Jorge's "Obstacles" to "Pastoral Conversion"

Jorge Mario Bergoglio is upset that some of his “bishops” and priests/presbyters are still resisting his program of “pastoral conversion.” It was surely with his own approval, therefore, that one of allies used the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, to bemoan the fact that there were some members of the clergy, both “high and low,” who, egad, actually hold to remnants of beliefs that are somewhat recognizably Catholic:

On the heels of one controversial Vatican article alleging an “ecumenism of hate” between conservative Evangelicals and Catholics in America, another potential eyebrow-raiser emerged Saturday claiming that the “main obstacle” to implementing Pope Francis’s vision is “closure, if not hostility” from “a good part of the clergy, at levels both high and low.”

The term “high and low” suggests the author had in mind clergy ranging from senior bishops to ordinary parish priests.

“The clergy is holding the people back, who should instead be accompanied in this extraordinary moment,” said the article by Italian Father Giulio Cirignano, a native of Florence and a longtime Scripture scholar at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy.

The piece appeared in the weekend edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, under the headline of “The Conversion Asked by Pope Francis: Habit is not Fidelity.”

It comes a little over a week after the publication of an essay by Italian Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro and Argentine Protestant Marcelo Figueroa, two close friends of Pope Francis, in the Jesuit-edited journal La Civilità Cattolica. In it, Spadaro and Figueroa described what they see was a “Manichean vision” underlying growing closeness in America between Evangelicals and “Catholic Integralists.”

Cirignano’s piece didn’t focus on the United States, and appeared to be more concerned with Italian realities, though he didn’t specify which country or region he was addressing.

“The main obstacle that stands in the way of the conversion that Pope Francis wants to bring to the Church is constituted, in some measure, by the attitude of a good part of the clergy, at levels high and low … an attitude, at times, of closure if not hostility,” Cirignano wrote.

“Most of the faithful have understood, despite everything, the favorable moment, the Kairos, which the Lord is giving to his community,” Cirignano said. “For the most part, they’re celebrating.”

“Despite that, the portion [of the community] closest to little-illuminated pastors is maintained behind an old horizon, the horizon of habitual practices, of language out of fashion, of repetitive thinking without vitality,” he said.

Cirignano offered several factors to explain what he sees as “closure” and “hostility” from the clergy towards Pope Francis.

The “modest cultural level on the part of clergy, both at high and low levels,” he said, saying that both theological and Biblical preparation is often “scarce.”

An antiquated image of the priesthood, which, according to Cirignano, sees the priest as “the boss and patron of the community,” who, because of his celibate condition, is compensated with “totally individual responsibility,” a sort of “solitary protagonist.”

An old theology, associated with the Counter-Reformation, “lacking the resources of the Word, without a soul, that transformed the impassioned and mysterious adventure of believing into religion,” arguing that “the God of religion … is, for the most part, a projection of man, while “faith” is not in the first place “Man reaching for God, but the opposite.”

“When the priest is too marked by a religious mentality, and too little by a limpid faith, then everything becomes more complicated,” Cirignano wrote. “He risks remaining the victim of many things invented by man about God and his will.”

God, according to Cirignano, “doesn’t tolerate being enclosed in rigid schemes typical of the human mind.” (Vatican Article Says Main Obstacle to Jorge's Agneda is the Clergy.)

This is blasphemous heresy as it is to assert the doctrines of Holy Mother Church, including those reiterated and taught by the Fathers of the Council of Trent, are the invention of human minds and have not been guided infallibly by the very Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity God the Holy Ghost.

Obviously, the mind wearies from recalling how many times that Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself has said the exact same thing at the Casa Santa Marta and in the endless speeches and “homilies” that he gives in the Vatican and during his travels. However, “Father” Giulio Cirignano was just a slight bit more direct than Bergoglio himself has been in denouncing the Catholic counter-reformation, which means that the work of, among so many others, Saint Charles Borromeo and two Jesuits, Saints Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius, was contrary to the will of God and thus harmful for souls. Indeed, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, meant to serve the papacy and Holy Mother Church as part of the Counter Reformation. The Jesuits were founded to defend the Church and her doctrines.

Bergoglio and his revolutionary comrades must, therefore, use every means of disparagement, insults and bitter invectives imaginable to denounce those who do not accept his call to “pastoral conversion.”

If you may recall, Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s program to bring the conciliar revolution to the ultimate ends that its architect, the adversary of mankind, designed it to achieve was laid out very clearly in his first “apostolic exhortation,” Evangelii Gaudium, November 24, 2013, especially by means of his call for “pastoral conversion.” “Pastoral conversion” is simply a euphemism for flushing the “past” down the Orwellian memory hole, which is what revolutionaries of their very diabolical nature are inspired to do with truth and the actual facts of history, a theme explored in two recent articles on this site.

Oscar Andres Maradiaga “Cardinal” Rodriguez, who had a large hand in the writing of Evangelii Gaudium as Senor Jorge, the lay Jesuit revolutionary, is a talker, not a writer, helped to serve as a sort of perverse prophet for his fellow Latin American as the Honduran revolutionary gave the exact same address in two different locations—Irving, Texas, and Miami, Florida—within days of each other (October 31, 2013, and November 4, 2013). Included in the text of Maradiaga Rodriguez’s address was the frank admission that the “Second” Vatican Council represented an end to the Catholic Church’s war against Modernism:

The Second Vatican Council was the main event in the Church in the 20th Century. In principle, it meant an end to the hostilities between the Church and modernism, which was condemned in the First Vatican Council. On the contrary: neither the world is the realm of evil and sin –these are conclusions clearly achieved in Vatican II—nor is the Church the sole refuge of good and virtue. Modernism was, most of the time, a reaction against injustices and abuses that disparaged the dignity and the rights of the person. 

The Vatican II Council officially acknowledged that things had changed, and captured the need for such a change in its Documents, which emphasized truths such as these: (The Council's "Unfinished Business," The Church's "Return to Jesus"... and Dreams of "The Next Pope" – A Southern Weekend with Francis' "Discovery Channel".)

"An end to the hostilities between the Church and modernism"?

In other words, God the Holy Ghost failed Pope Pius IX and the Fathers of the [First] Vatican Council.

Sure, Joseph Ratzinger said the same thing in 1971, 1990 and 2005 (see Appendix A below). However, the current antipope emeritus always tried to couch his disregard for the anti-Modernist condemnations by explaining that were "necessary" for their "time" but that they had become "obsolete in the particulars they contain" because of changed circumstances. Granted.

Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez is simply making it plain for all the world to see that Modernism was done an "injustice" as it was a "reaction against injustices and abuses and that disparaged the dignity of the rights of the person."

Here is how Pope Saint Pius defined Modernism in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

39. It may, perhaps, seem to some, Venerable Brethren, that We have dealt at too great length on this exposition of the doctrines of the Modernists. But it was necessary that We should do so, both in order to meet their customary charge that We do not understand their ideas, and to show that their system does not consist in scattered and unconnected theories, but, as it were, in a closely connected whole, so that it is not possible to admit one without admitting all. For this reason, too, We have had to give to this exposition a somewhat didactic form, and not to shrink from employing certain unwonted terms which the Modernists have brought into use. And now with Our eyes fixed upon the whole system, no one will be surprised that We should define it to be the synthesis of all heresies. Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of them all, he could not succeed in doing so better than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have gone farther than this, for, as We have already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion. Hence the rationalists are not wanting in their applause, and the most frank and sincere among them congratulate themselves on having found in the Modernists the most valuable of all allies. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Some injustice to Modernism, huh?

As it is no injustice at all, of course, the conciliar revolutionaries have tried to use two different phrases ("living tradition" and "hermeneutic of continuity" to describe the same philosophically absurd principle according to the order of reason that was condemned dogmatically by the [First] Vatican Council and by Pope Saint Pius X throughout his Pontificate and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis. (See Appendix B below.)

Having conditioned three generations of Catholics born after the "Second" Vatican Council to believe the Modernist precepts of conciliarism are indeed orthodox Catholicism while having brainwashed older generations to believe that things were "bad in the past," Bergoglio and his band of balloon boys, about whom a separate article is being written, believe it is "safe" now to "come out of the closet," so to speak, and to proclaim boldly to the world what many of had come to realize: the "Second" Vatican Council was an effort to start a new religion, based upon a "new" understanding of dogma and hence a "new ecclesiology" to redefine Holy Mother Church herself.

Pope Saint Pius X understood Modernism perfectly as the "synthesis of all heresies."

Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez is a heretic. So is is friend, fellow Latin American and theological comrade, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Pope Pius IX condemned the following propositions in The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864, that are among the most foundational building blocks of the gigantic erector set that is the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. -- Allocution "Nemo vestrum," July 26, 1855.

78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852.

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. -- Allocution "Nunquam fore," Dec. 15, 1856.

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution "Jamdudum cernimus," March 18, 1861. (Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.)

According to the likes of Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez and his patron, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, God the Holy Ghost permitted a true Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius IX, to err.

Moreover, Maradiaga Rodriguez said in the United States nearly four years ago that "neither the world is the realm of evil and sin –these are conclusions clearly achieved in Vatican II—nor is the Church the sole refuge of good and virtue," which is one of the boldest, most plain and brutally honest statements of the heretical and blasphemous Modernist belief system that has been made in the past fifty-five years, although there are many, including Bergoglio in the past seven months, eighteen days, who have used words less precise and clear than these to assert that this is so.

Although Holy Mother Church is composed of sinful men, she is by her very Divine Constitution the sole repository of Divine Revelation, which consists both of Sacred Scripture and Apostolic (Sacred) Tradition, and has been given the authority by her Divine Founder, Invisible Head and Mystical Spouse, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to teach infallibly in His Holy Name all that she has received from Him. She alone has the teaching and the supernatural helps, the sacraments, to instruct and to sanctify and save men. She is without spot or error of any kind.

Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez was, as noted just above, preparing the way for the release of Evangelii Gaudium on November 24, 2013, the Feast of Saint John of the Cross and the Commemoration of Saint Chrysoganus, replete as it was with its specific call for “pastoral conversion”:

26. Paul VI invited us to deepen the call to renewal and to make it clear that renewal does not only concern individuals but the entire Church. Let us return to a memorable text which continues to challenge us. “The Church must look with penetrating eyes within herself, ponder the mystery of her own being… This vivid and lively self-awareness inevitably leads to a comparison between the ideal image of the Church as Christ envisaged her and loved her as his holy and spotless bride (cf. Eph 5:27), and the actual image which the Church presents to the world today... This is the source of the Church’s heroic and impatient struggle for renewal: the struggle to correct those flaws introduced by her members which her own self-examination, mirroring her exemplar, Christ, points out to her and condemns”.[23] The Second Vatican Council presented ecclesial conversion as openness to a constant self-renewal born of fidelity to Jesus Christ: “Every renewal of the Church essentially consists in an increase of fidelity to her own calling… Christ summons the Church as she goes her pilgrim way… to that continual reformation of which she always has need, in so far as she is a human institution here on earth”.[24]

There are ecclesial structures which can hamper efforts at evangelization, yet even good structures are only helpful when there is a life constantly driving, sustaining and assessing them. Without new life and an authentic evangelical spirit, without the Church’s “fidelity to her own calling”, any new structure will soon prove ineffective.

An ecclesial renewal which cannot be deferred

27. I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with him. As John Paul II once said to the Bishops of Oceania: “All renewal in the Church must have mission as its goal if it is not to fall prey to a kind of ecclesial introversion”.[25] (Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Evangelii Gaudium, November 26, 2013.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was very correct to invoke the words of Giovanni Montini/Paul The Sick as the second conciliar "pontiff" did much to change "things," starting with the revolutionary documents he helped to shepherd through the "Second" Vatican Council and, of course, the very Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Montini/Paul The Sick even made symbolic points by doing such things as genuflecting before the schismatic and heretic Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras and by taking off the Papal Tiara and placing it on an altar, an act that was meant to convey the conciliar teaching that the "pope" is not a monarch but a fellow pilgrim whose position is seen principally in terms of "service," not governance. Subsequent "popes" have each done much to change what they thought to be the "papacy" (see Whittling Away At The Last Catholic Bastion), and part three of this commentary will discuss Bergoglio's oft-expressed desire to change it in an even more revolutionary way than has been done in the past fifty-five years.

For the present, however, it is important to point out yet again that Jorge Mario Bergoglio's efforts to teach that the structures that have existed from time immemorial for the proper governance and functioning of the Catholic Church have "failed" because they were the products of sinful men who sought to "protect" the Church from the "outside world," thus making it "too closed-in on itself," were anticipated and condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943:

63. Hence, this word in its correct signification gives us to understand that the Church, a perfect society of its kind, is not made up of merely moral and juridical elements and principles. It is far superior to all other human societies; [117] it surpasses them as grace surpasses nature, as things immortal are above all those that perish. [118] Such human societies, and in the first place civil Society, are by no means to be despised or belittled, but the Church in its entirely is not found within this natural order, any more than the whole of man is encompassed within the organism of our mortal body. [119] Although the juridical principles, on which the Church rests and is established, derive from the divine constitution given to it by Christ and contribute to the attaining of its supernatural end, nevertheless that which lifts the Society of Christians far above the whole natural order is the Spirit of our Redeemer who penetrates and fills every part of the Church's being and is active within it until the end of time as the source of every grace and every gift and every miraculous power. just as our composite mortal body, although it is a marvelous work of the Creator, falls far short of the eminent dignity of our soul, so the social structure of the Christian community, though it proclaims the wisdom of its divine Architect, still remains something inferior when compared to the spiritual gifts which give it beauty and life, and to the divine source whence they flow.

64. From what We have thus far written and explained, Venerable Brethren, it is clear, We think, how grievously they err who arbitrarily claim that the Church is something hidden and invisible, as they also do who look upon her as a mere human institution possessing a certain disciplinary code and external ritual, but lacking power to communicate supernatural life. [120] On the contrary, as Christ, Head and Exemplar of the Church "is not complete, if only His visible human nature is considered. . ., or if only His divine, invisible nature. . ., but He is one through the union of both and one in both . . . so is it with His Mystical Body" [121] since the Word of God took unto Himself a human nature liable to sufferings, so that He might consecrate in His blood the visible Society founded by Him and "lead man back to things invisible under a visible rule." [122]

65. For this reason We deplore and condemn the pernicious error of those who dream of an imaginary Church, a kind of society that finds its origin and growth in charity, to which, somewhat contemptuously, they oppose another, which they call juridical. But this distinction which they introduce is false: for they fail to understand that the reason which led our Divine Redeemer to give to the community of man He founded the constitution of a Society, perfect of its kind and containing all the juridical and social elements -namely, that He might perpetuate on earth the saving work of Redemption [123] -- was also the reason why He willed it to be enriched with the heavenly gifts of the Paraclete. The Eternal Father indeed willed it to be the "kingdom of the Son of his predilection;" [124] but it was to be a real kingdom, in which all believers should make Him the entire offering of their intellect and will, [125] and humbly and obediently model themselves on Him, Who for our sake "was made obedient unto death." [126] There can, then, be no real opposition or conflict between the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit and the juridical commission of Ruler and Teacher received from Christ, since they mutually complement and perfect each other -- as do the body and soul in man -- and proceed from our one Redeemer who not only said as He breathed on the Apostles "Receive ye the Holy Spirit," [127] but also clearly commanded: "As the Father hath sent me, I also send you"; [128] and again: "He that heareth you heareth me." [129]

66. And if at times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her juridical constitution, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual, which its Divine Founder permits even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, for the purpose of testing the virtue of the shepherds no less than of the flocks, and that all may increase the merit of their Christian faith. For, as We said above, Christ did not wish to exclude sinners from His Church; hence if some of her members are suffering from spiritual maladies, that is no reason why we should lessen our love for the Church, but rather a reason why we should increase our devotion to her members. Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments, by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all; in the evangelical counsels which she recommends; in those heavenly gifts and extraordinary graces through which, with inexhaustible fecundity, [130] she generates hosts of martyrs, virgins and confessors. But it cannot be laid to her charge if some members fall, weak or wounded. In their name she prays to God daily: "Forgive us our trespasses"; and with the brave heart of a mother she applies herself at once to the work of nursing them back to spiritual health. When therefore we call the Body of Jesus Christ "mystical," the very meaning of the word conveys a solemn warning. It is a warning that echoes in these words of St. Leo: "Recognize, O Christian, your dignity, and being made a sharer of the divine nature go not back to your former worthlessness along the way of unseemly conduct. Keep in mind of what Head and of what Body you are a member." [131] (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Holy Mother Church has no need to engage in a "self-examination" as she is perfect, without any spot of error or taint of any kind. 

Those who are old enough might recall that what Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s call  “pastoral conversion” was presaged by “Saint John Paul II’s use of the Orwellian term “purification of memory” in an antipapal bull of indiction to call to the make the year 2000 a jubilee holy year:

First of all, the sign of the purification of memory; this calls everyone to make an act of courage and humility in recognizing the wrongs done by those who have borne or bear the name of Christian. (Incarntionis Mysterium, November 29, 1998.)

Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II charged the International Theological Commission, then under the direction of his hand-chosen prefect of the very misnamed Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger, later to become known as the great “restorer of tradition” after had issued Summorum Pontificum, July 7, 2007, as “Pope Benedict XVI,” to develop the theme of “purification of memory” in a future document. Ratzinger then placed “Archbishop” Bruno Forte, whom he chose to personally “consecrate” a bishop even though the president of the Italian conciliar “bishops’” conference was opposed because of Forte’s disbelief in the Resurrection of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (see Ratzinger Consecrates Neo-Modernist), in charge of a committee to draft such a document. Forte’s memory has been so “purified” that he holds to nothing taught by the Catholic Church, which is why he has been a trusted lieutenant of Bergoglio's, especially in the two synods leading up to the issurance of Amoris Laetitia on March 19, 2016.

The resulting document, Memory and Reconciliation, was issued by Ratzinger on March 7, 2000, the Feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, after it had been approved by Wojtyla/John Paul II, and it included an “apology,” “presumably to the “world,” for the crimes committed by individual Catholics and by Holy Mother Church herself, in the preceding two millennia. Here is just an excerpt from its opening paragraphs:

Bull of Indiction of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Incarnationis mysterium (November 29, 1998), includes the purification of memory among the signs “which may help people to live the exceptional grace of the Jubilee with greater fervor.” This purification aims at liberating personal and communal conscience from all forms of resentment and violence that are the legacy of past faults, through a renewed historical and theological evaluation of such events. This should lead - if done correctly - to a corresponding recognition of guilt and contribute to the path of reconciliation. Such a process can have a significant effect on the present, precisely because the consequences of past faults still make themselves felt and can persist as tensions in the present.

The purification of memory is thus “an act of courage and humility in recognizing the wrongs done by those who have borne or bear the name of Christian.” It is based on the conviction that because of “the bond which unites us to one another in the Mystical Body, all of us, though not personally responsible and without encroaching on the judgement of God, who alone knows every heart, bear the burden of the errors and faults of those who have gone before us.” John Paul II adds: “As the successor of Peter, I ask that in this year of mercy the Church, strong in the holiness which she receives from her Lord, should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters.”(1) In reiterating that “Christians are invited to acknowledge, before God and before those offended by their actions, the faults which they have committed,” the Pope concludes, “Let them do so without seeking anything in return, but strengthened only by ‘the love of God which has been poured into our hearts’ (Rom 5:5).”(2)

The requests for forgiveness made by the Bishop of Rome in this spirit of authenticity and gratuitousness have given rise to various reactions. The unconditional trust in the power of Truth which the Pope has shown has met with a generally favorable reception both inside and outside the Church. Many have noted the increased credibility of ecclesial pronouncements that has resulted from this way of acting. Some reservations, however, have also been voiced, mainly expressions of unease connected with particular historical and cultural contexts in which the simple admission of faults committed by the sons and daughters of the Church may look like acquiescence in the face of accusations made by those who are prejudicially hostile to the Church. Between agreement and unease, the need arises for a reflection which clarifies the reasons, the conditions, and the exact form of the requests for forgiveness for the faults of the past.

The International Theological Commission, in which a diversity of cultures and sensitivities within the one Catholic faith are represented, decided to address this need with the present text. The text offers a theological reflection on the conditions which make acts of “purification of memory” possible in connection with the recognition of the faults of the past. The questions it seeks to address are as follows: Why should it be done? Who should do it? What is the goal and how should this be determined, by correctly combining historical and theological judgement? Who will be addressed? What are the moral implications? And what are the possible effects on the life of the Church and on society? The purpose of the text is, therefore, not to examine particular historical cases but rather to clarify the presuppositions that ground repentance for past faults. (Memory and Reconciliation, March 7, 2000.)

Those among the readership of this site who had been subscribers to the printed journal Christ or Chaos might recall that I, then an indulter, criticized this severely at the time. The text above has been included in this brief commentary to demonstrate that Jorge’s desire for “pastoral conversion” is just taking Wojtyla/John Paul II’s and Ratzinger/Benedict’s “purification of memory” to its logical conclusion, namely, the eradication of almost anything recognizably Catholic. Period.

This “papally”-sanctioned “apology” did not go without its applause from the “world” that is so beloved by the conciliar revolutionaries:

''The apology does not just apply to individuals, but the church as a whole, and that is very important,'' the Rev. Lorenzo Albacete, who teaches theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers. ''Because it reflects this pope's desire to reconcile with other Christians and other religions, people are tempted to view it as a tactic, but its immense spiritual importance to this pope lies in the fact that it did not come within a diplomatic or theological agreement, but in the liturgy of the Mass during Lent and the Holy Year.''

The pope, broadening a process of reconciliation that began in the 1960's during the Second Vatican Council, has issued apologies before, notably regretting in a 1998 document the failure of many Catholics to help Jews during the Holocaust. That document, ''We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,'' disappointed many leading Jewish groups, which complained that the pope did not go far enough in apologizing for the silence of church leaders, including the wartime pope, Pius XII.

Today, in the prayer dedicated to ''confession of sins against the people of Israel,'' John Paul did not mention the church's behavior during the Holocaust, just as he did not elaborate on other sins of the church. He said, ''We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.''

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, called today's apology a ''bold and important step forward,'' but added that he was disappointed that the pope had not mentioned the Holocaust explicitly. ''The church still wants to steer clear of dealing with the role of the Vatican during World War II,'' he said.

The pope also acknowledged that church followers had ''violated the rights of ethnic groups and peoples and shown contempt for their cultures and religious traditions.'' He deplored divisions between Catholicism and other branches of Christianity, and also discrimination against women. ''Given the number of sins committed in the course of 20 centuries,'' Bishop Piero Marini, who is in charge of papal ceremonies, said before the Mass, ''it must necessarily be rather summary.'' (Pope Asks Forgiveness of the Errors of the Church Over 2000 Years.)

Ah, yes, Piero Marini, the man who planned all of those “Saint John Paul II” extravaganza productions of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

Wojtyla/John Paul II’s successor, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, nvoked the term “purification of memory” very directly himself, doing so in 2007 to continue the process of selling out the faithful Catholics of the underground church Red China to the Chicom-created and operated “Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association:

The history of the Church teaches us, then, that authentic communion is not expressed without arduous efforts at reconciliation . Indeed, the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrong-doers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts, all to be accomplished in the name of Jesus crucified and risen, can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences. These are urgent steps that must be taken if the bonds of communion between the faithful and the Pastors of the Church in China are to grow and be made visible. (Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China)

In other words, Ratzinger/Benedict was telling the members of the underground Church in Red China that it is up to them to make "visible" a "communion" with the "pastors"of the rump church that supports the Communist regime's "population control" policies. "Communion" depends upon them being willing to forgive past—and present!—injustices as well as to forget the inconvenient truth that the most of the leaders of the rump church defected from several of the Church's defined teachings on Faith and Morals, placing them totally outside of the pale of the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.

Ratzinger/Benedict was telling the long-suffering Catholics in the underground Church in Red China ten years ago that their suffering was appreciated and noted. It was time, however, to "move on" and purify "memories" so that a "reconciliation" based on a deliberate and calculated overlooking of defections from Faith and Morals on the part of the rump church in China can take place, leaving to a later date—perhaps—“discussions” on the more "delicate" matters that might seem to the Communist authorities to be an "interference" in their "internal affairs." Just be quiet, therefore, don't complain about the government's "population control policies," be good citizens and be content that you have the sacraments and are in "communion" with your fellow Chinese Catholics.

An unfair reading of Ratzinger/Benedict's June 30, 2007 letter?

Read this footnote from the Compendium that was released by the conciliar Vatican in 2009 in the expectation that confusion over the then reigning antipope’s 2007 could be brought to an end and then decide for yourselves:

We can see that the Holy Father is talking about a spiritual reconciliation, which can and must take place now, even before a structural merger of official and unofficial Catholic communities takes place. As a matter of fact, the Holy Father seems to make a distinction between “a spiritual reconciliation” and “a structural merger”. He recognizes that the reconciliation is like a journey that “cannot be accomplished overnight” (6.6): however, he emphasizes that the steps to be taken on the way are necessary and urgent, and cannot therefore be postponed because - or on the pretext that - they are difficult since they require the overcoming of personal positions or views. Times and ways may vary according to local situations, but the commitment to reconciliation cannot be abandoned. This path of reconciliation, furthermore, cannot be limited to the spiritual realm of prayer alone but must also be expressed through practical steps of effective ecclesial communion (exchange of experiences, sharing of pastoral projects, common initiatives, etc.). Finally, it should not be forgotten that all without exception are invited to engage in these steps: Bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful. It is by means of practical steps that spiritual reconciliation, including visible reconciliation, will gradually occur, which will culminate one day in the complete structural unity of every diocesan community around its one Bishop and of every diocesan community with each other and with the universal Church. In this context, it is licit and fitting to encourage clergy and lay faithful to make gestures of forgiveness and reconciliation in this direction. (Footnote 2, Compendium, pp. 8-9.)

This footnote reflected entirely Joseph Ratzinger's abject rejection of the "ecumenism of the return." Ratzinger/Benedict still believes that people are gradually "absorbed" into the Church by means of "perfecting" their "communion" with other Christians. This is heretical. This is condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church. Yet it is of the essence of Ratzinger/Benedict's theology, which is reflected so completely in his June 30, 2007, Letter to Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of Red China and in the Compendium released on May 24, 2009.

After all, it is "reconciliation" and "love" that matters the most, although Catholics understand that true love of God can never sanction anything that is offensive to Him, making, therefore, Ratzinger's appeal ten years ago for a "reconciliation" with authorities of a rump church who support (or are silent about) government polices contrary to Faith and Morals nothing other than an exercise in pure subjectivism. On this point, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is using his own “pastoral conversion” to simply end any “confusion” caused by his immediate predecessor’s letter to the Catholics of Red China a decade ago by simply conferring a de facto recognition on the so-called “patriotic association” (see Still Selling the Rope After All These Years, part two).

Thus it is that any and all “bishops” and priests/presbyters within the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who have a semblance of the sensus Catholicus must wake up and recognize that not one bit of this can come from the Catholic Church, she who is unchanging in her doctrines and stable the worship she offers to the Most Holy Trinity in the ineffable Sacrifice of the Cross that is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us, all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let them be anathematized. (Constantinople III).

7. It is with no less deceit, venerable brothers, that other enemies of divine revelation, with reckless and sacrilegious effrontery, want to import the doctrine of human progress into the Catholic religion. They extol it with the highest praise, as if religion itself were not of God but the work of men, or a philosophical discovery which can be perfected by human means. The charge which Tertullian justly made against the philosophers of his own time "who brought forward a Stoic and a Platonic and a Dialectical Christianity" can very aptly apply to those men who rave so pitiably. Our holy religion was not invented by human reason, but was most mercifully revealed by God; therefore, one can quite easily understand that religion itself acquires all its power from the authority of God who made the revelation, and that it can never be arrived at or perfected by human reason. In order not to be deceived and go astray in a matter of such great importance, human reason should indeed carefully investigate the fact of divine revelation. Having done this, one would be definitely convinced that God has spoken and therefore would show Him rational obedience, as the Apostle very wisely teaches. For who can possibly not know that all faith should be given to the words of God and that it is in the fullest agreement with reason itself to accept and strongly support doctrines which it has determined to have been revealed by God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived? (Pope Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846.)

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. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before. ( Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)

For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever, and that they might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men, and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. (Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928.)

Moreover, what Oscar Andres Maradiaga Rodriguez, who spoke directly for “Pope Francis" four yers ago, described as the “Second” Vatican Council’s reconciliation with Modernism and with the world is the antithesis of the enmity for the world that Catholics must have.

To contend that "neither the world is the realm of evil and sin –these are conclusions clearly achieved in Vatican II—nor is the Church the sole refuge of good and virtue" is to blaspheme the Third Person of the the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who inspired Saint John the Evangelist to write as follows of the world as the realm of evil and sin:

[15] Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him.

[16] For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. [17] And the world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof: but he that doth the will of God, abideth for ever. (1 John 2: 15-17.)

Writing in Creator and Creature, Father Frederick William Faber noted the enmity that we must have for the world and its attractions:

Well then might St. James come to his energetic conclusion, Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God. It is remarkable also that St. John, the chosen friend of the Incarnate Word, and the Evangelist of His Divinity, should be the one of the inspired writers who speaks most often and most emphatically about the world, as if the spirit of Jesus found something especially revolting to it in the spirit of the world.

It is this world which we have to fight against throughout the whole of our Christian course. Our salvation depends upon our unforgiving enmity against it. It is not so much that it is a sin, as that it is the capability of all sins, the air sin breathes, the light by which it sees to do its work, the hotbed which propagates and forces it, the instinct which guides it, the power which animates it. For a Christian to look at, it is dishearteningly complete. It is a sort of catholic church of the powers of the darkness. It is laws of its own, and tastes the principles of its own, literature of its own, a missionary spirit, a compact system, and it is a consistent whole. It is a counterfeit of the Church of God, and in the most implacable antagonism to it. The doctrines of the faith, the practices and devotions of pious persons, the system of the interior life, the mystical and contemplative world of the Saints, with all these it is at deadly war. And so it must be. The view which the Church takes of the world is distinct and clear, and far from flattering to its pride. It considers the friendship of the world as enmity with God. It puts all the world's affairs under its feet, either as of no consequence, or at least of very secondary importance. It has great faults to find with the effeminacy of the literary character, with the churlishness of the mercantile character, with the servility of the political character, and even with the inordinateness of the domestic character. It provokes the world by looking in progress doubtingly, and with what appears a very inadequate interest, and there is a quiet faith in its contempt for the world extremely irritating to this latter power.

The world on the contrary thinks that it is going to last for ever. It is almost assumes that there are no other interests but its own, or that if there are, they are either of no consequence, or troublesome and in the way. It thinks that there is nothing like itself anywhere, that religion was made for its convenience, merely to satisfy a want, and must not forget itself, or if it claims more, must be put down as a rebel, or chased away as a grumbling beggar; and finally it is of opinion, that of all contemptible things spirituality is the most contemptible, cowardly, and little. Thus the Church and the world are incompatible, and must remain so to the end.

We cannot have a better instance of the uncongeniality of the world with the spirit of the Gospel, than their difference in the estimate of prosperity. All those mysterious woes which our Lord denounced against wealth, have their explanation in the dangers of worldliness. It is the peculiar aptitude of wealth and pomp, and power, to harbor the unholy spirit of the world, to combine with it, and transform themselves into it, which called forth the thrilling malediction of our Lord. Prosperity may be a blessing from God, but it may easily become the triumph of the world. And for the most part the absence of chastisement is anything but a token of God's love. When prosperity is a blessing, it is generally a condescension to our weakness. Those are fearful words, Thou has already received thy reward; yet how many prosperous men there are, the rest of whose lives will keep reminding us of them; the tendency of prosperity in itself is to wean the heart from God, and fix it on creatures. It gives us a most unsupernatural habit of esteeming others according to their success. As it increases, so anxiety to keep it increases also, and makes men restless, selfish, and irreligious; and at length it superinduces a kind of effeminacy of character, which unfits them for the higher and more heroic virtues of the Christian character. This is but a sample of the different way which the Church and the world reason.

Now it is this world which, far more than the devil, far more than the flesh, yet in union with both, makes the difficulty we find in obeying God 's commandments, or following His counsels. It is this which makes earth such a place of struggle and of exile. Proud, exclusive, anxious, hurried, fond of comforts, coveting popularity, with an offensive orientation of prudence, it is this worldliness which hardens the hearts of men, stops their ears, blinds their eyes, vitiates their taste, and ties their hands, so far as the things of God are concerned. Let it be true that salvation is easy, and that by far the greater number of catholics are saved, it is still unhappily true that that the relations of the Creator and the creature, as put forward in this treatise, are not so universally or so practically acknowledged as they ought to be. Why is this? Sin is a partial answer. The devil is another partial answer. But I believe worldliness has got to answer for a great deal of sin, and for a great deal of devil, besides a whole deluge of iniquity of its own, which is perpetually debasing good works, assisting the devil in his assaults, and working with execrable assiduity against the sacraments and grace. The world is for ever lowering the heavenly life of the Church. If there ever was an age in which this was true, it is the present. One of the most frightening features of our condition is, that we are so little frightened of the world. The world itself has brought this about. Even spiritual books are chiefly occupied with the devil and the flesh; and certain of the capital sins, such as envy and sloth, no loner hold the prominent places which they held of the systems of the elder ascetics; and yet they are just those vices which contain most of the ungodly spirit of the world. The very essence of worldliness seems to consist in its making us forget that we are creatures; and the more this view is reflected upon, the more correct will it appear. . . .

Worldliness then is a life of secret sins. It is such an irresistible tendency to sin, such a successful encouragement of it, such a genial climate, such a collection of favourable circumstances, such an amazing capability of sin, that it breeds actual sins, regularly formed and with all the theological requirements, by millions and millions. It we read what the catechism of the Council of Trent says of sins of thought, we shall see how marvellously prolific sins can be, and what a pre-eminently devastating power sins of thought in particular exercise within the soul. In numberless cases open and crying sins must come at last. Still we must remember that on the whole there are two characteristics which always distinguish sins of worldliness from sins of the passions, or sins of direct diabolical temptation. The respectability which worldliness affects leads it rather to satisfy itself in secret sins. Indeed its worship of self, its predilection for an easy life, would hinder its embarking in sins which take trouble, time, and forethought, or which run risks of disagreeable consequences, and therefore would keep it confined within a sphere of secret sins. And in the next place its love of comfort makes it so habitually disinclined to listen to the reproaches of conscience, or the teasing solicitations of grace, that it passes into the state of a seared conscience, a dreaded moral sense, with a speed which is unknown even to cruelty or sensuality. (Father Frederick Faber, The Creator and Creature, written 1856 and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 314-328.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of concilia revolutionaries do the work of Antichrist by believing and speaking and acting as they do. And a figure of Antichrist cannot be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. It is that simple.

Saint John the Evangelist explained very clearly who is responsible for seeking a "reconciliation" with the world and its concupiscences:

[18] Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour. [19] They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us. [20] But you have the unction from the Holy One, and know all things. (1 John 2: 18-20.)

The hour is later than I wanted it to be. Indeed, figuratively speaking, it is very late for each of us. We live in the time of figures of Antichrist. Of this there can be no doubt whatsoever.

Everyone in the conciliar structures, whether “high or low,” actual or pretended clergyman or member of the laity, must recognize that they are in a false religious sect that has usurped the institutions of the Catholic Church and eclipsed her with its own falsehoods.

Revolutions have one source, and it is not Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It was a revolution against God that caused Lucifer, the light bearer, to be thrust down into Hell along with the revolutionary angels who followed him. The very head of Satan has been crushed by the Immaculate Mother of God. May we, protected by Our Lady's Immaculate Medal and her Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel, continue to crush the head of the demons in our own lives, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, and to avoid any contacts with the demons of the counterfeit church of conciliarism no matter what it might cost us in human terms, including "peace" at the dinner table on days such as this one.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

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 Andrew the Apostle, 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 Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.

Appendix A

Joseph Ratzinger's Condemned Views on Dogmatic Evolution

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)

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. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)  

Appendix B

The Catholic Church's Condemnations of the Beliefs Held by Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio

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 1.)

Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] 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.

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)