| Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes | N° 82 – July 2009 |
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AN URGENT TASK
To revisit Vatican II forty years later and to do so with the faith of the Church of all time as our Father kept and taught it, reveals its avowed, intentional « pastoral » plan. Misunderstood by the faithful – apart from its promoters – who were moreover unsatisfied with it, it consists in a « new humanism », the aim of which is harmony among men and world peace. « No more war ever again », not with weapons, not with dogmas; rather, there will be the fraternal communion of the immense human family.
For this great plan, the Church of Vatican II offers the world the moral resources of her divine authority and grace. On 7 December 1965, the eve of the closing of the Council, Paul VI presented himself as the good Samaritan who was coming to make the world an offer, to give universal democracy an evangelical soul.
At her behest and with a view to this new evangelisation, the Council gave itself a new, apostolic founding authority, Dei Verbum, a new collegial constitution, Lumen Gentium; it taught a new humanism that was based on the dignity of man and his freedom, Dignitatis Humanæ, matched its worship to it, Sacrosanctum Concilium, and defined its principles, Gaudium et Spes. Finally, it gave itself a new mission, which the Church now shares with all religions: the unification of mankind, which has reached the stature of perfect man, beyond all denominational divisions, Unitatis redintegratio.
Only the name of this Council is deceptive; it is not Vatican II but Unesco II, according to the new Gospel of Marc (Sangnier): « We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind. » John Paul II, but already his forerunner, John Baptist (Montini), proclaimed it: « Do not be afraid of your freedom; you are sons of God. » In fact, it is written: « Sicut dii eritis: You will be like gods. » But this was the temptation that Satan made.
To read the “Auto-da-fe” brings immense sorrow for Holy Church, the Church of the martyrs, the Spouse of Him who said: « Without Me, you can do nothing », but also a great joy for the honour of Our Lord and the Church of the Counter-Reformation, which is thus rehabilitated, avenged: “Gaudium de veritate”. It also brings an immense pride of belonging to the small faithful Phalange surrounding our venerable Father, a Doctor of the Faith, a confessor, and faithful witness. His first editorial after his return from exile in January 1997, expresses well the spirit in which he undertook this re-reading of Vatican II:
« With hours of work alternating with the hours of the Divine Office, I had to choose a vast subject to study that would challenge me in God’s today and quite naturally, living peacefully on the margin of this community which finds no problem in accepting the conciliar reform, the idea occurred to me of confronting my ideas on the Council, well anchored for thirty years, with the texts of Vatican II themselves, in the light of their application in the life of this blessed monastery. I was not sure of succeeding; on the other hand, I was prepared to rally to every truth, even though contrary to my convictions, or feel sad to be right to the point where I could not conceive of any salvation for the Church today as yesterday but in a “Catholic Counter-Reformation”.
« The Most Reverend Father, therefore, lent me the book of the Acts of Vatican II, which I undertook to read without any other document. The better to penetrate their meaning, I slowly copied them out and as I proceeded I noted down my reflections, in praise or criticism, with equanimity.
« Although the work was tiresome each time I resumed it, it soon became fascinating, and with the texts thus copied out, analysed and studied, I think I could say that I knew them thoroughly, their form, their declared intentions and even their authors’ most secret ulterior motives… As the days went by, an ever greater division became apparent between this certainly Catholic community, in good conciliar faith, with whom I felt myself to be in profound communion, and these Acts where everything about them put me off, making me suffer as a result and feel a boundless sense of indignation.
« The criticisms I had made in the past came back to me, but so gravely reinforced that, from day to day, it seemed to me imperative for the salvation of souls, for the indefectible holiness of the Church, for God’s very Truth, or at least for the honour and credit of human and Christian intelligence, that these texts be revised and corrected, and for the most part or rather – dare I say it? – for the whole lot to be retracted by the very Fathers who promulgated them, or their successors. So humanly aberrant, dogmatically heretical and subversive are these documents, that they make one cry out: The cause of the Church’s ruin is here, under my scalpel, and it has to be eradicated.
« Help came through breaking off this study and returning to the chapel to ask our Heavenly Father how it was possible that everybody, even an Albino Luciani, the future John-Paul I, could have taken part in this whirlwind of madness… and by what aberration or “diabolical disorientation”, does everyone today, including these holy monks whom I was living with, subscribe to this neo-Christianity, this modernist gnosis already condemned by Saint Pius X and by the entire age-old tradition? It was then, whilst walking along the nearby river, that I was brushed by the vertiginous temptation to suicide as the solution to this insoluble Ignatian problem of “quid agendum?” What do I have to do now?
« The answer was: pray, work relentlessly, then publish this literal criticism, with no other concern but that of the Truth, in a book with a brand new, pamphlet-like title: Vatican II, Auto da fe… and leave the Church to do her duty, having acquitted myself of my duty with this last attempt. » (To the study of Vatican II, CCR n° 292, January 1997, pp. 1-2)
The critical analysis that our Father made of the conciliar texts in his exile does not cover all of the texts that were promulgated. He himself informs us of this in his foreword while indicating to us its tone.
« I shall write the simple common-sense thoughts that my reading inspires to me.I shall refuse to accept affected admiration and shall suppose that my reader will follow me in this non-conformism… Then, I shall search for the fierce biases, the hammered-out, outrageous blunders, the mainsprings of the demonstration that is imposed on us. My reader will follow me or not; one would have to be either a kind of Communist or Christian Democrat parliamentarian to utter or to swallow such monstrous errors. It is outrageous; it is grotesque.
« The grandiloquence of the reformers of the years 1962-1965 is like those trains of the Far West that I saw in cowboy films in my youth: the wagons fell in turn from the bridge into the river. What a fall, Your Eminences! but alas! if you are no longer with us to see it, we pick ourselves up out of this entanglement of bloody scrap, badly shaken for the rest of our lives, in a Church from which everyone… or almost everyone has fled. This is where we are now, remembering other times, other doctrines, and other splendid, sacred liturgies.
« When re-reading these first acts of the Council after twenty-five years of other works, I am dumbfounded, scandalised, shaken. » (Vatican II, Auto da fe, Foreword)
If our Father did not comment on all the acts of the Council, three of them, Unitatis redintegratio, Gaudium et spes, and above all Dignitatis humanæ, came in for his word-for-word analysis. It was during the immense and trying commentary on Gaudium et Spes that we found him on 3 January 1997, and abducted him for a holy and desirable “redintegratio”.
Fr. Congar admitted that the Fathers of the Council did not reckon the revolution that religious freedom was introducing into the Church. For his part, our Father saw it perfectly and denounced it immediately. « You have lucidity and courage that we here in Rome do not have », Fr. Hamon wrote to him. That is why the critiques that were published at that time can compensate for those that the Auto da fe did not tackle: “ Dei Verbum ”, “ Lumen gentium ”, and “ Ad gentes ”. The latter announced the blood and tears of our missionaries, whose heroic work was overthrown, annihilated, and then disparaged, trampled underfoot. It was on account of this work that the Church begged the world for forgiveness and promised to renounce all proselytism. These texts cannot be re-read without profound indignation; they make us understand the spirit of compassion with which our Father undertook this thankless work that would bring no glory. Right from 11 October 1962, it was a cry of distress and love of another St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, a work of true, divine charity: « Caritas urget nos », an urgent work if ever there was one, for it is a question of the Church being annihilated to the benefit of a « de-Catholicised Christianity, the friend of man », as our Father warned us as early as 1965 (Letter to My Friends n° 197). « It is better that one man should die for the whole nation », the high priest prophesied. « It is better that one Church should die for the whole human family reconciled », another Caiaphas proclaimed through the mouth of 2,500 guardians of the Faith.
The demonstration has been made; it is the Second Vatican Council that is the sole cause of the death of the Church.
As we share our Father’s scandal, we want to share in his opprobrium and his resolution:
« Where is the holiness of the Church; where is her indefectible profession of the true Catholic Faith? It is scandalous!
« I am all the more scandalised because there is no longer any way out… I have risen up against it, first alone, then with a few priests (five or six) and a few hundred families of my friends, from the beginning of the Council, and ever more strongly. The authorities pretended to ignore me, they pretended to judge me, they imposed an absurd suspension on me, they “disqualified” me, they committed a criminal abuse of authority by making disappear from the official archives my Profession of Catholic Faith that was a reply to Cardinal Seper’s unspeakable ultimatum, which was made on Paul VI’s order and followed by this ridiculous “disqualification”; that was in July-August 1969. Then they added dereliction of duty to dereliction of duty by refusing my “Books of Accusation” in 1973, 1983, and 1993, despite promises, or despite the law. Now, they are looking for accusations of bad morals, the ultimate means (if it is not a Masonic suicide) of silencing me and dispersing our group.
« All that is left for us to do is to remain faithful and, for me, contrite for having laid myself open to accusations of misconduct and heresy unrelated to the conciliar debates, to bear everything without letting ourselves be impressed, demoralised, without changing sides, rallying round, or resigning.
« Perhaps we will all have to be crushed, but renegades, never! »