Rome is Burning while the Pope is Fiddling (A Reply to Carl Olson and Envoy Magazine)

In his December 11th column, Patrick Buchanan wrote about the decline of Catholicism in the Church since Vatican II, based on statistics collected by Kenneth C. Jones of St. Louis. Among the findings: dramatic decreases in Mass attendance, an incredible loss of faith in the Real Presence, gigantic drops in the number of seminarians, priests, and religious, and a sky-rocketing increase in marriage annulments.

In response to Buchanan's article, Carl E. Olson from Envoy Magazine countered with the typical Neo-Catholic line that Buchanan and other traditionalists have simply "misunderstood" Vatican II, that the council has not even been fully "implemented" yet, and that blaming the council is not the solution. I believed this for a while myself and parroted exactly that, until one day I could simply no longer deny the obvious.

Concerning the sad statistics of post-Vatican II Catholicism, Olson asks: "Who is the 'jury'?" -As if the evidence had anything to do with who evaluates it. I mean, Jones reported objective figures, and they are really not new. In fact, the non-traditionalist book What Went Wrong With Vatican II by Ralph McInerny (Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1998) itself mentions the drastic decline of Catholicism after the Council (pp. 10-13). So the statistics are virtually beyond dispute.

But, no matter. With the typical Neo-Catholic "head-in-the-sand" approach, Olson says: "I don't know which Vatican II Mr. Buchanan is talking about, but it doesn't sound like the one whose documents I've read, the one praised by Pope John Paul II, and the one that really, in so many ways, has not even been implemented yet."

Ah, of course. Not implemented yet! That's it. For the last 37 years, we've heard nothing other than "great renewal" and "new springtime" and "in accordance with the directives of the Second Vatican Council," ad nauseam, and yet when the statistics show that it is precisely since this "great renewal" has taken over that Catholicism is virtually unrecognizable when compared to its former splendor and glory, then all of a sudden it's because Vatican II's vision has not yet been "fully realized"! Well, let me tell you this: if the fruits we have seen so far are only the beginning of a "fuller implementation," then I dare not imagine what the future holds!

But, let's take Mr. Olson at his word. He said that "in so many ways, [Vatican II] has not even been implemented yet." Ah, ok. Since that is true "in so many ways," surely Mr. Olson won't have a problem giving us a few examples. So, tell us, Mr. Olson: just what of Vatican II has not yet been implemented? Let's see if Mr. Olson and the Envoy crowd actually have some substance behind their rhetoric.

But I wonder… How much longer will it take before people will wake up and finally recognize the real culprit? Olson and the other Neo-Catholics act like a doctor who needs to treat a patient with leprosy but who insistently refuses to make the correct diagnosis, insisting the patient is sick with angina. Fingers, toes, and ears have already fallen off, and as people worriedly point out to him that they are certain that the patient has leprosy, not angina, the doctor replies that the angina shot he gave him just hasn't shown effect yet!

I mean, come on, it's not like we're pointing to Vatican II as the cause of a temperature decline in South Carolina. For instance, we're saying that if you take the Holy Mass and let Masons and modernists and Protestants pervert it, throwing out virtually everything that smacks of Real Presence and propitiatory Sacrifice, of the Communion of Saints, sin, penance, hell, and purgatory, then there is a good reason to believe that this might have something to do with the fact that so many "Catholics" nowadays who have been going to this mass no longer believe in the Real Presence, the Mass as a propitiatory Sacrifice, intercession of the saints, sin, penance, hell, and purgatory. Is this really so far-fetched?

But all common sense and rationality ebbs away with the Neo-Catholics when using these gifts would result in disagreement with something Pope John Paul II or Paul VI have approved. And that's why we find the people at Envoy, EWTN, and similar organizations engaging in the most ludicrous hermeneutical gymnastics when it comes to facing up to scandal after scandal in the postconciliar church.

Next, Olson asks: "I wonder if Mr. Buchanan would say the Holy Spirit 'blundered' in bringing about Vatican II. If so, can we surmise that Mr. Buchanan is no longer a loyal Catholic?"

Last time I checked, Pope John XXIII brought about Vatican II, not the Holy Spirit. But in the Neo-Catholic mind, everything the Pope does is necessarily inspired by the Holy Spirit (of course they won't admit this in theory), and so they consider it blasphemy to suggest that Pope John's idea of calling Vatican II wasn't the greatest possible idea of the twentieth century. But this isn't Catholicism. This is Neo-Catholicism.

No Catholic is bound to believe (nor may he believe) that whenever a Pope calls a council, it's necessarily a good idea. But the Neo-Catholic is quick to call people who disagree with this "disloyal." They have lost the sense of the True Faith. They have, in effect, started to worship the Pope. Their intentions are noble, no doubt, but intentions don't suffice.

The Holy Spirit didn't "blunder" in calling the council, as the Holy Spirit was not involved in it. The only thing the Holy Spirit did was make sure that nothing at Vatican II would be endowed with the note of infallibility. And this job He did very well!

Olson continues: "Regardless, portraying Vatican II as an attempted reconciliation of Catholicism and modernity is ridiculous and is historical revisionism…." That's simply not true. In Vatican II, the French Revolution caught up with the Church. The two met, and the result was disastrous. This is easily discernible from the texts of the council, and not surprising if we consider just who composed those texts. Many, if not most, of the so-called "experts" (periti) at Vatican II were modernists: Rahner, Küng, Murray, Ratzinger, von Balthasar, Schillebeeckx, Congar, de Lubac, etc. But don't take my word for it. None other than Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, bascially the "No. 2 man" in the Vatican, admitted: "The text [of the Vatican II constitution Gaudium Et Spes] represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789" (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987], p. 382; emphasis added)! So there you have it! The top "defender of orthodoxy," as he is supposed to be, himself admits that at least one major document of Vatican II is an attempt to reconcile Catholicism with the French Revolution!

The book The Rhine Flows into the Tiber by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen (Rockford: TAN, 1985) gives a very accurate picture of just how the modernists dominated the Council, and of course it is not astonishing by any stretch of the imagination that modernism should have found its way into the documents. Gaudium et Spes, Nostra Aetate, Dignitatis Humanae, and Unitatis Redintegratio are full of the material condemned by the great anti-modernist Popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII. And that is what Olson ascribes to the Holy Spirit, who, he says, "is found in full strength in the documents produced by the Council Fathers"!

Further, Pope John XXIII said that he wanted to open the Church to the modern world. While perhaps what he meant was that he wanted the Church to "let out" the Gospel into the modern world, what he was understood as saying and what happened afterwards was that the modern world penetrated the Church. No wonder Pope Paul VI said in 1972, referring to the aftermath of Vatican II, that "the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God"! History testifies unambiguously to the traditionalist position. It is there for anyone who is willing to read it.

Olson continues his defense of Vatican II: "Opening the doors to a dialogue of truth is far different from what Mr. Buchanan describes." Pardon me? A dialogue of truth? Just what is that? If it's new and the Church didn't have it for over 1,900 years, then why do we need it now with Vatican II? And if it's not new but simply refers to evangelization which the Church has always engaged in, then how can you say that Vatican II "opened the doors" for it?

One of the big watchwords of Vatican II is "dialogue." It has, for all intents and purposes, replaced not only the term "conversion" but even the very notion of it. You see, in the Vatican II era, we don't "convert" people anymore. We "dialogue" with them.

Yes, isn't it wonderful that we're finally engaging in dialogue? Isn't is wonderful that Vatican II finally discovered what the Church for 1,900 years missed? And again, if the new "dialogue" of Vatican II isn't novel, then why was Vatican II needed to "open the doors" to it??

Yet, we traditionalists are merely called "angry, reactionary, and pessimistic." You know what? Darn right! You bet we're angry! We're very angry at what the innovators have done to the Church! If you want to call that "reactionary," I don't care. Ah, and just because we don't think that the endless wrecking of the Holy Mass, the 98% decrease of seminarians, the huge drop in priests and religious, and the humongous decline in belief in essential Church teachings herald a "new springtime," we are "pessimistic." One word to that: rhetoric. That's all it is, folks: pure and simple rhetoric from the Neo-Catholic side. It's a good tactic to avoid having to answer our actual arguments.

Olson says: "Some older Catholics I have spoken to over the years acknowledge that the problems which finally erupted in the late 60s and early 70s were in existence long before Vatican II." A few examples would have helped, but as a reminder, the modernist infiltration began in the 1800's, and it temporarily went into hiding during and after the pontificate of St. Pius X. So, it is not much of a surprise to hear that the Church had problems before Vatican II already. Of course. But not until Vatican II did the Church declare that these problems really weren't problems but part of some "great renewal"!

Ah, but Olson wonders: "Why is post-Vatican II Catholicism thriving in other parts of the world, especially in sections of Asia and Africa?" Well, just what is supposed to have happened there? Care to elaborate? In poor countries, joining a seminary is one way to deal with your poverty. Don't think for a minute that Vatican II somehow let these people discover Catholicism.

Of course, we traditionalists merely combine "nostalgia, anger, and a pile of statistics," as Olson says. But then he hasn't read such books as The Great Façade by Christopher Ferrara and Thomas Woods, Jr., which document the reasons why traditionalists are traditionalists. Don't take a single article by Pat Buchanan which seeks to vindicate the traditionalist position merely on statistical grounds as a full-fledged justification of traditionalism. Obviously, this was not Buchanan's goal. But if Olson wishes to reply to The Great Façade and books like it, I'm sure all the traditionalist apologists would be all ears. In fact, I challenge Olson and his colleagues to deal with the evidence presented in The Great Façade!

Olson continues: "This is why our Holy Father and Cardinal Ratzinger continue to urge Catholics to read the documents of the Council, to truly examine what was written and said under the guidance of the Holy Spirit." Yeah, it must be quite a "springtime" indeed if it takes over 40 years to figure out just what the Council said-and apparently the bishops themselves can't do it; they seem to need the assistance of the laity.

Folks, the sad state of the Catholic Church since Vatican II is like abortion: "The sooner you believe it, the sooner we can end it." Only when more and more people realize, and realize quickly, what is really the problem, can we finally come to a resolution. But finally smashing that picture of "Vatican II the Great Council" hurts, and that's why it takes so long for many Neo-Catholic apologists to finally admit that Vatican II was a disaster. Admitting this means that they were wrong for so long. It means that much of what they have written and said ought to be recalled, withdrawn, and taken back. Yes, that hurts, but this step is absolutely necessary, and instead of finally seeing and admitting the obvious, they instead try to twist, explain, and reinterpret as much as they can, ending up defending the most horrifying blasphemies and scandals, such as what happened at Assisi. But already in 1902, Pope Leo XIII condemned the idea of a new orientation for the Church: "It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new social vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilization, and many other things of the same kind" (Pope Leo XIII, Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, January 27, 1902).

The state of the Church is growing seriously worse by the day, and 2002 was a very good example of that. It started with the second Assisi gathering in January, in which Catholic churches and facilities were desecrated in order to facilitate the prayers for "peace" by false religions to their idols and demons. Now, at the end of 2002, John Paul II laments that we've only had wars and terrorism. Is anyone surprised? The Pope had encouraged the infidels and heretics and schismatics of this world to pray to their false gods. This is what he said:

Let us proceed! Although in different places and in different rites, let us proclaim to the human family the sure reasons for our hope.

Can you believe this? The Animists, Voodoo Satanists, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, etc., are here claimed to have a "reason for [their] hope"! But we know that these people, unless and until they abjure their heresies, repent of their wicked religions, and convert from their errors to Christ Jesus our Lord and His Holy Catholic Church, have NO hope, much less a reason for hope. In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul told them to remember "that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the conversation of Israel and strangers to the testament, having no hope of the promise and without God in this world" (Eph 2:12; emphasis added); and again: "We will not have you ignorant brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again: even so them who have slept through Jesus, will God bring with him" (1 Thess 4:12-13[13-14]).

in so many ways, has not even been implemented yet.

The funny thing is that this is what the Soviets kept saying as their economy kept collapsing: "as soon as we can fully implement communism, this will be the land of milk and honey." We all know what happened there...

The Neo-Caths have been feeding this line almost as long as the Soviets did: "our new system is the absolute best, unfortunately it is not implemented fully, so please disregard all negative evidence all around you. As soon as we fully implement it, the negatives you see around you that the implementation process produced will disappear."

This is kind of like an alcoholic drinking to get sober.

<St Pius X in his first Encyclical which served also as the blueprint of his pontificate:

"He who considers these things is entitled to fear that such a perversion of minds might represent the beginning of those evils foretold for the end of time, forming as it were, their stepping stone on to the earth, and that the Son of Perdition, of whom the Apostle speaks, might already be coming amongst us. For religion is being attacked with the greatest boldness and vigour, the dogmas of the Faith are being battered, and no effort is spared to tear asunder man's link with the divine. Moreover – and this is what the same Apostle tells us is typical of Antichrist – man in his unspeakable temerity is usurping the place of the Creator, and placing himself above all that bears the name of God. Powerless to extinguish within himself entirely the concept of God, he yet shakes off the yoke of His majesty and dedicates to himself a temple in the form of the visible world, where he receives the homage of his own kind...

"That is why all our efforts must be directed towards bringing mankind back under the rule of Christ. To achieve the result of Our hopes, it is vital to spare no efforts in uprooting entirely this monstrous iniquity peculiar to the times we live in, which leads man to set himself up in place of God." (E Supremi Apostolatus, 4 October 1903)

Pope Paul VI - a blasphemous parody of the HYMN TO CHRIST THE KING OF THE AGES (Angelus, 7 February 1971):

"Honour to Man!

"Honour to his thought; honour to his scientific knowledge;

"Honour to his technical skill; honour to his work;

"Honour to human endurance;

"Honour to that combination of scientific activity and organisation by which man, unlike the other animals, can invest his spirit and his manual dexterity with instruments of conquest;

"HONOUR TO MAN, KING OF THE EARTH, AND TODAY PRINCE OF THE HEAVENS!"...

Pope Paul VI:

"Man is both giant and divine, in his origin and his destiny. Honour, therefore, to man, honour to his dignity, to his spirit, to his life." (13 July 1969)

Michael S Rose's new book as well as his previous excellent work points the "finger" of blame, not at VAT II but at the liberal's use of " in the intent of VAT II " phraseology to ram their mindless new age and pro-secular version of what the Chruch should be.

The recent series on EWTN-" the documents of VATICAN II ", show the huge gulf between what was actually published, and what was done by the liberal clergy to change the Church in their image.

No more 1st Confession before 1st Communion in their churches ( even though it is still required ), "centering prayer meetings", butt-dropping Baptisms instead of water being poured over the head, jokes told by the Priest during Mass- none of this was from VAT II.

The horrific desecration of the church buildings themselves came from the liberals wanting to follow a ART & Architecture book that was never approved by the Church Bishops ( the removal of the Tabernacle from the Sanctuary into a small room, often hidden from sight, the removal of kneelers, etc ) and the singing of "We are god" songs instead of the proper "You are God" hymns.

Sure there is a lot to like about the older Tridentine Mass, but Vat II never meant to CHANGE the MASS itself, onnly the language used in it. Most people realize that the holding hands part is more of a "we are god" new age movement and a large distraction from the most important part of the Mass-the Consecration. But as long as there are "Liturgists" running the ops, and defrocked nuns and former priests in the Church councils running the Parishes-they above all do not want to know the real documents of VAT II.

It's amazing how many similarities there are. And didn't Mary tell the children at Fatima, "Russia will spread her errors throughout the world."? It took over 70 years for the Russian communists to fall. Hopefully the revolution in the Church will not last any longer.

Where the hell are you guys on all the culture wars threads and general "Catholicism versus the world" apologetics threads?

"Traditionalism" is so obsessed with this, they have completely abandoned the culture wars to the pagan hoards. I rarely if ever see the usual schismatic suspects engaging the culture of death advocates on this Forum, preferring instead to remain here on their feverish high fiving schismatic threads.

I've given you the benefit of the doubt far too long. Your efforts give aid and comfort to the enemy, if for no other reason that your obsessions take you away from real apostolic endeavors.

Take me off your ping list.

The evidence is in. Do you need another forty years of disasters? How about another forty after that? We've had the renewal, and the renewal of the renewal, and now here comes the renewal of the renewal of the renewal. Remember the Jubilee Year? It fizzled. Remember 'Catch the Spirit'? They didn't.

Do you think orthodox young men entering the Novus Ordo priesthood will change anything once they've been processed through modernist seminaries? Not at all. In the end you will still have an ersatz Catholicism which cannot preach the Gospel nor bring souls to salvation by means of the sacred.

This deserves to be highlighted, and repeated:

Navel-gazing is a popular sport among ultra-trads and schismatics.

It's all about ME, after all. They can't be bothered with the rabble outside their doors.

This one really lays it on the line. Mario Dirksen is a very young guy who was not even raised in a traditional family. With young people like him, maybe there is hope after all.

He's bought the John Birch Society line that the Masons are behind the destruction of the liturgy.

Young people like him are regularly infected with conspiracy theories.

His "knowledge" of the pre-Vatican II Church is limited to what he reads in The Remnant and Latin Mass Magazine.

He just as well be watching Leave it to Beaver.

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