THE
GREATEST SPIRITUAL AGONY IN HISTORY
When
we speak of the "true God," we fall in a certain
way into redundancy because, in God, there is no distinction
between divinity and truth. God is, at one
and the same time, His own one and total truth. In addition,
the foundation and life of all the truths spring from Him.
No created reality exists nor is authentically itself except
in relation to Him. He is the ever-renewing source of all
natural and supernatural reality.
By
the original sin, man cut himself off from God; we lost
His friendship and companionship. Simultaneously, access
to the truth became very difficult and painful for us. Now,
we have to make a great effort to disentangle it from the
obscurity which conceals it from our eyes and desires. Corrupted
by our self-centeredness, our search for God has been transformed
into our most difficult undertaking. It is more difficult
for us to reunite with the true God than to fashion fanciful
ideas about Him in our mind or to build idols with our hands.
That admirable familiarity which our first parents enjoyed
in their earthly Paradise is, for us, inconceivable and
inaccessible.
This
state of powerlessness angers man who has attained a certain
degree of natural knowledge and a corresponding self-satisfaction
in this knowledge. Whereas he can uncover the secrets enclosed
in the material world, the mystery of God continues to escape
his grasp and, because of this, he experiences a humiliation
which easily turns into revolt, denial, or confusion. Of
course this reaction only aggravates the difficulties of
his search and contributes no little bit to leading him
further astray, often orienting him toward imaginary or
corrupted divinities. Now any search for God can only be
understood as for the true God. Of what use would it be
to set out "on the track of God" (J. Rivière),
if one should be mistaken as to the very nature of the Cause
of Causes, of the Supreme Good, and if one should thereby
multiply the evils inherent in our wounded condition?
Since
today there exists a sort of blindness, reinforced by laicism
in the civil society and by neo-modernism in the religious,
it is more necessary than ever for us to correctly link
together the true God, the true Faith, and the true Church.
For in the last analysis, what is the Faith if it is not
the teaching given and followed by the true Church of God?
And what is the Church if it is not that of the Word descended
from God? What is the Word of God if it is not the Truth
of God and the Truth about God, manifesting itself and expressing
itself among us? The search for the true God can only have
for its end the recognition of the one True God, one in
Three Persons, and the correlative rejection of false gods
or of notions concerning God which have been distorted by
men. Humanity struggles today in the greatest spiritual
agony of its history because it has not being willing to
give itself up to this evidence and from yielding itself
up to the temptation of untenable forms of ecumenism.
NEITHER
THE FAITH WITHOUT THE CHURCH NOR THE CHURCH WITHOUT THE
FAITH
Since
religion cannot be lacking in spirit and life, it follows
that the true God cannot be served in anything other than
the true Faith and the true Church of the divine Word of
God. The aphorism "Outside the Church...." remains
and will always remain rigorously precise regarding the
absolute nature of this truth and the required response
of humanity as a whole to it, even if, in the daily journey
of individual souls, the desire of the true Faith and the
good will of non-believers are accepted by the Son of God
who has offered his life for all, while some of the culpable
children of the Church dangerously alienate themselves from
It. These certitudes, formerly taught universally by the
apostolic hierarchy, must be presented for the understanding
of one and all. St. Francis de Sales wrote it so perfectly:
Neither
faith outside the Church nor the Church without the faith
can save us."
From
the viewpoint of truth, God, the Faith, and the Church can
only be one. God can only teach the truth; the Faith can
only announce it; the Church can only diffuse it and live
it. Only the true Faith fully instructs souls; only the
true Church leads them, with certitude, into the bosom of
God. This totality of God living and true, of His
doctrine, and of the institution by which He wished to prolong
Himself in time, imperatively controls the salvation of
each individual and of humanity. To willingly turn oneself
away from It leads no less inevitably to eternal damnation.
A
STRANGE LACK OF LOGIC
Consequently,
it is not surprising that in a similar logic of imperative
truth, both in the divine order and by its very nature,
the true Faith requires being taught to all peoples. Man
cannot by his own power set himself upon the way of salvation
if he has not been enlightened, by this superior and infallible
light, regarding his Creator, his Redeemer, and himself.
One can without doubt also add that he could not fruitfully
receive understanding of the truth if he had not been called
upon by Heaven to desire and seek it. Regardless of the
method of transmission used - formal instruction, works
of charity, the bearing of exemplary witness - religious
truth must be diffused by man among his fellow men, and
the true God has clearly confided the task to the true Church.
Our era gives evidence of a strange lack of logic: it extols
secular knowledge for all, although this is only a matter
of obtaining relative benefits. But when it is a matter
of the truth that saves man from his most profound misfortune
(i.e., the darkness in which he is immersed immediately
upon birth), it is then only a question of discretionary
option and of religious liberty, and is left to the sovereign
evaluation of our ignorance and our infirmities. By an unceasing
deception, the enemies of the Faith continually depict the
divine truth as the adversary of human liberty, whereas
it is in fact the origin of it, the mother and perfect teacher
of it, one could say. What have they themselves to offer
to disoriented minds if not but a basically oppressive liberty
of satisfaction of the passions and the spirit of domination?
THE
OBSCURE ECUMENISM
Undoubtedly,
it will be pointed out to us that the Pope is making efforts
to win back to the divine truth the ground he had too lightly
sacrificed to the benefit of the "will of man"
and of a laicized world. Yet, for all that, he hasn't renounced
the ambiguities of language which mislead souls nor those
postures of false humility, which consist of making a case
against the previous centuries while persevering in the
present errors.
The
reigning Pope writes:
The
Catholic Church rejoices when the other Christian communities
[meaning the non-Catholic communities, where doctrinal
errors have abounded for centuries - Ed.] announce
the Gospel [the same Gospel?! - Ed.] with
Her [really, "with Her?" - Ed.] while
recognizing that the means of salvation have been entrusted
to Her in fullness [Have the means of salvation also been
granted by Heaven to those expressions of faith swarming
with errors contrary to the truth willed by God? - Ed.].
Such
remarks surely give proof of a culpable inexactitude in
conferring even a partial legitimacy to heretical or schismatic
churches outside the Catholic Church, which, for 20 centuries,
the unanimity of Popes, Doctors, and theologians has presented
as the necessary guarantor and guardian in the order of
the Faith and of salvation. Let us rather listen to St.
Francis de Sales in his controversies with "the brothers
who have been led astray," as he called the protestants:
All
these discourses....are but daydreams. Withdraw yourselves
from the hands of those who have a mania for building
up false systems which don't adjust their conceptions
to the faith, but the faith to their conceptions.
The
neo-modernist viewpoint delights in a vague romantic notion
which embraces all the religions and de-emphasizes the perversity
of error.
Must
not the human race attain unity by a plurality of modes
of thought, of action, of culture, and of civilization?
Does not such an interpretation correspond at least in
part to the wisdom and the providence of which God has
given evidence with regard to His creatures (Pope John
Paul II)?
Believers
and non-believers are thus invited to enter into an evolutive
spiral which will conduct them to unity by plurality, as
if the deepest doctrinal differences could, solely by virtue
of a spell-binding phraseology, change into complementary
portions of the one single truth (to which they do not cease
to oppose themselves). In a chimerical view of the spirit,
one counts on the autonomous development of the individual
or collective conscience (one no longer knows which very
clearly) to advance the reign of God among those widely
scattered wills, who do not want it at any price. For, finally,
of what God are we speaking? Is this not mocking the true
God, who, by his Word and the Holy Spirit, has prescribed
exactly the opposite attitude: a teaching Church, a precise
doctrine, a morality without compromise? Neo-modernism wishes
to make absolutely no mention of the absence of, or the
persistent aversion to, the true God, while at the same
time errors relative to the true Faith and the true Church
produce deep and often fatal wounds to souls, wounds rendered
incurable by purely human forces because of the juxtaposition
of errors. It is truly extraordinary that one no longer
finds in the great religious orders solid theologians to
denounce this nonsense. How can love of the living and true
God develop in a pagan or laicized culture where no divine
seed is either sent or received? In short, one denies the
Sovereign Master the right to take possession of His creature
and make His habitation in her.
It
is to be feared that this passive and distorting attitude
reveals a demeanor of fear at the same time as a lack of
faith. To make up for this deficiency, an excessively meditative
searching is substituted, giving the false illusion to those
masses immersed in darkness that they find themselves at
the dawning of a new day. But all this new theology collapses
before a single word of the Gospel:
Now
this is eternal life: That they may know Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou has sent (Jn.
17:3).
The
Fathers of the Church, faithful interpreters of Sacred Scripture,
have refused to devalue this word and they enlighten us
still more when they say:
False
doctrine must not take possession of the celestial words
to make them understood in a sense which is contrary to
their meaning (St. Hilary).
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| Robert
Duncan is "consecrated" as coadjutor
of the Pittsburgh Episcopal Diocese in a ceremony
held in the cathedral of St. Paul in the Catholic
diocese of Pittsburgh (April 27, 1996). The
Episcopalians celebrated their "holy eucharist"
on one of the cathedral's altars. Catholic Bishop
of Pittsburgh, Donald Wuerl, assisted at the
ceremonies (above, far left). This was done
under pretext that the Episcopalians could not
find any better or bigger building. (See Ut
Unum Sint, 42.) |
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GRANTING
"INFALLIBILITY" TO MERELY HUMAN WORDS
The
failings of the Apostolic See, which during the past 30
years has been under the influence of neo-modernism, obvious
or covert, only adds force to the perils which menace Christianity,
and each and every Christian: paganism, laicism, monotheism
without Christ the Savior, and the excessive attempts to
find in every non-Christian attitude some germ of truth,
while making no mention of the false opinions or errors
which oppose themselves more or less violently to Catholicism.
We say with extreme sorrow that there is a great deal of
falsehood and cowardice involved in this disastrous behavior,
because those in the highest responsible positions know
perfectly well that the true and living God cannot find,
in a world dominated by error, the adoration due to Him,
nor the response of sacrificial love (or sanctified love,
they are one and the same) that He expects of His creatures.
They know the refusal of the True God, of the true Faith,
and of the true Church, constitute the greatest obstacle
to salvation. But neo-modernism, having attained the pinnacle
of power, forces them to diffuse a doctrine in which disputed
questions are instituted as official truths. The ecclesiastical
power doesn't hesitate to abusively use the divine authority
with which it is invested to give a new appearance to God,
to the Faith, and to the Mystical Body of Christ. It is
not excessive to maintain that we find ourselves in the
presence of a form of confrontation against the Divinity
which is directed with skill and perseverance.
Several
decades ago the historian Jaques Zeiller praised the papacy
of the third century for conducting itself as....:
...[T]he
guardian of a purely religious deposit which it did not
deem itself commissioned to transcribe into the terminology
of a fixed philosophy.
One
might believe that this rigorous mind would not have appreciated
those who are so carried away as to celebrate...:
...[T]he
great new vision of man and of all that which is human
which Vatican Council II has proposed, in particular with
Gaudium et Spes.
And
here let us underline that cleverness that consists of defending
oneself with an institution as prestigious as the Council
when one wants to distance oneself from Tradition. But the
use of the defense of the Council, doesn't it signify in
reality "the defense of myself, for my own shadowy
ideas and perceptions?"1
May John Card. Newman forgive us for borrowing his famous
formula in the present instance! Since it isn't very modest
to praise oneself, one praises an official text which one
has played a primary role in editing. That confers a certain
credibility to an assembly which, as it evolved, gave off
a strong odor of being gang-hijacked, as we know today.
After
30 years of doctrinal confusion, our era will have at least
learned, in a most brutal and sorrowful way, that whereas
the Church surrenders all claims to pronounce infallibly
in the name of the Lord to strengthen the faith in
souls, she succumbs to the temptation to infallibilize
merely human words. We know the offensive has been conducted
with secular means and support. The results have surpassed
the expectations of the subversives. We can reflect with
St. Hilary:
...[T]he
dissimulation of these irreligious people is so great
that the people of God can find themselves living under
bishops of the antichrist.
The
humble, adoring, and missionary Christianity of yesteryear
wavers in the certitudes that it held from God Himself.
It has given way to a "pontifical-collegial-popular"
uniformity which is arrogant and sure of itself, powerfully
successful in the "media," which fastens on it
the evocation of liberty, progress, and the rights of man,
regardless of the degree of unreality, of deception, and
of excess contained in these words.
TRIPLE
LOYALTY
Turning
themselves from the divinely revealed Truth, they more and
more wink in the direction of the desolate monotheisms which
obstinately refuse the salvific Trinity and, consequently,
the living relation between God and man. They affect to
believe in the possibility of several revelations, not even
fearing to ratify as divine those oppositions and contradictions
which issue from the disordered imaginations of men. They
neutralize the missionary activity of the Church in exalting,
in the name of a democratic evangelization, the validity
of laicism or of pagan cultures loaded with poisons for
the soul. They no longer want to know of the misery of man
nor of the redemptive grace; they prefer to dream of an
automatic and universal salvation.
In
the face of this nonsense, how healthy it is to refresh
oneself at the true sources of Christian faith! St. Irenaeus
wrote:
The
most gifted speaker among the leaders of the churches
will not teach any other doctrine, for no one is greater
than the Master, neither will the poorest speaker diminish
this instruction, because the faith, being always one
and the same, can neither be enriched by one who can speak
a great deal about it nor be impoverished by one who can
speak but little.
The
holy bishop of Geneva, St. Francis de Sales, holds to the
same teaching in alluding to the grandeurs and limits of
the very highest apostolic authority:
If
the name Peter makes us recognize him as chief, the name
Simon warns us that he was not unlimited chief, but obedient
and subordinate chief....Our Lord is Lord and Master in
his own right: St. Peter only administers for Him.
Is
not the same fidelity, although with less responsibility,
demanded of each Catholic vis-a-vis the true God,
the true Faith, the true Church? Pseudo-humanistic universalism
and inter-religious pandemonium will not be driven out except
at this price, the grace of God supplying. It doesn't seem
to us that the grace of this triple fidelity can be honestly
requested nor obtained without the decisive restoration
of the Holy sacrifice of the Mass in its essence and permanent
authenticity. The Divine Truth is not divisible at the pleasure
of the members of the Church-teaching or of the members
of the Church-taught.
Ignatius
Courrier
de Rome of November, 1995
1.
Apologia pro me ipso, id est pro unbris et imaginibus meis?
Courtesy of the Angelus
Press, Kansas City, MO 64109
translated from the Italian
Fr. Du Chalard
Via Madonna degli Angeli, 14
Italia 00049 Velletri (Roma)
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