The Catholic
COUNTER-REFORMATION
IN THE XXth CENTURY

APRIL 1973

ÉDITION MENSUELLE EN LANGUE ANGLAISE DE LA CONTRE-RÉFORME CATHOLIQUE AU XX^e SIÈCLE
Editor : R. P. Georges de Nantes

ROME

And so, I visited Rome for the fifth time. Each occasion has been a landmark in my priestly life, and also, in a small way, an illustration of the state of affairs existing in the Church at each of these points in time.

My first pilgrimage, in June 1951, for the beatification of Pius X, is that of a young priest filled with devotion for Rome itself and for the Pope being beatified, as well as for the Pope who is performing the ceremony of beatification – Pius XII. The admiration which I felt for the City itself has become even greater on subsequent occasions. One particular circumstance stands out in my mind: I had recently been dismissed by the religious Order where I had been teaching theology, on account of several disagreements, concerning Luther whom they wished to rehabilitate, Sangnier whose death had been the occasion of a general eulogy against which I had had to protest, and Congar, whose latest book, True and False Reform of the Church, had been one of my reasons for going to Rome, as I wished to alert those responsible against the grave dangers of his reasoning... For the sort of "reform" which he advocated could well provide both pretext and means for a widespread, total perversion of the Church along the lines which we were already witnessing in France. Though I was well received and listened to, I found the Romans did not seem to take our French quarrels seriously enough, and were too certain of their authority over the rest of the world. To me the future appeared far more disturbing than they were prepared to admit...

I went again in 1963, after Pacem in Terris. I wanted to find out who had actually written that incendiary Encyclical signed by a John XXIII already weakened by the illness that was to kill him before very long. Had Rome retained its firm stand after the First Session of the Council? Was it still prepared to fight against the Modernist onslaught which this had unleashed, or was it now resigned to the worst? I arrived on the morning of the Pope’s death, and remained until the day of Paul VI’s election.

My general impression was that of a strangely unsettled atmosphere, with everyone ready to assume whatever colours would be indicated by the result of the election. This was to affect me personally too. For having recently been dismissed from my parish by Mgr Le Couedic for the crime of remaining faithful to French Algeria, I had come in order to ask for mediation by superior authorities whom I knew to be capable of intervening for the good of both parties. I received in fact every encouragement and promise by those high-ranking prelates who were however later to betray me, when they changed their colours to rally behind the new Master. That was the way things stood in when I left Rome, on the evening of the election of the new Pontiff, filled with dire presentiments.

I returned in 1964, feeling a much freer man, with no intention of seeing anybody or of asking anything of anybody. Everybody had let me down, I had lost all I had. An outcast has nothing to gain, nothing to expect from people who find it an embarrassment to know him. But it was Corpus Christi, and I attended the Procession and heard Paul VI preach. He was the Vicar of Christ, and I venerated and applauded him with the others, wanting only to forget everything. And this pilgrimage left me feeling happy, and filled with a supernatural confidence in Rome, the Centre of the Universal Church.

I had noticed, moreover, that the traditionalists of the Curia were perfectly sure, both of the Pope and of their own strength. As we were soon to find out, this was only the lucid interval that precedes the death agony. But I too, like a son at his mother’s deathbed, was only too ready to be reassured. But within three months there came Ecclesiam Suam and within one year subversion was firmly entrenched at the very summit of the Church, no longer leaving any possibility of doubt but that Rome had come down against us.

In May and again in July 1968 I returned, summoned this time by the Holy Office, in connection with my Process. I had certainly come down in the wor1d! There was a certain irony about entering those very halls where I had been given an honourable reception seventeen years before, and finding myself in the position of the accused. What saddened me was that I had come under suspicion in Rome for no other reason that that I would have nothing to do with the current rejection of the age-old Tradition and Faith of the Church in favour of a passing fashion initiated by a revolutionary Council and a self-willed Pope. And here were my Judges and their Consultors who, paradoxically enough, had the same Faith as we, but thought it prudent to effect certain compromises between it and the current fashion, and between God’s Law and the Pope’s wishes, trying to persuade me to do likewise! They wanted me to withdraw my charges against the Pope, against Vatican II and the French Episcopate. They exhorted me to enter into the general current while of course retaining inwardly our mutually held sacred convictions. I could have no share in such self-contradiction, which moreover was not a practical policy that could be pursued anywhere but in Rome. Finding no grounds for condemning me, but equally unwilling to admit that my criticisms were founded in fact, they ended up by declaring me "disqualified". Rome would have nothing further to do with me...

And so, here we are again, in April 1973. This time I have come at the head of a delegation of 10 Religious from our Maison St Joseph, and some fifty representatives of our Roman Legion, growing from day to day, which has just passed from 3,000 to 4,060 in the space of a fortnight – consisting of Catholics who themselves are members of the CRC League or similar bodies. We have come in order to lay at the feet of the Sovereign Pontiff our complaint against himself on account of heresy, schism and scandal, a complaint whose legality cannot be challenged for it envisages nothing less than a regular canonical process. It is now ten years since the subversion began to spread within the Church and over these past five years the destruction of Christ’s religion has been proceeding on a scale which rules out any compromise. There are two different religions at war against each other, within the Church, and as a result of the Pope’s own doing. For within the Pope’s own soul too there are two mutually incompatible philosophies. It is high time that the one should chase out the other.

We arrived at the Termini on Monday, 9th April. For most of our friends it was their first pilgrimage to Rome. Though they might have anguish and even fear in their hearts, they went on with a courage based on certainty that this was the right course – a certainty acquired through personal experience over a limited range and extended by a confidence in my own teaching. I admired such trust placed in me, but it showed me the extent of my responsibility before God and men.

We celebrated Holy Mass at Our Lady’s altar in St Mary Major, with the brothers wearing their white capes. All present joined in the responses and all received Holy Communion, They began to feel at home here in Rome where, so it seemed, the Church had not changed. And indeed we found no difficulties placed in the way of our celebrating Mass in the traditional Roman rite in any of the churches that we entered. In the afternoon we visited the Catacombs and St John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome and of the world, where the heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul are venerated. We prayed there for the Sovereign Pontiff...

Brother Gerard had invited the press to a conference that evening at the Hotel Minerva, where we were staying. Thanks to a Notification issued by the Vatican, they had come in large numbers. It said, in effect: "Leaflets bearing the CRC heading have been distributed in Rome, to announce a forthcoming demonstration organised by the well-known Abbé de Nantes, who seeks to accuse Paul VI of heresy, schism and scandal, as part of a protest, so we believe, against Vatican II. Clearly such an arrogant and fanatical gesture is not recognised by the ecclesiastical authorities, who have in fact deeply deplored it. Such a gesture, devoid of all canonical foundation and which cannot be taken at all seriously, is a cause of offence to the person and the ministry of the Vicar of Christ."

The hotel made things difficult for us, so we made our way to another, followed by a crowd of journalists, supporters, and curious onlookers. There too, we were not well received, and so we had to hold the press conference out of doors, in the dark and the rain. Perched on a bench in Navone Square, blinded by flashlights, I was beginning to explain the reason for our coming: not to pass judgement on the Pope and condemn him, but to bring against him a charge of having broken with the Apostolic Tradition, gone against the teaching of his Predecessors, and thrown the Church into a state of unprecedented decay. I pointed out that Rome, once admired for her religious glory and her worldwide influence, was now becoming despised and pushed into the background by the national Churches which were becoming more and more autonomous...

It was at this point that a police commissioner arrived and ordered me to stop this unauthorised conference, and he was soon followed by numerous plain clothes police. Amidst a general skirmish of pushing and knocking-over, I was dragged away to the shouts of "Vergogna, vergogna" (Shame, shame) from our Italian audience. The sirens of police cars and the arrival of a company of carabinieri with helmets and visors gave to the whole scene an air of absurdity. Whom, what, had they been given the order to arrest? The Truth? The formal reason was that the Italian government could not tolerate upon its territory an insult to a Head of State – the Pope. That was why the hotels had been "advised" to refuse us the use of the rooms we had booked, and why the carabinieri had been on the ready in Navone Square. But only yesterday ten thousand Communists had covered Rome with stickers and demonstrated against President Thieu, without any intervention by the carabinieri. As the Italian government would not answer for his safety, the President had to land in the Vatican by helicopter!

We were allowed to go after producing evidence of identity, and after the crowd had dispersed but for the rest of our stay the police, either in uniform or in very obvious disguise, did not leave us out of sight. It was evident to all who had been present that evening that, for some mysterious reason, our presence was feared more than that of many others.

On Tuesday, 10 April, we were at St Peter’s from eight o’clock. I had asked to say Mass at the altar of St Pius X, which the priest, having duly inspected my celebret, allowed me to do. We were filled with joy at thus finding answered our prayer for some sign that would confirm – publicly – that we did indeed belong to the Holy Roman Church. A devout Mass, at which all went to Holy Communion, followed by the Salve Regina, prepared us for the day’s enterprise. Around ten o’clock we set forth in a file, singing the Sub tuum before the Pieta.

We then met our first obstacle, in the shape of the porters of St Peter’s who, having allowed me to leave with some of the Brothers, held back the rest of the group in the Basilica. But once they had got over their surprise, our friends managed soon to rejoin us by way of a crypt or other unofficial exit. At the Bronze Gate we were met by plain clothes police as well as carabinieri, fully armed, ordering us to stop, and pushing us back if we tried to move forward. I asked who they were, and what were their orders. They admitted, with a bad grace, to being Italian police, with orders to disperse us and force us to leave the Palace. And why? Because we were disturbing the public order. I protested that we were quiet and unarmed, and wished only to see the Pope whom we had informed of our coming... All no use, the Pope, we were told, would not see us. Who had told them so? These were their orders. Who had given the orders? Their superiors. The Italian State? Yes, No… er… And finally the admission that it had been the Pope’s orders to prevent our approach, that the Vatican did not wish to have anything to do with us. A small deputation, perhaps? No. Perhaps we could leave the Libellus at the Gates? No. Perhaps a priest would come and order us to withdraw? Again, no. Then perhaps a note signed by some ecclesiastical functionary? No, no, no. The police, in disagreement among themselves, have to be ordered for a second time to resist us; they cannot understand why nobody dare show his face from behind the scene, why this little group should inspire such fear. The journalists are equally at a loss! what on earth can there be in that little book which the Pope will have nothing to do with at any price? But the Vatican orders are firm – to prevent any contact with us. So far, only those friends who are here with us have actually seen the contents of the Libellus, but the Pope and his friends must have a pretty good idea of its essence – for they know themselves on which points they have gone against Faith, Morals, and Discipline. Is their refusal to listen not an admission of guilt? Or even tantamount to an abdication? That at least was what we felt at the time.

However, we insist only that we cannot, on Vatican territory, take orders from Italian police, and that if the Pope, who is our father, will not receive his children, he must inform us through a priest. We are prepared to wait all day if need be. We say the Rosary, imploring God to soften their hearts... Two members of the group manage to slip through the barrier and try to enter incognito. One is recognised, manhandled, and taken to the police post. The other manages to pass through various offices and deposit the document on the desk of Mgr Jacques Martin, the Vatican Prefect, though the latter refuses to accept it on hearing the reason for the visit.

In the knowledge that a copy had been deposited, and having explained the position to the journalists, I informed the police that we would withdraw upon receiving an assurance that we should be left free to move around in Rome, to which they agreed. On crossing the Square, in pursuit of the second part of our programme, we were again stopped as we arrived before the Palace of the Holy Office. Here again, they had to make sure that we had no contact with any member of the Curia... I thought of the time when I had been summoned as the accused. Now we came as accusers and recourse had to be had to the Italian police to prevent us entering. Our presence, our book let, would not inspire such fear unless Rome itself, the Eternal Rome, spoke the same language of truth as our Libellus. For here even the very stones echo the language of Truth.

A few priests watched from upstairs windows; when someone called to them to come down, they too disappeared, closing the blinds... The police, like the journalists, are becoming tired of the whole business, and eventually allow us to go to the Obelisk and speak for a few minutes. Around half past twelve, our demonstration comes to an end, and we finish with a prayer facing, on our knees, towards the window of the Palace, the one that never opens, to show our filial attachment to this Pope who will not acknowledge us as his children, and our respect for the Sovereign Judge who will not accept and examine the Libellus Accusationis concerning his own neglect of the charge entrusted to him.

On returning to our hotel, we find there the copy of the Libellus which had been left with Mgr Martin, sent back under plain cover by an anonymous emissary. So they could still say that they had not received a copy... Some of our group were feeling quite ill as a result of our total rejection by all ecclesiastical authority. An afternoon spent visiting various sanctuaries made us all feel better, and in the evening, gathered for a final prayer, we felt actually happy at having been allowed to struggle and suffer in this manner. All are more than ever certain that the truths contained in the Libellus are such that the authorities do not wish to hear them.

On Wednesday, 11th April, we had planned to attend, individually, the public audience, as the press and police were well aware. The Vatican took some unusual precautions: a priest had come to the hotel the night before to inspect our faces and we recognised, in the uniform of a Swiss Guard, one of the policemen of the day before. So they managed to pick out most of us, despite the crowd. A few managed to enter but, once recognised, they were asked to leave: as the Pope had declared their presence undesirable, they were guilty of violation of domicile (sic!). Those who did manage to stay to the end, unrecognised, were shocked to see no crucifix or picture of Our Lady or any religious emblem bar one tapestry depicting the Resurrection, in the hall. The audience included no prayer, or any religious allusion barring a vague plea for prayer to obtain world peace. What prayer, to what God, was Paul VI speaking about? He even made a reference to the French Revolution and its Principles, in connection with Pacem in Terris, almost as if he had been addressing the UN...

As the Pope was leaving, one of our friends who was familiar with the diplomatic tribune managed to cross the barrier and place a copy of the Libellus Accusationis in the Pope’s hands, with the words: "Most Holy Father, this is the Libellus Accusationis of the Catholic Counter-Reformation." Taken by surprise, the Pope held it in his hands an instant. Our friend was dragged away by the body guard, taken to the Vatican police post where a guard tried to return to him the booklet as though it singed his hands. After interrogation by the Vatican police, he was handed over to the Italians and notified that evening that he had to leave Italy within twenty-four hours, for insulting behaviour towards a foreign Head of State. But the Libellus had been left to form part of the police dossier that would prove, together with the guards’ testimony, that it had been received and refused by the Pope.

Our feelings were mixed... We should have liked to spend a moment of peace and prayer in the Pope’s presence, even, perhaps, to find ourselves changing our opinion as a result of some evidence of wisdom and sanctity. To be expelled as "undesirable" was painful but at least a copy of the Libellus had been placed in the Pope’s hands. But he will not pass judgement, will not even read this booklet which appears to burn his soul. At least we have fulfilled our mission and, in the afternoon, we forget our grief while we visit holy places, the sites of the martyrdom and burial of St Paul, and St Paul-Outside-the-Walls, where we recite the Litany of the Saints. We are again filled with the grace that emanates from these sacred sites and we feel that the Apostles at least have given us their welcome in Rome, while the innovators remains strangers encamped on its soil like some occupying power which destroys but does not rebuild.

Thursday, 12th April, the day of our departure, we gather again in St Peter’s Square, in order to pray. But the police spring up immediately all around us... perhaps it is no longer done to pray in Rome. We visited as many churches as possible that day, praying in them all, filling our eyes and hearts with the beauty of Rome eternal, the Catholic Rome. In the last church we entered we kissed the paving stones as a sign of our sworn loyalty to this the Mother and Teacher of the human race. The present Pontificate, for the Romans as for ourselves, represents an episode of decadence, worse than any of the past, but the sore will heal whatever the cost, and the glory of Rome shine forth once more.

We received encouragement from a variety of people whom we met by chance, which showed how numerous are our friends in Rome. The press wrote a great deal about us, on the whole favourably except for the Communist and Christian-Democrat papers. The question has thus become a public issue and will remain so until the day when at long last there comes a reply that is clear-cut and infallible.

Spiritually we have left something of ourselves behind in Rome and we made the promised donations, in particular one of 365,000 lira to St Mary Major for the celebration of Mass daily throughout the coming year for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff.

As we caught our last glimpse of the golden facade of St Paul’s Basilica, we felt like some legionaries who, having returned from their outposts to warn the Emperor and people of Rome of the threats of decadence and the menace of the barbarians, had found only indifference but remained nevertheless determined to fight to the last drop of blood for the welfare of Rome.

THE M.A.S.D.U.

by the Abbé de LINARES

Dear Readers and Friends,

On the repeated request from persons who were present at our meeting in London on Sunday the 25th of March I have had a number of copies made of the conference I delivered to you on that day. I must stress the fact that this text was composed to be a one-hour initiation or summary, specifically to be heard and not read, of the historical process and the theological tangle which have brought about our present dramatic situation. Thus you are not about to read a study but a résumé of a study where the countless details of the events and writings concerned have been scrupulously examined. If all the parts of this puzzle seem to fit into a neat pattern in a very remarkable way it is due, not to any turning or twisting on my part, but to their very nature.

Many of the notions and facts which I shall be mentioning here have been studied in past issues of the CRC bulletin not yet translated into your language. In particular we will be speaking about the MASDU, but I shall not give you an exhaustive definition of what this is, straight away; when I get so far, its significance will emerge and become clear to you.

Let us set out, if you like, from some very simple data, thoroughly well known to traditionalists in all countries: every Catholic knows perfectly well that there is a total antagonism between the two main conceptions of life, or metaphysics, that is: a mysticism of perfect happiness here below which might be called "the Religion of this world", and the Christian Mysticism which contemplates ultimate and perfect salvation only in another world, namely in Heaven! There is a conflict of convictions, for Christians will always judge that the religion of this world turns Man away from the one thing necessary: "What does it serve a man to gain the whole world if he loses his own soul", says the Gospel!… And, on the other hand, the religion of this world will always think that Christianity is an alienation for Man, for it turns him away from the urgent tasks of constructing a new and better world, the earthly paradise! And seen from this angle, Christianity will always be "the opium of the poor". These two mysticisms are in complete opposition and the conflict has no issue, for here we have two divergent doctrines concerning human existence.

All this was quite clear until a short time ago. Clear for Catholics who chose to stake their whole existence on the pursuit of Heaven. And clear for the adversaries of our religion who knew where they stood and preferred to construct their perfect happiness here below! Now, a short time ago, not even ten years ago, a certain confusion spread about this. One could liken it to a bad fog, coming up and preventing people from discriminating between truth and error. "What conception of salvation do you adhere to today?"… Between the pursuit of Heaven in the world to come, and the quest of a new world to be built here today, Christians do not quite know where they are. Truth and error are inextricably entangled, and Heresy seems henceforth to have full freedom in the Church. For example, I could quote the names of theologians in France who absolutely do not believe in survival after death and who are still, at this hour, lecturers at the Catholic Institute of Paris…

Let us then see, as a first step, how this Heresy has managed to establish itself within the Church. In the second part we shall see how error, at the very moment when it seems to triumph everywhere in our poor Roman Catholic Church, has already signed its own death-warrant!

Beginning the first part I should like to recall the image of the prophet Daniel: the formidable statue with its muscles of bronze, iron and steel which suddenly appears, towering over all, dominating all by its apparently almighty strength! This colossus is Heresy which is mounting up in the Church… let us see how this has come about!

I shall take, as a starting point, the situation of mediaeval Christendom, which enjoyed a just balance in its quest for Heaven without, however, neglecting the duties inherent to our earthly existence. Mediaeval Christendom sought above all Heaven and found, over and above, a good measure of happiness in its temporal civilization. It simply put into practice the evangelical catch-phrase: "Seek first the Kingdom of God and its Justice and all other things shall be added unto you!". In the Middle Ages it was Heaven that was aimed at, and Heaven alone! Over and above that, people had a happy Christian art of living; it was not the earthly paradise but a civilization infinitely more salutary for Humanity than all others on this planet.

From the end of the Middle Ages we can perceive what certain historians have called "the Rise of the Modern Spirit." This process came about in three stages which I shall resume, here, in a very brief way:

The RENAISSANCE. The Renaissance wanted to keep two things at once: firstly the religion of the Middle Ages, the old mediaeval Christianity which no one wanted to reject. Secondly a new Humanism in which men thought to rediscover the values of pagan Antiquity. The Church, confronted with this phenomenon of the Renaissance, had a twofold attitude. First of all one of magnanimity – one might call it great open-mindedness, accepting perfectly well these new humanist values such as the blossoming of sciences and arts. The Church thought all this could be made into a hymn "ad majorem Dei gloriam": for the greater glory of God, as the Jesuit motto says. And in this the Church had none of the narrow-mindedness which some have unjustly reproached to her! But, on the other hand, the Church showed a kind of prudent reserve; she cautioned the faithful against the eventuality of drinking once more at the sources of antique paganism, under cover of the pretence of research for the human values of the ancients. The Church was thus very understanding, and yet already worried at the dawn of this modern spirit.

The REFORMATION, the second stage, after the Renaissance, was already a first encroachment of modern humanism upon the age-old conception, in the sense that the Reformation wanted to emancipate Christians from the tutelage of the Church in religious matters. People wanted to remain Christians as they were in the Middle Ages, but they no longer wanted the Church to have a determining word to say between God and their souls, to be "Mater et Magistra". The attitude of the Church in the presence of this trend of the Reformation was unquestionably one of refusal. The Church did not accept this first claim to emancipation and cut off the reformation branch.

The REVOLUTION was the third stage in this rise of a "modern mind". A Revolution which developed in a series of thrusts. I shall sum them up by giving you two dates which seem to me of outstanding importance: 1789 which meant, with the French Revolution, the emancipation of Catholicism as regards the temporal, socio-political life of mankind – it was no longer an accepted thing for religion to be the keystone of social systems; religion was henceforth to be no more than a private preoccupation of individual consciences… and 1917 which brings, with the Communist Revolution, the total emancipation of human life from Christianity so as to leave no room except for a new religion of Man – definitively eclipsing the old one.

Marx said that the religion of the 20th century could only be one which would recognize no other God than Man. A new religion which had the pretence of destroying the old order formed by Christianity in order to build, on its ruins, a new order of things which would, this time, be the earthly paradise: the ideal communist society!

What was the reaction of the Church to this revolution? – A distinction must be made between the doctrinal problem and the practical ones From the doctrinal point of view the Church anathematized revolutionary principles. These anathemas culminated with that of Marxism, qualified by Pope Pius XI as "intrincically perverse" – or, according to a formula I am fond of quoting, "a fraudulent imitation of the Redemption of the poor" – that is to say: the very counterfeit of Salvation. This Marxist revolution was judged by the Church as the height of Promethean pretentiousness on the part of the modern mentality trying to do without God; one might even call it the direct religious antithesis of Christianity… But before this communist revolution the Church had already expressed more or less vigorously its disapproval of the principles of all revolutionary movements during the previous one hundred and fifty years:

I.  The famous principles of 1789, those of the Freemasons, of J. J. Rousseau: Liberty - Equality - Fraternity.

II.  The principles of all modern socialist systems as well as totalitarian state control, for instance National-Socialism. I ought here to recall the whole series of popes, from Gregory XVI to Paul VI himself…

III.  The principles of modern secularisation, liberalism; all this culminated in the eightieth proposition of the Syllabus according to which the Church could and should be reconciled with the ideas of modern civilization.

The doctrinal problem is thus an easy one: the Church condemns this claim of the Great Revolution!

The practical problem is somewhat more intricate. It can be observed, each time revolution comes face to face with the Church, that there is a violent initial clash, an opposition which seems irreconcilable between the two, leading to persecution of the Church whenever it is the revolution which triumphs, for example, the French loyal priests in 1792 or the underground Church under communist rule. But later on we find a state of "accomplished fact" tolerated by the Church who can do nothing about such a situation. She seems to resign herself to a de facto toleration of the "hypothesis" while maintaining her de jure thesis, her arguments, in order to safeguard the eternal salvation of the greatest possible number of souls. (This attitude enabled the 19th century to witness an admirable restoration of the Church after the great storm of the Revolution.)

Such then was the clash of the Church with this modern spirit which we have just retraced: total opposition of ideas, but a certain coexistence in day to day life. But it so happened that a sort of third party appeared in the Church, about 150 years ago, people claiming to reconcile positions apparently totally opposed. They were a faction of Catholics within the Church, declaring themselves partisans of a renewed Christianity. Before I give you any historical landmarks, let me examine some of the circumstances which were as many occasions for warping the Christian truth:

FIRSTLY it was a temptation for certain Christians to proceed from a situation of "coexistence" which the Church was powerless to change, to a conciliation with the very principles involved in it, a temptation which would attract certain Christians in terror of persecutions or else ambitious and eager to succeed in the new world and so to tune their Christianity to this new mentality which was abroad. You can see that this first temptation affects the supernatural virtue of Hope, these Christians failing to believe that the situation could be reversed and the Church’s principles dominate once again.

SECONDLY it was a temptation, bearing this time upon the virtue of Charity, for certain Christians to let themselves be blinded to everything but the sufferings of the poor, and many lost their footing, staking their hopes in the revolution for changing such a deplorable state of affairs. This temptation was, and continues to be, a most important one: it is the temptation of Progressivism. Here lies the explanation of the error of so many good, generous, compassionate, devoted Christians who let themselves be led away into wrong paths, for they no longer know what real supernatural charity is; we, on the other hand, being traditionalists and exasperated by the progressive theories of so many priests, for instance about under-development, we must not on that account forget all the terrible present-day problems: hunger and the distress of millions of poor. The problems do exist – but the progressive solutions go against true charity and will never cure.

THIRDLY it was, I think, a temptation for certain Christians, bearing this time on the supernatural virtue of Faith, faced with the acquisitions of modern science, to make our old Catholic beliefs, our dogmas (formulated in days long past when humanity was still, so to speak, in its infancy), adapt to modern thought and ideologies; this temptation, which particularly affects intellectuals, is that of Modernism.

FINALLY I think we must also add, in fourth place, the temptation for some Christians, facing the atom-bomb discovery, to try and bring about peace in the world above all and at any price, in order to avoid the destruction of humanity. The philosopher Heiddegger has made all sorts of reflections about humanity realising, round the nineteen-fifties, that it could provoke its own suicide; some Christians, panic-stricken at this idea, have been violently tempted to put peace above every other consideration and to make any concession toward this end. This is what I shall, for want of a better term, call the temptation of "worldwideness" (mondialisme).

If we want to go further into the causes of this deviation in a certain number of Catholic minds who have been wanting to reform Christianity and the Church for the last one hundred and fifty years, we shall no doubt have to return to the old capital sins: envy, pride, will to power, anger, avarice, sensuality etc. You have perhaps read, in the revue Itinéraires, excellent articles by Marcel de Corte explaining the present crisis by the fierce will to power on the part of the clergy who see the world slipping from their grasp and who are trying to reform Christianity so that the world will once more follow their lead. But I do not want, this day, to sum up these sins speaking of our Christian brethren, even if they do err. It is more interesting to go back to deeper causes, this time of a mystical order:

I think that if many Christians have been carried away, it is because they have experienced emptiness in place of mysticism. The spiritual life has left them unsatisfied, and they have sought after a renewed Christianity offering them stronger sensations, or better consolations. One might go further and speak of false mystics who have led astray numerous generous Christians; mysticism is a difficult art, like the little and narrow path that takes you to the summit: for one path leading to the goal, ten others lead on to perilous ways, towards the edge of the precipice! How many erroneous mystic teachings in our century! I am convinced that the most fundamental problem of the Church today is one of mysticism.

We shall now take one or two historical landmarks in the ascent of Heresy within the Church. You see, we are not today concerned with the enemies of the Church outside her, but with those who have grown up within her bosom and who have claimed to change her.

The first historical landmark: We must always go back to the great Lamennais: Félicité de Lamennais, this French Breton priest who remains the principal prophet of the reconciliation of the Church with the new mentality! – In 1816 the French Revolution was crushed. The nations hoped for the return of peace and order, and the Catholic order which they had enjoyed before 1789. Whence an extraordinary current of piety, of conversions, and of missionary enterprise in the Church. It is in this context that Lamennais appears. A young priest, a recent convert, an imaginative, mystic soul, – but of a romantic mysticism; (he wanted a God that could be felt by the heart, a tangible God.) He was unsatisfied by the classical spiritual life of the traditional priests: breviary, Mass, Rosary. Jesus remains somewhat a stranger to him, more like an idea or a myth than a person with whom one can have a real and intimate day-to-day relationship. So, Lamennais sought perceptible consolations. He brought out a defence for Catholicism, for the young nineteenth century, declaring himself determined to give Catholicism back its attraction and its usefulness on the morrow of the revolution… In point of fact, Lamennais invented a new Christianity which he presented as the answer of modern humanity. This was his book: An Essay on Indifference in matter of Religion. "We witness the rise," writes Lamennais, "the beginning of a universal mutation, preparing a new era to come." The Gospel came to be the prophesy of a new universal system, a world-wide revolution. The Gospel turned into a message of universal liberation, and the Church was taking up again with this people which had brought about, irrevocably, the Great Revolution!

For a number of years, Lamennais hoped that it would be the Christian kings, the monarchies now restored to their rightful place who would bring to birth the new world of his dreams. But, as early as 1830 the policy of these kings disappointed him and he turned violently against them, directing all his hopes, henceforth, towards the papacy. It would be the pope who would, in God’s name, teach the peoples the way of universal brotherhood and democracy! Lamennais’ religion is: God, in the pope and the people. But, for the pope to become the leader of the people, on its onward march towards this marvellous aim, this same pope must begin by reforming in some measure the Church. For this Roman Catholic Church has some supernatural and hierarchical quality which shut it out from the new social system. The Church must get into this great new trend and therefore – reform herself! Pope Gregory XVI refused to have any part in this fine project and condemned the prophet in his encyclicals: MIRARI VOS and SINGULARI VOS in 1832 and 1834.

Lamennais did not question his own ideas, but simply concluded that the pope was incapable of proving equal to the destiny that might have been his! Henceforth, cut off from the Church and left to himself, Félicité de Lamennais sank further into his error. From his faith in God, in the pope and in the people, there remained no more than faith in God - in the people; faith in the people - depository of God; faith in the people-God; faith in humanity - on-the-march; faith in Man. He replaced the statue of the most Holy Virgin on the mantelpiece of his room by the bust of Marianne, symbol of the French Republic. Imbued, henceforth, with this new faith in humanity he sank towards an evangelical secular socialism: for him, humanity was on the march, his conscience dictating infallibly a truth more genuine than any religious dogmas, and his dynamism secreting a divine fertility capable of giving birth to a new society, free and brotherly, what "Godspell" calls "the establishment of the Kingdom of God here below". Lamennais died in 1864, lost in his heretical dream and was buried surrounded by freemasons!

The second historical landmark in the rise of Heresy is what has been called "liberal Catholicism". Friends of Lamennais who had broken away from him when he left the Church, for they intended to remain faithful to her, had nevertheless carried away with them, in the depth of their souls, the seeds of his error. They did indeed keep up their formal religion, worship of God, but at the same time they kept burning the flame of the cult of the new humanity. Their motto was: God and Liberty! In point of fact, their faith in Man, little by little, gained upon their religious convictions: "The chief virtue today", writes Lacordaire, "is not faith but a sincere love of liberty." Hence, perpetual claims for liberty. At the congress of Malines, in 1863, Montalembert launches the famous slogan: "A free Church in a free state." – "One must trust in this new liberty of modern society, and the Church ought to make peace with the revolution, in the hope that the latter would be grateful to her, later on!" The stoppage was given to this fanciful dream by Pius IX, on the 8th December 1864, in the encyclical QUANTA CURA and in the SYLLABUS.

Here is what Pius IX wrote in 1871 about the liberal Catholics: "I fear not the poor unfortunates of the Paris Commune, true demons loose from Hell at large on the earth. No, what I fear is this Catholic liberalism, which is the real calamity On the numerous occasions on which we have reproved the supporters of liberal opinions, we have not had in mind those who hate the Church, which would have been unnecessary, but rather those who, while themselves maintaining and upholding Catholicism, which they sucked in with their mother’s milk, inoculate these liberal principles into the minds of others and thus propagate the seeds of those revolutions which have over such a long period shaken the world"… Those liberal Catholics, of course, obviously found themselves in the opposite camp to those who promulgated papal infallibility at the first Vatican Council, a hundred years ago.

The third stage in this rise of a reform party inside the Church is Christian Democracy. A certain number of intellectuals, of young priests, circulated, at the beginning of the 20th century, the theories of Lamennais in a scarcely renewed jargon. These Christians took their stand upon the more liberal policy of Pope Leo XIII towards the republican institutions in order to make people believe that the pope guaranteed the ideas which had brought about the French Revolution. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Socialism, Neutrality; these were, in those days, evangelical virtues for certain new "Catholic Action" movements such as, in France for example, the "E.L.J.F.", the "Semaines Sociales" which still exists, the "Action Populaire" of the Jesuits… All this came to a head in Marc Sangnier’s famous French movement "Le Sillon". This organisation aroused the enthusiasm of the upper middle-class youth of the time, proclaiming an ardently democratic Christianity in which all generous-hearted men of whatever opinion, even freethinkers, would be called upon to found, on the pure Gospel of 1789, the great equal and fraternal City.

Here is what Marc Sangnier wrote: "The ideas of the revolution are in fact nineteen centuries old; they came straight out of the Gospels. The Church therefore has to open up to this new trend, readapt itself to it, and enter generously into the movement which is building this modern world." – We ought here to speak of the modernist trend in philosophy and theology which, influenced by the theories of E. KANT, Ed. Leroy, Blondel, shook the foundations of the faith, in the name of science and conscience, accepting only a vague humanist belief in human progress and the future. It was Pope Pius X who, from 1903 to 1914, struggled with heroic vigour against this renewal of Heresy. He condemned the "Sillon" on the 25th of August 1910, declaring that the Sillon was introducing Communism, looking towards a vain dream. And it was the same pope, Pius X, who condemned Modernism in his Encyclical PASCENDI in 1907 and the decree LAMENTABILI.

The fourth stage in the ascent of Heresy is under the pontificate of Pius XI. We are confronted with a thinker of outstanding importance, Jacques Maritain. This philosopher, only recently converted to Christianity, had at first given his best in the purest traditionalism; he was, at that time, one of the theorists of the French political movement: Action Française. Here is what he wrote in one of his books prior to 1926: "The causes which have done most to weaken modern Catholics are the slipping into their souls of the dogmas of progress and new humanism; pseudo-ideas pandering to the subconscious natural desire to accept accomplished fact; ideas unparalleled for blinding their judgements." Well, in 1926, Pius XI having taken disciplinary steps against l’Action Française on political grounds, Maritain changed his course and took, from that point on, the new trend. At the request of Pius XI he wrote a book, taking up again the old hopes of reconciling the Church and the Revolution… a fundamental book entitled "l’Humanisme Intégral", published in 1936. Incidentally, the preface of the Italian edition of this book was written by a secretary of the curia of Pius XI… his name was J. B. Montini, the present pope.

Maritain elaborated a complete theory of the reconciliation of the Church and the new social system. I could sum up this theory along two guiding-lines and describe them in two words which are not perhaps those of Maritain himself – they are rather those of Teilhard! – but which throw some light upon this subject. These are the words: Secularization and Amorization, i.e. growth in loving.

First: Secularization! – For Maritain the previous centuries appear as divinely inspired progress from Medieval Christianity towards the new present-day and future humanism. Human civilization has conquered its autonomy, becoming more and more deeply conscious of its liberty, its natural creative powers; thus we have moved down from a sacral type of civilization, predominantly ecclesiastical, to a new profane type in which natural life will be lived independently, a secular civilization emancipated from clerical tutelage which will produce a new blossoming of human, carnal, earthly values. The secular trend, constantly on the increase from the 15th century on, was no longer considered by Maritain as criminal apostasy, but rather as a normal and even providential development: it was the forward march of the human race. The time had come for the Church to banish the memory of her old quarrels! She must ask the faithful, guided only by their Christian consciousness, to take part in the secular movement. The new humanist culture, wholly human, would be equally and mysteriously Christian! All that had to be done was to get free from the old and dying Christianity and construct this new humanism, a Christian humanism according to Maritain, but with no clear references to Jesus Christ. It would be a new Christianity of Integral Humanism.

Secondly: Amorization! Maritain saw all ideological, mystical religions converging in an astonishing way towards a simple human ideal of a world civilisation in which all men will be reconciled in Justice, Love and Peace! Men could indeed remain faithful to different religious conceptions, but the progress of conscience common to the whole of the human race must, little by little, bring about an agreement on a certain number of aims, towards the universal being, controlled by friendship among men. All would be united by identical aims, urged on by the same love which could throw them into heroic generosity. Christians belonging to this new Catholic Action, more evangelical than ever before, would have their part to play in the great movement towards the unity of mankind and general fraternity, acting on the suggestions of their conscience: "Democracy is essentially evangelical", wrote Maritain, "and its prime motivation is love; it is a manifestation of the spirit of the Gospel". Men would no longer be in opposition with one another, they would respect one another; one would help the other to put more and more into practice his ideology or his religion; every one would try, within his own obedience, to reduce any possible revival of former fanaticism, of the old integrism. These would still remain for a time, but public opinion would little by little reduce them; each one, in the self-criticism of his own religion, should seek the reasons of other peoples’ fanaticism: why are the communists against God? Because the Church must have given a caricature of God!… So humanity was moving on towards the new civilization "whose dynamic principle would no longer be either God as in the old Christianity, or ‘Race’ as in National Socialism, or the ‘State’ as in Fascism… but brotherly love!" Friendship between men would henceforth be the most important myth, the guiding star to life with others, and the Gospel would thus mysteriously be accomplished.

Fifth historical landmark – the last – in the ascent of Heresy. I am going to quote a theologian, the first theologian to have put into theory the reconciliation of these two hitherto divergent mystics: Father Congar. This French theologian has been in the limelight ever since the Second Vatican Council in which he played a determining part. Father Congar is on the borderline between the Church and the World. And he professes something like a twofold Credo. A Credo upon the world; a Credo upon the Church.

Let us glance rapidly at his cosmic Credo, the one upon the world. Father Congar turns his attention to the modern world and exclaims: "It is marvellous!" In fact, the new Christian world which Maritain had expected as the fruit of a new Catholic movement, this new profane Christian world is coming into being, even before Maritain’s new Catholic Action has penetrated to where the foundations of the world are being laid. This new civilization is coming into being through successive social, economical transformations, growing out of the Marxist myth. The march of the modern world is tracing the outlines of a fraternal society, and Father Congar writes pompously: History is the slow parturition of a free mankind! For him, temporal progress is already the coming of the Kingdom of God, it is already Christian Salvation; at least, as far as man himself is concerned. This being so, the construction of a new world, of a splendid new democracy of tomorrow, however profane it may be, even undertaken by atheists, has something sacred within it and is divine. It is the impact of Christ’s Lordship over the entire world, this cosmic Christ being more interesting than the too limited one of our Church – our "Ghetto" say the progressives!

The ecclesiological Credo of Father Congar is his profession concerning the Church. After having looked with new eyes on the modern world, Father Congar turns towards the old Church which he has refused to deny, and affirms his belief. If it is true, he says, that the dynamism of the new world in the making is mysteriously giving birth to this total Christ, summing up humanity and the cosmos, then the Church must recognize the new mission which is hers, in this new state of things. What will the Church do? Is she to set herself up as a master to this world? Mere folly! The Church must represent what Father Congar calls "the consecration of this world". To show you how far removed from our traditional Catholicism this progressive theology is, I would like you to reflect for a moment about the idea which comes to your mind when I say the words "consecration of the world", or in Latin – which sounds more devout! – "consecratio mundi". You probably think of the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by Pius XII in 1942; or perhaps you call to mind the immense statue of the Sacred Heart towering over the bay of Rio de Janeiro, consecrating all that immense city to Jesus Christ and subjecting all those men to the law of Christ, the King. Well, it is nothing of the kind for such Dominicans as Father Congar or Chenu! In all the theories of this new theology the "consecratio mundi" is practically the opposite: The Church has to turn round towards this immense human effort of the new world in the making to declare it sacred, more or less divine. The Church gives herself out as the universal sacrament of this cosmic salvation. The Church declares that it is this dynamism itself which is divine, and it is in it, above all, that we are to see the Lord. As a brief illustration of that, when Pope Paul VI went off to the U.N., before the assembly of diplomats constituted without any reference to Jesus Christ, what did he say then? Had it been Pope Pius X, he would have told these diplomats: "Gentlemen, you want to establish peace on earth today! You will not succeed! Your big glass building will end up collapsing just as the League of Nations did. You cannot succeed. For to make nations come to an agreement, and for men to be on friendly terms, you must know what true Charity is. You must also receive the strength for that from above. So you must turn to Christianity: receive the Grace of Jesus Christ and then, perhaps, you may try to bridge the misunderstandings among you. If you are not converted, your fine plans for universal peace will fail. Be converted and you will have peace. Or else Russia will propagate her errors, as Our Lady of Fatima told Jacinta." – Well, Pope Paul VI did not speak in this way! This is what he said to all the diplomats: "This is how things must be! It is worthy so! You are accomplishing, here and now, what was foretold by the prophets about the peace which would come, one day, in the world…" You see here, indeed, the "consecratio mundi" according to the new theology.

Now you well understand that if this is the Church’s new mission in the world, then the Church must undertake a complete revision of her own being, she must open up to this new world and adapt herself to it! She will of course retain her traditional role, but she will add two things on as she reforms, and this is the most important! Firstly: open, declared ecumenism, for other Christian confessions are at work, to build up the new world, to consecrate it. In order to collaborate with these Protestants or Orthodox, the Church must seek out the things which bring her close to them, for the important thing is to "galvanize" everyone for the common task of building up a new world. Secondly the Church must open up to the modern conception of government, that is collegial government, and the Church now defines herself as a people and no longer as an institution or a society. That is the introduction of democracy, of all sorts of "participation" within the Church!

I have perhaps spent rather long over this first part, but I feel it was a good thing to give a wide review of the trend standing to establish an agreement between the Church and the ideas of the modern world. I now come to the second part, in which I shall show you how, at the very time when Heresy seems to have achieved triumph in the Holy Church, an unheard of and appalling state of affairs, it has already signed its own death-warrant. We have come to the point of cynic triumph of the colossal statue of the book of Daniel, which has been set up within the Church and is about to crush all under its weighted power. Ten years ago, at the opening of the Second Vatican Council – you know that this Council began in October 1962 – it might have been asked whether the theorists of reconciliation of the two hitherto contradictory mysticisms would once more be cast off by the Church, or whether they would not succeed in introducing some of their views so successfully as to manage to plant their ideas in certain strategic positions in the Church’s thought. It so happened that a Prince of the Church, in the crisis following the death of Pope John XXIII, took upon himself to reconcile irreconcilable things, to sum up in a single body of doctrine, a single pastorale: traditional religion, but more open, and the new religion, but reined in. No part of Christian religion of old times would be denied, but there would be added on, for pastoral ends, and with a view to dialogue, the new humanism that Lamennais, Lacordaire, Montalembert, Marc Sangnier, Maritain, Father Congar had all wished to instate. This Prince of the Church, imbued with modern humanist doctrines, you know who he is: the Cardinal J. B. Montini who was elected on this program at the conclave of 1963; the two hundred and sixty third successor of Saint Peter, he is the present pope.

Well, Pope Paul VI, with astonishing coherence and admirable diplomacy, pursued unremittingly this great project of bringing together what his predecessors had hitherto esteemed impossible to reconcile. His plans triumphed at the conclusion of the Vatican Council in that splendid ceremony you may have seen on TV, on the 7th of December 1965, an extraordinary profusion of carpets in Saint Peter’s Square, with the admirable procession of the two-thousand five hundred bishops of the entire world and all the pomp and splendour of the Vatican. Pope Paul descending from the pontifical throne and, in his first gesture, embracing an old man in ordinary clothes who had come for the sole purpose of that one outstanding day: it was Jacques Maritain, J. B. Montini’s old master. And Pope Paul VI, at that historical moment, pronounced these surprising words, in his closing speech, – I suppose you know them by heart after the number of times they have been quoted in the CRC; I shall however read you the main passages:

"The Church of the Council has also turned its attention a great deal towards Man. Man, living man as we see him in our day, entirely given over to himself. Man who has become the centre of his own interests and ventures to claim himself the be all and end all of all reality. Secular, profane humanism has appeared finally, in all its terrible dimensions and has in one sense defied the Council. The religion of God made Man has met the religion, for religion it is, of Man making himself God. What has come to pass? A struggle? An anathema? That might have happened, but it did not take place. The old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the Council’s spirituality, boundless sympathy pervaded it entirely. The discovery of human needs – and the greater man makes himself the greater these needs become – has absorbed the attention of our Synod. At least give it credit for this, you modern humanists who sacrifice the transcendence of the Supreme, and recognize the value of our new humanism; we too, we more than anyone else, do worship Man…"

At this moment, Heresy seemed to have thrived utterly, officially proclaimed by the twenty-first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. However, it is not enough to read this concluding speech which was listened to by so many bishops, who did not realize the full significance of the words pronounced by the Sovereign Pontiff. We would have to study what was promulgated in each of the official acts of the Council, but this represents a tremendous task. If you have followed, throughout the past year, the remarkable studies of the Abbé de Nantes in the CRC in Miss Zilahi’s excellent translation, you will have become familiar with this difficult theological undertaking: the study of the Vatican II texts. Here we can see Heresy taking up its position and becoming preponderant in the Church. Our Catholic CRC groups everywhere in France and in other countries, devoted their 1971-1972 program to the study of these different documents of the Vatican Council. I shall not go over this ground again this afternoon, for it is a colossal task. But I should like to skim over it very rapidly for your benefit. And to do this I shall take the opposite direction from that taken by the Abbé de Nantes last year; not of course out of contrariness, but in order to underline the main idea which, little by little, has rotted away, one after the other, every part of our religion.

You know that the Abbé de Nantes likes jokingly to compare the Vatican Council to a gallon of good tea into which somebody has stealthily put two grams of arsenic. This makes some of our friends who do not see any harm in the Council say that there are excellent things in these texts and that they must not be despised – to which the Abbé de Nantes replies: Yes, of course, there is a gallon of good tea; but if there are two grams of arsenic, the whole pot is dangerous and I won’t have any of it!

The work we did then, last year, was to patiently discern, in the light of the rules of all time theology, what was the good tea of the Council and what was the dreaded arsenic. This afternoon, to show you in its crudest features the Heresy, the new ideal crushing the Church from within, I shall speak to you only about the arsenic. I shall tell you very briefly what is the arsenic of each one of the documents of Vatican II; and I shall take the opposite direction from that of the Abbé de Nantes last year, for he set out from the schemas of Vatican II treating the most elevated themes, for instance, the sources of faith, the Church, the Priesthood etc. Then, little by little he came down to less elevated considerations such as Catholic Action, Ecumenism… to end up with the documents of the Council treating of the most worldly subjects, for example, the constitution GAUDIUM ET SPES on the Church in the world of our time.

I shall set out from the lowest stage to go up the scale to the most elevated. For the simple reason that the Council is like a scorpion: the poison is in the tail, and you have to see what is in the tail to realize the danger and understand the rest. So let us start from the scorpion’s tail – I mean the schema GAUDIUM ET SPES on the Church and the present-day world. What is the arsenic of this document? I shall sum it up in a word, for the document itself includes dozens of pages. The arsenic of GAUDIUM ET SPES is to have promulgated, in an indirect way, a new belief, a new dogma, that the Church hitherto did not profess: the dogma of faith in man. GAUDIUM ET SPES diffuses a new faith in man, in modern society, this humanity slowly giving birth to a new society, to quote Father Congar’s terms. The Church in this document claims to believe in the modern world and its construction. And present in GAUDIUM ET SPES are all the themes of Father Congar’s thinking – all the themes of Father Congar’s thinking are given full recognition: the famous consecration of the world which I was telling you about a moment ago. The Church turns into the servant of mankind on the march, the Church puts herself at the service of the world and means to be the soul of this new world. The Church turns into… now I can release the word: MASDU in French, but in English the precise signification is: ‘‘Movement for the spiritual animation of universal democracy." You see, the MASDU is not, as some of our friends might think, all that is opposed to the Church from the outside: freemasonry, Jewry, communism, secret societies; it is not these. The MASDU is something within the Church itself; it is the new will of the Church to get into line with the building of the new world; to turn into the movement for the spiritual animation of the universal democracy of tomorrow. The Church is reconverting herself and reinvesting her whole capital of spiritual energy, and enlisting in the service of the world all her formidable sociological apparatus, capable of firing 659 million Catholics, and through them the rest of the world. The Church becomes the servant of the world. All this is very serious, for it is a question of faith. The question is: Are you really going to add a codicil to your Credo, after Vatican II in which you, too, believe in Man?

Well, you shall see that spreading out from this arsenic of GAUDIUM ET SPES, this MASDU which is the great heresy of the present time, every part of our religion will be gradually tainted by corruption. I shall proceed very rapidly.

If the Church wants to put herself at the service of the construction of tomorrow’s new democracy, the first thing she must do is to rectify her position as regards other religions which are also trying to animate from within the universal democracy which is taking shape. Whence the declaration NOSTRA AETATE of Vatican II concerning the present-day relationship of the Church towards other, non Christian religions – religions or even ideologies, for this implies anything from Islam to Buddhism, taking in Judaism on the way and even going as far as communism and freemasonry. To give you an example: With Judaism, we will put into evidence everything that will unite us – certain elements of the Old Testament we have in common – and we will put in brackets everything likely to separate us from the Jews… and you know what it is that separates us from them! It is the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and His death on the Cross to save all men!

On the other hand, if the important thing is to build up the MASDU, the Church ought a fortiori to make peace with the other Christian confessions: Orthodoxy and Protestantism. This is the schema on ecumenism UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO, and there we see that, in this desire to agree with other Christian confessions, all old quarrels are put aside and judged unimportant compared with the need to build this new world. You have there the key to all ecumenical actions which may shock us today: the "Dombes agreement" between theologians: inter-communions, inter-celebrations, common books for protestants and Catholics, etc.

But, if the Church considers her relationship with other religions, and if she goes in for ecumenism, then she must admit what, up till now, she has refused to do throughout the whole of the 19th century: religious liberty. That is the object of the declaration DIGNITATIS HUMANAE which takes up a position diametrically opposed to the teaching of all the popes throughout the 19th century on this delicate matter. The Church of Vatican II allows free choice in the matter of religion. You can see that all this is centred on a main affair: to establish the new world; and, incidentally you can spot here the subject of most of the sermons we are gratified with nowadays in the postconciliar Church: We must construct the world, working side by side with all those who are trying to build a new society. That is what seems to be dominating everything else in our religion. – But, if the Church declares freedom in matter of religion then she must apply this to herself!

Well, there was one domain in which the Church was in complete opposition with this freedom, namely that of the missions. In the missions the missionary went away and declared with full confidence to the natives that they must give up all these false religions which would never bring them to salvation. If they wanted to go to Heaven they must become Christians, be converts and receive baptism. Having promulgated freedom in matter of religion, the Church of Vatican II will change this state of affairs in the missions, and this is a subtle point, for the decree AD GENTES on missions of course remains very traditional; but this afternoon I shall speak to you not about the good tea in this document, I shall tell you only about the arsenic. Where is the arsenic in AD GENTES ? It is a fact that while speaking about Mission in the traditional sense of the word – in Madagascar, in China, in Africa or in India – Vatican II brings in a new idea, saying: Indeed we have the missions – they still remain, they are still needed – although they have a nineteenth-century imperialist and colonialist taint about them; but more important than the missions is the Mission of the Church; and that is no more to bring to the world true religion, to save man from sin and from eternal Hell: it is for the Church to bring about the consecration of the world in the sense that Father Congar explained. The missionary who goes out to his mission-ground, in Oubangui-Chari for example, will go with co-operating agents who go out there to sink a pit or well. The priest will not come to sink the well, but he will come to say to the workers and the black people: "This well that you are digging is a symbol of this country’s development, it is a sacred process in its own right, carrying something divine in its depths, it is the progress of the Kingdom on Earth. So the missionary will go to consecrate by his words what is being done, becoming the messenger of universal liberation, of the development of the nations, of the "populorum progressio"…

But then, if the very mission of the Church is no longer the same (the first thing being now the "natural" part of life where before it had been the "supernatural" part), lay people must be given overwhelming importance compared with the clergy, and that is the decree APOSTOLICAM ACTUOSITATEM on the apostleship of lay persons. In the new conception of the Church, lay members take precedence. And in that case the idea of priesthood will have to be altered too. And that is the decree PRESBYTERORUM ORDINIS. You can see that all this is dictated by the MASDU: a new world has to be built, animated from within. – Where is the arsenic in PRESBYTEBORUM ORDINIS? Every militant member of the CRC proudly displaying his badge ought really to be able to reply to his parish priest or his bishop when asked why he is in disagreement with Vatican II: Here is what I take the Vatican II Council to task for: the decree, although it does say something about the traditional priest, introduces a new idea of the priest and finally a new conception of the priesthood which is never clearly defined, but which can be traced as an undercurrent and which finally will override the rest. In the traditional conception the priest is the man of God, consecrated to the worship of God, the Liturgy, the man of valid sacraments. What is the difference between me, a priest, and you, lay people? You can always say, with generosity and emotion: "I pardon your sins", but they would not be pardoned. If I say so, even if I am the worst priest possible, then they will be pardoned! You see: the difference between the priest and the layman is in the sacramental power of the priest. Well, in the new conception the priest will no longer be the giver of these valid sacraments, the man of God’s worship; the priest will be, above all, the bard, the prophet, so to speak, of a message of universal liberation for the construction of tomorrow s marvellous democracy. For example, the school priest will say to his boys and girls: "I am not going to teach you religion or to give you lectures of theology with pages and pages out of the text-books. And I am not here even to take my Gospel and read you passages out of it. What we are all going to do together: we are all going to do research, for of course I do not know more about it than you do, and I am no better than you are! But what we are all going to do together is to interpret ‘the signs of the times’, to see the Gospel, not the Gospel of the books, but the Gospel in real life! So let us look at what is happening in real life, let us see the passing of the Spirit in the lives we are living, not in any far off time or place, but here and now, in your class!"

The priest thus became someone to spiritually animate universal democracy and no longer the man of God. But if you change the priesthood with a view to MASDU, then you must change the liturgy. For up till now the priest was wholly taken up by the liturgy. The constitution SACRO SANCTUM CONCILIUM of Vatican II, of course one of the most traditional of the Council, nevertheless contains a certain number of openings towards a new conception of the liturgy that I shall characterize in one word, in all its crudeness, the terms of which I hold directly from a French theologian, Father Marcus, who said the following: "Professor Ricoeur, a famous French philosopher, teaches that all men – even non believers – need myths and rites to live. What then is liturgy? Liturgy is no more than festive celebration, through myths and rites, of the life of humanity on its onward march." This is horrible! There is, as you can see, not an atom of Christianity left in this definition. Incidentally, this explains all the modifications in the liturgy: the turning of the Altar, the participation by the faithful, sermons by lay-people, interpellations by trade-union members at Mass, communion in the hand, Latin replaced by English and what not! All this can be explained by the definition of the liturgy I have just given you. (Perhaps you will find the examples I have given you in this lecture a little exaggerated – if I may judge from the examples of the four churches it has been my lot to see in London and in which I have said Mass. You may be surprised by these examples and find I am drawing a very dramatic picture of things; but if you have the privilege of not having experienced all these errors of Progressivism and Modernism, they unfortunately exist in many other countries, and no doubt one day or other you will come to see them in Britain if a stop is not made to them.)

Now, if you change the liturgy you shall have to change the Church. And that is the constitution LUMEN GENTIUM of which I shall only say a few words. It is one of the most important documents of the Council. LUMEN GENTIUM : the arsenic resides in the fact that while presenting a traditional facade of the Church, it stealthily introduces an opening towards a completely divergent conception of the Church. I say it in one word, but I should require three hours to give you the whole theological implication of it. The new definition is to make the Church "God’s people". God’s people, and no longer the society of believers in the Catholic faith, of those who receive the sacraments and who are in submission to the pope and the bishops of Rome. "The Church = People of God on the march" constitutes "a complete copernican revolution in the Church", to use the term employed by Cardinal Suenens. It is the pyramid reversed, base upwards. I shall not insist, I cannot go now into the theological demonstration.

So you can see that if this is really an overthrow of all the views of the Church, then it must be that something vital has been changed at the sources of our religion and that is the constitution DEI VERBUM on the sources of faith in which the traditional conception has been submitted to a subtle alteration. Here again I should require two hours to show you the very delicate little touches given by the theologians of Vatican II which ended up in transforming the traditional conceptions of the sources of faith.

Thus, our entire religion is contaminated by the virus of Heresy and it really is the idol, the formidable statue that dominates the Church and perverts her through and through. So, whenever a nun is requested by her superior to shorten her skirts and get her hair waved, if she does not take the opportunity, her superior says to her: "I ask you to do so in obedience"; and in the secret of the confessional box her spiritual father says to her: "My child, you may not understand. Of course you are quite right, this is the opposite to what you have always been taught. But there is something new in the last ten years. Vatican II has come along and you know that the Council is the Holy Ghost and you are asked to turn towards the world. So even if you do not understand, immolate your own point of view; by thus humbling yourself you will be pleasing God the more." And the nun does what she is requested to do. And this little story may happen as well in Paris as in London or in the depth of Africa… and the worst thing about it is that the nun ends up liking it. So 659 million Catholics obey Vatican II thinking this the work of the Holy Spirit and thinking this Council infallible as was Vatican I or Trent. This is why I say that Heresy triumphs and crushes all today. It is the MASDU.

Well, I have only a short time left to give you a more optimistic outlook. At the very moment when Heresy triumphed in the Church it signed its own death-warrant. The formidable statue was to reveal itself a colossus with feet of clay. A piece of rock would come loose from the mountain, would fall, would roll forward to strike these feet. And the statue will crumble down and vanish pitifully away. This stone is the Abbé de Nantes who right from the end of Vatican II, openly, firmly and loyally rejected it in the face of our pastors. "Holy Father", he said, "do not tell me it is the Holy Spirit! Those are the opinions of men. It is evident that this Council did not intend to be a dogmatic, sovereign and therefore infallible one. So these are no more than the opinions of the bishops. And in so far as these opinions appear to me in contradiction with the Church’s Magisterium throughout the last hundred and fifty years, I cannot accept them." This, perhaps, does not seem much to you. But from a theological point of view it is a certitude that the moment a single Catholic, while remaining a Catholic, refuses an ecumenical council, the proof is given that this council is not infallible in all its innovations. And therefore the argument which is to command 659 million Catholics in the name of God and in obedience to that Council, falls down and has got no strength, God being no longer concerned.

So the statue has been struck on the foot, the foot of clay, and from now on the Heresy must be cut away and eradicated from the bosom of the Church… The Abbé de Nantes has not been alone. As far as I am concerned I was fortunate enough to understand his proofs even before the Council came to an end, and was able to say "No" to Vatican II, a refusal which I loyally expressed to my own bishop as soon as he had returned from Rome in 1966; this did not prevent me from continuing to be in the ministry in the Paris area for another three years after that, – which is a bit surprising!

Months, years have gone by; and three years ago, in March 1970, the Abbé de Nantes launched the CRC League which, as you know, is an organisation that is gaining ground. A monolithic organisation in the sense that it is founded on an unassailable doctrine, expounded and defended by the Abbé de Nantes for the last ten years. You can find it in the collection of his letters and reviews, at least in the French edition. It is, I say, a powerful organisation, strong in its doctrine – a doctrine which has passed unscathed through the fire of the Holy Office. Counter-reformation leagues are taking root more and more in all the dioceses of France and other countries. This league is the soundbox of the Abbé’s great claim, so that it will no longer be possible to stifle his voice, and the leaders of the Church will have to examine the list of our grievances.

If I had time I could go on telling you how Vatican II has decomposed Catholicism to the point where the pope and the bishops must inevitably come to cutting this so-called "new church" off from the true one. This new church is what in France is called "basic communities" and that is openly heretical, schismatic and apostate, so much so that our leaders must inevitably part company with them. And that will throw them inevitably into our camp; and they will be brought to examining our theological criticisms.

When a man is on the point of drowning and touches the bottom, he gives a good kick, he comes up to the surface and is saved. The kick is the Abbé de Nantes and our league who are fighting bravely to prevent our Church from being submerged by Heresy. Already the first signs of our success are showing, but we still live today under the dreadful yoke of Heresy in the Church. And we must hang on, keep our courage up, show faith. It is a work of faith to study the Abbé de Nantes’ views of the present crisis in the Church. We must persevere in hope! Hope is a great, supernatural virtue. We must remain indefectibly attached to the Roman Catholic Church, even at a time when she may disappoint and disgust so desperately. And in short: we must grow and warm our hearts at the flame of supernatural charity: it is a work of charity to get together in these little counter-reformation groups and try to understand what is going on, and to have something to say to our pastors, and to have solutions to propose, traditional and at the same time original, to the present-day problems in the Church and in the world.

It is time for me to conclude! Either everything I have told you today is false and the Church is sailing along on an untroubled sea, in a sure vessel, firmly steered by a sure hand; but why then so much distress? so many scandals, so many discordant voices? Whence comes this dreadful crisis in which the Church, swept by the hurricane of modern world apostasy, seems to founder?

Or else the situation is really desperate and, as in previous centuries, our faith is at stake! False prophets, foretold by the Gospels, have risen up. No one dares to silence them. They lay down the law, even in our holy places. Let us wake up and shake off their corrupting yoke! Let us cry towards Our Lord: "Jesus, do help us! save us or we perish! Stand up in Saint Peter’s boat and command to the winds and the tempest!" – But crying out towards Heaven is not sufficient. It is a sacred duty to unite and to form a league against the great Heresy and to appeal, with faith and vigour, to the sovereign judgement of our Holy Mother’s Magisterium.

We traditional Catholics, with all the riches of our faith, are we to be of those privileged but ungrateful men who let themselves be carried away from the religion of our fathers? It is unthinkable! Then let us answer the call to the stirring task of defending our faith! And you, English Catholics, you come of good stock!

Let the strong voice of the Catholic Counter Reformation in the 20th century be heard, clear and loud; may it rise irresistibly, obliging our leaders to act with all the power granted them by Heaven for the Salvation of our souls, for the conversion, if God will, of the modern heresiarchs; for the honour of the God of Truth who can tolerate neither ambiguity nor falsehood in His Church!

Long live the Catholic Counter-Reformation of today so that, tomorrow as well as yesterday and for ever, may shine the everlasting Church!  Amen.