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Volume 3, Chapter
LXV
29
May 1982
The alleged
disobedience of Mgr. Lefebvre, which derives solely from his concern
to uphold orthodoxy, must always be set within the context of
the Conciliar Church, in which not only the actions of diocesan
bishops undermine orthodoxy, but, alas, on occasions that of the
Sovereign Pontiff himself. The Pope's frequent interventions on
behalf of orthodoxy have been cited in this book. They indicate
that he clearly wishes to uphold the Faith, even though these
interventions have usually proved ineffective at diocesan or parish
levels. Charity demands that we presume that such acts as his
visit to Canterbury, or his later visits to a Lutheran church
and a synagogue, were motivated by a sincere desire to present
the Church as sympathetically as possible to those outside her
unity, and to hasten the day when they will enter into her visible
unity. But, however sincere his motivation, this does not alter
the fact that such actions by the Pope are objectively scandalous
and impede rather than hasten the cause of visible unity. They
give those outside the Church the impression that the Holy See
considers false religions to be as acceptable as the one, true
Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is made clear in
the following article which I wrote for the September 1982 issue
of Approaches, No. 78.
The Papal Visit – A Protestant
Triumph
It is not
part of the Catholic Faith that the Pope is inerrant or impeccable.
He can be cowardly, compromising, imprudent, and sinful- in other
words, a cause of scandal to the faithful. When Dante put several
popes in hell, no one was scandalized by this in his day. Some
conservative Catholics today consider that the least criticism
of a reigning pontiff is a cause of scandal in itself, and this
is not surprising as for well over a hundred years we had a series
of popes whose lives and teachings were a source of inspiration
to the Church. Then came Pope John XXIII, a good, well-meaning
man in many ways, and extremely conservative in outlook on some
matters, but a little too anxious to win popular acclaim, a little
too inclined to make statements on some subjects that accorded
with prevailing popular opinion rather than the perennial teaching
of the Church, particularly where social teaching was concerned.
He made some Catholics uneasy. They did not criticize him of course
-good Catholics do not criticize the Pope. But long before the
death of his successor, Pope Paul VI, many good Catholics were
criticizing a reigning pontiff very vigorously -and criticizing
him because they were good Catholics. Not all this criticism was
well founded, but much of it was, and where this was the case
those who made it were doing no more than their duty.
St. Paul's
rebuke to St. Peter at Antioch (Gal. 2) provides a classic example
of an occasion when the Pope himself needed to be corrected. Peter's
behavior in refusing to eat with the Gentile converts was not
in conformity with his own convictions or the truth of the Gospel.
He was submitting to pressure from the Judaizers and compromising
the integrity of the Faith, and, as St. Thomas Aquinas explained,
was rightly rebuked: "St. Peter himself set an example for
those who rule, to the effect that if they ever stray from the
straight path they are not to feel that anyone is unworthy of
correcting them, even if such a person be one of their subjects."1
However,
in the entire history of the papacy, there can scarcely have been
an exhibition of scandalous behavior on the part of a reigning
pontiff comparable to that of Pope John Paul II during his visit
to Canterbury Cathedral on Saturday, 29 May 1982. There cannot
have been a truly faithful Catholic who saw the entire humiliating
debacle on television who did not weep from love of Holy Mother
Church, and shame for her sake, at the abject spectacle made by
her visible head. Before explaining my reasons for making so grave
an allegation concerning the reigning pontiff I must clarify a
few points concerning the Church of England. Given that I am factually
correct in what I state concerning this heretical sect, and given
that I am factually correct concerning what the Pope said and
did in Canterbury Cathedral, I would challenge any reader to refute
my charge of scandal.
Facts Concerning the Protestant
Reformation
1. The Church
in England went into schism under Henry VIII and became the Church
of England, but apart from its repudiation of the Pope it remained
largely Catholic in belief and practice. All seven sacraments
were still indubitably valid.
2. Under
his son, the Boy-King Edward VI, the Church of England was transformed
into an heretical Protestant sect with some of its sacramental
rites of doubtful validity or certain invalidity.
3. Under
Queen Mary Tudor the Church of England became the Church in England
once again, totally Catholic in every way.
4. Under
Queen Elizabeth I the Church in England became the Church of
England yet again, an heretical sect with only two certainly valid
sacraments, baptism and marriage. Leo XIII pronounced finally
and irrevocably that its ordinal cannot confer valid orders, therefore
it has no priests and no bishops, hence there can be no valid
Eucharist, Penance, Confirmation or Extreme Unction. Anglican
apologists make frequent reference to the fact that Old Catholic
bishops have taken part in their ordinations, but the Anglican
Ordinal is intrinsically defective and could not confer valid
orders even if used by Catholic bishops. Some Anglican bishops
have possibly been to Holland and been consecrated a second time
by Old Catholic bishops using the Old Catholic ordinal. Their
orders are valid, but they cannot transmit these orders to anyone
else using the Anglican Ordinal.
Facts Concerning the Catholic
Church
As
I am dealing with a matter of such historic consequence I had
also better recall a few facts concerning the Catholic Church.
Our Lord Jesus Christ perpetuated His presence on earth by means
of His Mystical Body, a visible, hierarchically governed society
of believers of which He is the Head, the Holy Ghost the Soul,
and we the members. The Mystical Body of Christ has the same mission
as that entrusted to Christ by His Father, to preach the Gospel
and baptize those who accepted it, then to sanctify those members
through the sacraments and unite them in offering solemn worship
to the Holy Trinity. It is the will of Our Lord Jesus Christ that
this visible hierarchically governed Church should be the ordinary
means of salvation; that is, it is His will that we should be
saved by incorporation into His Mystical Body. To God, all things
are possible, and He offers extraordinary means of salvation to
those outside the Mystical Body. As I have just explained, the
Catholic Church is Christ, perpetuating the Incarnation throughout
the nations and the centuries. There is thus no salvation outside
the Church because there is no salvation outside Christ, and the
Church is Christ. Even those who are saved in an extraordinary
manner are saved through Christ, and thus in some way through
His Church. Therefore an Anglican who is saved is saved in the
Church of England but not through the Church of England: if he
is saved ,his salvation must come through the Catholic Church.
Unfortunately,
Catholics from the continent of Europe have frequently failed
to appreciate the true nature of the Church of England. They have
sometimes tended to equate it with the Orthodox or Old Catholic
Churches which are schismatic, but have valid orders, valid sacraments,
and doctrine which, in most respects, corresponds with that of
the Catholic Church. The Church of England, in contrast, is simply
a Protestant sect, but one in which a proportion of the members
consider themselves to be Catholics, and have adopted Catholic
beliefs and practices which conflict with the official teachings
of their sect. Justice demands that we acknowledge that these
people, the Anglo-Catholics or High Anglicans, sincerely believe
themselves to be Catholics, accept the major part of Catholic
teaching, are convinced that they have valid orders and that are
truly celebrating Mass. But at the same time it must be stressed
that the overwhelming majority of the Anglican clergy believe
themselves to be Protestant, are proud to be Protestant, and would
vehemently reject the idea that they are Catholic priests who
celebrate Mass. They fully subscribe to the belief of the original
Anglicans that the Mass is a blasphemous
fable and a dangerous deceit.
To Deceive Even the Elect
There have
even been popes who have been deceived by the appearances of Catholicity
within the Church of England. Pope Leo XIII would probably have
accorded at least conditional recognition to Anglican Orders had
not Cardinal Vaughan had the courage and integrity to confront
him and insist that this should not be done without a thorough
examination -the result of which was the final condemnation of
Anglican Orders in the encyclical Apostolicx Curx. Pope Paul VI
flirted with Anglicanism on several occasions. As Archbishop of
Milan he had clandestine meetings with Anglican clerics without
the knowledge of Pius XII, and as Pope he made the theologically
indefensible statement that the Church of England is a "Sister
Church" of the Catholic Church, when, in fact, it is not
a church at all, but what the Second Vatican Council referred
to as an "ecclesial communion" -a euphemism for sect.
I have the
good fortune to possess an original letter written by Cardinal
Manning which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been published.
In this letter (dated 20 August 1868, twenty-eight years before
Apostolicx Curx) he stated:
I
not only do not believe in Anglican Orders, but not even that
the establishment is a church. From the hour I saw the only true
faith and Church, the validity of Anglican Orders became incredible
to me: and I have never believed the establishment to be more
than one of many forms of human error.2
Manning,
like Newman, had been one of the outstanding intellects within
the Church of England before his conversion. In his book The
Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England, Cardinal
Manning explains that grace is given in it, but not through
it, or by it. The distinction is of great importance.
Grace is offered in an extraordinary manner even to those who
are not Christians, but Anglicans have the incomparably greater
privilege of having been admitted to a state of supernatural grace
through the Sacrament of Baptism. It is worth repeating that every
valid sacrament is a Catholic sacrament-there is no such thing
as a Protestant sacrament of baptism or matrimony.
"Every
infant, and also every adult baptized, having the necessary dispositions,
is thereby placed in a state of justification; and, if they die
without committing any mortal sin, would certainly be saved,"
wrote Cardinal Manning. "They are also, in the sight of the
Church, Catholics." Everyone who is baptized is baptized
into the Catholic Church, even those baptized in a Protestant
sect. They cease to be Catholic when, having reached the age of
reason, they adhere voluntarily to the tenets of an heretical
sect. But as almost all baptized Protestants do this in good faith
they are what is known as material heretics. They do not incur
the guilt of formal heresy. To quote Cardinal Manning once more:
The
doctrine, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, is to be interpreted
by dogmatic and by moral theology. As dogma theologians teach
that many belong to the Church who are outside its visible unity;
as a moral truth, that to be out of the Church is no personal
sin, except to those who sin by being out of it. That is, they
will be lost, not because they are geographically out
of it, but because they are culpably out of it. And they who are
culpably out of it are those who know -or might, and therefore
ought to, know -that it is their duty to submit to it. The Church
teaches that men may be inculpably out of its pale. Now they
are inculpably out of it who are, and have always been, either
physically or morally unable to see their obligation to submit
to it.
The
Scandal Occasioned by the Papal Visit
It is thus
correct to speak of Anglicans and other Protestants as our separated
brethren, and, as such, we should have a great love for them and
do all in our power to lead them into the visible unity of the
Church. Although it is true that they have been given the grace
of baptism, and can also receive the grace conferred by the Sacrament
of Matrimony, they are deprived of the grace of the other five
sacraments. This is something which should cause us deep concern,
and impel us to do all in our power to reconcile them to the true
Church in which all the sacraments instituted by Our Lord are
available as aids to their salvation. There is thus no greater
disservice we can do to our separated brethren than to confirm
them in their false belief that they already belong to the Church,
and that their salvation is assured within the sect to which they
belong. Pope John Paul II stated that he was coming to Britain
to confirm Catholics in their faith. The result of his visit has
been to scandalize faithful Catholics and confirm Anglicans in
the belief that their sect is a branch of the one, true Church.
Most readers will be aware of the fact that Anglo-Catholics subscribe
to what is known as the "branch theory,"i.e., that there
is one Catholic Church with three branches-Anglican, Orthodox
and Catholic.
Cardinal
Basil Hume, and a good number of other Catholic bishops in Britain
are what the late Cardinal Heenan described as "ecumaniacs."
They are men who see unity as an end in itself, not unity in
the truth, just unity. It is not being cynical to note that
the enthusiasm of the various Protestant sects for ecumenism has
increased in proportion to the extent that they have declined.
The faster a sect declines the more ecumenical its clergy become.
A successful and expanding denomination is rarely ecumenical.
Thus, in the USA, such denominations as the Southern Baptists,
which are making converts by the hundred thousand annually (largely,
perhaps principally, from the Catholic Church) remain firmly outside
the ecumenical movement. Before Vatican II, the Catholic Church
in Britain and the USA was vigorous, expanding, and unecumenical.
Since Vatican II the Church in both these countries has degenerated
in a process of stagnation and decline -what Father Louis Bouyer
has referred to as the decomposition of Catholicism. Predictably,
the bishops in both these countries have suddenly become enthusiastic
ecumenists. The reason is not hard to find, it is the same reason
which has prompted ecumenical enthusiasm among the major Protestant
denominations for several decades. Once a decline sets in, ecumenism
can be described as "the opium of the clergy." Ecumenism
provides clerics with a chance to banish from their minds any
suspicion that they are not fulfilling the primary commandment
of Our Lord, to preach the Gospel to the world. The world today
does not wish to listen, and there is little satisfaction in preaching
to those who are not interested. Even worse, there is often little
interest in the Gospel message among the members of their own
denominations. Congregations dwindle, the allegiance of the faithful
becomes more and more nominal. The various denominations become
mere social appendages, providing a consumer service on such occasions
as births, marriages, and funerals-but having little impact on
the lives of their members outside of these occasions. If asked
in an opinion poll, they would probably profess belief in God
and a life after death, but such a profession does not prohibit
them from utilizing contraceptives, aborting their babies, divorcing
their spouses, and spending Sunday morning in bed while they utilize
Sunday afternoon for cleaning their cars before settling down
in front of the TV for the rest of the day.
Ecumania: Opium of the
Clergy
But what
a contrast once a cleric becomes ecumenical. He is divorced as
effectively from the real world as is a drug addict living in
a narcotic haze. He can banish from his mind the fact that the
pews of his church become emptier each Sunday. He can fix his
face into a permanent ecumenical smile and go from ecumenical
meeting to ecumenical meeting, take part in ecumenical discussion
after ecumenical discussion, and read ecumenical paper after ecumenical
paper. He will become more and more friendly with the clergy of
other denominations, all of whom share his own problems of ineffectiveness
where preaching to the world and his own congregation is concerned.
He will have no difficulty in justifying his failure to obey Our
Lord's command to preach the Gospel to the world by making the
facile excuse that while Christians are divided the world will
not wish to listen. It is necessary first to achieve Christian
unity, once that has been done the work of evangelization will
begin. I am not saying that there is conscientious dishonesty
among ecumenical clerics-they are probably deceiving themselves
more than they deceive the members of their flocks. It is our
prayers that they need more than anything else.
As I have
mentioned, Cardinal Hume and most British bishops are ecumaniacs.
No ecumenical gathering in England would be complete without an
appearance by Cardinal Hume. There is no doubt at all that what
mattered most to him where the Pope's visit was concerned was
to win the acclaim of his Anglican friends by handing them the
Vicar of Christ upon an ecumenical platter. It would be impossible
to exaggerate the importance which the Anglican clergy attached
to inducing the Pope to appear in Canterbury Cathedral. It was
to be a Canossa3
in reverse. A penitent Bishop of Rome would appear before Dr.
Runcie and beg forgiveness of the sin of schism. If the Pope could
be induced to come to Canterbury this could only be interpreted
as de facto recognition of the Church of England. This
coup was achieved by Cardinal Hume. The euphoria of the ecumenical
establishment was indescribable. Dr. Runcie, the married layman
who describes himself as "Archbishop of Canterbury,"
was triumphantly jubilant. He invited the Anglican "primates"
from all over the world to come to England to witness the papal
humiliation. Moreover, he devised an order of service which would
be a glorification of the Church of England, and even more a glorification
of Dr. Runcie.
Then disaster
struck. War broke out in the Falklands. How could the Pope come
to Britain when she was at war with one of the most Catholic nations
in the world? But how could he not come? Cardinal Hume had promised
to deliver him on a platter and deliver him he must. If the visit
was cancelled the ecumenical set-back would have been incalculable.
Anglican bishops from all over the world would have travelled
to England to accept the submission of a Pope who did not appear.
The credibility of Cardinal Hume and Dr. Runcie was at stake.
Such a debacle must be prevented at all costs. Cardinal Hume and
a high-powered delegation of ecumenical prelates travelled to
Rome to persuade the Pope that, cost what it may, he must come
to Britain. The Falklands crisis was a heaven-sent opportunity
given to Pope John Paul II to withdraw gracefully from a situation
in which the integrity of the Catholic Faith would be compromised.
He did not accept it.
Julius Caesar
made the briefest report submitted by any general in human history:
"Veni, vidi, vici." ("I came, I saw, I conquered.")
Pope John Paul II could have written an equally brief report:
"Veni, vidi, victus sum." ("I came, I saw,
I was conquered.") His visit to Canterbury Cathedral was
not simply a personal humiliation for him, it was a humiliation
for the Catholic Church, the Immaculate Bride of Christ, and,
the most bitter blow of all for British Catholics, a public repudiation,
a cruel repudiation, of the martyrs of England and Wales who preferred
to undergo unspeakable torture and death rather than do what he
did. I am not arguing that he did this consciously, he is probably
even more ignorant of the history of the Church in Britain than
was Pope Leo XIII. Why should a Polish prelate know anything about
the history of Britain? But Pope Leo XIII was corrected by a profoundly
Catholic Cardinal. Pope John Paul II is relying on the advice
of an ecumaniacal cardinal whose knowledge of theology is terrifyingly
abysmal (I can testify to this from correspondence I have had
with him).
Before commenting
in any detail on the Pope's visit to Canterbury, I had
better make it clear what I am not alleging. Firstly, he did not
take part in a service of a false religion. What he took part
in was a specially devised ecumenical service, and not part of
the Anglican liturgy. Secondly, in his address he did not say
anything heretical. Everything he said could be interpreted in
a Catholic sense. But, and this is what matters, where Anglicans
are concerned he took part in a service with them, on their own
terms, and in what they regard as their own cathedral, a cathedral
wrested by physical force from the jurisdiction of the Pope. Furthermore,
although he did not say anything heretical in his address, he
did not say anything incompatible with the heretical belief that
the Catholic Church and the Church of England are "Sister
Churches."4
It would be ludicrous to suggest that this was an accident or
a coincidence. The Pope's address was a masterpiece of ecumenical
ambiguity. According to the media, in no previous visit had the
Pope submitted his addresses to the advice of the national hierarchies
to the extent that he did in Britain. But even if his address
at Canterbury was written for him, the Pope cannot be absolved
from all culpability. I have said that a Polish prelate could
not be expected to be familiar with British history, but every
Catholic prelate should know enough theology and have sufficient
integrity to avoid giving the impression that the Mystical Body
of Christ and a Protestant sect are bodies of equal status.
I fear that
by now some readers will consider me guilty of gross disrespect
towards the Vicar of Christ. They will consider me to be the victim
of an anti-ecumenical idle fixe. If only this were the
case, but it is not. I will not quote from the British media on
the subject of the Canterbury visit. Its assessment is identical
to mine.
There is
no doubt that throughout the world The Times is regarded
as the most authoritative voice of the media in Britain. On Monday,
31 May 1982, its Religious Affairs correspondent, Clifford Longley,
summed up the visit to Canterbury as follows:
Every
word, symbol and gesture from the Pope said that he was in the
company of a church, a real church, and nothing but a church,
alive and rich with spiritual wealth. Anyone who tried at any
point in that service to explain it as the Bishop of Rome meeting
an assembly of heretical laymen, whose only duty was to return
individually to the one true fold at once, would have found that
it just could not be done; every moment contradicted such a hypothesis.
The truth is the very opposite. It was indeed an Anglican triumph;
and they know it.
Precisely
the same assessment was made by Gerald Priestland, the Religious
Affairs correspondent of the BBC. He also laid great stress upon
the fact that the Pope had gone to unprecedented lengths in allowing
the British bishops to dictate what he would say or, more importantly,
would not say.
After The
Times, the Telegraph is certainly the most respected
paper in Britain. One of its leading writers, T.E. Utley, assessed
the Pope's visit in The Sunday Telegraph of 6 June 1982,
in the following terms:
Since
it is now de rigueur to describe the activities of the
ecumenical movement in terms of sports commentary, would one not
be justified in saying that the result of the meeting between
Pope John Paul and the leaders of British Protestantism was a
knockout victory for the Protestant cause... None of this, of
course, should have surprised anybody. It has for a long time
been obvious that the Pope is a very good Protestant... Up until
a few years ago what chiefly made Roman Catholics objects at least
of mild suspicion to English Protestants was the Latin Mass which
seemed to emphasize the "magical" elements in Rome's
view of the Eucharist. Added to this was the belief that Rome
reduced the lay congregation to a purely passive role in worship,
that papists were taught to listen to priests rather than read
the Bible, and that a condition of belonging to the Roman Church
was a total surrender of the individual conscience to the keeping
of an earthly authority exercising its eerie powers in the
secrecy of the confessional box. No doubt all these assumptions
were largely travesties of the truth. What matters now, however,
is that it is no longer possible for anyone with any knowledge
of the current, often disorderly and populist practices of the
Roman Church to make them.
ARCIC
One of the
greatest scandals of the post-conciliar Church has been the Anglican-Roman
Catholic International Commission (ARCIC). This commission has
produced a series of Agreements on the Eucharist, Priesthood,
and Authority, in which the Catholic delegates have been guilty
of a cynical betrayal of the teaching of the Church on all three
issues. In not one instance is Catholic teaching affirmed where
it conflicts with that of the Church of England. The Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith has published a report in which
the ambiguity of these Agreements is exposed forcefully and clearly.
But incredibly, after the publication of the critique of the Congregation,
which the Pope himself had authorized, he joined Dr. Runcie at
Canterbury in signing a document praising the members of ARCIC
for their integrity. The following is the comment of Clifford
Longley, Religious Affairs correspondent of The Times:
Thus,
when the Pope together with the Archbishop of Canterbury, says
in the joint declaration, "We join in thanking the members
of the Commission for their dedication, scholarship, and integrity
in a long and demanding task undertaken for love of Christ and
the unity of the church,' he is in fact telling critics of ARCIC
that their discrediting tactics have failed miserably... Critics
on both sides naturally wanted a reference back at least, or better
an abortion of the whole exercise; they might have grudgingly
accepted a long delay before anything else happens.
The
two church leaders have in fact agreed to proceed immediately
for setting up another commission, not waiting for the measured
official responses to the work done so far. The new commission
in fact will see the whole thing through to its end, the
restoration of full communion between the two churches. And first
on the agenda will be the one last major barrier, the status
of Anglican holy orders.
What The
Times correspondent and others have consistently overlooked
during the current wave of ecumenical euphoria is that Catholicism
and Anglicanism are incompatible for reasons which were not even
mentioned during the visit.
The Anglican
Communion now accepts priestesses in many of its branches; the
Catholic Church can never do so.
To the best
of my knowledge, there is not a single bishop in the Church of
England who is opposed to abortion on principle, some are opposed
to abortion on demand.
The Church
of England does not simply permit but endorses contraception,
and has recently issue a report which, at the very least, accepts
the hypothesis that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle for
Christians.
It is also
a fact, though the Pope is unlikely to realize this, that the
impressive spectacle he witnessed in Canterbury Cathedral is simply
a facade covering up the fact that the Church of England has little
if any influence upon the life of the country. There are far more
Catholics than Anglicans in church on Sundays.
Is there
anything to compensate the Church in Britain for the Canterbury
debacle? The answer is no. The Pope did indeed say many orthodox
things in his sermons and addresses. Conservative Catholics who
do not wish to face up to the truth could well depict the visit
as a triumph for orthodoxy. I have no doubt that they will do
so. He delivered sermons on all seven sacraments. The first, on
baptism, was extremely good with a very clear reference to original
sin. Those on the priesthood and the Mass were very weak. It was
clear that those aspects of Catholic teaching on these sacraments
which separate us from Anglicans were deliberately played down.
The York Address
Many commentators
were waiting for the sermon on marriage at York with particular
interest. Prominent Liberals had made it clear that under no circumstances
should the Pope condemn contraception. The notorious National
Pastoral Congress held in Liverpool in 1980 had made it clear
that contraception is considered acceptable by the prevailing
consensus within the Catholic Church in England. Cardinal Hume
asked for a revision of the Church's teaching on contraception
during the 1981 Synod of Bishops in Rome. In his sermon at York
the Pope referred to his recent Apostolic Exhortation on marriage,
Familinris Consortio. Now this is a really excellent document.
Every basic Catholic teaching on marriage is re-stated with firmness
and clarity. Unfortunately, it is far too long, as are so many
papal documents and discourses. There is no possibility whatsoever
of the average Catholic wading through it. The Pope mentioned
in this exhortation certain negative phenomena undermining marriage
today. He listed some of them in his sermon:
A
corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom, with consequent
self-centeredness in human relations; serious misconceptions regarding
the relationship between parents and children, the growing number
of divorces, the scourge of abortion, the spread of a contraceptive
and anti-life mentality.
When I watched
the Pope delivering this address on television I was relieved
and delighted."Praise be to God!" I said to myself,
"He hasn't let the bishops dictate to him." Alas, I
was too naive. The Liberals were jubilant. They also condemn the
"contraceptive mentality." By this they mean the use
of contraceptives on a permanent basis with the object of never
having children, i.e., on an "anti-life" basis. But
they do not condemn contraception as such if it is used simply
to regulate births. The current consensus among the British
bishops can be summed up as follows: "Contraception, yes;
a contraceptive mentality, no:" The other matter upon which
the English National Pastoral Congress rejected the teaching of
the Church was that of the admission of divorced Catholics to
Holy Communion when they have remarried without obtaining an annulment.
Archbishop Worlock demanded that this should be permitted during
an intervention at the 1981 Synod of Bishops. His demand, like
that of Cardinal Hume, was firmly rejected. The Pope's comment
on this subject was also awaited eagerly by both traditional and
Liberal Catholics. He spoke as follows:
I
praise all those who help people wounded by the breakdown of their
marriage, by showing them Christ's compassion and counselling
them according to Christ's truth.
Once again
the Liberals were jubilant.
Here is what
Clifford Longley wrote about it in The Times of 1 June
1982. It needs to be stressed for the benefit of readers who are
not British that Clifford Longley is looked upon as the mouthpiece
of the Liberal Catholic establishment in Britain.
The one
text of the entire visit of Pope John Paul which will be read
with a magnifying glass, and was listened to as it was made,
with sensitivity to every phrase, was his address at York yesterday
on marriage.
His reputation
as a conservative stems more than anything from his attitudes
to sex, marriage, women, and in the United States it was his
teachings in this area which caused most uneasiness, both within
his own flock and among those of general good will towards him.
There is
a Roman Catholic "code" for talking about these subjects,
and it is usually necessary to apply a process of deciphering
to gauge where a speaker stands. Deciphering the attitude of
the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has led to the
conclusion that it is out of phase with the Pope, far more tolerant
of contraception and divorce, for example, than his usual tone.
So would he rebuke them, and hammer hard a hard line?
The result
of the decoding of the Pope's address at York yesterday was
surprising. He did not say, as he has said elsewhere, that all
contraception is wrong, instead he attacked the "contraceptive
and anti-life mentality," a phrase which measures only
two or three on a scale of ten in these matters.
For English
Roman Catholic married couples, who, it is generally accepted,
are rather more likely to use contraceptives than not, that
was a phrase they can live with.
It means,
according to the decoding experts, the "selfish" use
of birth control. It says nothing about those Roman Catholics
who would describe themselves as "prolife"- if they
have children, they are, almost by definition "pro-life"-and
who use contraceptives to space their children and ensure that
the resources of the family, material and emotional, are not
overburdened.
It was
the first time the Pope had referred to this subject, and the
way he handled it must have come as a great relief to those
for whom this was the most difficult part of the entire visit.
The Pope was very carefully briefed by the English and Welsh
bishops on these points, and it was possible to detect evidence
of this briefing in his address.
There is
a phrase, for instance, invented by Dr. Jack Dominian, the English
Roman Catholic psychiatrist-author of many books on contemporary
marriage and director of an institute studying marriage breakdown.
He described marriage as "a community of life and love."
This phrase appeared in the documents of the Roman Catholic
National Pastoral Congress in 1980. In the form "a community
of love and life" it appeared in the Pope's address yesterday.
Thus do ideas circulate.
The Pastoral
Congress said some blunt things about the Church's attitude
to the divorced and suggested that the policy of divorced Roman
Catholics being excluded from Holy Communion was too severe.
The Pope,
in previous teachings, has maintained this strict traditional
position. But the decoders were delighted with the passage on
divorce at York. The Pope praised "all those who help people
wounded by the breakdown of their marriage, by showing them
Christ's compassion and counselling them according to Christ's
truth."
Many priests
feel that Christ's compassion ought to be shown by encouraging
the divorced back to the sacraments. They felt this already,
and the Pope said nothing to discourage them. He said nothing
about the "brother and sister" solution to the problem
which he has advocated previously, whereby a Roman Catholic
in a second marriage is only received back into communion after
agreeing to live in a state of celibacy.
Now clearly,
it would be totally wrong to conclude from this that the Pope
is teaching that Catholics can use contraceptives or that Catholics
in invalid marriage can receive Communion. If we are going to
comment on someone's beliefs we must do so on the basis of the
totality of his statements on any particular topic. I mentioned
the Pope's very weak presentation of Catholic teaching on the
priesthood and the Mass during his visit, but he stated Catholic
teaching on these topics with admirable clarity in his Holy Thursday
letters in recent years. And, as I have already mentioned, his
recent Apostolic Exhortation on marriage makes it clear that he
subscribes wholeheartedly to the fullness of Catholic teaching
on these moral questions. What I am complaining of is that during
his visit to Britain there were matters on which he needed to
speak clearly and he failed to do so, and that this omission was
made at the request of the bishops. This has certainly undermined
the efforts of orthodox priests and laity who have been doing
their utmost to uphold the Pope's own teaching in the face of
considerable hostility from the bishops. Worse still, his address
to the bishops was exceptionally weak-particularly in contrast
to the strong line he took with the American bishops during his
visit to the USA. He also went out of his way to tell the laity
to listen to and be obedient to the bishops, which was astonishing
when he must certainly know that most of these bishops fail to
uphold the teaching of the Church when they are not actually contradicting
it. Once again I will let Clifford Longley make this point to
prove that I am not twisting the Pope's words for some sinister
reason of my own. Those who read my writing regularly know that
I have done everything possible to interpret his words and actions
in the most favorable light. But where this visit is concerned,
I would be gravely dishonest if I were to reach any other conclusion
than that it has been a serious and probably irreparable setback
for the Church in my country.
Now read
the gleeful assessment of Longley in The Times of 3 June.
The same sentiments were expressed by other Liberal commentators
in all the media:
The leadership
and the laity, in general, had received from the Pope precisely
what they had looked for. Observers familiar with many of the
Pope's previous twelve visits were saying that never before
had he paid any national church leadership the compliment he
paid the British, particularly the English, by accepting so
wholeheartedly the briefs he had been given. It was an unprecedented
vote of confidence.
If the
immediate impact of the visit was that of a great evangelistic
event, then the long term impact on the Roman Catholic community
will be to confirm its confidence in the way it has recently
been evolving. It was the bishops of England and Wales who set
the tone of the Pope's message, not the Vatican Curia, and the
Pope has set an unequivocal seal on their leadership. It also
seems likely that the Roman Catholic community no longer need
be troubled by problems of conscience surrounding birth control,
for the Pope defined a line on that issue that lays to rest
fourteen years of tension. His emphasis was on subjective attitudes
and intentions, not on the sinfulness of certain acts. It was
the first time in his reign, or that of any recent Pope, that
the emphasis has been placed so unambiguously.
Those who
watched the television presentation of the papal visit will have
received the impression that it was triumphant success as a pastoral
event, but this was not the ease. The crowds who turned out were
far smaller than expected, sometimes well under a fifth of the
anticipated number. Financially the visit has been a disaster
for the hierarchy, but, no doubt, the bishops will eventually
extract the full cost from the laity. Whatever the cost to them,
the boost it will have given to their waning prestige will have
made it worthwhile. It was also clear that much of the applause
and acclaim which the Pope received was prompted by mass hysteria;
it was precisely the same form of acclaim offered to a pop star
or a sports team. This was particularly evident at Murrayfield
in Scotland where, according to The Tablet, "44,000 young
people gave him an exuberantly enthusiastic welcome. "
The fact is that a mob of hysterical teenagers got totally
out of control and displayed deplorable manners and behavior.
They cheered every word of the Pope's wildly, and it was clear
that they were not listening to his words or even remotely interested
in what he was saying. They screamed and chanted wildly after
every sentence just as they would have done at a match in which
Scotland was playing football.
To mention
some positive points, the Pope totally refused to give Communion
in the hand throughout his visit, and his warm personality certainly
made an impact and helped the many positive things he had to say
to be well received by his listeners. But if his visits to other
countries are anything to go by, it is doubtful if they will have
any lasting impact. Some of those who watched him said that he
clearly enjoys the applause and acclaim he receives; it would
be strange if he did not. Every pope is a human being, and most
human beings like to be liked. It is thus probable that he feels
that his visit has indeed been a success.
For me,
the first visit of a reigning Pontiff to my country has been a
cause of profound sadness. The most abiding memory, one which
I cannot get out of my mind, much as I would like to, is of the
Vicar of Christ standing side by side with a heretical married
layman, Dr. Runcie, in Canterbury Cathedral, and giving a joint
blessing to the congregation as if both were Catholic bishops-and
this after Dr. Runcie told the Pope that he, as the successor
of St. Augustine (the first Archbishop of Canterbury) was happy
to welcome the successor of St. Gregory the Great who had sent
St. Augustine to convert the Saxons.
I could
not help contrasting the Pope's behavior with that of Thomas Colton,
a teen-age boy who suffered terribly for his Catholic faith during
the Elizabethan persecution. He was brought before the Protestant
Archbishop of Canterbury and asked to give his reasons for refusing
so much as to enter a Protestant church. He answered as follows:
If
I should go to your Church I should sin against God and the peace
and unity of the whole Catholic Church, exclude myself from all
the holy sacraments, and be in danger to die in my sins like a
heathen boy.
Thomas Colton
knew his faith well enough to submit to brutal torture rather
than compromise on a matter of vital principle. The same principle
was upheld with great clarity by William Cardinal Allen, founder
of the English College in Rome from which so many martyr priests
came to die for the Mass and the unity of the Church. I would
ask those readers who feel that I have been too severe, or even
disrespectful, in the criticisms I have made of the Pope to read
what Cardinal Allen had to say with great care, and to note that
he cited the opinion of Pope Clement VIII.
On Attendance at Protestant Services
Cardinal
Allen, 1594
Never
teach nor defend the lawfulness of communicating with the Protestants
in their prayers, or services, or conventicles where they meet
to minister their untrue sacraments; for this is contrary to all
the practice of the Church and the holy fathers of all ages, who
never communicated nor allowed in any Catholic person to pray
together with Arians, Donatists, or what other soever. Neither
is it a positive law of the Church, and therefore dispensable
on occasions but it is forbidden by God's eternal law, as by many
evident arguments I could convince, and it hath been largely proved
in sundry treatises in our own tongue, and we have practised it
from the beginning of our miseries. And lest any of my brethren
should discuss any judgment, or be not satisfied. by the proofs
adduced, or myself be beguiled therein to my own conceit, I have
not only taken the opinion of learned divines here, but, to make
sure, I have asked the judgment of His Holiness [Clement VIII]
thereon. And he expressly said that participation in prayers with
Protestants, or going to their services was neither lawful nor
dispensable.5
If I had
the opportunity of speaking to the Holy Father I would ask him
whether the principle expounded by Pope Clement VIII, which was
incorporated into Canon Law, is valid or not. If the Pope agreed
that it was valid I would then ask him how he could reconcile
it with his visit to Canterbury Cathedral.
St. Peter
succumbed to the pressure of the Judaizers, but overcame their
influence after St. Paul rebuked him at Antioch. We must pray
that Pope John Paul II will overcome the influence of the ecumaniacs.
Until he does, his word and example will cause scandal rather
than confirm the faith of his flock. Let us pray for him daily,
using a collect from the Roman Missal asking God that the word
and example of the Pope will be of benefit to the Church:
"Oh
God, the Shepherd and Ruler of all the faithful, look down favorably
upon Thy servant Pope John Paul II, whom Thou hast been pleased
to appoint pastor over Thy Church; grant, we beseech Thee, that
he may benefit both by word and example those over whom he is
set, and thus attain unto life eternal, together with the flock
committed to his care."
The contrast
between the attitude of Pope John Paul II to ecumenism, and the
true Catholic attitude, is made clear in a dramatic manner by
the profoundly Catholic sermon of Mgr. Lefebvre which follows
in the the next chapter.
1.
Ample documentation illustrating this point can be found in
Appendix II to Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, Vol, I
2.
Letter to Mr. Nevers.
3.
Canossa, near Reggio in northern Italy, the scene of the public
humiliation and submission of the Emperor Henry IV to Pope Gregory
VII in 1077.
4.
In fact, he said: "On this first visit of a Pope to Canterbury,
I come to you in love, the love of Peter to whom the Lord said,
I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you
have turned again, strengthen your brethren (Luke 22:32). I come
to you also in the love of Gregory, who sent St. Augustine to
this place to give the Lord's flock a shepherd's care."
5.
Mementos of the English Martyrs and Confessors, Burns do Oates,
1910.
Courtesy of the Angelus
Press, Regina Coeli House
2918 Tracy Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109
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