|
OUR READERS WRITE
We
received the following letter from Germany:
The
Second Vatican Council was searching for a new definition
of the Catholic Church. Was this definition to become
a new dogma, since the constitution [Lumen Gentium]
is called "dogmatic"? Opinions differed, and
discussions on the matter were long and stretched out.
On the one hand, we did not want to diverge from the truth,
and on the other hand we did not want to offend non-Catholic
Christians.
At
the Council, one of the Protestant observers made the
following proposition to one of the Fathers: Christi
Ecclesia....subsistit in Ecclesia catholica (Lumen
Gentium, 8). The Father accepted this proposition,
and it was in this manner that a Protestant idea became
a Catholic one, and the opinion of a non-Catholic Christian
was introduced into Catholic ecclesiology - into the very
definition of the Church, into the heart of the famous
dogmatic constitution. Therefore, the basic definition
of the Church was formulated not by one of its own theologians
(like de Franzelin during Vatican I), but by someone from
the non-Catholic world.
It
was during the time of the Council that this Protestant
minister told me about these events. We are still bound
by close ties of friendship today.
Name
withheld by request
OUR
COMMENTARY
This
testimony is in perfect accord with what Giandomenico Mucci,
S.J., wrote in the editorial section of La Civilta Cattolica,
December 5, 1988 (see also Courrier de Rome #93 [283],
June 1988: "Subterfuge in the Face of Revealed Truth:
the Subsistit in and Lumen Gentium).
This
Jesuit admitted that there was a "striking difference"
between the Council's document and previous Catholic ecclesiology:
It
is one thing to say that the Mystical Body of Christ and
the Catholic Church are perfectly identical; to state,
consequently and necessarily, that the Roman Catholic
Church is the only Church of Christ. It
is another thing to say that the Church of Christ
subsists in the Catholic Church (emphasis added
by sì sì no no).
It
seems, however, that he was able to justify this striking
difference: having gone "from one definition (est)
to another (subsistit in) was done for ecumenical
purposes." And, he added, "during the conciliar
discussions, concern for ecumenism undoubtedly grew, and
quite noticeably at that." This concern for ecumenism
found its way in through the more or less secret work of
the "new theologians," "separated brothers,"
and "observers," all of them manipulators of the
Council.
When
Pius IX summoned the First Vatican Council, he exhorted
non-Catholics to profit from it in order to "liberate
themselves from a state in which they could not be sure
of gaining salvation. " Dr. Cumming from Scotland asked
him if Protestants could present their arguments to the
Council. The Pope answered that:
...(T)he
Church could not allow for these errors to be put up for
discussion again, since they had already been examined,
judged and condemned (Papal brief Per Ephemerides Accepimus
to Card. Manning, September 4, 1869).
The
re-discussion of errors is exactly what was allowed behind
the scenes in Vatican II. This Council is proving itself
to be a great fraud, and will be known to history as such.
sì
sì no no, July-August 1994
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)
|
