jorge has outdone Ratzinger/Benedict by leaps and bounds in this regard as a blasphemer without any equal in the world.

The two Benedicts and the one Jorge--and their predecessors--cannot be reconciled on this point with Saint Benedict.

Saint Benedict of Nursia sought to eliminate false worship and its temples.

Simply following the lead of his immediate predecessor, "Saint John Paul II" and paving the way for his very busy, motor mouth successor, Bergoglio, Ratzinger/Benedict XVI sought to praise them, explaining that it is the "peaceful coexistence of religions" that constitutes "peace" in the world:

VATICAN CITY, 17 DEC 2009 (VIS) - Today in the Vatican, the Holy Father received the Letters of Credence of eight new ambassadors to the Holy See: Hans Klingenberg of Denmark; Francis K. Butagira of Uganda; Suleiman Mohamad Mustafa of Sudan; Elkanah Odembo of Kenya; Mukhtar B. Tileuberdi of Kazakhstan; Abdul Hannan of Bangladesh; Alpo Rusi of Finland, and Einars Semanis of Latvia.

Addressing the diplomats as a group, the Pope referred to the need for "a just relationship between human beings and the creation in which they live and work" In this context, he underlined the need for "environmental responsibility" because "the continual degradation of the environment constitutes a direct threat to man's survival and his development, and threatens peace among individuals and peoples".

Benedict XVI encouraged the political authorities of the countries the ambassadors represent, and those of all nations, "not only to increase their efforts in favour of environmental protection but also - since the problem cannot be faced only at the national level - to produce proposals and provide encouragement in order to reach vital international agreements that may prove useful and just for all sides".

After then highlighting the importance of "converting or modifying the current development model of our societies", the Pope pointed out that "the Church proposes that this profound change ... be guided by the notion of the integral development of the human person".

"If it is true", said the Holy Father, "that over history religions have often been a factor of conflict, it is also nonetheless true that religions lived according to their profound essence have been, and still are, a force for reconciliation and peace. At this moment in history religions must, through open and sincere dialogue, seek the path of purification in order to conform ever more closely to their true vocation".

"Peaceful coexistence of different religions in each nation is sometimes difficult", he continued. "More than a political problem, this co-existence is a religious problem which lies within the bosom of each one of those traditions. Believers are called to ask God about His will concerning each human situation".  

"For people of faith or people of good will, the resolution of human conflicts and the delicate coexistence of different religious expressions can be transformed into an opportunity for human coexistence within a social order full of goodness and wisdom, the origin and impulse of which lies in God. Such coexistence, respecting the nature of things and the inherent wisdom that comes from God, is called peace", said Pope Benedict.    

"The peace we so long for will not come into being save by the joint action of individuals, who discover the true nature of God, and of leaders of civil and religious society who - respecting the dignity and faith of all people - know how to give religion its noble and authentic role in creating and perfecting the human person. This overall reworking, at once temporal and spiritual, will enable a new beginning towards the peace that God wishes to be universal". (RELIGIONS ARE A FORCE FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION .)

Wake up, Demos II. Open your eyes. You cannot defend Catholicism against Jorge Mario Bergoglio if you do not realize that the Catholic Faith as taught from time immemorial was fundamentally changed and corrupted.

We move on to the next passage from Demos II’s essay:

Some practical observations flow from the task and list above.

First: Real authority is damaged by authoritarian means in its exercise. The Pope is a Successor of Peter and the guarantor of Church unity. But he is not an autocrat. He cannot change Church doctrine, and he must not invent or alter the Church’s discipline arbitrarily. He governs the Church collegially with his brother bishops in local dioceses. And he does so always in faithful continuity with the Word of God and Church teaching. “New paradigms” and “unexplored new paths” that deviate from either are not of God. A new Pope must restore the hermeneutic of continuity in Catholic life and reassert Vatican II’s understanding of the papacy’s proper role.

Interjection Number Four:

First, the “hermeneutic of continuity” is nothing other than a relabeled and repackaged version of the dogmatic evolutionism condemned by Pope Pius IX and the Fathers of the [First] Vatican Council, Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, Praestina Scripturae, November 18, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.

Please, Demos II, contrast Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s lifelong warfare against the nature of dogmatic truth, which was nothing other than warfare against the very nature of the Most Holy Trinity and His immutability, with the condemnation from the sources cited in the previous paragraph:

1971: "In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute. 

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes." (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

1990: "The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time."

(Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, cited at Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete)

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.  

On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

Basic decisions, therefore, continue to be well-grounded, whereas the way they are applied to new contexts can change. Thus, for example, if religious freedom were to be considered an expression of the human inability to discover the truth and thus become a canonization of relativism, then this social and historical necessity is raised inappropriately to the metaphysical level and thus stripped of its true meaning. Consequently, it cannot be accepted by those who believe that the human person is capable of knowing the truth about God and, on the basis of the inner dignity of the truth, is bound to this knowledge.

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom,has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

The martyrs of the early Church died for their faith in that God who was revealed in Jesus Christ, and for this very reason they also died for freedom of conscience and the freedom to profess one's own faith - a profession that no State can impose but which, instead, can only be claimed with God's grace in freedom of conscience. A missionary Church known for proclaiming her message to all peoples must necessarily work for the freedom of the faith. She desires to transmit the gift of the truth that exists for one and all. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI never believed that doctrine has been revealed by God, preferring to contend that doctrine “develops from faith,” a bold contention that is of the essence of Modernism and condemned forcefully by the Fathers of the [First] Vatican Council and by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, as quoted above.

For the likes of men such as the conciliar revolutionaries to be correct, the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity not only hid the true meaning of doctrines for over nineteen hundred years, He permitted true popes and the Fathers of Holy Mother Church's twenty true general councils to condemn propositions that have, we are supposed to believe, only recently been "discovered" as having been true. Blasphemous and heretical.

Ratzinger/Benedict did not have a zeal to convert souls to the true Faith, but he did possess a burning zeal to convince others of the mutability of Catholic doctrine, which is why one of the first things he did as “Pope Benedict” was to appoint William Levada to succeed himself as the prefect of the conciliar church’s so-called Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Levada was unapologetic in his support of dogmatic evolutionism.

The late William "Cardinal" Levada made it clear in an interview he gave to the Whispers in the Loggia website nearly thirteen years ago now that he believed in the exact same Modernist conception of dogmatic truth:

The role of the Church in that dialogue between an individual and his or her God, says the Cardinal, is not to be the first interlocutor, but the role is indispensable. "We believe that the apostles and their successors received the mission to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges. That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another.

But at the end of the day there has to be an instance that can decide whether a specific lifestyle is coherent with the principles and values of our faith, that can judge whether our actions are in accordance with the commandment to love your neighbor. The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigate different hypotheses, or collect knowledge. Its mission is to give those processes orientation". . . . (Levada Gives Rare Interview.)

The mission of the Catholic Church is to sanctify and to save souls.

As Pope Gregory XVI noted in Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834, Mother Church brings forth Our Lord’s teaching without so much as a slight taint or varnish of error:

As for the rest, We greatly deplore the fact that, where the ravings of human reason extend, there is somebody who studies new things and strives to know more than is necessary, against the advice of the apostle. There you will find someone who is overconfident in seeking the truth outside the Catholic Church, in which it can be found without even a light tarnish of error. Therefore, the Church is called, and is indeed, a pillar and foundation of truth. You correctly understand, venerable brothers, that We speak here also of that erroneous philosophical system which was recently brought in and is clearly to be condemned. This system, which comes from the contemptible and unrestrained desire for innovation, does not seek truth where it stands in the received and holy apostolic inheritance. Rather, other empty doctrines, futile and uncertain doctrines not approved by the Church, are adopted. Only the most conceited men wrongly think that these teachings can sustain and support that truth. (Pope Gregory XVI, Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834.) 

Pope Saint Gregory XVI was condemning an approach to doctrinal truth that was propagated by the late Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict, a progenitor of novelty and innovation in his own Modernist right, and that he taught to his own students, including William Levada, thus making short work of the Act of Faith:

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art One God in Three Divine Persons. I believe that Thy Divine Son became Man, died for our sins, and will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which Thy Holy Catholic Church teaches because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. (Act of Faith.)

The Catholic Faith is certain, and our true popes made sure to remind us of that fact as circumstances warranted:

For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence, but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.

Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1870.)

Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.

Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and clearly flows from their principles. For among the chief points of their teaching is the following, which they deduce from the principle of vital immanence, namely, that religious formulas if they are to be really religious and not merely intellectual speculations, ought to be living and to live the life of the religious sense. This is not to be understood to mean that these formulas, especially if merely imaginative, were to be invented for the religious sense. Their origin matters nothing, any more than their number or quality. What is necessary is that the religious sense -- with some modification when needful -- should vitally assimilate them. In other words, it is necessary that the primitive formula be accepted and sanctioned by the heart; and similarly the subsequent work from which are brought forth the secondary formulas must proceed under the guidance of the heart.

Hence it comes that these formulas, in order to be living, should be, and should remain, adapted to the faith and to him who believes. Wherefore, if for any reason this adaptation should cease to exist, they lose their first meaning and accordingly need to be changed. In view of the fact that the character and lot of dogmatic formulas are so unstable, it is no wonder that Modernists should regard them so lightly and in such open disrespect, and have no consideration or praise for anything but the religious sense and for the religious life. In this way, with consummate audacity, they criticize the Church, as having strayed from the true path by failing to distinguish between the religious and moral sense of formulas and their surface meaning, and by clinging vainly and tenaciously to meaningless formulas, while religion itself is allowed to go to ruin. "Blind'- they are, and "leaders of the blind" puffed up with the proud name of science, they have reached that pitch of folly at which they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true meaning of religion; in introducing a new system in which "they are seen to be under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other and vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, unapproved by the Church, on which, in the height of their vanity, they think they can base and maintain truth itself." (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Domici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

After mature examination and the most diligent deliberations the Pontifical Biblical Commission has happily given certain decisions of a very useful kind for the proper promotion and direction on safe lines of Biblical studies. But we observe that some persons, unduly prone to opinions and methods tainted by pernicious novelties and excessively devoted to the principle of false liberty, which is really immoderate license and in sacred studies proves itself to be a most insidious and a fruitful source of the worst evils against the purity of the faith, have not received and do not receive these decisions with the proper obedience.

Wherefore we find it necessary to declare and to expressly prescribe, and by this our act we do declare and decree that all are bound in conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission relating to doctrine, which have been given in the past and which shall be given in the future, in the same way as to the decrees of the Roman congregations approved by the Pontiff; nor can all those escape the note of disobedience or temerity, and consequently of grave sin, who in speech or writing contradict such decisions, and this besides the scandal they give and the other reasons for which they may be responsible before God for other temerities and errors which generally go with such contradictions.

Moreover, in order to check the daily increasing audacity of many modernists who are endeavoring by all kinds of sophistry and devices to detract from the force and efficacy not only of the decree "Lamentabili sane exitu" (the so-called Syllabus), issued by our order by the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition on July 3 of the present year, but also of our encyclical letters "Pascendi dominici gregis" given on September 8 of this same year, we do by our apostolic authority repeat and confirm both that decree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation and those encyclical letters of ours, adding the penalty of excommunication against their contradictors, and this we declare and decree that should anybody, which may God forbid, be so rash as to defend any one of the propositions, opinions or teachings condemned in these documents he falls, ipso facto, under the censure contained under the chapter "Docentes" of the constitution "Apostolicae Sedis," which is the first among the excommunications latae sententiae, simply reserved to the Roman Pontiff. This excommunication is to be understood as salvis poenis, which may be incurred by those who have violated in any way the said documents, as propagators and defenders of heresies, when their propositions, opinions and teachings are heretical, as has happened more than once in the case of the adversaries of both these documents, especially when they advocate the errors of the modernists that is, the synthesis of all heresies.

Wherefore we again and most earnestly exhort the ordinaries of the dioceses and the heads of religious congregations to use the utmost vigilance over teachers, and first of all in the seminaries; and should they find any of them imbued with the errors of the modernists and eager for what is new and noxious, or lacking in docility to the prescriptions of the Apostolic See, in whatsoever way published, let them absolutely forbid the teaching office to such; so, too, let them exclude from sacred orders those young men who give the very faintest reason for doubt that they favor condemned doctrines and pernicious novelties. We exhort them also to take diligent care to put an end to those books and other writings, now growing exceedingly numerous, which contain opinions or tendencies of the kind condemned in the encyclical letters and decree above mentioned; let them see to it that these publications are removed from Catholic publishing houses, and especially from the hands of students and the clergy. By doing this they will at the same time be promoting real and solid education, which should always be a subject of the greatest solicitude for those who exercise sacred authority.

All these things we will and order to be sanctioned and established by our apostolic authority, aught to the contrary notwithstanding. (Pope Saint Pius X, Praestantia Scripturae, November 18, 1907.)

I hold with certainty and I sincerely confess that faith is not a blind inclination of religion welling up from the depth of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the inclination of a morally conditioned will, but is the genuine assent of the intellect to a truth that is received from outside by hearing. In this assent, given on the authority of the all-truthful God, we hold to be true what has been said, attested to, and revealed, by the personal God, our creator and Lord.” (Pope Saint Pius X, The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

“Some hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. […] It is evident from what We have already said, that such efforts not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it.” (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

A “restoration” of the so-called “hermeneutic of continuity” can do nothing but further institutional the kind of instability, uncertainty, and ambiguity that is of the very nature of the false conciliar ethos.

Second, yes, it is true that a true pope can never change doctrine “arbitrarily” as it is the beyond the power of a true pope to change anything about Catholic doctrine even if he acts “collegially” with the bishops.

Yet is that the fathers of the “Second” Vatican Council, led in no small measure by a peritus named Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, dared to change the nature of Holy Mother Church’s unicity in Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964:

Joseph Alois Ratzinger worked with a Lutheran “observer” at the “Second” Vatican Council to devise the heretical statement that the “Church of Christ subsists within the Catholic Church” that became the linchpin of Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, and thus of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s “new ecclesiology.”

This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity. (Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964.)

Despite all of the efforts made by defenders of all things conciliar to try to explain how the passage from Lumen Gentium above was not a contradiction of Pope Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis, it is nevertheless the case that Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s “new ecclesiology” of “full communion” and “partial communion” received its official sanction in Lumen Gentium. The seeds were thus planted for a wider and more “generous” application of the “new ecclesiology that Ratzinger himself defended in an interview with the Frankfort Allgemeine newspaper on September 22, 2000, forty-seven days after the issuance of Dominus Iesus on August 6, 2000, the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Indeed, the then “Cardinal” Ratzinger boasted that Lumen Gentium recognized that there were other “churches” outside of the Catholic Church:

Q. On the other hand, Eberhard Jüngel sees something different there. The fact that in its time the Second Vatican Council did not state that the one and only Church of Christ is exclusively the Roman Catholic Church perplexes Jüngel. In the Constitution Lumen gentium, it says only that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him", not expressing any exclusivity with the Latin word "subsistit".

A. Unfortunately once again I cannot follow the reasoning of my esteemed colleague, Jüngel. I was there at the Second Vatican Council when the term "subsistit" was chosen and I can say I know it well. Regrettably one cannot go into details in an interview. In his Encyclical Pius XII said: the Roman Catholic Church "is" the one Church of Jesus Christ. This seems to express a complete identity, which is why there was no Church outside the Catholic community. However, this is not the case: according to Catholic teaching, which Pius XII obviously also shared, the local Churches of the Eastern Church separated from Rome are authentic local Churches; the communities that sprang from the Reformation are constituted differently, as I just said. In these the Church exists at the moment when the event takes place. . .

Q. In short, why cannot the "otherness" of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be compared to the diversity of ecclesial communities? Is Jüngel's not a fascinating and harmonious formula?

A. Among the ecclesial communities there are many disagreements, and what disagreements! The three "persons" constitute one God in an authentic and supreme unity. When the Council Fathers replaced the word "is" with the word "subsistit", they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by "is" (to be) is far broader than that expressed by "to subsist". "To subsist" is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.  (Answers to Main Objections Against Dominus Iesus.) 

One can see that the then “Cardinal” Ratzinger had explained the Latin word subsistit had been chosen at the “Second” Vatican Council precisely because it signified that the “Church of Christ” was an entity larger than the Catholic Church herself.

Ratzinger was so bold as to project this heretical belief upon Pope Pius XII, who did not believe that the Eastern Orthodox churches were part of the one Church of Christ that is the Catholic Church, implying that there was a possibility that Papa Pacelli had gotten it wrong, that he might not have agreed with what Ratzinger contended was the “Catholic teaching” contained in Lumen Gentium. He even went so far as to assert that Protestant sects became part of the “Church of Christ” at the moment, which he called “the event,” of their being founded by this or that heretic. That is not what Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

By abandoning this truth of the Catholic Faith, the bishops at the “Second” Vatican Council, led by the soon-to-be “beatified” Giovanni Battista Montini/Paul the Sick showed themselves to have defected from the Catholic Faith. This one defection, among so many others, of course, this one “drop of poison” is a denial of the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church, which in and of itself resulted inevitably in the belief that the Church founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has something to “learn” from “other religions.” Once one believes such a lie, however, it is easy to come to the specious conclusion that one can find “elements of true love” in the lives of those who are persisting in what are, objectively speaking, Mortal Sins that could, if not confessed before death, lead to eternal damnation and already consign them to lives destined to strike out at anyone who dares to perform the Spiritual Works of Mercy by admonishing them to reform their lives lest they perish in flames of Hell for all eternity.

It is very telling that Demos II did not address false ecumenism in his essay as he must come to realize that seeking the “ecumenism of the return” was rejected by the late Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in no uncertain terms:

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. (Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne English) 

Here is what our true popes have written on the matter of the "ecumenism of the return:"

"It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd." (Pope Pius IX, Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868.)

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly." The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Who is Catholic here? "Pope" Benedict XVI or Popes Pius IX and Pius XI?

One cannot be intellectually honest and ignore Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini's, Karol Josef Wojtyla's and Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict’s lack of true charity for the souls of non-Catholics (and for the souls of those Protestants, Jews, Mohammedans, Hindi, Buddhists, and other assorted “believers”) while excoriating Jorge Mario Bergoglio for his own infidelity, including the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together.”

Although I will provide examples in the appendix below of how the lords of conciliarism have abandoned the Catholic Church’s condemnation of religious liberty and separation of Church and State, perhaps it useful for present purposes, Demos II, to note that the conciliar sect has changed the Catholic teaching on the immutable ends proper to Holy Matrimony that are contained in both Divine Revelation and the Natural Law. It is beyond the power of any true pope or of a pope and the bishops of the world together in true general council to change the ends of Holy Matrimony, but this is precisely what the conciliar revolutionaries did.

Open your eyes, Demos II, to how the 1983 conciliar code of canon law changed the canon enshrined in the 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law:

856. The primary object of marriage is the procreation and education of offspring; the secondary purpose is mutual assistance and the remedy of concupiscence. (This can be found on page 205 of the following link, which is the 1917 Code of Canon Law in English:  1917 Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law.)

Can.  1055 §1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. (Canon 1055.1 1983 Conciliar Code of Canon Law. By the way, Father Vigano, your beloved Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II propagated the so-called 1983 Code of Canon Law. Not even a true pope can change something that exists in the very nature of things. Why no criticism of "Saint John Paul II"?)

The entire fabric of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s teaching on the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, including its endorsement of the falsehood that is "natural family planning," is built on the fabric of the inversion of the ends of marriage that was condemned personally by Pope Pius XII on March 29, 1944, a condemnation that he cited and reiterated in the strongest terms possible in his aforementioned Address to Italian Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession:

Certain publications concerning the purposes of matrimony, and their interrelationship and order, have come forth within these last years which either assert that the primary purpose of matrimony is not the generation of offspring, or that the secondary purposes are not subordinate to the primary purpose, but are independent of it.

In these works, different primary purposes of marriage are designated by other writers, as for example: the complement and personal perfection of the spouses through a complete mutual participation in life and action; mutual love and union of spouses to be nurtured and perfected the psychic and bodily surrender of one’s own person; and many other such things.

In the same writings a sense is sometimes attributed to words in the current documents of the Church (as for example, primary, secondary purpose), which does not agree with these words according to the common usage by theologians.

This revolutionary way of thinking and speaking aims to foster errors and uncertainties, to avoid which the Eminent and Very Fathers of this supreme Sacred Congregation, charged with the guarding of faith and morals, in a plenary session on Wednesday, the 29th of March, 1944, when the question was proposed to them: “Whether the opinion of certain writers can be admitted, who either deny that the primary purpose of matrimony is the generation of children and raising offspring, or teach that the secondary purposes are not essentially subordinate to the primary purpose, but are equally first and independent,” have decreed that the answer must be: In the negative. (As found in Henry Denzinger, Enchirdion Symbolorum, thirteenth edition, translated into English by Roy Deferrari and published in 1955 as The Sources of Catholic Dogma–referred to as “Denziger,” by B. Herder Book Company of St. Louis, Missouri, and London, England, No. 2295, pp. 624-625.)

This is how Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI sought to change the unchangeable teaching about the very nature of Holy Matrimony:

37. There is no denying that the accelerated rate of population growth brings many added difficulties to the problems of development where the size of the population grows more rapidly than the quantity of available resources to such a degree that things seem to have reached an impasse. In such circumstances people are inclined to apply drastic remedies to reduce the birth rate.

There is no doubt that public authorities can intervene in this matter, within the bounds of their competence. They can instruct citizens on this subject and adopt appropriate measures, so long as these are in conformity with the dictates of the moral law and the rightful freedom of married couples is preserved completely intact. When the inalienable right of marriage and of procreation is taken away, so is human dignity.

Finally, it is for parents to take a thorough look at the matter and decide upon the number of their children. This is an obligation they take upon themselves, before their children already born, and before the community to which they belong—following the dictates of their own consciences informed by God's law authentically interpreted, and bolstered by their trust in Him. (39)(Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967.)

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI was a Marxist sympathizer, if not a Marxist himself. Indeed, Father Michael Roach, who taught Church History at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, said in a class lecture in the Fall of 1981 that he had been with the then rector of the seminary, Monsignor Harry Flynn, who would later denounce Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., as an "anti-Semite" (see Disconnects), in his capacity as the conciliar "archbishop" of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the time of the death of Montini/Paul VI on August 6, 1978. According to Father Roach, the then Monsignor Flynn, a priest of the Diocese of Albany, New York, said, "Ah, yes, Paul VI. A marvelous man. A Marxist, but a marvelous man nonetheless."

The point is this: Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio MariaMontini/Paul VI, who betrayed the identity of Catholic priests behind the Iron Curtain when serving the the Vatican's Secretariat of State under Pope Pius XII, accepted the Malthusian myth of "overpopulation" and "depleted resources" to assert that it is parents who decide how many children they are to welcome into the world. Wrong. God decides this, not parents. God can see to it that children are conceived despite the more careful "precautions" taken against their conception, something that is as true of the use of what is called today "natural family planning" as it is of artificial contraception. God decides this matter. No one else. God is alone the Sovereign over the sanctity and the fecundity of marriage. No one else.

As noted at the beginning of this essay, Pope Pius XI, writing in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930, stated this quite explicitly:

10. Now when We come to explain, Venerable Brethren, what are the blessings that God has attached to true matrimony, and how great they are, there occur to Us the words of that illustrious Doctor of the Church whom We commemorated recently in Our Encyclical Ad salutem on the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of his death:[9] "These," says St. Augustine, "are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; offspring, conjugal faith and the sacrament."[10] And how under these three heads is contained a splendid summary of the whole doctrine of Christian marriage, the holy Doctor himself expressly declares when he said: "By conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This we regard as the law of marriage by which the fruitfulness of nature is adorned and the evil of incontinence is restrained."[11]

11. Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place. And indeed the Creator of the human race Himself, Who in His goodness wishes to use men as His helpers in the propagation of life, taught this when, instituting marriage in Paradise, He said to our first parents, and through them to all future spouses: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth."[12] As St. Augustine admirably deduces from the words of the holy Apostle Saint Paul to Timothy[13] when he says: "The Apostle himself is therefore a witness that marriage is for the sake of generation: 'I wish,' he says, 'young girls to marry.' And, as if someone said to him, 'Why?,' he immediately adds: 'To bear children, to be mothers of families'."[14]

12. How great a boon of God this is, and how great a blessing of matrimony is clear from a consideration of man's dignity and of his sublime end. For man surpasses all other visible creatures by the superiority of his rational nature alone. Besides, God wishes men to be born not only that they should live and fill the earth, but much more that they may be worshippers of God, that they may know Him and love Him and finally enjoy Him for ever in heaven; and this end, since man is raised by God in a marvelous way to the supernatural order, surpasses all that eye hath seen, and ear heard, and all that hath entered into the heart of man.[15] From which it is easily seen how great a gift of divine goodness and how remarkable a fruit of marriage are children born by the omnipotent power of God through the cooperation of those bound in wedlock.

13. But Christian parents must also understand that they are destined not only to propagate and preserve the human race on earth, indeed not only to educate any kind of worshippers of the true God, but children who are to become members of the Church of Christ, to raise up fellow-citizens of the Saints, and members of God's household,[16] that the worshippers of God and Our Savior may daily increase.

14. For although Christian spouses even if sanctified themselves cannot transmit sanctification to their progeny, nay, although the very natural process of generating life has become the way of death by which original sin is passed on to posterity, nevertheless, they share to some extent in the blessings of that primeval marriage of Paradise, since it is theirs to offer their offspring to the Church in order that by this most fruitful Mother of the children of God they may be regenerated through the laver of Baptism unto supernatural justice and finally be made living members of Christ, partakers of immortal life, and heirs of that eternal glory to which we all aspire from our inmost heart.

15. If a true Christian mother weigh well these things, she will indeed understand with a sense of deep consolation that of her the words of Our Savior were spoken: "A woman . . . when she hath brought forth the child remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world";[17] and proving herself superior to all the pains and cares and solicitudes of her maternal office with a more just and holy joy than that of the Roman matron, the mother of the Gracchi, she will rejoice in the Lord crowned as it were with the glory of her offspring. Both husband and wife, however, receiving these children with joy and gratitude from the hand of God, will regard them as a talent committed to their charge by God, not only to be employed for their own advantage or for that of an earthly commonwealth, but to be restored to God with interest on the day of reckoning. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii , December 31, 1930.)

God decides how many or how few children a Catholic married couple will have. No one else. Men may try to the thwart the natural end of marriage. They may be able to be "successful," as they count "success," perhaps even more often than not. No human means of deliberately frustrating the natural end of marriage is infallible, and no carefully planned use of the gift proper to the married state in those times during a month when a woman is more apt it to be infertile than others will avoid the conception of a new child in all instances. God is the Sovereign of the fecundity of marriage.

As a Modernist and a socialist who was, as noted earlier, at the very least sympathetic to Marxism, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, however, thought and spoke in naturalistic terms that were tinged with vestigial after-effects of the Holy Faith. He accepted the myths of "progress" and "world peace" represented by the United Masonic Nations Organization, about which Pope Pius XII, although at first supportive of the organization, began to sour in the 1950s, and accepted the myths of "overpopulation." It was for this reason that he continued the work of the aforementioned "Pontifical Commission for the Study of Population, Family and Births so that its members could study the biological operation of the "birth control pill" to determine if it could be used morally to prevent the conception of children, especially in areas of endemic poverty,. A member of that commission, Archbishop Albino Luciani of Venice, Italy, the future "John Paul I," is said to have voted to endorse "the pill," which, apart from the denying the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage, is a chemical abortifacient, because of his concerns for "the poor."

Montini/Paul VI was open to "the pill" to deal with the nonexistent problem of overpopulation. Unable to endorse its use, though, he used Humanae Vitae to expand the conditions outlined by Pope Pius XII in his Allocution to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession in 1951 to invert the ends of marriage, an inversion that would be institutionalized later by the "personalist phenomenologist" named Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the hideously disgusting "theology of the body" that he explicated over the course of years in his "general audience" talks in the early-1980s (talks he was giving at the time he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca on Wednesday, May 13, 1981, by the way), thus paving the way for the propagation and acceptance of the cottage industry that became known as "natural family planning" as the expected norm for married couples, who must be "educated" in matters that violate modesty of speech and detract from the sanctity of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony: 

Montini/Paul VI prefaced Humanae Vitae's expanded conditions for the use of a woman's infertile periods as the basis of avoiding the conception of children upon with yet another reference to the myth of overpopulation:

1. The most serious duty of transmitting human life, for which married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator, has always been a source of great joys to them, even if sometimes accompanied by not a few difficulties and by distress.

At all times the fulfillment of this duty has posed grave problems to the conscience of married persons, but, with the recent evolution of society, changes have taken place that give rise to new questions which the Church could not ignore, having to do with a matter which so closely touches upon the life and happiness of men.

2. The changes which have taken place are in fact noteworthy and of varied kinds. In the first place, there is the rapid demographic development. Fear is shown by many that world population is growing more rapidly than the available resources, with growing distress to many families and developing countries, so that the temptation for authorities to counter this danger with radical measures is great. Moreover, working and lodging conditions, as well as increased exigencies both in the economic field and in that of education, often make the proper education of a larger number of children difficult today. A change is also seen both in the manner of considering the person of woman and her place in society, and in the value to be attributed to conjugal love in marriage, and also in the appreciation to be made of the meaning of conjugal acts in relation to that love.

Finally and above all, man has made stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature, such that he tends to extend this domination to his own total being: to the body, to psychical life, to social life and even to the laws which regulate the transmission of life.

3. This new state of things gives rise to new questions. Granted the conditions of life today, and granted the meaning which conjugal relations have with respect to the harmony between husband and wife and to their mutual fidelity, would not a revision of the ethical norms, in force up to now, seem to be advisable, especially when it is considered that they cannot be observed without sacrifices, sometimes heroic sacrifices?

And again: by extending to this field the application of the so-called "principle of totality," could it not be admitted that the intention of a less abundant but more rationalized fecundity might transform a materially sterilizing intervention into a licit and wise control of birth? Could it not be admitted, that is, that the finality of procreation pertains to the ensemble of conjugal life, rather than to its single acts? It is also asked whether, in view of the increased sense of responsibility of modern man, the moment has not come for him to entrust to his reason and his will, rather than to the biological rhythms of his organism, the task of regulating birth.

4. Such questions required from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection upon the principles of the moral teaching on marriage: a teaching founded on the natural law, illuminated and enriched by divine revelation. (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)

It is upon these false premises that the hideous friend of the lavender collective, of which he may very well have been a charter member, handed so many Catholic couples over to the devil so that they could immersed in considerations of physicality that have never had any place in Catholic teaching. Although Montini/Paul VI re-stated the immutable teaching of the Church concerning the begetting of children, this was part of the "bait and switch" game as he used his own text to place what he called the "unitive" end before that of procreation:

And finally this love is fecund for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue, raising up new lives. "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents."⁸

10. Hence conjugal love requires in husband and wife an awareness of their mission of "responsible parenthood," which today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must be exactly understood. Consequently it is to be considered under different aspects which are legitimate and connected with one another.

In relation to the biological processes, responsible parenthood means the knowledge and respect of their functions; human intellect discovers in the power of giving life biological laws which are part of the human person.

In relation to the tendencies of instinct or passion, responsible parenthood means that necessary dominion which reason and will must exercise over them.

In relation to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised, either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family, or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect for the moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth.

Responsible parenthood also and above all implies a more profound relationship to the objective moral order established by God, of which a right conscience is the faithful interpreter. The responsible exercise of parenthood implies, therefore, that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties towards God, towards themselves, towards the family and towards society, in a correct hierarchy of values.

In the task of transmitting life, therefore, they are not free to proceed completely at will, as if they could determine in a wholly autonomous way the honest path to follow; but they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church.

11. These acts, by which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy, and by means of which human life is transmitted, are, as the Council recalled, "noble and worthy,"and they do not cease to be lawful if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they are foreseen to be infecund, since they always remain ordained towards expressing and consolidating their union. In fact, as experience bears witness, not every conjugal act is followed by a new life. God has wisely disposed natural laws and rhythms of fecundity which, of themselves, cause a separation in the succession of births. Nonetheless the Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by their constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act (quilibet matrimonii usus) must remain open to the transmission of life.

12. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's most high calling to parenthood. We believe that the men of our day are particularly capable of seeing the deeply reasonable and human character of this fundamental principle. (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968.)

Who had been calling for "responsible parenthood" for five decades prior to her death on September 6, 1966?

The nymphomaniac, racist and eugenicist named Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Birth Control League that became known as Planned Parenthood, that's who. Her followers continue to champion this shopworn slogan that found its way into the text of an alleged "papal" encyclical letter. Montini/Paul VI's acceptance of "responsible parenthood" slogan of Margaret Sanger and her diabolical minions, coupled with the inversion of the ends of marriage propagated by Dietrich von Hildebrand, constitutes a revolution against the ends of marriage that have "baptized," if you will, a supposedly "natural" form of contraception that is to be used as a matter of routine, not in truly extraordinary cases, where is it only lawful, that is, permissible, and never mandated.

The inclusion of "psychological" reasons to abstain from the conception of children by the use of "knowing" the physicality of a woman's body has been interpreted rather broadly, shall we say. In plain English: the use of "psychological" reasons to abstain from the conception of children has been used to reaffirm the "consciences" of those who are "not ready" for children. This is no different whatsoever than those who have chosen the use of artificial means to prevent the conception of children because they are "not ready" to have them. They have careers. They have poor finances. They have elderly parents for whom to care. They have "plans." They have to get through school. And on and on on. Everybody's got a "serious reason." These are nothing other than excuses and rationalizations that consider marriage in purely naturalistic and materialistic, if not utilitarian, terms without any true love of God and thus of trust that He will send married couples all of the supernatural and temporal helps that they need to provide for the children that God sees fit to send them.

The "teaching" that led to what is called today as "natural family planning" is not to be found in Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession. It is to be found in Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, devoted to the "responsible parenthood" slogan of Planned Parenthood and the United Nations and environmental groups.

Truly responsible Catholic parenthood is founded in a love for God's Holy Will and by training however many or few children in the truths of the Catholic Faith, which require parents to eschew worldliness and to arm them with the supernatural and natural means to live in a "popular culture" devoted to the glorification of the very thing that caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and that caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be pierced through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, that is, sin. That's truly responsible Catholic parenthood. Not that which is represented by "Paul the Sick" and Humanae Vitae.

This point has been belabored enough.

Third, the “Second” Vatican Council’s teaching on the “papacy” is false as a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter is a monarch, who may choose to act in a consultative manner with the bishops but who also act without such consultation whenever he deems fit to do so. The papacy is an absolute monarch who is the supreme vicar of Christ the King on earth. His word is final and binds the consciences of all Catholics, and no true pope’s final word on a subject of Faith, Worship, and Morals can ever be contrary to the Catholic Faith.

“Vatican II’s” teaching on the papacy culminated in Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s going so far as to claim that the papacy could be exercised in a way that the Orthodox and “other ecclesial communities” could accept:

Whatever relates to the unity of all Christian communities clearly forms part of the concerns of the primacy. As Bishop of Rome I am fully aware, as I have reaffirmed in the present Encyclical Letter, that Christ ardently desires the full and visible communion of all those Communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his Spirit dwells. I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility in this regard, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian Communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation. For a whole millennium Christians were united in “a brotherly fraternal communion of faith and sacramental life … If disagreements in belief and discipline arose among them, the Roman See acted by common consent as moderator“.

In this way the primacy exercised its office of unity. When addressing the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Dimitrios I, I acknowledged my awareness that “for a great variety of reasons, and against the will of all concerned, what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light. But … it is out of a desire to obey the will of Christ truly that I recognize that as Bishop of Rome I am called to exercise that ministry … I insistently pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the Pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek—together, of course—the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned“.

This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself. Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade Church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us only the will of Christ for his Church and allowing ourselves to be deeply moved by his plea “that they may all be one … so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21)? (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995.)

It was twelve years later, October 13, 2007, the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, that an "unofficial" official document, the Ravenna Document, was issued by William "Cardinal" Levada on behalf of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church that formalized the musings of Ratzinger in Principles of Catholic Theology and of Wojtyla/John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint:

It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of koinonia and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.

We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together. (The Ravenna Document)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI put his “papal” seal of approval on The Ravenna Document just forty-one days after its issuance on the ninetieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal:

This year we thank God in particular for the meeting of the Joint Commission which took place in Ravenna, a city whose monuments speak eloquently of the ancient Byzantine heritage handed down to us from the undivided Church of the first millennium. May the splendour of those mosaics inspire all the members of the Joint Commission to pursue their important task with renewed determination, in fidelity to the Gospel and to Tradition, ever alert to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the Church today.

While the meeting in Ravenna was not without its difficulties, I pray earnestly that these may soon be clarified and resolved, so that there may be full participation in the Eleventh Plenary Session and in subsequent initiatives aimed at continuing the theological dialogue in mutual charity and understanding. Indeed, our work towards unity is according to the will of Christ our Lord. In these early years of the third millennium, our efforts are all the more urgent because of the many challenges facing all Christians, to which we need to respond with a united voice and with conviction. (Letter to His Holiness Bartholomaios I, Archbishop of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch, on the occasion of the feast of St. Andrew, November 23, 2007.)

So much for the “unofficial” nature of The Ravenna Document.

Putting the lie to the false view of how the papacy was exercised by our true popes in the First Millennium that has been propagated by Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio and, among so many others, Walter “Cardinal” Kasper, Pope Leo XIII, writing in Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 29, 1896, that the Greeks always recognized Papal Primacy:

First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world.  Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned.  We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ’s Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.  Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood.  The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known.  Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.

And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, “in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report”; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began.  Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.

We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling.  To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.

Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: “What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified?  What will our defense be in the  eyes of posterity?  Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren.”

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request.  It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love.  The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government.

Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches.  It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.  On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God’s bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased.  May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: “Make the schisms of the Churches cease,” and “Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”  May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 29, 1896. See also the excellent discussion of the the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki’s Tumultuous Times.)

Thus, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is merely fulfilling the invitation extended by Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, who, it should be pointed out, instated the novelty of the double-named antipopes, which would be followed in short order by Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s institution of the “office” of “Pope Emeritus,” which Bergoglio is reforming, for Protestants, Orthodox, and Modernists to “discuss” that which is not open for discussion, the Papacy, Papal Infallibility, and Papal Primacy.

The [First] Vatican Council met under the infallible guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and declared the true nature of the Papacy.
Everything that the conciliar “popes” have done in the past sixty-four has pointed to a very well thought-out plan to change the entire nature of how the conciliar “Petrine ministry” is exercised while contending, perhaps with tongue in cheek, that the doctrine of Papal Primacy and Papal Infallibility will remain untouched. Only those willing to suspend all rationality can accept this gratuitous denial of what is part of the Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church and was defined solemnly at the [First] Vatican Council on July 18, 1870:

1. And so, supported by the clear witness of Holy Scripture, and adhering to the manifest and explicit decrees both of our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs and of general councils, we promulgate anew the definition of the ecumenical Council of Florence [49], which must be believed by all faithful Christians, namely that the Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff hold a world-wide primacy, and that the Roman Pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, the prince of the apostles, true vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christian people.

To him, in blessed Peter, full power has been given by our lord Jesus Christ to tend, rule and govern the universal Church.

All this is to be found in the acts of the ecumenical councils and the sacred canons.

2. Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.

3. In this way, by unity with the Roman Pontiff in communion and in profession of the same faith , the Church of Christ becomes one flock under one Supreme Shepherd [50].

4. This is the teaching of the Catholic truth, and no one can depart from it without endangering his faith and salvation.

5. This power of the Supreme Pontiff by no means detracts from that ordinary and immediate power of episcopal jurisdiction, by which bishops, who have succeeded to the place of the apostles by appointment of the Holy Spirit, tend and govern individually the particular flocks which have been assigned to them. On the contrary, this power of theirs is asserted, supported and defended by the Supreme and Universal Pastor; for St. Gregory the Great says: “My honor is the honor of the whole Church. My honor is the steadfast strength of my brethren. Then do I receive true honor, when it is denied to none of those to whom honor is due.” [51]

6. Furthermore, it follows from that supreme power which the Roman Pontiff has in governing the whole Church, that he has the right, in the performance of this office of his, to communicate freely with the pastors and flocks of the entire Church, so that they may be taught and guided by him in the way of salvation.

7. And therefore we condemn and reject the opinions of those who hold that this communication of the Supreme Head with pastors and flocks may be lawfully obstructed; or that it should be dependent on the civil power, which leads them to maintain that what is determined by the Apostolic See or by its authority concerning the government of the Church, has no force or effect unless it is confirmed by the agreement of the civil authority.

8. Since the Roman Pontiff, by the divine right of the apostolic primacy, governs the whole Church, we likewise teach and declare that he is the supreme judge of the faithful [52], and that in all cases which fall under ecclesiastical jurisdiction recourse may be had to his judgment [53]. The sentence of the Apostolic See (than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone, nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon [54]. And so they stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman Pontiff.

9. So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema. (Chapter 3, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Vatican Council, July 18, 1870.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, in perfect conformity with his two immediate predecessors has expressed very repeatedly and in the most emphatic terms that the wants what he thinks is he papacy reformed, and anyone in the resist while recognize movement who is shocked or over these developments is nothing other than a blind scribe who  is unable to see and to admit the truth that the  entire conciliar enterprise has not been, is not now and can never be the Catholic Church, she who is the spotless mystical bride of her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has long made a mockery of the very institution of the papacy by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with these words that he uttered to Simon bar Jona, Saint Peter, as the Fisherman was made the Visible Head of the Catholic Church on earth:

[13] And Jesus came into the quarters of Caesarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? [14] But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. [15] Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am?

[16] Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. [17] And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. [18] And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. [20] Then he commanded his disciples, that they should tell no one that he was Jesus the Christ. (Matthew 16: 13-20.)

Bishop Richard Challoner's commentary on the three underlined phrases found in the Douay-Rheims Bible that he translated from the Latin Vulgate explains in no uncertain terms that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is false as it has propagated heresies and errors that are impossible for the Catholic Church to be associated with in any way, not even by the slightest tarnish of error as Pope Gregory XVI in Singulari Nos, May 25, 1834, and that the conciliar "popes" have been manifest heretics for all the world to see:

[18] Thou art Peter: As St. Peter, by divine revelation, here made a solemn profession of his faith of the divinity of Christ; so in recompense of this faith and profession, our Lord here declares to him the dignity to which he is pleased to raise him: viz., that he to whom he had already given the name of Peter, signifying a rock, St. John 1. 42, should be a rock indeed, of invincible strength, for the support of the building of the church; in which building he should be, next to Christ himself, the chief foundation stone, in quality of chief pastor, ruler, and governor; and should have accordingly all fulness of ecclesiastical power, signified by the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

[18] Upon this rock: The words of Christ to Peter, spoken in the vulgar language of the Jews which our Lord made use of, were the same as if he had said in English, Thou art a Rock, and upon this rock I will build my church. So that, by the plain course of the words, Peter is here declared to be the rock, upon which the church was to be built: Christ himself being both the principal foundation and founder of the same. Where also note, that Christ, by building his house, that is, his church, upon a rock, has thereby secured it against all storms and floods, like the wise builder, St. Matt. 7. 24, 25.

[18] The gates of hell: That is, the powers of darkness, and whatever Satan can do, either by himself, or his agents. For as the church is here likened to a house, or fortress, built on a rock; so the adverse powers are likened to a contrary house or fortress, the gates of which, that is, the whole strength, and all the efforts it can make, will never be able to prevail over the city or church of Christ. By this promise we are fully assured, that neither idolatry, heresy, nor any pernicious error whatsoever shall at any time prevail over the church of Christ.

[19] Loose upon earth: The loosing the bands of temporal punishments due to sins, is called an indulgence; the power of which is here granted. (Bishop Richard Challoner Commentary on Matthew 16: 18, 19.)

The papacy is a monarchy. While true popes have consulted with others, they have done so as prudence dictates, not because it is required by the nature of the office that Our Lord Himself.

Conciliarism is not and can never be Catholicism.

It is on now to the next passage in Demos II’s essay:

Second: Just as the Church is not an autocracy, neither is she a democracy. The Church belongs to Jesus Christ. She is his Church. She is Christ’s Mystical Body, made up of many members. We have no authority to refashion her teachings to fit more comfortably with the world. Moreover, the Catholic sensus fidelium is not a matter of opinion surveys nor even the view of a baptized majority. It derives only from those who genuinely believe and actively practice, or at least sincerely seek to practice, the faith and teachings of the Church. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Five:

Nihil obstat. Demos II is very correct on these points.

However, he then undermines these correct points by praising the corrupt “theology of the body” and Karol Josef Wojtyla’s false, personalist teaching on Holy Matrimony that had been condemned, as noted above, by Pope Pius XII in 1944 and in 1951.

Third: Ambiguity is neither evangelical nor welcoming. Rather, it breeds doubt and feeds schismatic impulses. The Church is a community not just of Word and sacrament, but also of creed. What we believe helps to define and sustain us. Thus, doctrinal issues are not burdens imposed by unfeeling “doctors of the law.” Nor are they cerebral sideshows to the Christian life. On the contrary, they’re vital to living a Christian life authentically, because they deal with applications of the truth, and the truth demands clarity, not ambivalent nuance. From the start, the current pontificate has resisted the evangelical force and intellectual clarity of its immediate predecessors. The dismantling and repurposing of Rome’s John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and the marginalizing of texts like Veritatis Splendor suggest an elevation of “compassion” and emotion at the expense of reason, justice, and truth. For a creedal community, this is both unhealthy and profoundly dangerous. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Six:

While is true that Jorge Mario Bergoglio consistently has posed a false dichotomy between “mercy” and doctrine, it is also true, as demonstrated in great detail above, that the lords of conciliarism have indeed rejected and/or repurposed Holy Mother Church’s immutable teachings to be conformed with a conciliar ethos that is Modernist from its inception to its ongoing execution.

To the Demos II’s next passage:

Fourth: The Catholic Church, in addition to Word, sacrament, and creed, is also a community of law. Canon law orders Church life, harmonizes its institutions and procedures, and guarantees the rights of believers. Among the marks of the current pontificate are its excessive reliance on the motu proprio as a tool for governance and a general carelessness and distaste for canonical detail. Again, as with ambiguity of doctrine, disregard for canon law and proper canonical procedure undermines confidence in the purity of the Church’s mission. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Seven:

While Demos II has described Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s modus operandi very accurately, it is nevertheless true that even motu proprios issued by a true pope are binding upon the faithful, who can never legitimately dissent therefrom.

The late Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton, who was the editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review from 1943 to 1963, explained about the binding nature of everything that a Supreme Pontiff causes to be inserted into his Acta Apostolicae Sedis:

It is definitely the business of the writer in the field of sacred theology to benefit the Church by what he writes. It is likewise the duty of the teacher of this science to help the Church by his teaching of him.  The man who uses the shoddy tricks of minimism to oppose or to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down in his " Acta " is, in the last analysis, stultifying his position as a theologian . ( The doctrinal Authority of Papal allocutions .)

Are there any further questions about the binding nature of what a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter places in the  Acta Apostolicae Sedis ?

Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton denounced " the shoddy tricks of minimism to ignore the doctrinal decisions made by the Sovereign Pontiff and set down his his 'Acta' ."

The same shoddy tricks of minimism that were being used by the likes of Father John Courtney Murray, SJ, and the "new theologians," including Father Joseph Ratzinger, in the 1950s that prompted Pope Pius XII to issue  Humani Generis , August 12, 1950 , have been employed for the past fifty years or more have been used during that same time frame with ever-increasing boldness by those seeking to claim the absolutely nonexistent ability to ignore and/or refuse the teaching of men they have recognized to be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. I know. I contributed to that literature for a while. I was wrong. So are those who continue to persist in their willful, stubborn rejection of the binding nature of all that is contained in the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church even though if not declared infallible in a solemn manner.

Father Joseph Salaverri, SJ, elaborated on how the Roman Pontiff exercises his infallibility:

646 Now this is the question: In how many ways does the Roman Pontiff exercise his infallibility? 1) It is certain that he exercises infallibility in an extraordinary way or when he defines something ex cathedra with a solemn judgment. For, the Code of Canon Law 1323 [1917], after 1 quotes the definition of the Vatican that we cited in the previous number, and then it adds 2: "It is proper both to an Ecumenical Council and to the Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra to pronounce a solemn judgment of this kind."

647 Therefore there is a further question, whether the Supreme Pontiff exercises his infallibility also in an ordinary way, or not? It seems to us that the answer to this question must be 2) in the affirmative. For, according to Vatican Council I, the Roman Pontiff "possesses the infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed": D 3074. With this judgment the Fathers suppose the general principle against the error, which they intend to condemn, of the Gallicans who said: "the Pope is inferior to the Church also in questions of faith": see Msi 49,673;52,1230. Therefore, according to the Vatican, the Pope in no way is inferior to the Church in his power of teaching him. But the Church is endowed with infallibility which she exercises in extraordinary and ordinary ways: D 3011. Therefore it must be granted to the Roman Pontiff that he exercises his infallibility in these same ways (see Msi 52,1193 ). Joachim Salaverri, SJ, and Michaele Nicolau, SJ,  Sacrae Theologiae Summa 1B—On the Church of Christ and On Holy Scripture . Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, SJ, and published by Keep the Faith, Inc., in 2015, pp. 235-236.)

Today's Gallicans in the “resist while recognize” movement, which “Bishop” Joseph Strickland has now joined even though he criticizes the “path” of the Gallicanist Society of Saint Pius be the Sovereign Pontiff and can urge the faithful to write their “respectful letters” to Rome and sign those never-ending petition drives, which itself speaks volumes about both Gallicanist and Americanist spirits at work within the circles of semi-traditionalism. The false ecclesiology of the “resist while recognize” movement is opposed to Catholic teaching and has done as much, if not more, harm to the:  sensus Catholicus  than have the conciliar “popes” themselves. One cannot oppose the false teaching of the conciliar “popes” without admitting that a true pope cannot give us false teaching on matters of Faith and Morals or that, worse yet, he is not  in himself  the guarantor of Catholic orthodoxy. If one truly believes that that a particular claimant to the papacy is not a guarantor of Catholic orthodoxy then one either does not believe in the Catholic Faith or the claimant himself is simply not a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.

Father Salaverii explained that Holy Mother Church is infallible, which means that she cannot issue decrees or documents that are in any way defective or erroneous:

693. We deduce the infallibility of the Church concerning the primary object: 1) from the decrees of Vatican Council I; 2) from the definition of Papal Infallibility; 3) from further definitions, which were prepared on this matter by the same Vatican Council.

1. That the object of infallibility is per se revealed truths was defined by Vatican Council I: D [Denizger] 3011, 3020, 3069-3070.
2. The thesis on the direct and primary object of infallibility is considered implicitly in the definition of pontifical infallibility, since the Council says that its object is “doctrine concerning faith or morals”: ​​De 3074.

For the Secretary, Bishop Grasser, in the name of the Committee for the Faith, while explaining to the Fathers the definition of the Council, said “In this definition it deals in #4 with the object of infallibility, which was promised in order to guard and interpret whole deposit of faith. Therefore as a whole it is easily made clear that the object of infallibility is the doctrine concerning faith or morals. Now, in the very word of God itself is contained also without doubt that infallibility not least to those things which per se constitute the deposit of faith, namely in order to define the dogmas of faith, and what comes to the same thing, to condemn heresies. . . The present definition enunciates the object of infallibility only in a general way, when it says, namely, that it is doctrine concerning faith and morals… In this object, so stated in a general way, the infallibility of the Pontiff extends neither less nor more broadly than the infallibility of the Church extends in her definitions of doctrines concerning faith and morals. Hence, just as no one denies that is heretical to deny the infallibility of the Church in defining dogmas of faith, in virtue of this decree of the Vatican it will be no less heretical to deny the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff in the definitions of the dogmas of faith. Joachim Salaverri, SJ, and Michaele Nicolau, SJ,  Sacrae Theologiae Summa 1B—On the Church of Christ and On Holy Scripture . Translated from the Latin by Father Kenneth Baker, SJ, and published by Keep the Faith, Inc., in 2015, p. 255.)

Father Salaverri explained in a later section noted that Holy Mother Church's infallibility extends to the decrees issued by Sacred Congregations of the Roman Curial, including those made by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, to dogmatic fact, to disciplinary decrees, to the canonization of saints, to liturgical decrees, and even in the realm of speculative truths connected with the Sacred Deposit of Faith. These decrees and decisions are owed both external and internal absent by every Catholic without exception.

No matter the means a true pope chooses to exercise his authority, Demos II, that authority, once exercised, is binding upon the whole Church. Alas, a true pope would never attempt to issue anything that would bind the faithful to believe in error. Demos II is wrong.

To the next passage found in Demos II’s essay:

Fifth: The Church, as John XXIII so beautifully described her, is mater et magistra, the “mother and teacher” of humanity, not its dutiful follower; the defender of man as the subject of history, not its object. She is the bride of Christ; her nature is personal, supernatural, and intimate, not merely institutional. She can never be reduced to a system of flexible ethics or sociological analysis and remodeling to fit the instincts and appetites (and sexual confusions) of an age. One of the key flaws in the current pontificate is its retreat from a convincing “theology of the body” and its lack of a compelling Christian anthropology . . . precisely at a time when attacks on human nature and identity, from transgenderism to transhumanism, are mounting. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Eight:

Demos is correct about “situation ethics,” which most contemporary Modernists refer to as proportionalism, which contends that an otherwise illicit can be rendered licit to pursue if there exists a preponderance of “good motives” and/or other extenuating circumstances (proportionalism is not to be confused with the true principle of proportionality, which teaches that a licit end may be rendered illicit to pursue if the foreseen but unintended evil consequences of the act outweigh good that is sought to be accomplished). However, he is wrong about the “theology of the body.”

Here is a description of Mrs. Randy Engel’s book about the hideously corrupt “theology of the body”:

John Paul II and the ‘Theology of the Body’ –
A Study in Modernism”

By Randy Engel

As Blondel and de Lubac discovered “authentic Christianity” 2000 years after the fact, so Karol Józef Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) discovered “authentic Christian sexuality” for the Church 2000 years later.(1)

Introduction to Series

The “Theology of the Body” is the invention of Karol Józef Wojtyla, known to history as Pope John Paul II. (2)

The major themes of Wojtyla’s new philosophy and theology on the bodily dimension of human love, sex, sexuality, marriage and celibacy gestated and took concrete form over a long period of time beginning even before his ordination to the priesthood in 1946 and continuing to his appointment as Auxiliary Bishop and later Archbishop/Cardinal of Kraków, Poland (1958 -1978).
On September 5, 1979, less than one year into his pontificate, John Paul II delivered the first of one hundred and twenty-nine talks based on the revised texts of his earlier completed book on the Theology of the Body, to the Wednesday General Audience. Six talks based on the Song of Songs were prepared but not delivered as they were deemed too delicate for youthful listeners. The pope’s last catechesis on Theology of the Body was delivered five years later, on Wednesday, November 28, 1984.
As a catechetical work, the Theology of the Body is anthropocentric, that is, man-centered, and personalist in keeping with the central theme of the Second Vatican Council, and the phenomenological and personalist philosophy of Wojtyla.
From a Catholic perspective, the very term “theology of the body” is problematic.

Theology [Greek from theós, meaning God and logos meaning discourse], in all its form, centers upon God, on God’s attributes, on things divine, revealed truths and matters of faith, and not man, per se.

Regarding the human body, man is one. He is composed of both a rationale, spiritual soul and a material body, which gives man his personal corporeal identity. The immortal intellectual soul, infused into the body at the moment of conception, is the first informing and substantial principle which makes the body alive. The body without a soul is inert, a corpse.
How then can there be such a thing as a “Theology of the Body”?

A difficult question, but only one of many such questions that the author (Wojtyla) and his supporters have endeavored to answer in defense of the “new” and “revolutionary” “development” in Catholic sexual catechetics called the “Theology of the Body.”

That the Theology of the Body makes for difficult reading and even more difficult understanding is readily admitted by both proponents and opponents of Wojtyla’s work.

Indeed a world-wide cottage industry has come into existence having as its sole objective the explanation and popularization of the new theology among Catholic and non-Catholic laymen, clergy and religious. It has yet to dawn upon advocates of the cult of John Paul II, that perhaps the difficulty in discerning Wojtyla’s writings on the Theology of the Body stems from the fact they are not Catholic, or perhaps it is fairer and more accurate to say that where his writings are original they are not Catholic, and where they are Catholic they are not original.

Given the unusual complexities and multifaceted nature of the Theology of the Body (TOB) controversy, this writer has chosen a question and answer format to facilitate a clearer understanding of the critical issues involved in the subject matter. (Theology of the Body.)

Now, insofar as Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII is concerned, it is important to remember that this Rosicrucian Mason believed that it was not necessary to denounce error as errors just kind of go away on their own, which was a slap in the face to the true popes, doctors and confessors fought with vigor against errors throughout the history of Holy Mother Church, and that the crapulous former Patriarch of Venice double-crossed the fathers of the “Second” Vatican Council by authorizing sub rosa work, much of which was conducted by none other than Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger on a schema for the council that was different from the official one that had been circulated before the robber council began on October 11, 1962, the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII issued the call for the “Second” Vatican Council on January 25, 1959, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle, knowing full well that he was going to use a shadow council of bishops and theologians to implement a revolutionary schema that would supplant the schema that had been prepared by his formal appointees to do the preparatory work prior to council’s beginning on October 11, 1962, the Feast of the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The real engineer of the rupture presented by the “Second” Vatican Council was none other Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, who got votes in the 1958 conclave that resulted in the usurped “election” of Angelo Roncalli even though he, Montini, was not even a member of the College of Cardinals. Montini worked closely with Roncalli and others, including a thirty-two year-old German priest, Father Joseph Ratzinger, to develop a secret schema for the “Second” Vatican Council that was designed to scuttle the one that many cardinals had devised precisely as the means to “canonize” Modernist principles in order to present them as authentic teachings of the Catholic Church.

Franco Bellegrandi made this point in Nikita Roncalli:

That he had been conscious as to the how and whys the Conclave had placed the Pontifical Triregno (Tiara) on his head, it may be inferred from the fact that he more than hinted to everyone that his successor should be Giovanni Battista Montini, that same Montini who, as we have seen, not by chance, as Roncalli is elected Pope, rushes to accompany to Rome the brothers of the new Pontiff. He noted it in his diary. And he could not wait to tell him in person, when, as a newly made Pope, he met the bishops of the Italian Episcopal Conference. “On that occasion,”

recalls monsignor Arrigo Pintonello, at the time Military Ordinary for Italy, “we bishops were lined up along the walls of the vast hall. John XXIII stood before each one of us, exchanging a greeting, a word. When he was before me, he came to attention, and, saluting militarily, he introduced himself as Sergeant Angelo Roncalli.” I still remember my embarrassment and that of the bishops present, in seeing the Pope play around like that. Then, as he stood before Montini, he stared at him for a time, smiling, held his hands, and cried, “It was you that should have been elected, not I. I’ve been elected by mistake!” Indeed, Montini will be the favorite of John XXIII. Topping the list of the new cardinals created in 1958, Montini works at the draft of Roncalli’s most important addresses, and during the first session of the Council he is hosted in special apartments, in the Vatican, that the Pope had had personally appointed for him. As, on the one hand, John XXIII pursued point after point his progressive policy, dismissing the advice and suggestions of the College of Cardinals and of the episcopate, on the other his diplomatic ability and his subtle knowledge of man suggested to him that nothing should be changed, of the Vatican’s exterior, that could alarm the public opinion, poorly or badly informed on secret things. Thus, for example, the Court and Court-life remained the same. (Nikita Roncalli.)

A Protestant “observer” at the “Second” Vatican Council, Douglas Horton, took note of the fact that a certain German theologian, Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, was working with Roncalli and Montini on implementing the revolutionary schema that they had devised while the bishops and their theologians worked on the original schema schema that was scuttled before the robber council began because it was too “rigid” and “scholastic”:

Lectures by Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, and other progressives have been scheduled in a hall not far from St. Peters for the month of November. The Secretary General this morning said that he had asked whether these lectures were to be regarded as official or at least as authorized. He answered with a good, round unequivocal NO. Middle-of-the-road men such as he do not yet feel at home with the trailblazers. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary: 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1966, p. 144.) 

Ah, yes, the trailblazers. Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger were joined at the hip during the "Second" Vatican Council, seeking indeed to blaze a trail for others to follow, a trail that Ratzinger blazed as Benedict XVI and that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, unfettered by any shackles of Modernist obfuscation, has been expediting as he tears down every remaining bastion of recognizable Catholicism imaginable.

The seeds of what Bergoglio is doing, however, were planted before and then during the “Second” Vatican Council. The aforementioned Protestant Douglas Horton had written the following the role of the "periti," in whose ranks was counted one Father Joseph Ratzinger, in changing the schema of the "Second" Vatican Council in its first session:

One fear that had crept into my mind was scotched by this morning's discussion. I had thought that possibly the bishops were such busy men that they would not have kept up with modern scholarship and that in consequence they might adopt the proposed schema without thinking much about it. The expert consultants, many of them from divinity schools of the world, are of course familiar enough with the problem, but they have no votes. I had heard one of the bishops call the gallery in which these periti (or experts) sit, "the rebels' roost"--and I feared that we might not find many rebels among the bishops themselves. My apprehensions were proved groundless. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary: 1962: A Protestant Observes the First Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1964, p. 114.) 

Consider also the Protestant Mr. Horton's "observation" concerning the "council's" rejection of "traditio:"

So the day is over. As I look back upon it, I see it as one of the great moments of the council. Consider that one hundred years ago in the eightieth article of the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, the Roman church declared, "If anyone says that the Pope can and should be reconciled and make terms with progress, with liberalism and modernist civilization, let him be anathema." Today that same church, through this council, has opened the way for a declaration which begins, "In this present age there is an increasing awareness among men of the dignity of the human person. This dignity demands that man in his activity may enjoy his own judgment and freedom, so that he is impelled not by coercion but by consciousness of his own duties. this demand for freedom in human society should be applied most particularly to religious matters. The church, attentively considering these human longings, intends to show how much they are in agreement with truth and justice."

The giant called Rome, who has so long been asleep in the arms of the lady Traditio, is beginning to open his eyes. ((Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary: 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston: United Church Press, 1966, p. 44.)

Even before the hijacking of the original Vatican II schema by Roncalli’s Jacobin/Bolshevik team of revolutionaries, the gluttonous supporter of The Sillon even after it had been condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, and whose sympathies for Modernist had been noted in the Vatican as early as 1912 had tampered with the Roman liturgy to make it more conformable with his Jansenist principles that had been condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794:

At last we come to "the liturgy of John XXIII," more properly called that of "middle Bugnini." The following changes were instituted in the Mass, the Divine Office and the Calendar:

1. The lives of the saints at Matins were reduced to brief summaries.

2. The lessons from the Fathers of the Church were reduced to the briefest possible passages, with the somewhat naive wish that the clergy would continue to nourish their souls with patristic writings on their own.

3. The solitary recitation of the Divine Office was no longer held to be public prayer, and thus the sacred greeting Dominus vobiscum was suppressed.

4. The Last Gospel was suppressed on more occasions.

5. The proper conclusion of the Office Hymns was suppressed.

6. Many feast days are abolished, as being redundant or not "historical, for example: (a) The Finding of the Holy Cross. (b) St. John Before the Latin Gate. (c) The Apparition of St. Michael. (d) St. Peter's Chair at Antioch. (e) St. Peter's Chains, etc.

7. During the Council, the principle of the unchanging Canon of the Mass was destroyed with the addition of the name of St. Joseph.

8. The Confiteor before Communion was suppressed.

It is to be noted that the "Liturgy of John XXIII” was in vigor for all of three years, until it came to its logical conclusion with the promulgation of the Conciliar Decree on the Liturgy — also the work of Bugnini. (See His Excellency Bishop Daniel L. Dolan, Pre-Vatican II Liturgical Changes: Road to the New Mass and The Pius X and John XXIII Missals Compared.) 

Father Francisco Ricossa described what he called the "anti-liturgical heresies" extant in Roncalli/John XXIII's liturgical changes:

Pius XII succeeded by John XXIII. Angelo Roncalli. Throughout his ecclesiastical career, Roncalli was involved in affairs that place his orthodoxy under a cloud. Here are a few facts:

As professor at the seminary of Bergamo, Roncalli was investigated for following the theories of Msgr. Duchesne, which were forbidden under Saint Pius X in all Italian seminaries. Msgr Duchesne's work, Histoire Ancienne de l'Eglise, ended up on the Index.

While papal nuncio to Paris, Roncalli revealed his adhesion to the teachings of Sillon, a movement condemned by St. Pius X. In a letter to the widow of Marc Sagnier, the founder of the condemned movement, he wrote: The powerful fascination of his [Sagnier's] words, his spirit, had enchanted me; and from my early years as a priest, I maintained a vivid memory of his personality, his political and social activity."

Named as Patriarch of Venice, Msgr.Roncalli gave a public blessing to the socialists meeting there for their party convention. As John XXIII, he made Msgr. Montini a cardinal and called the Second Vatican Council. He also wrote the Encyclical Pacem in Terris. The Encyclical uses a deliberately ambiguous phrase, which foreshadows the same false religious liberty the Council would later proclaim.

The Revolution Advances

John XXIII's attitude in matters liturgical, then, comes as no surprise. Dom Lambert Beauduin, quasi-founder of the modernist Liturgical Movement, was a friend of Roncalli from 1924 onwards. At the death of Pius XII, Beauduin remarked: "If they elect Roncalli, everything will be saved; he would be capable of calling a council and consecrating ecumenism..."'

On July 25, 1960, John XXIII published the Motu Proprio Rubricarum Instructum. He had already decided to call Vatican II and to proceed with changing Canon Law. John XXIII incorporates the rubrical innovations of 1955–1956 into this Motu Proprio and makes them still worse. "We have reached the decision," he writes, "that the fundamental principles concerning the liturgical reform must be presented to the Fathers of the future Council, but that the reform of the rubrics of the Breviary and Roman Missal must not be delayed any longer."

In this framework, so far from being orthodox, with such dubious authors, in a climate which was already "Conciliar," the Breviary and Missal of John XXIII were born. They formed a "Liturgy of transition" destined to last — as it in fact did last — for three or four years. It is a transition between the Catholic liturgy consecrated at the Council of Trent and that heterodox liturgy begun at Vatican II. 

The "Antiliturgical Heresy" in the John XXIII Reform

We have already seen how the great Dom Guéranger defined as "liturgical heresy" the collection of false liturgical principles of the 18th century inspired by Illuminism and Jansenism. I should like to demonstrate in this section the resemblance between these innovations and those of John XXIII.

Since John XXIII's innovations touched the Breviary as well as the Missal, I will provide some information on his changes in the Breviary also. Lay readers may be unfamiliar with some of the terms concerning the Breviary, but I have included as much as possible to provide the "flavor" and scope of the innovations.

1.   Reduction of Matins to three lessons. Archbishop Vintimille of Paris, a Jansenist sympathizer, in his reform of the Breviary in 1736, "reduced the Office for most days to three lessons, to make it shorter." In 1960 John XXIII also reduced the Office of Matins to only three lessons on most days. This meant the suppression of a third of Holy Scripture, two-thirds of the lives of the saints, and the whole of the commentaries of the Church Fathers on Holy Scripture. Matins, of course, forms a considerable part of the Breviary.

2.   Replacing ecclesiastical formulas style with Scripture. "The second principle of the anti-liturgical sect," said Dom Guéranger, "is to replace the formulae in ecclesiastical style with readings from Holy Scripture." While the Breviary of St. Pius X had the commentaries on Holy Scripture by the Fathers of the Church, John XXIII's Breviary suppressed most commentaries written by the Fathers of the Church. On Sundays, only five or six lines from the Fathers remains.

3.   Removal of saints' feasts from Sunday. Dom Gueranger gives the Jansenists' position: "It is their [the Jansenists'] great principle of the sanctity of Sunday which will not permit this day to be 'degraded' by consecrating it to the veneration of a saint, not even the Blessed Virgin Mary. A fortiori, the feasts with a rank of double or double major which make such an agreeable change for the faithful from the monotony of the Sundays, reminding them of the friends of God, their virtues and their protection — shouldn't they be deferred always to weekdays, when their feasts would pass by silently and unnoticed?"

John XXIII, going well beyond the well-balanced reform of St. Pius X, fulfills almost to the letter the ideal of the Janenist heretics: only nine feasts of the saints can take precedence over the Sunday (two feasts of St. Joseph, three feasts of Our Lady, St. John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, St. Michael, and All Saints). By contrast, the calendar of St. Pius X included 32 feasts which took precedence, many of which were former holy days of obligation. What is worse, John XXIII abolished even the commemoration of the saints on Sunday.

4.   Preferring the ferial office over the saint’s feast. Dom Guéranger goes on to describe the moves of the Jansenists as follows: "The calendar would then be purged, and the aim, acknowledged by Grancolas (1727) and his accomplices, would be to make the clergy prefer the ferial office to that of the saints. What a pitiful spectacle! To see the putrid principles of Calvinism, so vulgarly opposed to those of the Holy See, which for two centuries has not ceased fortifying the Church's calendar with the inclusion' of new protectors, penetrate into our churches!"

John XXIII totally suppressed ten feasts from the calendar (eleven in Italy with the feast of Our Lady of Loreto), reduced 29 feasts of simple rank and nine of more elevated rank to mere commemorations, thus causing the ferial office to take precedence. He suppressed almost all the octaves and vigils, and replaced another 24 saints' days with the ferial office. Finally, with the new rules for Lent, the feasts of another nine saints, officially in the calendar, are never celebrated. In sum, the reform of John XXIII purged about 81 or 82 feasts of saints, sacrificing them to "Calvinist principles."

Dom Gueranger also notes that the Jansenists suppressed the feasts of the saints in Lent. John XXIII did the same, keeping only the feasts of first and second class. Since they always fall during Lent, the feasts of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory the Great. St. Benedict, St. Patrick, and St. Gabriel the Archangel would never be celebrated. (Liturgical Revolution)

Although the subject of many previous commentaries on this site, the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service would complete Roncalli’s work of destruction that had been presaged by the changes, none of them heretical in se, that Fathers Bugnini and Antonelli convinced Pope Pius XII to implement in 1951, 1955 and 1958 (see the series on this matter written by the sedeplentist Dr. Carol A. Byrne; for one of these articles, please see The Start of The New Liturgical Movement and then follow the “Continued” links at the end of this article—and each subsequent one, numbering forty-five in total, to read the entire series, which is well worth reading). Roncalli meant to start a Modernist revolution and to supplant the Catholic Faith with principles condemned by Pope Pius IX in Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846, Quanta Cura and The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1964, by Pope Pius IX and the Fathers the [First] Vatican Council, by Pope Saint Pius X in Lamentabili Sane, July 1, 1907, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, Praestantia Scripturae, November 18, 1907, and Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.

Here is a just a summary of the revolutionary handiwork that started with Roncalli, continued at the “Second” Vatican Council and has evolved over the course of the past fifty-three years, three months since then under the anti-pontificates of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI, Albino Luciani/John Paul I, who believed that one had to look for the “good” in error and heresy, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis:

1. The conciliar “popes” have made war upon the very the nature of dogmatic truth, cleaving to the philosophically absurd notion that dogmatic truth can never be expressed adequately at any one point in time, that each expression of dogma is necessarily "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced. Condemned by the [First] Vatican Council, Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.
2. The “Second” Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, instituted the false ecclesiology of "full" and "partial" communion that flies in the face of the teaching of the Catholic Church, a teaching documented by Bishop Donald Sanborn in The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation and Communion: Ratzinger's Ecumenical One-World Church). This “new ecclesiology,” of course, was the handiwork of none other than Father Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who was acting upon a recommendation by a German Lutheran "observer" at the "Second" Vatican Council, suggested should be placed into the text of Lumen Gentium, November 21, 1964, in order to give formal recognition to the "elements" of "sanctification" that exist the "ecclesial" (Protestant) "communities" and in the Orthodox churches. In other words, the man who is considered the “great dogmatist” helped to attack the Sacred Deposit of Faith at the "Second" Vatican Council to help to give birth to the heresy that is the “new ecclesiolgy, whose principal contention was refuted prophetically by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:
3. Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)
4. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has taken the “new ecclesiology” to mean that all “believers,” including those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, are saved as long as they “do good.”
5. The conciliar popes, of course, reject what Ratzinger/Benedict called disparagingly the “ecumenism of the return,” and Jorge Mario Bergoglio has gone so far as to issue endless apologies to Protestants and the Waldensians for the manner in which they had been “persecuted” by Catholics in the past, thereby making a mockery of the exhortations of one true pope after another for such a return of non-Catholics to the true Church.
6. The “Second” Vatican Council proclaimed the heresy of “religious liberty and the conciliar “popes” have consistently praised nonexistent ability of false religions to "contribute" to the "betterment" of nations and the world. Condemned by Pope Pius VI in Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791, Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and by Pope Pius IX in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)
7. Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio have endorsed and even praised the Protestantism’s and Judeo-Masonry’s concept of the "separation of Church and State," a thesis called absolutely false by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and have have rejected outright the obligation of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, an obligation reiterated by pope after pope following the rise of the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity.
8. The conciliar “popes,” therefore, are social modernists of the sort described by Ratzinger/Benedict, therefore, falls into the category of a social modernist described by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.
9. Wojtyla/John Paul II became the first conciliar “pope” to enter into a Mohammedan mosque, doing so on May 7, 2001, in Damascus, Syria, paving the way for Ratzinger/Benedict and Bergoglio to do the same, thus engaging in acts of apostasy and blasphemy as they, who have believed themselves to be Successors of Saint Peter, have permitted themselves treated as inferiors while treating treated places of false worship that are hideous to God as worthy of respect, thereby scandalizing Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s little ones no end.
10. Ratzinger/Benedict termed Mount Hiei in Japan, where the adherents of the Tendei sect of Buddhism, worship their devils, as "sacred," a term he used to describe the mosque of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem on May 12, 2009, and Bergoglio is constantly praising the temples of false religions as sacred places that give honor and glory to God.
11. The conciliar “popes” have rejected the clarity and certainty of the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas, in favor of the condemned precepts of the so-called “New Theology” and they have held a view on the Doctrine of Justification that, in essence, hinges on the belief that the Fathers of the Council of Trent, who met under the influence and protection of God the Holy Ghost, were wrong (as is explained in Attempting to Coerce Perjury.)

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has inverted the ends proper to the Sacrament of Matrimony and endorsed what is, in essence, a Catholic form of “natural” contraception, and enshrined this inversion in their corrupted 1983 Code of Canon Law.

All that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has done is to the put the “finishing touches,” if you will, on all that has gone before him. The Argentine Apostate has used his daily screeds at the Ding Dong School of Apostasy at the Casa Santa Marta and exhortations and encyclicals such as Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013, Laudato Si, May 24, 2015, and Amoris Laetitia, March 16, 2016, to map out a program of theological relativism that has suborned hardened sinners in their lives and wickedness and given aid and comfort to every leftist, statist, collectivist, globalist, pro-abort, pro-perversity and pro-“palliative care” politician and social leader on the face of the earth. The truth is plain for all but the culpably blind to see: conciliarism is a false religion, and it has been such openly since the promulgation of Lumen Gentium on November 21, 1964, after its occult beginnings in the preceding six years.

It seems as though you need a history lesson, Demos II, about how the lords of conciliarism keep referencing their own heretical works while ignoring the very papal documents that condemned their Modernist presuppositions and programs.

The next passage of Demos II’s essay explained that the “next pope” needed to stop globetrotting and do the work appointed for him in the Apostolic Palace:

Sixth: Global travel served a pastor like Pope John Paul II so well because of his unique personal gifts and the nature of the times. But the times and circumstances have changed. The Church in Italy and throughout Europe – the historic home of the faith – is in crisis. The Vatican itself urgently needs a renewal of its morale, a cleansing of its institutions, procedures, and personnel, and a thorough reform of its finances to prepare for a more challenging future. These are not small things. They demand the presence, direct attention, and personal engagement of any new Pope. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Nine:

No, global travel did not serve Karol Josef Wojtyla/John II well, not the least of which was hot coals he poured onto his immortal soul for participating in one antipapal liturgical extravaganza after all, which, though not true offerings of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, they were purported to be such and thus robbed the faithful attending of any shred of a reverent dignity in what they believed to be the worship of God but were actually abominations in His sight.

Monsignor" Piero Marini, who served as liturgical master of ceremonies from 1987 to 2007, used to plan the "papal" extravaganza liturgical services, which were billed as "Masses," during the false "pontificate" of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, as the means to provide "papal" precedents for us at the local diocesan level. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has taken full advantage of this "inculturation of the Gospel" as envisioned by Montini and Bugnini and later prescribed in Paragraph 395 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal:

395. Finally, if the participation of the faithful and their spiritual welfare requires variations and more thoroughgoing adaptations in order that the sacred celebration respond to the culture and traditions of the different peoples, then Bishops' Conferences may propose such to the Apostolic See in accordance with article 40 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy for introduction with the latter's consent, especially in the case of peoples to whom the Gospel has been more recently proclaimed. The special norms given in the Instruction On the Roman Liturgy and Inculturation should be carefully observed.

Regarding procedures to be followed in this matter, the following should be followed:

In the first place, a detailed preliminary proposal should be set before the Apostolic See, so that, after the necessary faculty has been granted, the detailed working out of the individual points of adaptation may proceed.

Once these proposals have been duly approved by the Apostolic See, experiments should be carried out for specified periods and at specified places. If need be, once the period of experimentation is concluded, the Bishops' Conference shall decide upon pursuing the adaptations and shall propose a mature formulation of the matter to the Apostolic See for its decision. (Paragraph 395, General Instruction to the Roman Missal.)

 

Moreover, Wojtyla/John Paul II’s global travels provided him with over a hundred occasions to give speeches of complete religious indifferentism and to reaffirm adherents one false religion after another of the nonexistent inherent “goodness” in their beliefs, and he did this while ignoring all reports brought to him about abusive clergy and “bishops” and while appointing and/or promoting the likes of Joseph Bernardin, Thomas Kelly, Christoph Schonborn, Roger Mahony, Theodore McCarrick, Daniel Leo Ryan, George Niederauer, Daniel Pilarcyk, Tod Brown, Patrick McGrath, Matthew Clark, Bernard Law, Wilton Gregory, Robert Brom and, among so many others, Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself.

To the final substantive passage from Demos II’s letter follows:

Seventh and finally: The College of Cardinals exists to provide senior counsel to the Pope and to elect his successor upon his death. That service requires men of clean character, strong theological formation, mature leadership experience, and personal holiness. It also requires a Pope willing to seek advice and then to listen. It’s unclear to what degree this applies in the Pope Francis pontificate. The current pontificate has placed an emphasis on diversifying the college, but it has failed to bring cardinals together in regular consistories designed to foster genuine collegiality and trust among brothers. As a result, many of the voting electors in the next conclave will not really know each other, and thus may be more vulnerable to manipulation. In the future, if the college is to serve its purposes, the cardinals who inhabit it need more than a red zucchetto and a ring. Today’s College of Cardinals should be proactive about getting to know each other to better understand their particular views regarding the Church, their local church situations, and their personalities – which impact their consideration of the next pope. (A profile of the next Pope, writes Cardinal - Daily Compass.)

Interjection Number Ten:

The final substantive point that Demos II made is really of no consequence as he wants Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s successor to be a faithful son of the “Second” Vatican Council. The “strong theological formation” that he desires includes a commitment to a “correct” interpretation of the robber council, which means a commitment to the new ecclesiology, episcopal collegiality, the new liturgy, false ecumenism, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, the inversion of the ends of marriage, which served as the basis for so-called “natural” family planning.

The reality is, of course, that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has stacked the deck with his own theological clones, but even if a “John Paul III” or a “Benedict XVII” emerges from the next antipapal conclave, that man would still be a complete son of Modernism, and Modernism is no foundation for anything else but for the likes of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to emerge over time.

On the Feast of Saint Casimir

Today, Monday, March 4, 2024, is the semi-double feast of Saint Casimir, a Prince of Poland who cared not for the luxuries of regal life but preferred to life his short life in the odor of sanctity characterized by austere penances and mortifications that are unknown to anyone, including Catholics, in public life today no matter whether they belong to the organized crime family of the naturalist “left” or of the naturalist “right.” Saint Casimir sought to please God, not men, and he considered himself a great sinner even though all around him knew that he was ever scaling the heights of personal sanctity.

Dom Prosper Gueranger described our Saint as follows:

It is from a Court that we are to be taught today the most heroic virtues. Casimir is a Prince; he is surrounded by all the allurements of youth and luxury; and yet he passes through the snares of the world with as much safety and prudence as though he were an Angel in human form. His example shows us what we may do. The world has not smiled on us as it did on Casimir; but how much we have loved it! If we have gone so far as to make it our idol, we must now break what we have adored, and give our service to the Sovereign Lord, who alone has a right to it. When we read the Lives of the Saints, and find that persons who were in the ordinary walk of life, practiced extraordinary virtues, we are inclined to think that they were not exposed to great temptations, or that the misfortunes they met in the world made them give themselves up unreservedly to God’s service. Such interpretations of the actions of the Saints are shallow and false, for they ignore this great fact—that there is no condition or state, however humble, in which man has not to combat against the evil inclinations of his heart, and that corrupt nature alone is strong enough to lead him to sin. But in such a Saint as Casimir, we have no difficulty in recognizing that all his Christian energy was from God, and not from any natural source; and we rightly conclude that we, who have the same good God, may well hope that this Season of spiritual regeneration will change and better us. Casimir preferred death to sin.

But is not every Christian bound to be thus minded every hour of the day? And yet such is the infatuation produced by the pleasures or advantages of this present life that we, every day, see men plunging themselves into sin, which is the death of the soul; and this, not for the sake of saving the life of the body, but for a vile and transient gratification, which is oftentimes contrary to their temporal interests. What stronger proof could there be than this, of the sad effects produced in us by Original Sin? The examples of the Saints are given us as a light to lead us in the right path: let us follow it, and we shall be saved. Besides, we have a powerful aid in their merits and intercession: let us take courage at the thought that these Friends of God have a most affectionate compassion for us their Brethren, who are surrounded by so many and great dangers.

The Church, in her Liturgy, thus describes to us the virtues of our young Prince:

Casimir was the son of Casimir, king of Poland, and of Elizabeth of Austria. He was put, when quite a boy, under the care of the best masters, who trained him to piety and learning. He brought his body into subjection by wearing a hair-shirt, and by frequent fasting. He could not endure the soft bed which is given to kings, but lay on the hard floor, and during the night, he used privately to steal from his room, and go to the Church, where, prostrate before the door, he besought God to have mercy on him. The Passion of Christ was his favorite subject of meditation; and when he assisted at Mass, his mind was so fixed on God that he seemed to be in one long ecstasy.

Great was his zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith, and the suppression of the Russian schism. Her persuaded the king, his father, to pass a law, forbidding the schismatics to build new churches, or to repair those which had fallen to ruin. Such was his charity for the poor and all sufferers, that he went under the name of the Father and Defender of the Poor. During his last illness, he nobly evinced his love of purity, which virtue he had maintained unsullied during his whole life. He was suffering a cruel malady; but he courageously preferred to die, rather than suffer the loss, whereby his physicians advised him to purchase his cure—the loss of his priceless treasure.

Being made perfect in a short space of time, and rich in virtue and merit, after having foretold the day of his death, he breathed forth his soul into the hands of his God, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, surrounded by Priests and Religious. His body was taken to Vilna, and was honored by many miracles. A young girl was raised to life at his shrine; the blind recovered their sight, the lame the use of their limbs, and the sick their health. He appeared to a small army of Lithuanians, who were unexpectedly attacked by a large force, and gave them the victory over the enemy. Leo the Tenth was induced by all these miracles to insert his name among the Saints. (Matins, The Feast of Saint Casimir, as founded in The Liturgical Year.)

Enjoy thy well-earned rest in heaven, O Casimir! Neither the world with all its riches, nor the court with all its pleasures, could distract thy heart from the eternal joys it alone coveted and loved. Thy life was short, but full of merit. The remembrance of heaven made thee forget the earth. God yielded to the impatience of thy desire to be with him, and took thee speedily from among men. Thy life, though most innocent, was one of penance, for knowing the evil tendencies of corrupt nature, thou hadst a dread of a life of comfort. When shall we be made to understand that penance is a debt we owe to God—a debt of expiation for the sins we have committed against him? Thou didst prefer death to sin; get us a fear of sin, that greatest of all the evils that can befall us, because it is an evil which strikes at God himself. Pray for us during this holy Season, which is granted us that we may do penance. The Christian world is honoring thee today; repay its homage by thy blessing. Poland, thy fatherland, is in mourning; comfort her. She was once the bulwark of the Church, and kept back the invasion of schism, heresy, and infidelity; and now she is crushed by tyrants who seek to rob her of her faith—pray for her that she may be freed from her oppressors and, by regaining her ancient zeal for the faith, be preserved from the apostasy into which her enemies are seeking to drive her. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

We hath not the likes of Saint Casimir today. However, we can pray to our Saint for the day in which a true pope will be restored to the Throne of Saint Peter and thus fulfill Our Lady’s Fatima Message for the proper, collegial consecration of Russia, whose conversion was very important to Saint Casimir, back to the true Church, to her Immaculate Heart and thus for the cessation of the spread of the errors that have helped to produce the twin nightmares of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

May every Rosary we pray, especially during this holy season of Lent, help us to die to self so that we, vivified by the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour’s Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that flow into our souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, may conquer the infernal enemy of our own salvation and thus be an instrument, no matter how insignificant in human terms, of restoring a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and restoring the Social Reign of Christ the King and Our Lady, she who is Our Immaculate Queen.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us. 

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Casimir, pray for us.

Pope Saint Lucius I, pray for us.

Appendix A

The Catholic Church's Condemnation of Religious Liberty

The necessary effect of the constitution decreed by the Assembly is to annihilate the Catholic Religion and, with her, the obedience owed to Kings. With this purpose it establishes as a right of man in society this absolute liberty that not only insures the right to be indifferent to religious opinions, but also grants full license to freely think, speak, write and even print whatever one wishes on religious matters – even the most disordered imaginings. It is a monstrous right, which the Assembly claims, however, results from equality and the natural liberties of all men.

But what could be more unwise than to establish among men this equality and this uncontrolled liberty, which stifles all reason, the most precious gift nature gave to man, the one that distinguishes him from animals?

After creating man in a place filled with delectable things, didn’t God threaten him with death should he eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil?And with this first prohibition didn’t He establish limits to his liberty? When, after man disobeyed the command and thereby incurred guilt, didn’t God impose new obligations on him through Moses? And even though he left to man’s free will the choice between good and evil, didn’t God provide him with precepts and commandments that could save him “if he would observe them”? …

Where then, is this liberty of thinking and acting that the Assembly grants to man in society as an indisputable natural right? Is this invented right not contrary to the right of the Supreme Creator to whom we owe our existence and all that we have? Can we ignore the fact that man was not created for himself alone, but to be helpful to his neighbor? … 

“Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words.” (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right“).

For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

"This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say.When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

"But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.

"For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

"And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests?" (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

Thus the two principles are clarified to which recourse must be had in concrete cases for the answer to the serious question concerning the attitude which the jurist, the statesman and the sovereign Catholic state is to adopt in consideration of the community of nations in regard to a formula of religious and moral toleration as described above. First: that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated. Secondly: failure to impede this with civil laws and coercive measures can nevertheless be justified in the interests of a higher and more general good. . . .

The Church must live among them and with them [the nations and peoples of the world]; she can never declare before anyone that she is "not interested." The mandate imposed upon her by her divine Founder renders it impossible for her to follow a policy of non-interference or laissez-faire. She has the duty of teaching and educating in all the inflexibility of truth and goodness, and with this absolute obligation she must remain and work among men and nations that in mental outlook are completely different from each other.

Let Us return now, however, to the two propositions mentioned above: and in the first place to the one which denies unconditionally everything that is religiously false and morally wrong. With regard to this point there never has been, and there is not now, in the Church any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice.

Her deportment has not changed in the course of history, nor can it change whenever or wherever, under the most diversified forms, she is confronted with the choice: either incense for idols or blood for Christ. The place where you are now present, Eternal Rome, with the remains of a greatness that was and with the glorious memories of its martyrs, is the most eloquent witness to the answer of the Church. Incense was not burned before the idols, and Christian blood flowed and consecrated the ground. But the temples of the gods lie in the cold devastation of ruins howsoever majestic; while at the tombs of the martyrs the faithful of all nations and all tongues fervently repeat the ancient Creed of the Apostles.

Concerning the second proposition, that is to say, concerning tolerance in determined circumstances, toleration even in cases in which one could proceed to repression, the Church - out of regard for those who in good conscience (though erroneous, but invincibly so) are of different opinion - has been led to act and has acted with that tolerance, after she became the State Church under Constantine the Great and the other Christian emperors, always for higher and more cogent motives. So she acts today, and also in the future she will be faced with the same necessity. In such individual cases the attitude of the Church is determined by what is demanded for safeguarding and considering the bonum commune, on the one hand, the common good of the Church and the State in individual states, and, on the other, the common good of the universal Church, the reign of God over the whole world. In considering the "pro" and "con" for resolving the "question of facts," as well as what concerns the final and supreme judge in these matters, no other norms are valid for the Church except the norms which We have just indicated for the Catholic jurist and statesman. (Pope Pius XII, Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953.)

Appendix B

Holy Mother Church's Condemnation of the Separation of Church and State

Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.

But for the other painful causes We are concerned about, you should recall that certain societies and assemblages seem to draw up a battle line together with the followers of every false religion and cult. They feign piety for religion; but they are driven by a passion for promoting novelties and sedition everywhere. They preach liberty of every sort; they stir up disturbances in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck authority to pieces. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling." (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

55. The Church ought to be separated from the .State, and the State from the Church. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852. (Condemned Proposition in The Syllabus of Errors, 1864.)

As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.

Now, it cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion, if only it be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking. We have, for example, the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles in great numbers, the rapid spread of the faith in the midst of enemies and in face of overwhelming obstacles, the witness of the martyrs, and the like. From all these it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate. . . . To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error(Pope Leo XII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

There are others, somewhat more moderate though not more consistent, who affirm that the morality of individuals is to be guided by the divine law, but not the morality of the State, for that in public affairs the commands of God may be passed over, and may be entirely disregarded in the framing of laws. Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State. But the absurdity of such a position is manifest. Nature herself proclaims the necessity of the State providing means and opportunities whereby the community may be enabled to live properly, that is to say, according to the laws of God. For, since God is the source of all goodness and justice, it is absolutely ridiculous that the State should pay no attention to these laws or render them abortive by contrary enactments. Besides, those who are in authority owe it to the commonwealth not only to provide for its external well-being and the conveniences of life, but still more to consult the welfare of men's souls in the wisdom of their legislation. But, for the increase of such benefits, nothing more suitable can be conceived than the laws which have God for their author; and, therefore, they who in their government of the State take no account of these laws abuse political power by causing it to deviate from its proper end and from what nature itself prescribes. And, what is still more important, and what We have more than once pointed out, although the civil authority has not the same proximate end as the spiritual, nor proceeds on the same lines, nevertheless in the exercise of their separate powers they must occasionally meet. For their subjects are the same, and not infrequently they deal with the same objects, though in different ways. Whenever this occurs, since a state of conflict is absurd and manifestly repugnant to the most wise ordinance of God, there must necessarily exist some order or mode of procedure to remove the occasions of difference and contention, and to secure harmony in all things. This harmony has been not inaptly compared to that which exists between the body and the soul for the well-being of both one and the other, the separation of which brings irremediable harm to the body, since it extinguishes its very life  (Pope Leo XIII, Libertas, June 20, 1888.)

From this it may clearly be seen what consequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely wise, good, and just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men.  It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the states and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption.  It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, it makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which It has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel It does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes  It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty.  Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

But it is not only within her own household that the Church must come to terms. Besides her relations with those within, she has others with those who are outside. The Church does not occupy the world all by herself; there are other societies in the world., with which she must necessarily have dealings and contact. The rights and duties of the Church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined, and determined, of course, by her own nature, that, to wit, which the Modernists have already described to us. The rules to be applied in this matter are clearly those which have been laid down for science and faith, though in the latter case the question turned upon the object, while in the present case we have one of ends. In the same way, then, as faith and science are alien to each other by reason of the diversity of their objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the diversity of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that of the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed, conceding to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all such, because the Church was then regarded as having been instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophers and historians. The state must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders -- nay, even in spite of its rebukes. For the Church to trace out and prescribe for the citizen any line of action, on any pretext whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of authority, against which one is bound to protest with all one's might. Venerable Brethren, the principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by Our predecessor, Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem fidei  (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

But, on the contrary, by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Let the Princes and Rulers of peoples remember this truth, and let them consider whether it is a prudent and safe idea for governments or for states to separate themselves from the holy religion of Jesus Christ, from which their authority receives such strength and support. Let them consider again and again, whether it is a measure of political wisdom to seek to divorce the teaching of the Gospel and of the Church from the ruling of a country and from the public education of the young. Sad experience proves that human authority fails where religion is set aside. The fate of our first parent after the Fall is wont to come also upon nations. As in his case, no sooner had his will turned from God than his unchained passions rejected the sway of the will; so, too, when the rulers of nations despise divine authority, in their turn the people are wont to despise their human authority. There remains, of course, the expedient of using force to repress popular risings; but what is the result? Force can repress the body, but it cannot repress the souls of men. (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world.

In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right and dignity. Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our Lord: "Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall say: "Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or threats, I betray the vows of my baptism." As to those who imagine that they can reconcile exterior infidelity to one and the same Church, let them hear Our Lord's warning: -- "He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the angels of God" (Luke xii. 9).(Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)

This is, of course, just a partial listing of the constant teaching (God cannot contradict Himself, ladies and gentlemen; the Catholic Church can never be spotted by any taint of error or contradiction) of the Catholic Church on the absolute necessity of the civil state recognizing her as the true religion and of the Social Reign of Christ the King that such a recognition makes possible.

Sure, as has been noted on this site most repeatedly, Holy Mother Church must make concessions to the actual realities of a given situation where she is not favored with the protection of the law, doing so without ever conceding the nonexistent validity of the separation of Church and State and without ever once relenting in teaching her children what the correct doctrine is and exhorting them to plant the seeds for the restoration of the Catholic City. Pope Leo XIII made this point clear in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895:

Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)

In other words, the Catholic Faith grew in the Nineteenth Century despite the American constitutional provisions that failed recognize the Catholic Church as the true religion, not because of those provisions. She grew because of the "fecundity with which God had endowed" her, namely, the graces won for us by her Divine Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. The Faith will grow, Pope Leo noted, wherever Holy Mother Church is not impeded in her efforts to teach and to sanctify her children. Do not, Pope Leo was explaining to James Cardinal Gibbons, the Americanist archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, from October 3, 1877, to March 24, 1921, attribute the growth of the Faith to the religious indifferentism of the American Constitution.

Alas, the conciliar "popes," including Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio do indeed consider the very thing condemned by Pope Leo XIII as not a model for the rest of the world as being exactly that, a model for the rest of world even though the American model has resulted in the corruption of most Catholics in the United States of America by the Americanist ethos of religious indifferentism, cultural pluralism and democratic egalitarianism into viewing the Church through the eyes of the world rather than viewing the world through the eyes of the true Faith. The conciliar revolutionaries are incapable of realizing that the social relativism they have decried is the product of the rejection of the one and only true Faith, Catholicism, as the sole foundation of personal and social order, refusing to accept the truth that the anti-Incarnationalism of Modernity is but the logical result of the forces let loose by the Protestant Revolt and by the subsequent rise of the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry.

Anyone who does not believe that the "Second" Vatican Council and the "magisterium" represented a revolution against the nature of truth and thus the very nature of God, aided and abetted by the revolutionary "periti" such as Fathers John Courtney Murray, S.J., Karl Rahner, S.J., and Joseph Ratzinger, among so many others, and the Protestant "observers" is not seeing things very clearly. And the revolutionaries from the Rhine who gathered near the Tiber between 1962 and 1965 had great assistance from the revolutionaries from the Potomac, men who believed in the false, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles of the modern civil state, men who rejected the Social Reign of Christ the King and who refused to teach about his sacred rights over men and their nations. These revolutionaries had to make use of various Hegelian devices in order to obviate the statements contained in this compendium proving the perpetually binding nature of Catholic Social Teaching, The Binding Nature of Catholic Social Teaching.

We, though, must be reminded of the truths taught by such great apostles of Christ the King as the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie, whose writing had the support of Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X and Benedict XV (the latter two long after Cardinal Pie's death, having studied his writings in great depth and approving of them without any complaint), wrote in the Nineteenth Century:

"If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .

"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."

In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:

"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."

Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:

"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?" (Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, Catholic Action Resource Center.)