by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 26, 2015 | Uncategorized
© Copyright 2015, T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author. All emphasis within quotes is the author’s unless indicated otherwise.)
Introduction
In articles on this site there has been frequent mention of the pre-conditioning of the clergy and faithful that took place several decades before the advent of the neo-Modernism that resurged among once Catholic bishops and priests to destroy the juridical Church. Those who read these articles consistently will realize that if the destruction of the ”juridical Church” is mentioned, it is always in conjunction with the continued existence of the “Mystical Body of Christ.” For the Church Christ founded on earth could never fail nor has it failed — it is only the exterior façade of that Church that has temporarily disappeared with its earthly head, as Holy Scripture foretold. Yet Christ is the true head of the Church, of His Mystical Body, and the main timbers and foundation stones that were His Church are still intact, awaiting reconstruction at a future date and reunion with its visible head. The only Apostle Christ ever vested with infallibility was St. Peter and his successors, and Catholics must fix this idea firmly in their heads. Because the reason Catholic thinking today is so irremediably skewed is precisely because of the preconditioning of their parents and grandparents mentioned above, a subtle deviation from the true faith that eroded the authority of the papacy and filtered down to those who later would witness Vatican 2. And that un-Catholic pre-conditioning accounts for the inability of Traditionalists to appreciate the fact that they are not behaving as Catholics today because their progenitors ceased being truly Catholic, without their knowledge, long ago.
Religious narcissism
It was author Will Herberg in the mid-1950s, (“Protestant, Catholic, Jew,” 1955) who chronicled the amalgamation of American religious sects of every stripe into an indifferent sort of civic religion, something he believed was already very much in evidence. His work demonstrated that already at that time, the Americanist mindset that we see among both Novus Ordo and Traditionalist Catholics was already in place and that religion, as Herberg said, was one based on man’s needs, not God’s due. He and even those touted as Catholic scholars such as Fr. Bruce Vawter, (in an article written for “The Commonweal” in 1964), called this state religiosity — a “caricature of religion,” projecting religious practice without religious conviction. “It is not man who serves God but God who is mobilized and made to serve man… a religiousness without religion, a way of… belonging rather than a way of reorienting life to God…religiousness without real inner conviction,” Herberg wrote. And it should be added here that in the case of Catholics, it is religiousness without the benefit of that knowledge of dogma concerning the truths of faith, more necessary to the Catholic by far than “Mass and Sacraments,” if they wish to practice what Christ imparted to His Apostles while on earth.
Herberg describes the then evolving Judaeo-Christian religious consciousness of his time as a sort of “religious naricissism,” where “the church becomes a kind of emotional service station to relieve us of our worries.” (Whatever happened to working out our salvation “in fear and trembling”?) He quoted Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle of Washington on this problem as follows: “At first glance, piety [religiosity] seems to be everywhere, [but many persons appear to be] turning to religion as they would to a benign sedative to soothe their minds and settle their nerves.” In other words what O’Boyle and Herberg were viewing was the beginning of the Great Apostasy, a gradual slipping away from the Catholic faith occurring quietly over many years as a result of the misidentification of a “blind religious feeling” as faith itself. And the descent into neo-Modernism that they observed was initiated, in the “Catholic progressive” sphere, by the Modernists of the “new theology,” who destroyed the unity of faith by attacking the integral truths Christ bequeathed to His Church. And the destruction did not stop there. The enemies of the Church used mental conditioning to reshape the psyches of their followers and induce “floating” states that makes the intellect vulnerable to truly diabolical manipulation, even possession.
Ironically, even modern-day descriptions of narcissistic behavior fit the Traditionalist mindset and approach. Many of the people who challenge what is posted on this site correspond to the narcissistic profiles found on psychology sites. They are quick to criticize and name-call, and in fact rush in to verbally crush their opponents even without provocation. They can be shown any number of theological proofs, proofs which according to the laws and teachings of the very Church they claim membership in prove them wrong. But they will never admit they have erred or become heretics or schismatics and they refuse to produce proofs of their own from the continual magisterium demonstrating what they are doing is Catholic. They twist to suit their own purposes whatever is written or spoken and if that is not sufficient they simply lie, to themselves as well as others, as narcissists do. Their sense of entitlement (to Mass and Sacraments, also their pseudo-clerical guru of the moment) is so compelling that they will happily choose their needs over love of God and obedience to Him, comitting sacrilege rather than deprive themselves of their narcissistic supply. Just as the narcissist manipulates and cruelly torments those s/he loves, Traditionalist narcissists claim they love our Lord, yet crucify Him once again. In short, they are not only brainwashed by their cultistic mentors but suffer from a frightening mental condition as well. And the game goes on.
Progressivism vs. Integralism
In describing the Machiavellian battle waged between these two opposing forces in the Church prior to the death of Pope Pius XII, one Internet author writing for Unam Sanctam (not a recommended site) identifies those forces as liberal progressivism (the new theology) and “restorationist” integralism, (a return to the pre-1959 Church). In reality, these two opposing forces are explained by Pope St. Pius X in his condemnation of the Modernists, Pascendi Dominici Gregis. There he teaches that the evolution of the Church promoted by Modernists is comprised of Tradition as a conserving force and another force, tending to progress. It is Tradition which holds together the Church, and religious authority which must protect Tradition (p. 75 of St. Pius X’s “Pascendi…” as presented in “A Catechism of Modernism” by Rev. J. B. Lemius). The Modernists believed the laity must advocate for progress as their consciences dictate and a compromise must be reached with authority. (Shades of Lefebvrism!) For as the Pope also notes, concerning the reform of the liturgy, “the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head.” In other words, as long as Traditionalists want and need the Sacraments in the context of the Latin Tridentine and their vagrant clergy, this is just fine with the Modernists. Traditionalists operate outside of authority and in contradiction of its established norms, and therefore pose no threat. In the end all will be reunited and allowed to follow their own preferences.
Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton explains why integralism is a deterrent to modernism, not, as some Traditionalists believe today, an equally dangerous aberration of the religious “right.” In 1948 he wrote: “[The Catholic unfamiliar with modernism] might possibly come to the dangerously false conclusion that modernism and integralism, as we know them, are two contrary false doctrines, one, as it were to the left, and the other to the right, of genuine Catholic teaching. Nothing, of course, could be farther from the truth. Modernism, in the technical language of Catholic doctrine, is the name applied to the definite series of errors condemned in the decree Lamentabili Sane Exitu, the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, and in the motu proprio Sacra Antistitum. Pope Pius X spoke of Modernism as the ‘conglomeration of all heresies.’ Integralism, on the other hand, is essentially the teaching or the attitude of those who worked for the presentation of an integral Catholicism, of Catholic dogma set forth accurately and in its entirety. Most frequently the name of integralism was applied to the doctrine and the viewpoint of those Catholic writers who entered into controversy against the modernists during the first decade of the present century. Understood in this fashion, integralism was nothing else than the contradiction of heretical modernism. It was thus basically only the exposition of Catholic truth,”
(The American Ecclesiastical Review, “Two Currents in Contemporary Catholic Thought”).
In a later article on integralism for The American Ecclesiastical Review, (“Integralism and Reform,” February 1952), Msgr. Fenton reviews Rev. Yves Congar’s comments in his book “The Church,” concerning Catholic integralists. Congar describes integralists as those who “proceed from an attitude of the right,’ which stresses ‘the determination of things by way of authority…It is instinctively for what is done and defined, and what has only to be imposed and received.’” Fenton comments: “The religious proposition of the integralists is also represented as characterized by a rigidity of doctrine. All that this expression would seem to mean is a resistance to any teaching which the integralist regards as involving a change in Catholic doctrine. Certainly there can be little to stigmatize in this attitude. And just as certainly the designation of the activity of the integralists under these terms makes it difficult to see how Fr. Congar can believe that theirs is not a primarily doctrinal position,” and here Fenton reminds Congar that it was these very integralists who fought the Modernists in Pope St. Pius X’s time.
The Unam Sanctam author notes in his article: “What [neo-Modernists] have forgotten is that the Church is fundamentally understood as a Body, and in a Body, there is nothing extrinsic. Sure, there are members of more or less centrality. A man can still live with no fingers, but he cannot live with no head.” He describes a process that little by little changed everything that could be changed, including the systematic dismembering of that Body to the point that it left the Church, as She once existed, unable to function. This was at first attributed to the nouvelle theologiens (new theologians) in the Church, the author notes, a clever change of terms that avoids identification with the Modernists while still conveying the idea of novelty or newness — something conservatives rightly disparaged as always condemned by the Church and liberalized Catholics endorsed as an opportunity to bring doctrine into sync with “the times.” But as Pope Pius X taught in the oath against Modernism: “I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical’ misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously.”
“New theologians” and the jurisdiction controversy
A prime example of this practice of adapting dogma to suit “the times” or the “needs of the people” by the new theologians is seen in Rev. Francis Miaskiewicz’s Canon Law thesis “Supplied Jurisdiction According to Canon 209,” (Catholic University of America, 1940), where he goes into the problems surrounding the interpretive and ignorance theories and explains why they were not tenable, even then. He refutes the canonist Rev. James Kelly for his erroneous views on common error re the “interpretative theory” as regards supplied jurisdiction. Kelly cites the Jesuit canonists Wernz-Vidal as sharing his opinion, and the canon law commentary written by these two Jesuits is favored by a good number of Traditionalists, although Miaskiewicz says Wernz-Vidal do not share Kelly’s opinion. Miaskiewicz writes: “Once there was a public fact that could lead others into error, [these men teach] common error is already present …[This] reflects an attempt on their part to close a gap in logic without the aid of a logical connecting link,” (pg. 139). “If any and all jurisdictional activity is to be considered as valid because of the verification of common ignorance, what jurisdictional act could ever be considered as invalid? The difficulties of the interpretive theory are difficulties resulting from an attempt to break away from a traditionally accepted doctrine. They are difficulties which border closer and closer upon pure absurdity according as the individual authors venture to reduce common error to greater and greater insignificance. And it must be said that for such veering away from the traditional concept no limit can properly be set, precisely because it seems that the interpretive school has substituted its personal feeling of how they would want the law to be interpreted for the ordinary legal and objective norms which the law maintains must be followed…” As will be duly noted below, it is precisely the ignorance of Traditionalists these Modernists fed upon so eagerly, and nothing is more indicative of the Modernist mindset than their reliance on feelings versus clear facts and traditional Church teaching as the basis for their own opinions and conclusions.
While failing to identify the progressive/conservative struggle as an actual process used by the Modernists to facilitate change, as Pope Pius X taught, the author of the Unam Sanctam article continues to describe the “diabolic” watering down of doctrine in precisely the manner suggested by Fenton. What his description amounts to is actually the desired synthesis or alchemic dilution of dogma by Communist means: thesis, antithesis synthesis. The author describes this dilution process as follows: “It became common in the 1940’s and 1950’s to attach the label ‘integralism’ to those who favored the strict approach of Pius X and who still refused to accept the regime of pluralistic liberal democracy. Progressive Modernism was still acknowledged as heretical, but condemned, but the nouvelle theologiens also began trotting out critiques of an ‘integralist’ counter-reaction which went too far in the other direction and was not a suitable response to the demands of modern man.” This we see in Msgr. Fenton’s article addressing Congar above. In other words, integralism, in order to be successfully demonized later, had to be managed and properly channeled. It found its supposed outlet in Traditionalism, but the adherence to the dogmas essential to the true meaning of the word were missing in Traditional practice. At best it was a selective adherence to some dogmas only, at the expense of minimizing or ignoring others.
Eventually integralism would be anathematized as “radical” and its proponents as fanatics; this happened to Msgr. Fenton when he was relieved of his duties at the Catholic University of America in the 1960s. Once the false Vatican 2 council was concluded, then progressivism in the Church was given full sway. When progressivism receded somewhat during the reign of JP2, something the Unam Sanctam author calls “evangelical” Catholicism emerged among the Novus Ordo crowd to replace integralism, as if this was possible. The real struggle was one of obedience to the continual magisterium; as one writer categorized it, progressives denied authority and integralists fought to uphold it, something the writer portrayed as two undesirable extremes. This was the real motive behind the synthesis; the dismantling of authority, as Fenton was well aware. But the supposition that Traditionalists could be identified with integralism was false. Traditionalists recognized no authority other than their priests and the occasional bishop; they fostered all the goals and beliefs of Modernism. The Modernists used the movement as their necessary antithesis, and that was all. In order to avoid the appearance of radicalism, they shunned the strict observance of dogma to maintain their very existence, for dogma required them to continue their operations only if they were headed by a canonically elected pope. This was the very essence of Herberg’s religiosity — the appearance of religion without its substance.
Why Modernism made a comeback
In retrospect, what happened was exactly what those who orchestrated the demise of the Church was hoping would happen. Thanks in great part to the attitude of Lefebvre, that true popes may be severely criticized and chastised while yet regarded as popes; also with the creation of several laughable Traditionalist antipopes, authority became a joke, and the popes became second-class potentates that Traditonalists could either ignore or function without. What remained was a deep-seated distrust of all authority, consistent with the anti-establishment sentiments of the 1960s and 70s. And those promoting the new theology were only too happy to allow the rising anti-authority tide in the secular sphere to carry them to where they wished to go. That this anti-authority stance was nothing else but the revival of Modernism as described in St. Pius X’s Pascendi did not escape the likes of Msgr. Fenton and a scant few others, who stepped in to defend integralism. But Fenton would only later discover, as his diaries testify, that the damage had been done beforehand in the development of religiosity and Americanism, aided and abetted by his arch-foe John Courtney Murray. In part, at least, the success of Modernism’s reoccurrence can be laid at the door of the herd mentality and agnostic atmosphere of public schools, which half of Catholics in the country attended then. But that is only in part.
The other part is the abysmal and seemingly voluntary ignorance evidenced by the majority of Catholics where dogma is concerned. This was another concern raised by Pope St. Pius X during his reign — the catechization of the faithful. This pope said in Pascendi: “[Concerning] the intellectual causes of Modernism, the first one which presents itself, and the chief one, is ignorance.” And no wonder, for already in 1905, he had written in Acerbo Nimis: “It is a common complaint, unfortunately too well founded, that there are large numbers of Christians in our own time who are entirely ignorant of those truths necessary for salvation. And when we mention Christians, We refer not only to the masses or to those in the lower walks of life — We refer to those especially who do not lack culture or talents and, indeed, are possessed of abundant knowledge regarding things of the world but live rashly and imprudently with regard to religion. It is hard to find words to describe how profound is the darkness in which they are engulfed and, what is most deplorable of all, how tranquilly they repose there…The Council of Trent, treating of the duties of pastors of souls, decreed that their first and most important work is the instruction of the faithful,” and yet Traditionalist clergy would have you believe it is providing the faithful with Mass and Sacraments! Pope St. Pius X ordered bishops to see that priests instructed both adults and children in their catechisms weekly, but this command was generally ignored. And Modernists were only too happy to fill the void.
Had the bishops seen to it that the pastors faithfully carried out these instructions, there would not have been so many uneducated Catholics in the 1950s, unaware of what was happening to their Church. But the bishops, even then, were not obeying the pope, or were lax in such obedience. Later the dire shortage of priests forced Popes Pius XI and Pius XII to recruit catechists from the laity and encourage the laity to become involved in Catholic Action. But rather than address the woeful lack of doctrinal knowledge St. Pius X describes, many of those who should have engaged in Catholic Action to promote dogmatic teaching instead promoted liturgical renewal and ecumenical activities, something Pope Pius XII warned about on several occasions. A love of novelty and brotherhood was afoot and it could be traced to the secret influence of those Modernists within the Church itself, aided and abetted by Freemasons and Communists outside the Church, who silently infiltrated learning and teaching institutions following the death of Pope St. Pius X. Thanks to the war years and the disruption this caused at all levels, priests and bishops promoting Modernist ideas were able to float just far enough below the radar to remain undetected and stay out of trouble. By the time they triumphantly emerged, the damage was done.
During this time period, Catholic children attended Catholic schools, their parents attended Church-sponsored lectures and retreats, they read Catholic publications and little by little the liberal/Modernist poison was disseminated, as Herberg documented, into the body Catholic. Rather than suspect a new offensive by the Modernists on the spiritual front, Catholics who saw the lax attitude of the clergy and questioned the new theology were given a political reason for what they were experiencing: the Communists were making inroads into the clergy, an answer that fit in perfectly with the Cold War that America was then waging. Catholic Action became little more than a Catholic demand for equality on a social level, both at the secular and Church level. Rather than concentrating on studying papal documents in Catholic Action circles that dealt with truths of faith, Catholics preoccupied with trying to make a living wage to support their families or inching up a notch on the social ladder concentrated instead on the many social encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII and their emphasis on the social order and the working man.
This demonstrates Catholics’ indifference to the teaching of Leo’s predecessor Pope Pius IX, who condemned Modernism’s forerunner, liberalism, in his Syllabus as well as some Modernist principles in their infancy. These condemnations included the notion that Divine revelation is imperfect and must be subject to progress (DZ 1705); that all men are free to choose their own religion (DZ 1715) and that the Church has no right to teach that Catholicism is the only true religion (DZ 1721); that there is good hope for salvation of those not Catholic, (DZ 1718); the Church is to be separated from the state, and the state from the Church (DZ 1755); it is false that civil liberties granting the exercise of every idea and opinion leads to the corruption of minds and morals and eventually to indifferentism, (DZ 1779) and finally that the Roman Pontiff should adapt himself to progress, liberalism and modern times, (DZ 1780). And if they referenced the Syllabus at all, it was to argue in favor of the Americanist interpretation of these teachings.
All the above can be seen as what later became the basis for ecumenism and the successful Americanization of Catholics in this country as chronicled by Herberg. The secular community replaced the Catholic community, allowing the participation of Catholics but only according to democratic principles. The community movement, still very much in vogue now, was not identified, (as it should have been by wary Catholics), with the “commune” principles of Communism, from whence it really sprang. Today it is known as communitarianism, the new and accepted word for Communism. What happened to the Church globally in the 1960s had been condemned only 100 years prior in the 1860s. The new church classified the above errors as not binding on Catholics, even though the preamble to the Syllabus clearly states that these “errors of our age” were initially condemned in encyclicals, constitutions and the bull, Quanta Cura. The Freemasons and Modernists picked up the ball with the Syllabus’ last condemned proposition, (DZ 1780), and ran with it. The next century would be devoted to undermining the Church from within, in order to form the clergy necessary to bring about the election of the “pontiff” open to their designs, per the instructions of the Alta Vendita. Their first near-victory was the attempted election of suspected Freemason Cardinal Mariano Rampolla in 1903, a loss that set them back over 50 years.
Traditionalists’ parents and grandparents instructed in Modernism
Their next incursion into the ranks of the clergy was far more calculated and almost impossible to detect, and for that reason it was all the more lethal. They hid under the cover of war and social unrest, and their operations were often attributed to their Communist and Masonic allies. By the time the smoke cleared in the late 1940s, many of them were already in the drivers’ seat as parish priests, bishops, religious superiors, cardinals and Vatican officials. The young adults living then and the children born to them, who came under the tutelage of these men, were ripe for the picking. Already Novus Ordo-style masses had been offered in Germany and France, beginning in the 1920s. Pope Pius XII was forced to condemn false notions of the Church in Mystici Corporis, errors taught concerning the liturgy in Mediator Dei, anti-scholastic, anti-magisterial trends among theologians in Humani Generis and clarified Church teaching concerning lay participation in Church affairs in other papal documents. The ecumenical movement Pius XII condemned as antiquarianism continued to gather steam in the 1950s, and finally met with success under John 23rd. The black paganism he warned against, a paganism more sinister that its precursor because it worshipped the gods of self, Hollywood and the political realm, pervaded Catholic ranks.
How, exactly, did these insidious errors become an actual part of Catholic teaching even before the death of Pope Pius XII? Part of the problem has been attributed to a softening of the content in some of the catechisms and theological manuals, where the treatment of authority, infallibility, doctrinal development, salvation outside the Church, the ordinary magisterium, and other truths of faith were concerned. Many point to seminarians not properly screened by their bishops who should never have become priests, and whose formation left much to be desired. Why the doctrinal decline began is not as important as the fact that it actually happened, for whatever reason. And there is no doubt that it did happen and can be proven to have happened. As St. Pius X illustrates in Pascendi, the errors of the Modernists can be seen to correspond without fail to nearly every “hitch” in Traditional belief. We have to realize that at the time those who were infected with this heresy were learning their “faith,” they believed it to truly BE Catholicism, as taught to them prior to the reign of the antipopes beginning with John 23rd. They did not realize that what they were imbibing was not the true faith. This is why they keep insisting they are Catholics.
And these same people then passed these errors from generation to generation, believing they were passing on Catholicism. The Traditionalist priests and lay leaders who sought out those who departed from the Novus Ordo in the 1960s and 1970s knew they were dealing with people who did not base their beliefs on the doctrinal content of their faith but instead on their social and emotional needs, just as Herberg described in his work. If these “clerics” had not possessed Modernist leanings themselves they would have known Canon Law and Church teaching on jurisdiction, and when their jurisdiction expired, or they learned they could no longer provide Mass and Sacraments, they would have explained this to the faithful, but none did. And because none of them did, and Catholics truly believed they were able to function, they also believed that this must be in keeping with Church law and teaching. Owing to a false idea of authority originating in the error of fideism, they believed they were not obligated themselves to figure things out. But Christ would scarcely have warned them to beware of false shepherds and hirelings had He not expected them to be able to successfully identify them.
Eventually those who had recently left the Novus Ordo became wary of the Traditionalist movement in the 1970s, but even these Catholics fell into their traps. Some groups over-emphasized the part played by the Jews in destroying the Church, others relied on “older priests” validly ordained, but who had been excommunicated nonetheless for communicatio in sacris and could not function, and others who, even at that early date, embraced the material-formal mindset. Because of a Catholic education devoid of the proper emphasis on the teachings of the Roman Pontiff, but especially because they ultimately felt betrayed and abandoned by the hierarchy, they relied more on the teachings of older theologians, some of these not sound themselves, and took the defensive versus the offensive stance, bouncing off every new development issuing from Rome. Neither those actively involved with the Traditionalists nor those on the sidelines seemed to particularly worry about the fact that they themselves might be laboring under excommunication for once attending the Novus Ordo or Eastern rite services, or perhaps even resorting to the Orthodox or Old Catholics.
Chapel-goers didn’t worry because they just knew in their heart (Lemius, p. 38) that God would never be so cruel as to deprive them of their Mass and Sacraments, or make it impossible for them to avail themselves of these means of grace. Forget the fact that God had done exactly that in previous times, in the case of people very likely more deserving of His mercy than this perverse generation; or that Holy Scripture tells us He will allow Antichrist to take away the Holy Sacrifice. These people exhibited the entitlement syndrome so common today; psychologically speaking, the very prerequisite necessary to the diagnosis of “religious narcissism” described by Herberg. They were quick to invoke their “right” to these means of grace, and totally indifferent to the fact that in order to merit these rights, they had corresponding obligations. One prominent champion of the Latin Tridentine Mass, a man revered for his orthodoxy, told a friend in the early days that without the Mass to attend he feared he would lose his faith. If faith was such a fragile thing, even for those who professed it most vocally, then the nourishment required to make it strong and resilient had been lacking for some time previously. Pope St. Pius X tells us there were many lay Catholics, also priests who secretly embraced Modernism in the early 20th century, and that their entire purpose was to destroy the Church, (p. 14, 32). So it only stands to reason that after the first blows dealt by Pope St. Pius X, they lay low for a time, only to rise again with a vengeance when the Popes were distracted by war.
Errors Modernists and Traditionalists have in common
The Italian bishop, Geremia Bonomelli of Cremona, wrote an excellent treatise on the necessity of both interior and exterior devotion in the early 20th century, outlining the very symptoms of Modernism most noticeable among Traditionalists exiting the Novus Ordo in the 1960s-70s. He explained that interior devotion is prayer said silently with meditation and spiritual reading. Exterior devotion is public or vocal prayer, Sunday devotions, and singing. But, Bonomelli cautioned, these two methods “must not be considered as separate or separable things, but only distinct from each other…Exterior worship is derived from interior devotion. Both are a necessity and a duty of man towards God…but interior worship comes first in order of time and intrinsic value; exterior worship comes second in both these respects,” (“On Religious Worship,” 1906, B. Herder publishers). Pope Pius X notes in Pascendi that this attachment to the exterior part of religion is only Americanism, which stresses the need for action, (Lemius, p. 110), and this is exactly the point made by Herberg in his work, (see pg. 1 above). The pope condemns the following Modernist errors, also taken from Lemius’ work.
- The “need for the divine,” which Modernists confuse with the faith, (p. 25).
- The “double need” (p. 59), the first of these being “giving some [external] manifestation for religion;” the second, “is that of propagating it, which could not be done with some sensible form and consecrating acts, and these are called Sacraments.” Pope St. Pius X points out that the notion the Sacraments fostered and strengthened the faith is condemned by the Council of Trent, (DZ 848).
- The belief that they may choose democratically what to believe or not believe in way of dogma and may even critique it; their pretended obedience to doctrine and acceptance of papal authority, (p. 69-70).
- They have no use for logic or scholasticism, (pgs. 123-25).
- The identification of Tradition with whatever Catholics hold in way of a “common mind” or collective experience of what went before (false “sensus catholicus,” p. 63-76). We read in the Catholic Encyclopedia under Tradition: “Tradition, in the double meaning of the word… is Divine truth coming down to us in the mind of the Church and it is the guardianship and transmission of this Divine truth by the organ of the living magisterium, by ecclesiastical preaching, by the profession of it made by all in the Christian life.”
- Modernists use Traditionalists’ perceived need for the Mass and Sacraments to make it appear they are conserving Tradition while paying lip service to authority, (p. 75).
- The laity must advocate for progress (or conservation) as their consciences dictate and a compromise must be reached with authority, (p. 75). This will accomplish the desired synthesis.
- Traditionalists’ operation outside of authority and in contradiction of its established norms is to be used as a way to facilitate their eventual reabsorption into the Novus Ordo, where they will be allowed to celebrate their Latin Mass and follow their own preferences, (p. 76). The material pope theorists are currently working for this reunion.
- Traditionalists regarded dogma so lightly and believed it should be adaptable to the circumstances (p. 38-39) because they were imbued with the false idea of being able to choose what to believe from among these dogmas, (p. 64-65). This is the democratic idea of governance by the people, versus accepting without question what the Supreme Pontiff teaches as Christ’s Vicar on earth.
- The Modernists ignore the condemnations of the Church, (p. 103). They come to each other’s aid when attacked, and vent their fury on those who defend Catholic dogma, (pgs. 128-29). They are incorrigible and refuse to desist from their heresy, (pgs. 15, 17).
- “When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that render him redoubtable, they try to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack,” (p. 128-29). That describes to a “T” what Traditionalists have done for years regarding this site and the articles published here.
Conclusion
Pope St. Pius X did not hesitate to point out that the Modernists chief aim was to remove the magisterium and destroy the Church. And it was the Modernists’ presentation of Mass and Sacraments divorced from the “guardianship and transmission of this Divine truth [Tradition] by the organ of the living magisterium,” (Catholic Encyclopedia) that convinced ignorant Catholics following them they need no longer worry about obeying anyone other than these priests. By dividing the Mass and Sacraments from the necessity of the papacy and obedience to papal teaching; by communicating in worship with those not in communion with Rome, “Traditionalists” successfully gutted the faith of Tradition and retained only its external practices, demolishing the very integralism necessary for the Church’s survival. Stay-at-home advocates have not said it; those teaching with Church approval said it shortly before it became a reality. No Traditionalist can ever explain away their ignorance of the true meaning of Tradition and their open invitation to unlawful pastors to minister to them in violation of Church law and teaching. What we hear in way of objections to our “rigid” stance is exactly what Msgr. Fenton pointed out in 1952 as the claim of the new-theology advocate Yves Congar: “The religious proposition of the integralists is…represented as characterized by a rigidity of doctrine. All this expression would seem to mean is a resistance to any teaching which the integralist regards as involving a change in Catholic doctrine.” What Traditionalists claim about this site and stay-at-home Catholics is no different, then, than what Congar accused the “integralists” of in 1952, as reported by Msgr. Fenton.
Traditionalists have not yet tumbled to the fact that their Modernist non-clergy have used them as dupes to perpetuate the Modernist agenda all these years by falsifying the true teaching of the Church concerning Tradition. And stay-at-home Catholics may only now realize that what they have been fighting in trying to reach their separated brethren is something that was transmitted to them by parents and grandparents as THE Catholic faith decades ago, when in fact it was Modernism all along.
Many tears have been shed, families split apart, friends lost because of this insidious disease deliberately spread by closet progressives. And unfortunately Pope St. Pius X had little hope for the return of those who succumbed to the Modernist mindset, commenting in Pascendi that they are not easily deterred and prefer to continue on their chosen path: “Their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds…this almost destroys all hope of a cure… [But] it may be they have persuaded themselves that they are really serving God and the Church.” Having seen the destruction wrought by their accursed intransigence, however, and the feeble hope of repairing the damage done, it is difficult to believe that today. At least we know now why they are so unlikely to convert and that rather than fear they are a product of our own shortcomings, we can lay their loss up to those “serpents in the bosom of the Church” as Pope St. Pius X described them. The only question left to answer is this: now that the real problem has been identified, will they continue to cling to their Modernist errors, as Pope St. Pius X feared, or will they finally depart from them, knowing their origin?
“Forgive them Father…” for truly, “they know not what they do.”
by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 26, 2015 | Uncategorized
Pope St. Pius V’s MOTU PROPRIO Inter Multiplices
(Dec. 21, 1566)
Among the manifold cares that continuously affect our mind, the foremost is, as it should be, that the Church of God — entrusted to Us from on high and cleansed to the greatest degree possible of all heresies after the total removal of perverse teachings founded on erroneous opinions — be able to serve safely in Christ’s army and, like a ship on a calm sea, after all the tempestuous waves and storms have settled, sail without worry and reach the longed-for port of salvation. Therefore, while We, in our assignment at the Most Holy[1] Office of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, were dealing with matters in lesser affairs against heretical perversity, We learned at length from long custom and the teaching of experience that many indicted accused parties — parties who had been indicted even in the aforesaid Holy Office or elsewhere before a local bishop, parties who had been tried by inquisitors for heretical perversity and investigated for heretical perversity for causing false witnesses to be examined[2] in their defense, and who were enjoying the assistance and testimony of corroborating character witnesses[3] little informed of their life and teaching, and who, by various other illicit means, were deceiving and deluding through guileful justifications and roguery the aforesaid sacred Office of the Most Holy Inquisition, other judges, and even Roman Pontiffs — obtained or extracted, just as though they were innocent of the charges against them (1) definite declarations of absolution from the aforesaid judicial processes and inquisitions, (2) declaratory pronouncements of their life and teaching through a previous canonical clearance of a charge based on the oaths of others with respect to their presumed good and Catholic faith, or (3) decrees from the same Holy Office, from other ordinaries of places or delegates and inquisitors, and even from Roman Pontiffs who were our predecessors.
The aforementioned Roman Pontiffs confirmed these judicial pronouncements and decrees with the added imposition of permanent silence, along with a prohibition lest said Holy Office or other inquisitors might be able to or should go forward in respect to additional details. Also, moreover, the popes confirmed these pronouncements (a) by means of a summons to appear before the Roman Pontiff alone (under whose protection they were placed), (b) by means of other legal modifications, and (c) by the most legally effective provisos (some even nullifying), or (d) by other decrees, even by enhancing them in the form of a letter of indulgence. The pontiffs further confirmed these pronouncements through their several motu proprios and, in addition, through letters sent under the official seal or the ring of the Fisherman, even issued in consistory or in a consistorial manner.
Accordingly, the result was that the aforesaid investigated parties — under the cover and protection of the aforementioned declaratory pronouncements, Apostolic letters, and especially the force of a prohibitory proviso (made in secret against the inquisitors sitting in session) — never truly returned to the bosom of the Church, sometimes by even remaining openly steadfast in their old errors against the Catholic faith. Instead, by safely keeping company with others as Catholics, they were able to corrupt and infect the minds of those individuals and easily draw them into their own heretical opinions, to the not inconsequential scandal of all Christendom, and to the injury, ruin, and detriment of the aforesaid fallen souls.
- Desiring to confront this very dangerous and contagious scandal, to be mindful of and to provide for the salvation of the above-mentioned souls, to remove all the doubt and the disputes of legal experts and any impediments and obstacles by which the Holy Inquisition was hindered or delayed in any way whatsoever with regard to heretical perversity, by a like motu proprio, and based on Our established knowledge and on the fullness of Apostolic power, We declare, decree, establish, and ordain, by our Apostolic authority, that the following instruments have never been applicable nor in the future can be applicable to a decided case: (a) above all, each and every one whatsoever of the Apostolic letters under whatever form, including the afore cited and any judicial processes of heresy; (b) the motu proprios etc., including those issued in a consistorial manner and others howsoever derived; (c) likewise also the official attestations of the motu proprios and whatever other documents pertaining to the law and justice, which abate legal decisions; (d) similarly, the already mentioned letters in regard to the prosecutorial authority of the aforenamed Holy Office of the Inquisition and of other ordinary or appointed judges; (e) prohibitions and also repeals and whatever other provisos that open a loophole, insofar as they may be contrary to the inclination or the manner of procedure of the said Office.
We completely and perpetually revoke them, each and every one whatsoever by means of this Our universal constitution that will be valid perpetually. We include in our revocation those documents that confer absolution in instances of declared innocence, or those declaratory judgments issuing from a previous canonical clearance in any verbal form whatsoever, including definitive judgments and decrees incurred in favor of the same parties investigated and denounced by the afore cited Holy Office, by other ordinary and appointed judges, and even by the Roman Pontiffs, or those judgments and decrees that are to be imposed in the future even by Us and by our successor Popes in the course of time.
- In respect to the aforementioned judgments and decrees, albeit in accordance with Apostolic letters, even those in the form of an indulgence, including those renewed, and also those issued, confirmed or to be confirmed by several Roman Pontiffs, along with any legal modifications whatsoever, including nullifying or other provisos or decrees, as well as prohibitions and even canonical sanctions, We desire the contents of each and every one of them, and of others sent in advance, and of those thence to follow, to be considered as included expressly and totally in this present document, as if they were incorporated word for word, notwithstanding any others whatever acting to the contrary. Furthermore, by the same Apostolic authority, We, in like manner, wish and command, through the agency of the aforesaid Holy Office of the Holy Inquisition and the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church (our beloved present-day sons and those who will emerge over the course of time as inquisitors of heretical perversity, appointed now and in the course of time over said Office), that the same accused, denounced, and investigated individuals can and should be investigated and tried again, even if they were or are Bishops, Archbishops, Patriarchs, Primates, Cardinals of the same Holy Roman Church, Legates, including the highest ranking Papal Legates, Counts, Barons, Marquises, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors, both in respect to the past as well as recent times with regard to the same issues of law, the witnesses received or to be received, and other arguments, proofs, and evidence, according to the faculties in any way whatever given and conceded to the same Cardinal inquisitors by Us and by any of Our predecessors, and respectively to be given and conceded in the future by Our successors, the Roman Pontiffs, who emerge in the course of time, and by the Apostolic See (completely and wholly as well), just as if the aforementioned judgments, decrees, and Apostolic letters, including canonical clearances, had not been issued in favor of the aforesaid denounced, accused, and investigated persons, including Bishops, Archbishops, Patriarchs, Primates, Cardinals, Legates, Counts, Barons, Marquises, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors[4], especially where it would appear, by means of new, supervening evidence of the same or another species of heresy (including evidence relating to past time), and through other evidence, that the party had been absolved by illicit means before he had been denounced or investigated.
We grant to the same Cardinal inquisitors, appointed now and in the course of time over the Holy Office of the Holy Inquisition, the full, free, abundant, and complete faculty, power, and authority (a) of reviewing cases of this kind, including those decided by the authority of the Universal Ecumenical Council of Trent; and (b) of taking them up again under the status and terms in which they were howsoever found before the aforementioned judgments, decrees, including canonical clearances; and (c) of bringing them to a close by a proper settlement, just as in other pending undecided cases it may and usually does occur through the agency of the same Cardinals in accordance with their faculties.
- And closely following upon the footsteps of Our predecessor of happy memory Paul IV, We renew, in accordance with this motu proprio, the constitution against heretics and schismatics previously issued by the same predecessor Paul, namely the one dated at Rome at St. Peter’s[5], in the year of our Lord’s Incarnation, February 15, 1558 [sic][6], in the fourth year of his pontificate, and We also confirm it as inviolable and wish and command that it be observed to the letter, according to its contents and wording.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, December 21, [1566,] in the first year [of Our pontificate].
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Editor’s Note: It should be noted here that during the reign of Pope Paul IV, Pope St. Pius V was well acquainted with Cardinal Giovanni Morone, imprisoned and placed on trial by Pope Paul IV as a heretic. Morone was charged with reading forbidden books and conspiring with other cardinals to reconcile the Catholic faith with Lutheranism. The Catholic Encyclopedia classifies him as a liberal. (It must be remembered that it was the Lutherans who first promoted the papal antichrist theory.) Pope Paul IV published two bulls; one on “engaging in intrigues to reach the pontificate” (Artaud de Montor, “Lives and Times of the Popes,”) on Dec. 16, 1558 and the other only two months later — Cum ex Apsotolatus Officio. De Montor tells us that St. Charles Borromeo so strongly approved of the 1558 bull that he “absolutely declined to talk about the future pope.” It should not be forgotten here that Roncalli, a suspected Modernist as a young priest, also campaigned for his election prior to Pope Pius XII’s death, (see the articles on Roncalli in the section on antipopes, Free Content page.)
The first bull was most likely written after Paul IV realized his health was failing, for he died the same year Cum ex…was written. Seeing that sympathy was mounting for Morone and support gathering for his exoneration and future election; knowing he would be a likely candidate, the pope took the appropriate precautions. (This provision can still be found today, reflected in Pope Pius XII’s papal election constitution Vacantis Apostolica Sedis.) When no verdict came in Morone’s trial, the pope realized there, too, the dangers it would pose to the Church should a man not cleared of heresy be elected. When Paul IV died, Morone, still a prisoner, was released to attend the conclave. At first he was one of three frontrunners, but ran full force into Cardinal Ghislieri, the future Pope St. Pius V. Of all people, Cardinal Hergenrother is reported to have written, in his “The History of the Popes,” (late 1800s) that Morone’s campaign was quashed by the intervention of Cardinal Ghislieri, who pointedly remarked that Morone’s election would be invalid owing to the question mark hanging over his orthodoxy.
Pope St. Pius V had good reason, then, to ratify Cum ex… Pope Pius IV may have exonerated Morone of all charges of heresy leveled by Pope Paul IV, yet Pope St. Pius V says in his motu proprio above that previous popes were deceived by men such as Morone, and the letters exonerating them, “even from Roman Pontiffs who were our predecessors,” were to be considered null and void. Clearly this was a vindication of Pope Paul IV’s suspicions of Morone by the saint who prevented his election as pope.
(This comment and all emphasis in Pope St. Pius V’s document was added by T. Stanfill Benns. Footnotes are by the translator.)
[1] The text reading sanctissime has been emended by translator to sanctissimi. Verified against Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 7 (Turin, 1862).
[2] The text reading mandati has been emended by translator to mandari. Verified against Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 7 (Turin, 1862).
[3] The Latin word, compurgator, technically means one of a group of neighbors called by the accused to swear that he was testifying truthfully. “Character witness” is an approximation since compurgators were not witnesses but oath takers who expressed their belief in the truthfulness of the accused’s testimony.
[4] The text reading Imperatorem has been emended by translator to Imperatorum. Verified against Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 7 (Turin, 1862).
[5] The text reading Patrum has been emended by translator to Petrum. Verified against Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 7 (Turin, 1862).
[6] Same year given in several different editions of the Bullarum. Other sources on the Internet give the year of Cum ex apostolatus as 1559. Lancelotti’s Bullarum prints Cum ex apostolatus with year of 1558 and a date of 16 (not 15 as in Inter multiplices) days before the Kalends of March, or February 14.
by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 26, 2015 | Uncategorized
PROLOGUE TO THE SECOND EDITION
(Text printed by Disandro’s St. Athanasius Institute, Argentina. 1985)
Seven years ago now, the Latin text of this paper was published in a basic, explanatory edition with a carefully considered Spanish translation. At the time, functioning as pope was Giovanni Montini, who by a strange coincidence figured in the series of popes by the name Paul: Paul VI was his hierarchical style in the secular history of the pontificate.
Both the Latin edition of the text and the Spanish translation appeared in Spanish America for the first time, and for the first time the teaching of a renaissance Pope shone brightly in the midst of a storm completely unknown by the Tridentine Church in that same part of the Americas. His admonitions resonated, which at the time, four centuries ago, seemed to be the result of ephemeral controversies of the same Roman Curia. And all the same, the inexorable course of a time, erosive for the Faith, brought the Bull of Paul IV in direct comparison with the acts and teachings of Paul VI, the pope of unrestricted semantic change in a revolutionary and subversive age, also characteristic of the Church.
The first edition made its way through Argentina and America and opened up, together with the Breve[1] of St. Pius V, which it completes, a deeper understanding of events, conceptions, and decisions (undoubtedly directed by the unfathomable mystery of Providence), so as to shake from within the Church of Rome the very make-up of tradition and the mystic edifice as an expression of the purity of the Trinitarian and theandric[2] faith. Within Roman Catholicism, a fissure like that of the Lutheran reform seemed to become apparent; the sense of the great ecumenical councils of the glorious past seemed to die out. At that time, there was no Cardinal Ratzinger to present to view the design of the enormous destruction that took place over 20 years and to discriminate between the untouchable and the disposable in five centuries of arrested development for Christian life.
The St. Athanasius Institute, a very modest group of people faithful to divine paradosis[3], a very modest center of learning for understanding the Sources in their purity of Abundant Life, agrees with many friends about the urgency of issuing a second edition, improved in every way possible for the ease of the reader and the student.
Americans now know this text; they transcribe it; they quote it, sadly often without giving credit, even in Argentina, to the source of their information, resorting to limited, critical, cautionary remarks that are not always perfectly clear. Nevertheless, in the face of the semantic revolution that other Roman pontiffs have described, what matters, of course, is to affirm the unity of the Trinitarian faith overlaying authoritarian contradictions all too evident in the Church of today.
The mission of the philologist is to suggest, on the fringe of the disputes that inevitably result, the integrity of the text and to summarize as far as possible its historico-systematic meaning. Each one will then make pertinent conclusions or will confront the line of reasoning of that text with a variable criterion for interpretation. However, what we cannot deny in any case is the existence of the document and it historic design, past or imminent. To do so would be foolish and contrary to the truth. [C.A.D. {= Carlos Alberto Disandro}] 1985.
INTRODUCTION
The Church is the Mysterium Theandricum,[4] a phrase that expresses the comprehensive Mysterium Ecclesiae, or the Sacramentum Trinitatis.[5] The relation or nexus of this Mysterium or Sacramentum with the history of mankind, in its complete temporal manifestation, constitutes the true central point of world history, hidden for positivist reasons or owing to the revisionism with which research pretends to understand that history.
In turn, the history of the Roman Pontificate is a fundamental aspect of that nexus in its mystical order—a sacred power that we would say encapsulates the priesthood of Melchisedech and transcends the law and the prophets, or the cultural expressions that appear in different periods of time—and in its religious juridical authority, in its temporal or political implications, etc. Within the history of the pontificate, the “utterance” of the legitimate Pontiff always has the character of clarification, growth, consolidation, interpretation. It decides, repairs, revives, reorients, deepens, condemns, anathematizes in such a way that the passage of time proposes no mere substitution of stages of indifferent validity but a kind of organic expansion that unites in a living way the notions “inviolable principle” and more or less unforeseen or independent “succession of time or transitory change.”
It is this that rejects and demolishes progressivism or dialectical modernism rooted in cycles of abolishment and reassumption. It is this that proved to be confused because of the semantic war concentrated within the Roman Church since the death of Pius XII. A revealing “new impulse” and a “new authority,” that is to say, the resetting of the “new good,” propose a complete change in the relation of “principle” and “succession of time.” One can summarize in this judgment the pastoral focus of Vatican II, the propheticism of Paul VI, the horizon of unfelt destructions characteristic of those 20 years of semantic warfare. All that is, all in all, an idea of the Mysterium Ecclesiae, an idea that we put down to a latent or explicit Docetism, in a monophysitism of human nature, in a neo-ebionism[6] that corrupts the life of the faith.
1. In this sense, we find illustrative the prudential documents of the papacy, the canonical and doctrinal cautions, the disciplinary measures, the resolutions or decrees or censures etc., to the extent that they warned of, illustrated, defined or settled complex situations in which they nevertheless anticipated assured outcomes later explicit in the fabric of events, disputes, teachings, important figures or successive conflicts. Many of those documents (which we listed in the theological category of pronouncements of the faith) lacked genuine efficacy, were unknown or disobeyed, were relegated without greater consequences to the formal archives, while the passage of time defined new instances and caused new contradictions to emerge. Nevertheless, such “utterances” do not lose their illuminative standing, especially if the times in which they were recorded are in some way the stimulus and origin of the present circumstance; and if those precautions of the past—obstructed and denied by the same authority they had a tendency to defend—seem fulfilled in the today’s Church, governed by a false pontiff raised up from those backgrounds combatted or retracted for centuries, coddled and acclaimed as “Holy Father” by the entire apostolic hierarchy, held as a Doctor of these ecumenical times, hailed by all worldly and social powers as the expert on humanity, on peace that is made in the midst of violence, on the truth that overtakes unfailing and heavenly Truth.
2. These are the facts, the unquestionable realities that confront the Faith. And these are the overwhelming terms and limits: on one side, the Pontificate and all its apostolic bodies, with all the charisms, authority, jurisdiction, and power; on the other side, a simple member of the faithful who, illuminated by Faith and by the knowledge of languages, sources, texts, doctors of the Church, councils, imprescriptible and transparent, points out the apostasy of a semantic war that the Pontificate and apostolic bodies are conducting precisely against the Faith, against the Church, against the Mysterium Theandricum. The terms, I repeat, are overwhelming. But the light of faith also is overwhelming.
Two different considerations suggest these reflections: (1) In the theandric mystery that is the Church, How could the apostasy of Roman authority happen and consequently, in that null-and-void authority, continue the mission of abolishing the Church, that is to say, the life of Faith? (2) In the strictly historical scheme that pertains to the explicit and concrete course of canonical and jurisdictional authority and that extends, say, from Pius V (1566-1572) and Paul VI (1963-1978), How could they and how did they happen, namely, the precise modulations, the efficacious combinations, the abundant decisions crowned by what affirms our previous account: Rome under the power of a false pontiff, the bishops happily embarked on anti-Christian apostasy, the Faith trampled underfoot by the teachers of the Faith, the sacraments destroyed or denied by the ministers of the sacraments, without which some at least cannot exist? Doesn’t the comparison of these two limits seem contradictory and perverse, and wouldn’t it be better to be silent so that the infallible “authority,” as they affirm, may heal, liberate, guide.
The first question has a mystico-theological character and cannot be resolved except in the framework of a Theology of Faith, of a grand and definitive Ecclesiology that enlightens us about the nature of the Church, about her existence in the world, about her theandric dimension, subject nevertheless to detours and advances unintelligible by the historicist or positivist reassessment. The second question, on the other hand, alludes to concrete temporal matters, personages, acts, and decisions that gave birth to a scheme where the theandric mystery went into exile or became obscure in order to give way to the power of the world over the Church. One can perfectly reconstitute that scheme, one can follow step by step that obscurity like a rhythmic contraction of the heart of the Faith and her semantics, while the latter, the semantics of the Faith, is expressed in concrete, historical, irrevocable, and unmistakable conditions. The mysterious margin of union or separation between the two categories mentioned remains, of course: the theological category that involves a contemplation of the Mysterium Ecclesiae; the historical category that entails names, decisions, events, and conflicts, unequivocally different, but which appear aligned in one direction: the triumph of the Antichrist against the Unique Sacrality of the Church.
3. In these alternatives, both theological and historical, Pope Paul IV’s highly illustrative Bull of February 15, 1559, Cum ex apostolatus officio[7], comes into play, as well as its subsequent confirmation by the apostolic constitution of St. Pius V in the motu proprio[8] of December 1566. Both documents are offered here in their Latin text, that of Paul IV in its entirety and that of Pius V with the final paragraphs (of a formal, legal character) deleted, and are accompanied by a translation into Spanish, probably the first in the Spanish-speaking world. The Institute of St. Athanasius (in Córdoba, Argentina), proposes to offer material for study that may permit making painstaking inquiries into the critical juncture of the present; to summarize the conflicting moments of contradictory centuries; and to deduce, of course, the explanations capable of conceiving and affirming what I call “semantics of the Faith.” Putting aside the theses that could be supported in the present circumstances and conditions of the Roman Church, nobody more or less informed about the dramatic tensions taking place and shaking the formerly solid edifice of the Church could discount the importance of this document, which exactly foresees the possibility of an apostasy like that adduced on the theological level, and the possibility of a series of historical events that extol heresy as the constitutive principle of religious life in the Church. What has happened, then, between Paul IV and Paul VI over the course of four dramatic centuries?
We are in the difficult and dense intervals of the Council of Trent. Convoked by Paul III in May 1542, the Council could only begin its sessions in December 1545. Interrupted between 1552 and 1562, the deaths of three pontiffs were recorded during that recess: Julius II (who had reopened it after Paul III), Marcellus II, and Paul IV. Succeeding the latter was Pius IV, who specially reopened the Council and brought it to an end (December 1563). In turn, St. Pius V (1566-1572) set about the great work of the purification and reform of the Church, as this expression is understood in the classic theological sense. For his part, Paul IV did not wish to, nor could he, resume the Council owing to the difficult political conditions in Christianity, because of the tensions and intrigues in papal government, or for other reasons that are unclear in the common interpretation of historians.
As a matter of fact, he governed without the presence of the Council, and in such circumstances he promulgated the document upon which we are commenting. Naturally this chapter in the history of the Church, which covers the first half of the 16th century, represents the gravest crisis since the days of the Great Western Schism and the prolegomena of the Council of Constance.[9] Nevertheless at one or another juncture—that of Trent or that of Constance—neither the doctrine nor the Faith within the hierarchical levels of the Church was affected, as took place later after the death of Leo XIII and continues to take place following the death of Pius XII. The distinction between hierarchy and heresy was sharp and therefore illustrative of the doctrinal clarity in the Church, an indication, in turn, of the life of the Faith. Why, then, the Bull of Paul IV?
The document transcribed herein belongs to the fourth and last year of the reign of Paul IV, and undoubtedly was occasioned by the grave canonical, jurisdictional, and theological circumstances that these years of the Council’s recess reveal. One should consider that the Bull Cum ex apostolatus officio aimed at preventing, in some efficacious manner, heretical invasion in the hierarchical body of the Church, without excluding the possibility that a heretic pope might be elected by the conclave of cardinals. The dramatic events in Germany, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, etc. had shown in new times a new faith, and in the new faith a different conception of canonical authority, and in this a new historical establishment of open rejection of primordial Sacrality (without which the Church cannot exist as theandric mystery). What could happen, then, in the Roman Church, if a heretic occupied the seat of apostolic governance? Moreover, is this possible? The document of Paul IV inevitably involves, then, a teaching that both the “progressives” (for whom authority lacks sacred grounding) and the “traditionalists” (for whom the crises are explained only on the margin of authority) refuse to see. But Paul IV is unequivocal on this point, and because of this very reason, I believe, his pruritic text has been systematically concealed by both sides.
The motu proprio of St. Pius V betrays the same worries, now that the Council has been closed. Right in the middle of the task of ecclesiastical restructuring, the dangers of the corrupting infiltration of the Faith, of apostolic authority, and of apostolic Tradition do not appear to have lessened, insofar as this document practically reopens all the causes of heresy that could have been substantiated before competent tribunals. In view of the subsequent circumstances of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and in light of the appearance of indivisible solidity in the great pontificates until Pius XII, the subject of the Bull and the motu proprio could have seemed an excessive caution, a presumption born of the tension of unending conflicts, in short, a definite taste of authoritarian pontiffs for maximizing the canonical signification of the truth and, consequently, of the force of the heresiarchs, heretics, and heresies. And yet we are now witnesses to the recurrence described with cautious foresight by Paul IV and Pius V: heresies, whose causes the popes have not impeded, rise to the highest canonical dignities and are even directed to possessing the pontificate; conclaves that elect masons or crown notorious modernist popes—or supposed popes who in their exercise of authority do battle against the Faith— render tradition unimportant and destroy it, and obscure the spiritual horizon of the Church.
Indeed, it would be sufficient to summarize the history of modernist heresy with popes Pius X and Pius XII in very recent times, or with the canonical labyrinths of the “nouvelle théologie,”[10] finally erected as a rule of faith and as a revolutionary statute of a supposed pontiff said to be invested with the full authority of Tradition, and this summary would then be sufficient to confer renewed interest in these documents of the Christian past. Without going into other explanations, let us agree that the texts herein printed have an indubitable prophetic tone, and their wariness, which exhibited at first glance a certain coarse realism [tremendismo] of the Faith, has developed in these contradictory times into unmistakable brilliance to confront the deception, to combat resolutely and courageously the semantic adulterations, and to maintain without betrayals the purity of the Trinitarian and theandric Faith.
4. The document consists of an introduction and ten clauses or sections. Of these, numbers 8-10 are of a legal and formal character or correspond to the procedures of the Vatican chancery. But let us examine the substantial subjects of the Bull dedicated to preventing heresy from taking possession of the hierarchical bodies or even gaining the Apostolic See so as to destroy doctrine, discipline, jurisdiction, etc. The introduction, without mentioning it explicitly, defines the situation caused by the Protestant heresy that “rises up against the discipline of the true Faith in a genuinely perverse manner,” a phrase that we could apply to theological, liturgical, Biblical, and canonical modernism. In other words, the struggle of popes like Pius X and Pius XII against modernist teachings, or against the “nouvelle théologie,” confronted again a situation like that of the 16th century. Was, by chance, the Bull reissued for all to read in public places, or was the opinion of Paul IV brought to public notice as a perpetual vigilance of the Shepherd, just as the same text states? Did someone call to mind this severe canonical case-in-point that cut off at the root the advance of the anti-Christian powers within the apostolic hierarchy?
Did someone put a stop to Montini or Daniélou[11] in accordance with these unequivocal norms? Did someone stand in the way of their path to the cardinalate or the papacy? Did someone call for their immediate removal from office just as Paul IV and Pius V commanded and still command? Be that as it may, Paul IV clarifies at once a fundamental theme in the post-medieval theological debates that we noticed in the semantic war, namely, “upending by ill-willed and totally inappropriate means the understanding of the Holy Scriptures.” Does Paul IV not point to the wicked work that we will see reaching its highest point within the hierarchy in cardinals Bea (The New Psalter) and Daniélou (The Theology of Jewish Christianity), to cite two well-known examples? And how could the Biblical modernism of Bea develop and establish itself after the warnings, rebukes, and condemnations of St. Pius X, infect the pontificates of Pius XI and Pius XII, and emerge triumphant with John XXIII? Is authority in the Church a living organ or a bureaucratic organ?
While the introduction advances two important doctrinal aspects, the first paragraph takes note of, we would say, other mystical aspects, without excluding a reference to the mysterium iniquitatis[12] that could operate in the context of the hierarchy and reach the long-desired goal: “that we see the abomination of desolation in the holy place,” foretold by the prophet Daniel. The reference alludes to Daniel 9:27: et in dimidio hebdomadis deficiet hostia et sacrificium; et erit in templo abominatio desolationis.[13] And then in 12:11: et a tempore cum ablatum fuerit iuge sacrificium et posita fuerit abominatio in desolationem, dies mille ducenti nonaginta.[14] The prophetic text is therefore interpreted from the life of the Church and the Antichrist: in the life of the Church, the cessation of the sacrifice (hostia et sacrificium[15], iuge sacrificium[16]), and the restoration of the Antichrist: abominatio in desolationem[17], the expression from chapter 12 that makes explicit the force of the genitive:[18] it happens that the abominatio installs itself in loco sancto[19], which is the furtherance of the desolation in the Church deprived of the Sacrifice.
What is important are not those nuances that we can give to the text (commonly displayed in medieval prophecies), but the fact that with it Paul IV indicates in the Bull an ostensible interpretation: the apostasy of the hierarchical body of the Church, whose distinctions of rank, we would say, appear again and again with a certain insistence in the document so that nobody is confused. Well, then, do we not have the “new Mass” and the invalid authority of Montini owing to the work of an apostate hierarchy? Has not the prophetic warning of Paul IV come to pass? What is, according to the text of the Biblical prophet and according to the pope’s allusion, the abominatio?
Two images in the introduction complete the description: “hunting the foxes,” or rather the hierarchs who within the Church are destroying her; and “repelling the wolves” that prowl about, for which Paul IV uses the exact term, “bark,” that is to say, utter the truth. But what has, on the plane of historical occurrence, the slyness of the foxes and the boldness of the wolves been within the clerical bodies? History can be perfectly summed up if one remembers the pontificate of Pius X, which is precisely the answer that the Holiness of the Church gives in reply to the Masonic papal conclave of 1903. Foxes and wolves have destroyed the efforts of the great pope who opens the 20th century with a promise. Who were the drivers of Foxes and Wolves in a Church that seemed to recover her pristine liturgical and doctrinal glory?
The second paragraph of the Bull reaffirms all the condemnations against heretics and schismatics. And let us note that this recapitulation comprises not only the resolutions, judgments, and censures of all the preceding popes but the sentences that all the Councils imposed. And here Paul IV seems to prophetically warn anew against what will occur in respect to the Council of Ephesus – disavowed in the title Montini gave to the Most Blessed Virgin, namely, the title “mother of the Church”[20] – and in respect to the Council of Trent, disavowed in the supposed theology of the “new Mass.” This is part of the desolation; this is furtherance of the abomination, and therefore an unmistakable prelude to the Antichrist. Here also Paul IV, by including the series of ecclesiastical and temporal high offices in the frame of the aforementioned judgments and censures, indicates the probable direction of the apostasy.
The third paragraph attempts to fill out the canonical remedies that bar the way to heresy, and seems to represent the originating motive for this document: to strip the heretics on the rolls of the hierarchy of their titles, offices, and dignities, including the rank of cardinal, without the necessity of judicial procedure of law or of fact. Moreover, concerning the judgments, censures, and penalties anticipated in the remote or immediate past, Paul IV, in the beginning of paragraph 3, thoroughly explores and develops the doctrinal question and its canonical efficacy. As to the stripping of titles and offices, he insists on the impossibility of the guilty parties’ being restored or returned to their old dignities, by which the pope underscores the seriousness of the case and the sentence.
The fourth and fifth paragraphs emphasize other consequences and requirements with respect to the nomination of new officials for the vacant positions, or with respect to the canonical and procedural consequences for those who have welcomed, favored, or supported those charged as heretics and schismatics. Finally the sixth and seventh sections resolve the question about those who, having defected from the Faith, were promoted to any ecclesiastical dignity, without excluding the case of a papal election, in the sense that such an election or promotion is null, void, and without any effect. In order to remove any doubt in the case of a false pope, Paul IV underscores the fact that the assumption of papal jurisdiction does not acquire validity either by possession of the office, or by the enthronement and adoratio,[21] or by the obedience that has been accorded to him, or by the passage of time from the election in the conclave or from the enthronement.
5. Let us now summarize what I have called the doctrinal background of the Bull. The mystery of the apostasy in the Church can develop, and it develops in the hierarchical levels, without excluding the pontificate. And, on the horizon of the life of the Church, that mystery would entail the cessation of the Sacrifice and the abomination of desolation in the holy place. Accordingly, it is the most primary function of the Shepherd to be watchful so that this does not take place in the Church. But it could occur. Heresy and schism work by trying to gain access through the hierarchy and pontificate. This is possible. In order to prevent the spread and rise of heresy and schism, it is necessary to nip in the bud the relationship of ecclesiastical dignity and heresy or heretic. In this sense, Paul IV admits the certain possibility that a papal conclave may unanimously elect as pope a heretic.
This election lacks validity with all the canonical consequences that derive from it. Therefore, according to Paul IV, it is not contrary to the Faith to affirm that there could occur the case of a heretic pope (a false pope, naturally) elected by he unanimous vote of the cardinals, an outcome that could suggest, in turn, the electors’ heretical unanimity. It is certainly not necessary, but it is possible. This would be, I believe, the abominatio in desolationem: the Church without a pope and without legitimate electors, they being automatically dispossessed of their dignities. Nevertheless, these—a false pope and deposed cardinals—would have been able to bring about, according to the convergence of events of the mysterium iniquitatis, the abolishment of the Sacrifice of the Altar, that of which the prophet Daniel explicitly speaks: deficiet hostia et sacrificium; et erit in templo abominatio desolationis.[22]
Paul IV adds that no one stripped of his canonical dignity in such conditions and proceedings can be rehabilitated, restored, or put back in his former office. And this certainly involves an extreme sentence or censure in keeping with the extreme gravity of the canonical procedure, since in reality all those officials so interrogated, investigated, or judged would be implicitly accused of wishing to destroy the Church. For that reason, St. Pius V widens, in a certain sense, the judiciary margin of the Bull by decreeing the reopening of all the canonical procedures without excluding those that might have already been resolved according to the authority of the recently ended Council of Trent. And for that reason, the motu proprio of 1566, upon declaring and establishing that decreta in reorum favorem numquam fecisse nec in futurum posse facere transitum in rem iudicatam (last part of paragraph 1),[23] attempts, without being unjust with respect to persons, to maintain vigilance with respect to the realities, and for that very reason to give formal notice of and to proclaim the all-embracing legal capacity of the inquisitors to summon, investigate, conduct preliminary hearings, and exonerate, including those declared innocent.
Finally, according to this doctrinal line, we would now demote the hierarchical body of bishops that could also in totum[24] sustain, favor, and share heretical and schismatic authority, and consequently would lack jurisdiction. And this assuredly dark horizon would complete the abominatio in desolationem[25], or, as the text of the Bull says, abominationem desolationis in loco sancto videre,[26] since every cathedral (seat of wisdom and the Faith) would be occupied by heretics or miniature heresiarchs who would bring about what the canonical providence of our text tries to impede: Catholicae Ecclesiae unitatem et inconsutilem Domini tunicam scindere.[27]
One point remains in the penumbra or in the background of the text, one question alone that it is necessary in any case to formulate, to wit: according to that teaching of Paul IV, Can a legitimately elected pope, unaffected either in the instant of the election or in the following process until his enthronement, fall into heresy and could then that canonical pope (with all the force of that expression) consequently incur the automatic dispossession that the Bull definitely establishes and specifies? In other words, could this Roman text be considered an explicit antecedent for the teaching summarized in the maxim: Papa haereticus est despoitus?[28]
In explicit terms, the document does not list or include this case. It is worth bringing it forward. Implicitly I believe it is so, and that the supposition is probable that the minute and extended deliberation shared by Paul IV with his theologians, advisors, or more intelligent cardinals, may have brought this issue to a solution rather more suggested than formulated, on account of the special circumstances of the Church, inasmuch as the Council was unfinished. In other words, it is difficult to think that the question of a heretic pope would escape the analysis of the problem. Of the three levels that the problem involves, namely, episcopal or cardinalitial hierearchy, a pope elected in a null manner, and a canonical pope who brought heresy upon himself, the first two predominated because of the experience that faced the Pontificate on the vast confines of its once undisputed prerogative. The third inevitably came to light in the theological comparative scrutiny such as, I believe, results from a more strict analysis of the Latin text.
In effect, it is true that Paul IV recalls in passing the adage Pontifex Romanus omnes iudicat, a nemine in hoc saeculo iudicandus,[29] which would seem to contradict all the particulars of the Bull that pertain to the definite case of a pope in his duties of office. But it is not so. The maxim is understood of the pope who preserves legitimacy in re,[30] otherwise paragraphs 6 and 7 would be contradictory. For this reason, the continuation of this adage adds that Romanus Pontifex, si deprehendatur a fide devius, possit redargui,[31] using a verb (deprehendi[32]) and a phrase (a fide devius[33]) having a strong reference to the subject that the context always understands as a serious situation or a set of circumstances contrary to the faith. That awakens the remembrance of Daniel’s prophecy and for that very reason the direct responsibility of the pontiff. Thus we ought to note that both the phrase (already emphasized) and the mention of the prophecy do not pertain to inconvenient expedients, straying or heretic cardinals or bishops (since that begins to be detailed in paragraph 2), but to the pontiff’s strict duty (of which the introduction and paragraph 1 speak) in the care of the faith.
Supposing that the context should be understood in that way, in other words a canonically elected pope a fide devius possit redargui,[34] a state of affairs that prepares, for that reason, the abomination in the holy place, how would we understand, in the framework of the Bull, the persistence or cessation of his investiture? Does a pope a fide devius continue being pope? The content of the subject is mentioned as a certain possibility, [and] the extreme consequence is also envisioned in the prophecy; in the midst of these two instances, what are we to say about that pontiff? By analogy, the conclusion arising from the whole conceptual orientation of the document would seem to impose itself, namely, that he has lost his legitimacy.
In the second place, we deduce the same conclusion at the beginning of paragraph 5, which deals with those who have favored, protected, or promoted heresy. In the Bull, those individuals incur the same sanctions. Now then, if in that case bishops, cardinals, etc. are considered to be deposed of their dignities, offices, and benefices, what would be the motive for excluding someone who has the greater responsibility for stopping the fulfillment of the aforesaid prophecy? By analogy, it is evident that a canonically elected pope who would promote, protect or encourage heresy or heretics would lose the titles of canonical legitimacy and would cease being pope. That conclusion would coincide with a passage in paragraph 2, where the enumeration of official duties and dignities with jurisdiction says: of whatever rank, condition and preeminence, including bishops and archbishops, etc., or of any other whatsoever ecclesiastical dignity. What could be that “other dignity” in the Church, if the next paragraph mentions cardinals, legates, etc.? Does it not unmistakably suggest the jurisdictional dignity of the Roman pontiff? I believe so.
In the teaching of Paul IV, we would thus have the following chain–like progression of arguments [gradación[35]]: Any ecclesiastical dignity whatsoever, any rank or condition whatsoever, can incur heresy and in that case we must consider the person who holds that dignity to be ipso facto[36] deposed. In the case of the pope, the incomparable gravity of the effect of heresy (leaving the Roman See vacant) is not an obstacle to the realization of the principle. In any event, we would have three different possibilities in the case of the “heretic pope”: a) “heretic” before his elevation, b) “heretic” owing to deviation from the faith (a fide devius), c) “heretic” owing to promotion of the heresy of others. In the three cases, the Bull would establish the voidance of the legitimate office. The heretic pope would find himself deposed.
We arrive thus at the final point of our commentary. The text of Paul IV, viewed in the complex circumstances of the 16th century, represents inherently an anticipation of the advances of an apostasy that could affect, in the strict sense, the jurisdictional primacy from the apostolic and cardinalitial levels. In turn, the motu proprio of Pius V, upon confirming the Bull once the Council of Trent had been concluded, foresees, in continual vigilance of all the causes of heresy, a time of exceptional perversity in promoting heresy, and consequently a time that heralds the cessation of the Sacrifice and the abomination in the holy place. Could we not infer that Montini and his counselors, theologians, and cardinals fundamentally satisfy the explicit and implicit conditions described in these texts, and that from any perspective whatsoever—canonical, mystical, or historical—we find ourselves precisely in those times of the abominatio in desolationem? In this case, the cessation of the Sacrifice and the vacancy in Rome inevitably foretell other mystical, canonical, and historical lapses. We could call the new times —which demand a new St. Athanasius — “Athanasian.” Does this man perhaps now exist in the mystical backgrounds of the desolate Church? (End of Disandro’s Introduction)
[1] Translator’s Note: “Brief” or papal letter.
[2] Translator’s Note: “god-man”
[3] Translator’s Note: “tradition”
[4] Translator’s Note: “god-man mystery”
[5] Translator’s Note: “mystery of the Church” and “hidden truth [or mystery] of the Trinity”
[6] Translator’s Note: Docetism : “[t]he assertion that Jesus Christ was not a man but only seemed to have a human body and lead a human life”; monophysitism: “[t]he heresy that there is only one nature in Jesus Christ, his humanity being entirely absorbed in his divinity, and his body not of one substance with ours”; ebionism “denied the divinity and virgin birth of our Lord; observed the Jewish Law…and used only one Gospel, attributed to St. Matthew” (from Atwater’s A Catholic Dictionary).
[7] Translator’s Note: lit. “Since on account of the office of apostleship.”
[8] Translator’s Note: “of his own accord.”
[9] Translator’s Note: The sixteenth ecumenical council (1414- 1418), which ended the Schism of the West.
[10] Translator’s Note: “new theology,” a French anti-scholastic, theological movement in the 1940s, which Pius XII attempted to end in his encyclical Humani Generis. It served as the basic preparation for Vatican II.
[11] Translator’s Note: French Jesuit bishop and cardinal (1905-1974) who was an influential figure in the “New Theology” movement. He was a peritus at Vatican II.
[12] Translator’s Note: “mystery of wickedness”
[13] Translator’s Note: “and in the half of the week, the victim and the sacrifice will fail; and there will be in the temple the abomination of desolation.”
[14] Translator’s Note: “and from the time when the perpetual sacrifice will be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation will be established, [there will be] 1,290 days.”
[15] Translator’s Note: “the victim and the sacrifice”
[16] Translator’s Note: “perpetual sacrifice”
[17] Translator’s Note: “abomination unto desolation”
[18] Translator’s Note: referring to the genitive case of the word desolationis, “of desolation,” in Dan. 9:27.
[19] Translator’s Note: “in the holy place”
[20] Translator’s Note: the Council of Ephesus (431) declared Mary the Mother of God (in Greek, Theotokos).
[21] Translator’s Note: The homage rendered to a newly elected pope, viz. the kissing of the foot and hand and reception of the kiss of peace.
[22] Translator’s Note: “the victim and the sacrifice will fail; and there will be in the temple the abomination of desolation.”
[23] Translator’s Note: “The decrees incurred in favor of the guilty parties… have never been applicable nor in the future can be applicable to a decided case.” N.B. The Latin is not an exact quotation from the original.
[24] Translator’s Note: “wholly, altogether, entirely”
[25] Translator’s Note: “abomination unto desolation”
[26] Translator’s Note: “seeing the abomination of desolation in the holy place.”
[27] Translator’s Note: “rending the unity of the Catholic Church and the seamless coat of the Lord.”
[28] Translator’s Note: “A heretical pope is deposed.”
[29] Translator’s Note: “The Roman Pontiff judges all men, in this world [he is] to be judged by no man,” (DZ 330)
[30] Translator’s Note: “in reality”
[31] Translator’s Note: “ A Roman pontiff would be able to be convicted of falsehood, if he should be detected to be deviant from the faith.”
[32] Translator’s Note: “to be discovered, detected”
[33] Translator’s Note: “turning aside, wandering, deviant from the faith.”
[34] Translator’s Note: “turning away from the faith would be able to be convicted of falsehood.”
[35] Translator’s note: The Spanish word gradación is a term of art referring to the technical rhetorical device variously called in the English-speaking world gradatio, climax (‘ladder”), ascendus [“ascent”] or “marching figure,” where words or sentences mount by degrees of increasing importance.
[36] Translator’s note: “by that very fact.”
