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CONTINUATION
OF:
Church
Councils and the Authority of Council Judgment
Edited
by the Rev. Msgr. Keith P. Steinhurst, P.A.
..."separation"
and rejects the union "between light and darkness, between the
faithful and the unbeliever, between the temple of God and that of
sects" (II Cor. 6:14-18).
II.
The Collegial-Democratic Government of the Church
Having
undermined the unity of the faith, the Modernists of today strive to
undermine the unity of government and the hierarchical structure of
the Church. This doctrine; already insinuated by the document Lumen
Gentium of Vatican Council II, is taken up again, explicitly, by the
1983 Code of Canon Law (c. 336). According to this doctrine, the
College of Bishops united with the Pope, has an equal possession of
the supreme authority in the Church, in a habitual and constant
manner. This doctrine - of a double supreme authority - is contrary
to the teaching and to the practice of the Magisterium of the Church,
especially in Vatican Council (DS 3055) [i.e. Denzinger-Schonmetzer,
edition of the Enchiridion Symbolorum - Ed.], and in the Encyclical
of Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum. The Pope alone has this supreme
authority in which he can communicate, in the measure, which he
judges expedient and in extraordinary circumstances. To this grave
error is attached the democratic orientation of the Church, with the
power residing in the "People of God" such as it is defined
in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. This Jansenist error is condemned by
the Bull Auctorem Fidei of Pope Pius VI. This tendency to cause the
"base" to participate in the exercise of power is found in
the institution of the synodal and episcopal conferences, in the
priestly councils, and in the multiplication of Roman commissions and
national commissions, as in the heart of religious congregations
(concerning this, see Vatican Council I, DS 3061; 1983 Code of Canon
Law, c. 447). The source of the anarchy and disorder which today
reign throughout the Church is to be found in this degradation of authority.
III.
The False Natural Rights of Man
The
Declaration Dignitatis Humanae of Vatican Council II, affirms the
existence of a false natural right of man in religious matters,
contrary to the pontifical teachings which repudiate such a
blasphemy. Thus Pope Pius IX in his Encyclical Quanta Cura and the
Syllabus: Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical Libertas Praestantissimum
and Immortale Dei, Pope Pius XII in his allocution, La Riesce, to the
Italian Catholic jurists, deny that reason and revelation found a
similar right. Vatican II professes, in a universal manner that
"The Truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own
Truth." This is formally opposed to the teaching of Pope Pius VI
against the Jansenists of the Council of Pistoia (Ds 2604). The
Second Vatican Council thus arrives at the absurdity of affirming the
right not to adhere, and not to follow the Truth, in order to oblige
civil governments to no longer discriminate for religious motives,
thus establishing a juridical equality between false religions and
the true one. These doctrines, which have already been condemned by
Pope St. Pius X in Our Apostolic Mandate, are founded on a false
conception of human dignity that comes from the agnostic and
materialistic pseudo-philosophers of the French Revolution. Vatican
II says that from religious liberty will emerge an era of stability
for the Church. Pope Gregory XVI affirms, on the contrary, that it is
a supreme impudence to affirm that immoderate freedom of opinion
would be beneficial for the Church. The Council expresses in Gaudium
et Spes a false principle when it says that human and Christian
dignity came from the fact of the Incarnation, which has restored
this dignity for all men. This same error is affirmed in the
Encyclical Redemptor Hominis of Pope John Paul II. The consequences
of the recognition by the Council of these false "Rights of
Men" destroys the foundations of the social reign of Our Lord.
They undermined the authority and power of the Church in its mission
to cause Our Lord to reign in souls and in hearts, for the Church
must direct the battle against the satanic forces which subjugate
souls. The missionary spirit will be accused of exaggerated
proselytism. The neutrality of States in religious matters is
injurious for Our Lord and His Church, when it is a question of
States with a Catholic majority.
IV.
The Absolute Authority of the Pope
Most
certainly the authority of the pope in the Church is a supreme
authority, but it cannot be absolute and without limits, since it is
subordinate to Divine Authority, which is expressed in Tradition,
Sacred Scripture, and the definitions already promulgated by the
ecclesiastical Magisterium (DS 3116). The authority of the pope is
subordinate and limited by the end for which this authority has been
given to him. This end is clearly defined by Pope Pius IX in the
Constitution Pastor Aeternus of Vatican Council I (DS 3070). It would
be an intolerable abuse of power to modify the Constitution of the
Church and, in doing so, pretend to appeal to the rights of man
against the Divine Right, as in religious liberty, as in the
eucharistic hospitality which is authorized in the new Canon Law, as
in the assertion of two supreme authorities in the Church. It is
clear that in these cases and in other similar cases, it is the duty
for each member of the clergy and each faithful Catholic to resist
and to refuse obedience. Blind obedience is a contrary sense and no
one is exempt from his responsibilities for having obeyed man rather
than God (DS 3115). This resistance must be public if the evil is
public and an object of scandal to souls (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, II, II, Q.33, A.4). The above statements are elementary
principles of ethics. They regulate the relations of subjects with
all legitimate authority. Moreover this resistance finds a
confirmation in the fact that henceforth those who hold firmly to
Tradition and the Catholic Faith are penalized; those who profess
doctrines which are heterodox, or who effects sacrileges are in no
way troubled. That is the logic of an abuse of authority.
V.
Protestant Notion of the Mass
The
new notion of the Church, such as Pope John Paul II defined it in
the Constitution which precedes the 1983 Code of Canon Law, evokes a
profound alteration in the principal act of the Church, which is the
Sacrifice of the Mass. The definition of new ecclesiology gives
exactly the definition of the New Mass: it is a collegial and
ecumenical service and communion. The New Mass cannot be better
defined and the New Mass, just as the new post Vatican II Church, is
a profound rupture with the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church.
It is a conception more Protestant than Catholic and it explains all
that which had been unduly exalted and all that which has been
diminished. Contrary to the teaching of the Council of Trent in its
22nd session, contrary to the Encyclical Mediator Dei of Pope Pius
XII, the role of the faithful in the participation of the Mass has
been exaggerated, and the role of the priest, now become a simple
president, has been diminished. The importance of the Liturgy of the
Word has been exaggerated, and the importance of the propitiatory
Sacrifice has been diminished. The meal of the community has been
exalted and the Mass has been laicized, to the detriment of the
respect and the faith in the Real Presence by transubstantiation. By
the suppression of the sacred language, the rites have been
infinitely multiplied. They have been profaned by worldly and pagan
additions. False translations have been propagated to the detriment
of the true faith and the true piety of the faithful. And yet the
Councils of Florence and Trent had pronounced anathemas against all
these changes and they had affirmed that the Canon of our Mass goes
back to Apostolic times. Pope St. Pius V and Clement VIII had
insisted upon the necessity of avoiding changes and mutations, by
perpetually keeping this Roman Rite consecrated by Tradition. The
removal from the Mass of that which is sacred, and its laicization
has led to the laicization, in a Protestant manner, of the
priesthood. The liturgical reform in a Protestant style is one of the
greatest errors of the Conciliar Church and one of the most ruinous
for the Faith and grace.
VI.
The Free Diffusion of Errors and Heresies
The
situation of the Church, its state searching, has introduced, in
practice, the freethinking of Protestantism. This is the result of
the multiplicity of credos at the interior of the Church. The
suppression of the Holy Office, of the Index, of the Anti-Modernist
Oath, has provoked among modern theologians a need for new theories
that bewilder the faithful and induce them toward the charismatic
movement and base communities. It is a true revolution, ultimately
directed against the authority of God and the Church. Grave modern
errors that remain condemned by the popes are now freely developing
at the interior of the Church: 1. Modern philosophies that are
anti-scholastic, existentialist, anti-intellectualist taught in
Catholic universities and seminaries; 2. Humanism is favored by the
need of ecclesiastical authorities to be an echo of modern world by
making man the end of all things; 3. Naturalism, the exaltation of
man and human values, is causing the supernatural values of the
Redemption and grace to be forgotten; 4. Evolutionary Modernism is
causing the rejection of Tradition, of Revelation, of the Magisterium
of 20 centuries. No longer is there an unchanging Truth, nor any
dogma; 5. Socialism and Communism: The refusal of the Council to
condemn these errors was scandalous and legitimately causes the
belief that today the Vatican would be favorable to a socialism or a
communism more or less Christian. The attitude of the Holy See, both
in its dealings with the other side of the former Iron Curtain and
this side, during the past 25 years, confirms this judgment; and 6.
Finally, the agreements with Freemasonry, the ecumenical Council of
Churches, and Moscow, reduce the Church to the state of a prisoner.
She becomes totally incapable of freely fulfilling her mission. These
are real treasons that cry to heaven for vengeance, just as are the
praises uttered in these recent days to the heresiarch who was the
most scandalous and the most noxious to the Church. It is time that
the Church recovered its freedom in order to advance the Reign of Our
Lord Jesus Christ and the Reign of Mary without being preoccupied
with its enemies.
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