Then they began to take fewer
precautions, and the bolder ones among them began to make
admissions, in little groups of like-minded people and even
publicly. One Father Cardonnel went round preaching a new
Christianity in which “that precious transcendence that
makes God into a Universal Monarch” would be challenged.
He openly adopted Loisy's modernism: “If you were born into
a Christian family, the catechisms you learnt are mere skeletons
of the faith.” And, “Our Christianity would seem to be neo-Capitalist
at best.” And Cardinal Suenens, after reconstructing the
Church to his own liking, called for “an opening up to the
widest theological pluralism” and for the setting up of
a hierarchy of truths, with some that must be strongly believed,
others that must be believed a little, and others of no
importance.
In 1973, on the premises of
the Archbishop's house at Paris, Fr. Bernard Feillet gave
a course of lectures of a thoroughly official kind, under
the banner of “Adult Christian Formation.” In it he repeatedly
affirmed, “Christ did not conquer death. He was put to death
by death. On the level of life, Christ was conquered, and
we shall all be conquered: the fact is that faith is not
justified by anything; it must be a cry of protest against
the universe which ends, as we said just now, in the perception
of absurdity, in the consciousness of damnation, and in
the reality of nothingness.”
I could quote an impressive
number of cases of this kind, which caused various degrees
of scandal and were repudiated more or less --some of them
not at all. But it passed over the heads of the Catholic
people as a whole. If they learnt of these things in the
newspapers they thought of them as abuses that were exceptional
and did not affect their own faith. But they began to be
worried when they found in their children's hands catechisms
which no longer set out Catholic doctrine as it had been
taught from time immemorial.
All the new catechisms that
draw their inspiration to a greater or lesser degree from
the Dutch Catechism published in 1966 were so spurious that
the Pope appointed a commission of cardinals to examine
it. They met in April 1967 at Gazzada in Lombardy. Now
this commission raised ten points regarding which it advised
the Holy See to demand modifications. It was a way of saying,
in conformity with the post-conciliar style, that on these
points there was disagreement with the teaching of the Church.
A few years earlier they would have been forthrighty condemned
and the Dutch Catechism put on the Index. The errors or
omissions concerned did, in fact, touch upon essentials
of the faith.
What do we find in it? The
Dutch Catechism ignores the angels, and does not treat human
souls as being directly created by God. It insinuates that
original sin was not transmitted by our first parents to
all their descendants but is contracted by men through their
living in the human community, where evil reigns, as though
it were a sort of epidemic. There is no affirmation of the
virginity of Mary. Nor does it say that Our Lord died for
our sins, being sent for this purpose by His Father, and
that this was the price by which divine Grace was restored
to us. Consequently, the Mass is presented not as a sacrifice
but as a banquet. Neither the Real Presence or the reality
of Transubstantiation are clearly affirmed.
The Church's infallibility
and the fact that she is the possessor of the truth have
vanished from this teaching, likewise the possibility for
the human intellect to “declare and attain to revealed mysteries”:
thereby one arrives at agnosticism and relativism. The ministerial
priesthood is minimized. The office of the bishops is considered
as a mandate entrusted to them by the “people of God,” and
their teaching authority is seen as a sanctioning of the
belief held by the community of the faithful. And the Pope
no longer has his full, supreme and universal authority.
Neither is the Holy Trinity,
the mystery of the three divine Persons, presented in a
satisfactory manner. The commission also criticized the
explanation given of the efficacity of the sacraments, of
the definition of a miracle, and of the fate of the souls
of the just after death. It found a great deal of vagueness
in the exposition of the laws of morality, and the “solutions
to cases of conscience” put a low price on the indissolubility
of marriage.
Even if all the rest of the
book is “good and praise-worthy”--which is not surprising,
since Modernists, as St. Pius X firmly pointed out, have
always mixed truth and falsehood together--nevertheless,
we have seen enough to be able to describe it as a perverse
production particularly dangerous to faith. Yet without
waiting for the commission's report, on the contrary going
full tilt ahead, the promoters of the operation had the
book published in several languages. And the text has never
since been altered. Sometimes the commission's statement
is annexed to the list of contents, sometimes not. I shall
refer later on to the problem of obedience. Who is being
disobedient in this affair? And who denounces this “catechism”?
The Dutch set the pace. We
have quickly caught them up. I shall not relate the history
of the French catechism, but will pause to consider its
latest manifestation, the “Catholic collection of key documents
of the Faith” entitled Pierres Vivantes (Living Stones),
and the accompanying flood of “catechetical studies.” These
works ought, out of respect for the word “catechesis” used
in all of them, to proceed on a question-and-answer method.
However, they have abandoned this form, which allowed the
content of the faith to be studied systematically, and they
hardly ever give answers. Pierres Vivantes avoids
affirming anything, except new and unusual propositions
that have nothing to do with Tradition.
When dogmas are mentioned,
they are spoken of as the particular beliefs of a section
of mankind which this book calls “the Christians,” putting
them on a level with the Jews, the Protestants, the Buddhists,
and even the agnostics and atheists. In several courses
the catechists are invited to ask the child to choose a
religion, no matter which. It will also be for his good
to listen to unbelievers, who have much to teach him. What
matters is to “belong to the team,” to help one another
as classmates and to prepare for the social struggles of
tomorrow in which one will have to take part, even alongside
communists, as is seen in the edifying story of Madeleine
Delbrel. Her story is sketched in Pierres Vivantes
and told at length in other courses. Another “saint” put
forward as an example to children is Martin Luther King,
while Marx and Proudhon are vaunted as “great defenders
of the working class” who “appear to come from outside the
Church.” The Church, you see, would have liked to have taken
up this fight, but did not know how to set about it. She
contented herself with “denouncing injustice.” This is what
children are being taught.
But still more serious is the
discredit that is being cast upon the Scriptures, the work
of the Holy Ghost. Whereas one would have expected to see
the selection of Biblical texts begin with the creation
of the world and of man, Pierres Vivantes begins
with the book of Exodus, under the title of “God creates
His people.” Catholics must surely be not only confused
but disconcerted and disgusted by such a misuse of words.
We have to arrive at the First
Book of Samuel before returning to Genesis to learn that
God did not create the world. I am not inventing
anything here, either. We read: “the author of the story
of creation, like many people, is wondering how the world
began. Believers have given thought to it. One of them
wrote a poem...” Then, at the court of Solomon, other wise
men reflected on the problem of evil. To explain it they
wrote a “picture-story,” and we have the temptation by the
serpent and the fall of Adam and Eve. But not the chastisement.
The story is cut at that point. God does not punish, just
as the Church no longer condemns, except those who stay
faithful to Tradition. Orignal sin (printed between quotation
marks) is “an illness from birth,” “an infirmity going back
to the origins of humanity,” something very vague and inexplicable.
Of course, the whole of religion
crumbles. If we can no longer give an explanation of the
problem of evil, there is no further point in preaching,
saying Mass or hearing confessions. Who will listen to
us?
The New Testament opens with
Pentecost. The emphasis is laid on that first community
uttering its cry of faith. Next, these Christians “remember,”
and the story of Our Lord emerges little by little from
the clouds of their memory, beginning with the end: the
Last Supper, or Calvary. Then comes the public life, and
finally the infancy under the ambiguous heading “The first
disciples tell the story of Jesus' childhood.”
On such foundations these courses
have no difficulty in giving the impression that the Gospel
accounts of the infancy of Christ are pious legends of the
sort that ancient peoples were accustomed to invent when
they recorded the lives of their great men. Pierres Vivantes
also gives a late dating of the Gospels which diminishes
their credibility and tendentiously portrays the Apostles
and their successors as preaching, celebrating the Mysteries
and teaching before “presenting their own reading of the
life of Jesus on the basis of their experience.” The facts
are turned upside down: the Apostles' personal experience
becomes the origin of revelation shaping their thoughts
and their lives.
When it comes to the “four
last things,” Pierres Vivantes is confusing and
disquieting. What is the soul? Reply: “We need breath if
we are to run; when someone dies, we say ‘he has breathed
his last.’ The breath is the life, the intimate life of
a person. We also say, ‘the soul.’” In another chapter
the soul is likened to the heart, the heart which beats,
and loves. The heart is also the seat of the conscience.
What can we make of this? And death: what is that? The authors
come to no conclusion. “For some, death is the final ceasing
of life. Others think we can live after death, but do not
know for sure. Finally there are others who have a firm
assurance about this: Christians are among them.” It is
up to the child to choose: death is a matter of opinion.
But is not the one who is being taught the Catechism a Christian?
In that case, why speak to him of Christians in the third
person instead of stating firmly, “We Christians know that
eternal life exists and that the soul does not die?”
Paradise also is a subject
treated equivocally: “Christians sometimes speak of Paradise
to describe the perfect joy of being with God forever after
death; it is Heaven, the Kingdom of God, Eternal Life, the
Reign of Peace.” This is a very hypothetical explanation.
It would seem that one is dealing with a figure of speech,
a reassuring metaphor used by Christians. But Our Lord has
promised us Heaven, if we keep His commandments; and the
Church has always defined that as “a place of perfect happiness
where the angels and the elect see God and possess Him for
ever.” This catechesis shows a definite going-back on what
the catechisms used to affirm. The only result will be
a lack of confidence in the truths taught and in a spiritual
disarmament: what is the good of resisting our instincts
and following the narrow way if we are not very sure of
what awaits a Christian after death?
A Catholic does not go to the
priests or his bishop asking for suggestions to enable him
to form his own idea about God, or the world, or the last
things. He asks them he must believe and what he must do.
If they reply a whole range of propositions and patterns
for living, it only remains for him to make up his own personal
religion: he becomes a Protestant. This catechesis is turning
children into little Protestants.
The keynote of the reform is
the drive against certainties. Catholics who have them
are branded as misers guarding their treasures, as greedy
egotists who should be ashamed of themselves. The important
thing is to be open to contrary opinions, to admit diversity,
to respect the ideas of Freemasons, Marxists, Muslims, even
animists. The mark of a holy life is to join in dialogue
with error.
Thenceforth everything is permitted.
I have already spoken of the consequences of the new definition
of marriage. These are not the remote consequences which
would follow if Christians took this definition literally:
on the contrary, they have not been slow to appear, as we
can judge by the moral permissiveness which is becoming
daily more widespread. But what is still more shocking is
that the catechesis is aiding this process. Let us take
an example from some “catechetical material” as they call
it, published with the episcopal imprimatur about
1972 at Lyons, and intended for teachers. The title: “Behold
the Man.” In the section dealing with morals we read: “Jesus
did not intend to leave to posterity a moral system, either
political, sexual, or what you will. His only permanent
insistence is love for one another. Beyond that, you are
free; it is for you to choose what in every instance is
the best way to express this love which you bear to your
fellow-men.”
The section on “purity” draws
consequences from this general principle. After explaining,
at the expense of the book of Genesis, that clothing only
appeared later “as a sign of social rank or dignity” and
to serve “a purpose of dissimulation,” purity is defined
as follows: “To be pure is to be in order, to be faithful
to nature... To be pure means being in harmony, at peace
with men and with the earth; it means being in accord with
the great forces of nature without either resistance or
violence.” Next we find a question and an answer: “Is a
purity of this sort compatible with the purity of Christians?
--Not only is it compatible, it is necessary to a truly
human and Christian purity. Jesus Christ neither denied
or rejected any of the discoveries and acquisitions that
are the fruit of the long searching of the peoples. Quite
the contrary; He came to give them an extraordinary extension:
‘I came not to destroy but to fulfill.’”
In support of their claims
the authors give the example of Mary Magdalen: “In that
gathering it is she who is pure, because she has loved much,
loved deeply.” This is their manner of falsifying the Gospel:
of Mary Magdalen they retain only the sin, the dissolute
life. The pardon that Our Lord granted her is presented
as an approval of her past, and no notice is taken of the
exhortation “Go, and sin no more,” nor the firm resolution
that led the former sinner to Calvary, faithful to her Master
for the rest of her days. This revolting book knows no
limits: “Can one have relations with a girl,” the authors
ask, “even if one knows that it is for pleasure or to see
what a woman is like?” And they reply “To put the problem
of the laws of purity in this way is unworthy of a true
man, a loving man, a Christian. Wouldn’t that mean imposing
a strait-jacket, an intolerable yoke? When Christ came precisely
to free us from the heavy burdens of laws: ‘My yoke is easy
and My burden light.’” You see how the holiest words are
interpreted so as to pervert souls! From Saint Augustine
they have remembered only one sentence, “Love, and do as
you will!”
I have been sent some contemptible
books published in Canada. They speak only of sex and always
in capital letters: “sexuality lived in faith,” “sexual
promotion,” etc. These pictures are absolutely disgusting.
It seems that they wish at all costs to give children a
desire for and an obsession with sex; to make them think
it is the only thing in life. Many Christian parents have
protested, but nothing has been done about it, for a good
reason: on the back page we read that these catechisms have
been approved by the Catechetical Commission. The permission
to print has been given by the President of the Episcopal
Commission for Religious Teaching of Quebec!
Another catechism approved
by the Canadian episcopate calls upon children to break
with everything so as to rediscover their personality that
all these ties have smothered, and free themselves from
the complexes that come from society or from the family.
Always looking for justification in the Gospel, those who
give this sort of advice claim that Christ made similar
breaks and thereby revealed Himself to be the Son of God.
So it is His wish that we should do likewise.
How can one accept an idea
so contrary to the Catholic religion on the pretext that
it is covered by episcopal authority? Instead of talking
about breaks we need to cherish the bonds that make up our
life. What is the love of God if not a link with God and
obedience to Him and His commandments? And the bond with
our parents, our love for them, is a bond for life, not
of death. But they are now presented to children as something
constraining and repressing which diminishes their personality,
and from which they must free themselves!
No, there can be no question
of your allowing your children to be corrupted in this manner.
I say frankly, you cannot send them to these catechism classes
that make them lose their faith.