by T. Stanfill Benns | Apr 12, 2024 | New Blog
+St. Hermenegild, Martyr+
Read HERE of how St. Hermenegild. chose martyrdom rather than receive the Sacraments from the hands of heretics!
Well the solar eclipse has come and gone and here we all are, waiting for the media to exploit the next celestial event on the horizon. Christ told us we could expect signs — in the sun, the moon, and the stars — and we have seen them. He told us that one of these would be given to an evil and adulterous generation, and it would be only a sign, (not a notable event), involving Jonah and the whale. This of course points to Nineveh; in other words, one last chance to repent. If some expected His second coming based on this sign, they have forgotten that He will come as a thief. We continue to pray and watch, do penance for our sins, and pray for the conversion of sinners.
Below we will address a subject that has received little attention in these times in order to explain why it is so important for all to understand the necessity of obeying the teaching of the Continual Magisterium, the popes and ecumenical councils — not those who break the laws of the Church and question the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiffs by demanding belief in absurd propositions.
The necessity of passive infallibility
1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, Infallibility — “When we speak of the Church’s infallibility we mean, at least primarily and principally, what is sometimes called active as distinguished from passive infallibility. We mean in other words that the Church is infallible in her objective, definitive teaching regarding faith and morals, not that believers are infallible in their subjective interpretation of her teaching. This is obvious in the case of individuals, any one of whom may err in his understanding of the Church’s teaching; nor is the general or even unanimous consent of the faithful in believing a distinct and independent organ of infallibility. Such consent indeed, WHEN IT CAN BE VERIFIED AS APART, is of the highest value as a proof of what has been, or may be, defined by the teaching authority, but, except in so far as it is thus the subjective counterpart and complement of objective authoritative teaching, it cannot be said to possess an absolutely decisive dogmatic value.”
Fr. E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ, 1927 — “Thesis: The body of the faithful infallibly accept the truths of revelation proposed to them by the teaching authority of the Church. The Church is infallible in believing, i.e., the faithful, as a body, are preserved from error in accepting and professing the doctrines taught by the Church. Individuals may err; whole provinces, and even nations may fall away from the faith, as history testifies; but those professing the true faith must always remain sufficient in number and in distribution throughout the world to preserve the Church truly Catholic in the unity of faith and worship.
“PROOFS. I. From Reason. Passive infallibility, in the sense just explained, IS A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF THE INDEFECTIBLE UNITY OF FAITH and the perpetual Catholicity of the Church. Since the Church is immutably one in the profession of faith, the faithful as a body must be free from error, otherwise the faith would not be one, but many. Moreover, the profession of a false faith constitutes manifest heresy and excludes one from membership in the Church. Consequently, if the faithful as a body could fall into error in the profession of faith, the Church would immediately cease to be Catholic and would therefore cease to be the Church of Christ. It is evident, then, that the faithful as a body must be infallible or free from error, at least in the profession of faith.
“Passive infallibility, bestowed upon the Church primarily for the purpose of preserving unity of faith, also furnishes a rule of faith, since any doctrine professed by the whole Church must be a revealed truth. Practically, however, such a rule of faith is not sufficient for the needs of the faithful, because it requires long and diligent research to discover whether any particular doctrine is held by the universal Church, and also whether it is held as a revealed truth or merely as a pious belief.
“The value of Tradition as proof for revealed doctrine rests principally upon the active and passive infallibility of the Church. Whenever there are sufficient witnesses to prove that a certain doctrine is accepted by the whole Church as a revealed truth, or that it is taught as such by a majority of the bishops, it is immediately evident that the doctrine is infallibly true and could be defined as a dogma of faith, IF NOT ALREADY SO DEFINED. When appealing to tradition in this sense, it matters not what age of the Church be selected, since truth does not change with the centuries. The truth of a doctrine is established just as securely by proving its universal acceptance today, as by showing that it was universally accepted in any past age of the Church.
Henry Cardinal Manning, Petri Privilegium, Three Pastoral Letters to the Clergy of the Diocese, 1870 — “Passive infallibility… is, the Divine security which sustains the whole Church in its faith: so that it is impossible for the whole Church to err in believing, because the pastors of the Church, WITH THEIR HEAD, cannot err in teaching.But it is manifest that, according to this doctrine, the fountain of infallible teaching is the Divine Head in heaven, through the organ of the visible head of the Church on earth… It is also a matter of faith that not only no separation of communion, but even no disunion of doctrine and faith between the Head and the Body, that is, between the ecclesia docens and the ecclesia discens can ever exist. Both are infallible, the one actively, in teaching, the other passively, in believing; and both are therefore inseparable, because necessarily united in one faith.
“And lastly, that though the consent of the Episcopate or the Church be not required, as a condition, to the intrinsic value of the infallible definitions of the Roman Pontiff, nevertheless, it cannot without heresy be said or conceived that the consent of the Episcopate and of the Church can ever be absent. For if the Pontiff be divinely assisted, both the active and the passive infallibility of the Church exclude such a supposition as heretical. To deny such infallible assistance now after the definition, is heresy. And even before the definition, to deny it was proximate to heresy, because it was a revealed truth, and a Divine fact, on which the unity of the Church has depended upon from the beginning…
“Now, before the definition of the Vatican Council, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was a doctrine revealed by God, delivered by the universal and constant tradition of the Church, recognised in (Ecumenical Councils, pre-supposed in the acts of the Pontiffs in all ages, taught by all the Saints, defended by every religious Order, and by every theological school except one, and in that one disputed only by a minority in number, and during one period of its history; believed, at least implicitly, by all the faithful, and therefore attested by the passive infallibility of the Church in all ages and lands, with the partial and transient limitations already expressed. The doctrine was therefore already objectively de fide, and also subjectively binding in conscience upon all who knew it to be revealed.”
Phantom bishops and other fantasies
All the quotes above are not obscure passages taken at random from certain works, but the common teaching of the Church as found expressed in the same exact way in both catechisms and other works of theology. We bring this topic to the attention of readers today because we are engaged in an ongoing war with those who falsely hold that passive infallibility is not important. They presume to continue to inform those praying at home that LibTrad bishops are only “illicit,” not invalid, even after incontestable proof has been carefully researched and presented clearly showing that Pope Pius XII teaches it is impossible, during an interregnum, for such men to ever become priests or bishops.
According to the heretical teaching of certain LibTrads rejecting Pope Pius XII‘s teaching in VAS, the indefectibility of the Church depends on the existence of mysterious bishops still in hiding or incognito “somewhere,” even without the Roman Pontiff ruling as one of these phantom bishops. Those insisting on this theological absurdity never so much as mention the necessity of the pope to their existence. Why is such a teaching heretical? Because, as the Church has always taught and Pope Pius XII later officially confirmed, unless they are under the direction of the Roman Pontiff and in communion with him, bishops may have orders (if consecrated prior to Pope Pius XII’s death) but they have no power; their jurisdiction comes not directly from Christ but only through his Vicar (Mystici Corporis Christi, Ad Sinarum Gentum). The contention of those insisting there must always be bishops is that “the episcopal order of the hierarchy consisting of Catholic bishops with the power of Orders and the power of jurisdiction” can never cease to exist. They claim that to state otherwise is to commit heresy.
The absurdity of such a statement lies in the denial of the necessity of a HEAD BISHOP, the pope, who alone can grant the necessary approval for consecration of those priests selected to be promoted as bishops. Unless this approval is granted, episcopal consecration cannot be validly received during an interregnum because the papal approval/mandate is lacking. This is no interpretation of a papal document; it is the clear, unmistakable and infallible teaching of Pope Pius XII in Vacantis Apostiolicae Sedis. In Pope Pius XII’s Ad Apostolorum Principis the pope taught: “No authority whatsoever, save that which is proper to the Supreme Pastor, can render void the canonical appointment granted to any bishop…” And in VAS, during an interregnum. Pope Pius XII does so use his supreme authority to declare that the consecrations of any men as bishops, performed without papal approval, are a usurpation of papal jurisdiction and such consecrations are to be considered null, void, and invalid.
What Pope Innocent III tells us in his profession of faith proposed to the Waldenses (DZ 424) about the consecration of the Eucharist and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass also pertains to this topic. He taught that the Eucharist is not validly consecrated by just any priest, “…however honest, religious, holy and prudent [he] may be…Unless he be a priest, regularly ordained by a visible and perceptible bishop.” Pope Innocent III defines such a priest as one who is “established by a bishop for that office…And so we firmly believe and declare that whosever without the preceding episcopal ordination believes and contends that he can offer the Sacrifice of the Eucharist is a heretic and is a participant and companion of the perdition of Core and his followers and he must be segregated from the entire holy Roman Church.” What is of interest here is that we are talking about a “visible and perceptible bishop” and priests established by such a bishop to function as priests. So where are these visible and perceptible bishops? Do these people now believe in an “invisible Church,” a heresy condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi? Do they also believe in fairies and leprechauns?!
It is interesting to note that in attempting to sidestep the invalidity issue those claiming these pseudo-clerics are only illicit resort to the same defense used by the late Daniel Dolan (CMRI) to defend his validity. Dolan also cites Ad apostolorum principis as declaring illicit but valid orders conferred by those not possessing the mandate, quoting the following from Pius XII’s encyclical: “Acts requiring the power of Holy Orders which are performed by ecclesiastics of this kind, though they are valid AS LONG AS THE CONSECRATION CONFERRED ON THEM WAS VALID, are yet gravely illicit, that is, criminal and sacrilegious.” But here Dolan commits a fallacy in logic known as “begging the question,” assuming as true that which has yet to be proved. Did Lefebvre or Thuc validly consecrate? Not without the mandate! Did the pope refer to consecrations performed during an interregnum in Ad apostolorum principis? Obviously not, since he was still alive.
Conclusion
Those pushing the “bishops must yet exist” heresy claim they do so to counter the “heresy” held by this author and those who frequent this site — that the laity can effectively constitute the hierarchy, that the Church as Christ constituted it is not indefectible and that five of the seven Sacraments no longer exist. No one has ever said that these five Sacraments (excluding Baptism and Marriage) have ceased to exist; being instituted by Christ they will always exist. We simply no longer have access to them thanks to the wholesale apostasy of the hierarchy and the commands of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, which we must accept with a firm and irrevocable assent. This is God’s will for us, and these deniers of papal supremacy would be more honest if they simply proved Pope Pius XII was a heretic and VAS was therefore a non-binding decision. As for the indefectibility of the Church, Rev. E. S. Berry and Henry Edward Cardinal Manning are quite clear in what is quoted above:
“Passive infallibility, in the sense just explained, IS A NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF THE INDEFECTIBLE UNITY OF FAITH and the perpetual Catholicity of the Church. Since the Church is immutably one in the profession of faith, the faithful as a body must be free from error, otherwise the faith would not be one, but many. Moreover, the profession of a false faith constitutes manifest heresy and excludes one from membership in the Church.” (Rev. Berry) And from Cardinal Manning: “It is also a MATTER OF FAITH that not only no separation of communion, but even no disunion of doctrine and faith between the Head and the Body, that is, between the ecclesia docens and the ecclesia discens can ever exist. Both are infallible, the one actively, in teaching, the other passively, in believing; and both are therefore inseparable, because necessarily united in one faith.”
It is the ones promoting the necessary existence of bishops who deny indefectibility and the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff, not only in his ability to declare such bishops could never be appointed and consecrated without him, but in his grant to the faithful of the responsibility to carry on in their absence. This is treated below.
1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, Laity — “The laity… may be appointed to give doctrinal instruction more or less officially, or may even become the defenders of Catholic truth. Thus they give excellent help to the clergy in teaching catechism, the lay masters in our schools give religious instruction, and some laymen have received a missio canonica, or due ecclesiastical authorization, to teach the religious sciences in universities and seminaries; the important point in this, as in other matters, is for them to be submissive to the legitimate teaching authority… The principle is that the laity as such have no share in the spiritual jurisdiction and government of the Church; but they may be commissioned or delegated by ecclesiastical authority to exercise certain rights, especially when there is no question of strictly spiritual jurisdiction…”
And this is what we have received from Pope Pius XII, a missio canonica which is devoid of any spiritual (sacramental or other) jurisdiction; it must be strictly confined to the preservation of all the Church taught prior to Pope Pius XII’s death. For as Pope Pius XII instructed, Catholics must take up all the responsibilities of the hierarchy in their absence, but only if it involves nothing opposed to faith and morals, the implicit or explicit will of the Church or anything contrary to ecclesiastical discipline (Mission of the Catholic Woman, September 29, 1957; entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis). Faith and morals demand that we accept the teaching of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis. The will of the Church is clearly expressed by Pius XII in this infallible constitution. And in that constitution, he declares null, void, and invalid anything that violates papal law or Canon Law.
It is the most ludicrous of all contentions to hold that bishops could still exist on this earth minus their head bishop, a canonically elected pope, as the identical hierarchy established by Christ with all the rights He acceded to the Apostolic College. THAT is the denial of the Roman Pontiff’s supremacy of jurisdiction; THAT is the Gallicanist heresy. And worse than that: it is the occult Gnosticism that still prevails among the LibTrads generally, as explained HERE. One of the main proponents of this Gnostic “catholicism” once wrote to me: “It is heretical to state that the Catholic Church can be in existence without the episcopal order of the hierarchy consisting of Catholic bishops with the power of Orders and the power of jurisdiction… You deny the dogma that there is a perpetual, living, and infallible magisterium in the Catholic Church.”
The above statement is pathetically devoid of any true understanding of integral Catholic truth. And what is most alarming is that it is cunningly phrased to appear to those not well-instructed in the faith to be a legitimate statement. For the “episcopal order of the hierarchy” MUST include the head bishop, the Pope — Peter is the Rock on which Christ established His entire Church, not the bishops. His faith alone is indefectible, as Rev. Berry notes. And that it is a lie to say that I deny the “perpetual, living, and infallible magisterium” when all I do is insist it be upheld should be apparent to anyone reading what is presented on this site.
The perpetual, living and infallible magisterium is found in all the infallible writings of the popes. Exclude belief in one and you are done. If the pope says bishops can no longer exist during an interregnum, then they do not exist. If the laws of the Church tell us they become heretics and can no longer elect a true pope if they violate the terms of a papal law or Canon Law, then they are unable to do so. And if said cardinals and bishops lose their offices by joining a false sect — as ALL did at Vatican 2 — they are no longer cardinals and bishops!!! WHAT bishops??? Please tell me, if you, dear friends, truly believe in the perpetual, living, and infallible magisterium, which lives on in the Deposit of Faith even without the presence of the Roman Pontiff, how true bishops could ever exist without him?
There cannot be two Catholic churches, one believing LibTrad pseudo-clergy are only illicit and others believing they are invalid. This cannot be when the Roman Pontiff has infallibly taught otherwise. The Catholic Church either lasts until the consummation teaching ALL that Christ’s Vicars have taught, as they have taught it and in its entirety, or it does not exist at all. Those reading this have a choice to make: they can be numbered among the members of the invisible Gnostic “catholic” church praying at home or they can choose to obey ALL the teachings of the Roman Pontiffs. It is as simple as that. What they cannot do is pretend that given the infallible nature of Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis, they are members of the Catholic Church if they believe LibTrad pseudo-clergy to be only illicit.
by T. Stanfill Benns | Mar 6, 2024 | New Blog
Prayer Society Intention for March, Month of St. Joseph
“Oh blessed Joseph… most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, protect the chosen people of Jesus Christ; keep far from us, most loving father, all blighted error and corruption. Mercifully assist us from heaven, most mighty defender, in this our conflict with the powers of darkness.” (Raccolta)
+St. Thomas Aquinas, Confessor+
“It is charity I want, not learning. I have a great dread of learning, and a boundless love for charity. God grant that learning be not a source of division amongst us! God grant that charity may edify and unite us all in Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom alone be all honour and glory forever.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Letters 242.)
Introduction
It is the purpose of this blog to try and clarify the many misconceptions yet surrounding invincible ignorance and the true meaning of the term “implicit desire.”
The popes speak of individuals who are invincibly ignorant as non-members of the Church. We know those guilty of heresy and schism and or communicatio in sacris, whether Novus Ordo, LibTrads or members of some other non-Catholic sect, are at least material heretics. In other words they are to be considered outside the Church for reasons of external acts of heresy or schism until a true bishop or pope determines otherwise (Canon 2200). This is explained HERE. We judge them only in the external and not the internal forum. Despite their status however we cannot as Pope Pius IX teaches in Singulari quadam and his other encyclicals make any decision on whether they are formally guilty or excused for various reasons. That is to be determined by the Church. It is enough that, sadly, they have lost Church membership and cannot be considered members of the Mystical Body. Their actual guilt before the eyes of God is something He alone can judge.
Many have become confused about the Church’s actual teaching on these matters for two reasons: 1) The Feeney heresy and its fanatical supporters who falsely claim that popes the Holy Office’s teachings in Suprema haec sacra, the Holy Office being headed by Pope Pius XII himself, deny the dogma of no salvation outside the Church and 2) the Novus Ordo sect teachings, which openly declare that a person can be saved with some vague, ineffective act of the will, which was never the intention of the Church. Not only that, but the Novus Ordo teaches that man has an inherent right to choose his own religion and the Catholic Church has no inherent right to teach She is the one, true Church, outside of which no one can be saved. All this in the name of “freedom of religion,” thanks to the efforts of the Jesuit heretic John Courtney Murray and his supporters. These are the men who worked for two decades to engineer what later became Vatican 2 as explained at length in The Phantom Church in Rome.
We cite and obey Can. 2200 not to condemn others; this they do themselves by their own external acts. We simply obey this law in order to protect ourselves and the Church from any least tendency to heresy and from all the teachings of heretics and schismatics. This the Vatican Council ordered us to do in DZ 1820, where it taught: “But since it is not sufficient to shun heretical iniquity unless these errors also are shunned which come more or less close to it,we remind all of the duty of observing also the constitutions and decrees by which base opinions of this sort which are not enumerated explicitly here have been prescribed and prohibited by this Holy See.” This same teaching can be found in Can. 1324, which precedes the actual canon defining heresy, apostasy and schism. We believe, without making the actual judgment, that only by God’s mercy alone and the operation of grace in the individual soul that those outside the Church could be saved, but we do not presume such is the case. Pope Pius XII himself taught in Mystici Corporis that it is a difficult thing to be saved without being in the Church, narrowing the field to a chosen number of souls.
In our times, given the terrible confusion that prevails, the deliberate suppression of the truth and the lack of hierarchy to condemn the many sects that seem to pop up overnight, we do have reason to hope. I think that God, in His infinite mercy, will have pity on souls who really do try their best to know and understand the truth, to lead a Godly life, yet fall short. We cannot forget that the Jews considered themselves superior to the Gentiles and saved by their birthright alone. Yet in the end it was the Gentiles primarily who converted to Christianity. The name Catholic will not save us; only obedience to all that Christ taught, as relayed to us by His Vicars will guarantee our salvation. Those still trapped in non-Catholic sects are hampered mostly by their prejudices and lack of knowledge about how these sects actually came to be.
We can warn them that resisting the known truth, when they find it, is a sin against the Holy Ghost. But God alone can give them the grace to accept it and it is a pure gift from the Holy Ghost to understand it. As explained in our last blog, knowing is one thing; it is understanding and putting into practice what we know and understand that is most important. We must constantly pray for the gifts to know the truth, to understand it and to act accordingly. It takes a great deal more effort today to discern the truth without the Pope to guide us. That is why we must limit our inquiries to papal teachings and the teaching of ecumenical councils, also the precepts of Canon Law, most of which come to us from the ecumenical councils (particularly Trent) and the teachings of the popes themselves.
This is why the 1917 Code is determined to be negatively infallible and the popes have always referred to these laws as the Sacred Cannons. And when the teachings of the Church seem different, difficult or questionable to us then we resort to this explanation of a select few theologians of the past 150 years, especially among them such greats as Henry Cardinal Manning, Rev. E. Sylvester Barry, Louis Cardinal Billot, Msgr. Van Noort, Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, Rev. Jean Marie Herve and others, including Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton and Rev. Francis J. Connell. These were the theologians most loyal to the magisterium. We invest more trust in them because already in the 1800s, as Pope Gregory XVI noted, evil forces were aligning to topple the papacy and the remaining monarchies.
Invincible ignorance as explained by Fr. Michael Muller
It is not for a lack of searching for the truth on these matters that those truly seeking it have been led astray; it is the misinformation or incomplete explanation of the faith provided them by false guides. Many became derailed in this search when they encountered varying opinions among trustworthy theologians writing before 1950. In that year, by issuing Humani generis, Pope Pius XII laid to rest all these concerns when he directed theologians and all the faithful to the binding decisions recorded in the Acta Apostolica Sedis. But still there were those in Pius XII’s time who chose to ignore his teachings, just as there are those today who dismiss or omit these decisions, choosing to believe as they please and not as the Church teaches. Even renowned catechists taught, in the early 1900s, that we must not consider all those outside the Church as lost. Fr. Michael Muller, C.S.S.R., wrote as follows on that topic: “
The Catholic Dogma, pp. 217-218, 1888:
“Inculpable or invincible ignorance has never been and will never be a means of salvation. To be saved, it is necessary to be justified, or to be in the state of grace. In order to obtain sanctifying grace, it is necessary to have the proper dispositions for justification; that is, true divine faith in at least the necessary truths of salvation, confident hope in the divine Savior, sincere sorrow for sin, together with the firm purpose of doing all that God has commanded, etc. Now, these supernatural acts of faith, hope, charity, contrition, etc., which prepare the soul for receiving sanctifying grace, can never be supplied by invincible ignorance; and if invincible ignorance cannot supply the preparation for receiving sanctifying grace, much less can it bestow sanctifying grace itself. ‘Invincible ignorance,’ says St. Thomas, ‘is a punishment for sin.’ (De, Infid. Q. x., art. 1). “It is, then, a curse, but not a blessing or a means of salvation… Hence Pius IX said ‘that, were a man to be invincibly ignorant of the true religion, such invincible ignorance would not be sinful before God; that, if such a person should observe the precepts of the Natural Law and do the will of God to the best of his knowledge, God, in his infinite mercy, may enlighten him so as to obtain eternal life; for, the Lord who knows the heart and the thoughts of man will, in his infinite goodness, not suffer anyone to be lost forever without his own fault.’ Almighty God, who is just condemns no one without his fault, puts, therefore, such souls as are in invincible ignorance of the truths of salvation, in the way of salvation, either by natural or supernatural means.”
Fr. Michael Müller also wrote a catechism titled Familiar Explanation of Christian Doctrine. He writes:
Q. What are we to think of the salvation of those who are out of the pale of the Church without any fault of theirs, and who never had any opportunity of knowing better?
A. Their inculpable ignorance will not save them; but if they fear God and live up to their conscience, God, in His infinite mercy, will furnish them with the necessary means of salvation, even so as to send, if needed, an angel to instruct them in the Catholic faith, rather than let them perish through inculpable ignorance.
Q. Is it then right for us to say that one who was not received into the Church before his death, is damned?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. Because we cannot know for certain what takes place between God and the soul at the awful moment of death.
Q. What do you mean by this?
A. I mean that God, in His infinite mercy, may enlighten, at the hour of death, one who is not yet a Catholic, so that he may see the truth of the Catholic faith, be truly sorry for his sins, and sincerely desire to die a good Catholic.
Q. What do we say of those who receive such an extraordinary grace, and die in this manner?
A. We say of them that they die united, at least, to the soul of the Catholic Church, and are saved.
Q. What, then, awaits all those who are out of the Catholic Church, and die without having received such an extraordinary grace at the hour of death?
A. Eternal damnation. https://cathexcerpts.blogspot.com/2020/02/fr-muller-on-invincible-ignorance-and.html
The reference by Fr. Muller above to “the soul of the Church,” however, is a term that can no longer be used since the issuance of Mystici Corporis and Suprema haec sacra. This is yet another example of why catechisms alone are not sufficient to know what the Church teaches. Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton explains why this term should no longer be used below:
“The most important and the most widely employed of all the inadequate explanations of the Church’s necessity for salvation was the one that centered around a distinction between the ” body” and the ” soul ” of the Catholic Church. The individual who tried to explain the dogma in this fashion generally designated the visible Church itself as the ” body ” of the Church and applied the term ” soul of the Church ” either to grace and the supernatural virtues or to some fancied ” invisible Church.” Prior to the appearance of the encyclical Mystici Corporis there were several books and articles claiming that, while the “soul” of the Church was in some way not separated from the “body,” it was actually more extensive than this “body.” Explanations of the Church’s necessity drawn up in terms of this distinction were at best inadequate and confusing and all too frequently infected with serious error. When the expression “soul of the Church” was applied to sanctifying grace and the organism of supernatural virtues that accompany it, the explanation was confusing in that it stressed the fact that a man must be in the state of grace, and that he must have faith and charity if he is to attain to eternal salvation, but it tended to obscure the truth that a man must in some manner be ” within ” the true and visible Catholic Church at the moment of his death if he is ever to reach the Beatific Vision. When, on the other hand, some imaginary ” invisible Church,” some assembly of all the good people in the world, was designated as the ” soul of the Church,” these explanations lapsed into doctrinal inaccuracy” (The Catholic Church and Salvation, pgs. 126-127, nos. 3 and 4).
Meaning of implicit desire
Where people also become confused is the term “implicit desire,” which Msgr. Fenton explains in his book as follows:
“The Catholic Church and its theologians had likewise taught that a sincere desire to enter and to remain within the Church could be effective for the attainment of eternal salvation even when that desire was merely implicit, that is, not based on a clear and distinct notion of the Church itself… It is absolutely imperative to remember that being “within” the Church is not exactly the same thing as being a member of this social unit. A man is a member of the Church when he is baptized, and when he has neither publicly renounced his baptismal profession of the true faith nor withdrawn from the fellowship of the Church, and when he has not been expelled from the company of the disciples by having received the fullness of excommunication. But a man is “within” the Church to the extent that he can be saved ” within ” it when he is a member or even when he sincerely, albeit perhaps only implicitly, desires to enter it. The condition requisite for profiting from the reception of the sacraments or from the performance of acts which should be salutary is being “within” the Church.
“Now, while it is possible to have a desire to be within the Church, and, indeed even to be a member of the Church, without having the love of charity for God, it is quite impossible to have charity without being within the true Church, at least by an implicit desire to dwell in it. The love of charity is, by its very nature, a sovereign affection. It is definable in terms of intention rather than of mere velleity; and it necessarily embodies an intention, rather than a mere velleity, to do what Our Lord actually wills we should do. And Our Lord wills that all men should enter and remain within the one society of Mis disciples, His Kingdom and His Mystical Body in this world” (pgs. 25, 39). And Msgr. Fenton continues:
“(8b) The Suprema haec sacra then brings out the fact that, in the merciful designs of God’s providence, such realities as the Church itself and the sacraments of baptism and penance can, under certain circumstances, bring about the effects which they are meant to produce as means necessary for the attainment or eternal salvation when a man possesses them only in the sense that he desires or intends or wills to have or to use them. Obviously the text cannot be understood unless we realize what the ” certain circumstances” mentioned in the text really are.
“Basic among these circumstances is the genuine impossibility or receiving the sacraments of baptism or of penance or of entering the Church as a member. It is quite clear that if it is possible for a man to be baptized, to go to confession and to receive sacramental absolution, or really to become a member or the true Church, the man for whom this is possible will not attain to eternal salvation unless he actually avails himself of these means. But, on the other hand, should the actual employment or these means be genuinely impossible, then the man can attain to eternal life by a will or desire to employ them.
“Here, of course, we must distinguish sedulously between the order of intention and the order of mere velleity. What is required here is an effective desire, an effective act of the will, as distinct from a mere complacency or approval. A non-member of the Church can be saved if he genuinely wants or desires to enter the Church. With that genuine and active desire or intention, he will really become a member of the Church if this is at all possible. If it is not possible, then the force of his intention or desire will bring him ” within ” the Church in such a way that he can attain eternal salvation in this company. An inherently ineffective act of the will, a mere velleity, will definitely not sufficefor the attainment of eternal salvation” (p. 111).
Where error crept in
How many poor people today, seeing the disarray in the church in Rome and in general among the entire “Christian” denominations, really want to be a member of Christ’s true Church — or believe they are such a member and truly love and serve Him — but either don’t know where to turn or truly doubt that the church they think is Catholic today could be the true Church? And they are right in doubting this! Does anyone really think that God, in His infinite mercy, would visit this punishment on the Church and the world in general then throw them to the wolves?!
Summarizing a passage from De Ecclesia Christi by Louis Cardinal Billot, Rome, 1921, Msgr. Charles Journet, in his 1952 work The Church of the Word Incarnate, writes:
“THEOLOGICAL FAITH IS MORE NECESSARY STILL THAN THE SACRAMENTS, SINCE NOTHING CAN REPLACE IT, WHEREAS THOSE WHO POSSESS IT IN CHARITY ALREADY POSSESS THE SACRAMENTS AS BY DESIRE, VOTO. If then the Sacraments can in some sense be had ‘outside’ the Church, to those who receive them in uprightness of heart, it is still more necessary that a sufficient proposal of the faith should be made outside the Church, and that true believers in the true faith should be found even amongst those whose ecclesiastical rulers hold doctrines that are contrary to orthodoxy or erroneous…The way of justification remains open ‘outside’ the Church to men of good will, who are ready at heart to believe all that God has revealed. It can even be opened to them by the message proposed by schismatics and heretics, provided, of course, that this message still contains that minimum of truth without which no adult in any event can be saved — namely the supernatural mystery of the existence and providence of God. So that the sects separated from the legitimate Bride of Christ see, in these circumstances, to become Her servants to aid her to engender new children to grace, not solely by the ministration of the Sacraments but also by proposing a doctrine, tainted with error though it may be.”
WE cannot countenance error; we are members of the Church by our Baptism and Profession of Faith. Those not born into the faith and now genuinely struggling to seek the truth will be saved if they genuinely wish to be members of the Church and love God with their whole heart, soul, mind and strength; we simply are not allowed to presume who they may be. In Traditionalist circles, much sway is given to works such as The Little Number of Those Who Are Saved by St. Leonard of Port Maurice, and certainly works by the saints should be read and respected. But few realize that this is one of the matters on which the Church has never officially rendered an opinion, one of those areas where later decisions of the Holy See such as Mystici Corporis and Suprema haec sacra have a direct bearing. In other words, it is the development of dogma that forces us to view this in a different light, now that the Church has clarified certain points of doctrine.
One Jesuit advocate of the milder opinion, Rev. Nicholas Walsh S.J., in his 1908 work, The Saved and the Lost,describes it as a swinging pendulum, at first resting in favor of the stricter view and then later swinging to the opposite side, in favor of the milder opinion. As all devices of this nature, when it comes to rest, it stops halfway between the two unless dialed back altogether by the Holy See.
According to Rev. Walsh, “Whether there be few or many that are saved [is] an open question… There is no authoritative decision of the Church or unanimous opinion of her Fathers or theologians: [it is therefore] an open question about which we may speculate as a ‘doubtful law’ (St. Augustine).” Walsh’s work is available for free download HERE. So the insistence by some that we must consider the majority lost is not accurate in light of Pope Pius XII’s later decisions. For the truth is, as Rev. Walsh states, that: “If the upholders of the severe rigorous opinions ask me in what way God weaves his ‘web of love’ about every soul He has created, even about souls which look to the human eye outcast, I answer at once: ‘It is his secret; I do not know.’ But if they ask me why I believe He does I answer without fear: Because His character as Creator of all men clearly revealed in Scripture and formulated by eminent theologians obliges me to think so.
“I would then be tempted to ask them what reasons they have for thinking and saying plainly, ‘All infidels are damned on account of their infidelity. The great majority of mankind is lost because infidels heretics etc. always made the majority.’ That in a word the Creator as well as Judge will say, ‘Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire.’ to the whole mass of unbelievers — as well, as according to some, the majority of Catholics. I can only find two reasons. Some text types are parables of Scripture which do not in any way prove their most dismal views and the external bad aspect of the world which is at best misleading and which certainly cannot limit or interfere with the universal secret action of God by grace in the souls which He has created. ‘We may depend upon it, writes Fr. [Frederick] Faber, that in 1,000 spots which look desert, waste, fire-blackened, God’s mercy is finding pasture for His glory.” While I do not agree with Rev. Walsh that the majority of mankind will be saved, I do not necessarily disagree with him, either. For as he said, God alone knows, and it is not something any of us can determine.
Conclusion
It is my firm belief, both from personal experience and the testimony of theologians, that the Jansenist heresy and its rigorism — a rigorism which extends to teaching that only a limited number will be saved — is responsible for much of the confusion regarding the salvation of those not officially members of the Church, but who are “within it” in a way only God understands. We must adjust our Catholic beliefs according to the documents of the magisterium whenever it overrides the writing of the saints or theologians and their opinions. And this regardless of the strident insistence of those who may presume to claim otherwise and even threaten those not adopting their rigorist stance with eternal damnation. I cannot repeat often enough that we must flee from all those who will not adhere to papal teaching and refuse to allow them to lead or instruct us. For these are the very hirelings and false shepherds, the wolves in sheepskins, Christ warned us to avoid.
(P.S. And BTW, those who complain about the length of these blogs and the articles referenced here and the time it takes to read them, but who dedicate endless hours to viewing “Catholic” videos, are not being sincere in discerning the truth or obedient to the popes and ecumenical councils.)
by T. Stanfill Benns | Sep 15, 2023 | New Blog
+The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary+
What has reached a fever pitch in our society as the result of the innovations introduced to Catholics via liturgical reform is the desire to avoid pain and discomfort at all costs and at its earliest onset, regardless of how inconsequential it may be. This was referred to by Rev. Kaiser in the series on liturgical reform, concluded last week. As promised, we are writing a separate blog on this issue because it is so widespread and has such far-reaching consequences. But we must also warn below of the deadly rigorist reaction to this attitude of the progressives regarding pain, which is just as harmful as their avoidance of it, if not more so.
In his work, Rev. Kaiser stated: “[Liturgical reform] confused sentimental fear of suffering and psychotic fear of penance with the true role and purpose (both theological and psychological) of the Cross of Christ, as a redeeming principle and the redeeming factor in Christianity… The unreasoning yen for antiquity and simplicity and so-called “objectivity” is opposed not only to orthodoxy but also to sound psychology… It savors of the unrealistic attempt to acquire happiness and glory without earning them. It ignored the power of sin and the consequent need of expiation…. False esthetic preference for the merely ancient and simple was joined to a merely sentimental aversion to pain and suffering.
“The dilettantes wanted to do without the Cross of pain. So they invented a glorified sentiment in place of the victorious and triumphant historical Christ. There is for us no hope of glory except through the Cross and our faith in Him who died that we might live. Man needs Christ on the Cross, both as a Sacrifice and as an inspiration to courage and resignation… The dilettantes, the exclusivists, the Hegelians could merely flatter man’s penchant for ease and self-glorification — not elevate or divinize him, as they pretended.”
This fear of pain and suffering, the very element so essential to Christ’s death on the Cross to achieve our redemption, was symbolized in the appearance of the “Risen Christ” crosses — Christ risen with his arms upraised, not nailed to the Cross, as Kaiser explains. Some Novus Ordo fanatics even added a 15th “station” of the Resurrection to the traditional 14. This aversion to pain as it appeared in the 1960s was the perfect prelude to the advent, in that same decade, of tranquilizers, pain pills and other palliatives which became a popular refuge for bored housewives and those suffering milder forms of chronic pain. Then of course there was always recourse to illegal drugs, which also began to flourish in that same time-period. So the aversion to pain option cleverly laid the groundwork for future plans of the powers that be to condition Catholics for drug use to avoid or diminish suffering, although few then saw it for what it would later become.
Origin of mind-altering drugs
This would include not only physical but emotional pain, as exhibited in patients suffering from neurosis, obsessive-compulsive disorders, anxiety and depression. Let’s delve a bit into the origin of these drugs. In his Serpent and the Rainbow, researcher Wade Davis explained how a mission into the jungles of Haiti gave rise to the popularity of psychotropic drugs. Davis was dispatched to Haiti by those involved in the development of psycho-pharmaceutical preparations in the 1970s. He found Haiti overrun with secret societies originally introduced via the slave trade. On their arrival in Haiti, these societies eventually allied themselves with tribal chiefs immersed in the occult knowledge of “toxic preparations.” A certain element of these societies terrorized the native Haitian population in much the same way the Holy Vehm had terrorized Germany and Prussia. According to Davis, Haitian secret societies were “the predecessor” of secret societies today, only in the sense that they more closely resembled modern versions of the older model.
Davis journeyed to Haiti to study plant life and return with a drug that would assist anesthesiologists in creating a “zombie-like state” while sedating patients for prolonged surgical procedures. One of his sponsors already had developed the first psychoactive drug used to “cure” insanity: reserpine, derived from the herb snakeroot. Davis found what he was sent to find, but he also discovered a frightening array of toxic plants and preparations used by the secret societies against their enemies; potent drugs that could produce “a body without character, without will.”Despite psychiatry’s disdain as a profession concerning the possibility of possession, Davis is convinced he observed possession firsthand, and feels that the determination as to whether possession exists or not is better left to those who know it best. So now we know the real history behind the term “zombie apocalypse.”
Possession and the “split-mind”
Davis does not seem to address the possibility that his sponsors’ intent could have exceeded their stated professional interest. Yet the subsequent explosion of psychoactive and mind-altering drugs that followed at least suggests that such research paved the way for drug experimentation and the development of succeeding generations of drugs that successfully impede or destroy the memory and the will. And the gurus who would be entrusted to administer them were none other than the students of Sigmund Freud, whose psychoanalytic methods and the theories on which they rested were condemned by the Catholic Church.
Freud defined hysteria, for example, as an organic mental illness distinct from possession, but many theologians believed it to be a state either indicative of possession or preceding it. In the work Soundings on Satanism, by various authors, F.M. Catherinet, writing on the many demoniacs cured by Christ that are recorded in the Gospels, boldly stated that, “All true diabolic possession is accompanied, in fact and by a quasi-necessity, by mental or nervous troubles amplified or produced by the demon.” This also ties into an article written by C. J. Woolen (December 1945 Homiletic and Pastoral Review) entitled “A Schizophrenic Generation.” The article held that already in post-war America a condition existed among Catholics that effectively minimized sin and evil living by attributing its cause to a mental illness which Woolen calls the “split mind,” or schizophrenia, known also today as the dissociative state.
“The Christian, if he is to be faithful, has no choice but to be heroic,” Woolen stated towards the end of his article. The numbing process of denial, psychiatry and psychotropic drugs are modern choices for dulling the pain of living in a materialistic world where true Catholic love of God not tainted by Liberalism would result in loss of earthly goods and the kindly regards of one’s neighbors. Woolen advised in the 1940s that all Catholic priests in every diocese provide the obvious solution — routine exorcism of their parishioners. But the psychotic denial practiced wholesale prior to Vatican 2 gripped the Church with such force that Catholics willingly sacrificed the very things the martyrs gave their lives to preserve rather than appear “out of date.” As the author Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany’s, in his classic work commended by Pope Leo XIII’s Holy Office, Liberalism is a Sin, rightly notes: “The desire to take and make things easy… obscures the understanding.”
Psychotropic drugs are not specifically addressed in Pope Pius XII’s binding decree below on pain prevention and the administration of pain relief at the hour of death. But the pope does provide answers on how Catholics must view pain and suffering. The specifics of pain relief at the hour of death are an important topic because certain rigorist Traditional sects, some claiming to endorse the pray-at-home position, have convinced their followers that one is not allowed to request pain medications when dying and that taking such medications would be a grave sin. Especially in light of the true teaching of the Church below, this is a cruel and merciless position that must be abhorred, and those who sanction it should be treated as the wretches they truly are for depriving Catholics of the comfort at the end of their life that the Church allows. Yet other Traditionalist sects would permit the complete anesthetization of the dying, depriving them of their reason, so desperately needed to make their peace with God. Both extremes must be avoided, as Pius XII explains below. These heretical sects prey on the ignorance and vulnerability of Catholics even at the end of life because their real mission on this earth is to deprive them of eternal salvation. This is why we continue to warn Catholics that despite their pretenses to uphold papal teaching, these sects do no such thing and are truly a danger to those striving to save their souls.
Morality of Pain Prevention
Pius XII, AAS 27-3-1957 (Feb. 24, 1957 – ACTA, vol. XXIV, n. 3, p. 129)
The Pope Speaks, Vol. IV, 1957-58
Moral obligation to endure physical pain
“… It is evident in certain cases that the acceptance of physical suffering is a matter of serious obligation. Thus a man is bound in conscience to accept suffering every time he is faced with the inescapable alternative of either enduring suffering or acting contrary to a moral obligation by positive action or by omission. The martyrs could not avoid torture or death without denying their faith or evading the serious obligation of bearing witness to it when the occasion was given. But it is unnecessary to go back to the martyrs today there are magnificent examples of Christians who for weeks months and even years have endured suffering and physical violence in order to remain faithful to God and their conscience…
“…[But] man, even after the fall, retains the right to control the forces of nature, to employ them for his own use, and, consequently, to derive benefit from all the resources which nature offers him for the suppression and avoidance of physical pain. But Christian suffering is not something purely negative; on the contrary, it is linked with lofty religious and moral values. Hence it may be desired and sought even if no moral obligation to do so exists in a particular case… The Christian is bound to mortify the flesh and strive after his interior purification, for it is impossible in the long run to avoid sin and fulfill all one’s duties faithfully if this effort at mortification and purification is neglected. Physical suffering becomes necessary and must therefore be accepted insofar as without its aid mastery over the self and its disorderly tendencies is unattainable. But to the extent that it is not required for this purpose it cannot be asserted that there is any strict obligation in the matter.
“The Christian, then, is never obliged to desire suffering for its own sake. He considers it a means more or less adapted according to circumstances to the end which he is pursuing. Although it is beyond dispute that the Christian feels his desire to accept and even to seek physical pain in order to share the more in the passion of Christ, to renounce the world and the pleasures of the senses and to mortify his own flesh, it is important to interpret this tendency correctly. Those who manifest it exteriorly do not necessarily possess genuine Christian heroism. And it would also be erroneous to declare that those who do not manifest this tendency are devoid of heroism. Such heroism can indeed express itself in other ways.
“When a Christian performs day after day, from morning till night all the duties imposed by his state in life, his profession AND THE LAWS OF GOD AND MAN, when he prays with recollection, works wholeheartedly, resists his evil passions, shows his neighbor the charity and service to him and endures bravely, without murmuring, whatever God sends him, he is always living under the standard of Christ’s cross whether physical suffering is present or not; whether he endures it or avoids it by permissible means… The acceptance of physical suffering is only one way among many others of indicating what is the real essential: the will to love God and serve him in all things. It is above all in the perfection of this voluntary disposition that the quality of the Christian life in its heroism consists.”
On the use of analgesics for the dying
“Now growth in the love of God and in abandonment to His will does not come from the sufferings which are accepted, but from a voluntary intention supported by grace. This intention in many of the dying can be strengthened and become more active if their sufferings are eased, for these sufferings aggravate the state of weakness and physical exhaustion, check the ardor of soul, and sap the moral powers instead of sustaining them. On the other hand, the suppression of pain removes physical and mental tension, makes prayer easier, and makes possible a more generous gift of self… The sick person should not, without serious reason, be deprived of consciousness. When this state is produced by natural causes, men must accept it. But it is not for them to bring it about on their own initiative unless they have serious motives for doing so… It is to be remembered that instead of assisting toward expiation and merit, suffering can also furnish occasion for new faults.
“When, in spite of obligations still binding on him, the dying man asks for narcosis for which there exist serious reasons, a conscientious doctor will not countenance it, especially if he is a Christian, without having invited the patient, either personally or, better still, through someone else, to carry out his obligations first. If the sick man refuses obstinately and persists in asking for narcosis, the doctor can consent to it without rendering himself guilty of formal cooperation in the fault committed… But if a dying person has fulfilled all his duties and received the last sacraments, if medical reasons clearly suggest the use of anesthesia, if in determining the dose the permitted amount is not exceeded, if the intensity and duration of this treatment is carefully reckoned, and, finally, if the patient consents to it, then there is no objection: the use of anesthesia is morally permissible.
“If, on the contrary, the administration of narcotics produces two distinct effects, one, the relief of pain and the other, the shortening of life, then the action is lawful; however, it must be determined whether there is a reasonable proportion between these two effects and whether the advantages of the one effect compensate for the disadvantages of the other. To sum up, you ask Us: “Is the removal of pain and consciousness by means of narcotics (when medical reasons demand it) permitted by religion and morality to both doctor and patient even at the approach of death and if one foresees that the use of narcotics will shorten life?” The answer must be: “Yes – provided that no other means exist, and if, in the given circumstances, that action does not prevent the carrying out of other moral and religious duties.” As We have already explained, the ideal of Christian heroism does not require — at least in general — the refusal of narcosis justified on other grounds, even at the approach of death. Everything depends on the particular circumstances. The most perfect and most heroic decision can be present as fully in acceptance as in refusal.” (End of Pope Pius XII excerpts)
Pope Pius XII, then, clarifies our Catholic duty to the dying and sets forth the proper attitude we should have regarding the endurance of pain. This sufficiently and authoritatively counters the lax and liberal stance of those belonging to the Novus Ordo sects, Latin Mass attendees, “semi-Traditionalists” mainstream Traditionalists and the radical and rigorist sects among them. A recent article published on one popular sedevacantist site claims that Traditionalists are enduring the mystical Passion of Christ. One wonders if they have any clear understanding of the meaning of the word Passion, as related to Christ’s sufferings on the Cross, and as applied to the faithful living in these times. This will be discussed in detail below.
Traditionalists’ bogus interpretation of the Passion of the Church
Above we read from Pope Pius XII that: “It is evident in certain cases that the acceptance of physical suffering is a matter of serious obligation. Thus a man is bound in conscience to accept suffering every time he is faced with the inescapable alternative of either enduring suffering or acting contrary to a moral obligation by positive action or by omission… There are magnificent examples of Christians who for weeks, months, and even years have endured suffering and physical violence in order to remain faithful to God and their conscience…” This is the pain that cannot be avoided but must be endured by those wishing to be counted as members of Christ’s Mystical Body.
And yet just as Rev. Kaiser describes in his articles, those in the Novus Ordo and Traditionalist sects resort to heretical exclusivism to avoid enduring this necessary pain. Traditionalists, by denying the necessity of the Roman Pontiff as the head of the Apostolic College of bishops and instead embracing the “community of priests” that would serve those exiting the Vatican 2 Church. And the Novus Ordo counter-church in rejecting both the Church’s true teaching regarding the papacy as well as the Latin Mass. The Gallicanist, Febronian, Gnostic “Traditionalist” faction, which Kaiser rightly credits as the forerunner of this tendency, pretends to save orthodoxy, while rejecting the papacy.
And yet we know from Henry Cardinal Manning and other exegetes commenting on Holy Scripture that this Chair could be overthrown, the shepherd would be struck and the poor flock scattered; and until that fateful day Peter’s Faith did indeed remain unshaken. But this overthrow of the papacy could occur only during the last days of the world and Antichrist’s reign. And whom indeed would bring this about? The Passion of the Church would be orchestrated by the very ones claiming to love Christ the most — once again He would be wounded by those professing to be among His dearest friends, His own race and family. Pope Pius IX stated in his encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum, “Religion itself can never totter and fall while this Chair remains intact, the Chair which rests on the rock which the proud gates of hell cannot overthrow and in which there is the whole and perfect solidity of the Christian religion.” But when that Chair was no longer intact, “religion [WOULD] totter and fall.” Typically, Traditionalists dare to quote these very words of Pope Pius IX above, while ignoring the true import of what he is teaching. They pretend to suffer the Passion of the Church, but how is this possible?
The recent sedevacantist article on the Church’s Passion, answering the “semi-Trads,” defines it as follows: “The true Passion of the Church consists of Catholics, including the Pope, being betrayed, persecuted, humiliated, scourged, calumniated, tortured, and/or killed by the enemies of Christ, His Church, and His Vicar… The sedevacantist does not ‘attempt to eliminate the mystery’ of the Church’s Passion, he tries to understand it correctly.” The horrors of this Great Apostasy is something that all of us have suffered and continue to suffer. This Internet article condemns as false the semi-Trad idea that this Passion is being lived out by the current persecutions aimed at “Pope Francis” and the Novus Ordo Church, an idea which is, of course, ridiculous. But sedevacantists themselves also entertain a false notion concerning the Passion of the Church, because they have no idea, no proper understanding, of the true meaning of the word “obedience.”
The most perfect worship is to obey God
Our Lord petitioned his Father to be relieved of the Chalice of His Passion in the Garden of Olives. “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me… [But] if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done” (Matt. 26: vs. 39, 42). We have explained God’s signified will on this site many times; it can be found, St. Francis de Sales tells us, in: “Obedience to the Commandments, both divine and ecclesiastical, is of obligation for all, because there is question here of THE ABSOLUTE WILL OF GOD WHO HAS MADE SUBMISSION TO THESE ORDINANCES A CONDITION OF SALVATION” (“Holy Abandonment,” Rt. Rev. Dom Vital Lehody O.C.R., p. 18, 22). Yet Traditionalists deny that this extends to ecclesiastical law “in these times.” Rev. Aldolphe Tanquerey, that great master of the spiritual life, also wrote:
“Now to conform our wills to that of God is assuredly to cease to do evil, and to learn to do good. Is not this the meaning of that oft repeated text: ‘FOR OBEDIENCE IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICES’ (1 Kings XV, 22; Osee VI, 6; Matt IX, 3 also XII, 7). In the New Law, Our Lord declares from the very moment of His entry into the world that it is with obedience that He will replace the sacrifices of the Ancient Law: ‘Holocausts for sin did not please Thee. Then I said: Behold I come … that I should do Thy will, O God.’ (Hebrews X, 6-7; Phil 11, 8; Phil, IV, 3). And in truth, it is by obedience unto the immolation of self that He has redeemed us: ‘He was made obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.’ (John 4, 34) In the same way, it is through obedience and through the acceptance of God-ordained trials in union with Christ that we shall atone for our sins and cleanse our soul.” (The Spiritual Life,pages 240-241). But Traditionalists must have their sacrifices at all costs, even the cost of their eternal salvation.
And in his Our Greatest Treasure (1942), Rev. John Kearney wrote: “Obedience is not merely doing what you are told but being cheerfully willing to be told what to do…To obey the Church, therefore, is to obey God, for She commands in His name. And to obey God, to submit to God’s Will, is to offer Him the most perfect worship.” Sedevacantists, as explained in previous blogs, did all they could do to avoid this obedience to ALL the popes teach regarding the primacy, the divine law that is jurisdiction, and the infallible decrees of the Council of Trent and the Vatican Council. They cherry-pick what teachings of the popes they choose to quote and even then, they entirely obscure the full meaning of what they are quoting. They violate every Canon Law pertaining to their operations and pretend that these laws do not issue directly from the Popes and the Councils. This has been demonstrated on this site in numerous articles, so does not bear repeating here.
ALL Traditionalists refuse obedience to the full range of binding teachings issuing from the Continual Magisterium. They deny the integral nature of the Church’s dogmatic teaching, practice heretical exclusivism and steadfastly ignore doctrinal development. They insist on enjoying the emoluments of the Catholic religion despite the prohibitions and condemnations of Her Pontiffs, and the infallible command of Pope Pius XII that this cannot be done during an interregnum. So what are they suffering? What obedience are they offering to Our Lord as a sacrifice, in imitation of His acceptance of His Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane? Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph endured a perilous several-day journey over mountain passes and deserts, in the cold of winter, to obey a civil law, and they are suffering a renewal of Christ’s Passion? To obey WHAT?! Only their own will.
Today is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, and one of her deepest sorrows today is the refusal of those entrusted to her sorrowful heart to obey the laws and teachings of her Divine Son and His Vicars. We pray for their conversion daily. If we truly wish to suffer with Our Lady and her beloved Son, that we too may fill up some of what is “wanting” to Christ’s Passion, Mother Mary Potter has this advice to offer:
“The Church appears to have entered upon the time when she mystically represents the Passion of Our Lord, and her members are unusually afflicted and tried; therefore the thought cannot be too often in your mind of the priceless value of suffering, of the short time the severest suffering can last, if it lasted without intermission through your whole life which it does not. Meditate again and again, in union with the Mother of Sorrows, upon the value (we might almost say infinite value) of suffering, since it will procure an infinite reward. It will be well to remember, likewise, that suffering not only procures a closer union with God, and therefore greater happiness in Heaven, but it likewise begets a greater happiness even on earth. You will taste a joy — you who suffer till your soul seems sorrowful even unto death — not conceived by those who pass through life with but its ordinary cares. Suffering is the one thing we may glory in. Suffering borne patiently, borne as God wills, is a present we may offer in some way back to God, and be sure it will be a gift most pleasing to Him. All that we suffer we of course, in our fallen state, deserve; but if God sees that in our hearts we are willing to suffer even undeserved suffering to please Him, to save our souls, He accepts that will, and our suffering is beautified to some resemblance to Our Lady’s” (Path of Mary, 1878, p. 85).
“O let us with the Church unceasingly ask Jesus that He raise sinners from their spiritual death, enlighten those in error, so that all recognize the truth, find, and walk the path which leads to life” (Rev. Leonard Goffine’s Explanation of the Epistles and Gospels, 1874, 15th Sunday after Pentecost).
by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 10, 2023 | New Blog
+St. Lawrence, Martyr+
Already we have received feedback from a disgruntled critic who demeans Msgr. Fenton by pointing out that he remained in the Vatican 2 church following John 23rd’s death and for several years of Paul 6’s reign before passing away in July of 1969. Therefore, this person concludes, God denied Msgr. Fenton the grace that would have enlightened him regarding the true situation, so ergo he must be considered a heretic and should not be quoted as an authoritative source on this site. But because Pope Pius XII was the last true pope, and personally commended Msgr. Fenton for his work, we feel no compunction whatsoever in quoting him, even up to the time he was dismissed (or resigned, as some reports state) from his professorship at the Catholic University of America in 1964.
Together with his former boss, Rev. Francis J. Connell, (who resigned from the Catholic University of America in 1958), Msgr. Fenton fought the changes that bishops and others proposed at the preliminary preparations for the false Vatican 2 council prior to 1962 and during its final session in 1964-1965. His diaries are proof that he was sickened by what was being proposed and believed that if the suggested changes were implemented it would be the end of the Catholic Church. According to an online source a reader notes below:
“After a particularly heated meeting in Rome during March of 1962, one graphic clash was recorded in the diary of Fr. Congar: “After some time, Fenton is so vile, so foolishly negative, so aggressive, so entirely out of his senses, that Msgr. Philips [Gerard Philips, a theologian at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium] stands up and says, with emotion, strongly and calmly: Under these conditions, it is impossible to work, and I retire. Because (addressing Fenton) you accuse everybody of heresy.” Fr. de Lubac’s diary offers a substantially similar account. Msgr. Fenton’s recollection of this incident in his diary is very brief: “At the afternoon meeting, Philips launched a verbal attack against me, and I replied in kind.” (Angelusonline.org).
Monsignor Fenton was not unaware of what was happening; he was simply outnumbered and helpless to do anything about it. One source reports: “Msgr. Fenton fought the Vatican 2 reforms until his death on July 7, 1969” (Carey, Patrick W. “Fenton, Joseph Clifford”. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000, p. 192). Carey is an emeritus professor of theology at Marquette University, and a biographer of “Cardinal” Avery Dulles. In a 2018 article on Fenton’s seeming revival among some Catholics, he criticized certain aspects of his writings in light of Vatican 2.
We reserve judgment on Msgr. Fenton only because he did speak out when all others were silent, and we do not know his reasons for doing what he did. He was the last of the great theologians. And as another reader has pointed out, this situation is no different than that of the ecclesiastical writer Tertullian, whose orthodox writings are found quoted frequently in approved Catholic works despite Tertullian’s later profession of the Montanist heresy. Nor may we add, of the Church’s continued citation and use of King Henry VIII’s Defense of the Sacraments, the latest edition by Benziger Bros. appearing in 1908. In the introduction to this work we read:
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it not be with Henry.Generally he is remembered as one who ‘spared neither man in his hate, nor woman in his lust.’ But this is the roue, the non-Catholic, the Protestant, the schismatic Henry. Let us not forget that at least once he had been the beau-ideal Henry; in body, tall, straight, broad-shouldered, a master of every gentlemanly accomplishment; in mind naturally clever, an accomplished linguist, a learned theologian, a faithful son of the Church. As such he wrote his famous book, the “Defence of the Seven Sacraments.” (Editor, Rev. Louis O’Donovan, S.T.L). So let it not be with Msgr. Fenton, either. He will continue to be quoted here.
If you follow the skewed “logic” of the critic mentioned above in our opening paragraph, it will eventually lead to the conclusion that Pope Pius XII could not have been pope, for allowing liberal and Modernist bishops and cardinals to remain in the Church. This has been refuted at length before on this site, but there is another dimension to the situation of the Church in the last decade of Her existence that has not been fully considered or explored. It not only explains why Pope Pius XII behaved as he did in the final years of his pontificate, but also could explain why more conservative members of the hierarchy, Msgr. Fenton and Rev. Connell included, were at a loss regarding what was actually happening, how to proceed and what they should do.
As noted in our last blog, a massive doctrinal warfare campaign was launched against American Catholics in the early 1950s by the CIA, and this campaign successfully molded the opinions and beliefs not only of the laity but the hierarchy as well. This is best reflected in the title to David Wemhoff’s monumental work: John Courtney Murray, Time/Life and the American Proposition: How the CIA’s Doctrinal Warfare Program Changed the Catholic Church(2015). That this program reached even into the very chambers of Pope Pius XII himself is demonstrated in the article recently posted HERE. We believe this new article is essential to understanding the full import of the deception perpetrated on the entire Catholic Church, and all its consequences today.
Now we proceed to part two of Msgr. Fenton’s article on the rules for theological discourse. Comments on the passages in bold will follow the excerpt.
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Pope Benedict XV and the rules for theological discussion
(Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, American Ecclesiastical Review, July 1956)
(2) The second lesson brought out in this section of the Ad beatissimi is that it is wrong for anyone to set aside the doctrinal decisions of competent authority within the Church because these decisions are not pleasing to him. In the AAS translation carried in this article, the sense of the Latin original in this particular part is not given with complete accuracy. According to the translation, it is wrong for anyone to disregard these commands of legitimate authority “on the pretence that he does not approve of them.” The Latin original reads: “propterea quia non probetur sibt,” which would mean merely: “because he does not approve of them.”
Actually, whenever there has been any pretense or simulation connected with the setting aside of authoritative teachings by writers in the field of sacred theology, it has never taken the form of trying to make it appear that the statements of the ecclesia docens are being passed over because the writer does not approve of them. The usual manner of acting in this way is to have some doctrinal decision which does not appeal to a particular author rejected on the pretense that the Sovereign Pontiff, in issuing this judgment, was actually referring to something quite distinct from what he said he was discussing.
Thus the text of the Ad beatissimi insists upon the need for genuine humility in all theological discussion. It tells us that the Catholic writer or lecturer must “submit his opinion to the judgment of authority, and then obey as a matter of conscience.” It is, of course, far more in accord with the dictates of pride to ignore the doctrinal decisions of ecclesiastical authority whenever these decisions are distasteful, and particularly whenever they are opposed to what the author or lecturer has hitherto been teaching. It is quite in line with the demands of worldly self-love to allege some pretext which will make the rejection of papal teachings appear as an act of virtue or as an achievement of scientific learning. But, as Pope Benedict XV pointed out in the Ad beatissimi, such is not the course of action that accords with the demands of the Catholic Church upon its theologians.
(3) Pope Benedict’s encyclical then insists that no private individual has the right to set himself up as a teacher in the Church. The translation asserts that this cannot be done “by the medium of books or of newspapers.” The Latin original makes it clear that public lectures can also be the medium for this unauthorized teaching within the Church. It likewise makes it obvious that the prohibition extends, not only to newspapers, but to all periodical literature.
Here the Ad beatissimi touches upon a point which has been much more fully developed by Pope Pius XII in the allocution Si diligis, one of his most important doctrinal pronouncements. The same section of the Si diligis, incidentally, casts important light on the previous lesson inculcated by the Ad beatissimi.
“Christ Our Lord entrusted the truth which He had brought from heaven to the Apostles, and through them to their successors. He sent His Apostles, as He had been sent by the Father, to teach all nations everything they had heard from Him. The Apostles are, therefore, by divine right the true doctors and teachers in the Church. Besides the lawful successors of the Apostles, namely the Roman Pontiff for the universal Church and Bishops for the faithful entrusted to their care, there are no other teachers divinely constituted in the Church of Christ. But both the Bishops and, first of all, the Supreme Teacher and Vicar of Christ on earth, may associate others with themselves in their work of teacher, and use their advice; they delegate to them the faculty to teach, either by special grant, or by conferring an office to which the faculty is attached. Those who are so called teach, not in their own name, nor by reason of their theological knowledge, but by reason of the mandate which they have received from the lawful Teaching Authority. Their faculty always remains subject to that Authority, nor is it ever exercised in its own right or independently. Bishops, for their part, by conferring this faculty are not deprived of the right to teach; they retain the very grave obligation of supervising the doctrine which others propose in order to help them, [and they retain the very grave obligation] of seeing to its integrity and security. Therefore the legitimate Teaching Authority of the Church is guilty of no injury or no offence to any of those to whom it has given a canonical mission, if it desires to ascertain what they, to whom it has entrusted the mission of teaching, are proposing and defending in their lectures, and in books, notes and reviews intended for the use of their students, as well as in books and other publications intended for the general public” (Si Diligus, 1954).
Occasionally, over the period of the last few years, the lesson of the Ad beatissimi has been misinterpreted. People have been led to imagine that Pope Benedict’s action in prohibiting private individuals from acting as teachers of divine revelation within the Catholic Church in some way implied a rebuke to those enemies of Modernism whom the Modernists and their sympathizers designated as “integralists.”” Nothing could be farther from the truth.
At the time Pope Benedict wrote the Ad beatissimi, and, unfortunately, even after it had been written, there were individuals who arrogated to themselves the positions of independent teachers within the Catholic Church. The Modernist leader Von Hugel was an outstanding offender along this line. He attempted to teach in the Catholic Church, not as an instrument chosen by any member of the hierarchy, but in obvious opposition to the directions of the Holy See. He disdained even seeking an imprimatur for his published works. If ever there was a private person who presumed to set himself up as a teacher in the Church outside the sphere of influence of the ecclesia docens, that person was Friedrich von Hugel. And it is interesting to note that we have never been told of any of the so-called “integralists” whoever violated this command in the Ad beatissimi in anything like the way Von Hugel violated it.
From the entire context of Pope Benedict’s encyclical letter, it is quite obvious that neither the document itself nor any particular section of it can be said to be directed particularly against these “integralists.” As a matter of fact the Ad beatissimi repudiates the errors and the spirit of the Modernists as powerfully and as bitterly as St. Pius X had ever done. It renews the condemnations issued by St. Pius X against Modernism and the Modernists. There is absolutely nothing in the document to support the contention that Pope Benedict XV meant in any way to condemn or to censure the loyal supporters of his sainted predecessor.
Certainly, when the conduct of Modernists like Von Hugel was so well known, and so completely at variance with what is inculcated in the Ad beatissimi, it would seem most probable that, if this particular teaching was directed “against” anyone, it was intended as a lesson and as a childing for the writers of the Modernist group. But, as the passage reads in Pope Benedict’s encyclical, it is simply an order from the Vicar of Christ on earth to Catholic publicists to leave the teaching of God’s revealed word where Our Lord had put it: in the hands of the apostolic collegium. It is a badly needed reminder of the fact that “Besides the lawful successors of the Apostles, namely the Roman Pontiff for the universal Church and Bishops for the faithful entrusted to their care, there are no other teachers divinely constituted in the Church of Christ.” And it is likewise a reminder that the only legitimate teaching in the Church is that of the apostolic ecclesia docens, or by some person who has been called in to aid the hierarchy in their teaching work, under their direction.
Furthermore, this section of the Ad beatissimi advises all Catholics of their duty to submit their teachings to the judgment of the authority Our Lord has established in His Church and to receive the decision of that authority reverently and obediently. The Roman Pontiff is the supreme doctrinal authority for the universal Church militant of the New Testament. When he decides to speak out on any doctrinal point (or, as the Humani generis puts it, when the Sovereign Pontiffs “in actis suis de re hactenus controversa data opera sententiam ferunt’), the others within the Church are obliged in conscience to accept this decision.
(4) The encyclical states that, where there is a question which has not as yet been decided by the Holy See, theologians may legitimately hold opposite views and may defend their own opinions. But it insists that in theological debates which are of themselves quite licit, the norms of truth, justice, and charity must always be observed.
Thus it is the teaching of the Holy See that there is a definite field within which theologians may licitly differ or debate. This field is limited to questions which have not been resolved by an act of the supreme doctrinal authority of the Catholic Church. It is quite obvious that no Catholic lecturer or writer can legitimately debate against a thesis which is taught authoritatively by the magisterium of the Church. And it is no less clearly the teaching of the magisterium that no individual theologian has any right to impose his own OPINION on others. As a matter of fact, theological debate on points which have not been decided by the Holy See can be and very frequently has been of immense value to the cause of sacred theology and to the Church itself.
The official translation reads that: “in such disputes there must be no offensive language, for this may lead to grave breaches of charity.” It does not give an exact rendering of the sense of the Latin original: “Sed in his disputationibus omnis intemperantia sermonis absit, quae graves afferre potest offensiones caritati.” What the Ad beatissimi strictly forbids is intemperate language which can be seriously uncharitable. Offensive reference to a theological opponent is always uncharitable. It is not merely something which may lead to an offense against this virtue. The point made in the encyclical is that any intemperate language in theological debate is forbidden, and may be seriously sinful. The theologian is entitled to defend any opinion of his which is not opposed to the teaching of the Holy See, but he must do this modeste, temperately. He is definitely not allowed to assert that people who oppose this opinion of his are suspect in faith or badly disposed in the line of ecclesiastical discipline because of their stand on this particular question. It is to be noted, incidentally, that the official translation takes no account of the words “hac ipsa tantum causa,” which are found here in the Latin original.
This portion of the Ad beatissimi is a clear reminder of the fact that debate or discussion in the field of sacred theology must always be conducted according to the norms of truth, justice, and charity. A theologian is not meant to debate a point in order to show that he is more intelligent or more erudite than the individual with whom he disagrees. The schola theologica is definitely not an arena for the exercise of vainglory.
The work of theology is the investigation of divinely revealed truth, so that God’s message may be ever better known and loved. Victory is achieved in theological discussion or debate only when the light of theological evidence is attained. A man wins in a theological discussion when, by means of the varying theses considered and the arguments alleged in their favor, he is able to understand what the resolution of the problem should really be. And, if a man is a loyal theologian, genuinely and sincerely loyal to the directives of the Holy See, this is the victory he seeks. It matters little, except to the cause of personal pride, whether the correct resolution of the problem turns out to have been the one originally proposed by oneself or by another.
When it insists that theologians should uphold their own opinions modeste, Pope Benedict’s encyclical takes direct cognizance of the basic reality of a theological opinion. By its very nature an opinion of the type being discussed in the Ad beatissimi is a thesis which has not been directly supported by the authoritative magisterium of the Catholic Church. If a man holds it and defends it, he does so, in the last analysis, because it appears to him to be the correct solution to a theological problem. The very fact that other men, presumably as well versed in the science as he is himself, refuse to accept it, should help him to realize that his own resolution of the problem may be objectively inaccurate or inadequate. If he is defending what is merely a free opinion, something which can be contradicted as licitly as it can be upheld, he should realize that his original position may turn out to be untenable, and he should be loyal and intelligent enough to recognize and accept the truth even if it appears in his opponent’s position.
In the history of the Catholic Church, the violation of the command set forth here in Pope Benedict’s Ad beatissimiappears as one of the most tragic factors. In very considerable measure the heresies which have ruined the spiritual lives of so many thousands, and the evil doctrinal tendencies which have harmed so many more have been due to the obstinacy of theologians who have upheld what they first considered free theological opinions long after any support of these theses was excusable. Pope Benedict XV did the cause of sacred theology a great service when he warned theologians to defend even legitimate free opinions modeste.
To use a man’s support of a free theological opinion opposed to one’s own as a reason to impugn the genuineness of his faith and loyalty to the Church is always an evil tactic. To use intemperate language towards an opponent in theological discussion is always deplorable. And, if that intemperate language is meant to bring others to dislike or to despise that opponent, it is both unjust and uncharitable. (End of Fenton article excerpt)
Comments on Msgr. Fenton’s article, (2-3) above
— “It is wrong for anyone to set aside the doctrinal decisions of competent authority within the Church because these decisions are not pleasing to him… The usual manner of acting in this way is to have some doctrinal decision which does not appeal to a particular author rejected on the pretense that the Sovereign Pontiff, in issuing this judgment, was actually referring to something quite distinct from what he said he was discussing.”
T. Benns: How often have we seen this tactic applied in argumentation presented by Traditionalists? It is practically their stock in trade. Another ruse they use is to pretend that some decision rendered in a document issuing from the ordinary magisterium does not bind in conscience, even though such a document is entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis and has been declared authoritative and binding by actual theologians, even Holy Office officials, writing before the death of Pope Pius XII. When such subterfuge is employed, and the one asserting such things does not desist when advised that they are in error, the rules that apply in theological discussion regarding mere opinions and matters not yet decided by the Holy See do not apply. For then it becomes the duty of those defending the truth to expose and rebuke the person who is scandalizing others by refusing to obey the Roman Pontiffs.
— “The Catholic writer or lecturer must “submit his opinion to the judgment of authority, and then obey as a matter of conscience… No private individual has the right to set himself up as a teacher in the Church” (be this in newspaper articles, books or private lectures).
T. Benns: But as pointed out in several articles on this site, this is true only when such Church officials unquestionably exist; physical impossibility excuses us today. Catholics are obligated to defend the faith when it comes under attack, and it is under attack everywhere. For as St. Thomas Aquinas states: “In cases of necessity where faith is in danger, everyone is bound to proclaim his faith to others, either to give good example and encouragement to the rest of the faithful or to check the attacks of unbelievers…” (II-II Q3, A2, reply 1). Pope Pius XII explains in his address, The Mission of Catholic Women, Sept. 29, 1957, entered into the AAS:
“The initiative of the lay apostolate is perfectly justified even without a prior explicit mission from the hierarchy… Personal initiative plays a great part in protecting the faith and Catholic life especially in countries where contacts with the hierarchy are difficult or practically impossible. In such circumstances the Christians upon whom this task falls must, with God’s grace, assume all their responsibilities. Even so nothing can be undertaken against the explicit and implicit will of the Church or contrary in any way to the rules of faith or morals or ecclesiastical discipline.” While many complain that the articles on this site are too long and technical, it is precisely because we must strictly abide by what Pope Pius XII dictated here, documenting how things should proceed from the teachings of the Continual Magisterium, Canon Law and the moral theologians.
— “Besides the lawful successors of the Apostles, namely the Roman Pontiff for the universal Church and Bishops for the faithful entrusted to their care, there are no other teachers divinely constituted in the Church of Christ. But both the Bishops and, first of all, the Supreme Teacher and Vicar of Christ on earth, may associate others with themselves in their work of teacher, and use their advice; they delegate to them the faculty to teach…”
T. Benns: Si diligus, from which the above quote is taken, was written in 1954; The Mission of Catholic Women in 1957. Si diligus addresses the protocol for when there are valid bishops in communion with a canonically elected Roman Pontiff; the later address to women considers the situation where there are no hierarchy to consult. The two cannot be said to be the same, and it is the pope himself who makes this distinction.
— “It is simply an order from the Vicar of Christ on earth to Catholic publicists to leave the teaching of God’s revealed word where Our Lord had put it: in the hands of the apostolic collegium. Besides the lawful successors of the Apostles, namely the Roman Pontiff for the universal Church and Bishops for the faithful entrusted to their care, there are no other teachers divinely constituted in the Church of Christ.” And it is likewise a reminder that the only legitimate teaching in the Church is that of the apostolic ecclesia docens, or by some person who has been called in to aid the hierarchy in their teaching work, under their direction.”
T. Benns: Here is a pointed reminder that it is the Apostolic College, with St. Peter’s successor at its head, who possess the teaching authority in the Church; not the bishops alone. As stated above, the Pope himself has called in the laity to do the work of the hierarchy when bishops and priests are unavailable.
Comments on Msgr. Fenton’s article, (4), above
— It is quite obvious that no Catholic lecturer or writer can legitimately debate against a thesis which is taught authoritatively by the magisterium of the Church. And it is no less clearly the teaching of the magisterium that no individual theologian has any right to impose his own OPINION on others.
T. Benns: And yet Traditionalists debate theses taught authoritatively by the magisterium every day, both on the Internet and in public debate forums. Despite being presented with overwhelming evidence, they refuse to desist from their heresies and schism. This hinges mainly on the fact that they deny the necessity of the papacy for the Church’s very existence and the inability of the Church to operate as such at all during an interregnum, under Pope Pius XII’s Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis.
— “What the Ad beatissimi strictly forbids is intemperate language which can be seriously uncharitable. Offensive reference to a theological opponent is always uncharitable… Any intemperate language in theological debate is forbidden and may be seriously sinful. The theologian is entitled to defend any opinion of his WHICH IS NOT OPPOSED TO THE TEACHING OF THE HOLY SEE… To use intemperate language towards an opponent in theological discussion is always deplorable. And, if that intemperate language is meant to bring others to dislike or to despise that opponent, it is both unjust and uncharitable.”
T. Benns: Once again, no theologian or anyone calling himself a Catholic writer has any right to defend error, and no one writing today is a theologian anyway. And yet Traditionalists defend error on a daily basis. Those defending even opinions proscribed by the Holy See cannot be allowed to prevail without being publicly corrected. And those defending even tolerated opinions must not accuse their opponents of heresy or other errors for holding the opposite view. Some Traditionalists defend their abuse of opponents by stating that they are allowed to point out unfavorable facts about their person, and in certain cases this is true, (if it could affect the truth of what their opponent is saying, or if they justifiably question their motives). But if they proceed to an ad hominem attack without ever answering the legitimate argument presented by an opponent, resorting to the personal attack instead — justified or not — then they are still guilty of violating charity. And this has been the case for decades.
— “In very considerable measure the heresies which have ruined the spiritual lives of so many thousands, and the evil doctrinal tendencies which have harmed so many more have been due to the obstinacy of theologians who have upheld what they first considered free theological opinions long after any support of these theses was excusable.”
T. Benns: Many examples of what Msgr. Fenton states above could be offered here, including the definition of infallibility, which includes teachings of the ordinary magisterium entered into the Acta Apostolica Sedis; the validity of episcopal consecrations during an interregnum without the papal mandate, a teaching contrary to Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis; the heretical Gallicanist proposition that bishops (who are not even bishops) have any sort of authority whatsoever without being united to a canonically elected Roman Pontiff; the heresy that jurisdiction during an interregnum is supplied by Christ Himself and many others that could be mentioned here. Yes, thanks to evil theologians and pseudo-clergy pretending to be knowledgeable in theology, thousands and thousands have been deceived. All thanks to the Modernists Msgr. Fenton so relentlessly condemned. (To be concluded next week.)
by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 10, 2023
© Copyright 2023, T. Stanfill Benns (All emphasis within quotes added by the author)
It will soon be 65 years since Pope Pius XII breathed his last and ended the juridical Church’s time on this earth. In an attempt to shed greater light on what the last true pope faced during his tempestuous papacy, we offer the following.
Both in my 2018 book The Phantom Church in Rome and in articles featured on this site, I have stated that I believe, based on the observations of those familiar with the papacy of Pope Pius XII, that Pope Pius was the victim of a cult-type situation in his final days, which may explain some of the decisions he made or failed to make. Recently some readers have questioned the use of the phrase “at the mercy of” his inner circle in reference to Pope Pius XII’s control by his Jesuit “handlers,” discussed in a previous blog, attempting to make it appear that I was inferring that Pope Pius XII’s will was completely subjugated by these individuals, who acted and spoke in his name. But this is not what I was referring to. Here I offer this phrase as defined in the dictionaries: “Wholly in the power of; with no way to protect oneself against — Merriam-Webster; If one person or thing is at the mercy of another, the first person or thing is in a situation where they cannot prevent themselves being harmed or affected by the second (Collins Online Dictionary). But what exactly did I mean when I said it?
When I state that Pope Pius XII was “at the mercy” of his advisors and even closest confidantes, I mean he was in a situation where he was unable to help or defend himself from his inner circle, because he was not fully aware they were not who they pretended to be — his loyal advisors and friends. They exercised power over him yes, but they never overpowered him. Pius XII most likely was the victim of a subtle form of brainwashing known as coercive persuasion. “Coercive persuasion attempts to force people to change beliefs, ideas, attitudes or behaviors using psychological pressure, undue influence, threats, anxiety, intimidation and/or stress… In coercive acts, deceptive or harmful methods propel the intended changes, not reason.” (In other words, there is always an element of fraud involved.) Strong and cook contrasted the two: “Persuasion uses argument to compel power to give way to reason while coercion uses force to compel reason to give way to power” (Strong & Cook, 1992). Below an attempt will be made to explain how such techniques may have been used to co-opt Pius XII.
Stages of coercive persuasion
This form of brainwashing does not completely take over the will but in certain cases — and to varying extents — bends it in a certain direction that favors the intent of the one exerting the malicious influence. And there are stages to its application. In writing his Combatting Cult Mind Control (1988), ex-cult member and exit counselor, Steven Hassan first studied the work of the pre-eminent expert on mind control, Robert Jay Lifton, who wrote Thought Control and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. Hassan states that there are three initial steps to gaining control of the mind, developed by the Communist Chinese: unfreezing, or the complete breakdown of the person’s reality, including both physical and mental health, which involves a) sensory overload, which certainly happened with Pope Pius XII during the war years and following the Communist takeover of China, Southeast Asia and eastern Europe. All of Pius XII’s biographers mention his great fear of Communism. And b) Sleep deprivation, which is one of the most common and powerful techniques for breaking a person down. Also mentioned is dietary change, or lack of proper nutrition, which certainly applied to Pope Pius during his extended illness in 1953-1954.
The next step is changing, which occurred following Pope Pius XII’s recovery from that grave illness in 1955. And the final step is refreezing, which is the making of the “new man” or ideal cult member; docile, obedient, unquestioning, eager to please. As will be seen below, Pope Pius XII was subjected to all these steps and the coercion proceeded to a certain point. But his handlers could never obtain his complete cooperation, and so the refreezing process envisioned for the papacy and the Church would not happen until after his death. Traditionalists have portrayed Pope Pius XII as a willing cooperator in the destruction of the Church, making changes that easily “led in” to the revision of the liturgy and the false Vatican 2 council. But he cooperated only as far as he dared to keep himself alive, and Traditionalists neither give him credit for holding the line nor appreciate the agonizing mental struggle he endured to protect the Church he loved. And that struggle began before he ever became pope.
(Coercive persuasion as used in subtitles below has been abbreviated to CP.)
CP stage one, readjusting reality: 1939-1953
In 1939 there were indications that Pope Pius XI, who authored the official condemnation of Communism, did not die of natural causes. In writing his final but unpublished encyclical Humani Generis Unitatis, author Antoni Gronowicz maintains in his work The Hidden Encyclical of Pope Pius XI, it was clear that Pope Pius XI had become a “disillusioned man…(He) was convinced that Mussolini’s Fascism and Germany’s Hitlerism were no better than Russian Bolshevism,” (God’s Broker: The Life of John Paul 2). Gronowicz revealed that despite all attempts to keep the existence of the papal encyclical that condemned the Nazi’s persecution of the Jews a secret, news of its impending release reached Hitler, who ordered Nazi intelligence operatives to “poison the pope as soon as possible.” On Feb. 9, 1939, as Pope Pius XI worked to complete his last encyclical, Gronowicz reported that the pope collapsed after eating breakfast, “roll(ing) on the floor in tremendous pain. The next day, he was dead.” According to accounts contained in the memoirs of Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, a physician called in to attend Pius XI administered an injection that Tisserant claims caused the Pope’s death. And the Cardinal identified this physician as the father of Mussolini’s mistress. Pope Pius XII would suffer the same fate.
As Pope Pius XI’s Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) could scarcely have been unaware of what transpired. Moreover, it is most likely that he wrote in part, or at least contributed his own thoughts to his predecessor’s final encyclical. In his 2013 work Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca writes: “As Secretary of State… Pacelli oversaw the drafting of Mit Brenunder Sorge,” the papal condemnation of Nazi theory and practice, specifically anti-Semitism. Pius XI reportedly told a group of German bishops visiting the Vatican a few days after the encyclical was issued ”Not one line leaves this office which [Pacelli] does not recognize’” (Ibid.). Many have wondered why Pius XI’s final encyclical was never released by Pope Pius XII during the war, but seeing how even the prospect of its release ended for Pius XI, one can certainly excuse Pius XII for being cautious in issuing any further condemnation of the Nazis. And some of the hidden encyclical was echoed in Pope Pius XII’s own Humani generis.
When his health began drastically declining in 1954, Pius XII had no choice but to minimize his activities and delegate many of his duties. It was the onset of this illness, as first reported in August of 1953 by his physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, that casts a decided pallor over his last years in the Vatican and creates unease concerning just how much Pius knew and how freely he was able to act. Galeazzi-Lisi treated then monitored the gastric illness that began in the late summer of 1953 and left the pope close to death in 1954. The complaint was attributed to his scrupulous use of a chromic acid preparation left in the papal bathroom “accidentally” by his dentist, a dentist to whom Galeazzi-Lisi himself had referred the pope. Intended for a one-time application only, it is suggested that the preparation caused the hiccups and inability to eat, resulting in weight loss and the general weakness then troubling the Pope. But not so coincidentally, other factors were at work that also greatly affected Pius’ mental health as well and apparently destroyed his confidence in Montini and Montini’s close friends.
Montini’s father, Giorgio, was active in the Christian Democrat party founded in 1919 but suppressed under Fascist rule in Italy. Although the party had won a decisive victory in 1948, defeating the Communists, Pope Pius XII was displeased over the direction the Christian Democrats had taken following the 1948 elections. When the Christian Democrat De Gasperi assumed leadership of the Italian government in 1945, it did not take long for Pius XII to realize that concessions, however gradual, would be made to the Communists. He urged Luigi Gedda, head of Catholic Action to form committees to counteract this imperceptible slide. It is said by some that he even suggested courting Italian neo-fascist elements to help stem the leftist leanings of De Gasperi. The Pope suspected that Montini leaned toward the left wing of the Christian Democrats as well, when the Vatican had never relented in its stand against atheistic Communism. And moreover, De Gasperi and Montini were close friends, as might be expected. Pope Pius found himself politically stalemated and faced with a difficult situation that would not be easily remedied.
Another scandal rocked the Vatican in April 1953, with the discovery of 21-year-old Wilma Montesi’s body on the beach at Ostia (see the Time magazine article HERE). Her untimely death exposed a side of Italy most embarrassing to the Holy See, one that would finger clergy, government officials and others as members of an occult group given to black masses, orgies and drug use. The scandal implicated Don Luigi Sturzo, co-founder of the Christian Democrat party and members of Rome’s “Black Nobility,” historically Roman aristocrats supporting the papacy. The Mafioso named as the host of these sacrilegious ceremonies was Ugo Montagna, styled the Marquis of San Bartolomeo, possibly a distant relative of Giovanni Montini. “The Brescia family from which Montini derives his nobility and original (Hebrew) lineage is an outgrowth of the original Bartolome (Bartolino) of Benedictis (family),” (Rev. Saenz-Arriaga,The New Montinian Church). But many of the details of this scandal would not become public until nearly a year later, during the throes of Pope Pius XII’s health crisis, when Montagna’s mistress, Anna Maria Caglio, began to tell her story.
Those frequenting Montagna’s lodge reportedly included his landlord, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, Pope Pius XII’s personal physician; his half-brother and director of Public Works for Vatican City, Count Enrico Galeazzi; Pope Pius XII’s nephew, Prince Carlo Pacelli; Montagna’s “close friend,” Luigi Gedda, head of Catholic Action and other Vatican City officials. Gedda allegedly was involved in purchasing a car through Vatican City administrative channels for Montagna’s mistress, Anna Maria Caglio, according to Caglio. It was Galeazzi-Lisi who would insist on using the experimental embalming procedures following the Pope’s death that caused Pius’ body to turn green and emit an intolerable stench; this despite the reportedly strenuous objections of Sr. Pasqualina that Pope Pius XII never would have approved of such a procedure, (Paul I. Murphy, La Popessa, 1983). Pope Pius XII later dismissed Galeazzi-Lisi in 1955 for peddling unauthorized versions of his diary. He mysteriously reappeared during the pope’s final illness, but following the embalming disaster, he was censured and dismissed by the cardinals Oct. 20, 1958 (Wikipedia).
In his work, All Rome Trembled, Melton S. Davis reported that long before ecumenical restructuring in the Church, post-war Italy was only nominally Catholic and clamoring for change, especially concessions to the workers. These changes were actually facilitated by the Montesi affair, which put on display the corruption of the nobility, their involvement with organized crime and resulted in an Italy unified against that corruption and economic largesse. Supporting his fellow countrymen in their pursuit of a more democratic Italy was, predictably, Msgr. Giovanni Montini, then Vatican pro-secretary of state. Montini condemned himself at the time of the scandal with the following words: “The Church will have to reconcile Catholic tradition with the humanism of modern times,” (All Rome Trembled). Cardinal Lercaro was of the same mind, for he stated: “The Church will be ruined if it does not go along a new path.”
Already the eagles were gathering around the corpse of the papacy. But Msgr. Montini’s intrigues and insubordination did not end with his Christian Democrat affiliations. At about the same time the Montesi scandal erupted in Rome, he was busy siding with his friends Roncalli and Rev. Congar in the worker-priest affair. This scandal erupted in France while Roncalli was nuncio, a position Montini had secured for him by pressuring Pius XII. For evangelization purposes, Cardinal Suhard allowed Catholic priests to use a novel approach to effect conversions by working alongside lapsed Catholics in the factories and markets in hopes of attracting them to religion. Instead, many of them began neglecting their priestly duties and joined in with Marxists and Communists agitating for social and political changes. Some even left the priesthood to marry. Roncalli sat on the situation and failed to address it. Montini endorsed a book, Lay People in the Church, written by Rev. Yves Congar, sympathizing with the movement. (The photo insert above was taken from a 1970s issue of the Kentucky publication Veritas.)
The proverbial straw came when he discovered Montini had been embroiled in conciliatory correspondence with the Soviet Union. Pius XII became aware of Montini’s misbehavior in 1954 during his illness (resulting from use of the toothpaste preparation “accidentally” left in his bathroom). By the time Montini’s activities were uncovered, the Pope was in precarious health, and such a discovery could not help but worsen his condition. According to Piers Compton’s The Broken Cross, Montini met with his childhood friend Togliatti (then head of the Communist Party in Italy) and certain members of the Christian Democrat party in July of 1944. A Protestant Archbishop from Sweden advised the Pope of Montini’s breach after gaining access to certain intelligence reports. Pius immediately opened an enquiry into the matter, which revealed that Montini’s private secretary, the Jesuit Tondi who later abandoned the priesthood, was the Russian agent responsible for notifying the KGB concerning the identities of priests and bishops secretly sent behind the Iron Curtain by Pope Pius XII. The incident was obliquely mentioned in the 1973 work The Jesuit, a fact-based novel written by former Jesuit John Gallahue.
As the head of Vatican intelligence, Montini certainly knew the whereabouts of clergy secretly sent into Russia or could easily track them through his contacts. And a copy of a purported Office of Strategic Services document declassified in the 1980s confirmed his activities and stated that the meeting between Montini and Togliatti was held at the home of a Christian Democrat minister in July of 1944, (Montini’s brother Lodovico? Or Don Luigi Sturzo?) This meeting, the document states, initiated the alliance of the Christian Democrats with the Socialists and Communists in Italy in order to obtain a majority vote in the 1948 Italian election, won by the elder Montini’s Christian Democrat party. Also drafted during the meeting, according to the document, was a plan for a “practical understanding” between the Vatican and the Holy See establishing an era of “new relations.” But the document is dated July 13 of 1944, so apparently Pius XII only become aware of this betrayal some 10 years later. If this is the case, it is roundabout proof that Pius XII was not privy to the true nature of Montini’s correspondence with the various intelligence services or any other operations launched through the auspices of an organization known as Pro Deo.
Rev. Felix Morlion established the intelligence agency, The Center of Information Pro Deo, in Lisbon, Portugal just prior to World War II. Wemhoff reports that Montini was co-founder of the organization. However, “Morlion’s propaganda and espionage empire was [first] set up in Brussels before the war and went on to include the Pro Deo University in Rome, now known as LUISS. Funded by the CIA and by Fiat president Vittorio Valletta – [another] Bilderberger – Morlion’s “journalistic” establishment provided US intelligence with information on the Vatican and from a worldwide network of correspondents,” (http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/3133). After Morlion was driven into Portugal by the Nazis in 1941, OSS head William Donovan brought him to the U.S. Shortly after the Allied victory in Europe, Donovan and Morlion succeeded in establishing Pro Deo in the Vatican itself, with the help of Montini. In 1944, Pope Pius XII even inaugurated Donovan as a Knight of St. Sylvester for his service to the Church. Later, the U.S. branch of Pro Deo was headed up by Francis Cardinal Spellman (Wemhoff, p. 367). Spellman also was the de facto head of the Knights of Malta, its “protector and spiritual advisor” (Messianic Legacy).
“Cardinal” Montini would later be on hand for the signing of the Vatican-Moscow agreement in October 1962, the long-awaited culmination of his initial bid for détente. The occasion was the deal struck by President Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Roncalli to back Russian missiles out of Cuba following the Cuban missile crises, resulting in “dialogue” with the Vatican and Soviet Russia. Morlion was one of the negotiators assigned to deal with Russia. All this occurred during the course of Vatican 2, providing a living illustration of how all monuments of the past must be bulldozed. In April of 1963, the release of Pacem in Terris sealed the “opening” to the left, with Roncalli clearly teaching religious liberty and the brotherhood of man. This document, according to Montini’s biographer, William Barrett, smacked of Montini’s ideology and style, (Shepherd of Mankind). Later Morlion, (also “Cardinal” Bea) would figure into the Novus Ordo church’s change of heart concerning its characterization of the Jews in the liturgy, (“How the Jews Changed Catholic Thinking,” Time magazine, 1966). Also in 1963, the Christian Democrats formally signed a coalition with the Italian Socialist Party.
It is not hard to understand the extent to which Pope Pius XII must have felt betrayed by Montini, considering his endorsement of Donovan and the trust he placed in his then Pro-Secretary. After all, Montini had access to funds from the Vatican Bank, and could easily have financed any number of covert and hard-to-trace operations that compromised the Church and Her interests. It appears that Pius’ faith in his own judgments was shaken, and he may have become convinced that the Church would end with him. After his death, Time magazine reported: “In his preoccupation with the world at large and with his diplomat’s tendency to avoid sharp edges, Pope Pius often neglected the Vatican itself. He seemed to shrink from making much-needed appointments to the central machinery of the church. Result, at the time of his death: 15 vacancies in a superannuated College of Cardinals, no Secretary of State, no governor for Vatican City, no camerlengo (see The Succession). Said one of his closest advisers sadly last week: ‘He provided badly for his successor’”.
America wages war on the Church
In The Phantom Church of Rome, quoted above in part, I went into great detail regarding the extent of the doctrinal warfare the American government conducted against Catholics, first implemented in 1953. In his book John Courtenay Murray, Time/Life, and the American Proposition, international attorney David Wemhoff described this warfare as a “planned attack against a basic hostile doctrinal system” combined simultaneously with a propaganda-style campaign to promote socially acceptable religious ideals. Originally developed as a program to combat Communism, it was redesigned to primarily target (religious) “decision makers and their staffs.” It grew “out of the propaganda agencies of World War II,” agencies that were later coordinated from the Vatican by then pro-secretary of state Giovanni Montini. Using Montini’s contacts, priests and other clergy engaged in teaching positions were employed to pump neo-Modernist poison into the veins of the Catholic intelligentsia.
And who was one of those well-versed in at least the Catholic media’s campaign to combat the spread of Communist ideology? None other than Felix Morlion and his Apostolate of Public Opinion, developed during the war years in Belgium. This journalistic approach helped mold American opinion to accept the American Proposition, much as today’s media was used to sell Progressivism to the American public. A later-released 1957 intelligence document reveals that: “Felix A. Morlion, O.P., is a Belgian who became a Dominican after engineering studies at Louvain. He served for Psychological Warfare Activities in the United States from 1941-44 with other leaders of anti-totalitarianism. He was first on the Nazi blacklist for his Brussels International Pro Deo Center. The impact of the American way of life brought him and his associates to plan the creation of a university to apply the philosophy of the American Founding Fathers to the international promotion of democracy under God.”
It was Morlion, Wemhoff relates, who first hosted the promulgation of the American Proposition at Pro Deo University in November of 1953 during Pius XII’s illness. American Jesuit John Courtenay Murray, with the help of Time/Life had written about it at length for years and Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, also Rev. Francis Connell, had diligently opposed him in American Ecclesiastical Review articles all those years. What exactly was the American Proposition? Crisis magazine wrote in 1999: “Murray claimed that America was a pluralistic society divided into four disparate camps: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and secularist [as also described in Protestant, Catholic, Jew by the Jewish theologian Will Herberg in 1955]. For all Americans, the First Amendment’s clauses amounted to “articles of peace” that enabled them all to coexist. Murray wanted more than mere coexistence, though. He hoped that Americans would rediscover the natural law and use it.” It was a much-awaited “reversal” of Pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of Americanism, seemingly coming from the Church Herself.
Murray’s errors as reflected in the propositions included the denial that the Catholic state was the true ideal to be pursued by society, the belief that full-blown religious liberty in a democracy is a valid political principle, the teaching that it is enough that the democratic state generally guarantee the Church full freedom of religion and nothing more, and the implication that Pope Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei can be interpreted in such a way that it denies God His supreme right to be worshipped. His book was thoroughly denounced by Msgr. Fenton in an October 1961 American Ecclesiastical Review article. There Fenton pointed out repeatedly that while Murray invoked Pope Leo XIII and other pontiffs as supportive of his theories, Murray understood their teaching in a way never intended by those popes and not consistent with the constant teaching of the Church. Fenton stated in closing his article:
“It is not a matter of Catholic politic or of Catholic tactic, but a matter of Christian doctrine, that in itself and objectively the state or the civil society is obligated to give public and corporate worship to God, to pay to God the debt of acknowledgement due to Him because of His supreme excellence and because of our complete dependence upon Him…. God Himself has signified clearly that He wants to be worshipped. In the final analysis, this and this alone is the reason why the Church has refused to accept the separation of Church and state as a thesis. This is the basic and the essential reason why it is the Catholic thesis that objectively every community, every state, as well as every individual, should recognize and acknowledge the Catholic Church for what it truly is, the one and only supernatural kingdom of the living God on earth. And this information comes from the explicit statement of Pope Leo XIII.
“The Church cannot cease to preach these truths until the end of time. Certainly it would be more fashionable on the part of the Church and on the part of its members to speak and to write as if the Church, objectively, had no right to anything more than freedom from oppression on the part of the various states that go to make up the world society in which we live. Likewise it would please liberals both outside of and within the Church’s membership if the magisterium could teach that, in these enlightened days, a truly democratic state has no objective obligation or ideal higher than that of granting true liberty to the Catholic Church and to all the other religious organizations within its borders.
“…It is imperative that, in these most dangerous times, the teachers of the Catholic Church should not lose sight of the fact that the Church exists in order to glorify God through the salvation and the sanctification of human souls. We who have been privileged to assist in the teaching of Catholic truth will fail most abjectly if we, by our carelessness, or our sympathy for the liberalism of the day, in any way obscure the truth that every man and every society must be considered as objectively bound to worship God and His Son ACCORDING TO THE RITE OF THE TRUE RELIGION, which is the religion of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.” And once Vatican 2 declared Murray’s dogma as their church’s credo, society lost forever the opportunity to worship Our Lord as He desires to be worshipped in the Latin Mass. And this occurred only because they had already lost the only guarantor of that worship‘s validity and integrity, the fount of all Catholic truth — Christ’s Vicar on earth.
Embattled as the Church was, it then appeared that She endorsed democracy as the savior of the world and a governmental system that would be acceptable to, and even protective of, the Catholic faith. But as Wemhoff explains in his work, all of this was an intricate web of deceit woven by the CIA and its collaborators to pretend to protect the Church while corrupting Her doctrines. The very mention of psychological warfare in itself indicates that much preparation had gone into this program and that it operated on multiple levels. It is naïve to think that the pope himself was not directly targeted by U.S. intelligence because this is exactly what Msgr. Montini was doing as Pope Pius XII’s pro-secretary. And that this devious plan went even beyond Montini’s eventual dismissal as Pope Pius XII’s pro-secretary and confidante is not hard to imagine.
“Tensions within the church of Pius XII over doctrinal matters intensified through the late 1940s and reached a crescendo after the publication of the papal encyclical Humani Generis, (August 1950). In it, Pius XII condemned what he saw as the “false theories” of modern philosophies that were affecting the work of Catholic thinkers — whose adherents were labeled by critics as exponents of a nouvelle théologie, a “new” theology that threatened to undermine the very foundations of the Church’s teaching… Some critics at the time agreed that Pius XII perhaps was speaking too frequently and too expansively on matters far beyond his competency. The result was not so much the inflation of papal words as their trivialization…Many of Pius XII’s advisors and admirers admitted that in the latter part of his pontificate especially the papal court exhibited a tendency toward inertia, stagnation, and reaction. For… Jacques Maritain, it was especially lamentable that Pius XII gave free rein to the “archaic methods” and mentality of the men of the Holy Office’” (Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca, p. 272)
And this is why Maritain, an ardent promoter of the American Proposition and a close friend of friend of Montini, also Msgr. Fenton’s arch-enemy John Courtenay Murray, were on the list of those to be formally condemned before Pope Pius XII died. But they were only two of several already silenced. In a Forbes magazine online review of Ventresca’s work in 2014, writer John Farrell quotes Prof. Don O’Leary as follows: “Catholic scholarship was severely curtailed in the latter half of Pius’s pontificate. Some theologians were forbidden by Vatican authorities to teach or publish on the basis of guidelines such as those laid down in Humani Generis. Those who were censured for their views, or who were very restricted in expressing their views, included, most notably the French Dominicans Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu, and the Jesuits Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jean Daniélou, [Joseph Ratzinger] and John Courtney Murray.”
This also is noted by Ventresca and is supported by Rev. Robert Nugent’s work Silence Speaks, which details communications between the censured theologians and the ecclesiastical authorities and describes how the disciplinary actions taken against these men affected them both personally and spiritually.” So Pope Pius XII WAS doing something to counteract these abuses; but in the eyes of his critics he wasn’t doing enough. Already the war years and his doctrinal battles had taken their toll, and the Communist menace continued to haunt him. He also was faced with the many difficulties that arose with reconstruction in the countries devastated by war, following World War II. This adds up to the sensory overload that contributes to unfreezing, mentioned above. And then, his health began to slowly deteriorate.
End of CP stage one: the Pope gets sick; 1953-1954
Paul I. Murphy reports in his work on Sr. Pasqualina, (La Popessa, 1983) that Pope Pius XII was recovering from “a severe cold in late December of 1949,” and it was then that Sr. Pasqualina began to detect “…subtle, troubling changes in the pope’s physical health.” Ventresca relates that the German Bishop Aloysius Muench recorded in his diary in October of 1953 that Pius XII’s ”… illness of last winter took much of him,” meaning he had again been ill in 1952, early 1953. But we know already that he began having severe symptoms from his chromic acid poisoning by the end of August 1953, as reported by his doctor, Ricardo Galeazzi-Lisi. These included severe hiccupping and constant gastric pain and distress.
In a year’s time, Pope Pius XII lost some 40 pounds. Alden Hatch and Seamus Walshe report in their work Crown of Glory, The Life of Pope Pius XII (1957) that by the time he returned to the Vatican from Castel Gondolfo in the summer of 1954: “He could eat very little and was suffering from extreme pain… He was literally a wraith… From a normal 145 pounds his weight was down to 105 pounds…The pope’s physicians were in despair.” His violent hiccupping and chronic pain undoubtedly made it next to impossible for him to sleep. This is the equivalent of the dietary and sleep deprivations used in the “unfreezing” process mentioned earlier, to disorient those who are to be subjected to coercive persuasion.
Even after Pope Pius XII recovered in December of 1954, Ventresca says in his work: “Each successive health scare left the aging pontiff weaker and dependent physically and emotionally on a small and increasingly restricted circle of attendants and confidants. The narrow and rarified world of the papal court grew much more insular with competing agendas and petty jealousies combining to accentuate the dawning awareness of a pending transition in power… Although Pius XII maintained a full and active schedule with no signs of altering his routine of constant work until the early morning hours, the effects of age and declining health were readily evident” (Ibid, pgs. 290, 293). And this is when the second step used in mind control began to take shape: the “changing,” a reinterpretation of the targeted victim’s reality.
William Barrett, in his Shepherd of Mankind: A Biography of Pope Paul VI, (1964; pgs. 234-35), wrote that during the severe illness the pope suffered in 1954, only certain individuals were allowed to attend to him or consult with him. These included his housekeeper Sr. Pasqualina, his doctor, Ricardo Galeazzi-Lisi, Galeazzi-Lisi’s half-brother, Count Enrico Galeazzi, head of Vatican City Public Works and Pius XII’s two nephews. Some say it also included Fr. Tardini. “The people around the Pope were honestly motivated, no doubt. To them his health was more important than anything he was called upon to do, anything he was required to sign, anybody he was supposed to see. Granting the truth of all that, the Holy Father himself had made intrusion upon even his time of illness necessary. He had delegated no authority not even in the all-important secretariat of state.
“Giovanni Battista Montini had to challenge the sick room coterie in order to clear matters that had to be cleared to obtain signatures which had to be obtained. He made enemies in doing so and even Pius the XII cooled toward him. A man who is ill likes those who see to his comfort and is antagonized by anyone who disturbs or upsets him. Monsignor Montini was the disturber, the upsetter and the five people close to the ailing pontiff were the dispensers of comfort. A rift developed which was never named nor acknowledged but which existed without the naming nor the acknowledgement.” Montini was dismissed as pro-secretary am and on November 3, 1954, he received word that Pius XII was sending him to Milan as its Archbishop, a position that usually came with the cardinalate.
But Montini received no red hat in Pius XII’s 1953 consistory, his last appointment of cardinals, nor would he receive one as Archbishop of Milan. This was interpreted as a rebuke for his Communist affiliations by Vatican officials. In 1953, both Montini and Fr. Domenico Tardini held positions as Pope Pius XII’s pro-secretaries of state. At that time, Tardini also was bypassed as a recipient of the red hat. Did the pope think perhaps that Montini had something to do with the poisoning? We will never know. But Pope Pius XII’s reality surely deteriorated even further with the discovery, prior to Montini’s dismissal, that his own pro-secretary, his right-hand man heading intelligence operations during the war, with easy access to Vatican funds, was in league with the Communists. This after Pope Pius XII had condemned them in a manner binding on all Catholics in the July 1949 Holy Office instruction on Communism.
Some might be tempted to suggest that Pius XII reacted to Montini’s betrayal as he did only as a sort of cover-up for his own actions, slapping Montini’s wrist by exiling him to Milan versus formally disciplining him. But if Pius XII was complicit in Montini’s dealings, why the attempt to poison the pope which very nearly succeeded? And if he was truly involved in the plot to modernize the Church, why did he cut himself off from the Curia after 1954? Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton reports in his Diaries that one Hungarian monsignor commented that there were only four members of the Curia, at most, who were true Catholics, and others strongly suggested a reform of the Curia. Fenton privately questioned Pope Pius XII’s failure to openly condemn the traitors in the Church, but in his American Ecclesiastical Review articles, praised and defended Pius until he left the Catholic University of America in the early 1960s.
According to Paul Murphy, Pius XII “snubbed” the Curia in his final years and one Cardinal described his ruling style as “Byzantine and weird.” Murphy quotes Fr. Tardini as condemning Pius XII for his “lack of trust in others” and his “incapability of working with the hierarchy…” Tardini accredited the pope’s failures to an “inability to open his spirit and confide with the clergy.” Cardinal Tisserant is said to have pronounced before his death, “The Church appears to be dying with him” (Ibid. Murphy, La Popessa). The author further observes: “Cardinals and bishops throughout the world, responsible for vast congregations and faced with problems of great urgency, found that they could not obtain access to the Pope when they visited Rome and were forced to make their own separate deals with Curia officials. The hierarchy considered Pius’s actions a direct slap… One cardinal, after waiting in vain for several months to be received by Pius, finally gave up in utter disgust. ‘Let’s all dress up as football players.’ he said sarcastically at a meeting of fellow prelates. ‘Then we will certainly be received right away.’”
The perpetrators of the great betrayal
The remaining years of his papacy following his recovery seems to have been dedicated to liturgical matters and addresses and encyclicals concerning Our Lady and Our Lord, the problems in Hungary with Cardinals Mindszenty and Wyszinski, Catholic Action, lay organizations, youth, health, the faithful and social problems, to seminarians and religious and various other secular topics. One can find binding doctrinal statements in those writings, entered into the AAS, but they certainly did not have the substance of those constitutions and encyclicals issued in the early part of his pontificate. It should be noted here that all of Pius XII’s major doctrinal decisions, with the exception of Ad apostolorum principis were executed prior to 1955. Si diligus on the canonization of Pope Pius X in 1954 and Ad Sinarum Gentum on the Chinese bishops in October of 1954 were the only other two strictly doctrinal instructions issued between 1950 and 1954, and the occasions for these were the correction and instruction of the hierarchy, for all the good it did the pope.
I think it’s fairly obvious Pope Pius XII was held hostage from statements made by people such as Fr. Eilers, who died while undertaking a journey to Rome to investigate the claim that Pius XII was basically being held captive in the Vatican in the mid 1950s. (This was first reported by Yves Compton in his The Broken Cross,1984, available for reading HERE.) And then there’s also the statement of Msgr. Fenton from his diaries: ‘Have the Commies any monopoly on brainwashing? Think of Pasqualina and the Count” (Journal 4, 1956-1958). Not everyone believes that Sr. Pasqualina was a part of the coercive persuasion process, although it is possible, even likely, that she was. But who was this “Count”? Some believe it could have been the architect Pope Pius XII was close friends with — Enrico Galeazzi, Administrator of Vatican City, head of the Knights of Columbus in Italy and half-brother of Pope Pius XII’s physician Galeazzi-Lisi.
Now the significance of this, of course, is that in 1953 Pope Pus XII, according to his doctor Galeazzi-Lisi announced that he had been poisoned by a chromic solution used as toothpaste that was prescribed by a dentist to whom Galeazzi had referred him. I think it’s pretty obvious that the enemy tried to cripple him and get rid of him on numerous occasions. If there was any “inertia,” as mentioned above, in the latter half of his papacy it was due to one thing: he was being controlled by a cabal of Jesuits and other Vatican officials who did not have his best interests at heart — and that is putting it mildly. They more or less kept him on house arrest and had access to him at all times for various projects they were working on, shall we say, for lack of a better word. But most of what they were really doing was well hidden from the pope.
Count Galeazzi, along with Mafioso and Freemason Michele Sindona, of Vatican banking scandal fame, also were close friends of Pope Paul 6 according to some reports. Their organization helped fund Paul 6’s father’s political organization, the Christian Democrats. “Cardinal Francis Spellman… was intimately associated with Bernardino Nogara. [Nogaro was] the mastermind behind the Vatican bank and with Count Enrico Galeazzi [director of Public Works for Vatican City], who with Michelle Sindona watched over Vatican investments and banking in the early 1960s” (Messianic Legacy, Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent, 1986). Compton writes in his The Broken Cross: “The management of the Generale Immobiliare was in the hands of Count Enrico Galeazzi, the director of an investment and credit company (estimated capital twenty-five billion lire), who could so freely come and go at the Vatican that he was known as the lay pope.” Galeazzi is described in several places as Pius XII’s friend and personal confidante.
Bugnini and the liturgy
Traditional “Catholics” — who abandoned the Divine institution of the papacy safeguarding the integrity of the Lain Mass to champion the liturgy — demonize Pius XII for paving the way to the liturgical renewal that became the Novus Ordo Missae following the false Vatican 2 council. But given the time frame in which this occurred, it is highly likely that the pope was already being unduly pressured and deliberately misguided and misinformed in making what they term as these “introductory” concessions. As mentioned HERE, both Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII considered calling a council to correct the modern errors plaguing the Church, but Pope Pius XI was warned by no less than Louis Cardinal Billot that such a gathering would be dangerous, since “Resuming the Council is desired by the worst enemies of the Church, the modernists,” who, he warned, were already preparing to overthrow the Church.
John Vennari, in his booklet, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita, despite noting that the changes intended by the enemies of the Church would target the liturgy, does not hesitate to blame Pope Pius XII for failing to call a council, as requested by Cardinal Ruffini and others. He claims, as does Bro. Michael of the Trinity in his The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III, that that “progressive elements” in the Church “tragically,” dissuaded the pope from convening the council. But this is totally illogical. If the Church was already compromised under Pope Pius XI when Card. Billot issued his warning, how could anyone believe that the situation had magically improved by the 1950s?! Pius XII already knew he was outmanned; and his illness alone prevented him from moving forward.
Those who accuse him of paving the way for liturgical change need only read the essay HERE to learn that In both sets of the preparatory council documents proposed by Popes Pius XI and XII, there is not one mention of the liturgy or the Mass as a possible focal point; almost the entire focus was on doctrinal matters and a few social issues. No, what few entirely permissible “concessions” were made were the work of a Vatican 2 architect later discovered in the 1960s to be a practicing Freemason.
In May of 1948, Pope Pius XII appointed Fr. Annibale Bugnini secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform, a post he held until 1960. Three years after his appointment by Pope Pius XII, when the pope’s pre-disposition to ill-health first became noticeable, the Easter Vigil changes came in 1951. But the rest of the Holy Week reforms were not instituted until 1955, following Pope Pius XII’s near death in December of 1954. Then came the changes to the Eucharistic Fast and the allowance of Evening Mass, which somewhat coincided with each other. “You” replaced “Thee” in certain missals used by the faithful beginning in 1957; also “Holy Spirit” was substituted for “Holy Ghost” even earlier. And on September 3, 1958, the instruction from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, De Musica Sacra Liturgica (Sacred Music and the Liturgy) was released, one month before Pope Pius XII’s death.
This instruction, while legitimizing some secular music and the responses in Latin to be made by the people attending the Dialogue masses, does not otherwise depart in any way from the basic form of the Mass. One Dialogue mass card (The Catholic Press, Inc., 1960) reads in the preface to the prayers: “Many parishes now regularly schedule Dialogue Masses. The people participate vocally by giving the Latin responses and joining with the celebrant in reciting certain parts of the mass. (The degree of participation is usually announced beforehand.)” So it appears that the Dialogue Mass was first proposed in “many parishes” as an option only, not as a replacement for the regular Mass, just as Latin “masses” are now offered as an alternate service in Novus Ordo churches. It later, however, became the norm. The instruction issued by the Sacred Congregation states in para. 29:
“Those who use a small missal, suitable to their own understanding, and pray with the priest in the very words of the Church, are worthy of special praise. But all are not equally capable of correctly understanding the rites, and liturgical formulas; nor does everyone possess the same spiritual needs; nor do these needs remain constant in the same individual. Therefore, these people may find a more suitable or easier method of participation in the Mass when “they meditate devoutly on the mysteries of Jesus Christ, or perform other devotional exercises, and offer prayers which, though different in form from those of the sacred rites, are in essential harmony with them” (Mediator Dei (https://adoremus.org/MediatorDei.html), AAS 39 [1947] 560-561). The instruction also encourages parishes to train choirs and participants properly in the practice of Gregorian chant.
So according to Mediator Dei, even the Dialogue Mass is optional; the faithful are not required by the instruction itself to participate, only encouraged to do so. If this is truly the case, then why is it that beginning in 1959, these offensive missalettes, widely distributed by the Benedictines through Collegeville Press in Minnesota and the Paulist Press, to name just a few, make it the norm? And why was the language in these books significantly altered and modernized in all parts of the Mass, as advocated by Mass reformers Frs. Michel and Ellard, not just the alteration of the consecration to “for all men”? For this certainly was not Pope Pius XII’s intent in approving the Dialogue Mass as reported at the end of the instruction, where it reads:
“This instruction on sacred music and the sacred liturgy was submitted to His Holiness Pope Pius XII by the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. His Holiness deigned to give his special approval and authority to all its prescriptions. He also commanded that it be promulgated and be conscientiously observed by all to whom it applies.” But the very instruction itself indicates it does not apply to everyone, everywhere. And while the instruction indicates that a more complete participation in the Mass is accomplished by active participation, it yet allows for those types of participation as described in Mediator Dei.
As one Catholic writer would later observe, many practices initially approved by the popes in the past were later abandoned or revoked by succeeding pontiffs. There is nothing to say that this new practice was written in stone; it was simply a concession to the laity, one which I am sure had been presented to Pope Pius XII as the general desire of the faithful, when in fact it was the ardent desire of clerics avidly promoting liturgical renewal — Montini, Roncalli, Bugnini, Dom Lambert Beauduin and Dom Virgil Michel, Frs. Gerald Ellard, Pius Parsch, Odo Casel and others among them — who had been steadily advancing toward this goal since the 1920s. The history of their efforts will be covered elsewhere on this site under the heading on the Study the Faith/Articles page, Latin Mass, Liturgical Reform.
So while Pope Pius XII is painted as beginning the Vatican 2 reforms by changing the Easter and Holy Week rites and relaxing the fasting and Mass attendance laws, none of this ever came close to touching on the subject of the Eucharist or the Consecration; all the so-called concessions he made were permitted to him as pope. He went as far as he could to satisfy what he believed to be the wants and needs of the faithful, hoping to draw them closer to the faith by granting what he perceived to be their overwhelming desire to a more active participation in the Mass. But was this truly the desire of the majority of Catholics, or was it merely the perception that had been conveyed to him by his limited circle of advisors?
CP stage two: the Pope in isolation, 1955-58
Having accomplished the unfreezing that destabilized the pope, Hassan’s changing phase now continues in earnest. This begins in 1955, following Pope Pius XII’s vision of Christ in December 1954 and his miraculous recovery. In this phase, the desired alternative behaviors are established and enforced, and Pope Pius XII’s “new behaviors” included, obviously, the absence of his pro-secretaries and an increasing reliance on a small group of advisors, several of them Jesuits. Among these were Sr. Pasqualina, Francis Cardinal Spellman; to some degree, Count Enrico Galeazzi and Fr. Tardini; his confessor, Augustin Bea, S.J., his personal assistant Robert Leiber, S.J., (who according to Pius’s biographer Susan Zuccotti, was, “throughout his entire papacy, his private secretary and closest advisor”), also other Jesuit advisors.
Bea and Leiber had been his advisors since the pope’s days as nuncio in Germany and remained his primary sources of information and advice. According to Wikipedia, Leiber: “… assisted Pius XII in researching the topics for his speeches and radio messages. [He] was one of an “impromptu band of willing Jesuits” whom Pius XII employed “checking and double-checking every reference” in his written works. Gone by then was Galeazzi-Lisi, who Pius XII dismissed as his physician shortly after his recovery, Ventresca reports. Gone also was Ivo Zeiger, S.J., who passed away in 1952. Zieger had been most helpful to Pope Pius XII in organizing post-war German relief efforts. So Zieger, a possibly benign personality, also Montini and Galeazzi-Lisi disappear from the scene.
It is quite clear that the pope’s attitude is a reflection of his belief that the bishops and even members of the Curia were either plotting against him or were so hopelessly liberal there was little sense in wasting any time with them. The deadly Modernist infiltration of the Church had been so successful, even Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton would comment in his diary, while attending the first session of the false Vatican 2 council: “The sense or feeling of this gathering seems to be entirely liberal. I am anxious to get home. I am afraid that there is nothing at all that I can do here. Being in the council is, of course, the great experience of my life. But, at the same time, it has been a frightful disappointment. I NEVER THOUGHT THAT THE EPISCOPATE WAS SO LIBERAL…” (Oct. 31, 1962). Monsignor Fenton wrote further that he had no respect for Fr. Tardini, had seen him with “gangster-like” individuals while in Italy and thought he was “mixed up in simony” (Journal 4, p. 77). Others associated Cardinal Ruffini with the Sicilian mob. Fenton said both Cardinals Pizzardo and Ruffini were being courted by the Progressives.
Monsignor Fenton also noted, after a lengthy conversation with the Jesuit Coffey in Rome in the late 1950s, that “men like Coffey are in control of the pope at the present time.” He described Sr. Pasqualina as “a disgrace” and her control over the pope “a great scandal.” But at least one American prelate believed that Sr. Pasqualina’s fierce protectiveness of Pope Pius XII, (interpreted by many, including Fenton, as highly manipulative), was justified. Murphy quotes Archbishop Cushing as commenting during Pope Pius XII’s last days that Sr. Pasqualina “…knew [the hierarchy] was waiting anxiously to take control of Pius ‘s throne… to besmirch his beliefs and standards,” and of course they were. There also is something else to consider.
“According to Wikipedia (and other sources), “[Pope Pius XII] underwent three courses of cellular rejuvenation treatment administered by Paul Niehans, the most important in 1954 when Pius was gravely ill. Side-effects of the treatment included hallucinations, from which the Pope suffered in his last years. These years were also plagued by horrific nightmares. Pacelli’s blood-curdling screams could be heard throughout the papal apartments… Fresh cell therapy (also known as cellular therapy or live cell therapy), developed in the 1930s by Niehans, involves harvesting fresh cells from sheep (New Zealand Black Sheep, is the breed he used) embryo and injecting them directly (intramuscular) into the person’s buttocks. There is no evidence it is useful for any health problem. There have been several instances of severe adverse effects including death.” Other recipients of the therapy reportedly included Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin.
The above is very disturbing. It demonstrates both that Pope Pius XII was gravely concerned about what would happen to the papacy after he died and that he was even willing to take risks to prolong his health. But it also poses questions. Was someone attempting, once again, to hasten Pius XII’s demise, coercing him to take such risks? Is it possible that his vision of Christ was only an hallucination? As to the latter, it seems that Pius XII would have been aware that it could have been a side effect of the treatments and was careful to distinguish between the two. He did reveal the vision to several of his assistants, insisting it was “…not just a sick man’s hallucination,” (Ventresca), and it eventually became public, contrary to his wishes. Isn’t it odd, then, that it was precisely following the vision and his miraculous recovery that he more or less halted the usual affairs of the Vatican, refusing to make any additional appointments, hold his usual consultations with the hierarchy or even provide a camerlengo necessary for the election of his successor?
Could it also be possible that’s Pope Pius XII was subjected to experimental drugs then in vogue at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), especially since Montini was essentially an agent for the CIA? Henry and Clare Boothe Luce, ambassador to Italy, also the Jesuit John Courtney Murray, are said to have experimented with LSD in the late 1950s, according to David Wemhoff. We should remember MK-ULTRA, which was an attempt by the CIA to control the human mind using psychoactive drugs vs. the current Communist tactics of coercive persuasion. This is chronicled in Stephen Kinzer’s book Poisoner in Chief, where he profiles the work of CIA chemist Richard Gottlieb, responsible for the implementation of MK-ULTRA. Kinzer notes that Gottlieb ultimately decided that one could empty the mind with these drugs but could not successfully implant a “new mind.”
Kinzer writes: “Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people’s minds, and he realized it was a two-part process,” Kinzer says. “First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We didn’t get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one.” Because records of Gottleib’s experiments were destroyed, it was not possible to know just how far he came to achieving part two. But after the CIA successfully flooded the U.S. with LSD, having bought up the entire world supply, according to Kinzer, the consciousness of an entire generation was successfully altered, preparing the way for the New World Order religion and government. Peace and love were its mantra, and that is exactly what we find expressed, ad nauseum, in the “encyclical letters” of Angelo Roncalli.
If coercive persuasion was not the quickest way to effect mind control, then perhaps the agents of chaos hoped it could definitely be expedited, at least, by the use of psychoactive drugs. And whether this was the case with Pope Pius XII or not, certainly his entrapment by certain influencers had an adverse effect on the decisions he made or failed to make. And this is easy to demonstrate, as will be seen below.
Pius XII’s personality and the use of mind control
Was Pope Pius XII, given his particular sort of personality, a prime target for coercive persuasion? An estimation of the pope’s character as reported by Msgr. Domenico Tardini in his controversial work, Memories of Pope Pius XII (1959) suggests that the pope may have been an easy target for his captors. Tardini was once a pro-secretary of state for the pope, together with Giovanni Montini, and is later said to have assisted Pope Pius XII in composing papal documents. His description of the pope, however, must be viewed with somewhat of a jaundiced eye, since Tardini was elevated to the cardinalate by Angelo Roncalli in December 1958, alongside Giovanni Montini, after both men were passed over for pronation to the cardinalate by Pius XII. Tardini also played a key role in implementing the preparations for the false Vatican 2 council before his death in 1961. He wrote in his book:
“Pius XII had a gentle and rather timid temperament; he was not made for struggle. In this he was very different from his great predecessor Pius XI, who seemed apparently at least to relish a struggle. Pius XII, on the contrary, visibly suffered from them. This inclination, which led him to prefer solitude and calm, disposed him to avoid rather than face the battles of life.”
Comment: Vulnerability comes in many packages: life transitions, ill health, loss of a loved one, divorce – all are pre-requisites that con men and cult recruiters look for to spot the most likely victims. The pope, still recovering from his illness and the shocks received from the defection of Montini and possibly others, found it difficult to face these painful defections, choosing to take a defensive position and retreat. Pius’ fear of Communism and betrayal, also his isolation, increased his vulnerability.
“His great goodness led him to displease everybody and irritate no one; to prefer the ways of mildness to those of severity, persuasion to force. The candor of his soul did not even permit him to suspect a lack of veracity or sincerity in somebody else. Humble as he was, he believed that everyone was like him — just as devoted to truth just as selfless as he was… In his exquisite amiability the Pope desired to see those whom he received in audience leave him with a grateful memory… At certain moments he was unable to say no.
Comment: Those exercising coercive persuasion work very hard to earn the trust of their victims. They find especially fertile ground in individuals who are unable to see them for who they truly are, see only the good in them, and for this reason are willing to accept their advice, direction and assistance. Those charitable and forgiving in nature are their most desirable acquisitions.
“Sometimes, at the most difficult moments, his penetrating intelligence applying itself to the situation made him see promptly and clearly all the possible solutions. Immediately there appeared to him the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages, the possible favorable or unfavorable consequences. Then he would remain uncertain, hesitant, as if he were not sure of himself. Then he had to be left to reflect and pray.”
(Ventresca, in his work, quotes other Vatican officials who also criticized the pope as having become “an absolute dictator,” but in a benign and mild sort of way. Others saw him as “sensitive and hesitant” … “deliberately careful to the point of procrastinating” … “detached from the day-to-day life of the Church.”)
Comment: Those remaining within Pius’ tight inner circle had complete control of all the information he was receiving from the outside world on which he must base his decisions. They had the ability to present these situations in whatever light suited their own purposes and to present, portray in a favorable light, or suppress and/or negate whatever information made the pope’s decisions most favorable to their own ends. Perhaps Pope Pius XII sensed this and was determined to at least try to backcheck what he was being presented. Difficulty making decisions and procrastination plagues many people, but these also can be symptoms that one is the subject of mind control.
“But not everyone acted in this way. One person suggested one thing, another person suggested something else. Everyone — as often happened — claimed to have found the just solution, the only solution, the solution the Pope had to follow. All that troubled him.”
Comment: This type of behavior can occur in any group situation, but it also is found in cults and is deliberately perpetrated to disorient and confuse. This obviously had an adverse effect on Pope Pius and made it even more difficult for him to arrive at certainty in important matters.
“Once the decision was made, it had to be executed. This too was a delicate step, especially if the decision was by its nature displeasing to some. In this case Pius XII loved — as he himself used to say — to “sweeten the pill,” A question can be asked here: is it possible for a man not only to conquer himself but to destroy, even annihilate his own natural dispositions? I don’t think so. Given human frailty, something of the temperament remains in the depths of the psychic structure of man and at certain moments emerges at the surface once more.
Comment: Those engaging in coercive persuasion play on every personality defect and character weakness possible to achieve their goals. It is not a matter here of Pope Pius XII “giving in to his weaknesses” — he had plenty of help in making it difficult to overcome his own personal foibles and act decisively. And his state of mind, due to advancing age and chronic illness, made it even more difficult to resist outside pressure.
“Moreover a person who occupies an elevated post very frequently encounters among those who approach him somebody clever enough to exploit his weak side. The interests of the exploiter, his ideas or his friends, profit from the superior’s weak side. Pius XII himself cannot be entirely exempted from the common law of human existence.”
Comment: Brother Michael of the Trinity asks: “In writing these terrible lines, was… Tardini thinking of the influence Msgr. Montini exerted on Pope Pius XII? it is very probable, for the lively tensions between the popes two closest collaborators reveal that Tardini did not appreciate his colleague’s encroachments and hazardous initiatives” (Brother Michael of the Trinity, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. III). Well Tardini himself was also a danger, Msgr. Fenton notes, and this was later proven by his criticism of Pius XII in his book. Perhaps Tardini chronicles here for us just how easily the pope was manipulated, as a sort of sadistic mockery and final insult.
One other factor must be taken into consideration here as well. Pope Pius XII had a confessor, and that confessor had the right to command obedience. The pope has no one else as a superior except in the spiritual realm, in way of a confessor. One can only imagine the many ways that such a man as Bea could hamstring the pope in making decisions, meting out punishments, judging doctrinal errors, and a host of other possible situations that daily presented themselves to the pontiff. In the silence of the confessional, hypnosis, a state more easily induced than some might think, could occur “in a matter of minutes” (Stephen Hassan, Combatting Cult Mind Control). And even if hypnosis never factored in, Pius XII must certainly have believed he would be committing a serious sin if he did not strictly follow his confessor’s orders, which is what moral theology teaches.
A rosy future for the traitors
What later became of those surrounding the pope in his final days? It is enough to say that Pius XII’s closest advisors went on to become Vatican 2 movers and shakers. Enrico Galeazzi would later work with Roncalli and Montini, also Sindona and Marcinkus; Bea, made “cardinal” by Roncallli, figured heavily at the false Vatican 2 council and was a key figure in the drafting of Nostra aetate, condemning the Church’s supposed anti-Semitism. Bugnini would oversee all the liturgical reforms undertaken by Roncalli and Montini, serving as Secretary of the Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy (1960-1961); Peritus, Conciliar Commission on the Liturgy (1962-1964); Secretary, Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution of the Liturgy (1964-1969); and Secretary, Congregation for Divine Worship (1965-1975). This despite the fact he was exposed as a Freemason and was supposedly “disciplined” for it by Montini.
The Jesuit Robert Leiber turned down the offer of a position from John 23, recommending Augustin Bea for the post instead. Leiber died in 1967. Wemhoff reports that Lieber was a CIA collaborator and that to this day, the agency refuses to release any records concerning him. Ventresca quotes Leiber as criticizing the pope for being “overly sensitive and a perfectionist.” Francis Cardinal Spellman, spiritual advisor for the Knights of Malta and the group’s unofficial American head, had run into problems in November of 1951 after Pope Pius XII refused to appoint a Grand Master for the group. The pope ordered that an investigation be conducted to determine if the K of M had been infiltrated by Freemasonry. For as long as Pius lived, the order remained without a head. But the Knights received a new head under Angelo Roncalli in 1961 and were officially welcomed into the Vatican.
Then there was Msgr. Tardini, who became John 23rd’s secretary of state and helped implement the false Vatican 2 council, after Ruffini, accompanied by Ottaviani, first proposed the council to Roncalli prior to his election. But Tardini died in 1961, before the first session of the council could be convened. Both Cardinals Ruffini and Ottaviani would later give way to the false Vatican 2 teachings, as would all the others. And given what has been demonstrated above, Tardini dared to criticize Pius XII for not trusting anyone?! All the rats abandoned ship and watched from pre-arranged positions of security as the captain went down with St. Peter’s Barque. Pope Pius XII was clearly compromised. He was being pressured, he was being hounded, his confidence was being undermined, he was being coerced. And he was just the type of soul that that would have been most vulnerable to such coercion, if we can believe Tardini’s description of him as well as that of others; the very type of personality most easily malleable in the hands of whatever miscreants surrounded him.
CP stage three: intransigency, not refreezing
The final step in effectively completing coercive persuasion, refreezing, never happened in the case of Pope Pius XII. And from all appearances Pius XII’s inner circle knew that process could never be completed. Why else would they have gone to all the trouble of trying to poison him (and I believe this happened on several different occasions, including the rejuvenation therapy), if they really thought that they could corrupt him in in any meaningful way? It can’t be proven, but there’s some indication that even his final illness was brought on by another poisoning attempt No; they had to get him out of the way in order to implement everything they had already done; the best they could do to prepare the way for the New World religion. As mentioned above, Pope Pius XII took everything as far as he could take it — in all good conscience and to the extent of his papal power — to satisfy whoever was exerting the most pressure and to do what he thought might help the faithful; but that was all.
Proof of this is the fact that the moment he died they must have had those missalettes already in production knowing that he probably wouldn’t make it this final time. In those days it took a lot longer to produce these materials. So obviously they were already ready to go before he ever died, because they had to be submitted to the proper authorities for the imprimatur and nihil obstat, (which was never validly granted under Roncalli). So everything was in motion long before he passed away; all they were doing was waiting for the actual event. It’s unfortunate that so many people look at this, especially in retrospect when it can be seen more clearly, yet don’t see how deliberate it all was. Even those around Pius were saying he was being controlled. Monsignor Fenton noted it, Ventresca commented on it in his work and concerned clergy here in the United States were even going to send Fr. Eilers to Rome to investigate the situation — it wasn’t any secret. So why should it now be considered unethical or perhaps unreasonable to suggest it?
Two things that people knew about Pope Pius XII — he was a very reserved person and when it came to doctrinal matters, he wasn’t giving an inch. His faith had to have been immensely stronger than anyone has ever given him credit for in order to survive being not only poisoned and gravely ill, for an extended period of time, but continually monitored and misinformed. This while being surrounded by people he believed he could implicitly trust, but who were intent only on using him as a way to further their own evil machinations. It is a wonder he ever survived it as long as he did. But he doesn’t get any credit for that — people are still blaming him for not speaking out about the Jews. As noted in Ventresca’s work, Pius XII refers to one official who had said something critical of the Germans killing Jews, resulting in the death of 60,000 of them, pointing out that if they killed 60,000 over that remark, what makes people think that if he said something they wouldn’t kill 200,000 or more?
Conclusion
All that is written here is only speculation about how Pope Pius XII was affected and how all of this fell out, but it is well-founded speculation, proven in full by the defection of the cardinals and bishops welcoming Roncalli and his council. I think there was a battle going on regarding Pius XII that no one at the time could understand and many will never be able to fully appreciate. The mental difficulties endured by this poor pope must have been brutal: that’s why this article is entitled The Passion of Pope Pius XII. There’s a saying I keep on my desk that a friend once sent to me which reads: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about,” and this is so true. Historians can say what they like about Pius XII. But there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he was a white martyr for the faith, and, as stated elsewhere, may very well have been a willing victim soul. Even Protestants recognized him as a man to be admired, in contrast to those among his own who would later stoop to denigrate him.
“Only by the most strenuous means had Pius XII, an extraordinary being, maintained the prestige of the Church. This tall, frail man with piercing black eyes had for 25 years conducted an almost incredibly arduous reign. He had literally thrown open the huge bronze doors of the Vatican and invited people to come to him. No longer was the Vicar of Christ unapproachable. Particularly in Rome, this had a strong effect since the Rome-born pope, and the Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy, had a particular interest in the capital of his native country. He had made a good start towards adapting ancient principles to modern times. He had seen to it that for the first time since the 14th century, foreign Cardinals outnumbered Italians in the Sacred College and he had severely condemned racialism, anti-Semitism and totalitarian doctrines” (news correspondent Melton S. Davis, author of All Rome Trembled, 1957) Davis also wrote that following the 1949 condemnation of Communism and the failed worker-priest movement, “…the Pope may well have felt that the Church had gone far enough” in pandering to everyone’s wants.
And this from Fr. Senan, O.F.M., Cap.: “Our Holy Father has at his command the invincible power of the Spirit, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail. And while we have confidence in the Holy Father, admire and revere him, feel proud of him and thank God for him, we must never forget to pray for him that He may preserve him and give him length of days and deliver him not into the hands of his enemies” (Angelic Pastor, 1950). It was Pope Pius XII himself who said: “History gives clear evidence of one thing: the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matt. 16:18). But there is some evidence on the other side too; the gates of hell have had partial successes” (“Preaching the Word of God,” Sept. 14, 1956; The Pope Speaks, Vol. III). And here, perhaps, he may have been speaking of his own experiences as pope.
Pius XII’s last words were reported to have been: “Pray,” he said. “Pray that this regrettable situation for the Church may end.” And it ended indeed, with him. Another (lengthy) quote might be included here, one from a double-agent and disgraced Jesuit who nevertheless knew exactly what would happen following Pope Pius XII’s death:
“There died then with Pacelli in Rome the charisma of power. With the burial of its last bearer, there was buried forever any substantive hope that such regnancy, legitimacy and rightness would ever again characterize a Pope as Pope. Jesus on his second coming would achieve all three but on a supernal plane and as a matter of course… Never again would there be a Prince of power as Pope, for despite appearances, power no longer enjoyed an effective ascendancy throughout Roman Catholicism. And the world at large needed only death to unshield its eyes once blinded by the brilliance of any great man.
“Pacelli had chosen only a little love with his tragedy and had spiced his history with only a little wit. Catholicism at his apogee was spent in its humanism. Its people were weary of formulary holiness and stamped passports to a Roman heaven for Romans. Since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, 300 years of happiness on command, of morality by ukase, of holiness by licensed rubber-stamping, of salvation by tight-fisted bureaucrats had left a huge debt to be paid off in human understanding and an almost impossible void to be filled with warmth, welcome and willingness. This debt and that void [was] Pacelli’s failure… At the moment of his death, compassion was needed. In October 1958 the hour of its need was later, much later than anyone guessed.” (Three Popes and the Cardinal, Malachi Martin, 1972).
And so a traitor to Jesus Christ, hailed by Traditionalists, announced the ending of Christ’s Church on earth and the dark and dreadful reign of Antichrist and his Satanic religion of man.
ADDENDA:
Charges that Pius XII and his various predecessors were heretics
There are those, particularly among some of the more detestable Feeneyite factions, who have charged these popes with heresy on the count of “outside the Church no salvation” and related topics. They shamelessly take papal statements entirely out of context to justify their outrageous claims and demonstrate a most deplorable lack of knowledge regarding even basic Catholic theological principles and teachings. They refuse to acknowledge the fact that since the Vatican Council decree, no pope can be said to ever commit heresy unless it can be certainly proven beyond any doubt that he was never validly elected, owing to pre-election heresy. This as taught by Pope Paul IV in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. To find anything close to what we are dealing with regarding Pope Pius XII, we must resort to the papacies of Popes Liberius and Honorius, who also reigned in times that were occasioned by those exercising threats or undue influence over them. We read from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“No one pretends that, if Liberius signed the most Arian formulæ in exile, he did it freely; so that no question of his infallibility is involved. It is admitted on all sides that his noble attitude of resistance before his exile and during his exile was not belied by any act of his after his return, that he was in no way sullied when so many failed at the Council of Rimini, and that he acted vigorously for the healing of orthodoxy throughout the West from the grievous wound. If he really consorted with heretics, condemned Athanasius, or even denied the Son of God, it was a momentary human weakness which no more compromises the papacy than does that of St. Peter.” Just as with Pope Pius XII, the truth cannot be certainly known regarding the circumstances surrounding his supposed “fall.” But one thing is certain: He did not formally teach heresy to the faithful.
And then there is the papacy of Honorius II, whom the Vatican Council determined was not guilty of heresy ex cathedra. The Catholic Encyclopedia tell us: “Honorius was not condemned by the council as a Monothelite, but for approving Sergius’s contradictory policy of placing orthodox and heretical expressions under the same ban… The fault of Honorius lay precisely in the fact that he had not authoritatively published that unchanging faith of his Church, in modern language, that he had not issued a definition ex cathedra. The letter [to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius] cannot be called a private one, for it is an official reply to a formal consultation. It had, however, less publicity than a modern Encyclical. As the letter does not define or condemn and does not bind the Church to accept its teaching, it is of course impossible to regard it as an ex-cathedra utterance. But before, and even just after, the Vatican Council such a view was sometimes urged, though almost solely by the opponents of the dogma of Papal Infallibility.”
Abbot John Chapman (Dublin Reviews, 1906-07; The Vatican Council, Cuthbert Butler), opined:
“The authenticity of the documents [on Pope Honorius] is above suspicion… No Catholic has the right to deny that Honorius was a heretic, in words if not in intention…His letters, treated as definitions of faith, are obviously beyond doubt heretical, for in a definition it is the words that matter…Today we judge the letters of Pope Honorius by the Vatican definition and deny them to be ex cathedra, because they do not define any doctrine and impose it on the whole Church.”
Undue influence or not, nothing in any of Pope Pius XII’s binding decrees could ever be pointed to as contrary to Catholic doctrine. No one may judge the pope — THAT is an infallible decision, one the papal naysayer heretics have certainly committed themselves. Only competent ecclesiastical authority, (and this does NOT include the laity) could accuse him of error, as happened with Pope John XXII concerning the Beatific Vision and the council accusing Liberius and Honorius. Even Pope Pius XII’s own enemies recognize him as the last true Prince of the Church, and the vanguard of doctrinal integrity. The hierarchy who abandoned their flocks following the death of Pope Pius XII, also those who dare to depose these popes are only continuing the traditions of the Gallicanists, Modernists and ultimately Freemasonry, their driving force. And after meeting St. Peter barring their entrance to heaven’s gate, they will answer to the awful Judge for their betrayal.
