July 2001

THE EIGHT HERESIES OF JOHN XXIII,
PROPHET OF JOY

To grasp the incompatibility of these two outlooks, we need only quote the final proposition of the Syllabus: «The Roman Pontiff can and ought to be reconciled and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.» (n^o 80) Condemned by Pius IX, does not this proposition sum up the whole of John XXIII’ s thinking? In his Opening Speech to Vatican Council II, he declared: «It is important that this certain and unchangeable doctrine, which should be faithfully respected, is studied more deeply and presented in a manner that responds to the demands of our times.»

In this way he gave immediate expression to the driving idea behind a reform which very gradually, over its four sessions, would result in a total subversion and change of religion.

During his in exile in Switzerland in 1996, the Abbé de Nantes carried out a rigorous study of this speech , and discovered how already it contained the germs of the various Acts of the Council. I am but the reporter of this implacable demonstration. It ends in a denunciation of the eight heresies already identifiable in the Opening Speech of Vatican Council II!

FIRST HERESY:
HUMANIST OPTIMISM

The Pope’s introductory words present the Council with a fundamental Credo: «The grave problems faced by the human race for nearly twenty centuries remain the same. For Jesus Christ continues to remain at the centre of history and life: men are either with him and with his Church, in which case they enjoy light, goodness, order and peace; or else they live without him, act against him or deliberately live outside his Church, in which case they experience confusion, acrimonious human relationships and the risk of bloody wars.»

According to these words, the life of the ancient Church has no ultimate law and final purpose other than that of concord between men and world peace. So the supernatural order of the last ends and the means of achieving forgiveness, justification through the Cross and the reward of Heaven, have been totally rejected, thrown aside, to become no more than a «religious» (?) aid – a moral, cultural aid proportioned to ends that are exclusively temporal. Everything gloomy is shoved into the background: Satan and his army, hell, original sin, the deadly opposition to God’s Church. None of this survives except in the «archives of Rome and in the most celebrated libraries of the world» which the Pope refers to with derision.

So, barely has the idea been suggested, insinuated by John XXIII in these opening paragraphs, than a first heresy comes to light, one that will grow in strength, albeit confusedly, as his speech unfolds. Here it is in a rather clearer form: «Certainly the Church does not offer the men of our time perishable riches, she does not promise them earthly happiness, but she distributes to them the blessings of grace which raise men to the dignity of sons of God, effectively helping them to make their life more human as well as providing a solid guarantee of such a life.» Powerfully aided in this way, «men can arrive at a complete and firm unity of minds, with which are associated true peace and eternal salvation». The Catholic faith is merely a leaven thanks to which secular humanism is capable of reaching its twofold ideal: the perfection of the Person, recognised and protected in all his dignity, AND world unity, which alone is seen as capable of procuring a visible earthly peace.

The final elaboration of this chimera, where the cascade of the supernatural is naturalised and where the natural is supernaturalised into a utopia, is as follows: the Pope first and then the Council and finally Father Congar who went on to publish it even though he felt a little awkward about their “discovery”, all affirmed that from now on we must accept that all men, both individually and collectively, have two successive objectives to attain, each interlinked with the other. The first is to build a world that is human and fraternal; the second is to achieve one’s salvation in seeking God and serving Him. And of course it goes without saying that there is no situation in which one can ever exclude the other! A real Chinese riddle. This existence of two ultimate ends is a heresy: «You cannot serve two masters.»

SECOND HERESY:
PENTECOSTAL ILLUMINISM

In his homily for Pentecost Sunday, 3 June 2001, Pope John Paul II gave perfect expression to this second heresy, making it his own: «The Holy Spirit may justifiably claim to have played the leading role at the Council, from the very moment the Pope convened it when he declared that he had received, as though from on high, an interior voice which had echoed in his mind. This gentle breeze became a “violent gust of wind” and the conciliar event took the form of a new Pentecost. “For it is in the teaching and spirit of Pentecost”, affirmed Pope John, “that the great event of the Ecumenical Council takes on its substance and life”.»

Words both imprudent and impudent, imposing the belief that the teaching of this Council was «like that of a second Cenacle», «a new Pentecost». Every one of the experts would take advantage of this extravagant language to promote their inventions in the various conciliar commissions. The expression is clever, for the conjunction “like” means in a manner of speaking. Its extraordinarily suggestive power becomes apparent when one considers that it was in the Cenacle, where the Lord instituted the sacraments of the Eucharist and Holy Orders before going on to suffer His Passion, that the Church was born on Pentecost Sunday in the year 30, when the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles. Twenty years later, it was again at the Cenacle that there met the very first Council, known as the Council of Jerusalem. The comparison, in the mouth of Pope John XXIII, was therefore very stirring, very flattering for the Vatican II Fathers. But too much is too much. The expression, never since retracted, goes completely over the top and only too clearly reveals the paranoia in which John XXIII imprisoned this Council: «a second Cenacle»!? which today, in the mouth of John Paul II, becomes «a new Pentecost»!? This means that between the first Cenacle and this «second Cenacle», the twenty Ecumenical Councils as well as all the others cited with great praise at the beginning of this same speech count for nothing. Between the first and the second there is no place for a third, even ex aequo, either in the past or in the future.

We come across the same illuminism again when the Pope talked about the supernatural value of the prayers said by heretics and schismatics: «The Catholic Church sincerely rejoices to see that these prayers continue to multiply their abundant and salutary fruits, even among those who live outside her fold.» However, no one can verify this, and it would be more prudent and more charitable to deny it in order to hasten the hour of their conversion.

Finally and above all, in this vision – elaborated in advance! – of a tangible union existing between Heaven and earth at that sacred moment, in this image of a «resplendent dawn rising above the Church», the stage is already set for Lumen gentium, the false light of that diabolical Pentecost irresistibly evoking the mysterious «bright light» seen in a dream by Saint John Bosco in 1873. This light illuminated the footsteps of the Pope allowing him to leave the Vatican «in procession», leading behind him «a crowd of men, women, children, old men, monks, nuns and priests». Having failed on numerous occasions to decipher this mysterious prophecy, the Abbé Georges de Nantes suddenly understood its significance and wrote this commentary on it on Christmas day: «This “departure from the Vatican” signifies an estrangement, a disgust, a flight from the age-old order of the Church in her dogmas, sacraments, customs and other traditions. All the people, an immense crowd, followed the Pope.» (English CRC n^o 263, December 1993, p. 9)

THIRD HERESY: THE AUTHORITATIVE
CONDEMNATION OF THE «PROPHETS OF GLOOM»

«It often happens», declared John XXIII, «that in the daily exercise of Our apostolic ministry Our ears are offended by hearing what is said by certain people who, although burning with religious zeal [an obligatory concession, albeit a sarcastic one], lack justice, judgement and consideration in their manner of viewing things. In the current situation of society today they see nothing but ruin [probably a reminiscence of the Third Secret : «before reaching there, the Holy Father crossed a large city half in ruins»!] and calamity; they are used to saying that our era has become profoundly worse in comparison with past centuries; they behave as though history, which is the teacher of life, had nothing to teach them.»

This is calumny pure and simple: the prophets of woe draw all their experience and wisdom from the lessons of the past, whereas the prophets of happiness build their utopias, which were wholly unknown to the past, in a future arranged to suit their insane folly. Today, the prophets of happiness of the Sixties – and their number was legion at the time – have fallen into oblivion. Forty years later, we are facing war, famine, the “plague” of AIDS and persecutions against the Church, just as the «prophets of gloom» announced.

«We feel we must state Our complete disagreement with these prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.» A multitude of canonised saints and miracle workers have behaved exactly in this manner, in imitation of Saint Paul; by such tidings they have inspired immense movements of conversion for the salvation of souls. What is more, they had as their patron in this office Our Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself stands in the line of John the Baptist, His Precursor, a prophet of misfortune… of misfortunes that took place in their allotted time, while others still await their hour. Which means that the odds will always be stacked in favour of the prophets of woe… right to the very end. Among the maledictions pronounced by Jesus, one sentence alone is sufficient to exclude John XXIII from the cohort of the blessed:

«Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets.» (Lk 6.26)

From Jeremiah to Our Lady of Fatima, the only prophecies of happiness of any validity are those which announce a reward after sacred trials (Jr 30.31), liberation after a harsh exile (Is 40-55), a deluge of graces obtained by the Immaculate Heart of Mary for a people docile to Her requests.

The contempt, the irony, the sarcasm of the pontifical text has only one explanation:

In 1960 John XXIII should have published the Third Secret of Fatima. By odious manoeuvres he sought to evade his duty, under the pretext of prudence. This we know from Mgr Loris Capovilla, his former private adviser: «Having spoken to them all [the prelates consulted over the Third Secret], John XXIII said to me, “Write.” And I wrote what he dictated: “The Holy Father received this document from the hands of Mgr Philippe. He decided to read it on Friday, in the presence of his confessor. Having noted the presence of obscure idioms, he summoned Mgr Tavares, who translated for him. He had his closest collaborators read it also. Finally, he decided to put it back in the envelope, saying: “I make no judgement on this. Silence in the face of what might be a manifestation of the divine or might not be”.»

And, in fact, throughout his pontificate, John XXIII would never speak publicly about the Secret. A communiqué from the Vatican, dated 8 February 1960, simply notified the world of this judgement: «Although the Church recognises the apparitions of Fatima, she has no desire to take responsibility for guaranteeing the veracity of the words which the three little shepherds say the Virgin Mary addressed to them.» (English CRC n^o 304, December 1997, p. 7)

The expression of prudence that we have emphasised in the note dictated to Capovilla, is in astonishing contrast with the charismatic illuminism displayed by John XXIII in opening the Council on the basis of «the humble witness of Our personal experience». He presents this experience as a divine inspiration that occurred during a new Pentecost, on 25 January 1959, at Saint-Paul’s-outside-the-Walls, when he announced his intention to call an Ecumenical Council:

«The souls of those present [many of whom were not Catholics, as this took place at an ecumenical gathering for the conclusion of the “week for unity”] were immediately struck as though by a ray of heavenly light; the eyes and faces of all [sic!] reflected the sweet emotion they felt.» And, as on the day of Pentecost (Ac 2.4), «immediately people set to work throughout the whole world and everyone began to look forward enthusiastically to the celebration of the Council».

FOURTH HERESY:
THE REFORM OF THE CHURCH

If the Church of yesteryear knew how to preserve and defend the Catholic faith infallibly, she lost the world’s ear through her style of preaching: «corrections were needed». Right from the start of this opening discourse we can detect the turn of phrase and the thinking of its primary inspiration, John Baptist Montini, destined to become the true «Pope of the Council». Already we can see the “yes, but” of the encyclical Ecclesiam suam, the “yes” to the truth, which goes without saying! “but” the necessity of revising doctrine in order to present it «in a more effective way» according to the «needs of our time».

«Since this doctrine embraces multiple spheres of human activity, individual, family and social, it is first of all necessary that the Church should never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers. But it is also necessary that she look to the present, to the new conditions (?) and new forms of life introduced into the modern world, which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate.»

This is the infamous «aggiornamento», which can be translated as a bringing up to date or, even better, a bringing into line with current tastes. But behind the day which passes, and its fashions with it, lies «the world» for which «Jesus did not pray» (Jn 17.9). Now the Church is the Spouse of Jesus, free with respect to the world. She has always worked «in the world», but for her Lord alone.

John XXIII gave voice to the complaints made by experts such as Karl Rahner who at the time was disseminating a statistical study which concluded that the Church would remain weak… if she failed to take an active interest, like every other human industry, in marketing. Now, in the world of marketing, it is not the value of an object in itself which counts and is profitable, it is advertising and adaptation, whatever the cost, to the desires and demands of a potential customer base. The heresy lies in this desire to subject the divine faith to the caprice of the masses, who are themselves inspired by the Prince of this world, as Saint Paul warns Timothy: «The Spirit has expressly said that in the last times there will be many who will renounce the faith and choose to listen to deceitful spirits and diabolical doctrines.» (1 Tm 4.1) «For a time will come when far from being content with sound teaching, people will be avid for the latest novelty and collect for themselves a whole series of teachers according to their own tastes; and then, instead of listening to the truth, they will turn to myths.» (2 Tm 4.3)

FIFTH HERESY:
MODERNISM

«This certain and unchangeable doctrine of ours must be presented in a manner which responds to the needs of our time» – such is the fourth heresy which we have just pointed out. But how can this be done without betraying the «deposit of the faith»? It is here that Montini takes up his pen again to clearly enunciate the key principle of this whole business:

«For», he said, as if this «for» had the slightest explanatory value… «For, the deposit of faith, that is the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, is one thing [I would much rather you used the theological term “inviolable faith”, observes the Abbé de Nantes, before you go on to explain to us how to violate it without causing any unrest or protest!] and the way in which these truths are enunciated is another». And now we come across this final phrase which seems to have been tacked on to the rest, but which still conjures up the image of the surgeon’s knife «… whilst nonetheless (!) preserving the same meaning and the same value». Are you sure about this? Yes? Will you personally guarantee it?

Vade, retro, you modernists condemned for the last fifty years by a saint whose radiant sanctity was victorious over your satanic obscurities! a saint who was moreover detested by John XXIII from an early age, something which would hardly earn him a ticket for Heaven! Angelo Roncalli never forgot the impression that this Pope made on him the day when, as a young priest, he was received in audience along with a delegation from the diocese of Bergamo in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the priestly ordination of the saintly pontiff: «After the usual compliments», he recounts, «Pius X spoke with such anguish of the dangers of the times we were living in, and of the insidious snares of the Evil One in his attempt to get the better of the authentic faith of Catholics, that he completely forgot to thank us for our offering.»

It should be mentioned that Roncalli was carrying the plate containing 25,100 lire in gold coins! and that it was he who «completely forgot» to attend to the words of the Holy Father putting him on guard against the modernism condemned the previous year by the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis (8 September 1907).

The late Peter Hebblethwaite, who quotes this gibe, adds: «When Roncalli wrote these words, he was Pope and Pius X had been canonised.» Note that Pope John XXIII writes «Pius X», and not «Saint Pius X». And this is not fortuitous. Peter Hebblethwaite continues: «His remarks on the pontiff’s ingratitude [sic!] carry all the more weight for this: “Certainly he was a saint, but he was not fully perfect in that he let himself be consumed by anxiety and showed himself so anguished”.» (John XXIII, Pope of the Council, London, 1984) That was how Pope John XXIII judged his predecessor. And it is quite staggering. But what are we to make of the young twenty-seven year old Angelo Roncalli declaring to his bishop: «The Holy Father is sad today. Even though he is ill and preoccupied, a pope should always show himself smiling and benevolent to his sons.» (Paul Dreyfus, Jean XXIII, Fayard, 1979, p. 54)

The enormous folly of such a presumptuous remark cannot be explained by pride alone. It allows us to see that the young priest was so profoundly modernist that he remained deaf and insensible to the anguish of the saintly Pontiff.

Fifty years later, having now become Pope, what Angelo Roncalli wants, as an impenitent modernist, is to give the appearance of respecting the Church – the admittedly venerable and virginal Church! –, but to give her a new body, to make her an object of pleasure to suit the tastes and demands of the world and its Prince whose only desire, since the beginning of time, has been to rape her before the eyes of the whole world with the blessing of her Head!

We will see this again in the dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, usually presented to the simple-minded as the greatest text with which the Holy Spirit has ever inspired the Catholic Magisterium.

SIXTH HERESY:
THE CULT OF MAN

«Men are more convinced than ever of the paramount importance of the dignity and perfection of the human person and of the vigorous effort that these values demand.» One feels that the solemn phrase, which starts off so well, suddenly sidesteps the issue and defers to later its insolent development. The closing speech pronounced by Paul VI on 7 December 1965 will inform us of this development:

«The Conciliar Church has also, it is true… been much concerned with man, with man as he really is today, with living man, with man totally taken up with himself, with man who not only makes himself the centre of his own interests, but who dares to claim that he is the principle and end of all reality...

«Secular, profane humanism has finally revealed itself in its terrible stature and has, in a certain sense, challenged the Council. The religion of God made man has come up against a religion – for there is such a one – of man who makes himself God. And what happened? An impact, a battle, an anathema? That might have happened, but it did not. It was the old story of the Samaritan that formed the model for the Council's spirituality. It was filled only with an endless sympathy. The discovery of human needs – which become greater as the son of the earth (sic!) makes himself greater – absorbed the attention of this Synod.

«Do you at least recognise this its merit, you modern humanists who have no place for the transcendence of things supreme, and come to know our new humanism: we also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man.»

A hundred other pontifical texts have since proclaimed this idolatry, the corollary of the first version which appears in all its monstrosity in the declaration Dignitatis humanae and which was applied to every sphere of the temporal order in the worthless and no less monstrous so-called pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes.

SEVENTH HERESY,
WHICH IS ALSO A SCHISM: ECUMENISM

«The Church’s solicitude to promote and defend the truth», recalls John XXIII, «derives from the fact that, according to the plan of God, “who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tm 2.4), men without the assistance of the whole of revealed doctrine cannot reach a complete and firm unity of minds, with which are associated true peace and eternal salvation.»

A «but» contrasts this ideal desired by God with the sad reality: «But unfortunately the entire Christian family has not yet fully attained this visible unity in truth.» The phrase «Christian family» dramatically misrepresents the true situation: the conglomerate of associations which call themselves “Christian” is more like a crab basket [French expression for inveterate infighting - tr.] than a true family. So we are plunged into a fog of half-truths and half-lies. He speaks of a family and then acknowledges divisions, all the while referring to rapprochements or tentatives that are never fully satisfactory, and positing, between the traditional no of the Catholic faith and the yes of a non-existent ideal, an infinite series of small steps in order to authorise the notion that reunion is possible and need involve neither victor nor vanquished:

«However, the Catholic Church considers it her duty [it is John XXIII who says so, but, surrounded by the mafia, he considers himself authorised to create a duty in the Church, where before, until his time, there had only been a prohibition] to do all in her power to effect the great mystery of that unity which Jesus Christ invoked with fervent prayer from his heavenly Father on the eve of his sacrifice; and she experiences a sweet peace [how touching is John XXIII in his affective piety! but beware the snare hidden beneath the flowers] in knowing that she is intimately associated with this prayer of Christ’s.»

Stop! The truth, which today is outlawed, is very different. John XXIII fails to quote this prayer, «May they be one» (Jn 17.11 and 21-22); nor does he quote the parable of the Good Shepherd (Jn 10.16) expressing Christ’s divine will to raise His faithful flock from the Jewish sheepfold to lead it to green pastures so that «there might be but one flock and one Shepherd»: His Church constituted, not as a “sect”, but as the true People of God with Jesus Christ as their one true Shepherd.

The error, which will be the theme of the conciliar Act Unitatis redintegratio, is to attribute to Our Lord Jesus Christ a desire for unity which He never had and to substitute this desire for His true intention, inaugurated by His sacrifice on the Cross: the union in His Body and through His Blood of the Jews and the pagan nations, a divine work renewing all the Covenants of the past and destroying the barrier between two peoples to make of them but one. From the time of Pentecost only the Church exists and to her all people are called. Outside her pale, no religion has any validity.

EIGHTH HERESY:
INTERRELIGION

«For», continues John XXIII, «if one considers well this unity which Christ implored for His Church, it seems to shine, as it were, with a triple ray of beneficent supernal light: namely, the unity of Catholics among themselves, which must always be kept firm and exemplary; the unity of prayers and ardent desires with which those Christians separated from this Apostolic See aspire to be united with us; and finally the unity in esteem and respect for the Catholic Church manifested by those who profess various non-Christian forms of religion.»

This geographical partition of ever-decreasing concentric circles of friendship centred around the Apostolic See bears the signature of John Baptist Montini. We will find it in the encyclical Ecclesiam suam of 6 August 1964, which forms the programme of his pontificate.

Paul VI will realise the vision ascribed to John XXIII on each of its three levels:

a) The unity of Catholics, «firm and exemplary», will be carried out amidst tears, acts of injustice and proscriptions perpetrated by the conciliar sect against “integrists”, traditionalists and reactionaries. The work of the Holy Spirit? The work of love? of freedom? No, the work of Satan.

b) The unity of Christians separated from the Apostolic See is celebrated with an enthusiasm only equalled by the manner in which those who adhere to the centuries-old Church of yesteryear are calumniated – an execution without parley or pity by the prophet dictators of the Church of tomorrow! Now it is claimed that those who are “separated” from us «pray and ardently desire» soon «to be united with us». But this is to completely misunderstand the reality. The Church has always worked to “reunite” these souls, that is to reintegrate them into the Church, outside of which there is no salvation. And in fact there was a strong and increasing flow of conversions under Pius XII, in the United States, in the Netherlands... But the World Council of Churches sought to dam up this torrent by proposing that the Catholic Church should join it as a full member with equal voting rights! And in expectation of this surrender by the Church, all the agents of schism and heresy had themselves embraced by the Pope and photographed with him, as one equal with another. Consequently the conversions dried up, starting on 11 October 1962. Every set of statistics tells the same story.

c) Finally, John XXIII and his co-author have a vision of non-Christians, i.e. the rest of the world, united in a shared respect and esteem for our holy Church... And there was some truth in this under Pius XII, as long as the ancient civilised world set the tone. But after Dien Bien Phu (1954) and the Evian Agreements (1962) – a pitiful defeat for a Catholic nation and for the French army in the face of a Bolshevism that was stirring up Asian and African brutality – could there be said to be any respect and esteem for the Apostolic See by hundreds of millions of Moslems, and by equal or even greater numbers of Chinese and “Soviets”? No! It is worse than a dream, it is a farce!

However, the notion would be thoroughly exploited by Karl Rahner and justified in the Council by Karol Wojtyla. Under the term «incognito Christians» or «anonymous Christians», all men, according to them, are «in some sense» united to God by the simple fact of the Incarnation of the Word. In Him, they have a «capacity for God», they are saved… in some sense!

Without prejudging anyone’s individual salvation, it should be remembered that, whatever common beliefs or parallelisms exist in the various «faiths» and moral systems, all these personal belief systems or these religious, or antireligious, bodies have a low regard, if not contempt, for our holy religion.

The error is to ignore the fact that every religion or irreligion, every act of dissidence from the Catholic Church, every atheistic or gnostic system presents in its very principle and foundation a key idea, a formal cause, a vinculum substantiale which contradicts the Christian faith, as much in its form, objectum quo, as in its matter, objectum quod... This error was given substance by the Council in its declaration Nostra Ætate.