He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

FRANCE’S MISSIONARY VOCATION

« Openness to the problems of the world must be well understood: it is based on the missionary dynamism of informing everyone about the revelation of Christ and of leading all men to the mystery of Christ. » (Tarcisio Bertone, Concerning the Reception of the Documents of the Magisterium and Public Dissent, CCR n° 298, July, 1997, p. 24)

By this vigorous statement, Mgr Tarcisio Bertone, at that time Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict XVI’s future Cardinal Secretary of State, underlined as a corollary to this well understood “openness to the world” « the urgency of forming an ecclesial public opinion that is in conformity with the Catholic identity, free of all subjection to the secular public opinion that is reflected in the media. »

It must be said that this « secular public opinion » is but the reflection of institutions entirely devoted to eliminating all of the Church’s influence on society. In fact, « for a long time now the West has claimed to separate its civilisation from Christianity, which is its source. », the Abbé de Nantes wrote twenty-five years before Mgr Bertone. « Replete with pride, it spread its technology and culture throughout the world as a secular, totally human success. The peoples learned to copy them, to participate in it without for all that sharing our Faith. The human pride of our political and technological secularism passed into them; we encouraged it, favoured it. The world forgot how to consider Christians alone as truly civilised and true civilisation as Christian. » (Georges de Nantes, Catholic Missions, CRC n^o 56, p. 4)

By forbidding missionaries authentic and plenary preaching of Christ, the only Lord, Saviour of lords and peoples, the monarchy of July and the Empire, then the Republic, convinced these peoples that they were attaining true western civilisation without any need of adopting its religion, and even that the ideological driving force of our culture is that of universal egalitarianism and liberalism.

But what Father de Foucauld had not foreseen, so unimaginable it was, is that the Church would end up having doubts about herself and about the unique treasure of Divine Revelation, and would begin to admire other religions and native cultures: « The idea of the equality of all men and the other revolutionary dogmas produced this irresistible relativism. Now, it gives the same consideration to all the products of human thought and all the institutions of its history. Seen in this light, the Christian religion must lose its unique dogmatic character and even see its very clearly historical superiority contested. We made ourselves the missionaries of human pride » (G. de Nantes, ibid.)

The conviction of true missionaries such as Fr. Joseph Krémer whose life we are going to read was always against this pride. Their example remains the sole remedy for the illusory aggiornamento of the missions advocated by the Second Vatican Council, which ended in this poorly understood “openness to the other” that is deplored today by Cardinal Bertone. This “openness” is contrary to the Scriptures, to the uninterrupted Tradition of the Church – up to and excluding the Second Vatican Council –, contrary to the very essence of the missionary institution, to the experience of converts, to the expectation of pagan peoples, in short, to common sense and the Catholic Faith.

The providential lesson of the heroic and holy life of our elders is to indicate to us the “orthodromic” path of restoring the missions: to turn us towards the message of Our Lady of Fatima, in order to snatch souls from Hell by devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Brother Bruno of Jesus.