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!

FORTY YEARS AGO, THE COUNCIL

X. CHRISTIAN HUMANISM

To reform the Church in order to open it up to the World, to help in the construction of a new world, based on freedom of conscience, the equality of religions and the brotherhood of religions, such was Vatican II’s plan, this « Catechism of the new times » (Paul VI). The broad outline of this programme was set down in the pastoral constitution “Gaudium et Spes”, almost unanimously voted for by the Fathers (except seventy-five votes), on the eve of the closing of the Council, on 7 December 1965.

On that day, in the conciliar aula, Pope Paul VI proclaimed his integral humanism for all the world to hear, a humanism that he inherited from his master, Maritain, and his cult of Man:

« Secular, profane, humanism has finally revealed itself in its terrible shape and has, in a certain sense, challenged the Council. The religion of God made man has come up against a religion – for there is such a one – of man who makes himself God. And what happened? An impact, a battle, an anathema? That might have taken place, but it did not. It was the old story of the Samaritan that formed the model for the Council's spirituality. It was filled only with an endless sympathy. Its attention was taken up with the discovery of human needs – which become greater as the son of the earth makes himself greater . Do you at least recognise this its merit, you modern humanists who have no place for the transcendence of the things supreme, and come to know our new humanism: we also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man. »

A new humanism, indeed! A profession of faith in Man who makes himself God that had never been heard coming from the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of Saint Peter!

WHEN THE CHURCH SUBJECTED THE WORLD TO GOD

In order to understand well the Copernican revolution that took place on that day in the Council, it was sufficient to recall, at our meeting at the “Permanence” devoted to this subject, the true principles of Christian humanism.

« To tell the truth, wrote the Abbé de Nantes, the Church never lost interest in the life of man, in his “praxis”, in his history. She has always known and appreciated “temporal values”, but she made God their point of reference and not the cult of man. She made earthly things subject to a divine, Christian, and therefore supernatural morality that comes from God and is directed towards God. The conciliar revolution inverted this morality towards man and towards the earth. » (CCR n^o31, p. 4)

Thus, in the time of the Apostles, in the imminence of Parousia, temporal goods did not count in comparison with eternal ones. « May grace come and the world pass away! (Didache, X 6) And St. Paul preached that « there is no permanent city for us here; we are looking for the one which is yet to be » (Hb 13.14).

Medieval Christendom was faithful to this Gospel. It compelled the temporal to submit to the eternal, carnal values to be at the service of spiritual ones, and political power to acknowledge, willingly or not, the supremacy of the spiritual power.

The Church of the Counter-Reformation and of the Catholic Renaissance persisted in this determination to submit everything to Christ, in spite of the new obstacles that stood in its way: « On the one side was the Renaissance and its pagan humanism, on the other side, to the contrary, was this Protestant Reformation that isolated faith from works and cut religion off from life. The two elements of Christian social order were then separated, on the one hand nature was torn away from Christ, on the other, the supernatural was confined to the conscience. Condemning the Lutheran heresy at the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation set out to re-conquer humanism and came to terms with it during the Catholic Renaissance of the seventeenth century, which still lasts and which made the Church into the great mistress and incomparable guardian of Western civilisation… until Pius XII. »

Since the French revolution, however, Christian order has been broken. Civil society, emancipated from God’s law, wants to construct itself by itself and for itself. The Church, at first, was strongly opposed to this demand for autonomy, then she dithered, pulled herself together, only to accept it in the end at Vatican II, becoming the obliging servant of the emancipated World.

“JOY AND HOPE”

It cannot be said that this new humanism is post-conciliar drift, for it is the very substance of the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” better known as Gaudium et Spes, its first three words. Before becoming normative for the entire Church, this text was the goal of a veritable scheme, about which its perpetrators boasted later on (Unam Sanctam, 65a, p. 215-277).

« A detail that speaks volumes, our Father wrote, about the gratuitous and fallacious nature of this discourse to men. Its first words in its first draft were : Joy and Sadness. That would have made a depressing title! The order of the first four words was therefore inverted: Joy and sadness, hope and anxieties, in such a way that the final title was enticing: “Joy and hope”… Sadness and anxieties were driven into the background, forgotten!

« The Church wanted to please and flatter… »

She wanted to promise joy and hope in this world rather than in the next. In doing so, she prevented people from fearing « the wailing and gnashing of teeth » of eternal damnation. She lost interest in Heaven, which goes hand in hand with the fear of Hell, and turned away – the unfortunate! – from the unique love of her Spouse and of her children, in order to turn towards the idol erected by the World (on the different meanings of the word “World”, see Letter n^o 197).

MAN, THE NEW WAY FOR THE CHURCH

Right from the preamble of “Gaudium et Spes, the Council says that « nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in the hearts of the followers of Christ… The Church realises that it is truly linked with mankind and its history by the deepest of bonds. » (n^o 1) This is why she became its servant: « For the human person deserves to be preserved; human society deserves to be renewed. Hence the focal point of our total presentation will be man himself, whole and entire, body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will. » (n^o 3)

It has been said that the Council would take an interest in man, in nothing but man, in every man and in all men; there is no end to it, ad nauseam.

« What does the Church think of man? » (n^o 11) The incredible response is at number 12: « According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their centre and crown. » Our Father’s commentary: « This impious proposition, authentically Satanic was accepted without any questions in Saint Peter’s, unanimously accepted by the Pope and the bishops, except for 75 righteous men who did not kneel down before the idol! »

Does Holy Scripture justify such a cult of man? Basing itself on the text of Genesis: man was created “in the image of God” (Gn 1.26), the Council thought it had triumphed when it called on the additional support of Psalm 8: « By very little, You have made him less than a god: Yes with glory and honour have You crowned him, You have set him over the works of your hands; and put all things under his feet. » The case is decisive, isn’t it? Well! too bad: although traditional, this version is known to be a serious mistranslation, that Brother Bruno has perfectly brought to light. (cf. CRC n^o 356, p. 19-20).

No, this inspired psalm is in no way a hymn to the glory of man, a notion quite alien to the Bible, but « to the Name of Yahweh, magnificent throughout all the world », and to Jesus, the Messiah to come! His victory over sin will give to Him, and to Him alone, the royal sceptre, by putting all things under his feet. Through Him, man, « deprived for a moment of the presence of God », and not « by very little made less than a god », will learn to praise once again the holy Name of God.

“Gaudium et Spes” mentions sin but as though it is a chance mishap, that the Lord came to remove, « to free and strengthen man, renewing him ». There follows a glorification of man in his body, his mind, his conscience, his freedom, etc. And when his idol feels as though it has feet of clay, thinking of the misery of life and of ineluctable death, the Council is there to cheer him up: « man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. » (n^o 18) The reward has already been acquired. Why fear then? Joy! Hope!

THE DIALOGUE WITH ATHIESTS

If modern man has the “temptation” of doing without God, the fault, prepare yourself for a shock, belongs to Christians:

« For, taken as a whole, atheism is not a spontaneous development but stems from a variety of causes, including a critical reaction against religious beliefs, and in some places against the Christian religion in particular. Hence believers can have more than a little to do with the birth of atheism. To the extent that they neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion. » (n^o 19) When one thinks of the atheist regimes that persecute Christians, one can hardly believe it.

Among the “misleading presentations” of Christian doctrine, we learn that there is one which consists in condemning atheism: « Above all the Church knows that her message is in harmony with the most secret desires of the human heart when she champions the dignity of the human vocation, restoring hope to those who have already despaired of anything higher than their present lot. » (n^o 21)

In order to justify such overtures to modern atheists theologically, it would take all the boldness of a young Polish bishop, much engaged in this dialogue.

THE MAJOR HERESY

The proof that every man has within himself an inalienable dignity and almost infinite capacities, is Christ, the perfect man, « who fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear… Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His Incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man… » (n^o 22,2)

This last sentence, it is now known, was inserted into the conciliar text by the young Bishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyla. Since his elevation to the supreme pontificate, none of his speeches or encyclicals fails to make reference to this passage of Gaudium et Spes. Our Father denounced it right from his first encyclical “Redemptor Hominis”, in April 1979.

« Here is the principle whereby the passage is made from Christianity to universal Humanism, the joining of the cult of God and of God made man to the cult of man and of man who makes himself God…There is the greatest inversion of the faith ever professed! It turns everything upside down. Christ, by His Incarnation and Redemption, is made to be the revealer of man’s own grandeur to man, the revealer of man’s own worth and merit and so convince him of his excellence! Never had Jesus Christ and his mysteries of grace thus been made the pedestal and ornament for human pride. » (G. de Nantes, The Two Encyclicals, CCR n^o 110, pp. 9-10)

But “Gaudium et Spes” does not stop there. A little further on, it is the participation in the paschal mystery which is “in some fashion” extended to the entire human race: « All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. » (n^o 22,5)

The Cross of Christ, the Church, faith, baptism, Christendom, as a result, become unnecessary, since every man, raised to an unequalled dignity, is already entered into the way of his salvation.

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY

« What measures should be recommended for the upbuilding of contemporary society? » After the vocation of man, this is the second question that the world is supposed to ask the Church.

The reply: « For the beginning, the subject and the goal of all social institutions is and must be the human person which for its part and by its very nature stands completely in need of social life » (n^o 25). From this principle follows « an apparently Christian doctrine, skilfully disguised, falsified in favour of the “human family”. God is its Father, everyone in it is an image of God, all are brothers. They must therefore all love one another, which is very necessary in the present scheme of socialisation! And this is the ideal for it that even goes so far as finding the model for it in “the union of the Divine Persons”. Just like that! » (CCR n^o31, p. 8)

And if everything cannot be arranged to the satisfaction of all, a revolution will occur: « An improvement in attitudes and abundant changes in society will have to take place if these objectives are to be gained… God’s Spirit, Who with a marvellous providence directs the unfolding of time and renews the face of the earth, is not absent from this development. The ferment of the Gospel too has aroused and continues to arouse in man’s heart the irresistible requirements of his dignity. » (n^o 26)

This utopia which is contrary to nature and this anti-Christian humanism are skilfully larded with clauses such as « not without the assistance of grace », inserted here and there, but unable to supernaturalise this Masonic ideal.

A NEW EARTH

Then follows a programme for the creation of a new world. What vain flatteries with respect to modern man! « Thus, far from thinking that works produced by man’s own talent and energy are in opposition to God’s power, and that the rational creature exists as a kind of rival to the Creator, Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of divine grandeur [sic!] and the flowering of His own mysterious design. » (n^o 34)

Man is supposed to find fulfilment in his activity and to discover in it « the fullness of his calling », a vocation which only appears earthly, natural, carnal in “Gaudium et Spes”. « By his action… man goes outside of himself and beyond himself. (n^o 35) A catechesis of pride which identifies the construction of the earthly city with the coming of the Kingdom of God! Number 39, adroitly constructed, insinuates this with a consummate malice:

« Therefore, while we are warned that it profits a man nothing if he gain the whole world and lose himself, the expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age. Hence, while earthly progress must be carefully distinguished from the growth of Christ’s kingdom, to the extent that the former can contribute to the better ordering of human society, it is of vital concern to the Kingdom of God.

« For after we have obeyed the Lord, and in His Spirit nurtured on earth the values of human dignity, brotherhood and freedom, and indeed all the good fruits of our nature and enterprise, we will find them again, but freed of stain, burnished and transfigured, when Christ hands over to the Father: “a kingdom eternal and universal, a kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of justice, love and peace.” On this earth that Kingdom is already present in mystery. When the Lord returns it will be brought into full flower. » (n^o 39)

After having presented « the role of the Church in the modern world », a role of service, of course, in a mutual « penetration » (n^o 40)! the Council claimed to resolve the most urgent problems of our times, by becoming a peddler of happiness: marriage and family, culture, social-economic life, political life, finally universal peace, its pipe dream. This brief commentary is sufficient:

« It floundered lamentably... The reason is simple and profound. “Two kinds of love have built two cities: the love of self which despises God, and the love of God which despises self”, wrote St. Augustine. These are the two poles, the two possible driving forces of the human heart. The Council has placed between men and God all the idols of the modern pantheon, Man, Humanity, the Earth, and it wanted to have its new morality depend on the cult and the service of these beautiful abstractions. » (CCR n^o31, p. 10)

THE TRIPLE PITFALL OF “GAUDIUM ET SPES”

Before rediscovering the basis of a true Christian humanism, it is necessary to clear the way by denouncing the three errors distilled in “Gaudium et Spes”, as in many subsequent speeches of the Popes Paul VI and John Paul II:

Naturalism. The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, is not of this world, but beyond it. It is necessary to die with Christ and lose one’s life in order to win it by rising with Him to Eternal Life. The “vocation”, the “liberation” and the “salvation” of man are not of a temporal, human, and political order, but of a religious, moral and transcendent order.

Optimism. Because this battle and this effort to win the Kingdom of God are not due to man but to God. They are the work of grace in us, not of the “good will” and the “natural energies” of humanity, even less of a “divine seed” and of a “Spirit” that would be generally distributed in all men like an innate energy and nobility.

Humanism lastly, falsely made out to be evangelical and Christian, according to which faith and the Catholic religion’s providential function would be to serve as the spiritual driving force of this construct, to be the soul of the world in its progress, proffering its advice and examples, its lights and energies to assure success in winning the happiness of every man by man for all men.

CHRISTIAN HUMANISM RECOVERED

Far from falling into the contrary excess of supernaturalism, of pessimism and anti-humanism, which are not in the least Catholic, Vatican III will go back, without difficulty, to the wisdom of the Church of all times, and when God is served first, He will not let Himself be outdone when it comes to generosity.

Our Father traced the broad outline of this programme. This Council of Catholic resurrection will first of all redefine « the Christian sense of man » and his vocation in God’s design.

« The Second Vatican Council was haunted by the just preoccupation of laying out well, end to end, in an extension of one to the other, this side of death to the other, the life of the human, earthly world to the life of the heavenly, divine world. But its error was, in doing so, to bring Heaven in line with the earth, what is divine with what is human, what is spiritual with what is carnal and, all in all, to devalue the supernatural by reducing it to nothing more than a remarkable perfection and the development of human nature. And this is precisely the opposite work, contrary to that of Christ, who during his life on earth, transposed the carnal “joys and hopes” of the Jews to the superior level of spiritual realities.

« The next Council should condemn error but retain this concern and this just ambition of giving to the world a harmonious vision of the two periods of our destiny: the earthly stage and eternal life. How can this be done? By situating the fissure, the great crevasse that all men must cross, the great “Passage”, in Hebrew “Pasch”, not at bodily death which is nothing but a secondary and expected accident, but at the death and resurrection experienced in Christ who has made the Jew and the pagan into Christians, the sinner into a saint, the man doomed to eternal death into a living being endowed with a perfection which is eternal in itself. »

Individual salvation will then extend to the entire community: « Earthly life in all its conjugal, familial, economic and political forms becomes the place of this transfiguration and the very matter of this spiritualisation… It is the family, the factory, the trade union, the school, the nation having become Catholic, and beyond all specific places, Christendom at large. The truth of Christ, the sacramental grace of Christ, the evangelical law of Christ guarantee to these societies of a temporal nature, their order come from Above, their movement, their life, their cohesion. Not as the world sees them, wants them, and claims to build them, but to the extent that God wills and in the imperfection of what is perishable, but in an admirable manner. This is the major principle of social order that Vatican III will define. There is no life for society or for individuals other than in the supernatural order of the grace of Christ. »

Tomorrow, the “path” of the Church, once again Mother and Mistress of the human race, will no longer be Man, o mad impiety! but the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to the promise made to Lucy on 13 June 1917: « My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God, and extended for their consolation to all those who will embrace this devotion: « I think, said Sister Lucy, that this promise is not for me alone, but for all souls who want to take refuge in the Heart of their Heavenly Mother and to let themselves be lead along the way shown by Her. »

This is the way of perfection that Heaven indicated for our times of apostasy. What does the Council have to say about it?

XI. THE PERFECTION OF LOVE

THE PEARLS OF THE NECKLACE

« “For this is the will of God, your sanctification”, said Saint Paul (1 Th 4.3). Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us to ask that His Father might be hallowed, that His Kingdom might come, that Their common Will in the Holy Spirit might be done on earth as in Heaven. He invited us to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5.48). For the rest, we were to ask that God might give us our daily bread, that He might forgive our trespasses commensurate with our own mercy, that He might keep us from temptation and deliver us from everlasting Evil. »

This is how, in the introduction of his study of the eleventh constitution preparing a Vatican III, which will restore the faith and Catholic discipline (CCR n^o32, p. 3), our Father summarised our entire religion in its simplicity and its crystal-clear purity. It aims at transforming our beings to the likeness of Christ by the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Church. Everything comes from God (exitus) and returns to Him (redditus): « Everything proceeds from the Father in the Holy Trinity, and from it everything issues forth into creation according to the hierarchy of beings, to come back to it finally according to the supernatural order and the perfection of Love. This great design takes the form of a string of pearls: the gracious curve of a descent and an ascent to the very source of the movement. »

At the Second Vatican Council, the string of the necklace broke, the pearls fell off, and were scattered on the floor, before becoming bogged down in the mire of the world or in the sands of the great modern Babylon under construction. « In the new theology, everything comes from God as well, but everything, in the final analysis, leads to man; everything is spread out for good on the earth and turns into human values. » Since then, we have witnessed the collapse of the ancient and admirable edifice of Catholic holiness, struck full-force by the conciliar project of “updating” and the opening up to the world. The monasteries opened… and were emptied. Holiness was no longer to anyone’s liking.

« The Council killed holiness and this is hallmark of Satan. » This is the last accusation levelled by the Abbé de Nantes against the Second Vatican Council. In the space of forty years, the facts have proved him right. Let us look at this more in detail.

HOLINESS DISTORTED

When one rereads the texts of the Council relating to holiness and Christian perfection, one observes a duality, an indecision, as though the Church was seeking its path between the cult of God and the cult of Man, endeavouring to associate them. The decree “Perfectæ caritatis” on the Religious Life and the last four chapters of “Lumen Gentium” are very revealing of this agonising struggle.

« To this question: what is the personal and collective aim of human life, according to Christ? the Council was unable to reply clearly. Either it hedged: it is the construction of the modern world and the conquest of Heaven. Or it hesitated even concerning the subject of the ultimate end and brought it back to the other one, immediate and earthly: it is holiness but adapted, it is winning Heaven but in a temporal commitment, it is the vision of God but in every man. When it was necessary to choose between two masters, the Council refused to choose. In doing so it changed masters and irresistibly led crowds to betray the first one, the only True one, in order to serve the other, the new one, Man. » (CCR n^o32, p. 4)

Let us take, for example, Chapter V of “Lumen Gentium”, entitled “The universal call to holiness in the Church”. This chapter comes after the one on the laity, which the Council promoted, as we have seen, in an ill-considered manner. It is in the revolutionary perspective of a People of God reunited democratically by the Spirit, existing before any hierarchy, that the call to holiness resounds. The novelty consists in saying that every member can acquire it as well, whatever their condition, and that, to the contrary, secular life is not an obstacle to this. Formerly, the Church gave more importance to certain “states of life”, more propitious for the pursuit of perfection. Today there are no longer privileges, holiness is offered to everyone. Gratuitously?

If this is the case, then the Council gave way to demagogy, instead of recalling « the essential duties of religious practice, of the commandments of God and of the Church, of the elementary virtues and of the indispensable moral asceticism… The cowardice of this Council places a halo on all heads without referring to the obstacles to holiness, which are the world, the flesh, and Satan. »

Second example: in a surprising manner, after having opened wide the paths of holiness to the laity, even preaching to them the generosity of martyrdom! the Council forbids it to the religious, or at least made it so difficult that it became almost impossible. This is the subject of Chapter VI of “Lumen Gentium”, which develops an admirable doctrine on the holiness of the religious state, but compels it to a « renewal adapted » to the requirements of present-day society:

Thus, celibacy must be « undertaken in a way which will benefit the entire personality », poverty must be « a quasi-collective witness », obedience « far from lessening the dignity of the human person leads to maturity »! And here are some demands that must be met: adapt the habit and community life to the modern world, that henceforth young religious have a say in the Chapter, that the right to instruction be recognised for them, that the distinction between choir Fathers and lay brothers be suppressed with a view to egalitarianism, etc.

« The adaptation and renewal of the religious life includes both the constant return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original spirit of the institutes and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our time. This renewal must be accomplished under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Church. »

It would be as well to do the splits between a desirable return to the limpid source of the spirit of the founders, and the detestable opening to an extremely corrupted and secularised world. The results were not long in making themselves felt. In 1972, the Abbé de Nantes already noticed that « this fabulous reform produced the slowing down, the decline and the death of numerous religious institutes, disorder, division and panic of those that survived ». What a mess! What a betrayal of the order of Catholic holiness!

HEAVENLY THINGS FADE AWAY

Chapter VII of “Lumen Gentium” speaks at last of Heaven, in dealing with the « eschatological nature of the pilgrim Church and its union with the Church in Heaven ». Take note that the Church is no longer said to be “militant” but “pilgrim”, since she no longer recognises any enemies.

Well, all things considered, this reference to the life of Heaven does not incite souls to desire it. Why? Because it seems that since they are all called to it, not a single one of them will be excluded at the end of time, at the Parousia. The Abbé de Nantes remarked the major omission:

« Hell, and all that leads to it, all those who rush there, this frightening darkness that gives to the light of Heaven all its significance and its worth, are only mentioned in passing “to avoid any verbosity”, specifies the commentator. » It is not surprising then that the desire of Heaven fades away, and that the resulting impetus for holiness be stopped, so as to lead there as many souls as possible, « all mankind, if this were possible », as Father de Foucauld said.

Finally, our Father observed, « not one word about death and resurrection, of the crucifying discontinuity from this life to the other, from temporal goods to eternal ones. In “Lumen gentium” Heaven seems to be the extension of the earth and its earthly activities. »

THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE LAST PLACE

Let us get to the heart of the mystery of iniquity, where the tail of the devil can be seen. The mystery of the Blessed Virgin Mary should have in fact been the subject of a special schema. The “minimalists” were anxious to please the Protestant observers and blocked it. The Immaculate was relegated « to her place », as they said in an outrageous manner, that is to say, to the last place, since She is only spoken of in the last chapter of “Lumen Gentium”. Instead of proclaiming her beauty, her glory, her grace, they preferred to exalt her spirit of service, « to reintegrate her into humanity, deplored our Father, on the side of sinners, when Tradition and the devotion of centuries placed her preferably alongside Christ the Saviour as Coredemptrix, and alongside God as Mediatrix ».

It was precisely this beautiful title of “Mediatrix of all graces”, desired by millions of the faithful, called for by the Marian apparitions of the last two centuries, that they refused to give her. There was no mention of the Rosary, even though at Fatima she had expressly asked for it to be said; even less was there mention of devotion to her Immaculate Heart, so dear to the Heart of God. Finally, there was « another deliberate deviation, and very current: the Council passed rapidly over Mary’s presence at the Foot of the Cross, and her active participation in the work of our Redemption through her admirable compassion. »

In conclusion, she is simply asked to participate, like anyone else, in the construction of a better world: « The entire body of the faithful pours forth instant supplications to the Mother of God and Mother of men that she may now intercede before her Son… until all families of people, whether they are honoured with the title of Christian or whether they still do not know the Saviour, may be happily gathered together in peace and harmony into one people of God, for the glory of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. »

Will this be on earth or in Heaven, will it be an entirely human gathering or one of conversion and grace? Therein lies the entire ambiguity of the Council. When the fog disperses, only the earth subsists and Heaven seems so far away…

HOLINESS RECOVERED BY VATICAN III

It is through Mary, through devotion to her Immaculate Heart and to the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, that holiness will flourish tomorrow in the resurrected Church. « The string of pearls broken by Vatican II has scattered its treasures into the mire of the world. The result can be counted by those many thousands who have apostatised, by those who have been defrocked, by the number of souls who must have gone to their ruin. Vatican III will make a new necklace of holiness in view of Glory. »

« It is indeed a question of Counter-Reformation, our Father adds, since it is necessary to reverse the direction that now goes no longer from God to Man and from Man to the World, but from mankind to Christ, and from the Church of Christ to God. We must climb back up the slope, and draw the Christian people from the abyss into which the conciliar blunder made it fall. Love of God and His worship must be re-established, holiness must be restored to the religious state, all the paths to salvation must be reopened, Christians must once again be able to experience the attraction of Eternal Life by the grace of Jesus and the intercession of Mary ever Virgin, Mother of God and our Mother. »

This is the complete programme of Fatima that our Father likes to call “the low road to perfection”. So low, so low, one grovels in self-sacrifice and renunciation of the World, that he rises, so high, so high that he finally reaches the desired goal: « For this is the perfection of love, to leave one’s dwelling on an obscure night – o inestimable grace – to unite oneself to Him who is the Sovereign Good! »

Everyone has to be saved. It would be good to recall this. In the race to holiness, wanting to escape the flames of Hell is a minimum objective: « At this point Vatican III must, in consonance with the great tradition of charity of the ancient Councils, pronounce a specific condemnation of the various forms of depravity and disorders that are rampant today, and lay down the necessary laws and measures for restoring the health of society, with the aim of saving the souls of the multitude. This is the customary reform in the Church “in capite et in membris”: a reform including the Pope and his Curia, as well as priests and the faithful.

The law of Salvation having first been defined, the Law of Perfection will follow, offered to those who are courageous and to the “violent” of whom the Gospel speaks. Vatican III will rehabilitate and restore the states of religious life, appropriate for the sound and integral practice of the evangelical counsels « It will declare that in consecrated life the supreme solution to all difficulties and the remedy to all spiritual maladies of the present time can be found. For the sovereign law of all perfection is to serve God first of all and to expect all that is necessary from Him. »

Religious Orders must necessarily adapt themselves to the world, but in a purely practical, material manner, and especially in being wary of its spirit and its passions. « They will weigh and consider the requirements and customs of the modern world in the light of the spirit of their Founders and of their Rule. » The contrary to what has been practiced for forty years and which has caused so much ruin, will be the restoration of everything. The faithful, in turn, will benefit from this restoration of religious live, whose fruit will be a hundredfold measure of spiritual goods in this world and eternal life for the faithful multitudes in the other.

« Since Vatican III will not have fixed its gaze on the World to be constructed nor sullied its hands in the cult of Man, it will thus be able to raise its sights and its hands to Heaven without any obstacle. The entire Church that will enter into its movement will no longer experience any estrangement; on the contrary, she will feel very close to Heaven and the Elect. Withdrawn from the world and diverted by their Pastors from the foolish pride of raising altars to themselves, Christians will rediscover the general sentiment of the Church of all times felt since the first Easter morning, even to the great days of Lourdes and Fatima: Heaven is not far away, but close and accessible, provided we allow the Church to take us by the hand and guide us there. All that we are required to do is to put on the “wedding garments” of Charity and behold, we shall find that life everlasting has already begun! Amen, Hosanna, Alleluia! (CCR n^o 32, p. 10)

Question: Is it because of this invincible faith and this hope in the Church that our Father is today treated like an excommunicate?

CONCLUSION:

FORTY YEARS OF COUNTER-REFORMATION

The Abbé de Nantes was the first person to be openly opposed to the Reform of Vatican II. This is his honour and his way of the cross for forty years now. If officially it was in October 1967 that the bulletin, then the league two years later, took on the title of Catholic Counter-Reformation, it was, as we have seen, during the very sessions of the Council, that he had exposed the fatal intention of « permanent reform », rejected heresy and denounced the false religion that it produced. Nevertheless, he remained a Son of the Church in his own right.

« In all truth and in all justice, he wrote in July 1970, we form part of the Church with a completely clear conscience, we who belong to the Counter-Reformation, and we can even show, day by day, that it is the Reformation of the Church which goes against the true interest of the Church! As for us, prisoners of Christ, but free of all human servitude, we remain within the Church oppressed, offended, slandered though we may be, but conscious that in the things that really matter, we are safe. We must pray God that He may cut short our trials while accepting them, patiently, in accordance with His Sacred Will. (CCR n^o 6, p. 2)

THE COUNCIL IS NOT INFALLIBLE

As soon as he understood that the progressivist and modernist minority would succeed in imposing its revolution on the Council, our Father carefully studied to what degree a priest or a member of the faithful, a member of the Taught Church, could in conscience refuse to adhere to the decrees that were going to be promulgated. His response is clearly expounded in his Letter to my Friends n^o 212 (15 September 1965), on the eve of the fourth and last session. It is in three points that still apply today.

1. The Second Vatican Council, « legitimately constituted by the Sovereign Pontiff who is its Head and Superior, and by the bishops convened by him and under his authority as a sovereign college », had the possibility of delivering infallible teachings. Now, they did not want to, renouncing the exercise of its infallible power by positive act. On 11 October 1962, the Fathers learned from John XXIII himself that they were not to produce a dogmatic work, nor define divine truths nor denounce the errors of this time, and, above all, no one would be condemned.

As for Paul VI, he had the following declaration annexed to the text of the constitution “Lumen Gentium”

« A question has arisen regarding the precise theological note which should be attached to the doctrine that is set forth in this Schema. The Theological Commission has given the following response “As is self-evident, the Council’s text must always be interpreted in accordance with the general rules that are known to all. “Taking conciliar custom into consideration and also the pastoral purpose of the present Council, the sacred Council defines as binding on the Church only those things in matters of faith and morals which it shall openly declare to be binding.” » Now, no act of the Second Vatican Council was overtly declared to be infallible.

Father Congar himself, acknowledged this during a memorable confrontation with the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, on 8 February 1977, at Annecy (cf. CCR no 84, pp. 1-6).

2. If the Council had only taught what has been believed « always, by everyone and everywhere » (canon of St. Vincent of Lérins), it would have benefited from what is called the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium, the mention “always” excludes all novelty from its field of application. Now, the Council introduced obvious novelties in the teaching of the Church, starting with religious freedom. In order for them to be accepted by the faithful as a whole, it is necessary for these novelties to be in perfect accordance with the traditional teaching of the Church. If serious objections arise against them, they must be examined, and the Supreme Magisterium must sovereignly settle the question, either by having recourse to its extraordinary infallibility, or by demonstrating that they have been accepted « always, by everyone and everywhere ». The Abbé de Nantes relentlessly demanded this examination, in vain. The conciliar novelties, impious in his opinion, were arbitrarily imposed on the entire Church by a Sect that had taken power, and which only refuses to examine all complaints, smothering the light under profound darkness.

One day however, the sky cleared. This was in the time of the brief pontificate of John Paul I. « Now, by a simple word of honesty and humility John Paul I has opened the way to an outcome. His words alone are the undoing of heresy and the clearing of the conciliar impasse and by themselves they justify the all too brief reign of this Pontiff on the throne of Saint Peter in the unanimity of the Church recognising herself in him. Admitting his interior struggle at the time of the Council and the difficulty he had in rallying to the theses of the innovators, in particular to the theory of religious liberty, he had the honesty to say: “For years we had taught that error has no rights. I studied the problem in depth and persuaded myself that we had been wrong.”

« In one go, the Pope’s honesty restored everyone’s right to be heard, even after Vatican II and without fear of a fraudulent excommunication, and he restored the present drama to its true proportions. It is this: some ended by allowing themselves to be convinced or else they managed to convince themselves that the Church had hitherto been wrong: others remained convinced, or in the end understood, that the innovators had been wrong and had misled us – the Council, that is, and not the Church of all time. To admit that it is possible to make an error, whether it be in one direction or the other, is to restore peace to the Church by relegating these difficult questions to the realm of free opinion whilst awaiting a dogmatic Vatican III or the Pope’s infallible definitions. (CCR n^o134, October 1978, p. 5)

3. As for the prophetic power claimed by certain Council Fathers, and as for the charismatic super-infallibility with which they invest themselves still today, according to which the Spirit would have given the Council the mission to « make a new living synthesis of the ineffable Mystery of Christ, freed from the ancient dogmatic forms, with the aspirations of modern man », we object to this because of the strangeness of the “Spirit” which tries to be at the same time the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of the world. It is illuminism, which was condemned by Vatican I: « The Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not by way of revelation so that they publish any new doctrine, but by way of assistance, so that they keep holy and expound faithfully the revelation handed down by the Apostles, that is to say the deposit of the faith. »

This is why our Father has appealed since the closing of the Council to the only true infallibility of the Roman Church that resides in its sovereign Magisterium. While awaiting the hour of deliverance and the triumph of the faith, everyone is allowed to inform his conscience.

THE COUNCIL JUDGED BY ITS FRUITS

« Suppose that everything went better in the Church, the Abbé de Nantes wrote in August 1967; suppose that the Council had manifestly been like a new Pentecost, marked, therefore, by the entry of droves of schismatics and Protestants, of Muslims, Buddhists and pagans, by a general decline of communism in our old countries of Christendom, by a movement of conversion among the Jewish people. Let us suppose that the voyages and messianic speeches of the Pope changed the international climate, stopped wars, appeased racial fanaticism and revolutionary wars of some, and awakened the spirit of justice and charity of others.

« Suppose that our bishops came back from the Council more attentive to doctrine and more accessible to the grievances of our faith, more faithful to residence in their diocese, more devoted to their flock and especially to the poor; that your priests had felt better supported, better understood, and that, set on fire by the conciliar doctrines by a new joy and pride, they devoted themselves with greater zeal to prayer and to penance, to the ministry of worship, to teaching the catechism and preaching, to visiting the sick and to the direction of souls.

« Imagine that following the Council, well known politicians and philosophers, great writers, and union leaders came back publicly to religion, that notorious sinners mended their ways, that a strong current carried youth and the elite off towards seminaries, monasteries and convents, that Catholic schools and institutions became hives of activities, that missions increased their efforts tenfold, supported by the fervent alms of rich Catholic countries. Imagine; suppose the renewal, the expansion, the influence of the Church just after the Council. I ask you, what welcome would my little roneoed Letters have received? What interest would you take in their “insults”? What esteem and what affection could you feel towards a “suspended” priest who would persist in a biased, malicious criticism of everyone and everything, and would remain like a sterile fig tree by keeping aloof from the great work of the evangelisation of the poor?

« The reply of the Sovereign Pontiff and the bishops to my bitter criticism, the only one which is conclusive, would be the joyful results of this “new leap forward of the Kingdom of Christ” (John XXIII, 8 December 1962) which was to signal the beginning of the new era of the greatest of councils and the most extraordinary of pontificates. This is what had been announced, promised, and guaranteed to us. And it is just the contrary which took place.

« The holiness of men was no where to be found nor the miraculous graces of the Holy Spirit. The Reform inaugurated for everyone the time of grand holidays and of their “short-lived, false, disorderly and base” celebrations, to use the language of the Imitation (Book III, chapter 12). Satan wanders freely in the Church. He corrupts monks and nuns, as in the days of Luther. Many go to communion, standing, of course! but they rarely go to confession. Everywhere sermons are heretical, worldly, and socialist. Worship is desecrated. Thus, whether victims or accomplices of this “new way of feeling, of desiring, of behaving” (Paul VI, Bethlehem, 6 January 1964), all Catholics, even the best of them, will become accustomed to a religion which is not that of Jesus Christ nor of the saints. When this will be brought to their attention, they will suddenly realise that they have lost it and that they will no longer want it. This is how everyone marches under the banner of the Pope and the Council, towards the great apostasy. » (Letter to my Friends n^o 250, 25 August 1967)

THE ASSISTANCE OF OUR LADY

In order to preserve us from this mortal peril of apostasy, our Mother came to our aid from Heaven, by the revelation of her Secret of 13 July 1917, made known at last on 26 June 2000. We received it filially from the hands of the Church, like a reward granted to the faithfulness of our Father, who had remained at the bedside of his ill Mother, his eyes gazing at the hands of the Immaculate.

In her terrible and marvellous Secret, the Queen of infinite mercy did not even want to refer to the Council and its fatal Reform, but she showed its destructive effects and the price to be paid to save it: « before reaching there, the Holy Father passed through a large city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way… »

The call to do penance, the recourse to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the blood of the martyrs, that the angels gathered « and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God », this is what Our Lady came to reveal to the earth for our apocalyptic times, to compensate for the failings of the hierarchy. The fight of the Counter-Reformation continues under her banner. « It is the plan of the Adversary to push out of the Church those who keep the faith so that those who have lost it can maintain themselves within and dominate it. Well then, we will stay! », declared our Father in August 1969. This is still our intention, with the grace of God and the assistance of the Immaculate, counting on them alone for the resurrection of the Church, as the night watchman waits for dawn.

Brother Thomas