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!

OUR LADY OF FATIMA CAMP 2007

THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

INTRODUCTION

A RADICAL RUPTURE

On Tuesday 24 July, during his vacation in the Dolomites, the Pope spoke on various subjects for more than an hour with the priests and seminarians of the diocese of Belluno, Feltre and Treviso, in response to their questions. The last one was asked by an elderly priest. He asked the Pope if he had not been mistaken in expecting too much from Vatican II. Benedict XVI is also « an elderly priest », as he said smilingly to a nun who introduced herself to him by saying that she cared for elderly persons…

GROWTH OR REGRESSION?

To this priest, he replied at length:

« I also lived at the time of the Council, taking my place  enthusiastically in St Peter’s Basilica, and seeing how it really seemed to be the new Pentecost. »

We only know of one Pentecost, and no one has told us that there should be a second one. Yet, according to the Pope, this is what he believed as a young priest.

« It seemed that the Church and the world were finding each other again and that a Church truly open to the world was being born anew. »

Having lost the audience of the world, the Church was on the verge of disappearing. At least this was the thinking of the young Abbé Ratzinger, who at that time assisted Cardinal Frings , the Archbishop of Cologne, participating in the Council as one of the most “reformist” of the Fathers, convinced that the Church had to open itself to the world in order to « be born anew »…

« We had so many hopes but in fact things turned out to be more difficult. There remains, however, the great legacy of the Council that is still the “Magna Carta” of the Church's journey, essential and fundamental. »

With these words, Benedict XVI warns us that the Second Vatican Council is law in the Roman Catholic Church of which he is today the head.

Yet, he recognises, with the priest who asked him the question, that it is difficult « to digest the Council, this great message ». He could not have expressed it better. Our Father once compared the Second Vatican Council to a foreign body that the Church has swallowed: « If it were an apple, he said, the Church would end up digesting it. If, however it is a tin of food, it would be necessary to extract it by an operation, given the risk of dying from it »…

Benedict XVI recognises that, for the time being, it hurts. In fact, he continues:

« To integrate the Council into the life of the Church, to accept it so that it may become the life of the Church, to assimilate it into the various milieus of the Church, means suffering, but it is only in suffering that growth is achieved. Growing always brings suffering because it means emerging from one state in order to move on to the next. »

Here we find the axiomatic formula, the principle and foundation of what our Father denounced fifty years ago under the name of “progressivism” and against which he has fought throughout his life to the point of losing his health. It is a mystery of iniquity, which he did not hesitate to call the “Mystery of the Antichrist”, that consists in dreaming of changing the Church in order to « emerge from one state to move on to the next » This is indeed what the Pope says the Council did. The whole question is to know whether we emerged from one state to move on to a better… or a worse one.

Our Lord compared the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds. Benedict XVI compares the Council to a forest that grows, no less! Quoting the proverb according to which: « if a tree falls it makes a great noise, but if a forest grows nothing can be heard », he continues: « Thus, the journey of the Church silently progressed, with great suffering and great losses, [this is an allusion to the departure of so many priests and religious who left their state, to the drying up of vocations, to the decrease in the number of faithful; it seems, however, that the Pope does not think for an instant of the “loss” of souls, otherwise he would not speak in such an offhand way] as she built up a new cultural process. »

It is on this « road » that the Holy Father invites us to walk. « On this road, we must grow with patience. » How can that be? « By rereading today these great Conciliar texts, in the light of the experiments that we made and that have borne their fruit in so many movements, so many new religious communities… »

Well! This is what we are going to do, because we are precisely among these « new religious communities », born on 15 September 1958, before the Council, before the “rupture”.

I. THE ABDICATION OF AUTHORITY

The first « experience » that I had in the seminary was that of a division within the Church, resulting from the abandoning by priests of their cassock for the Roman collar and suit, which was permitted in the Diocese of Paris from 1 July 1962 on (!) and in the other dioceses of France in the following weeks.

Some of the priests of Cardinal Feltin had threatened to defrock if they were not granted this authorisation; he yielded:

« Our attention was taken up by our desertion of Algeria; our hearts were crushed by the account of the appalling convulsions that were taking place in that unfortunate country. The permission given to priests to exchange the cassock for the Roman collar and suit only made us shrug our shoulders: it seemed to be a disgusting childishness, an almost sacrilegious diversion, to have extorted this authorisation from their bishops at such a moment. This repudiation of a Habit with a glorious past, in this July that was full of misfortune, was similar to the odious condemnation of colonists and “colonialism”. “Let’s make a clean sweep of the past…” Will the odious revolutionary song become a hymn of the Church? » (Letter to My Friends n° 123, 8 November 1962)

It was a revolution, because those who had been disobedient, who already dressed in civilian clothes, became by that very fact the arch-apostles of tomorrow, while Brother Gérard and I – who were attached to the cassock! – were first looked on as old-fashioned before becoming,  in the eyes of everyone, instigators of division, schismatics to say the least!

« I am told that it is a secondary question, our Father wrote, that it should be overlooked. This is said so as to stifle the criticism on our lips. What a surprising contradiction. If it was secondary, why does progressivism make it into a question of outstanding importance? And why did our bishops yield? It is on the contrary most important. For them, it is the sign of a victory of Progress in the Church; for us, it is the death knell of the French clergy, this clergy that enjoyed universal admiration for its piety, its doctrine and the dignity of its manners. […] This permission, purposely given just before the opening of the Council, was meant to appear as a harbinger. This is really a cause for concern, for the true reason for this revolution in attire is of an unprecedented gravity. » (ibid.)

It fell within the context of a generalised secularisation of religion and of an “openness to the world”, for which the progressivist Sect clamoured. How could an “ecumenical” Council adopt such a demand?

This is what we are going to see by briefly recalling the facts.

« THE CONVOCATION OF THE ESTATES GENERAL ».

On 25 January 1959, at St. Paul Outside the Walls, Pope John XXIII, three months after his election (28 October 1958), announced before a consistory of cardinals his intention of holding an ecumenical council. « The souls of those who were present, he said in his speech on 11 October 1962, were immediately struck as though by a flash of heavenly light; the eyes and faces of all reflected the sweet emotion that they felt. » John XXIII then spoke about the « idea » that came « unexpectedly », about « an unforeseen illumination ». We know by several testimonies that it was nothing of the sort. That idea took hold after the conclave.

The truth is that the cardinals remained impassive. In the thinking of John XXIII, it would not be a council of combat or opposition to the modern world like that of Trent (1545-1563) and of Vatican I (1869-1870). « Pope Jean wanted a council of transition between two epochs, which would bring the Church out of the post-Tridentine epoch and the Constantinian era into a new phase of witnessing and announcing […]. Such is the Council, the object of “the flash of heavenly light” about which Pope John spoke time and time again and that he started to call, at the approach of Pentecost 1959, a “new Pentecost”. » (Alberigo, Histoire du concile Vatican II, 1959-1965, éd. du Cerf - Peeters, 1997, t. 1, p. 55)

John XXIII resolved to launch a general consultation of the bishops and religious institutes. Already this procedure marked a “rupture” with the one that Blessed Pius IX had followed. The latter had first of all taken advice from forty-three bishops before convoking the First Vatican Council. As they showed themselves to be favourable, he had his departments and offices prepare the work of the future Council for five years. For Vatican II, there was nothing of the sort. Everyone was invited to give his opinion… on what subject? There was nothing precise, other than the vague idea of “aggiornamento”, of an “updating”, close to that of  “reform” and even of  “self-criticism”, not of the men of the Church, but rather of the Church herself…

The Pope, in fact, unlike all his predecessors, did not indicate any danger, any major crisis to which the Council would apply extraordinary measures. Causes for concern, however, were not lacking.

The Abbé de Nantes drew up the list in his Letter n° 50, April 1959, evaluating the burden that weighed on the new Pontiff:

« The reality of the schism of the Church of China is the first cross thrown on his shoulders [the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, created in 1957 by Mao had just consecrated bishops without the permission of Rome] and is making known to him the sorrowful part of his task: to stop the invasion of Satanic Communism, which Cardinal Ottaviani, on the very day that the Council was convened, designated as the Antichrist.

« As regards the joyful and glorious share of his pontificate, it will be the bringing together of the Churches of the East and some of the Churches of the West. This whole programme has long since been prepared by the work of his predecessors... After naturalism and modernism, progressivism undertook, in the service of the Adversary, to promote the decay of Christian society; it will be brought into full light and condemned.

« As regards the adherents of heresies and secular schisms, forgetting all the ancient grievances, the great Church will open wide the eternal gates to them and there is no doubt that large numbers of them will rush in because, when wild beasts roar and night falls, the distant sheep listen to the Voice of the Shepherd with an interior trembling and desire the peace of the sheepfold! Let us set ourselves to prayer here and now... »

The bishops and religious institutes consulted replied in fact, during the winter of 1959 and the spring of 1960, in this broadly traditional sense. Their « vota » fill eight huge volumes of the Acta Synodalia! The Latin countries revealed themselves very reactionary. The University of Salamanca, for example, demanded a « new Syllabus of the biblical, dogmatic and moral errors that proliferate ». Six hundred bishops and superior generals demanded a special text on the Blessed Virgin, and eighty percent of them a definition of Her universal mediation of all graces. The other countries of Europe were more tinged with modern ideas, but the French were not as progressivist as one would have us believe. (cf. Alberigo, op. cit., p. 139).

THE CHURCH UNARMED.

After the perusal and the summarising of these « vota », the preparatory works of the Council began on 14 November 1960. They would last until 23 June 1962. Ten commissions were responsible for them, corresponding more or less to the Roman dicasteries; the most important one was the Theological Commission, in charge of doctrinal questions, and directed by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani . This robust sixty-two year old Roman, the son of a bakery worker in the working-class district of Trastevere, the eleventh of a family of twelve children, had lived throughout his whole ecclesiastical career in the shadow of Saint Peter’s, fulfilling a pastoral ministry with the founding of an orphanage, as well as curial functions, first at the Secretariat of State then at the Holy Office, of which he had become the pro-prefect.

These ten commissions were supervised by a “Central Commission” presided over by the Pope. He decided, moreover, to flank it by three secretariats, the first two of which, rather insignificant, were responsible for means of communication and economic and technical questions, and the third commission that had all his favours. It was presided over by the Jesuit Father Augustin béa , who was made a cardinal in January 1960; this Secretariat for Christian Unity would play the role of a counter-Holy Office, in the preparation as well as in the very course of the Council.

If an organism should have assured « continuity », it was indeed the Theological Commission, because its field was the Faith, something that is unchangeable “by reason of its divine perfection”. To this end, it drew up a solemn profession of faith, which the Fathers would have to recite at the opening of the Council. All the great Councils of history had proceeded in this manner in order to affirm a faith exempt from all heresy and... to exclude heretics or evil souls “tending towards heresy”. The planned formula was to link to the Apostles Creed the Tridentine profession of faith and the anti-Modernist oath, as well as the recent findings of the Magisterium of the Church. In the end, criticised by the Central Commission and by the Secretariat for Unity as too « negative » and « anti-ecumenical », this formula would be thrown out (Alberigo, t. 1, p. 264-268). This was the first crime.

In twenty months of unremitting work, the Theological Commission produced no fewer than eight texts: besides this profession of faith, there were seven constitutions consecrated to the Sources of Revelation, The Defence of the Deposit of the Faith, The Church, The Blessed Virgin Mary, The State of Chastity and of Virginity, Marriage and The Family, The Community of Nations and Social Order. These texts met with the same fate as the profession of faith.

The composition of the Commissions marked a certain « openness »: thus the Jesuit Fr. de Lubac and the Dominican Fr. Congar were consultants to the Theological Commission. They were closely watched, however. Congar felt « dominated », as he noted in his Journal on 22 November 1961, concerning ecumenism and the Blessed Virgin (Mon Journal du Concile, Cerf, 2002, two volumes).

Nevertheless, violent confrontations, of which the public would never learn, took place within the Central Commission between Ottaviani , who was supported by his secretary, the Jesuit Sébastien Tromp , and the representatives of the Secretariat for Unity, concerning the Virgin Mary – the eternal sign of contradiction! – but also concerning the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, and the relations between the Church and the State with reference to tolerance and religious liberty. Already the great controversies of the future were emerging. Exceeding its mandate, the Secretariat of Cardinal Béa had prepared texts on these hotly debated issues that it attempted to oppose to those of the Theological Commission.

Cardinal Ottaviani, as well as his assistants Ruffini , Parente , and Piolanti, hoped to raise up against this offensive that was still little represented but that claimed to adhere to the intentions of the Pope, whether declared or secret, a sort of “rempart”, according to the title of the speeches and sermons of Ottaviani published in Rome in 1963, « for the defence of the Church and the City ». Roman theologians were building a wall… that was going to reveal itself rather as a Maginot line! In fact, they would soon see their defence circumvented by the very attitude of the Pope. It was for him that they were working, preparing for him a case for the exercise of his magisterial authority, not yet having grasped that John XXIII no longer intended to condemn error or even impose the truth of the Faith.

THE DISQUIETING PONTIFICAL IRENICISM.

For Pope John XXIII, in fact, it was not, it was no longer the time for combat, but for benevolence, for openness. He declared on 3 December 1960, two years before the opening of the Council.

« Originally, and also later on, the aim of Councils was to shed light on one or several points of Catholic doctrine that were the subject of discussions or erroneous interpretations. Today the situation is different [sic!]. The soul finds itself as though invaded by supernatural joy before a true Epiphany, a Revelation that does not limit itself to such and such a subject, but embraces everything, every blessing given to christianity: the teaching of Our Lord, of Peter, of the Apostles, of the Fathers, the whole of Catholic doctrine with its two thousand years of victories over errors, with the peace of Christ, triumphing over the numerous struggles waged against Christ. »

In this beginning of the sixties, the euphoria of prosperity, the fruit of economic, industrial and financial expansion, launched the West into the exhilaration of novelty, liberty, pleasure that in no way altered the expansion of Communism in the world. The Pope made this optimism his own.

« We can rightly say that we have all entered a new era which, while maintaining in its integrity the sacred heritage handed down by our fathers, heralds a marvellous spiritual progress. » (Apostolic Exhortation, 23 January 1962)

In such a state of mind, one can understand that upon reading the Third Secret of Fatima, John XXIII declared: « This does not concern my pontificate. » On 1 July 1962, he published an encyclical letter Agere pænitentiam « to assure the success of the Council », by quoting the words of the Gospel: « Do penance, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand » (Mt 3.1), in preference to the dramatic warning: « Unless you do penance, you will all perish » (Lk 13.3), which would have been more consonant with the shout of the Angel in the vision of the Secret of Fatima.

II. THE HOLY CITY, AN OPEN CITY

Let us observe, in fact, that in perfect consonance with this secret that should have been disclosed in 1960, our Father at the same time foresaw, announced, described in advance in the Letter to My Friends from October 1959 on, under the title The Mystery of the Church and the Antichrist, the entire programme of the Council:

« a revolution in the Church: that is to say the systematic destruction of everything that is, just because it is… In order to bring about the creation of this new spotless and unwrinkled Church, which must be (and of which each progressivist believes he bears in himself an image directly engraved in his heart by God and more beautiful than can be imagined), the old Church must be effaced. » (Letter n° 105, March 1962).

The Abbé de Nantes would be the first victim of this revolution… « because I saw, he explained, before the others and I dared to denounce in my Letters to My Friends the perplexity into which the Christian people were thrown and under the cover of which the business of religious subversion was conducted. » (Letter n° 220, 6 January 1966, p. 3)

Above the mêlée the Virgin Mary, victorious over all heresies, had not said Her last word. She had demanded that Her Secret be revealed « in 1960 at the latest ».

From that date on, in fact, it would appear clearly, after the betrayal of the Christian community in Algeria, which could not have been perpetrated without the active complicity of the Church in Rome and in Paris, that the refusal to take into account the warnings of Our Lady against the « errors of Russia » would lead the Vatican to a new betrayal. This was consummated by the secret agreements with Moscow: in exchange for the authorisation to go to the Council, kindly granted by the Kremlin to the bishops and observers from the countries of the East, Rome would commit herself not to condemn Communism.

Pope John XXIII, warmly congratulated by Nikita Khrushchev, was convinced that the Church no longer had enemies, that peaceful co-existence was possible, and that the time of the great reconciliation had come – not only with Communists, but with Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists… whose representatives he received in private audiences, something that had never been done within the memory of Popes!

ROCKED BY THE WAVES.

During this time of preparation, the world became agitated, and everyone had his project of “reform”, of “updating” and of “criticism”, since the Pope had not clearly expressed his intentions and the preparatory work had been carried out in the greatest secret.

Thus, the young Father Hans Küng , a theologian in Tübingen, published in 1960 his book “Council and Return to Unity”, in which he denounced the Church of the Ancien Régime, and her Bastille: the Holy Office, which was to be destroyed! The French Dominican Yves Congar, in a colloquium organised in 1961 on the theme “A Council for our Times” concluded: « We must force the dawn to break by believing in it (sic!). »

Some spoke of the Estates General of the Church… ¹

Our Father denounced this febrile agitation that was given great media coverage in his Letter n° 120, on 11 October 1962, the day of the opening of the Council:

« By means of this insatiable press, which has questioned one and then another, scrutinised the past and the future, imagined, suspected, demanded a thousand extravagances, the Council has long since ceased to be a divine act for which one prepares in the silence of prayer, in the fervour of penance, in order to take on instead an all too human aspect as a colossal news item, a sort of grand congress of a radical party.

« In the eyes of faith, it ought to be a thrilling mystery, a grandiose hope, because the Holy Spirit Himself should come to the aid of His Church to give Her a fresh impetus, visibly and clearly. But in all the articles, discussions and surveys, disproportionately inflated in order to impress, the Council has become purely a sensational human event. Fantastic! The first Council where there will be Blacks, Asians, Redskins and Whites! As for prognostications, what a profusion of imagination: a sort of Pandora’s Box from which the most unexpected decisions might emerge!

« It is distressing. We have let ourselves be deceived; we delight in this atmosphere. We think that it manifests the interest that the world takes in our Church affairs (this obsession of what the “World” thinks), while these rumours from the press lower and debase everything [...]. After having imagined all sorts of nonsense, they suggest to us that in any case the novelty will certainly move in the direction of broadening, simplification, accommodation.

« “For a new age, a new Church”, is another formula from which the most deadly errors are drawn. The Fathers of the Council thus no longer seem in touch with God and His Will for perfection and truth; instead they have become the deputies of the people charged with their “Registers of grievances” and have no other delegation than from the people, for making their grievances accepted by the central power. The aspirations of the masses and the demands of the modern world, these are the sovereign authorities of the Council, at least so it seems following the preparatory media campaign. »

In his Letter n° 118 on 24 September 1962, after having recalled that Councils have always had for their object 1^o to bring Christians back to seriously jeopardised discipline and virtue, 2^o to put an end to serious disagreements concerning the Faith, 3^o to respond to pressing threats from the enemies of Christendom, he wrote:

« The Council that is going to open at the Vatican in a few days is apparently an exception to this general rule. Never before has a Council been convoked with so few explicit reasons, to the point that the Christian people and the members of the hierarchy who are going there are reduced to making suppositions. It seems as though it had been called for nothing. Or for details: the reform of the breviary, the revision of the Latin text of the Vulgate, ideas of the collegiality of the episcopate, promotion of the laity… nothing worrisome, nothing to arouse public opinion. As for the thought of reuniting to the Church the various “Christian confessions”, it straightaway excludes the only preparatory work that could further it: doctrinal controversy and the search for “formulas of union”.

« There remains the imagining of new adaptations of the Church to the modern world, as they say, and a broadening of her precepts and discipline. To slide on this slope is dangerous; to give free rein to the whims of public opinion is even more dangerous. Everyone risks being horribly disappointed in this game, some for want of important concessions rashly expected, others by seeing things remain in their present state and worsened by a new despair, because if the Church and the Spirit do not indicate the way of salvation to the world, there is no longer any salvation! »

A FIGURATIVE THUNDERSTORM.

On 13 July 1962, seven Preparatory Schemata, four of which were from the Theological Commission, were sent to the Fathers of the Council. There were many favourable replies, but also a few caustic criticisms from progressivists. Suenens (Brussels) and Léger (Montreal) laid siege to the Pope to convince him to head a movement for a radical Reform. John XXIII gave them a favourable echo in his radio message on 11 September.

224 periti (theologians) were appointed on 28 September with the consent of the Pope, who exempted them from taking the anti-Modernist oath. « It is a crime », wrote one if them, Mgr Fenton, from the Catholic University of Washington, the principal ally of Ottaviani in the United States, who did not conceal his concern:

« I always thought that this Council was dangerous. It was undertaken without sufficient reasons. Too much has been said about what it was supposed to accomplish. Now, I fear that we will have real problems » (quoted by Alberigo, Vol. 2, p. 116)

The Second Vatican Council opened on 11 October 1962, on the Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. A violent thunderstorm had burst over Rome, and the ceremonies began with a grandiose solemn procession of almost 2,500 Conciliar Fathers, crossing St. Peter’s square under persistent rain before entering the basilica. Mass was sung by the Sistine Chapel choir. At the end of the ceremony, John XXIII delivered his opening speech, the charter of the Council. It defined its spirit and opened the doors of St. Peter’s to novelty.

« Gaudet Mater Ecclesia... Mother Church rejoices that, by the singular gift of Divine Providence, the longed-for day has finally dawned when – under the auspices of the virgin Mother of God, whose maternal dignity is commemorated on this feast – the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council is being solemnly opened here beside the tomb of St. Peter. »

After recalling the previous Councils, the Pope explained the reason for the present joy: « In order to render more complete the holy joy that fills our hearts at this solemn hour, we wish to narrate before this great assembly our assessment of the happy circumstances under which the Ecumenical Council commences. »

THE HAPPINESS-MERCHANT.

Suddenly, the Holy Father launched a full charge against “prophets of doom”. In a few words, the “reaction” was reduced to silence in advance. The hour of the revolution had come.

« It often happens that, in the daily exercise of our apostolic ministry, our ears are offended by what is said by certain people who, although burning with religious zeal, lack sound judgement, discretion and balance in their way of seeing things… »

« In the situation of society today, they see nothing but ruins (our emphasis here and throughout the speech) [here John XXIII knowingly blasphemes against the Third Secret of Fatima] and calamities; they are in the habit of saying that our era is far worse than past centuries; they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none the less, the teacher of life... »

This is a patent falsehood, for the prophets of doom draw their experience and wisdom from the lessons of the past, while the “prophets of happiness” project their utopias, unknown in the past, into a future that they construct according to their folly.

« … and as though, at the time of former Councils, everything was perfect in regard to Christian doctrine, morals and the proper liberty of the Church. We feel we must state our complete disagreement with these prophets of doom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. »

The Abbé de Nantes made three observations:

« First, Jesus was, in the line of St. John the Baptist, His Precursor, a prophet of woes… some of which have taken place, but not all. Others mentioned in the Gospel still await their hour. This means that the odds are always stacked in favour of the prophets of doom… right up to the end. Among the woes and maledictions pronounced by Jesus, I choose these divine words: “Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their fathers treated the false prophets.” (Lk 6.26) »

« The whole life of John XXIII is encapsulated in this sentence.

« Then, I would fill a huge notebook of inspired indictments, taken either from Holy Scripture or the works of the saints, Fathers of the Church, Pontiffs, envoys of God and thaumaturges, not forgetting their Mother and teacher of Wisdom to all, the Virgin Mary in all Her apparitions… up to La Salette and Fatima: they all denounce – in the prophets of happiness – impostors inspired by the Devil, and corruptors of their people, cursed by God. All of them! »

« Finally, it is an unpardonable crime to vaticinate against prophets of doom, because, first, it is a difficult path, a Calvary, to accept from God such a role, such a thankless mission, and this already pleads in favour of their sincerity and even of the truth of their oracles. Then because prophecies of misfortune are incitements to penance, to conversion of morals, to a return to true faith in Christ and true obedience to the Church.

« On the other hand, the announcements of happiness are debilitating, intoxicating. Thus they do no good and very probably do not come from God unless they are, as always in Holy Scripture, the announcement of a liberation after a harsh chastisement (Isaiah, 40 - 55), or the announcement of a flood of graces at the request of the Most Blessed Virgin upon a people docile to Her demands (Fatima, 13 July 1917). »

« It cannot be denied, however, the Pope continues, that these new conditions of life have at least the advantage of having eliminated those innumerable obstacles by which, at one time, the sons of this world impeded the free action of the Church. » The « free action » of the Second Vatican Council, praised by John XXIII, was in fact under close observation by Moscow, in the person of her two envoys. John XXIII mentioned in passing, « the Church of silence » but quickly he came back to his chimera: « Nevertheless, [our emphasis] we see today, not without great hope and to our immense consolation, that the Church, finally freed from so many obstacles of a profane nature such as trammelled her in the past (!), can from this Vatican Basilica, as if from a second Cenacle, through you raise her voice full of majesty and authority. »

« As if from a second Cenacle »? The first Cenacle, that of Jerusalem, was the one that saw the birth of the Church, with the institution of the Eucharist and Holy Orders, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and the meeting of the first of the Councils, in Jerusalem. The comparison is extraordinarily flattering, but enough is enough! After the “new Pentecost”, here was the “second Cenacle”, and what next? Not only were past Councils forgotten, but by using the word “second”, as the second of a pair, they began to suppose that there would be no others afterwards.

Here, though, is what is more serious: the Pope turns to the very principle of the reform to be undertaken.

III. THE INVASION OF A NEW SPIRIT

« It is necessary first of all that the Church should never remove her gaze from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers. At the same time, however, she must ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world, which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate. »

Starting off from a promise of conserving the ancient order, the Pope enters, by means of a subtle « yes, but », into a hazy succession of novelties in all fields. How clever it is! This does not only concern the apostolate, but doctrine also:

« To transmit Catholic doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion, which … has become the common patrimony of men… available to men of good will… Nevertheless, our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us, pursuing thus the path that the Church has followed for twenty centuries. »

Watch out! Here is « the first intellectual poison introduced into the conciliar dogmatics », the Abbé de Nantes warned:

« It is necessary for this certain and unchangeable doctrine, which must be respected faithfully, to be studied and expounded in a way that meets the requirements of our time (!). »

These words proclaim that henceforth we can free ourselves from the ancient dogmatic formulas. In a further wavering « is one thing… is another » lies all the hypocrisy and untruthfulness of four years of conciliar reform and forty years of post-conciliar collapse:

« For, the deposit of Faith, namely the truths that our venerable doctrine contains is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another, preserving nevertheless the same meaning and the same import. »[emphasis added]

REFORM OF THE EXERCISE OF THE MAGISTERIUM.

The Pope displayed a disarming optimism:

« We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. Often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun. » Just like that; on their own?! He added: « The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, [mind the about-face!] the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations »

Errors are « so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them... » This is why the Church has no need of exercising her discernment or rendering her judgment!

« That being so, the Catholic Church, raising the torch of religious truth by means of this Ecumenical Council, desires to show herself to be the loving mother of all, benign, patient, full of mercy and goodness toward her sons who are separated from her. » Turning her attention to them, what does she see? Nothing other than the utopia of Sangnier and Maritain: « They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. » The role of the Church consists only in increasing in them the feeling of this dignity under the divine impulse of Christian Revelation and of the charity of her sons.

« Obviously, the Church does not offer to the men of today riches that pass, nor does she promise them merely earthly happiness, but she distributes to them the goods of divine grace which, raising men to the dignity of sons of God (this is a supernatural view), are the most efficacious safeguards and aids toward a more human life. (We are slipping, and the supernatural begins to regress to the level of a means for obtaining earthly happiness, instead of remaining its control and ultimate end). She opens the fountain of her life-giving doctrine that allows men, enlightened by the light of Christ (by converting, being baptised and practicing the life of the Catholic Sacraments?), to understand well what they really are, what their lofty dignity and their purpose are, and, finally, through her children, she spreads everywhere the fullness of Christian charity, than which nothing is more effective in eradicating the seeds of discord, nothing more efficacious in promoting concord, just peace, and the brotherly unity of all. » We have fallen from the Catholic Faith into Masonic humanism.

In order to achieve the « unity of the human race », Christians must first bring about amongst themselves the unity that the Pope gives as the principle aim of the Council:

« Unfortunately, the entire Christian family has not yet fully attained this visible unity in truth. The Catholic Church, therefore, considers it her duty to work actively so that there may be fulfilled the great mystery of that unity, which Jesus Christ invoked with fervent prayer from His heavenly Father on the eve of His Sacrifice. She rejoices in peace, knowing well that she is intimately associated with that prayer of Christ. »

« The Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, the Abbé de Nantes recalled. Thus, to pray that she remain in this Unity and that all men of good will incorporate themselves into it (our Father used the French verb “s’agréger”, which means etymologically: to enter into this flock), is a good prayer. To pray, on the other hand, in order that the unity of the Church with other alleged “churches” and so-called “Christian” communities, formally heretical and schismatic may, thanks to our prayer, at last be re-established is, according to the Church of Christ, a detestable prayer that smacks of heresy. »

The conclusion of this opening speech is splendid, luminous, but the Abbé de Nantes unmasked the fallacious character of this light:

« UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN ».

« Behold, we are gathered together in this Vatican Basilica, upon which hinges the history of the Church where Heaven and earth are closely joined, here near the tomb of Peter and near so many of the tombs of our holy predecessors, whose ashes in this solemn hour seem to thrill in a mysterious exultation. »

The body of St. Pius X, which remains incorrupt, and the other relics of holy Popes of all times, do they thrill in holy exultation at such words, which smack of the heresies that they condemned?

« The Council now beginning rises in the Church like daybreak, a forerunner of most splendid light. It is now only dawn. Already at this first announcement of the rising day, how much sweetness fills our heart. Everything here breathes sanctity and arouses great joy. Let us contemplate the stars, which with their brightness augment the majesty of this temple. These stars, according to the testimony of the Apostle John (Ap 1.20), are you! »

This would be shocking and even ridiculous, if this enormous flattery did not have a biblical, evangelical, Johannine flavour that excuses it and even begins to give it a trace of reality or truth in the Faith.

By dint of making free with the Faith, however, one ends up falling into credulity…

« With you (the stars!), we see shining around the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, the golden candelabra. They are the Churches that are confided to you [this is an allusion to the first chapters of the Apocalypse of St. John]. We see here with you important personalities, present in an attitude of great respect and cordial expectation, having come together in Rome from the five continents to represent their nations. »

If we were to follow St. John in his Apocalypse, these heads of state, princes and other dignitaries, would evoke rather the devils and ferocious beasts that succeed in being set loose in the world against the male Child of the Woman and all Her progeny… The flattering poetry plunges into tragedy! It is all the more tragic because the tail of the Dragon, St. John wrote, « dragged a third of the stars from the sky and dropped them to the earth » (Ap 12.4)!

On the evening of this baneful day, as our Father was leaving his church in Villemaur where he had celebrated with his parishioners the exercises of the Rosary, his housekeeper, Miss Andrée, approached him and said: « The Pope condemns you. – What? – Yes, I listened to his speech on the radio. It is the complete opposite of what you tell us from the pulpit. – Think of that… »

The reading of the document, however, soon convinced the Abbé de Nantes, the parish priest of Villemaur, Pâlis and Planty, that a new spirit was storming into the Church.

Two years afterwards, at the opening of the third session, he was able to write in his Letter no 184:

« The stone has broken from the mountain. It is rolling now in a thunderous rumble. No one knows, in truth, into what abysses it will crash […]. The procession of all the bishops of the world was admirable to the eyes on 11 October 1962 when it ascended towards St. Peter’s. It penetrated into a dreadful machine of manipulation. The two thousand good willed conservatives who composed this mitred crowd, instead of being directed by the Pope towards the doctors of the Faith – and they did exist! – were going to be continuously delivered up to the preaching and the pressure of the progressivist clan that became daily more arrogant. »

We did not have to wait long, in fact, to see the mafia make an assault on the citadel.

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION.

Two days later, on Saturday, 13 October, it was necessary to elect the members of the commissions charged with finalising the texts which, presented in the conciliar aula, would be the subject of debates and amendments (modi) on the part of the Fathers: ten commissions, each of sixteen members, the Pope reserving the right to name the eight supplementary members.

The stakes were considerable; Cardinal Ottaviani rightly hoped that the members of the preconciliar commissions would be re-elected, in order to assure a continuity between the enormous preparatory work of which we have spoken and the course of the Council. The list of their names was thus passed on to the Fathers and the immense majority of them, little accustomed to this sort of procedure, saw no problem with it. The clan of the reformers, however, would not hear of it.

The rupture came from the French. Hatched by Cardinal Garrone (Toulouse), it would be uttered by Cardinal Liénart (Lille). At the moment that Mgr Felici , the secretary-general of the Council, announced that they were going to take a vote Liénart, who was a member of the chairman’s council, rose and declared that he at least, and others as well, were ill-at-ease, for they had not had the time to  inform themselves (the hypocrites!) Thus, they asked for a delay in order that they might all « get acquainted with one another ». Much applause (orchestrated) in the assembly. Then Liénart immediately made a proposition: that each Episcopal Conference draw up a list of candidates.

Liénart had no right to intervene in this manner. There was a slight hesitation. Then Frings (Cologne) took the floor to support the demand of the French cardinal, claiming to represent Döpfner (Munich) and König (Vienna). Tisserant, who chaired the session, acceded to the demand, and it was decided that the elections would be postponed to 16 October. Thus it was that, a quarter of an hour after the beginning of the session, the throng of bishops was seen leaving the basilica in disorder and pouring out onto St. Peter’s square.

On 13 October 1962, the Council had truly become a democratic assembly, governing itself by means of the Episcopal Conferences raised to the rank of parties. This makes one think of 17 June 1789 when the third estate proclaimed itself the National Assembly, claiming the exercise of a sovereign power equal to that of the king.

It is needless to say that between 13 and 16 October, meetings multiplied, watchwords were given, lists circulated, in short, all the agitation of a vulgar electoral campaign substituted the tyranny of clubs, parties, movements of public opinion, and behind them that of Satan… for the traditional authority of the Pope, father and king, and of his ministers.

On 16 October were held the elections, the results of which were known on the 20^th and confirmed immediately by the Pope: 57 % of the members of the preparatory commissions were re-elected and 43 % new members were elected.

« At the end of October, the game was over, our Father said in 1966. If I had been a Father of the Council, I would have returned home on 20 October. »

A POISONED CHALICE

In fact, on that day, a curious “Message” was read in the conciliar aula that the Fathers were supposed to send “to the world”, echoing the opening speech of John XXIII on 11 October. This was the third phase of the plot: after the principles laid down by the Pope, and the installing of the new teams in the key positions, it was necessary to send a vigorous message to the world.

« What is striking in this Message, our Father wrote, is its earthly and natural perspective:

“We appeal to our brethren,… but also to all our brethren who believe in Christ and all men of good will… may they unite with us to work towards building themselves in this world a more just and fraternal city. For such is the plan of God…”

« This participation of all men without distinction of beliefs or ideologies for the building of an earthly city from which all disorder and injustice is banned is the essential watchword of the wheeling flank of the Church of France, of those whom we call “progressivists”. For them it is an amazing promotion to see their thought and their own expressions endorsed by a conciliar Assembly », our Father remarked in his Letter n° 125, 8 December 1962).

When the text was to be approved, by sitting and rising, the Ukrainian bishops as well as the bishops expelled from China remained seated in order to indicate their disapproval of a text that did not make the slightest allusion to the persecuted and the martyrs behind the iron and bamboo curtains! Who was the author of such a text? We would learn later on that it was the idea of the Dominican, Fr. Chenu (Cf. his letter to Rahner on 4 September 1962, quoted by Alberigo, Vol. 2, p. 72). He wrote it together with Congar.

Actually, this Message to the World did not arouse great interest; it was rapidly forgotten, and soon no one spoke about it. So much the better! It is astounding, however, that two inveterate French progressivists, recently disreputable, were able to spread their insane theory into the world by means of the Council!

« A PERFIDIOUS PROPOSITION ».

« Far more dangerous was a text that the young Abbé Ratzinger , the private theologian of Cardinal Frings (Cologne), presented on 25 October before a group of German and French bishops, and which, duplicated in several hundred copies, began to circulate within the ranks of the Fathers. It was a question of the counterplan of the theologian Karl Rahner, opposed to the preparatory schema of the Theological Commission on the Revelation and the Deposit of the Faith. The reformers did not conceal that they wanted to remove the Council from the control of Ottaviani, and to create a structure parallel to the official commissions in order to impose their new vision of things, their “new theology”.

It so happened that our Father became aware of this text thanks to a Roman seminarian who, charged with cleaning the apartments of the Fathers, found one day in a wastepaper basket a paper of a bishop, a text in Latin, which he hastened to send to the Abbé de Nantes, the parish priest of Villemaur. Our Father was astounded when he read these few pages, and he wrote his Letter n^o 132 on 18 January 1963:

« They consist of ten little pages of very dense Latin text, requiring very careful study. The Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Holland are offering this schema to the Council Fathers for them to study. It is – so they say – “certainly of a very positive and pastoral tone”, the implication of which is that it is very different from anything hitherto regularly proposed. Well! This schema appears to me to offer the fundamental religious principles of progressivism and of Teilhardism as infallible definitions of the Christian Faith.

« For the co-authors of this text [our Father did not know at the time, but they were Rahner and Ratzinger!], the ideologies that have enjoyed free rein in the Church for the past twenty years, are no longer merely tolerated opinions, they want them in future to become the universal and sovereign rule of our Faith. We should rejoice that hearts and minds have thus been laid bare. We know now that certain Princes of the Church have such a faith and that this proposed text is its recognised expression; these Princes are no longer arbitrators but partisans, and their party is a new one. Until the day when the Church makes an infallible decision, we are free to judge this party with reference to the Faith we have been taught; to judge it as execrable and to fight it with all our strength. »

Our Father then recalled a prophetic vision that Madame Royer received: « A man bearing a basket climbed the steps and offered the Sovereign Pontiff a present. Madame Royer felt that it had to do with some perfidious proposition. A great disorder came and upset the whole arrangement of this scene. Then the great light reappeared… (Life of Madame Royer. pp.100 and 306) »

« This is the event of the century, our Father concluded. The Revolution is now offering its gift to the Church undisguised. In the end, the Church will condemn the Revolution. » Alas!

Brother Bruno of Jesus.

(1)  It was the convening of the Estates General of 1789 that triggered the French Revolution.