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That evening the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation succeeded in forcing Father Congar to a public debate. After so many evasions, at all levels of the hierarchy, at last there would be an open confrontation. The preliminaries were difficult, indeed quite tumultuous. Members of the League, their CRC badges clearly visible, had entered the conference hall and mixed with the audience. The Abbé de Nantes was sitting at the back of the hall, in the middle row where it would be difficult to dislodge him, and even before Father Congar had begun his exposition, he took the floor: "Reverend Father, may I ask you when the debate will take place?" Soon the whole hall was in a fine commotion! At last, a youthful looking man in a suit and tie got up and mounted the rostrum. It was Mgr Panafieu.
"I am", he said "the auxiliary bishop of the diocese. I imagine that all of us here are believers, or at least people who are searching, and that we have come here to try and find the answers to our questions. We must, therefore, begin by respecting one another. That is the first evangelical sign we must give. I hope that the Abbé de Nantes, who is here present this evening, will be respected (applause)… "I also hope that the Abbé de Nantes will respect the audience here who have come to listen to a conference by Fr Congar (applause). Finally, I hope that he who has been invited here will be respected, for he is our guest and is therefore entitled to have our attention for as long as his conference lasts. Then after that let everyone feel free to put simply and clearly, and if I may add evangelically, the questions he wishes to ask.6" The hall then calmed down. The speaker gave his talk. Then the crucial debate began. Here is the integral transcription of the recording, which was published the following month in La Contre-Réforme catholique7. Father Congar: I think, if you are agreeable, that we should now ask the Abbé de Nantes to put those questions he wished to ask, in the atmosphere and conditions stipulated by the auxiliary bishop, that is to say with respect for what he has to tell us and with respect for what I shall have to answer him. Abbé de Nantes: Reverend Father, I thank you for your courtesy. I would indeed like to raise an objection arising from your conference, the tone of which I much appreciated, and more particularly from your book, which is, if I may be so bold, much more aggressive. In your conference you have explained to us what you had to say back in 1948, if I am not mistaken, in your True and False Reform in the Church8, namely, that it was necessary for the Church to open herself up to the world. You plead that this opening to the world was a necessity, whilst explaining that any opening to the world would entail crises. But clearly your presupposition that the Church should open herself up to the modern world implied, without perhaps your audience being aware of it, a postulate: that one could not close oneself to this world without being naive, backward and lacking in apostolic service to the Church, and also lacking in intelligence and fidelity to the Holy Spirit. Taken together with your statement that in every crisis of this sort sensibilities played a part, this claim resulted in our being rejected as people suffering from nostalgia or naivety who did not understand that Christ could have risen while leaving His body behind in the tomb or other similar things! We were ranked a priori amongst those who were not defending the faith, but merely contingent forms of the Church, and who were thus lacking in fidelity to the Holy Spirit. Now, I admit that there have been Councils of opening to the world – the Council of Jerusalem for example – and that those who, like the disciples of James, were closed to the needs of the apostolate as called for by Paul and also manifested by the Holy Spirit, placed themselves in a difficult position. Through the prescriptions of the Council, that is to say through the Church and the Holy Spirit speaking together, they were cut off from the Church in a very categorical manner... not James, if I may venture to speak of the fixist or integrist of those times, who was a most venerable man and whose apostolic qualities were respected by the Church to the day of his death... but certain extremists who not only maintained fidelity to the tradition but also condemned Saint Paul’s apostolate. On this point I think we are in agreement. There have been other Councils, of which you do not speak, and other Popes who were Council and Popes of closure, shutting the doors against a bad world that wished to impose – by the power of Satan and not through the Holy Spirit – errors and disorder from which the Church would never have recovered. The Council of Trent, for example. Father Congar: The Council of Trent? Abbé de Nantes: I think so. The First Vatican Council against modern ideas, for example. And in these Councils, Reverend Father, the progressives were forced to make a choice! In other words, over the centuries and not infrequently there were in fact men who were all for easing relations with the barbarians and who were mistaken! Whereas, in your conference, as well as in your book True and False Reform in the Church, it is made, to appear that those who are for Tradition against Novelty are always wrong, and those who are for Novelty are always right. Can we get out of this position or is it the case that we cannot have a dialogue? There is a way to get out of it, and that is to appeal to the Holy Spirit (sniggering in the audience). It is a matter of knowing which side the Holy Spirit is on. In the grave debates of the past centuries, our Mother the Church acted openly and made use of infallibility in such a way that, at a certain point in the argument, concerning a matter of the utmost gravity, she forbade brothers to excommunicate one another and she addressed them in the name of the Holy Spirit in a solemn and extraordinary manner: "The Holy Spirit tells us that… and with His assistance we state that such and such a thing is true, and an anathema on him who says it is false." Döllinger, for example, whom you mention in your book, was forced in 1871, without further explanation, to submit to a decree bearing on the infallibility of the Pope because that was a Dogmatic Constitution leaving no room for hesitation. You will grant that in these two cases, whether it be a matter of excommunicating the innovators who are destroying the Church or of excommunicating the fixists who refuse to be open to the affairs of the Holy Spirit, the Church, in her maternal care, has provided us with an absolutely infallible and indisputable rule which allows us to recognise who is our brother and who is the schismatic or heretic who has overstepped the boundary and is no longer part of the flock. Now, what I reproach you with, Reverend Father, is that in your book9, you treat us who think that you are mistaken –and I say that we still today have the right to say that you are mistaken in opening to a world that is a marxist world, a freudian world, a masonic world, a liberal world, a capitalist world –, in a word, I am not the only one to make this accusation. He whom you call your friend, Maurice Clavel, has taken you up very severely on this. He has explained to you that "the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council were seriously mistaken about the world and its modern philosophy before which they genuflected, a modern philosophy dating from three hundred years back and recognised to be false"10. If a Clavel is entitled to tell you that you are on the wrong path, then so are we. And when you plead in your books and conferences that you are obviously in the right, you are misleading your public. And when you claim that we are in the same position as Döllinger, namely schismatics and heretics (denials from Fr Congar) – I can read you the passage if you wish –, you are lacking in charity and you are dividing the Church. That is what I meant when I told you: If you are right, you ought to ask Pope Paul VI to settle the matter between us with the fullness of his infallibility, and we shall submit, as I know that you will too, to his decisions. If the Second Vatican Council had done its work properly, instead of making pastoral declarations, declarations which often run counter to Tradition (gestures of denial) – that is what we think and we have demonstrated it, and you yourself recognise this fact (further gesture of denial). You say: "Materially, the declaration on Religious Liberty goes against the prescriptions of the Syllabus…" Father Congar (with a vexed look): Yes.
Abbé de Nantes: ... and I add: against Quanta Cura. To the extent therefore – and this is not an accusation – that your development appears to be a falsification, I am entitled to protest against your innovations, until such time as the Pope or Council sovereignly settle the matter by means of their extraordinary magisterium. So far that has not been done. Reverend Father, in treating us as schismatics and heretics, you have committed the gravest of sins against us (applause). Father Congar: I have a few words to say, quite simply. Firstly, I have absolutely not treated you as a heretic… Abbé de Nantes: Shall I read you the passage? In your book: The crisis in the Church and Mgr Lefebvre. "On his return from the First Vatican Council, the Archbishop of Munich gathered together the professors of his theology faculty…" Father Congar (vexed): Yes. Abbé de Nantes: "And invited them to work for the holy Church." Father Congar: Yes. Abbé de Nantes: "One of them, Döllinger, dryly replied: ‘Yes, for the old Church.’ There is only one Church, answered the Archbishop, there is neither old nor new. ‘They have made a new one’, retorted Döllinger. Thereafter it was in vain that this learned historian refused to call himself an ‘Old Catholic’ and preferred instead to be described as an excommunicated Catholic, for today he numbers among the initiators of the Old Catholic schism, which is still with us today. It is worthwhile pausing for a moment over the situation of this man"… Since that comes from a book whose object is to prove us wrong, us traditionalists of the Counter Reformation and Mgr Lefebvre (gesture of denial)… That is the title of your book! It is all the same astonishing that you should propose Döllinger as a comparison! I continue: "It is worthwhile pausing for a moment over the situation of this man. Although a priest, he thenceforth ceased to celebrate and to frequent the sacraments. Yet he loved to pray in the churches. He refused to place himself under the jurisdiction of the Old Catholic bishop and dissuaded the Minister for Religious Affairs from recognising him. He did not want a schismatic Church." As you know your own text, I move on immediately to the important part: "Döllinger remained on the plane of ideas. He rejected a conciliar definition, thereby making himself objectively guilty of the personal fault of schism and heresy." I ask you: is it true that in rejecting a conciliar definition Döllinger made himself objectively guilty of the personal fault of schism and heresy? Father Congar: Yes! Abbé de Nantes: I reject the Acts of the Second Vatican Council in all that is materially contrary to Tradition. Am I therefore guilty of schism and heresy? Father Congar: I have absolutely not said… Abbé de Nantes: Ah, you did not say this? Father Congar: Absolutely not! I was speaking of Döl… Abbé de Nantes: Can we reject the acts of the Second Vatican Council without automatically becoming schismatics and heretics? Father Congar: Wait. I was speaking of Döllinger (The crowd: "Ahh!"…). Abbé de Nantes: You are being evasive! (enormous hubbub!) Father Congar: I was speaking of Döllinger. I was not speaking of you, nor of Mgr Lefebvre… Abbé de Nantes: You were speaking of Döllinger? Why did he commit a crime of schism and heresy in rejecting papal infallibility at Vatican I? Father Congar: Objectively, as I have said elsewhere, "objectively", he became guilty of this sin by rejecting a defined dogma. Abbé de Nantes: A dogma defined in an infallible manner by the Church’s solemn and extraordinary Magisterium? Father Congar: Without any doubt. Abbé de Nantes: Good. We are in absolute agreement. Father Congar: Yes. Abbé de Nantes: Will you tell me now – and this is of interest to everyone – whether at the Second Vatican Council there is a single dogma that was defined with the same solemnity. Father Congar: No. Abbé de Nantes: I am very pleased to hear you say so. I hope that the tape recorder… Father Congar: I say it… I say it… The Holy Father has said it. And it is public knowledge. I say it quite openly (sic). Abbé de Nantes: Can one therefore – I say "therefore" because I myself have also given hundreds of conferences and have come up against… Father Congar: Yes, and very good some of them were too… (surprise; applause). I would like to say that I very much appreciated, for example, your catechesis on the sacraments. Abbé de Nantes: Thank you, Father. I am convinced that we are made to understand each other (laughter in the audience)… I say it without laughing, completely without laughing. I shall open a parenthesis in order to pay one courtesy with another. In the 12th century – you have said that it was a very great century, and I think so too – in the 12th century, a heretic arose by name of Abelard, whom the Church, in the person of Saint Bernard, never ceased to condemn. Father Congar (disenchanted): Yes, but… Abbé de Nantes: Wait for the end of my sentence, and you will see that we are in agreement. Then, after the heretic had been condemned, he was brought back to a better state of mind by the admirable Peter the Venerable. Thereafter, the Church hastened to take from Abelard’s writings all that was good and valuable. Here is a case then of the integrist St Bernard, if you will, closing his eyes to modern ideas out of fidelity to the Church, and of the Church salvaging every modern idea if it is valid. A century later St Thomas Aquinas opened his mind up to Aristotle, rather than condemn him, and ever after his successors have never ceased to re-polish his treasures and to render them orthodox. It seems to me, Father, that you, on the other hand, have chosen to go to the world to gather all its riches, and I accuse you of having harvested many errors among those riches. You will recognise that I accept quite a few riches of this modern world. You merely accuse me of rejecting some of them, which I qualify as errors. It seems to me that one should simply practise this kind of distinction and discernment without fighting one another. Now the fact is that, by overstating the authority of Vatican II’s declarations and certain of the Council’s secondary texts, you have imprisoned us. We are not backward looking people, we are people faithful to the principles of our faith, but you have locked us in a ghetto and today you are excluding us from the Church, when you have no right to do so! Father Congar: I certainly do not exclude you from the Church. Vatican II wished to be, did it not, a pastoral Council. I would like to reflect on what a pastoral Council is. It is a Council which is not content with simply making deductions, for example from the Christological dogma to a new Christological definition. There is also an inductive part to it, which takes into account what is practicable and what is called for by the situation. That is what a pastoral Council is. And so we have doctrine... Vatican II was doctrinal… there are two dogmatic Constitutions moreover, one on the Church and the other on Divine Revelation, although they are not dogmas in the sense of anathema sit’s, that is true. So, what is necessary, it seems to me, is that one should accept the Council as a whole… Abbé de Nantes: No. Father Congar: As a whole... Abbé de Nantes: No! Father Congar: I do not say every one of its paragraphs, but the whole as it stands, which is the global direction of the Church today, accepted by 2,500 bishops and by the Holy Father… Abbé de Nantes: That is your opinion, but I do not think you would be able to… Father Congar: I nevertheless think that it is true... Abbé de Nantes: Ah, no! You think that it is true, of course. If you believed that it were false, you would change your mind (laughter) ! But I ask you: In whose name would you oblige us to believe that the Second Vatican Council was a success? Father Congar: I do not say that it was a success, you know! Abbé de Nantes: But you have said so! "It is my absolute certitude", you have said, "it is my absolute certitude that…" Father Congar: Yes, that the whole… Abbé de Nantes: Ah well, for my part, it is my absolute certitude that the Council as a whole is in the process of delivering the Church to the world, making our children lose the faith, and multiplying scandals. You say that you have – this I know because, for the sake of honesty, I follow your writings very closely – that you have taken your friend Karl Wackenheim to task for his excesses, and I know that you are not in agreement with Hans Küng and others whom you mentioned earlier. But how is it, Reverend Father, that you can produce a booklet against Mgr Lefebvre, invoking an absolute conciliar authority which you have no right to invoke, and yet when Hans Küng himself denies a defined dogma, thereby putting himself in the same position as Döllinger, you do not write a book against Hans Küng11? Father Congar: I have written an article! Abbé de Nantes: But not a book like this one, to tell us that Hans Küng is currently engaged in undermining the Church. That, you do not do! Father Congar: Hans Küng is in Germany… Abbé de Nantes: Hans Küng is in Germany, but Hans Küng is a heretic in a thousand ways! And he is translated into French! Father Congar: I have written something… Abbé de Nantes: Ah yes, Father, in the religious Weekly of Alsace, which nobody reads! But what about this book here, you understand, and your article in La Croix and these conferences you are now giving, which you will be giving at Lausanne on 1 March, and no doubt at Fribourg, despite what you have said! Your authority as a great theologian of the Second Vatican Council is putting us in an intolerable position. And the proof is the fact that I have been suspended for ten years because my bishop tells me: "You are suspended because you reject the acquisitions of the Council." Well, I am in the right against my bishop, and my bishop bases himself on one man, one single man! Father Congar: Let me say a word. If you have been suspended for ten years, it is not because of my little book! Abbé de Nantes: Reverend Father, you are that man, the great authority on whom the bishops and the Pope himself base themselves... Father Congar: Do you mind, my dear friend… Abbé de Nantes: You will not escape from your responsibility, because God will judge you over this responsibility! Either you will be canonised, Father, if this Council is of the Holy Spirit, but if this Council is not of the Holy Spirit, if it is the cause of the Church’s appalling auto-demolition, then you are responsible for it… Father Congar: Listen, I think you have had all the… everybody has heard you. Besides, you have said yourself that your publication has a circulation of 40,000 – which is quite something. My circulation is nothing like that! Abbé de Nantes: Yes, but when I go to see the Pope, he closes the door on me, whereas when you want to see the Pope or the bishops, they open their doors to you. Father Congar: Listen, you can hardly be said to have approached him in the right way! When you come to present him with a book accusing him of heresy, I can readily understand why the Holy Father would refuse to see you! Abbé de Nantes: When a man, be he a dog (sic), goes to see his father and says: "I accuse you of heresy", his father’s elementary duty is to condemn the man if he is wrong, or to repent if he himself is in error. But to despatch the civil police to forbid him from entering, Father, is not the mark of a good conscience or of an upright mind12. The Abbé de Nantes had thus recalled, in a few words, the whole drama of his conflict with Pope Paul VI. The whole hall was extraordinarily attentive. Everyone was suspended, gripped, moved. So how was the Dominican religious going to reply? Would he finally agree to the Abbé de Nantes’ pressing request? Or would he rather attempt to justify Paul VI and his procedures? No, it was impossible. One could not justify the unjustifiable! What did he do? Feeling uncomfortable, he brought the debate to a sudden end, closing the session with these words: "We have listened to the Abbé de Nantes. He has probably not said everything he had to say, but that is not possible, and anyway he puts it all in writing. I ask you to end our meeting by singing the Our Father together.13" So it was that on 8 February 1977, at Annecy, the Abbé de Nantes publicly convicted Father Congar of lying, and the latter conceded amongst other things that Vatican II had not infallibly taught any new dogma. It was a considerable admission! "I managed", the Abbé de Nantes will exult, "to gain recognition for our full and holy liberty in the Church to reject those Acts of the Council whose scandalous innovations are not covered by any infallibility. I was unable to gain recognition in public for the second volet of the diptych in which, attacking Religious Liberty, I would have forced Father Congar to acknowledge that the conciliar novelty was on this capital point contrary to the faith of the Church, putting its stubborn supporters in a position of heresy. If he is agreeable, this can take place in the near future.14" But Father Congar was not agreeable! In reply to a clarification by the Abbé de Nantes published in the Documenation catholique15, he will write to the editor of this periodical on 23 April: "I am always ready to discuss things with the Abbé de Nantes as one theologian to another", that is to say in private! "I do not wish to engage in public arguments.16" "Whether he wishes it or not", the Abbé de Nantes will conclude, "the father of the Fathers of the Council will always be nonplussed when confronted with our two theses: 1. The Second Vatican Council contains no infallible teaching. 2. On the other hand, it contains novelties that have been infallibly condemned as insanity and heresy right up to our own times. It is on these bases that we remain impregnable, demanding 'Truth and Justice whatever it may cost'.17"
However, in this year 1977, the bishops continued to display an indefectible attachment to the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Their reformist passion was aroused when they entered into conflict with the integrists. This was notably the case at the time of the illegal occupation on 27 February of the church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet by the Abbés Coache and Ducaud-Bourget. The Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Marty, presented his directives on this affair to the parish priests of the capital on 22 March, straightaway reaffirming that: "The Second Vatican Council is binding on all Catholics. It involves the whole Church; it involves me. I did not live through and play my part in this Council to renounce it today. The doctrine expressed in the great conciliar Constitutions – three of which are dogmatic – and the pastoral orientations presented through numerous decrees have brought about an undeniable spiritual and apostolic renewal in the Church.18" Furthermore, on 5 May, he sent the Abbé Ducaud-Bourget a list of questions. The Abbé de Nantes seized the opportunity to provide his own reply to this at the Mutualité, which is recorded in La Contre-Réforme Catholique for June. This reply, dated 13 May and published in the form of an open letter to Cardinal Marty, treated successively of the authority of Vatican II, of Pope Paul VI and of the Archbishop of Paris. It clearly demonstrated the unassailable character of the CRC's position in the face of both the unwarranted demands of the reformists and the inadmissible narrowness of the integrists and their schismatic tendencies. Under the envoy "For the peace of the Church", the Abbé de Nantes concluded: "Eminence, reconciliation is possible, and in particular with this entire sector of the Church whose indiscipline is your exclusive source of concern: the traditionalists, the people of the Counter-Reformation. Full communion with our Pastors is in their hands rather than ours. A happy outcome, the peace of the Church, is in our grasp. It is necessary and sufficient that everyone respects the adage of St Augustine, often proposed by us as a programme for peace and fraternity, and occasionally recalled by the Sovereign Pontiff : 'In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. In matters of necessity let there be unity, in matters of doubt liberty, and in everything charity'.19" And the Council and the Post-Council along with all their novelties – the cult of man, the right to religious liberty, ecumenism, socialist agenda, etc. – cannot be ranked among the 'necessaria' for which unity is the rule. At best they figure among the 'dubia' which one is at liberty to discuss charitably. It is not therefore on the basis of allegiance to the Council that unity must first be achieved! Alas, the Abbé Ducaud-Bourget drew no inspiration from this magisterial reply20. He failed to exploit his conflict with Cardinal Marty to engage him in a major dogmatic debate, the same in fact that the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th century had been pursuing with Father Congar in the months preceding. Cardinal Marty had no difficulty in declaring the Abbé Ducaud-Bourget's reply "inadequate"21, and on 1 June his episcopal Council issued a communiqué stating among other things that: "The Cardinal is anxious to inform Catholics that any marriage celebrated at Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet without the permission of the parish priest, the Abbé Bellégo, and his assistants is invalid. The Cardinal withdraws the power of hearing confessions from the Abbé Ducaud-Bourget and any priest who assists him. From now on, therefore, any absolution provided by them will be invalid.22" The Abbé Ducaud-Bourget immediately reacted by sending the Archbishop of Paris the following letter:
What a difference between the CRC and schismatic integrism! "The difference lies in this", explained our Father, "that, whilst rejecting, as he does, the indisputable errors and heresies unjustly imposed on us by Pope Paul VI and the bishops in the name of Vatican II and their 'authentic Magisterium', we nevertheless neither condemn nor reject the entire Church, we continue to honour her authorities, however unworthy, and to recognise the validity of her sacraments, despite the sorry nature of the liturgies. In this way we unqestionably remain within the communion of the hierarchical Roman Church.23" Cardinal Marty did not even acknowledge receipt of the letter the Abbé de Nantes sent him in mid May. He therefore refused to discuss with the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation the conditions for a reconciliation. Moreover, on 25 May, after having been received by Paul VI, the Cardinal stated to the journalist Joseph Vandrisse: "There is no possibility of agreement when it is the apostolic orientation of today’s Church that is brought into question or rejected, that which was inspired by the Second Vatican Council.24" The Abbé de Nantes telephoned the Archbishop’s House in Paris on 9 June to find out whether the Cardinal had read his letter. But he was unable to speak to him, and his personal secretary told him that he knew nothing of the matter. On 21 June, Cardinal Marty solemnly celebrated a Mass at Notre-Dame in honour of the fourteenth anniversary of the election of Paul VI. Now, on that day, young members of the CRC League were there distributing, both on the way in and the way out to the ceremony, large numbers of the letter that the Abbé de Nantes had sent him more than a month beforehand. The Cardinal, probably put out and annoyed at being pursued like this – almost heckled on the square of his own cathedral – will finally reply to our Father on 27 June. By means of a short note, and what a note!
No, the Abbé de Nantes, in commenting on this offhand response, would not hide how "hard it is to remain in the Church as pariahs, shut up as in some kind of pyschiatric asylum." But let us listen to him directly: "Before any useful dialogue can be envisaged with us, I must first be converted and undergo a profound change. I require a kind of voluntary brain washing in order that I may attain that genuine trust, admiration, allegiance and attachment to the person of Pope Paul VI. Until that happens, it is impossible to talk. We are spiritually detained in a psychiatric asylum. "It is not that we are heretics, schismatics or excommunicates. The Cardinal assures me of his union in prayer. Rather, we are public sinners. To have written that the Pope is heretical, schismatic and scandalous, to have gone to Rome and proclaimed this there, to have maintained it at our trial before the Holy Office, to have circulated a book wherein the charge is established by a hundred precise and exact proofs, to have refused to retract when summoned to do so, to have rejected all the Acts of Vatican II and to have demonstrated how well-founded this rejection was by the public analysis of the texts themselves... none of this prevents the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris from remaining in union with me. There are only two solutions then : either the Cardinal thinks I am a simpleton, a madman, mad with pride; or else deep down he thinks that I am right. And these solutions can probably be combined into one : that I am mad to be right against everyone else. "The decisive argument is to be found in the post-scriptum. It is also the key inspiration behind the homily, both poignant and triumphant at the same time. It is found in the Pope's telegram, and is essentially the one selfsame argument – omnipresent, unanswerable, and crushing – which lies behind all the replies we have been given over the thirteen years of our opposition to the programme of Paul VI's pontificate, his ideas and his acts for reforming the Church, as well as those of the Council : The people are with us, you see! We have public opinion on our side, against which you count for very little! Members of the faithful, priests, bishops and cardinals, we are all solidly united around our beloved Pope Paul VI. "The solidarity of the people of God with their legitimate pastors, and of these in turn around the Prince of pastors, the true and indisputable Successor of St Peter and Vicar of Jesus Christ, is an argument of such constraining force that it takes the place of supreme reason. It is like a reservoir dam which the reformist party raises as the torrent of our counter-revolutionary contestation rises, swells and rumbles. It brings it to a halt and forces it to flow into a diversion canal where it is absorbed and lost. Set aside and broken, we become of no importance, lacking an audience: a negligible and therefore insignificant opposition. It is humiliating, demoralising.26" |
