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| Opus Dei - Trojan Horse of Liberalism in the Church |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-15-2024, 09:23 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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OPUS DEI - TROJAN HORSE OF LIBERALISM IN THE CHURCH
PART I
Take from here. Emphasis in the original. Slightly adapted.
![[Image: AVvXsEhObPUxuxZQFoS0xZloxD2G98TzJFaw1t5P...=w442-h558]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhObPUxuxZQFoS0xZloxD2G98TzJFaw1t5PnqhUe33SvDGV7hQ_X7Q2q6UTTVSVgNuXgx51tKIw0XSS5GY1R2rsj4kLtu8AdM8IN9ZpLMrFqPglHbbuuRVP6-CLHELpQwTL7Rinu5D6gkcZmCMuiDyMR8WgdjJ3_rAjdUE98J2WIzFL_N7sencyPOBx9U_G=w442-h558)
“I am a secular priest: priest of Jesus-Christ, who loves passionately the world.” (José María Escriba y Albás, homily delivered at the University of Navarre, Pamplona, October 8 1967)
“He [José Maria] always encouraged you to ‘ love the world passionately’ (…) The earth, your Blessed Founder reminds us, is a pathway to heaven…” (Address of John Paul II to members of Opus Dei, January 12, 2002).
![[Image: AVvXsEhY--XNMjnty1X5juDSkApnGvCJJkcJXlM-...=w428-h504]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhY--XNMjnty1X5juDSkApnGvCJJkcJXlM-ZU13UKM_vLKXLNxlbVYBrFIzndN0tr4WxHTc9Px-5n5QZ2iNv9RuEOH9VcdmGGO5uedYUQYKEnAL15ET5sPApD3MgIc9MN3JmKPksMw_g_ki625_A_GHcgspnYgkM76t9zuFNZ2Z6UXAC79Q48MfARUsK7YD=w428-h504)
“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.” 1 John 2:15-16
“Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God.” James 4:4
Introduction
In the following study I could have written about a plethora of contentious issues around which Opus Dei is associated: financial scandals, their overwhelming desire to gain power and influence over political and financial structures, their love of money, etc But these are secondary – certainly not necessarily trivial – issues, born out of the primary theological problems on which Opus Dei bases its pseudo-Catholic spirituality. The primary heresy of Opus Dei, I believe, over and above that of modernism, is liberalism and its attendant gnosis. On a purely superficial level, they may pronounce their faithful adherence to the dogmas but its liberalism tends to empty the dogmas of any real meaning. Although it is true that there is an inextricable link between modernism and liberalism, in a sense, the spirituality espoused by the “Work” (the commonly used term for “Opus Dei” among its members) is something even more insidious than the phenomenon of modernism (as generally understood in terms of “progression of doctrine”, etc). Modernists often cloak their errors or heresies under an opaque layer of ambiguity, but it is rare to see them hide their true spirit under such a thick layer of “conservatism”: pretensions of being fiercely loyal to the papacy and to the Church’s dogmas, and even occasionally, a faux and deceptive “traditionalism”. The reality is that Opus Dei, like Vatican II, advocates a liberal spirituality that calls for the full reconciliation between the Church with the principles of the Revolution, or in the words of Leo XIII, of attempting to reconcile “Christ and Belial” (Custodi Di Quella Fede, 1892). Therefore, while they outwardly preach a strict adherence to doctrine, with their liberal principles and radically lay-secular mentality they simultaneously undermine that which they claim to profess. Hence, Opus Dei can merely be seen as the (false) “conservative/right” flank in the Hegelian dialectic of the Conciliar Revolution, with the “left” flank comprised of figures like Rahner, Congar, Küng, etc.
The following statement by Tomás Gutiérrez Calzada, one of the heads of Opus Dei in Spain towards the end of the last century, encapsulates the problematic nature Opus Dei in the most concise manner possible; it is both an inadvertent admission of the core spirit which permeates the “Work” and a recognition that their opponents are not working on the basis of heterodoxy but are attacking their openly self-acknowledged liberalism: “we are attacked by the enemies of liberty” [1], or translated into plain English, “we are attacked by the enemies of liberalism”. Put another way, Mr Gutiérrez Calzada was not defending Opus Dei against its opponents on the basis of its orthodoxy (which it cannot claim) but on the basis of a self-acknowledged liberalism, otherwise he would have stated, “we are attacked by enemies of Catholicism”, or “by enemies of orthodoxy, by heretics, etc”. But he said no such thing. Therefore, they themselves are accurately aware of the novelty of their liberal spirit, even of the revolutionary nature of the Work, as we will progressively see over the course of this study. The “liberty” emanating from man’s divine like “human dignity” defended by Opus Dei and attacked by its opponents is the same that was officially promulgated at Vatican II and endorsed by the lodges, communists, and socialists around the world with enthusiastic applause during the course of the pseudo-Council and in the ensuing years. It is the “liberty” of religious freedom proclaimed by Dignitatis Humanae, which is the rightful inheritance of man now elevated to some kind of god-like ontological status, driving “Saint” John Paul II “The Great” – and ardent promoter of the Work – to ceaselessly praise and extoll man’s dignity as he criss-crossed the entire globe, simultaneously as the world’s Catholics continued falling ever further at accelerating speed into the abyss of universal apostasy. Christ the King thus dethroned by the newly emancipated “free” man and the promoters of “liberty” (among which Opus Dei holds a prominent place), Gaudium et Spes 12 could now boldly and confidently proclaim to a post-modern world that, “According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown.”
In this work, I have used the name for the man known to the world as “Saint Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Marquis of Peralta” as it appears in his baptismal certificate: José María Escriba y Albás. One would think that José María wanted to hide the fact that he was the carrier of a name of Jewish ancestry. Using his original name, “Escriba” is in part something of a symbolic gesture that demonstrates on the one hand, the duplicitous character of the “Work” and its “Founder”, and on the other, the very real possibility that Opus Dei may be a “Work” of crypto-Jewish origins. At the very least, in its resemblance with Freemasonry and certain gnostic themes of Jewish origin, it is already demonstrating that it is a close sibling to the secret society denounced by Leo XIII in Humanum Genus. In no way are we trying to denounce the Jewish race as such. If we were to do so, we would also have to denounce such eminent saints and mystics as St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, and the Ven. María de Jesús de Agreda, author of the spiritual masterpiece, Mystical City of God. Our objection is with the fact that Escriba should have felt it necessary to hide his likely Jewish heritage, something which genuine Jewish converts such as Israel Zolli never felt it necessary to do.
All translations from the French are mine; those in Spanish also except for a couple of cases where I was unable to find the original Spanish text.
Escriba proudly boasted of passionately loving the world, and encouraged his followers to do likewise, a love pointed to by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II as if it were a sign of virtue, indeed “a pathway to Heaven”.
St Louis Marie-Grignion de Montfort on the other hand asked that in the Mystery of the Crowning with Thorns of the Holy Rosary we humbly ask God through the intercession of the Queen of Heaven for the grace to bear “a great contempt for the world”. These are two irreconcilable spiritualities opposed to each other as much as the Heavenly City is to the Earthly one.
May this work serve to illuminate consciences during these calamitous times, a small contribution for the reinstatement of Christ the King as rightful Lord with dominion over the universe and each individual soul.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
December 8, 2023, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Patroness of Spain
A Jewish branch of Freemasonry?
“Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
Since its earliest beginnings, a cloud of suspicion has hung around the mysterious origins of Opus Dei, never fully explained satisfactorily, and on the orthodoxy of Opus Dei; illustrative of the opaqueness surrounding the “Founder’s” life; even to this day, there are questions on something which should be so clear and straightforward – particularly for a “canonized” “saint”! – as the specific details on the attainment of his theological degrees. [2] October 2, 1928 is the official “date” offered by the official hagiography of the “Work”, i.e. Opus Dei, for when Escriba allegedly received the heavenly inspiration to found Opus Dei. There are signs that a Catholic movement known as “Opus Dei” was not active until the early thirties, but in any case, it was not long before Opus Dei was accused of being a Jewish branch of masonry – such a serious charge is hardly the type of accusation that one would expect to be levelled against a nascent religious movement, and therefore it stands to reason that it must have been a well-founded one. In post-civil war Spain, an investigative military tribunal was set up to fight against the influence of Freemasonry and communism, and proceedings were eventually brought before Opus Dei in 1941 due to signs that, as the author of Opus Judaei recounts, “under the name of Opus Dei a Jewish branch of masonry was hidden.” [3] That Opus Dei was under investigation by a military tribunal against masonry in Franco’s Spain are not merely unfounded rumours spread by the declared enemies of the “Work”, but is even admitted by the “Founder’s” official biographers, such as Salvador Bernal in his work Mons. Escrivá de Balaguer: “They accused Opus Dei of being a ‘Jewish branch’ of the masons, or ‘a Jewish sect in contact with masons.’ ” [4]
There was great opposition among many Spanish Catholics to the Work since its earliest days. Barcelona, perhaps paradoxically, which had just suffered under the extreme anti-religious and atheistic regime of the “Republicans” during the Civil War (and hence celebrated their liberation in 1939 with all the greater fervour), was now converted into one of the most prominent centers where Opus Dei’s purported connection with masonry and the duplicitous nature of the “Father” were denounced before the relevant authorities. [5] According to another of the Escriba’s official biographers, Dominique Le Tourneau, the governor of Barcelona gave the order to have Escriba arrested once he set foot within the area of his jurisdiction. [6] An ambassador friend of Escriba warned him that his own life was in danger should he travel to the region. [7] Even the Carmelite nuns of the city got wind of the duplicity surrounding Escriba and his Work, and the good nuns promptly set about publicly burning the copies they could get hold of Escriba’s 999 maxims known as Camino (“the Way” – his way, not Christ’s, of course). [8]
Meanwhile in Madrid, according to Bernal, “the gravity of the situation was reaching a climax where associates of the Work were accused of being ‘masons.’ ” [9] One of the oratories which the Work opened in Madrid was said to have been adorned with masonic and Kabbalistic signs. [10] The rumours of Opus Dei’s heterodoxy did not stay confined within Spanish territory but travelled at least as far as the corridors of the Vatican itself: the Dominican Fr Severino Alvarez, Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law at the Angelicum in Rome in 1950 told of the accusations which had been levelled against the Work in the Holy Office itself. [11] The key importance of Camino in Escriba’s spirituality (inseparably united with the cult status of the “Founder”) is demonstrated by the confession of a member, who admitted that, “from the 60’s onward, I saw no other gospel than Camino, and no other prophet than Josemaría Escrivá.” [12] As we will see, none other than Giovanni Battista Montini/Paul VI incorporated Camino in his spiritual life, while Escriba’s right hand man, “Blessed” Álvaro del Portillo admitted after the “Founder’s” death that Camino reflected the modernist spirituality later endorsed at Vatican II.
The well-known obsession of Opus Dei and the “Father” with secrecy makes the sect akin to all secret societies, which, by definition, must zealously guard their secrets and plans of action. Therefore, just in this respect alone, Opus Dei shares an important affinity with Freemasonry, for which, together with its obvious quest to increase its power, money, and influence, have led many to describe the sect as “ecclesiastical freemasonry”. The “Father’s” obsession with secrecy was even admitted by Antonio Pérez, who intimately knew Escriba and was for a time his personal secretary: “The Father was always greatly concerned about maintaining secrecy. This made him apply in these subjects the same strategy as in internal matters, that is, that only a few at the very top were aware of them and negotiated them with those directly responsible.” [13] Camino, the reference work par excellence for Opus Dei members, has numerous references about the necessity to maintain a strict secrecy (e.g. numbers 639, 654, 840, and 970). Daniel Artigues in his 1971 book titled, El Opus Dei en España said regarding the Work’s notorious obsession with secrecy that, “this concern for discretion, as Opus Dei members describe it, this cult for secrecy, as claimed by its adversaries, is one of the essential characteristics of the Work.” [14] The culture of secrecy even reaches the point of not being obliged to tell potential members of their duties once they are incorporated into Opus Dei. According to the “Catechism of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei”, 2003 edition, no. 67: “In order for incorporation to be valid, a virtual intention to take up the corresponding duties is sufficient, even if there is no actual forewarning at the moment of incorporation.” [15] Which is to say, at the moment of entering the Work, Opus Dei is under no obligation to tell new members of all their duties and of its spiritual outlook; information which – like in any sect – is instead transmitted little by little dropwise to the new adepts as they progress through their gnostic “illumination” or “initiation” in order to prevent a wholesale initial rejection.
Against the culture of secrecy which surrounds gnostic sects like Opus Dei, the abbé Emmanuel Barbier, in his 1910 work Les Infiltrations Maçonniques dans l’Église (“Masonic Infiltrations Inside the Church”, pp. 249-250) said that the only path available to the genuine Catholic, who is a “son of the light”, even if external circumstances would seem to require it, is a firm repudiation of secrecy:
“The Catholic is a son of the light. Simple common sense indicates that if, under the pretext of moving more freely or surely towards one’s goal, he seeks dark and secret paths, he will fatally find, one day or another, that he walks side by side with the children of darkness at the risk of being led astray by those in a labyrinth of which they alone know its secrets….However, even then, the principle of Catholic action remains unchanged: it is to carry on in clear transparency. Anything else is an illusion….One must be blind not to see that any occult organization is a fertile terrain for infiltrations [of the kind] that we must dread so much.” Emmanuel Barbier further reveals that, according to a note recorded in “Acta S. Sedis” documenting the renewed denunciation against secret societies, particularly Freemasonry and other anti-clerical societies, issued by the Holy Office on 18 May 1884, “the prohibitions of the Church concern all secret societies, regardless of whether or not they require an oath; because they are societies contrary to natural law.” (ibid, p 251)
Another important characteristic of the “Work” which assimilates it to a gnostic sect such as Freemasonry is its tendency towards “elitism”, driving its associates to view themselves as members of a perfect Church of the elect – neo-Jansenists or neo-Calvinists, if you will –, and the more fanatically so the more they are inwardly “illuminated” by the gnostic teachings of the “Father”. At the very least, there is a tendency towards spiritual pride that inclines members of the Work to view their apostolate and their liberal, lay spirituality with an air of superiority and pride over the other charisms and religious orders of the Church; they thus represent the “upper echelon” of the Church joining non-believers around the world in the construction of the “Earthly City” – not the “Catholic City”! Point number 16 in Camino points its readers to set themselves apart from the rest of the “crowd” – which in those days would have been a Catholic majority, this was still 30’s Spain – in a state of prideful superiority, so that they can set their sights on the highest goals: “You – turning towards the mediocre? But if you have been born to be a leader!” Escriba himself seems to have taken this “spiritual” maxim particularly to heart: besides his megalomaniac ambitions for the Work, he himself lobbied at least two times for the “post” of bishop during Pius XII’s papacy, refused both times at least in part due to questions about his psychological state.
The Spanish former numerary María Angustias Moreno, who suffered with heroic patience the unspeakable slander directed by Opus Dei against her for her efforts at unmasking the sect, thus says regarding the gnostic elitism of the Work: “...as soon as one arrives, they inculcate ceaselessly that being in the Work is something marvellous, the best and grandest thing in the world. Something which, as a natural consequence, leads to viewing others from a pedestal: one begins to be illumined on the great mysteries, being chosen among thousands to form part of a perfect body [of believers]; the rest - what a pity! - they remain there below surrounded by the darkness of error...By the fact of being in the Work, one will always be correct....Because the 'Father' is never wrong, and in the Work everything goes through the 'Father'; 'you must pass everything through my mind and my heart', Escrivá told directors numerous times.” [16] The slander suffered by Moreno is such a serious offence revealing the true “face” of Opus Dei that it deserves to be described in some more detail. For writing El Opus Dei – Anexo a una Historia, an exposé of Opus Dei from the perspective of a former numerary, a group of priests which included the vice-postulator for the “beatification” cause of “Saint” “Josemaría Escrivá” (one Don Benito Badrinas Amat), travelled around the country warning a group of former members who had publicly shown their support for Moreno to keep away from her because she was a notorious “lesbian”. In today’s current climate this “charge” might be worn as a badge of honour, but in the Spain of 1977 in which this public campaign of defacement and slander took place, such a charge could easily ruin one's social reputation and prospects for employment. María Angustias describes the exchange that took place when Rafael Moreno, her brother, confronted one of the priests responsible for the public campaign of calumny: “Rafael Moreno intervened by asking whether he [the priest] believed that in the name of God, in order to save or defend any kind of ‘thing’, slander could be justified; to which the priest replied by shrugging his shoulders:…‘it depends…’ ” [17]
In their calumny against María Angustias, were these priests justifying their vile crime and sin on the basis of “el apostolado de la mala lengua», described in Camino 850, a phrase which could be roughly translated as “the apostolate of the insult” or quite simply as, “the apostolate of calumny” (“mala lengua” literally means, “bad tongue”). Escriba in point 850 of Camino says next: “Cuando te vea ya te diré al oído un repertorio.” That is, “Next time I see you I will tell you secretly an entire repertoire.” (Apparently, Escriba thought it important to always have ready at hand the appropriate insult against whomever stood in his way or by whom in his inflated pride he felt offended in some way…) These bad priests could also have interiorly justified their evil actions on the basis of Camino, no. 387, calling his followers to show: “Holy intransigence, holy coercion, and holy shamelessness [desvergüenza]” (An unholy trinity which “St” “Josemaría” describes in the same point as, “The standard of holiness that God asks of us [!].”)
And like all sects of the gnostic variety, not only is the Work concerned with maintaining its affairs and doctrine with a perfect and scrupulous secrecy, it demands of its associates, not merely obedience, but a blind obedience which has nothing to do with the Christian concept and, as the sad experience of sects so often demonstrates, is invariably the source of the worst imaginable abuses: psychological, spiritual, and even occasionally, physical ones. Thus maxim number 941 of Camino reads: “Obedience…, a sure path. – BLINDLY OBEYING the superior…, path of holiness. – Obedience in your apostolate…, the only way: because, in a work of God, the [correct] spirit must be to obey or [otherwise] leave.” Interestingly but not surprisingly, the official English version uses a somewhat softer translation, calling for “unreserved obedience”, while the Spanish is unequivocal in its call to “obedecer ciegamente”, literally, “to obey blindly”. Other points in Camino are designed to engender an attitude of blind, unthinking obedience towards superiors: “That critical spirit…is a great hindrance.” (no. 53)”, and “Who are you, to deny the sound judgment of your superior?” (no. 457)
The Spaniard Mariano Sánchez Covisa wrote a letter in early 1992 titled El caso Escrivá, warning Catholics of good faith within the Work about the true nature of Opus Dei. Significantly, he stated that he was basing his letter on Leo XIII’s call in the encyclical Humanum Genus to unmask the deception of masonry: “It must be known that Opus Dei, which name is an esoteric translation for [the occult practice of] Theurgy, is a secret Jewish branch of masonry, with an enormous economic and financial network, and holding a powerful political influence in Spain as well as abroad…Opus Dei is not a type of masonry, it is masonry.” [18] Salvador Bernal, Escriba’s official biographer recounts the “Father” describing how he overcome the difficulties during his early apostolate in strangely cryptic terms that cannot fail to raise an eyebrow in the reader: “What can a creature that must carry out a mission do, without means, or enough experience, knowledge, virtue, or anything else? He must go to his mother and his father, go to those who have the means, ask friends for help… That is what I did in the spiritual life. But of course, with discipline, carrying the compass.” (Nowhere here does he mention having recourse to God in the midst of whatever difficulties he was facing.) [19]
The somewhat eerie-looking official symbol or emblem of Opus Dei certainly deserves careful scrutiny. First of all, the mere sight of this “crucifix” induces a certain sense of unease with one’s sensus catholicus informing us that something appears amiss with what purports to be a representation of the Christian symbol par excellence. What exactly do we find there? A Christ-less “cross” – really, two intersecting lines in the form of a Latin cross – with a rose at the bottom; one would think we are dealing here with the rose-croix of Rosicrucianism, which also refers to the 18th degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The rose in the work’s official emblem is not merely some stylistic feature placed there for its aesthetic effect, but is a sign featuring prominently throughout the Work’s visual imagery. The “logo” of Rialp, Opus Dei’s official publishing house is none other than a rose, while the rose also features prominently in the entirely new Marian shrine of Torreciudad, entirely built out of the Work’s own coffers and criticized for the suspected huge squandering of financial resources that its construction involved.
Multiple esoteric meanings can be ascribed to the rose, and at least in the opening discourse of the Zohar, the major text of the Jewish Kabbalah, the rose designates the Shekinah, the female “aspect” of the God-head (Ein-sof), the divine presence itself of the Knesset Yisrael or “the community of Israel”. Certainly, everything points to the Work’s emblem as having to do more with the Kabbalah and the Shekinah than with anything related to Christ’s redemption at the cross. Opus Dei is formally known as the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei. Upon some investigation one comes upon the surprising – and unsettling – finding that both the reference to “Holy Cross” and “Opus Dei” in the official name despite their ostensible Catholic meanings can also be interpreted in an esoteric-gnostic sense. According to the Jewish historian Cecil Roth, author of Historia de los Marranos (“History of the Marranos”), “Holy Cross” was a code name used by the Marranos (crypto-Jews) to evade persecution: “In Barcelona, if a Marrano said, ‘let us go to the Church of the Holy Cross’, he was referring to the secret synagogue called by that name.” [20] When it comes to “Opus Dei”, the “Work” of alchemy (which has very clear gnostic-Hermetic and Kabbalistic roots) was traditionally known as the magnum opus, the great Work, and what is greater than the “Work of God – the Opus Dei”?
According to the official hagiography, Escriba was inspired to found the “Priestly Society of the Holy Cross” during the celebration of holy Mass, on the date of February 14, 1943. After Mass, he wrote the name for his new society: “Societas Sacerdotalis Sanctae Crucis” eventually constituted for the purpose of ordaining priests for the Prelature of Opus Dei, while drawing on his notebook on the page for February 14, the Feast of St Valentine, its new symbol: a “cross” perfectly circumscribed by a circle. (February 14, 1930, is also coincidentally the “official” date marking the founding of the “women’s” section of Opus Dei.) I believe that we should take careful notice of this date, all the more so considering that the official hagiography which is only loosely concerned with actual facts here takes pains to highlight two points: the date of this alleged “inspiration”, and the “Feast” corresponding to that date, namely, St Valentine. This loose concern with facts is particularly true for the somewhat opaque early beginnings of Opus Dei, so that there is good reason to ascribe a given date of such significance with symbolic rather than factual meaning. Now, if we consider all the strange details of the emblem of Opus Dei (and its official name, “Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei”) which “coincidentally” bear a striking connection to several gnostic or Kabbalistic themes, together with the gnostic character of the Work and its theology, it is difficult to believe that the name Valentinus associated with the given date is purely coincidental. St Valentine is of course the universally known Catholic saint whose feast day is celebrated on February 14. But, as it turns out, the gnostics also celebrate what can be considered their “patron” saint, “Saint” Valentinus – the founder of the important Valentinian Gnostic sect of classical antiquity – on the same day as that for the Catholic St Valentine. It has been argued that the major gnostic systems developed after Valentinian gnosticism in some manner or other represent “offshoots” of the ancient Classical system (in accordingly modified form, evidently); the gnosis of the Silesian Jacob Boehme which ascribes a significant role to Sophia in its gnostic theology probably serves as a good example.
Valentinian theology, moreover, provides an adequate exegesis that accounts for the un-Christian looking “cross” constituting the Work’s emblem, and also accounts for many aspects of Escriba’s opaque theology – particularly that which relates to the Kabbalistic doctrine of coincidentia oppositorum, or coincidence of opposites, of which we will have more to say on later. For the moment, we will simply say that, having read what follows from a “homily” by a modern neo-gnostic “cleric”, Escriba’s heterodox sounding statement in his landmark homily from October 8, 1967, calling on his followers to unite heaven and earth in their hearts, and other scattered statements expressing a similar idea, can finally be clearly interpreted. The “Rev. Steven Marshall” of the Ecclesia Gnostica in his “homily” delivered for the “Day of the Holy Valentinus”, describes the cross as “a particularly apt symbol for the divine marriage.” This is the “divine marriage” of opposites symbolically represented in Valentinian gnosticism by the “bridal chamber” (and which we believe is implicitly taught in John Paul II’s gnosis known as the “Theology of the Body”). Continuing, he describes the importance of the “cross” in the gnostic tradition, particularly as it relates to the doctrine of coincidentia oppositorum:
“Indeed, there are more references to the cross as a holy symbol in the Gnostic literature, a symbol of transcendence and union, than exists in the entire canon of the Bible. The horizontal bar of the cross represents the pairs of opposites in the world, the marriage in the world. The vertical bar of the cross represents the union of the below with the above, the celestial or heavenly marriage of the Gnostic bridechamber. We must perfect the vertical union, before the horizontal union can be truly realized. Through union of the above and the below, the outer and the inner, we can become united with all living souls. As expressed so beautifully in one of our occasional collects, “...until we awaken to our true estate in Thee, and living in unity and concord attain to Thy Gnosis in which there is no division or separateness, but only unity with Thee and through Thee with all other souls.” [21]
For Escriba, the vocation of every man (and not just the Christian) as image and likeness of God is to be Christ himself, “not just another Christ, but Christ Himself”. (Christ is Passing by, no. 104) In this universal call for holiness to live out the divine live in the midst of the world, a call which includes pagans and non-believers (the “People of God” defined according to Vatican II) is the seed for the pan-ecumenist and non-confessional, lay character that defines the Work. This sense of gnostic, universal “divine filiation” is the foundation of its spirituality: “The founder, enriched by this special sense of his divine filiation, infused this truth into every aspect of the Work's spirituality….The reality of one's divine filiation came to inform the entire spirit of Opus Dei and the life of piety of each of its members, leading them to the authentic freedom of the children of God.” [22]
Escriba in a spiritual meditation that he gave in 1963 described that in the midst of the most mundane of circumstances, simply walking through the streets of Madrid on October 16, 1931, he had an experience of spiritual illumination that led to his full understanding of his ontological relationship with God: “When God sent me those blows back in 1931, I didn't understand it… Then suddenly, in the midst of such great bitterness, came the words: ‘You are my son’ (Ps 2:7), you are Christ. And I could only stammer: Abba, Pater! Abba, Pater! Abba! Abba! Abba! Now I see it with new light, like a new discovery... You've led me, Lord, to understand that…to find the Cross is to identify oneself with Christ, to be Christ, and therefore to be a son of God.” [23]
Therefore, first of all, Escriba associates himself in relationship to Christ, not as alter Christus, but as ipse Christus. Secondly, the “cross” (the gnostic “cross”, that is) is the symbolic representation denoting one’s ontological identification with Christ (that is, an equality relating to the innermost being). That this union with Christ is not merely one of likeness or participation in God’s supernatural life is made clear by Ernst Burkhart and Javier Lopez, the two official theologians of the Work who have written a three volume series titled Vida Cotidiana y Santidad En La Enseñanza de San Josemaría, (“Ordinary Life and Holiness in the Teaching of Saint Josemaría”) outlining the “Father’s” theology in detail. In volume two, the authors cite the modernist Jesuit Émile Mersch to underscore the point we have just made: “The Lord has revealed that between the Incarnate Word and the Christian there is something more than a union of love, even though it is ardent; there is something more than a relation of likeness, no matter how accurate it might be; there is something more than dependence, in spite of the fact that it is complete….There is a physical union, we might say, as long as we do not put this word at the same level as simple natural unions. It is a real union in any case, an ontological union.” [24]
This is therefore the gnosis revealed in the Work: each and every single man, regardless of whether they accept Christ (cf John 1:12), is ipse Christus, and is accordingly called to sanctify and be sanctified by the world in this capacity. The gnostic “cross” of Opus Dei’s official emblem is the reminder or representation that this ontic status is the rightful inheritance of its members. The circle circumscribing the gnostic “cross” according to one interpretation represents the world, so that the Work’s members are called to act as “Christ” (represented by the “cross”) in the world, a world which equally can be conflated with Christ himself. The ontological separation between the self, the world, and Christ thus becomes blurred and eschatological hopes and aspirations are thus increasingly “immanentized”.
What we can know about the activities of Opus Dei since its early years, but even more importantly, the teachings of the “Founder” and the radically lay, liberal, and modernist spirituality of the Work do absolutely nothing to dispel suspicions of some kind of collaboration between Opus Dei and international Freemasonry. Of the radically liberal spirituality of the Work we will have much more to say later, but for the moment let us see with a very remarkable and revealing example relating to Mario Conde (the Spanish multi-millionaire who presided over the bankruptcy of the important Spanish bank Banesto), what kind of connections Opus Dei sees fit to have with Freemasonry in practice, despite statements here and there by its associates condemning masonry.
As always, when trying to decipher liberals’ and modernists’ statements, it is imperative to look even more carefully at their actions, which is the most reliable hermeneutic key in order to look past their commonly practiced obfuscation, opaqueness, and ambiguity. In an interview of the Italian journalist Fabio Andriola with the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy, the lawyer Virgilio Gaito, Andriola asked him: “What are the relations between you [i.e. the Grand Orient] and the so called ‘Catholic masonry’’ ‘I think’, Gaito replied, ‘that Opus Dei has a very vast universal vision… This Mario Conde…[who] today has the honour of appearing in the headlines is a famous representative of Opus Dei and he is also in the board of directors of a certain company whose head is the former Grand Master Di Bernardo.’ ” [25] So from this we know unequivocally that Conde at the time of the interview was a “representative of Opus Dei”, which could in principle mean anything from being a so called “co-operator” to a numerary, while it is very strongly suggested that Conde had some kind of very close relationship with Freemasonry. It must be born in mind that Gaito is here making the Opus Dei – Freemasonry connection relating to a single individual (Mario Conde) in the context of the wider question posed by journalist Gaito on the relations between “Catholic masonry” and Freemasonry (here presumably referring to the Grand Orient).
This very close relationship between Conde and Freemasonry is further and unequivocally confirmed by the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Spain, Mr Gabaldón, who in a conference from 2012 stated that, “…while the businessman [Conde] is in a latent phase, he continues collaborating with the lodge whenever he can and on many occasions he teaches and gives talks [on masonry] to the brethren that are going to join the association.” Lest any confusion arise about Conde’s current “latent” status within the Lodge, Mr Gabaldón takes care to clarify that it was simply a measure taken during the judicial investigations into Banesto’s corrupt dealings: “When he realized what was coming upon him he decided to ‘descend into sleep-mode’ to avoid this way being expelled from the lodge.” [26]
REFERENCES
1. Opus Judaei – Jose Maria Escriba, Colombia, by “Alfonso Carlos de Borbón”, p 133.
2. LOS ESTUDIOS ACADÉMICOS DE SAN JOSEMARÍA ESCRIVÁ Y ALBÁS, Claretianum, vol. XLIX, 2009, Giancarlo Rocca.
3. Opus Judaei, p 132.
4. Mons. Escrivá de Balaguer, Salvador Bernal, p. 280, Rialp publishing house.
5. Opus Judaei, p 132.
6. D. LE TOURNEAU, L’ Opus Dei, P.U.D.F., Paris 1984.
7. Opus Judaei, p 132, note no. 198.
8. Sodalitium, Oct-Nov 1996, “Encore sur L’Opus Dei”, by abbé Curzio Nitoglia, p 58, ref. no. 3.
9. Bernal, p 249.
10. Opus Judaei, p 132.
11. Ibid., p 186.
12. Ibid., p 93.
13. Ibid., p 18.
14. Ibid., p 16.
15. Original Spanish text: “Para que la incorporación sea válida, es suficiente la intención virtual de asumir las obligaciones correspondientes, aunque no haya una advertencia actual en el momento de la incorporación.” Extracted from Lo Que Pasó a Ser el Opus Dei, by “Bruno Devos”, Chapter 11: De La Discreción al Secretismo. Available from https://opus-info.org/index.php/De_la_di...ite_note-6
16. El Opus Dei, Anexo a una Historia, María Angustias Moreno, p 61.
17. María Angustias Moreno, La Otra Cara del Opus Dei, Chapter II: “Desprestigio como estilo de defensa” (I).
18. Opus Judaei, p 145.
19. SALVADOR BERNAL, Monseñor Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. Apuntes sobre la vida del Fundador del Opus Dei; Rialp, Madrid 1980, 6ª ed., pp. 199-200. While it is true that the Spanish original “llevando el compás” could also be translated as “keeping the beat” (a phrase sounding oddly out of place in the context, and which in any case suggests someone directing the “beat”), perhaps we are dealing here with the ambiguous duplicity of someone winking his eye to those “in the know”…
20. Opus Judaei, p 175.
21. “A Homily for the Day of the Holy Valentinus” by Rev. Steven Marshall: The Mystery of Divine Love http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/homily_Valentinus.htm
22. Blessed Josemaria Escriva – Founder of Opus Dei, Bulletin, September 1999, New York, pp 6-7.
23. Ibid, p 7.
24. Vida Cotidiana y Santidad En La Enseñanza de San Josemaría, Rialp, (2011) Vol. II, p. 85.
25. Sodalitium, Oct-Nov 1996, “Encore sur L’Opus Dei”, by abbé Curzio Nitoglia, p 58, ref. no. 4.
26. “Mario Conde sigue dando clases en la masonería”, Diario de León, 18 DE MAYO DE 2012.
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| 'Pope Francis is not introducing new ideas; far from it, he is building on the New Theology' |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-14-2024, 08:46 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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A New Theology, Another Christ?
Mary, Destroyer of Heresies blog [emphasis mine]| November 7, 2015
As the march of Modernist Evolutionism continues "forward," the explicitness of Teilhardian metaphysics and theology emerges with increasing boldness. John XXIII spoke of it in his opening address to Vatican II; Paul VI approved of it in Gaudium et Spes; John Paul II audaciously announced that evolution was "more than a hypothesis;" Benedict XVI hailed the resurrection of Christ as a "mutation;" and now Francis outdoes them all and refers explicitly to Teilhard de Chardin in a magisterial document:
Quote:"83. ...all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. Human beings, endowed with intelligence and love, and drawn by the fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures back to their Creator.
243. At the end [i.e., at the Final Judgment], we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God (cf. 1 Cor 13:12), and be able to read with admiration and happiness the mystery of the universe, which with us will share in unending plenitude. Even now we are journeying towards the sabbath of eternity, the new Jerusalem, towards our common home in heaven. Jesus says: “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature [Spanish: cada criatura], resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.
244. In the meantime, we come together to take charge of this [common] home which has been entrusted to us, knowing that all the good which exists here will be taken up into the heavenly feast. In union with all creatures [Spanish: con todas las criaturas], we journey through this [earthly] land seeking God…. Let us sing as we go. May our struggles and our concern for this planet never take away the joy of our hope." (Laudato Si)
If anyone doubts that this is the Nouvelle Theologie condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis, please post your objections here. This is another theology which, in the final analysis, offers the world "another Christ" (2 Cor. 11:4) whom we have not received, and in whom faith is futile. Teilhard's Christic or Cosmic Christ is not the Christ of Catholic Faith.
Quote:"However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of the Modernist: the positive side of it consists in what they call vital immanence. This is how they advance from one to the other. Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. Hence the principle of religious immanence is formulated." Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS
Pope John Paul II taught that Christ has united Himself with each man forever, and that each man is a "sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived beneath the heart of his mother (RH #13)." The union he speaks of has nothing to do with Gospel preaching, contrition, repentance, faith, or baptism. This is Teilhard's Cosmic Christ.
Quote:"Christ the Lord indicated this way especially, when, as the Council teaches, "by his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, in a certain way united himself with each man". The Church therefore sees its fundamental task in enabling that union to be brought about and renewed continually. The Church wishes to serve this single end: that each person may be able to find Christ, in order that Christ may walk with each person the path of life, with the power of the truth about man and the world that is contained in the mystery of the Incarnation and the Redemption and with the power of the love that is radiated by that truth. Against a background of the ever increasing historical processes, which seem at the present time to have results especially within the spheres of various systems, ideological concepts of the world and regimes, Jesus Christ becomes, in a way, newly present, in spite of all his apparent absences, in spite of all the limitations of the presence and of the institutional activity of the Church." Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis
And where will each person find Christ? In himself!
Quote:"...that we may be like those "violent people of God" that we have so often seen in the history of the Church and still see today, and that we may consciously join in the great mission of revealing Christ to the world, helping each person to find himself in Christ, and helping the contemporary generations of our brothers and sisters, the peoples, nations, States, mankind, developing countries and countries of opulence-in short, helping everyone to get to know "the unsearchable riches of Christ", since these riches are for every individual and are everybody's property." Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis
In a devastating analysis, Father Johannes Dormann draws a startling conclusion about the theology of Karol Wojtyla:
Quote:"A comparison of the principles of knowledge in Cardinal Wojtyla's [Pope John Paul II] New Theology with those of classical theology makes the fundamental differences clearly come to light. In classical theology, God is the material and formal object of theology. In the New Theology of Cardinal Wojtyla, the object is man. The diametrical opposition is manifest. Through the confusion of nature and grace in the axiom of universal salvation, the traditional "dualism" is entirely eliminated. The traditional distinctions of the natural and supernatural knowledge of God, of natural and supernatural revelation, of natural reason and supernatural faith, of natural and supernatural theology, no longer apply. The virtue of faith, which is constitutive for the process of justification, is no longer required for salvation since all men are are a priori redeemed and justified.
...The Cardinal's New Theology provides an extensive foundation for interreligious dialogue: the "Church of the living God" (p. 17) unites all men. Universal salvation is the common basis. The concepts of revelation and faith are not proper to the Catholic religion. All religions contain genuine revelation. The faith encompasses all "believers" in all religions. Genuine faith is faith in humanity. But "revelation," which is offered to man in Christ," thus the Christian faith is for Cardinal Wojtyla the faith in which the "mystery of man," "existence in Christ," is "enlightened" once and for all. This "offer" is thus by no means necessary for salvation, nor is it exclusive or binding. There is also revelation, faith and the experience of God in other religions. On the basis of religious liberty, interreligious dialogue as a brotherly exchange of religious experiences for the sake of mutual enrichment is the primrose path towards universal religious harmony."
Father Johannes Dormann, Sacred Theology Doctor, Director, of the Institute for Missionwork and the Study of Religions at Wilhelms-University, Munster, Westphalen, Germany. Quote taken from Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi, Part 1, pages 121-123, © 1994 by Angelus Press
The most troubling doctrinal assertion of Redemptor hominis is the emphasis on the Incarnation at the expense of the Passion and priestly sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In the encyclical, the Pope uses the word 'redemption' 37 times; the word 'justification' is never used. Men are not redeemed by the Incarnation, although this is the unmistakable theme of RH. They are redeemed by the priestly sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Yet Pope John Paul II finds the basis for a formal union of each man with the divine person of Christ simply by the fact that Christ became man and men exist "in Christ". The encyclical claims this union without faith, baptism, or even the willingness of each man. Therefore the priestly sacrifice of Christ is reduced to a "sign of God's love" for man, instead of the means whereby men are redeemed and by which men can be saved by grace through faith.
This error is also metaphysical in that the break with classical soteriology is no doubt based on Wojtyla's evolutionism. For the Pope, the Incarnation is a peak of evolutionary development, about which some theologians (not Wojtyla) conjectured that spirit evolves from matter (Teilhard, Rahner). Therefore, Christ's Incarnation effects an actual change in human nature which now "exists in Christ" (Dormann).
The total break with the soteriology of the preconciliar era is clear. And there is no new penetration of theological insights at work here, but an attempt to synthesize modern scientific theories and hypotheses with the Deposit of Faith.
Quote:"God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us...by the Son, his Word, who became man and was born of the Virgin Mary. This act of redemption marked the high point of the history of man within God's loving plan. God entered the history of humanity and, as a man, became an actor in that history..."
Clearly here he calls the incarnation the efficient cause of the redemption. If men are redeemed by the Incarnation, and formally united to Christ forever, and "exist in Christ," then what remains? For them to arrive at this awareness of being united to Christ forever in their consciousness. Hence, the requirement for dialogue with men of all religions, who too, are united to Christ albeit in ignorance.
St. Pius X, in Pascendi:
Quote:"Hence, Venerable Brethren, springs that ridiculous proposition of the Modernists, that every religion, according to the different aspect under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and supernatural. Hence it is that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous. Hence the law, according to which religious consciousness is given as the universal rule, to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and to which all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in its teaching capacity, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline." Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS
Pope Francis is not introducing new ideas; far from it. He is building on the New Theology suppressed by Pope Pius XII with remarkable patience and consistency. The universalism increasingly explicit in Pope Bergoglio's doctrine is fully developed by John Paul II. Its primary metaphysic is evolutionary; its philosophy is existentialist; its theology is nondogmatic; its Christ is the Evolver, the Christic of Teilhard de Chardin. It is difficult not to conclude that this is indeed another Christ "whom we have not received" (2 Corinthians 11:4).
Quote:"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council..." Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis
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| “The real revolution there happened under John Paul II, not Francis..." |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-14-2024, 08:21 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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John Paul II the Revolutionary?
Mary, Destroyer of Heresies blog [emphasis mine] | September 27, 2017
“The real revolution there happened under John Paul II, not Francis, which hasn’t really yet been understood,” said [Archbishop Vincenzo] Paglia.
Quote:NB: A brief summary of the positions held by Archbishop Paglia. On 26 June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named him President of the Pontifical Council for the Family and raised him to the rank of archbishop.
In February 2013, he noted in an interview that homosexual couples should be safe from unjust discrimination in countries where homosexual acts are illegal. He later said that he was not suggesting a change in church doctrine and that he was restating the official teaching of the Church.[...]
On 15 August 2016, Pope Francis named him President of the Pontifical Academy for Life and Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, later renamed the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.
Apologists for recently canonized Pope John Paul II scrambled to defend the late Pontiff for the apparent exploitation of the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family that bears his name. A closer look at the rationale utilized by the current leadership of the Institute may raise eyebrows. However, the stunned reaction might not be at the audacity of their claims, but the coherence of their explanations.
Let’s unpack this.
Archbishop Paglia taps into one of Pope John Paul II’s most ubiquitous themes: consciousness, or “awareness” of the Church:
Quote:The Institute “couldn’t just stay like it was,” Paglia said, because of changes “both in the awareness of the Church and also the social, cultural and anthropological conditions of the world.”
About which awareness Pope John Paul II taught in his inaugural and programmatic encyclical:
Quote:"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council..." Redemptor hominis
It couldn't stay like it was because in the Wojtylian universe, all things are evolving. Who could forget the way the international media leaped upon his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 22 October 1996 when he affirmed
Quote:“…some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than an hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory.”
Surely this is at least ‘an’ explanation of the Pope’s reliance on the novel theory of a “living Tradition” from which he found the missionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre wanting in his ‘deficient’ understanding of Tradition (see: motu proprio Ecclesia Dei Adflicta).
Next, Archbishop Paglia explains that John Paul II’s revolution “hasn’t really yet been understood.”
This is evident in the two ways to perceive the pontificate of Karol Wojtyla. The overwhelmingly popular vision of John Paul II is the crusading evangelist, traversing the globe to proclaim the Gospel of Christ to all men while collaborating with world leaders to bring down the Iron Curtain. The other way is to actually examine his words and deeds against the backdrop of Catholic Tradition, which yields some unwelcome if not disturbing conclusions.
The dominant theme of John Paul II’s long pontificate was that by His incarnation, Christ has united Himself to each man forever. He found this novel understanding of the Gospel in Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) #22, which is erstwhile known as “the mystery of man.” Through this mystery – completely unknown in Catholic Tradition before 1965 – Christ "reveals man to man himself.” This revelation is that each and every man is formally, ontologically, and eternally united to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Thus, Archbishop Paglia can also wink,
Quote:“You have to remember that before [Familiaris Consortio], it wasn’t that the divorced and remarried just couldn’t get Communion, it was they were practically excommunicated and expelled. They were outsiders. After John Paul, everybody was inside the house … I can’t just send them out on the terrace!”
“Everybody was inside the house” of course refers to the new ecclesiology of Vatican II’s Lumen gentium where the Church and mankind are dangerously conflated in ambiguous language. This idea is buttressed by the Pope's doctrine of universal union of each man with Christ via the Incarnation.
Now, if everybody is inside the house, who can be excluded from the supper table? Thus, Pope Francis is announced as the authoritative interlocutor of this revolution of John Paul II’s that hasn’t really been understood yet:
Quote:He [Paglia] said that Pope St. John Paul II began the “revolution” in the Church for Communion for the divorced and remarried, and that Pope Francis is carrying this on as the saint’s “best interpreter.”
In the vision of an evolving cosmos in which each man is united to Christ forever, the very idea of church is in flux. How can we mere laymen ever hope to apprehend such exalted ideas without Pope Francis pulling away the veil that the consciousness of the Church was not ready for prior to his Pontificate?
Nor are we to set aside Pope Wojtyla’s bizarre understanding of each religion being a vehicle for union with God and inspired by the Holy Spirit:
Quote:It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions. In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person” (Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7).
Perhaps it is overlooked by Pope John Paul II that St. Pius X condemned this idea 80 years earlier:
Quote:“Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true." Pascendi Dominici gregis
This vision of all men, in all religions united eternally with Christ in an evolving cosmos has of course, certain implications about which the Pope draws very specific conclusions:
Quote:Assisi Prayer is a "visible illustration, an exegesis of the events, a catechesis, intelligible to all, of what is presupposed and signified by the commitment to ecumenism and to the interreligious dialogue which was recommended and provided by the Second Vatican Council." (Christmas address of the Pope to the Cardinals and members of the Curia on 22 December, 1986, L'Osservatore Romano, 5 January 1987, page 7)
But can we draw such a conclusion as Archbishop Paglia’s based simply on the general themes of Pope John Paul II’s theology and praxis? Has he really done anything revolutionary in the field of Catholic doctrine pertaining to the sacrament of matrimony? If you ask those who studied his novel ‘Theology of the Body’, the answer will be a profound yes:
Quote:George Weigel has described Theology of the Body as "one of the boldest reconfigurations of Catholic theology in centuries." He goes on to say it is a "kind of theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences, sometime in the third millennium of the Church." Weigel believes that it has barely begun to "shape the Church's theology, preaching, and religious education" but when it does "it will compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed." [Weigel, George (October 1999). Witness to Hope (First ed.). Harper Perennial. pp. 336, 343, 853. ISBN 0-06-018793-X.]
Those taking offense at Pope Francis’ teaching in Amoris laetitia because of a perceived opposition to the doctrine laid down by John Paul II in Familiaris consortio should take a deep breath and a long look at the late Pope’s entire body of doctrine. While others trifle with rearranging the furniture inside the house, John Paul II set in motion the wholesale replacement of the entire foundation.
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| "It Just Sort Of Appeared" - Fauci Comes Clean Over 'Science-less' Six-Foot-Distancing Rule |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-14-2024, 06:48 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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"It Just Sort Of Appeared" - Fauci Comes Clean Over 'Science-less' Six-Foot-Distancing Rule
![[Image: six_0.jpg?itok=-7dlxyZY]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/six_0.jpg?itok=-7dlxyZY)
ZH [emphasis ZH]| JAN 13, 2024
Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times
You still bump into the stickers from time to time: “Six Feet of Distance.” It’s weird and anachronistic at this point. No one pays any attention anymore. Still it would be nice to know where this came from. Oddly, we don’t really know.
Anthony Fauci was asked this question this week in U.S. House hearings on the COVID response.
Incredibly, he didn’t really know how this came about.
“It just sort of appeared,” he told the subcommittee, which was an unusual answer since he otherwise said 100 times that he could not remember anything. Here, however, he admits there was never any science behind it.
That’s extremely peculiar.
This rule governed all social interaction for two years and more.
It wrecked every manner of things, made people feel diseased and isolated, made meetings impossible, and gave rise to a whole ritual of interaction that was utterly alien to the normal human way, including elbow bumps and water-gun baptisms.
It was why schools were so delayed in reopening. They could not guarantee that students would stay apart. It’s why airports were so crowded. Everyone was trying to avoid everyone else. It’s why park benches were roped off, why restroom stalls were operating at 50 percent, and why you could not hold weddings and funerals. This stuff was enforced at all levels of society.
And yet here is the “nation’s leading infectious disease scientist” who took charge of the pandemic response saying that he has no idea where this idea came from.
Back in March 2021, the New York Times, of all egregious venues, got curious about this too. Reporter Emily Anthes asked around the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about the mandate and the science behind it.
She quotes Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
Quote:“It never struck me that six feet was particularly sensical in the context of mitigation. I wish the C.D.C. would just come out and say this is not a major issue.”
She wrote that the origin of the six-foot distancing recommendation is something of a mystery.
“It’s almost like it was pulled out of thin air,” said Linsey Marr, an expert on viral transmission at Virginia Tech University.
The journal Clinical and Infectious Diseases even did a large study comparing six feet and three feet of distance. It was published in March 2021. The authors found no statistically significant difference in infection rates. None. They concluded:
Quote:“Lower physical distancing requirements can be adopted in school settings with masking mandates without negatively affecting student or staff safety.”
Nothing happened. We were stuck with six feet.
Once it became an enforced ritual, nothing mattered.
Now we know that not even Anthony Fauci knows where it came from.
But come on. Someone had to order this. Who did it? Some low-level bureaucrat? Someone yet unnamed? Whoever it is knows who he or she is. Lots of people know. But no one is speaking up. It seems like there should be a way to get to the bottom of this.
Most likely, it resulted from nothing but irrational germophobia and a made-up way to satiate that impulse. But consider this: one person’s personal eccentricity thus became a rule for the whole nation and world, without a single study to say nothing of a vote or opinion poll. It was just cray cray on mega-steroids, and yet some vendors became very rich printing signs and stickers for millions of businesses, churches, airports, and schools around the country.
It probably happened like the sudden mask mandate in St. Louis, Missouri, last week. Some low-level bureaucrat said it should be done and it was done. There was outrage all around, which is very good news. Beautifully, the whole thing was repealed in 24 hours, and the person who caused all this to happen was ridiculed and denounced. How dare she presume to tell everyone else what to do?
Well, that kind of thing ruled us for two years and longer, just bureaucrats making stuff up. Some of it was impractical but it was also very expensive and damaging. For example, the Plexiglas that suddenly went up everywhere actually trapped pathogens into smaller spaces and inhibited ventilation, in contradiction to their other mandates. Arguably, this mandate made the spread worse. It certainly didn’t mitigate the virus.
It seems as if all these edicts were sort of busy work to keep us alarmed and occupied with stupid antics until the virus arrived. That’s why Fauci didn’t care about them. It’s why the CDC wasn’t particularly interested in the supposed science behind any of this stuff. There never was any science. It was nothing but the imposition of irrational capers on the population to mark time until the great shot arrived. To top it off, the shot didn’t work!
Looking back—and many people don’t want to look back because it is too painful—it seems as if the whole of the public was sold a bill of goods in the name of science. It was baloney no matter which way you slice it. Some of us knew it at the time and called it out. We were denounced, attacked, and censored for saying so.
Is it any wonder that government, media, and science generally are in complete disrepute today, across the whole population and all over the world?
This is why there needs to be some discovery and accountability. We need to know where this stuff came from.
It didn’t come from the air or clouds. It was a decision made by human beings, somewhere and based on something. We should know what it is.
If Fauci doesn’t know, who does? The CDC has had three heads during this time: Robert Redfield, Rochelle Walensky, and now Mandy Cohen. They should tell all they know. If they don’t know, they should name the names of others who they think might have done this. Then Congress should ask those people and get them to say who they think it is. We should do this with every single idiotic protocol issued during that period, whether six feet, masks, sanitizer, one-way grocery isles, church closures, Plexiglas, and anything else.
The deeper truth is that the entire paradigm is drawn from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) response to SARS-1 in 2003, which was then embraced by the World Health Organization (WHO).
That’s its real origin: it is a communist tactic of political control using infectious disease as the excuse.
This stuff traumatized the nation and the world. It broke everything. Now we have doors flying off airplanes only to find out later that the manufacturer had to lay off lots of mechanics during lockdowns. We have political upheaval in Ecuador, which had very hard lockdowns that demoralized everyone. We have huge absenteeism in public schools everywhere because the kids can no longer be bothered to go to class. We have a massive shortage of actual workers who know how to do stuff because they gave up and retired.
The lockdowns and everything associated with them utterly broke the world. The COVID response set the whole of the civilized world on fire. At the very least, we are owed an explanation for all this, starting with six feet of distance. If we cannot get to the bottom of where this came from, there’s no hope for sorting out the rest of the rigamarole. The investigations have to start somewhere. They should not stop for at least 5–10 years!
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| Holy Mass in Canada [Ontario] - January 21, 2024 |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2024, 09:38 AM - Forum: January 2024
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Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Third Sunday after Epiphany
Date: Sunday, January 21, 2024
Time: Confessions - 5:30 PM
Holy Mass - 6:00 PM
Location: Barry's Bay area, Ontario - contact number below for details
Contact: 315-391-7575
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| Holy Mass in Pennsylvania [Erie area] - |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2024, 09:23 AM - Forum: January 2024
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Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Feast of Sts. Fabian & Sebastian
Date: Saturday, January 20, 2024
Time: Confessions - 11:30 AM
Holy Mass - 12:00 PM
Location: 932 West 8th Street
Erie, PA 16502
Contact: (814) 746-5879
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| Paula Haigh: History and Some Historians |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2024, 06:45 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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History and Some Historians
Creatorem Coeli et Terram [emphasis - The Catacombs] | February 14, 2014
In an early work, THE KINGSHIP OF CHRIST, according to the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, (1931), Father Dennis Fahey, a Holy Ghost father who died in 1955, explored the "real history of the world", and found that this real, true history of the world is the account of the acceptance or rejection, by the world, of God's plan for the restoration of the Divine Life. In other words, it is the story of God's undoing of the awful consequences of Original Sin, taken in conjunction with man's response to God's overtures...(page 33). This acceptance or rejection of God's plan for order can be most accurately gauged by the degree to which any particular culture or community not only refuses to hinder, but positively works to favor the attaining of man's final end, - union with God in His inner supernatural life. (pg.37)
This does not mean that the world of culture becomes like a monastery. It does mean, however, that the world's customs and entertainments, it's serious businesses and even it's wars, are characterized more by virtue than by vice, or by the encouragement of what leads to virtue, - such as prayer, rather than by what leads to vice.
Father Fahey cites the world of Medieval Europe as having exemplified, probably, the closest any society could come to being "the best of all possible worlds" - inasmuch as in Medieval Europe "the State then grasped the formal principle of ordered social life in the actual world - and in which an institution such as the Inquisition - or any similar police force for keeping "law and order" - was set up to defend the hold of the world on order against the fomentors of disorder", (page 38) And, of course, the given principle accepted by all was that man in society, redeemed by Our Lord, is not able to live as God wants him to live - unless he accepts the supernatural and supra-national Catholic Church - the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ our Lord. It is only in and from this one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic church, that people find the sources of the interior life, from which proceed the external forms of a culture. But the modern world has turned aside from order and is suffering for its apostasy and disorder. (page 39). This great truth needs to be proclaimed unequivocally. And today we must begin with the restoration of truth in the natural sciences, because there is no theology, but only an abstract or sentimental fideism, without a true foundation in the natural sciences.
The medieval world possessed such a sound foundation in its Geocentric Cosmology. Cosmology, which defines the Structure of the Universe and the fixed centrality of earth, is the necessary essential of the entire body of knowledge we know as the Natural Order. It is this natural order upon which Grace builds the entire edifice of the Supernatural Order of Divine Grace - producing the Elect and those beacons of light for us, the Saints. Any historian who omits in-depth consideration of the relations between the natural sciences and theology, will not give us true or reliable history. It was first Copernicus - and then his popularizer, Galileo, who first cut the umbilical cord binding the natural sciences to Theology - by way of Holy Scripture. Without the guidance of the theologians of the Church, the natural sciences were bound to go astray, and so they did. The end result is precisely what the encyclical Pascendi describes as the subjugation of faith to science - a science falsely so called, (1 Tim. 6:20). This is a crime of the greatest magnitude - the synthesis of all heresies - overturning in men's minds the very hierarchy of reality.
It is true that Father Fahey himself never focused on the relation of science to theology as indicated in Pascendi (1907). His focus was the deep disorder introduced by Luther's erroneous doctrine of Grace, in effect making prayer meaningless - and his emphasis upon the individual - making the concept of the common good meaningless. And so it has been with all historians following Father Fahey. The emphasis has been upon the social order and its concomitant political and social disorders coming down from the sick heads of state. It has been left for the secular historians such as Arthur Koestler, Thomas Kuhn, and Alexandre Koyre, with a host of others, to focus on the Copernican Revolution and its far-reaching effects on all aspects of culture and civilization. I appeal especially to Arnaud de Lassus, Father Paul Kramer, Dr. John Rao - and all who write about our current crisis of faith, to turn their scholarly efforts towards what appears to be a great conspiracy of silence, forbidding the exposure of "the operation of error" (2 Thess. 2:10) - which has overwhelmed the natural sciences in all their disciplines. Pascendi warned us of modernisms "Law of Evolution" - whereby everything - the Church, her Dogmas - her Worship - Her Sacred Scriptures, even her Faith itself - must change or die. (#26). This is the lie upon which modernism is based.
This "synthesis of all heresies" - can only be confronted and combated and eventually overcome and destroyed beneath Our Lady's heel - by a synthesis of all truths - which is the deposit of faith. Nothing new is needed in this battle. On the contrary, it is all there in the First Article of the Creed:
The existence of God as Creator of heaven and earth. We need only to make these truths shine forth in all their real splendor.
Kyrie, eleison.
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| Our Lady of Fatima, Destroyer of All Heresies |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2024, 06:37 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Our Lady of Fatima, Destroyer of All Heresies
Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies blog | April 20, 2021
Our Lady is the Destroyer of all heresies. St. Pius X called Modernism 'the compendium of all heresies'. The roots of Modernism are in agnostic philosophy - an agnosticism supported by the Copernican assertion that the Church was wrong about her geocentric cosmology. If the Church was wrong about so fundamental and foundational a matter, she cannot be trusted with the far weightier matters of faith and morals. This was the conclusion of the Church's enemies (and too many of her own sons) when Galileo Galilee advanced the idea of a mobile earth spinning diurnally and orbiting the sun. Yet our Lady of Fatima gave us a miraculous sign to demonstrate once and for all that the Church was not wrong to condemn heliocentrism, but that she had faithfully handed down what she received from the Holy Fathers.
For those unfamiliar with the controversy, it concerns the Church's biblical cosmology. [...] Paula Haigh (+2015) explains:
Quote:The medieval world possessed such a sound foundation in its Geocentric Cosmology. Cosmology, which defines the Structure of the Universe and the fixed centrality of earth, is the necessary essential of the entire body of knowledge we know as the Natural Order. It is this natural order upon which Grace builds the entire edifice of the Supernatural Order of Divine Grace - producing the Elect and those beacons of light for us, the Saints. Any historian who omits in-depth consideration of the relations between the natural sciences and theology, will not give us true or reliable history. It was first Copernicus - and then his popularizer, Galileo, who first cut the umbilical cord binding the natural sciences to Theology - by way of Holy Scripture. Without the guidance of the theologians of the Church, the natural sciences were bound to go astray, and so they did. The end result is precisely what the encyclical Pascendi describes as the subjugation of faith to science - a science falsely so called, (1 Tim. 6:20). This is a crime of the greatest magnitude - the synthesis of all heresies - overturning in men's minds the very hierarchy of reality.
The Church put the full weight of her magisterial authority behind the condemnation of heliocentrism as formal heresy. The Church was right. There isn't and there never was any proof for heliocentrism. The miracle of the sun at Fatima was our Lady's way of demonstrating that the defeat of Modernism will only be achieved by recovering the Church's full and plenary power for proclaiming the complete record of revelation to a world that had been plunged into philosophical futility and meaninglessness. For, if the earth were some insignificant planet cast into a random corner of the universe drifting aimlessly towards oblivion as the modern philosophers postulate, what good was religion? On October 13th, 1917 the sun danced; not the earth, not the cosmos. 70,000 people saw it, to include many atheists. Our Lady is the Destroyer of All Heresies, and the miracle of the sun is a great sign for us to believe as the Church had always taught - that we occupy a privileged place in the very center of the cosmos in which God became man in her virginal womb.
In Psalm 18, the sun is depicted as an athlete running the way "from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof" to illustrate the movement of the sun around the earth. This Psalm clearly tells the reader that the 'language' spoken by the heavens is (a) universal; and (b) understood by all. The plain evidence of the phenomena is that the sun circles the earth daily. No one has ever observed the earth circling the sun or spinning on an axis. As if to emphasize how irrefutable and infallible this phenomena is, the Psalmist then discourses about the perfection of the Law of the Lord. The entire Psalm moves in perfect motion through four themes:
(1) The heavens declare the glory of God.
(2) The sun circles the earth.
(3) The Law of the Lord is perfect.
(4) Whoever keeps the just judgments of the Lord will be kept from sin.
Lest we think this is a simplistic and primitive way of exegeting the divine Word, let us take a Doctor of the Church, St. Robert Bellarmine for our guide:
Quote:"Second. I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators." (Letter to Foscarini, 1615)
Vatican I (1869-1870) infallibly confirmed the teaching of Trent:
Quote:Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of christian doctrine, that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one, which holy mother church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture. In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers.
The philosophy condemned by Pope St. Pius X in the 1907 encyclical Pascendi gregis (On the Doctrines of the Modernists) is agnosticism, the belief that man could not know for certain whether there is a God, and that His will is likewise unknowable (this is condemned at Vatican I, ch. i, 3). St. Pius X counted among the chief of the doctrines of the Modernists the vile and antibiblical idea of evolution. The evolution championed by Teilhard de Chardin which has wounded the faith of the Church so deeply to this very day presumes upon the Church's loss of authority in supposedly interpreting the first chapters of Genesis incorrectly. If the earth was not created on the first day and the sun, moon and stars on the fourth as lights and signs for the times and seasons to benefit man, which the Church had always taught, then the Church was wrong about the foundational passages of Sacred Scripture. If she was wrong about this, then surely she could be in error about the cosmos being created in six days. Thus the way for Modernism is paved, not by true science, nor by sound philosophy, but by a demonically animated skepticism: "...hath God said...?" (Genesis 3,1)
This wound was inflicted upon the Church not by Darwin, but by Nicholas Copernicus, who, like Teilhard was a priest who rejected the testimony of the Holy Fathers infallibly confirmed by the Council of Trent. In summary, there is no Darwin and no Teilhard without the monstrous error of heliocentrism, which three Popes rightly condemned as a formal heresy for its opposition to the Patristic consensus.
![[Image: Our_Lady_Guadalupe.jpg]](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pU26fcxX9vQ/YH-BzQR9YZI/AAAAAAAAC50/V05i4XxzmKonTBixVmDyhrruhnbWrxJJwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Our_Lady_Guadalupe.jpg)
Our Lady of Guadalupe
The Mother of God performed another miracle in 1531 by imprinting her image on the tilma of St. Juan Deigo, a miracle that resulted in an astonishing conversion of no less than six million Aztecs who were at the time in the thrall of the most barbaric forms of idolatry imaginable. In this image, our Lady is clearly depicted as being clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet as Sacred Scripture reveals (Apoc. 12, 1). In both Scripture and the miraculous icon of Guadalupe, the Mother of Christ is being encompassed by the sun, a symbolic rendering of the sun orbiting the earth, represented by our Lady, the pinnacle of the earth's created order.
No wonder then that of all the signs at her queenly disposal she, the Seat of Wisdom, chooses the dance of the sun at Fatima. This sign unambiguously indicates the movement of the sun, just as the miracle requested by Josue in the Old Testament (cf. Josue 10,13). Perhaps through this sign our Heavenly Queen is showing mankind that all the errors of Russia which were then as now flooding the world could be staunched by her Immaculate Heart; that she who is Mediatrix of all graces could obtain for the Church that glorious defeat of the compendium of all heresies, Modernism. As St. Pius X recognized her in his encyclical on Modernism as the Destroyer of All Heresies, the Blessed Virgin Mary restores that wisdom which had been so long abandoned and rejected by men under the delusion of the heliocentric cosmos which rendered the Church's interpretation of the Word of God to be wrong. If this sign is received in good faith from our Lady of Fatima, the shame of 'persecuting science' with 'faulty biblical exegesis' would be remedied and the Church vindicated in her treatment of the entire Galileo affair, which at present time serves as an embarrassment and a humiliation.
There is no heresy of Modernism without the doctrine of evolution infecting the human element of the Catholic Church. There are no evolutionary toxins wounding sacred doctrine without the stigma of wrongly interpreting Genesis. And that stigma was first applied not by the adepts of Darwin, but of Copernicus.
Our Lady is showing us at Fatima that the way back to orthodoxy (and true militancy) is to recover the correct philosophical moorings that the Fathers of the Church handed down to us, which is to say, the earth is stable at the center of the cosmos, and is the theater of redemption in which God became man in the Virgin's womb.
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| Benedict XVI: Pope of Evolution |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2024, 06:23 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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Benedict XVI: Pope of Evolution
![[Image: PapaRatzinger.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh50PvupBrek8gfMKheBiW85Y4qmCU71PRSBqwAZvIGZU-NIJhKqWxOkJXqZeyAUPaXLECdOXtfQPQuVyoQ_sl5HMTI3qznHo50y7iAZFHJdyzg7ArrPhRNBMhp29EKea8az3A9AkZlFR9ofO-As7W89smW12nb1Idghe1bE_a3GInclFSNcWEU127sRQ/w199-h200/PapaRatzinger.jpg)
Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies blog [emphasis in the original] | January 2, 2024
As the Catholic world mourns the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, baptized Josef Aloysius Ratzinger (may he rest in peace), his contributions to the Church and her theology will certainly receive fitting attention.
The late Pope's theology was formed decisively during the inter-war period when foment for Ressourcement theology reached its zenith in Europe. Ressourcement as the French epithet suggests entailed a return to the primary sources of Christian faith - the Scriptures, the Fathers, the early Greek and Latin theologians.
This movement was a counterreaction to the renewal of Scholastic philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. The renewal dubbed 'neo-scholasticism' by its opponents represented a legitimate call for a return to St. Thomas as the best viable option to combat the super-heresy of Modernism. This renewal begun by Pope Leo XIII is laid out in profoundly specific action plans in Pope Pius X's encyclical Pascendi Domenici gregis (On the Doctrines of the Modernists):
Quote:In the first place, with regard to studies, We will and ordain that scholastic philosophy be made the basis of the sacred sciences. It goes without saying that if anything is met with among the scholastic doctors which may be regarded as an excess of subtlety, or which is altogether destitute of probability, We have no desire whatever to propose it for the imitation of present generations (Leo XIII. Enc. Aeterni Patris). And let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy We prescribe is that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us, and We, therefore, declare that all the ordinances of Our Predecessor on this subject continue fully in force, and, as far as may be necessary, We do decree anew, and confirm, and ordain that they be by all strictly observed. In seminaries where they may have been neglected let the Bishops impose them and require their observance, and let this apply also to the Superiors of religious institutions. Further let Professors remember that they cannot set St. Thomas aside, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave detriment. (Pascendi gregis #45)
Reaction to Pope Pius X's encyclical was both strong and divisive; it resulted in the excommunication of some of Modernism's chief luminaries (Fr. George Tyrrell, S.J. and Fr. Alfred Loisy) and drove many of its adepts underground. Chafed by the restrictions of neo-scholasticism, some ventured a way around them by appeal to primary sources which when exegeted carefully could circumvent St. Thomas. The movement aimed to find a way to entertain the modern philosophies that sprang up after the French revolution; philosophies that more adequately reflected the juggernaut of the profane sciences and the progress it purported to hail.
The immovable object for the innovators was the twice dogmatically defined prohibition on exegeting Scripture against the consensus of the Church Fathers:
Quote:Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of Christian doctrine, that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one, which Holy Mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture.
In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers."
-Vatican Council, Chapter II, On Revelation
Moreover that same ecumenical council established strict rules about the applications of philosophy:
Quote:7. Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false [34].
8. Furthermore the Church which, together with its apostolic office of teaching, has received the charge of preserving the deposit of faith, has by divine appointment the right and duty of condemning what wrongly passes for knowledge, lest anyone be led astray by philosophy and empty deceit [35].
9. Hence all faithful Christians are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, particularly if they have been condemned by the Church; and furthermore they are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.
(Session III, chapter iv)
Parenthetically, we may remind the reader that historically and traditionally philosophy encompassed a great deal of subject matter - which included natural sciences, metaphysics, and what we now think of as psychology. The adage in the Church: philosophy is the handmaid of theology.
Quote:For in the vast and varied abundance of studies opening before the mind desirous of truth, everybody knows how the old maxim describes theology as so far in front of all others that every science and art should serve it and be to it as handmaidens. (Leo XIII., [i]Lett. ap. In Magna, Dec. 10, 1889).
In his analysis of Modernism, St. Pius X concludes that the primary error in the system flows from its agnostic philosophy, which is condemned in the Council of the Vatican, 1869-1870. Likewise in a similarly urgent encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XII in 1950, Humani generis warns that
Quote:6. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.
Forty-three years earlier St. Pius X had warned against the disastrous effects of evolutionism in his 1907 encyclical:
Quote:To finish with this whole question of faith and its shoots, it remains to be seen, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have to say about their development. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of Evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself, and the penalty of disobedience is death.
...Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and as clearly flows from their principles." (Pasc. 36, 13)
The theory of evolution cannot be reconciled with the early chapters of Genesis without doing violence to Sacred Scripture. While this is disputed by many, the cleavage generally falls into opposing camps, one that says scientific theory must submit to the revealed Word of God, the other that claims Scripture must be reinterpreted in order to accommodate scientific theory. The Church has always taught that true science cannot oppose what God has revealed, "who can neither deceive nor be deceived" (Vatican I).
The Modernists obviously opted for the latter in the borrowing from the protestants a new biblical pseudo-science known alternately as the 'historico-critical' method or form criticism. It is condemned by Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus and by St. Pius X in Pascendi.
The great prophet of evolution was in fact a student of the aforementioned Fr. Tyrrell in England. Teilhard de Chardin's grotesque theology-fiction (epithet ascribed by Etienne Gilson) generated an impressive series of books, tracts, and articles which were suppressed by his own order (Society of Jesus) for their explosive content, forbidding Teilhard to publish or to teach. Yet his ideas caught on rapidly through an underground network of enthusiasts, and for some proposed a promising synthesis of Catholic religion and evolutionary theory. Teilhard's insistence on the primacy of evolution left no room for dissent:
Quote:Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.
- Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution, p. 130.
Obviously in the face of such ideological absolutism, Scholastic philosophy seemed dusty, irrelevant, and overcome by events. The conviction among the partisans of Ressourcement was so intense that Fr. Josef Ratzinger was impelled to say
Quote:I want to emphasize again that I decidedly agree with [Hans] Kung when he makes a clear distinction between Roman theology (taught in the schools of Rome) and the Catholic Faith. To free itself from the constraining fetters of Roman Scholastic Theology represents a duty upon which, in my humble opinion, the possibility of the survival of Catholicism seems to depend.
(Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, from a chapter in the book Zum Problem Unfehlbarkeit – “The Problem of Infallibility”, a series of essays edited by Karl Rahner and published in 1971)
Here the tensions are displayed clearly and openly: For a new and relevant Catholicism to emerge Roman Scholastic theology must be overcome. For Ratzinger, the contestation was existential; the survival of the Catholic faith depended on it.
Fr. Ratzinger, a native German subscribed to the philosophy of Georg W. F. Hegel. This system applies a theory of evolution known as dialectics, whereby a thesis is opposed by it's antithesis, and from the dialectic struggle between the two, a new synthesis emerges which itself becomes a thesis, and the process continues indefinitely. There is little room in Hegel's system for St. Thomas, and at the risk of a gross oversimplification, Hegel's philosophy may be considered the ontology of becoming as opposed St. Thomas' philosophy of being.
The biological-historical theory of evolution proposed by Darwin and embellished with Catholic syntax by Teilhard de Chardin provided a basis for Hegelian philosophy in nature. If evolution were true as the modernists proposed, the entire approach to Catholicism and even the God-Man Christ Jesus required a comprehensive reappraisal, leading the editors of the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes) to conclude:
Quote:"Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis." GS #5)
Fr. Ratzinger remained a convinced evolutionist for his entire life. His effusive praise of Teilhard de Chardin culminated in his characterization of Christ's resurrection as a 'mutation' in his 2006 Easter Sunday sermon. His voluminous writing both as a cleric and a private doctor feature ubiquitous references to Teilhardian concepts such as hominization, complexification, cosmogenesis, and other terminology indigenous to the Jesuit.
As regards creation, Josef Ratzinger ascribed to the documentary hypothesis advanced by the 19th century protestant biblical critics, which proposed that the Scriptures were redacted, edited, complied by various sources conditioned by their own times and circumstances and are not the work of the authors accredited to them by the Church Fathers.
Quote:"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...."
…these words give rise to a certain conflict. They are beautiful and familiar, but are they also true? Everything seems to speak against it, for science has long since disposed of the concepts that we have just now heard -- the idea of a world that is completely comprehensible in terms of space and time, and the idea that creation was built up piece by piece over the course of seven [or six] days. Instead of this we now face measurements that transcend all comprehension.
…Do these words, then, count for anything? In fact a theologian said not long ago that creation has now become an "unreal" concept; that if one is to be intellectually honest one ought to speak no longer of creation but rather of "mutation and selection." Are these words true?
There were times when Israel was so preoccupied with the sufferings or the hopes of its own history, so fastened upon the here and now, that there was hardly any use in its looking back at creation; indeed, it hardly could. The moment when creation became a dominant theme occurred during the Babylonian Exile. It was then that the account that we have just heard -- based, to be sure, on very ancient traditions -- assumed its present form. Israel had lost its land and its temple. According to the mentality of the time this was something incomprehensible, for it meant that the God of Israel was vanquished -- a God whose people, whose land, and whose worshipers could be snatched away from him. A God who could not defend his worshipers and his worship was seen to be, at the time, a weak God. Indeed, he was no God at all; he had abandoned his divinity. And so, being driven out of their own land and being erased from the map was for Israel a terrible trial: Has our God been vanquished, and is our faith void?
Ratzinger, In the Beginning (editor's note: the people of Israel were exiled because of centuries of idolatry and grave sins, and only went into captivity after the Lord God had mercifully sent His prophets to forewarn and admonish them to repent)
As regards liturgy, where he is highly regarded by some Traditionalists as being a major force in preserving the integrity of the Missal of St. Pius V, he writes
Quote:“The history of the liturgy is constantly growing into an ever-new now, and it must also repeatedly prune back a present that has become the past, so that what is essential can reappear with new vigor. The liturgy needs growth and development as well as purgation and refining and in both cases needs to preserve its identity and that purpose without which it would lose the very reason for its existence[emphasis - The Catacombs]. And if that is really the case, then the alternative between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘reformers’ is woefully inadequate to the situation. He who believes that he can only choose between old and new has already traveled a good way along a dead-end street.”
(Cardinal Ratzinger – 1994 sermon on the occasion of the retirement of his brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, as choirmaster of Regensburg Cathedral)
In a 2006 letter written during his Papacy, Pope Benedict XVI with his eventual decease in view, sweetly and gently thanks God, his parents, siblings, and other supporters for his lifelong blessings and sundry advantages. The longest paragraph is reserved for his ruminations about science.
Without analyzing Ratzinger's theological postulations directly, we can at least pause and ask, where does this leave us in reference to Modernism? Is Modernism no longer a threat to Christian revelation? The fact that Josef Ratzinger came to be the Prefect for the Confratenity of the Doctrine of the Faith - in effect, the supreme chief of theological integrity in the Catholic Church - requires us to ask, what then became of Modernism? What is the dogmatic legacy of Pope Benedict XVI? Can the grave warnings issued by St. Pius X and Pope Pius XII in Pascendi and Humani generis be ignored now? Is a philosophy dependent upon evolution now to be considered not only true, but a replacement for St. Thomas' Scholastic philosophy? Is St. Thomas now opposed to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church? Has the philosophy of becoming overtaken the philosophy of being?
Defenders of the late Pontiff will undoubtedly point to his laudable and and inspiring work of preserving the Traditional Roman liturgy. This is indeed a most profoundly important development for the Church; but we must ask, why did he do it?
In The Reform of the Roman Liturgy by Msgr. Klaus Gamber, Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) wrote:
Quote:J. A. Jungmann, one of the truly great liturgists of our time, defined the liturgy of his day, such as it could be understood in the light of historical research, as a "liturgy which is the fruit of development" . . . What happened after the [Second Vatican] Council was something else entirely: in the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries and replaced it, as in a manufacturing process, with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product (produit banal de l'instant). [Introduction by Cardinal Ratzinger to La Reforme Liturgique en question (Le-Barroux: Editions Sainte-Madeleine), 1992, pp. 7-8.]
Could the "organic, living process of growth and development over centuries" be in fact a reference to evolution in the mind of Cardinal Ratzinger? Could his contention be with the process of reform (revolution) which disregarded what he esteemed the proper way (evolution)? Could his insistence on subjecting the reforms that proceeded from the Second Vatican Council to a "hermeneutic of continuity" be a reflection of his Hegelian philosophy? Could his primary concern with evolution have driven his moderation of the more radical reforms of the council?
This essay deliberately avoids any consideration of the man Josef Ratzinger, or his prudential decisions in governing the Catholic Church, many which cheered the heart of this author during his pontificate. The real concern for this essay is the threat Modernism continues to pose to the Catholic Church. If Modernism - absolutely dependent on the theory of evolution - is now enshrined at the highest levels of doctrinal authority in the Church, who were its champions? And how can we claim heroic sanctity and virtue for its supporters?
As with Modernism and its offshoots addressed by Pope Pius XII in Humani generis, it is philosophy which is determinative for the formulation of errors. And errors about nature are the most serious, for they distort our ability to reason. We will conclude with St. Thomas:
Quote:It is absolutely false to maintain, with reference to the truths of our faith, that what we believe regarding the creation is of no consequence, so long as one has an exact conception of God; because an error regarding the nature of creation always gives rise to a false idea concerning God.
—Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Contra Gentiles"
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| Bp. Strickland to visit Medjugorje |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-13-2024, 05:49 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Bishop Strickland announced his visit to the site of the false apparitions of Medjugorje, though no doubt well intentioned.
But that is the concern with many of these Novus Ordo trained clergy, they do not easily discern or have knowledge of how the Church has traditionally reacted to such (false) apparitions.
As a reminder of why Medjugorje is to be avoided, here is John Vennari's excellent conference on those false 'messages.'
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| WEF is ‘Preparing for Disease X’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-12-2024, 06:28 AM - Forum: Health
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WEF is ‘Preparing for Disease X’
![[Image: coronavirus-disease-covid-2019-5060522_1280.jpg]](https://insiderpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/coronavirus-disease-covid-2019-5060522_1280.jpg)
The World Health Organization has issued recent warnings about an unknown “Disease X” that could lead to 20 times more fatalities than COVID-19.
IP | January 11, 2024
Insights from the WEF’s “Preparing for Disease X” session
The session “Preparing for Disease X” is part of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting. The WEF focuses on a long-term strategy for climate, nature, and energy. The session is scheduled for January 17, 2024, from 11:30 to 12:15 CET.
The public speakers for the session are:
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO
- Shyam Bishen, Head, Centre for Health and Healthcare; WEF Geneva
- Roy Jakobs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Royal Philips
- Preetha Reddy, Executive Vice-Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd
- Nisia Trindade Lima, Minister of Health, Ministry of Health of Brazil
- Michel Demaré, Chair of the Board, AstraZeneca Plc
Additionally, in a November 2022 update, the WHO brought together more than 300 scientists to examine evidence related to over 25 virus families and bacteria, including “Disease X.” This term is used to signify an unknown pathogen that could lead to a significant global epidemic.
“Disease X” is a somewhat mysterious term for an illness caused by a currently unknown but serious microbial threat, as ![[Image: what-is-disease-x-how-scientists-are-pre...t-pandemic]](https://www.unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/09/27/what-is-disease-x-how-scientists-are-preparing-for-the-next-pandemic/) . In 2017, the WHO included Disease X in a shortlist of top-priority pathogens for research, alongside well-known diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Ebola.
Disease X and the WHO’s proactive approach to research and development
The COVID-19 pandemic, triggered by a novel coronavirus in 2019, is an example of a Disease X, according to WHO. These diseases are believed to originate from the vast pool of viruses circulating in wildlife. They pose a potential risk to humans by crossing over and causing infections to which people have no immunity.
Moreover, the WHO aims to be well-prepared with research and development (R&D) efforts in advance for an unknown disease, allowing for early response.
In response, the WHO established an R&D Blueprint to fast-track the development of various tools for “priority diseases.” The current list includes diseases like COVID-19, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola virus disease, and Marburg virus disease. Lassa fever, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), SARS, Nipah and henipaviral diseases, Rift Valley fever, and Zika are also on the list.
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