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His
Excellency Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the
Society of Saint Pius X. Given at the Theological Conference
of sì sì no no held at Albano Laziale
(Rome), December 8-10, 1994, to celebrate the 10th anniversary
of the death of Don Francisco Putti, and the 20th anniversary
of the Roman anti-modernist journal sì sì
no no. The theme of the congress was Catholic Precepts
for Remaining Faithful to the Church in these Extraordinary
Times of Crisis.
Whenever a combat
takes place, we must distinguish the cause
giving rise to the combat and its object (i.e.,
what is being fought against - Ed.).
We will talk about the circumstances of this struggle, its
force and intensity; and, finally, the weapons required
for such combat.
THE
OBJECTIVE OF THE COMBAT
We do not need here
to prove the existence of a combat in the Church, a terrible
struggle in which we find ourselves actively engaged in
defending the very foundations of Catholicism. Let us recall
a very interesting sentence of one of the most illustrious
combatants, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
At the close of
a long life (for I was born in 1905 and I now see the
year 1990), I can say that it has been marked by exceptional
world events: three world wars, that which took place
from 1914 to 1918, that which took place from 1939 to
1945, and that of the Second Vatican Council from 1962
to 1965.
The disasters caused
by these three wars, and especially by the last of them,
are incalculable in the domain of material ruins, but even
more so in the spiritual realm. The first two paved the
way for the war inside the Church, by facilitating the ruin
of Christian institutions and the domination of Freemasonry,
which has become so powerful that it has deeply infiltrated
the governing body of the Church with its Liberal, Modernist
doctrine. (Spiritual Journey, Angelus Press, 1991,
p.v.).
Yes, this is war!
We may even speak of a "total war," seeing that
the clash is so decisive, generalized, and widespread. Pope
St. Pius X's impressive words of the beginning of this century
now echo with the clarity of a terrible reality. He also
spoke of warfare,...:
...that sacrilegious
war which is now, almost everywhere, stirred up and fomented
against God Such, in truth, is the audacity and the wrath
employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combatting
the dogmas of the Faith, in a brazen effort to uproot and
destroy all relations between man and the Divinity! (E
Supremi Apostolatus, October 4, 1903).
Although St. Pius
X's energetic actions prevented modernism from prevailing
in the early years of this century, that same modernism
resurfaced after World War II and has literally triumphed
ever since Vatican Council II (1962-1965).
CATHOLIC
DOCTRINE HAS BEEN TARGETED
Catholic doctrine
has not been only affected by denial of those truths belonging
to the deposit of faith. At this level, we already note
that each and every Truth has been individually attacked,
challenged and denied - from the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception to that of Purgatory, from the unicity (oneness)
of the Catholic Church to the divinity of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Today, it is not only the contents which are questioned,
but revelation itself! Everything pertaining to the supernatural
order as such is now attacked, refused and denied by modernist
theologians who are honored by the hierarchy; modernist
theologians and bishops, together with the Council, have
shaken the entire supernatural order.
Before describing
this disaster, let us recall the Church's teachings. It
is a dogma of the faith that there exists a supernatural
order, an order above the order of created natures.
God, in His infinite
goodness, has ordained men to a supernatural end, that
is, to participate in those divine beatitudes which greatly
and indescribably surpass or utterly exceed all intelligence
of human thought. (Vatican I, Dei Filius; cap.
II de Revelatione, DS 3005). The rest of
Dei Filius proves that it is not just man's intelligence
that is surpassed by an infinite degree, but all natural
capacity. God is...
...distinct in
reality and essence from the world; most blessed in Himself
and of Himself, and ineffably most high above all things
which are or can be conceived outside Himself. (Dei
Filius, DS 3001).
If this is true in
the natural order wherein man can, nevertheless,
attain to some certain knowledge of God, how much more so
is it in the supernatural order which is the very
order of the holy and blissful life of God Himself!
(DTC, column
2854) The supernatural order according to substance
is the disposition of all formally supernatural realities,
that is, the order of truth and of the supernatural life
of grace and of glory. It is in this order that man has
his last end in his possession of God in the beatific vision.
God is the first cause in the order of grace and glory.
Man is the secondary cause due to the elevation of his soul
through sanctifying grace, the infused virtues, and the
gifts of the Holy Ghost. The objective means (i.e.,
ways) offered to all men to help them attain their
last end are the exterior revelation proposed by the Church,
by the sacraments, and by those supernatural exterior means
useful and necessary to salvation. The subjective means
offered to individual men are the interior light of faith
and the exercise of supernatural virtues under the supernatural
influence of actual grace. The law governing this order
is seen in the entirety of all of the divine positive precepts,
which, if we accomplish them, lead us to our supernatural
goal.
ATTACKS
AGAINST THE SUPERNATURAL
Vatican Council I
took a very strong position against those attacking the
supernatural order. A large part of the introduction of
the Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Filius, was dedicated
to describing the attack known as the "doctrine of
rationalism or of naturalism," an attack which moved
this Council to defend the supernatural order to the point
of engaging its infallibility on this important question.
This is Card. Pie's
commentary on the introduction of Dei Filius:
Heresy turns God
away from such and such a part of His kingdom; naturalism
eliminates Him from the world as well as from all Creation.
It is for this reason that the Council (Vatican I), speaking
of this hateful error, declares that it is "on all
points opposed to the Christian religion; carefully adding
that, if naturalism shows such hostility to and thus challenges
Christianity, that is because it is...the living supernatural
in action, the supernatural made Man in Jesus Christ and
then made into society and humanity in the Church. And
since this is the first principle of naturalism, it necessarily
follows that its fatal law, its essential need, its obstinate
passion and, in the measure wherein it succeeds, its true
labor is that of dethroning Christ and of chasing Him
away from all aspects of everyday life, which is the task
of the Antichrist as well as being Satan's supreme ambition...
One would, Gentlemen, have to know nothing of what is
going on in these times of ours, either in the domain
of ideas, or in that of actions and events, in order not
to realize that such is the sign of this era, its characteristic
note, its error, its crime as well as its evil. (Card.
Pie, Synodal Instruction on the First Constitution
of Vatican Council I; July 17, 1871, no. 7.)
This was in 1871.
Nowadays, it is still that very same naturalism which dominates
and reigns supreme over our entire society, more than ever
before in history. Although the principles remain the same
as then, the difference is to be found in the intensity
of their influence on the present generation and the introduction
of those principles in that supernatural society which is
the Church.
THE
SUPERNATURAL DIMENSION OF THE PRESENT STRUGGLE
modernism
the culprit
For our wrestling
is...against principalities and powers, against the rulers
of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of
wickedness (Eph. 6:12).
Having followed in
the wake of naturalism, modernism was also meant to be an
all out attack upon the supernatural. Modernism simply seeks
to bring everything down to man's natural level. In fact,
modernism falsely teaches that nothing transcends or surpasses
man: not revelation, miracles, religion, faith, nor our
Lord Jesus Christ. All of this was shown and proven at the
beginning of this century by the same St. Pius X in his
watershed encyclical Pascendi as well as in his condemnations
found in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, his Anti-Modernist
Oath.
But what is of the
greatest importance is that with the advent of modernism,
naturalism [i.e., a philosophical and theological system
which denies the existence of anything supernatural, with
the consequent rejection of revelation, centering its foundation
on nature alone, thus raising nature to the level of deity]
has made its way into the Church (i.e., into the minds of
those holding the highest offices in the Vatican - Ed.):
For, as We have
said, they put into operation their designs for her [the
Church's] undoing, not from without, but from within [the
Church herself] (Pascendi).
the
enemy identified
Pope St. Pins X showed
modernism to be a secretly organized society:
Modernists...have
not abandoned their plans to disturb the peace of the
Church. In fact, they have never ceased to seek out and
to gather into a secret association new followers in order
to use them to inject into the very veins of Christian
society the deadly venom of their opinions... (Sacrorum
Antistitum, September 1, 1910).
In spite of all of
the Church's prohibitions and condemnations, this evil continued
making more open and bold progress.
"new
spirit" triumphant
It is very interesting
to read Professor Peter Henrici, now Auxiliary Bishop of
Coire (Switzerland), describing how the "new spirit"
was introduced into and later invaded the seminaries, that
same "new spirit" which was later to triumph at
Vatican Council II:
To seminarians
who showed the greatest interest in Theology, the Prefect
of Studies would recommend the first two chapters of Henri
de Lubac's Supernatural - the most forbidden of
"prohibited books"! This was followed by his
Corpus Mysticum which claims that similar expressions
could have, in other times and contents, theologically
different meanings. Meanwhile, in our course of Fundamental
Theology, another professor was discussing the possibility
of the evolution of dogmas; the meaning of "living
tradition"…In ecclesiology, we soon learned
how to sympathize with the concept of "the Church"
in the East, and that Mystici Corporis had evidently
established the boundaries of the Church in a too restricted
or narrow a manner; that Vatican I definitions were in
need of additional information; that the collegiality
of bishops fundamentally belongs to the very structure
of the Church. Yves Congar's True and False Reform
in the Church, together with his Outline for a
Theology of the Laity were compulsory reading....
The courses in Dogmatic Theology were in the same vein.
They were based on the historical research of the early
critics: de Battifol, Rivière, Lebreton, up to
and including the more recent works of Henri Rondet to
Karl Rahner's famous History of Penance. (Das
Heranreifen des Konzils, p.44-45 from the book Glauben
DenkenLeben, Communio 1993, Cologne).
"Living tradition,
history of dogma" - This principle is one of the working
marks of modernism. Bishop Henrici again testifies:
In Dogmatic Theology...those
interdicts and condemnations of the early 1950's should
have stood as insurmountable barriers [protecting Dogmatic
Theology]....Such was, in fact, not the case [as] proven
by the above mentioned list of modernist theological literature
which was so easily available and so widely read at that
time.
Fr.
Henri de Lubac
One name which has
stood out through the heterodox [erroneous] positions on
this question, is that of Fr. Henri de Lubac, elevated [just
before his death] to the cardinalship for his "eminent
theology." No one can deny his influence was a very
determining one at the Council. In Gaudium et Spes,
for example, the famous passage saying that through the
revelation of the Father, Christ reveals man to himself,
we find an almost literal phrase from his book Catholicisme,
written in 1938:
In revealing the
Father and being revealed by Him, Christ ends by revealing
man to himself. In taking possession of man, in seizing
him and penetrating him to the very depth of his being,
He forces man to enter deeply into himself in order to
abruptly discover within himself those regions heretofore
sealed and unsuspected. In Christ man is an adult and
emerges definitely from the universe (Henri de Lubac,
Catholicisme, les aspects sociaux du dogme, édition
du Cerf, Paris, 1938).
On this very subject,
Card. Siri raises a timely as well as truly pertinent question:
"What can possibly be the meaning of such an affirmation?"
and, in answer, he concludes:
Either Christ is
only a man or else man is divine (is God). These conclusions
can be expressed less clearly, no doubt, but they still
nevertheless fix or determine that notion of the supernatural
as far as it is implicated in human nature itself, and
from this point, whether we be conscious of it or not,
the road to fundamental anthropocentrism (i.e. man as
center of all things) is seen to be wide open (Gethsemani,
Tequi, Paris, 1980, p.60).
And Pope Pius XII's
condemnation in his 1950 encyclical Humani Generis
was not enough to bring those modernists back to reason:
Others deform the
true notion of the free gift [gratuitousness] of the supernatural
order when they claim that God is unable to create intelligent
beings without calling or ordaining them to the Beatific
Vision" (DS 3891).
Following de Lubac's
book, Surnaturel (Supernatural), published
in 1946, there was his Mystère du Surnaturel
(Aubier, Paris, 1965). The theory is unchanged, but more
"prudently expressed":
As a matter of
fact, from the moment I came into existence, all indetermination
is removed, and, no matter what could have been or come
before, or no matter what could have been in an existence
otherwise realized, it seems that there is no other finality
possible for me hereafter than that one which is now to
be found engraved in the very centre of my nature; there
exists but one sole end (or finality) of which, by that
very fact, I, conscious of it or not, have the natural
desire (op. cit. p.82).
Fr.
Karl Rahner
In the case of Karl
Rahner, that other great instigator of Vatican II, the argument
is almost identical [namely, that man's nature cannot exist
without supernatural grace, or, better said, that man's
nature includes by necessity supernatural
grace - Ed.]:
Man's spirit is
impossible in substance without that transcendence which
constitutes his absolute fulfillment, that is to say,
grace. (Nature et grâce, Ed. Paoline, Rome,
1969, p.118).
It is quite obvious
that such ideas could not have unwarily passed at the Council.
Nevertheless, their influence is quite clear in Dei Verbum
wherein the desire of breaking away from traditional doctrine
was so strong as to shun the very word supernatural.
Concerning man's final goal, de Lubac made the following
commentary in his book Revelation divine, p.206:
...[S]cholastic
terms were avoided, so that the Council (Vatican II) would
not seem to engage in subtleties of schools of thought
nor seem to be closing the door to research by adopting
overly specific theologies.
Elsewhere, two other
liberal theologians are quoted:
Now, Vatican II,
moreover, makes very little use of the word supernatural,
and in this, as a matter of fact, we may legitimately
see at least vaguely, an intention of thrusting aside
everything and anything which might seem to favor explicitly
one or the other side of those parties recently in dispute.
It would be reasonable to say that the Council has broken
with that extrinsicism which was the illness of modern
Catholicism in this matter and which, for so long, had
failed to appreciate the full extent of nature's promise
or assurance (Yves Congar).
By deliberately
avoiding the vocabularies of the two sides, it has, in
reality, taken an extremely important position (Mouroux).
Card. Ratzinger,
commenting on this same article concerning Dei Verbum,
informs us that Vatican II...:
...did not only
avoid the technical term, supernatural, which belongs
too much to a physical idea or thought, but did, in fact,
take a direction contrary to that of Vatican I: it develops
Revelation starting from its Christological milieu
in order to then establish, in an all-encompassing dimension,
the inalienable responsibility of human reason. Thus it
is now seen that man's behavior in relation to God does
not consist in something added to two more or less independent
pieces, but constitutes rather a unique and inseparable
entity....
It is now unmistakably
clear that for the modernists Dei Verbum is a great
victory. Revelation, dynamic tradition, living, Holy Scripture
are all treated in a crafty and subtle modern sense to such
a degree that, to give an example, Card. Ruffini was compelled
to intervene and attack the theological evolutionism of
article 8 (of Dei Verbum), which gives a dynamic
[i.e. ever-changing] conception of Tradition, condemned
as being modernist by Pope St. Pius X. Considering how Holy
Scripture is treated nowadays, we may be sure that the third
chapter of this Constitution dealing with the divine inspiration
and interpretation of the Bible can also be set down as
yet another of the modernists' victories. Card. Ratzinger,
in his commentary on the first two chapters of Dei Verbum
(Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche, tome XIII,
pp.504-505 et seq.), gives the following explanation to
the phrase, "Conciliorum Tridentini et Vaticani
Primi inhaerens vestigiis" (Adhering to the
path laid down by the Councils of Trent and of Vatican I”):
Does such a phrase
not constitute a refusal to try to go beyond those two
previous Councils (Trent and Vatican I)? This being so,
did not the last Council itself require a backward-looking
interpretation of the text? Regarding the history of the
text itself, to which the reference to the Council of
Trent was added only in Part G, let us say that the formula
"inhaerens vestigiis" ("adhering
to the path") was essentially meant to establish,
against all the apprehensions and fears of the conservative
group of cardinals, a continuity of the Church's teaching,
a continuity of Vatican II with those two previous (infallible
- Ed.) Councils, but yet a continuity not marked
by a rigid exterior identity but rather by a conservation
in progress....Our Constitution represents a "re-reading"
of the corresponding texts of Vatican I and of Trent in
which things of the past are to be read in the context
of and manner of the present day. In this way, that which
is regarded as essential together with that which is considered
to be inadequate or insufficient has been interpreted
and seen in a new manner.
What a world of difference
with the way Vatican I expressed its continuity with the
great Council of Trent [in this particular case regarding
revelation and the interpretation of Sacred Scripture (DS
3007) - Ed.]: "Nos idem decretum renovantes
hanc illius mentem esse declaramus." ("We,
renewing the same decree, declare this to be its intention....")
Ever since Vatican
II, the authors of these [modernist] theories have been
promoted to the highest ranks in the Church. From being
simply experts and theologians at the Council, they have
become cardinals and even pope. It is from the very heights
of the Church that such [modernist] doctrines are today
everywhere spread more and more clearly, even in the official
documents coming from the Holy See. Is there yet to be found
a seminary still free of these interpretations, which attack
both directly and indirectly the point at issue: the supernatural?
Be it the mysteries
of the Church, revelation, Holy Scripture itself or Biblical
exegesis in particular; be it the question of grace and
thus the question of justification and of salvation followed
by the question of missions and of missionaries: in every
one of these spheres we behold the triumph of naturalistic
modernism.
Unfortunately, the
idea of going beyond the bounds of the duality of two opposite
terms is to be also found in Pope John Paul II. This idea
shows up in most of his speeches and writings, making it
plain that he is also to be counted amongst the disciples
of the New Theology. Pope John Paul II's two key phrases
have both come directly from Gaudium et Spes:
For, by his incarnation,
he, the son of God, has in a certain way united himself
with each man.
...and ...
...Christ...in
the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of
his love, fully reveals man to himself.
It is thus obvious
that the Holy Father sees in the Incarnation a way of uniting
or combining nature and grace. It is true, of course, that
in the Word made Man (Christ) both His divine nature and
His human nature have indeed been joined together, but this
does not mean, as Pope John Paul II seems to say, that all
of the natural order has thus been once and for all united
without any possible distinction to the supernatural order
through the “recapitulatio in Christo”
(“retoration in Christ”) [Eph 1:10 - Ed.].
Here is an extract from his Dives in Misericordia
(1,4) clearly exemplifying this disciple of de Lubac:
All the more the
Church's mission concentrates itself on man, all the more
it becomes, so to speak, anthropocentric, all the more
it must also show itself to be theocentric and prove to
be so in truth, that is to be directed in Christ toward
the Father. Although in the past as well as in the present,
various currents of thought inclined to separate theocentric
from anthropocentric, and even to put them in opposition
to one another, the Church [now] is striving, and in this
is simply following Christ, to show forth their strong
organic link in the history of mankind. This also constitutes
a fundamental thought, maybe the most important one in
the teaching to come out of the last Council.
If, in this present
phase of the Church's history, we perceive our primary
duty as being to bring about the teachings of the last
Council, we must turn to this fundamental thought with
faith, with all our heart and spirit....
It is always the
same question of merging, of intermingling nature and the
supernatural (here theocentric and anthropocentric) by way
of fusion (con-fusion!), and this is presented as the most
important thought coming from the Council, and, we might
add, the most important one of John Paul II's pontificate.
This is the one constantly recurring theme dominating, directing
and explaining his mysterious pontificate. It is also this
basic idea which dictates the new manner of defining the
Church, its ecumenism, the Assisi affair, as well as relations
with both monotheist and non-monotheist religions and the
Church's new relations with the world. We must repeat -
The present Pope's theology is not to be considered as a
case apart, but must be seen as part and parcel of Vatican
II's new dominant theology, the same one which Msgr. Henrici
has described as being the "New Theology," and
what he freely admits was officially condemned under Pope
Pius XII's pontificate. The present Pontiff is simply repeating
that which he was himself previously taught by his [modernist]
masters: de Lubac, Congar, etc.
Let us compare the
present situation, if you will, to a naval battle: the Church
being a warship floating and making its way through a terrible
storm...Not only has it the raging elements to contend with
but also finds itself virtually surrounded by enemy ships
pounding her mercilessly with their heavy-caliber guns.
These are the heresies which are meant to destroy such-and-such
part of the vessel. This kind of warfare the Church has
experienced from its very beginning. But now, with modernism
and the very negation of the supernatural order. the enemy
is no longer content to simply fire on the ship (i.e., the
Church), he is now trying to destroy her by destroying not
only the ship itself, but also that which holds her up -
water, and the sea itself which we can call the preambula
fidei. [i.e., the preambles of faith. These are
those things which we know by human reason about God, such
as His existence and goodness, which help enable us to make
an act of faith by His grace. - Ed.]
It is precisely upon
the preambula fidei that the modernists have set
their guns and have been able to wreak havoc on such an
unprecedented scale. For example, when they are dealing
with truth and therefore with the philosophical question
of knowledge, they begin with the principle of the evolution
of a truth which would be defined as the "adequation"
with life. [i.e., that truth, mimicking life, must change
so it becomes a perfect "adaptation" to life.
- Ed.]
Modern theologians
do not only reject the vessel and the ocean upon which it
floats, but are also now rejecting the planet Earth itself,
through their new philosophies, including what is called
existentialism as well as through their new theory concerning
language itself. They have now made of every being and even
of each word an absolute sufficient unto itself.
Card. Siri, referring
to this question of language in his book, Gethsemani, makes
the following observation:
It is now quite
common for us to be in the presence of some perilously
unsuspected word prestidigitation or word trickery: being,
existence, interpretation, comprehension, hermeneutics,
language, tongue, word, substance, essence, subjectivity,
objectivity, structure, identity, praxis, orthopraxis,
liberation, inculturation, as well as many other words
both old and new, even some of major importance, are all
subject to an unending change of resonance, of meaning,
putting us in mind of the changing chameleon as it passes
from sunlight to the shade of the forest. From one school
to another, from one chapter to another in the same book
words scud and run before the fickle winds of change,
ever slithering with various implications and insinuations
in such a way as to leave in their wake no principle,
no notion, no concept nor any kind of stable fundamental
meaning. In the name and for the sake of change in words
and in speech, we are now witnessing a re-evaluation,
a polyvalency and an anarchical dispersion or breaking
up of any and all essential order of words (p.137).
When modernists launch
a general attack on language itself, thought and the theory
of knowledge will inevitably also be left in ruins. They
end up with a new nominalism wherein the essence of things
are always unattainable, and universal or general propositions,
concepts or ideas are left without any meaning at all and
are held to be utterly vain. Thus are the blind modernists
left with quantity bereft of form and of sense.
It is now crystal-clear
that for Karl Rahner...:
...the office of
Peter, accepted with faith, can no longer be received
nor explained due to the impossibility of covering (or
taking in) the vast extent of knowledge required to synthesize
today's mentality with the Faith (Karl Rahner, Motivation
de la foi aujourd'hui, p.27).
In the circumstances
where every being and event is considered to be an absolute
in itself, modernists inevitably end up with this "historical
evolution." Schillebeeckx claims in his book:
We have never had
a "totally" uniform and metahistorical expression
of the Faith; we have never had an expression which was
not historical, we must always be rethinking the Faith
according to modern circumstances (La fide nel pluralism
della culture, Cittadella, Assisi 1979, p.254).
Said Card. Siri:
Historicist thought
and mentality cannot help but go, more or less directly
or intensely, inevitably toward that mirage of justification
and salvation by means of man's autonomy and historical
activity through history. Another equally inescapable
fact is that such an orientation, acknowledged or not,
seals the doom of the essence as well as real mystery
of Revelation (p.355). Modern theologies, implicitly or
explicitly, express an ever-increasing tendency towards
transcendental pluralism, that is, a pluralism throwing
into confusion any and all distinctions and limits coming
from stable criteria. This holds true with regard to the
starting point of these tendencies as well as to that
orientation pre-established by the will together with
that which concerns terms, language and previous verbs.
It is not at all a question of a pluralism of expression
or of the means of expression, nor of a pluralism of images
or of parallelism. It is a question of total pluralism,
as if each person could constitute a starting point with
his own thoughts and will, and, being absolutely autonomous
or self-sufficient.
From innumerable
works, like from those of Karl Rahner, for example, has
come a doctrinal pluralism which, henceforward, allows
no objective base whatsoever for a Christian theology
based on divinely received Revelation. Neither shades
of meaning or nuances, nor everything which remains indefinite
or indefinable, nor everything remaining unknown, nor
all the inspirations and artful works of man, can justify
in any possible way such a pluralism which simply annihilates
every notion of universal truth in view of method as well
as essence. Such pluralism simply annihilates the very
foundations of intelligence, of any understanding in our
relationships with God, as well as with our dealing with
other individuals making up our human society (Card. Siri,
Gethsemani, 1988).
The theology of
the future will be characterized by a considerable and
henceforth insurmountable pluralism of theologies, in
spite of the unique Church's unique profession of Faith
(Fr. Karl Rahner, Sacramentum mundi, tome VIII,
col. 345).
These modern theologies,
in their frenzied attacks on super-nature, have not only
destroyed supernatural order, they have gone on to sabotage
and undermine nature itself to the point of leaving nothing
except the folly of a mind which can only get excited about
itself.
OUR
COMBAT WEAPONS
It is certainly obvious
that we cannot fight them down at their level. Have we,
on our side, proportionate weapons enabling us to carry
on a successful attack against such neo-modernist thoughts?
Here again, we must have recourse to supernatural weaponry,
without, of course, neglecting natural action and effort.
Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.
Thus did Pope St.
Pius X strongly recommend to all schools teaching philosophy,
the teaching of the 24 Thomistic Theses in Philosophy. (Doctoris
Angelici, June 29, 1914; Décision dela Congregation
des études, July 27, 1914). These 24 theses lay
down or impose absolutely fundamental distinctions which
all utterly contradict the modernist idea of fusion/confusion.
In creation and in
different levels, is to be seen a necessary distinction
between action and potential, between essence and existence,
between body and soul, between an ability and its action,
the action of a faculty and its object, etc. Any denial
of these distinctions renders reality utterly unintelligible
and will quickly set us on the road to pantheism.
We must call for
an unceasing return to the supernatural order, as the Catholic
Faith has always taught. Since the supernatural order is
an extraordinary gift of God, there is an essential distinction
between the natural order which is proportioned to human
nature and that supernatural order which is the order of
God in His Life. It is an order which infinitely surpasses
the natural order, and which only the omnipotence of God
can enable us to share, in spite of the fact that men have
absolutely no right to it, and also in spite of the fact
God is not at all compelled to do mankind such a favor.
By whom he hath
given us most great and precious promises: that by these
you may be made partakers of the divine nature...(II Peter
1:4).
I am the vine,
you the branches: he that abideth in Me and I in him,
the same beareth much fruit; for without Me you can do
nothing (John 15:5).
Wherefore I give
you to understand, that no man, speaking by the Spirit
of God saith Anathema to Jesus. And no man can say the
Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost (I Cor. 12:3).
Likewise the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself asketh for
us with unspeakable groanings (Romans 8:26).
Vatican I underscores
the creature's complete submission to God in these vivid
terms:
Since man is wholly
dependent on God as his Creator and Lord, and since created
reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are
bound by faith to give full obedience of intellect and
will to God who reveals (DS 3008).
This confession of
Faith is of extreme importance. We are engaged in a unique
and gigantic battle where simply adopting a "human"
position against those errors will never do. It is absolutely
necessary that we attack these errors. These "assassins
of the Faith," as Msgr. Lefebvre once called them,
must be unmasked. This is exactly what Pope Saint Pius X
called for in Pascendi.
But all of these
actions are primarily acts of Faith. This constitutes that
anagogical act so heartily recommended by all of the Apostles:
Watch ye, stand
fast in the Faith, do manfully, and be strengthened (I
Cor. 16:13).
Whom resist ye,
strong in Faith (I Peter 5:8).
For whatsoever
is born of God, overcometh the world: and this is the
victory which overcometh the world, our Faith (I John
5:4) animated by Charity (Eph. 4:15).
God has raised up
saints who were instrumental in resolving the Church's crises,
who labored to correspond to God's will through a most profound
union with God. I well recall a colleague who went to visit
a minister of a former Catholic State who was eager to do
something positive for his people by offering to help this
priest. "What do you need to begin?" The priest
said: "Twenty men in the state of grace." In proposing
this solution and these weapons, we stand in good company.
At the end of his work De Gratia, Rev. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange
describes the present situation:
How is the Church
going to recover from such an unprecedented fall? How
is she to recover her unity of thought and life in the
midst of such a diversity and complexity of unsolvable
questions? The answer can only be found in a return to
Christian principles. And in particular, priests and religious
must make these same principles part and parcel of their
daily lives. It is to this end that the Holy Ghost and
His seven gifts have been given to us.
St. Thomas teaches
that, in difficult times, we need these seven gifts in
order to remain docile and unresisting to those inspirations
of the Holy Ghost. These inspirations are given to help
those virtues which are only too liable to suffer from
human weakness and which lack sufficient promptitude in
the service and love of God....
But it is often
found that these Gifts are held back within us and are
thus unable to go forth and receive the impulsive and
vivifying force of the Holy Ghost. These seven gifts are
hindered by innumerable venial sins (of which we are often
quite unconscious) which bind up our spirit to exterior
things as well as to our own selfishness. In these circumstances,
we are no longer guided by the Holy Ghost but by our own
selves, by our own poor reason wherein lies our own weak
judgment and not at all in accordance with the judgment
of God. (De Gratia, Berruti, Turin, 1947, p.402
seq.).
St. Thomas also urges
each and every Christian to base all his life on the fundamental
principle of divine adoption, by unceasingly placing himself
under the guidance of the Spirit of adoption of the children
of God, that is, of the Holy Ghost.
Whatever word or
expression or means we use in the present grievous circumstances,
they must be of the supernatural order, that same order
which is under attack and being destroyed by modernism.
The fount of grace is to be found in Holy Mass.
From a human point
of view, we should never succeed in this great battle: the
enemy is too strong, too numerous and have also been joined
by the fallen angels or demons. For our part, we must also
seek angelic support. Let us enter into an alliance with
all those friends of God, with those whose duty it is to
watch over Holy Church, all of the holy angels and especially
the Queen of Angels. Signs point to the decisive role being
played by the Holy Virgin Mary in these apocalyptic times.
In the Apocalypse,
St. John shows us a great sign appearing in the heavens;
a Virgin surrounded by the sun, the moon beneath her feet
in a deadly struggle with the ancient dragon. By this we
understand, as an echo from the Book of Genesis, that our
Lady is playing a major role in this battle against Satan.
At the time when naturalism and its followers have come
upon the world stage, Divine Providence has twice caused
to appear this great sign in the firmament of the Catholic
Church's doctrine. We had the proclamation of the dogma
of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and that of the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (1950). The signum
magnum has arrived and we now are living in apocalyptic
times, a period of extraordinary struggles where God has
not failed to provide us with a proportionate and necessary
remedy: Ite ad Mariam! (Have recourse to Mary!)
May she deign to protect us as well as the whole Church.
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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