THE "LIVING TRADITION" OF THE NEO-MODERNISTS

SSPX ^ | May 19, 1995 | Bishop Tissier de Mallerais

[Land of the Irish]

THE "LIVING TRADITION" OF THE NEO-MODERNISTS

What about the evolutionary concept of the so-called "living tradition" of the Conciliar Church. What do the modernists mean by this term? —They mean a non-homogeneous evolution, hence, a change. By the term "living tradition," the Conciliar Church does not mean an inviolate transmission of a deposit which one lives and which progresses in a homogeneous fashion through explanation. It is not that at all! What is it then? —It is an evolutive tradition! —evolutive via a twofold process:

1. The assimilation of elements foreign to the revealed deposit. (One is going to add exterior elements to the revealed deposit —extraneous elements.) 2. By regression from the explicit to the ambiguous, from the clear to the equivocal.

Regarding the second point, you have a clear illustration of this regression from the explicit to the ambiguous in the New Mass. Indeed the many mixed doctrinal declarations (catholico-protestant and/ or catholico-orthodox) of recent years produce some ambiguous texts where truth and error blend together under the sign of equivocation.

Let's talk about the first process of the evolution of tradition as understood by modernists, that is, the assimilation of extraneous elements into the revealed deposit. Vatican Council II, in a passage perhaps too little understood, makes a declaration of intention:

"The Council intends above all to judge by this light [of the Faith] the values most highly esteemed by our contemporaries, and to link them again to their divine source (Gaudium et Spes, #11 [emphasis added])."

What are those values esteemed by our contemporaries? ...Roger Aubert, a priest-precursor of the council, will tell us that they are democracy and freedom. It is a case then of introducing them into the doctrine of the Church, by the re-linking of these values "to their divine source." The Council continues:

"In fact, these values [of our contemporaries], to extent that they originate in human nature, which is a gift of God, are very good, but the corruption of the human heart often turns them from the requisite order, and that is why they need to be purified."

So, if one "purifies" these values of "liberty," of "democracy," of "the rights of man," etc, they are very good and can be assimilated into Catholic doctrine. This is to say that the new profane "dogmas" of the French Revolution —liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, the rights of man, all that —must be assimilated by Catholic doctrine. One is going to find religious liberty, freedom of conscience, ideological pluralism in the State, and the free concurrence of ideologies (as proclaimed by Pope John Paul II when he spoke at Strasbourg to the European Parliament l in letting it be understood that Communism is ultimately a chance for the Church, a competition between two rival ideologies, etc.).

This assimilation of dubious elements, completely foreign to revelation, is an alienating hodge-podge and thus an execration which profanes the deposit of the Faith and, moreover, has been condemned by the popes. Here is the authorised commentary on Gaudium et Spes (#11), that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger proposes:

"The problem of the 1960s was to acquire the better of the values drawn from two centuries of "liberal" culture. There are in fact some values which, although born outside the Church, can find their place purified and corrected in its vision of the world. This is what has been done.2"

Thus, under the pretext that Tradition and divine Revelation should be adaptable to the contemporary mentality, they want to introduce into Catholic doctrine these contemporary ideas, these false principles of the contemporary spirit, which is to say the liberal, revolutionary spirit.

Now that which Vatican II says in Gaudium et Spes (#11), one finds in the works of Cardinal Congar (deceased), and also in those of Roger Aubert, a specialist in Church history .Yves Congar and Roger Aubert were writing in that vein around 1950, 15 years before Gaudium et Spes. They are truly the precursors of the Council. Gaudium et Spes ( #11 ) is an implicit citation of Fr. Congar:

"The progressivists of the 19th century [e.g., Fr. Felicite-Robert de Lamennais, the French liberal hero of the 19th century] too often took, just as they stood, ideas born in another and often hostile world, ideas still laden with a hostile spirit, and tried to introduce them into Christianity-thinking, that is, to "baptise" them Reconciling the Church with a positive modern world [which was ruled upon and condemned in its entirety by the Syllabus 1864] could not be done by introducing the ideas of the modern world into the Church just as they stood. That required a work in depth by which the permanent principles of Catholicism would take a new development by assimilating, after extracting and purifying as necessary , the valid contributions of that modern world.3"

Note that this last sentence will be repeated exactly in Gaudium et Spes (#11)!... It is thus a development of doctrine by assimilation of liberal ideas; an assimilation absolutely inadmissible, absolutely impossible.

Secondly, it is an illusion to wish to "extract and purify" these ideas of the modern world. The popes have condemned them purely and simply. They did not seek to "purify" them. But Yves Congar is mightier than all those popes! ? ...than Pius VI, Pius VII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII and Saint Pius X who have condemned these errors without appeal.

In 1951, Church historian Fr. Roger Aubert takes up the Congarian thesis of purification and assimilation:

"The collaborators of I’Avenir [the newspaper of De Lamennais] had not taken sufficient care in rethinking the principles which were going to permit them, by means of the necessary discernments and purifications, to assimilate into Christianity the ideas of democracy and liberty, which, born outside of the Church, had developed in a spirit hostile to it.4"

And so you see how modernists use, the tactic of copying one another in order to propagandize their false doctrine. Yet, despite this false credibility, the Church can never rectify and assimilate elements foreign to Her and condemned by Her.

But a disciple of Fr. Congar and of Roger Aubert, Fr. Bernard Sesboue, SJ ., recycles the Congarian thesis and dresses it up as a critique, explicit this time, of the popes of the 19th century:

"The drama of those pontifical declarations is that they had not discerned the element of Christian truth which lay hidden in demands that appeared at that time as attacks against religion and as a revolt against the rights of God. ...Thus the ideal which was signified by "the rights of man" was blocked off for a long time because men did not succeed in recognising there the distant heritage of the Gospel.5"

The popes did not lack discernment! They condemned those errors. Those errors were condemned and remain condemned. The popes have declared these pseudo-values incapable of being assimilated into Catholic doctrine.6 To claim that these popes had not known how to make the distinction, to assert that the condemnation of liberal "values" is therefore a mistake, is an act of impiety against these popes; it is an injustice; it is a lie. The popes have done their duty, with the assistance of the Holy Ghost. They have vigorously excluded any attempt at reconciliation between the Church and the principles of the Revolution. They have been genuine witnesses of Tradition, witnesses of a Tradition which lives because it combats.

[Land of the Irish]

This is just an excerpt from the bishop's discourse on "The True Notion of Tradition".

[Land of the Irish]

Ping

[Cleburne]

Why must the ideas of 'the rights of men' and such be ambivilent to the Church? Certainly, no one should desire to make us of the godless doctrines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; but why discard ideas that they hijacked from the Faith? The Church alone possesses the capacity to be truly liberal; only the followers of Christ are true revolutionaries. As G.K. Chesterton put it in Orthodoxy, the Christian faith sees heaven in revolt against hell. Only in Christ is there any chance of equality of men; only in Christ is there true liberty.

However, I would say that it is silly to 'purify' 'contemporary doctrines'; for these are usually only figments and corruptions of reality. But I need only go to St. Paul to find equality; I read one of the finest defenses of human rights- for young and old- in an epistle by St. Cyprian. Why let the leftists and anti-Christians pretend to own ideals that are the rightful property of the Christian faith?

Please pardon me if I am terribly off-base with my interpretation of the article. I am not Roman Catholic, so I don't proffess to have any particular understanding of the current crisises; perhaps there is some point which I am missing. Mainly I wanted to put in a plug for Chesterton; I am reading through Orthodoxy, and it is wonderful.

[RaginCajunTrad]

The modernists also talk about the "living Bible" and the secular modernists talk about the "living Constitution".

What a crock! It's just an excuse to change with the culture and in the secular world, advance a political agenda. We know in the Catholic world that the "living" Tradition people have an agenda.

[harbingr]

You are well-read and wise beyond your age...

GK Chesterton, 'the Colossal Genius'...definitive & comprehensive

[sinkspur]

We know in the Catholic world that the "living" Tradition people have an agenda.

Many of the "living Tradition" adherents are simply updating the language that is used to discuss Catholic teaching.

Much of the stilted, condemnatory, anathematizing has been replaced with attempts to positively share the message of Christ not only with Catholics, but with everyone else as well.

When eyes glaze over, we've got to do a better job of explaining our Faith to others Too often we write them off, when all we really need to do is to change the language.

[TradicalRC]

Good article. Of course, you WILL need to don your flame-proof jumpsuit. The post is from that horrible, evil SSPX. And you know that unless you blindly defend everything the Catholic Church has done with the Pope's Imprimatur since Vatican II, you simply canNOT be a good Catholic.

The bishop makes a salient point in that trying to reconcile modernism to the Church is the equivalent of trying to reconcile the spirit of anti-Christ to the Holy Spirit.
The various and sundry ideologies of the enlightenment are founded in an atheistic world-view. Previous popes had a better sense of the logic of this clash between ideology and theology.
The biblical equivalent of this clash is seen in that social justice ideologue, Judas and the Incarnate God Jesus. Like all progressive-minded folk Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss.
As for democracy, the crowd will always choose Barabbas.

[TradicalRC]

It is precisely that everything is positive approach which is stilted and lacks both salt(no flavor) and light(does not adequately deal with sin and suffering).

Kumbaya, deacon.

[sinkspur]

When I read the Catechsim of the Council of Trent, it's very easy to understand.

Well, I beg to differ. But, that's at the heart of the disagreement.

[Catholicguy]

Lefebvre "The current state of the papacy renders insignificant the difficulties over jurisdiction, disobedience and apostolicity, because these notions suppose the reign of a pope Catholic in his faith and government. Without entering into consideration of the consequences of an heretical, schismatic or non-existent pope, which would lead to interminable theoretical discussions, in conscience could we not and ought we not, after the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Carton Law which clearly affirms the new Church, and after his scandalous declarations concerning Luther, now affirm that Pope John Paul II is not Catholic? We say no more, but we say no less. We had waited for the measure to become full, and it is so henceforth."

The Chair of Peter and the positions of authority in Rome are occupied by anti-Christs." -- Dossier sur les Consécrations Episcopales, August 28th, 1987, Archbishop Lefebvre

Isn't the gentleman Bishop Mallerais, consecrated by Lefebvre, now a Sedevacantist?

Do you really accept these guys as authoritative? (he asked rhetorically?) Do YOU think the Pope is an AntiChrist?

[Land of the Irish]

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais is not, nor ever has been a sedevacantist.

But facts like that don't seem to stop you from spewing your calumnies against your perceived enemies of the Catholic church.

Your "enemies" are not necessarily Holy Mother Church's enemies.

[Catholicguy]

I am sorry. Thanks for the correction. My apologies. I remember one of the Bishops or one of the priests he consecrated has since gone Sede but obviously it wasn't B.M.

Anyone who starts a schism is our common enemy - at least that used to be Tradition.