Roca’s Revolutionary Ravings
In his book Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, Bishop Graber quotes Roca’s prediction of a “newly illuminated Church” which would be influenced by the socialism of Jesus”.15
In the mid-19th Century, Roca predicted “The new church, which might not be able to retain anything of Scholastic doctrine and the original form of the former Church, will nevertheless receive consecration and canonical jurisdiction from Rome.”
Roca also predicted a liturgical reform. With reference to the future liturgy, he believed “that the divine cult in the form directed by the liturgy, ceremonial, ritual and regulations of the Roman Church will shortly undergo a transformation at an ecumenical council, which will restore to it the venerable simplicity of the golden age of the Apostles in accordance with the dictates of conscience and modern civilization.”
He foretold that through this council will come “a perfect accord between the ideals of modern civilization and the ideal of Christ and His Gospel. This will be the consecration of the New Social Order and the solemn baptism of modern civilization.”
Roca also spoke of the future of the Papacy. He wrote “There is a sacrifice in the offing which represents a solemn act of expiation … The Papacy will fall; it will die under the hallowed knife which the fathers of the last council will forge. The papal caesar is a host [victim] crowned for the sacrifice.”
Roca enthusiastically predicted a “new religion, new dogma, new ritual, new priesthood.” He called the new priests “progressists” and speaks of the “suppression” of the soutane [cassock] and the “marriage of priests.”16
Chilling echos of Roca and The Alta Vendita are to be found in the words of the Rosicrucian, Dr. Rudolph Steiner who declared in 1910 “We need a council and a Pope to proclaim it.”17 Bishop Graber, commenting on these predictions remarks “A few years ago this was still inconceivable to us, but today … ”18
The Great Council that Never Was
Around 1948, Pope Pius XII, at the request of the staunchly orthodox Cardinal Ruffini, considered calling a general Council and even spent a few years making the necessary preparations. There is evidence that progressive elements in Rome eventually dissuaded Pius XII from bringing it to realization since this Council showed definite signs of being in sync with Humani Generis. Like this great 1950 encyclical, the new Council would combat “false opinions which threaten to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine.”19
Tragically, Pope Pius XII became convinced that he was too advanced in years to shoulder such a momentous task, and resigned that “this will be for my successor.”20
“Roncalli Will Canonize Ecumenism”
Throughout the Pontificate of Pope Pius XII, the Holy Office under the able leadership of Cardinal Ottaviani maintained a safe Catholic landscape by keeping the wild horses of modernism firmly corralled. Many of today’s modernist theologians disdainfully recount how they and their friends had been “muzzled” during this period.
Yet even Ottaviani could not prevent what was to happen in 1958. A new type of Pope “whom the progressives believed to favor their cause”21 would ascend to the Pontifical Chair and would force a reluctant Ottaviani to remove the latch, open the corral and brace himself for the stampede.
However, such a state of affairs was not unforeseen. At the news of the death of Pius XII, the old Dom Lambert Beauduin, a friend of Roncalli’s (the future John XXIII) confided to Father Bouyer: “If they elect Roncalli, everything would be saved; he would be capable of calling a council and of consecrating ecumenism.”22
And so it happened just as Dom Lambert foretold. Roncalli was elected, called a Council and consecrated ecumenism. The “revolution in tiara and cope” was underway.
Pope John’s Revolution
It is well known and superbly documented23 that a clique of liberal theologians (periti) and bishops hijacked Vatican II with an agenda to remake the Church into their own image through the implementation of a “new theology”. Critics and defenders of Vatican II are in agreement on this point.
In his book Vatican II Revisited, Bishop Aloysius J. Wycislo (a rhapsodic advocate of the Vatican II revolution) declares with giddy enthusiasm that “theologians and biblical scholars who had been ‘under a cloud’ for years surfaced as periti (theological experts advising the bishops at the Council), and their post-Vatican II books and commentaries became popular reading.”24
He noted that “Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis had … a devastating effect on the work of a number of pre-conciliar theologians”,22 and explains that “During the early preparation of the Council, those theologians (mainly French, with some Germans) whose activities had been restricted by Pope Pius XII, were still under a cloud. Pope John quietly lifted the ban affecting some of the most influential ones. Yet a number remained suspect to the officials of the Holy Office.”26
Wycislo sings the praises of triumphant progressives such as Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, John Courtney Murray, Yves Congar, Henri Delubac, Edward Schillebeeckx and Gregory Baum, who had been considered suspect before the Council (for good reason), that are now the leading lights of post-Vatican II theology.27
In effect, those whom Pope Pius XII considered unfit to be walking the streets of Catholicism were now in control of the town. And as if to crown their achievements, the Oath Against Modernism was quietly suppressed shortly after the close of the Council. St. Pius X had predicted correctly. Lack of vigilance in authority had provoked modernism to return with a vengeance.
“Marching Under a New Banner”
There were countless battles at Vatican II between the International Group of Fathers who fought to maintain Tradition, and the progressive Rhine group. Tragically, in the end, it was the liberal and modernist element that prevailed.
It was obvious to anyone who had eyes to see was that the Second Vatican Council promulgated many ideas that had formerly been anathema to Church teaching, but that were in-step with modern thought. This did not happen by accident, but by design.
The progressivists at Vatican II avoided condemnations of Modernist errors. They also deliberately planted ambiguities in the Council texts which they intended to exploit after the Council. The liberal Council peritus, Father Edward Schillebeeckx admitted “we have used ambiguous phrases during the Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards.” 28
By utilizing deliberate ambiguities, the Council documents promoted an ecumenism that had been condemned by Pope Pius XI, a religious liberty that had been condemned by the 19th Century Popes (especially Blessed Pope Pius IX), a new liturgy along the lines of Protestantism and ecumenism that Bugnini called “a major conquest of the Catholic Church”, a collegiality that strikes at the heart of the Papal primacy, and a “new attitude toward the world” – especially in one of the most radical of all the Council documents, Gaudium et Spes. (Even Cardinal Ratzinger admitted that Gaudium et Spes is permeated by the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin)29
As the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita had hoped, the notions of liberal culture had finally won adherence among the major players in the Catholic hierarchy and was thus spread throughout the entire Church. The result has been an unprecedented crisis of Faith which continues to worsen. While at the same time, countless highly placed Churchmen, obviously inebriated by the “spirit of Vatican II”, continuously praise those Council reforms that have brought this calamity to pass.
Cheers from the Masonic Bleachers
Yet, not only many of our Church leaders, but Freemasons also celebrate the turn of events wrought by the Council. They rejoice that Catholics have finally “seen the light,” and that many of their Masonic principles have been sanctioned by the Church.
Yves Marsaudon of the Scottish Rite, in his book Ecumenism Viewed by a Traditional Freemason praised the ecumenism nurtured at Vatican II. He said:
“Catholics … must not forget that all roads lead to God. And they will have to accept that this courageous idea of freethinking, which we can really call a revolution, pouring forth from our Masonic lodges, has spread magnificently over the dome of St. Peter’s.”30
Yves Marsaudon said further, “One can say that ecumenism is the legitimate son of Freemasonry” 31
The post-Vatican II spirit of doubt and revolution obviously warmed the heart of French Freemason Jacques Mitterrand, who wrote approvingly:
“Something has changed within the Church, and replies given by the Pope to the most urgent questions such as priestly celibacy and birth control, are hotly debated within the Church itself; the word of the Sovereign Pontiff is questioned by bishops, by priests, by the faithful. For a Freemason, a man who questions dogma is already a Freemason without an apron.”32
Marcel Prelot, a senator for the Doubs region in France, is probably the most accurate in describing what has really taken place. He writes:
“We had struggled for a century and a half to bring our opinions to prevail with the Church and had not succeeded. Finally, there came Vatican II and we triumphed. From then on the propositions and principles of liberal Catholicism have been definitively and officially accepted by Holy Church.”33
A Break with the Past
Those “conservatives” who deny that Vatican II constitutes a break with tradition, and that it contradicts previous magisterium have failed to listen to the very movers and shakers of the Council who shamelessly acknowledge it.
Yves Congar, one of the artisans of the reform remarked with quiet satisfaction that “The Church has had, peacefully, its October revolution.”34
Congar also admitted, as if its something to be proud of, that Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty is contrary to the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX. He said:
“It cannot be denied that the affirmation of religious liberty by Vatican II says materially something other than what the Syllabus of 1864 said, and even just about the opposite of propositions 16, 17 and 19 of this document.”35
Lastly, a few years ago, Cardinal Ratzinger, apparently unruffled by the admission, wrote that he sees the Vatican II text Gaudium et Spes as a “counter-Syllabus”. He said:
“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text (Guadium et Spes) as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty, and world religions,) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter-syllabus … Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a counter-syllabus and, as such, represent on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789″.36
In other words, the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.
This comment by Cardinal Ratzinger is disturbing, especially since it came from the man who, as the head of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is supposedly in charge of guarding the purity of Catholic doctrine.
Yet we can also cite a similar statement by the progressivist Cardinal Suenens, one of the most liberal prelates of this century, himself a Council father, spoke glowing of the old regimes that have come crashing down. The words he used in praise of the Council are the most telling, the most chilling and the most damning. Suenens declared “Vatican II is the French Revolution of the Church.”37
The Status of the Vatican II documents
Of course, Catholics have the right, even the duty, to resist those teachings coming from the Council that conflict with the perennial Magisterium.
For years, Catholics have labored under the misconception that they must accept the pastoral Council, Vatican II, with the same assent of faith that they owed to dogmatic Councils. This, however, is not the case.
The Council Fathers repeatedly referred to Vatican II as a pastoral Council – that is, it was a Council that dealt with not defining the Faith, but with implementing it.
The fact that Vatican II is inferior to a Dogmatic council is confirmed by the testimony of the Council Father, Bishop Thomas Morris. Now at his own request, this testimony was not unsealed until after his death:
“I was relieved when we were told that this Council was not aiming at defining or giving final statements on doctrine, because a statement on doctrine has to be very carefully formulated and I would have regarded the Council documents as tentative and liable to be reformed.”38
Then there is the important testimony from the Council’s Secretary, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Pericle Felici. At the close of Vatican II, the bishops asked Archbishop Felici for that which the theologians call the “theological note” of the Council . That is, the doctrinal “weight” of Vatican II’s teachings. Felici replied:
“We have to distinguish according to the schemas and the chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic definitions in the past; as for the decelerations which have a novel character, we have to make reservations.”39
Pope Paul VI himself also made similar comments that “Given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.”40
Thus, unlike a dogmatic Council, Vatican II does not demand an unqualified assent of faith. The verbose and ambagious statement of Vatican II are not on a par with dogmatic pronouncements. Vatican II’s novelties are not unconditionally binding on the faithful. Catholics may “make reservations” and even resist any teaching from the Council that would conflict with the perennial Magisterium.
“A Revolution in Tiara and Cope”
The post-Vatican II revolution bears all the hallmarks of the fulfilling of the designs of the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita as well as the prophecies of Canon Roca:
1) The entire world has witnessed a profound change in the Catholic Church on an international scale that is in step with the modern world.
2) Vatican II’s defenders and detractors both demonstrate that certain teachings of the Council constitute a break with the past .
3) The Freemasons themselves rejoice that thanks to the Council, their ideas “have spread magnificently over the dome of Saint Peter’s”.
Thus, the passion that our Holy Church is presently suffering is really no great mystery. By recklessly ignoring the Popes of the past, our present Church leaders have erected a compromised structure that is collapsing upon itself. Though Pope Paul VI lamented that “the Church is in a state of auto-demolition”, he, as does the present Pontificate, insisted that the disastrous aggiornamento responsible for this auto-demolition be continued full-steam.
There is one final point I wish to make. I am not claiming that every churchman who promotes novel practices, such as ecumenism, are deliberately acting as enemies of the Church. The renowned priest of the 19th Century, Father Frederick Faber, was a true prophet when he said in a remarkable sermon preached at Pentecost, 1861 in the London Oratory:
“We must remember that if all the manifestly good men were on one side and all the manifestly bad men were on the other, there would be no danger of anyone, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men, once good, we must hope good still, who are to do the work of anti-christ and so sadly to crucify the Lord afresh .. . Bear in mind this feature of the last days, that this deceitfulness arises from good men being on the wrong side.”41
Thus, I believe that many (not all) Churchmen who have succumb to the spirit of the age, and promote the Council’s new agenda, are good men on the wrong side.
The Need for Resistance
As I said when I opened this presentation, I believe that the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita and its effects helps to explain what Sister Lucy was talking about when she warned of the diabolic disorientation of the upper hierarchy, a term she used numerous times.
In the face of such diabolic disorientation the only response for all Catholics concerned are:
1) to pray much, especially the Rosary.
2) to learn and live the Traditional Doctrine and morals of the Catholic Church as it is found in pre-Vatican II Catholic writings,
3) to adhere to the Latin Tridentine Mass where the Catholic faith and devotion are found in their fullness uninfected by today’s novus ordo of ecumenism,
4) to resist with all one’s soul the liberal post-Vatican II trends wreaking such havoc on the Mystical Body of Christ,
5) to charitably instruct others in the traditions of the Faith and warn them of the errors of the times.
6) to pray that a contagious return to sanity may sweep through a sufficient number of the hierarchy.
7) never to compromise,
8) And lastly, the reason we are here: to practice, and to make known to the best of our abilities the requests of Our Lady of Fatima.
Footnotes:
1. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vo. 3 (New York Encyclopeida Press, 1913), pp. 330-331.
2. Rev. E. Cahill, J.S., Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement (Dublin: Gill, 1959), p. 101.
3. Bishop Graber, Athan asius and the Church of our Time, P. 39, Christian Book Club, Palmdale, CA.
4. 2nd volume, original edition, 1859, reprinted by Circle of the French Renaissance, Paris 1976; Msgr. Delassus produced these documents again in his work The Anti-Christian Conspiracy, DDB, 1910, Tome III, pp. 1035-1092.
5. Michael Davies, Pope John’s Council, p.166 Angelus Press, Kansas City, MO.
6. Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, par. 31, Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford, IL.
7. Msgr. Dillon, Grand Orient Freemasonary Unmasked, pp. 51-56 full text of Alta Vendita – Christian Book Club, Palmdale, CA.
8. Father Denis Fahey. Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, Chapter VII, Regina Publications, Dublin Ireland.
9. Ibid. p. 116.
10. Quoted from The Catholic Doctrine, Father Michael Muller (Benzinger, 1888?) p. 282
11. Fr. Vincent Micelli, The Antichrist, p. 133, Roman Catholic Books, Harrison, NY.
12. Pope Pius X, Pascendi (Encyclical Against Modernism) Par. 1
13. Fr. Vincent Micelli, The Antichrist, cassette lecture, Keep the Faith, Inc. Ramsey, NJ.
14. Raymond Dulac, Episcopal Collegiality at the Second Council of the Vatican, Paris Cedre, 1979, pp. 9-10.
15. Athanasius and the Church of Our Time, p. 34.
16. A full account of all of Roca’s quotes here printed is found in Athanasius and the Church of Our TIme, pp. 31-40.
17. Ibid. p. 36.
18. Ibid. p. 35.
19. A full account of this fascinating history is found in “The Whole Truth About Fatima”, Vol 3: The Third Secret by Frère Michel of the Holy Trinity, pp. 257 to 304, Immaculate Heart Publications, Ft. Erie, Ont.
20. Ibid. p. 298.
21. Vicomte Leon de Poncins, Freemasonary and the Vatican, p. 14.
22. L. Bouyer, Dom Lambert Beauduin, a Man of the Church, Casterman, 1964, pp. 180-181, quoted by Father Dilder Bonneterre in The Liturgical Movement, Ed. Fideliter, 1980, p. 119.
23. i.e., The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, Tan Books and Publishers, Pope John’s Council, by Michael Davies, Angelus Press, Kansas City, MO, and even Vatican II Revisited, (see next footnote) which sings praises of the reform.
24. Most Reverend Aloysius S.J. Wycislo, Vatican II Revisted, Reflections By One Who Was There, p. x, Alba House, Staten Island, New York.
25. Ibid. p. 33.
26. Ibid. p. 27.
27. Ibid. pp. 27 to 34.
28. Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Archbishop Lefebvre, Kansas City, Angelus Press, 1992), p. 106.
29. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, (Ignatius Press), p. 334.
30. Open Letter to Confused Catholics, pp. 88-89.
31. Yves Marsuadon, Oecumensisme vu par un Macon de Tradition , pp. 119-120.
32. Lew Catholicsme Liberal, 1969.
33. Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 100.
34. Yves Congar, O.P. quoted by Father George de Nantes, CRC, no. 113, p.3.
350. Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, Tequi, Paris, 1985, p. 42).
36.Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 100.
37. Ibid. p. 100.
38. Interview of Bishop Morris by Kiernon Wood, Catholic World News, Sept. 27, 1997.
39.Open Letter to Confused Catholics, p. 107.
40. Paul VI, General Audience of January 12, 1966, in Inseganmenti di Paolo VI, vo. 4, p. 700, cited from Atila Sinke Guimaraes, In the Murky waters of Vatican II, Metaire: Maeta, 1997; TAN 1999), pp. 111-112.
41. Quote taken from The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, father Denis Fahey, (Regina Publications, Dublin, first printed in 1935) p. xi.
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