A Tale of Two Schisms

A Tale of Two Schisms

One schism is illusory, and harms no one, while the other is quite real and deadly. Guess which one the neo-Catholics condemn?

Dr. Thomas Woods and I are putting the finishing touches on a book defending the traditionalist position against attacks from within the neo-Catholic (a.k.a. "conservative" Catholic) current of the Church that has arisen since the Second Vatican Council. One of the points we make in the book is that neo-Catholicism is a defense of novelty rather than Catholic doctrine as such. That is why when neo-Catholics claim that traditionalists "dissent from the living Magisterium" or "reject Vatican II" they are never able to formulate their accusation in terms of Catholic doctrine.

An amusing example of this problem is Peter Vere's recent article in The Wanderer wherein this proud possessor of a freshly-minted canon law degree imperiously informs us as follows: "I conclude a diocesan bishop may declare as schismatic an author who publicly resists the Second Vatican Council…"¹ How exactly does one "resist" the Second Vatican Council? Did the Council generate some kind of ecclesiastical forcefield to which Catholics must submit, as if to the ministrations of a hypnotist? What teaching of Vatican II does Vere claim traditionalists are "resisting"? What does Vatican II require Catholics to believe which they had not always believed before the Council? The answer is nothing, of course. What traditionalists have prescinded from are novel practices, notions, attitudes and ecclesial policies of the post-conciliar epoch, none of which are properly the objects of Catholic faith.

For example, there is the "ecumenical venture," an ill-defined and hitherto unknown ecclesial policy in which no Catholic can be compelled to believe as if it were an article of faith. Self-appointed authorities like Vere know so little about the subject that they are unaware of Pope John Paul's own teaching that traditionalist objections to the ecumenical venture have their place in the Church, even if the Pope does not agree with those objections. As His Holiness observed in his encyclical Redemptor Hominis (1979):

There are people who in the face of the difficulties or because they consider that the first ecumenical endeavors have brought negative results would have liked to turn back. Some even express the opinion that these efforts are harmful to the cause of the Gospel, are leading to a further rupture in the Church, are causing confusion of ideas in questions of faith and morals and are ending up with a specific indifferentism. It is perhaps a good thing that the spokesmen for these opinions should express their fears.

But not according to the eminent Mr. Vere! If demagogic traditionalist-bashers like Vere would only think about it for a moment, they would realize that it is quite impossible for a Catholic to "dissent" from such things as the "ecumenical venture" in the sense of being unfaithful to binding Catholic teaching. Are traditionalists less than Catholic because they strenuously object to and refuse to participate in common prayer with pro-abortion Protestant ministers or prayer meetings with rabbis, muftis and shamans, as the Pope has done? Obviously, this kind of activity can never be imposed upon Catholics as an obligation of their religion. The Holy Ghost would not allow it.

Because they are essentially defenders of novelty, the neo-Catholics are more or less practical liberals, objectively speaking, whether or not individual members of the neo-Catholic movement subjectively understand this. Not even the neo-Catholics can genuinely deny that Saint Pius X would have blasted the innovations they have swallowed without a whimper of protest. The thing speaks for itself.

Being liberals of a kind, neo-Catholics evince the inconsistency that marks all forms of liberal thought in the socio-political realm. The socio-political liberal is inconsistent because his thinking is not axiological (based on first principles) but rather positivistic, basing its conclusions upon naked human will as expressed in the reigning Zeitgeist. The neo-Catholic is to some extent an ecclesial positivist, who inconsistently defends today precisely what he condemned yesterday - altar girls and common prayer with heretics, for example - simply because the post-conciliar Zeitgeist has allowed such innovations to exist.

One of the inconsistencies of socio-political liberalism is its tendency to demonize figures of the Right, such as Joseph McCarthy, while turning a blind eye toward, and even praising, certifiable demons of the Left, such as Mao Tse-tung, whom the liberal press lionized as an "agrarian reformer." There is an analog of this particular liberal inconsistency within the Catholic Church today. I mean the absurd disparity between the neo-Catholic approach to the so-called schism of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and the truly manifest schism of the communist-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) in Red China.

The Putative Lefebvre Schism

On June 30, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without a papal mandate - an offense which, under Canon 1382, carries the penalty of excommunication, subject to various excuses from culpability under Canons 1321-23. One of these excuses is that the offender acted out of necessity or to avoid grave inconvenience. Another is that the offender sincerely believed, however mistakenly, that his action was justified and he was thus not subjectively culpable for the offense. Given the current chaotic state of the Church, Lefebvre argued that his action was necessary to preserve some semblance of Catholic tradition. I do not take up that defense here, but merely note three things:

First, that the defense of necessity was raised by the Archbishop, and that, right or wrong, His Eminence no doubt acted with a good intention, as envisioned by Canons 1321 and 1323.
Second, the penalty for illicit episcopal consecrations under Canon 1381 is latae sententiae - that is, automatic and without need of a formal declaration by ecclesiastical authority. (Canon 1331) For one thing, the declared penalty cannot be remitted by a confessor in situations of urgency, outside of the danger of death. (Canon 1357)
Third, the 1983 Code of Canon law nowhere provides that an illicit episcopal consecration constitutes in itself the canonical crime of schism. In fact, Cardinal Castillo Lara, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of Canon Law, admitted to La Reppublica that "The act of consecrating a bishop (without a papal mandate) is not in itself a schismatic act…"² (Cardinal Lara claimed that Lefebvre was guilty of schism before the 1988 consecrations, for which claim he offered not the slightest proof.)

As we know, the Vatican's reaction to the Lefebvre consecrations was immediate: On July 2, 1988, only two days later, the Pope issued his motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, which declares that "Archbishop Lefebvre and the priests Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta have incurred the grave penalty of excommunication envisaged by ecclesiastical law." The motu proprio went even further than what the cited canon provides, declaring that "such disobedience - which implies in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy - constitutes a schismatic act." Yet the canonical admonition sent to Lefebvre before the consecrations had contained no indication that his action would be deemed schismatic, and the only possible penalty cited was that of latae sententiae excommunication. The result was rather like being charged with only one offense, but then convicted of two. The motu proprio also warns that "formal adherence to the schism is a grave offense against God and carries the penalty of excommunication decreed by the church's law." But the term "formal adherence" is nowhere defined. Later, however, the Vatican made it clear in particular decisions that mere attendance at an SSPX chapel in Arizona is not an act of schism, nor even recourse to an SSPX bishop for the sacrament of Confirmation at an independent chapel in Hawaii.³

The Neo-Catholics Helpfully Expand the Penalty

While the motu proprio applied the excommunication and the delict of schism by name only to Lefebvre and the four priests he consecrated, since then, true to form, neo-Catholic commentators at EWTN, The Wanderer and elsewhere have with great alacrity denounced as "schismatic" not only Lefebvre and the four bishops he consecrated, but all the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X, any member of the faithful who frequents their chapels, and anyone who defends Lefebvre's actions. The neo-Catholics have even coined the terms "Lefebvrist" and "Lefebvrism" to stigmatize "extreme traditionalists" in general.

Thus, in the case of Lefebvre we have the following: an immediate declaration of excommunication, and, going beyond what the express terms of the Church's law provide, the declaration of a schism; the unauthorized extension of those delicts by neo-Catholic organ to an entire class of Catholics who are not at all embraced in the original motu proprio; and, for good measure, the demonization of Archbishop Lefebvre and all his followers and sympathizers. Yet there is no question that those whom the neo-Catholics denounce as "Lefebvrists" - including the bishops, priests and laity actually affiliated with SSPX - possess the Catholic faith and follow the moral teaching of the Church, as even Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos admitted in the course of the recent negotiations toward "regularization" of the SSPX. Further, "Lefebvrist" priests and bishops profess their loyalty to John Paul II and pray for him at every Mass, along with the local ordinary.

In fact, the Vatican's private approach to SSPX would indicate that the "Lefebvre schism" is illusory, and is really nothing more than an internal disciplinary problem of the Church. For example, as Cardinal Cassidy admitted in a letter of March 25, 1994, the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity "is not concerned with the Society of Saint Pius X. The situation of the members of this Society is an internal matter of the Catholic Church. The Society is not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the meaning used in the Directory."

The Schism of the "Catholic Patriotic Association" of China

Fast forward to January 6, 2000. On that date the Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) illicitly consecrated five bishops -- one more than Lefebvre - without a papal mandate. The Red Chinese regime created the CPA in 1957 to replace the Roman Catholic Church in China, which it declared illegal and drove underground, where loyal Chinese Catholics have been forced to worship ever since, following the example of their spiritual father, the great martyr Cardinal Ignatius Kung. Including the five bishops illicitly consecrated on January 6, 2000, since 1957 the CPA has illicitly consecrated one hundred bishops without a papal mandate. What is more, unlike the four SSPX bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, the CPA bishops dare to assert territorial jurisdiction over sees from which the communists drove the legitimate bishops of the Catholic Church.

The CPA constitution requires express disavowal of allegiance to the Roman Pontiff. As the Kung Foundation points out: "The Patriotic Association's own fundamental and explicit principle is autonomy from the Pope's administrative, legislative, and judicial authority" - the very definition of schism under Canon 751. By comparison, the SSPX professes its acceptance of papal authority and has entered into papally-ordered negotiations for regularization as an apostolic administration directly under the Holy Father. (As Cardinal Hoyos told the press, Bishop Fellay said to him that "when the Pope calls we run.") And while there is no question that Archbishop Lefebvre's acts constituted disobedience to a particular papal command, disobedience in particular matters is not in itself schism, which is defined by rejection of the papal office itself: "However, not every disobedience is a schism; in order to possess this character it must include besides the transgression of the commands of superiors, denial of their Divine right to command." (Catholic Encyclopedia) But since denial of the Pope's right to command is the founding principle of the CPA, it is undeniably schismatic by definition. CPA bishops swear their allegiance not to the Pope, but to Premier Jiang and the Red Chinese regime, of which they are pawns. Thus, in 1994 the CPA bishops issued a "pastoral letter" calling upon Chinese Catholics to support China's population control policies, including forced abortion, and, as the Cardinal Kung Foundation notes, "the Patriotic bishops passionately denounced the Holy Father's canonization of the 120 Chinese martyrs on Oct. 1, 2000."

In short, the CPA is a communist-created, communist-controlled, blatantly schismatic, pro-abortion organization founded by the devil himself, acting through Mao Tse Tung and the Red Chinese regime, now headed by "Premier" Jiang. Accordingly, in the performance of his apostolic duty, Pope Pius XII issued an encyclical denouncing the CPA as an assault on the integrity of the Catholic faith and the Mystical Body:

       For by particularly subtle activity an association has been created among you to which has been attached the title of 'patriotic,' and Catholics are being forced by every means to take part in it.
       This association - as has often been proclaimed - was formed ostensibly to join the clergy and the faithful in love of their religion and their country, with these objectives in view: that they might foster patriotic sentiments; that they might advance the cause of international peace; that they might accept that species of socialism which has been introduced among you and, having accepted it, support and spread it; that, finally, they might actively cooperate with civil authorities in defending what they describe as political and religious freedom. And yet - despite these sweeping generalizations about defense of peace and the fatherland, which can certainly deceive the unsuspecting - it is perfectly clear that this association is simply an attempt to execute certain well defined and ruinous policies…
       For under an appearance of patriotism, which in reality is just a fraud, this association aims primarily at making Catholics gradually embrace the tenets of atheistic materialism, by which God Himself is denied and religious principles are rejected.⁴

Pius XII went on to condemn the CPA's illicit consecration of bishops as "criminal and sacrilegious," declaring the CPA bishops had no authority or jurisdiction whatsoever, and were subject to a latae sententiae excommunication, reserved to himself.

The Neo-Catholic Double Standard

Now, what was the reaction of the neo-Catholic establishment to news of the CPA's five illicit episcopal consecrations on January 6, 2000? According to Zenit news agency, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls "criticized Beijing's decision, expressing 'surprise' and 'disappointment,' and stating that 'this gesture will raise obstacles that certainly hinder the process' of normalization of relations between the Vatican and China." Surprise and disappointment! A hindering of the process of normalization! But no declared penalty of excommunication. No declaration of schism. Not even a statement to the faithful in China that, as Pius XII warned even before the CPA condoned forced abortion, the CPA has the aim of "making Catholics gradually embrace the tenets of atheistic materialism, by which God Himself is denied and religious principles are rejected." Indeed, that is precisely why the "underground" Catholics in China, following the example of Cardinal Kung, have endured fierce persecution rather than join the CPA.

Ironically enough, the ecclesiastical public law reflected in Canon 1381, under which Lefebvre and the four bishops were punished, originated with the pre-conciliar Holy Office's announcement in 1957 of a latae sententiae excommunication for illicit consecrations in Communist China. That is, the penalty envisioned by Canon 1381 arose to address communist interference with the Apostolic Succession.⁵ But far from declaring the excommunication or schism of the CPA bishops, the Vatican apparatus has assiduously courted them, to the applause of the neo-Catholic gallery. In September of 2000, some nine months after the five illicit consecrations, Cardinal ("Spirit of Assisi, come upon us all!") Etchegaray went to China to attend a conference on "Religions and Peace" - which is akin to attending a Herbalife rally on death row. During his trip Etchegaray was shuttled around by CPA bishops, while being denied access to underground bishops loyal to Rome. CWNews.com (another neo-Catholic organ) favorably reported Etchegaray's remark that "Basically it is a question of one Church, and one common faith, trying bit by bit to overcome the unhappy separation into 'underground' and 'official.'" So, the CPA, which condones abortion, rejects submission to the Pope and denounces his canonization of Chinese martyrs is part of the same Church as the loyal Catholics who have been driven underground because they refused submission to the CPA. To demonstrate this view, the Cardinal celebrated Mass in a Marian shrine the communists stole from the Catholic Church and turned over to the CPA "hierarchy."

The Cardinal wished to make it clear, however, that "none of my steps should be interpreted as an approval of the structures of the official [state-approved] church." (What would give anyone that idea?) Notice the careful hedging: the Cardinal does not approve the structures of the CPA, but as for the adherents of the CPA, Etchegaray clearly rejected the notion that they are schismatics: "The fact that I recognized the fidelity to the Pope of the Catholics of the official church [i.e., the CPA] can in no way diminish my recognition of the heroic fidelity of the silent Church." Let us see if we can make sense of this remark: The adherents of an organization whose very constitution rejects submission to the Pope and which condones forced abortion are faithful to the Pope! Ah, but the underground Catholics, you see, have heroic fidelity to the Pope because they suffer persecution - for refusing to join the faithful Catholics of the CPA. It seems we have reached a new height of post-conciliar absurdity.

Well, what about the five illicit episcopal consecrations the previous January? According to Etchegaray "This is a very serious fact that affects ecclesiology. If this is repeated, there is a risk of impeding rapprochement among Catholics." A risk of "impeding rapprochement" if it is repeated? Well, it has been repeated - a hundred times! Etchegaray added: "I had the opportunity to say it clearly to the official bishops of Beijing and Nanjing. The question of ordination of bishops is a crucial point for the Church and state; it can neither be avoided nor easily resolved, given the differences and points of view. However, history shows that reasonable solutions can be found in all political climates." So, when it comes to the illicit consecration of abortion-condoning communist puppets, "reasonable solutions can be found in all political climates." But as for Archbishop Lefebvre, it took the Vatican only 48 hours to cast him and all his supporters into outer darkness, while warning the faithful to have nothing to do with him or his Society.

Is Cardinal Etchegaray just a lone wolf in this matter? Not at all. The Kung Foundation notes that Cardinal Tomko, one of the Pope's closest advisors, has been quotes as saying that the " 'two groups in the Church in China' (the underground Roman Catholic Church and the Patriotic Association) are 'not two Churches because we are all one Church,' and that the 'true enemy' of the Church is 'not inside the Church but outside the Church.'"⁶ Far more telling is the Kung Foundation's Open Letter of March 28, 2000, addressed to Cardinal Sodano, Archbishop Re, Cardinal Ratzinger and other members of the Vatican apparatus, which notes that CPA priests have been trained in American seminaries, given faculties in American parishes with Vatican approval (according to Archbishop Levada and other American prelates) and are being supported by Catholic charities, while loyal seminarians and priests of the underground Church receive no support. The Vatican's answer to the Open Letter has been a resounding silence.

Here it must be noted that John Paul II has at least attempted to distance himself from the neo-Catholic establishment and the Vatican apparatus in this matter. For example, in his speech to Chinese Catholics on December 3, 1996 the Holy Father declared that "today all Chinese Catholics are called to remain loyal to the faith received and passed on, and not to yield to models of a Church which do not correspond to the will of the Lord Jesus, to the Catholic faith, or to the feelings and convictions of the great majority of Chinese Catholics. From these models would come a division capable only of causing confusion, to the detriment both of the faith itself and of the contribution which the faithful can make to their homeland as instruments of peace and social progress."

But this statement is rather mild compared to the condemnations by Pius XII long before the CPA's promotion of forced abortion. And John Paul's statement was only undermined by his utterly appalling apology to China on October 24, 2001, which praises the communist regime's "important objectives in the field of social progress" and even states that "The Catholic Church for her part regards with respect this impressive thrust and far-sighted planning. The Church has very much at heart the values and objectives which are of primary importance also to modern China: solidarity, peace, social justice, the wise management of the phenomenon of globalization, and the civil progress of all peoples." One can scarcely that this tribute to the diabolical Jiang regime came from the mouth of the Supreme Pontiff. In my view, the text is clearly a product of the Vatican Secretariat of State, which doggedly persists in its morally bankrupt Ostpolitik. The Chinese reciprocated this disgusting obsequy by almost immediately moving to crush the loyal underground Catholic diocese of Feng Xiang. According to a Zenit report on November 29, 2001, communist goons "arrested Bishop Lucas Li Jingfeng and his assistant, confined a dozen priests, closed a monastery and two convents, and sent seminarians, monks and nuns home - all in the past month. These faithful are part of an underground Catholic community that refuses to join the state-approved 'patriotic' church… The 81-year-old bishop was taken with his assistant to an unknown locality. They haven't been heard from, since Nov. 4." Yet another diplomatic "triumph" for Ostpolitik.

It is only typical of neo-Catholic thinking that they would find a way to endorse the Vatican's disgraceful pandering to the CPA. Catholic World News, for example, has adopted the line that adherents of the CPA "while openly loyal to the government association, secretly pledge allegiance to the Pope."⁷ CWN seems to have forgotten Our Lord's teaching about the impossibility of serving two masters. Cardinal Kung spent 30 years in solitary confinement rather than uttering one word dictated to him by his communist persecutors. But it seems the neo-Catholics have come up with a new standard of Catholic fidelity - "secret loyalty" - to go along with all the other absurd novelties they have embraced.

The parallel between all of this and the duplicity of liberals in the socio-political realm is startlingly precise. Taking the case of Senator Joseph McCarthy as an example, we can recall that the same leftist demagogues who demonized him and coined the epithet "McCarthyism" were at the same time finding ways to excuse the depredations of Mao Tse Tung and Joseph Stalin.

Today, the neo-Catholics demonize Archbishop Lefebvre and coin the term "Lefebvrism," while they tell us that CPA members and underground Catholics are both part of the same Church, and that CPA bishops and priests are "secretly" loyal to the Pope. For Catholics of the "extreme Right" in the Church there is uncompromising rigor, fierce denunciation and ostracization, while putative Catholics of the extreme Left are shown every possible indulgence and given every benefit of the doubt - even where there is no doubt. The parallel could not be more exact.

This is a tale of two schisms: the one illusory or at best technical, the other very real and very deadly to souls; the one incurred in an effort (however misguided some may think it to be) to defend Catholic Tradition, the other incurred to subject the Catholic Church to communist domination. Sad to say, we are not in the least surprised to see which schism the neo-Catholics condemn, and which they ignore. We have witnessed yet another addition to the mounting legacy of shame neo-Catholicism is heaping to itself.

Notes:

The Wanderer, November 22, 2001 p. 4

La Reppublica, October 7, 1988.

I am referring to Cardinal Ratzinger's decision in the case of the "Honolulu six," and the letter from Msgr. Perl, Secretary of the Ecclesia Dei commission, to one Joseph Rebbert, dated September 28, 1999 under protocol no. 539/99, which is published at unavoce.org in the "Documents" section. Perl's letter even allows that Catholics who do not know any better can contract valid marriages and receive absolution at SSPX chapels, despite SSPX's lack of canonical jurisdiction, because the Church would supply jurisdiction in the case of inculpable ignorance.

Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958

The decidedly neo-Catholic commentary on Canon 1382 by the Canon Law Society of America (CLSA), dishonestly suggests that Canon 1382 was "perhaps" enacted as the result of the "increasingly intense Holy See-Archbishop Lefebvre conflict in the late 1970's and early 1980's." This is a complete fabrication of canonical legislative history, since there was not the slightest suggestion at that time that Lefebvre would consecrate bishops some eight or nine years later. Clearly, Canon 1382 was carried over from the 1957 Holy Office penalty directed at communist-controlled episcopal consecrations. In typical neo-Catholic fashion, a footnote to the commentary argues that there could be an exemption from the penalty in the case of the Chinese consecrations due to "extreme governmental pressure." That is, the CLSA is willing to give communist schismatics the benefit of the doubt, but not Archbishop Lefebvre.

Kung Foundation online newsletter, July 2001.

CWN news report, June 20, 2001.

A Bad Year for Integrists [Catholicism's Many Internal Enemies Are LOSING]

Culture/Society
Source: www.TCRnews.com
Published: 12-23-01 Author: Stephen Hand
Posted on 12/23/01 10:17 AM Eastern by Notwithstanding

It has been another bad year for Integrists. Their conferences which used to pack a couple or few hundred---not much even then---can now barely pay for the costs involved we are informed. This has forced the most bizarre disparate factions to join efforts in a weird kind of ecumenism so that one now beholds the spectacle of such groups as rigorist Feeneyites joining hands with TFP’ers (1), TFP factionalists, Grunerite Fatima conspiracy buffs, SSPX'ers (2), Sedevacantists (3), and many other colorful mixes thrown into the brew.

The law of contradiction, as you can readily see, is not held in high regard in such circles; it's either ignored or rejected altogether in such incongruous alliances, born of financial necessity. Maybe combined they can get a small crowd to buy their basement papers (The Remnant has no overhead, produced in mom's cellar). Such is the possibly fading hope. (It would, by the way, be nice to have some financial disclosure from these papers to see what they have done with the widow's mite over the years. But don't hold your breath...)

The Integrists as we have noted before operate by begging more questions than one can shake a stick at. They blame the Pope for all of the consequences of the failure to obey the Pope and then conclude the Pope must therefore be a heretic.

Farewell to logic.

Then they say that anyone who obeys the Holy Father and the Magisterium is a mere "conservative," which conservatism, they insist, represents only one strand of theological opinion. That, of course, is a whopper. Consult any catechism or Encyclical produced at any time in history and one will find that he who obeys the Holy Father and the living magisterium is simply a Catholic. One who does not is not (unless one is invincibly ignorant of the fact).

But since the Integrists do not obey the Holy Father and the living Magisterium this is maxima problematic for them. So they represent themselves as “traditionalists” who have no need of the living magisterium, of a mediated and interpreted tradition (even if tradition is the second stream of revelation which only the Church may interpret, as Luther and the Easterns were told!) since they have the dusty texts of yester-year which they can hire Michael Matt or Michael Davies or Christopher Ferrara to interpret for them! See how easy it is?

Of course that is simply not Catholicism. That is Luther’s private judgment transposed into a Catholic context which is not Catholicism at all. It is similar to the errors of the Greeks in the 11th century or the Jansenists in Pascal’s day, both of whom usurped the papal / magisterial exclusive prerogative---bestowed by Our Lord Himself----to judge what is and what is not the substance of the Church’s tradition. So what we end up with in any of these cases is a group of zealots donning magisterial robes in their own minds. Alas for them, the Church only knows those who are faithful to a living magisterium and those who are not.

What makes matters easy for them, relative to beguiling the innocent-minded who have no interest in Catholic dogmatics, is that we live in a time of open rebellion against the teachings of the magisterium, not only by these Integrists, but by Neo-modernists who also ignore the teachings of the living magisterium and also speak of themselves as a true remnant (or collection of ‘base communities’).

So the Integrists ignore the multitudes of responsible priests who obey the magisterium and selectively comb the liberal papers for pictures of outrages and abuses which have neither papal approval or support. But since the latter, like the former, do not obey the Pope, if the Pope acts against them they wear it as a badge of ideological martyrdom.

On that last point let me illustrate what a friend related to me not too long ago. A priest friend was having lunch with some students in theology and older people. One of the elders in the group said, “Father, why doesn’t the Pope excommunicate Hans Kung?” Before the priest could answer, one of the students said, “Who’s Hans Kung?”. The priest’s face morphed from surprise to delight. Then he said, “You know, I always trusted that the Vatican knew what it was doing when it picked its fights selectively in our day, but your question proves the wisdom of the Church.” Had the Church gone further than quietly stripping him of his license to teach as a Catholic theologian and excommunicated Hans Kung, he would have rallied a world hostile to the Church against her; especially in our day of instant communication. As it is, few young people today have ever heard of him or even read his ponderous writings.

Meanwhile, 6 million (!) people this month (Dec 2001) showed up to honor our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and the Holy Father preaches Jesus Christ to more multitudes than a rock star could hope to gather, time and time again.

It’s enough to make Integrists and Neo-modernists pass the bottle!

==========================

______________

FOOTNOTES

(1)What a mess of squirming things hide under a Rock! TFP stands for Tradition, Family and Property, a monarchist sect founded by a Brazilian which has split into aggressive factions today.

(2)The schismatic Society of St. Pius X founded by the late Marcel Lefebvre.

(3)Sedevacantists believe the Pope is a heretic and therefore not a Pope. They are sometimes explicit about this (as with the Society of St. Pius V) or implicit and doubletalking, like the signers of the schismatic manifesto, We Resist the Pope to the Face. Either way they are identical in methodology.

Note: other bad news this year for Integrists: Their favorite archbishop and critic of the vatican, Archbishop Milingo, became a Moonie and married for a time; Sr. Lucy, the last surviving of the three children at Fatima, explicitly repudiated Fr. Gruner's conspiracy theories regarding the Third Secret; just as during the Jubilee all the dire predictions of the SSPX and Michael Matt regarding syncretism at Mt. Sinai AND Assisi (Oct 99) came to nothing of the sort. Their latest prediction, about the next Pope being a liberal who might as well put the Vatican up for sale, reflects their confusions regarding substance and accidents in Church tradition and their absence of trust in the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit; not to mention its corollary, the Church's indefectibility, per the divine promises of our Lord Jesus Christ.

VIVA JOHANNES PAULUS II!

This is the best summary of the real "war" I've ever read. Sorry for the length, but this is important

Clarion Call to Christians in the Freeper Wars: How to Win the Culture War--Who, then, is Our Enemy?

Culture/Society
Source: Crisis Magazine
Author: Peter Kreeft
Posted on 9/10/01 4:03 PM Eastern by proud2bRC

How to Win the Culture War

How to

Win the

Culture War

Peter Kreeft

To win any war, the three most necessary things to know are (1) that you are at war, (2) who your enemy is, and (3) what weapons or strategies can defeat him. You cannot win a war (1) if you simply sew peace banners on a battlefield, (2) if you fight civil wars against your allies, or (3) if you use the wrong weapons.

Here is a three point checklist for the culture wars. I assume you would not be reading a magazine called Crisis if you thought all was well. If you don’t know that our entire civilization is in crisis, I hope you had a nice vacation on the moon.

Many minds do seem moonstruck, however, blissfully unaware of the crisis—especially the “intellectuals,” who are supposed to be the most on top of current events. I was dumbfounded to read a cover article in Time devoted to the question: Why is everything getting better? Why is life so good today? Why does everybody feel so satisfied about the quality of life? Time never questioned the assumption, it just wondered why the music on the Titanic sounded so nice.

It turned out, on reading the article, that every single aspect of life that was mentioned, every single reason for life getting better, was economic. People are richer. End of discussion.

Perhaps Time is just Playboy with clothes on. For one kind of playboy, the world is one great big whorehouse. For another kind, it’s one great big piggy bank. For both, things are getting better and better.

There is a scientific refutation of the Pig Philosophy: the statistical fact that suicide, the most in-your-face index of unhappiness, is directly proportionate to wealth. The richer you are, the richer your family is, and the richer your country is, the more likely it is that you will find life so good that you will choose to blow your brains apart.

Suicide among pre-adults has increased 5000% since the “happy days” of the ’50s. If suicide, especially among the coming generation, is not an index of crisis, nothing is.

Night is falling. What Chuck Colson has labeled “a new Dark Ages” is looming. And its Brave New World proved to be only a Cowardly Old Dream. We can see this now, at the end of “the century of genocide” that was christened “the Christian century” at its birth.

We’ve had prophets who warned us: Kierkegaard, 150 years ago, in The Present Age; and Spengler, 100 years ago, in The Decline of the West; and Aldous Huxley, seventy years ago, in Brave New World; and C. S. Lewis, forty years ago, in The Abolition of Man; and above all our popes: Leo XIII and Pius IX and Pius X and above all John Paul the Great, the greatest man in the world, the greatest man of the worst century. He had even more chutzpah than Ronald Reagan, who dared to call Them “the evil empire”: He called Us “the culture of death.” That’s our culture, and his, including Italy, with the lowest birth rate in the world, and Poland, which now wants to share in the rest of the West’s abortion holocaust.

If the God of life does not respond to this culture of death with judgment, God is not God. If God does not honor the blood of the hundreds of millions of innocent victims then the God of the Bible, the God of Israel, the God of orphans and widows, the Defender of the defenseless, is a man-made myth, a fairy tale.

But is not God forgiving?

He is, but the unrepentant refuse forgiveness. How can forgiveness be received by a moral relativist who denies that there is anything to forgive except a lack of self-esteem, nothing to judge but “judgmentalism?” How can a Pharisee or a pop psychologist be saved?

But is not God compassionate?

He is not compassionate to Moloch and Baal and Ashtaroth, and to Caananites who do their work, who “cause their children to walk through the fire.” Perhaps your God is—the God of your dreams, the God of your “religious preference”—but not the God revealed in the Bible.

But is not the God of the Bible revealed most fully and finally in the New Testament rather than the Old? In sweet and gentle Jesus rather than wrathful and warlike Jehovah?

The opposition is heretical: the old Gnostic-Manichaean-Marcionite heresy, as immortal as the demons who inspired it. For “I and the Father are one.” The opposition between nice Jesus and nasty Jehovah denies the very essence of Christianity: Christ’s identity as the Son of God. Let’s remember our theology and our biology: like Father, like Son.

But is not God a lover rather than a warrior?

No, God is a lover who is a warrior. The question fails to understand what love is, what the love that God is, is. Love is at war with hate, betrayal, selfishness, and all love’s enemies. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely “compassion” (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.

In fact, every page of the Bible bristles with spears, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one. The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in scripture, and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is never present in the religious education of any of my “Catholic” students at Boston College. Whenever I speak of it, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world. They have. They have gone past the warm fuzzies, the fur coats of psychology-disguised-as-religion, into a world where they meet Christ the King, not Christ the Kitten.

Welcome back from the moon, kids.

Where is the culture of death coming from? Here. America is the center of the culture of death. America is the world’s one and only cultural superpower.

If I haven’t shocked you yet, I will now. Do you know what Muslims call us? They call us “The Great Satan.” And do you know what I call them? I call them right.

But America has the most just, and moral, and wise, and biblical historical and constitutional foundation in all the world. America is one of the most religious countries in the world. The Church is big and rich and free in America.

Yes. Just like ancient Israel. And if God still loves his Church in America, he will soon make it small and poor and persecuted, as he did to ancient Israel, so that he can keep it alive. If he loves us, he will prune us, and we will bleed, and the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the Church again, and a second spring will come—but not without blood. It never happens without blood, sacrifice, and suffering. The continuation of Christ’s work—if it is really Christ’s work and not a comfortable counterfeit—can never happen without the Cross.

I don’t mean merely that Western civilization will die. That’s a piece of trivia. I mean eternal souls will die. Billions of Ramons and Vladamirs and Janes and Tiffanies will go to Hell. That’s what’s at stake in this war: not just whether America will become a banana republic, or whether we’ll forget Shakespeare, or even whether some nuclear terrorist will incinerate half of humanity, but whether our children and our children’s children will see God forever. That’s what’s at stake in “Hollywood versus America.” That’s why we must wake up and smell the rotting souls. Knowing we are at war is the first requirement for winning it.

The next thing we must do to win a war is to know our enemy.

Who is our enemy?

Not Protestants. For almost half a millennium, many of us thought our enemies were Protestant heretics, and addressed that problem by consigning their bodies to battlefields and their souls to Hell. (Echoes of this strategy can still be heard in Northern Ireland.) Gradually, the light dawned: Protestants are not our enemies, they are our “separated brethren.” They will fight with us.

Not Jews. For almost two millennia many of us thought that, and did such Christless things to our “fathers in the faith” that we made it almost impossible for the Jews to see their God—the true God—in us.

Not Muslims, who are often more loyal to their half-Christ than we are to our whole Christ, who often live more godly lives following their fallible scriptures and their fallible prophet than we do following our infallible scriptures and our infallible prophet.

The same is true of the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Quakers.

Our enemies are not “the liberals.” For one thing, the term is almost meaninglessly flexible. For another, it’s a political term, not a religious one. Whatever is good or bad about political liberalism, it’s neither the cause nor the cure of our present spiritual decay. Spiritual wars are not decided by whether welfare checks increase or decrease.

Our enemies are not anti-Catholic bigots who want to crucify us. They are the ones we’re trying to save. They are our patients, not our disease. Our word for them is Christ’s: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We say this of the Chinese communist totalitarians who imprison and persecute Catholics, and to the Sudanese Muslim terrorists who enslave and murder Catholics. They are not our enemies, they are our patients. We are Christ’s nurses. The patients think the nurses are their enemies, but the nurses know better.

Our enemies are not even the media of the culture of death, not even Ted Turner or Larry Flynt or Howard Stern or Disney or Time-Warner. They too are victims, patients, though on a rampage against the hospital, poisoning other patients. But the poisoners are our patients too. So are homosexual activists, feminist witches, and abortionists. We go into gutters and pick up the spiritually dying and kiss those who spit at us, if we are cells in our Lord’s Body. If we do not physically go into gutters, we go into spiritual gutters, for we go where the need is.

Our enemies are not heretics within the Church, “cafeteria Catholics,” “Kennedy Catholics,” “I Did It My Way” Catholics. They are also our patients, though they are Quislings. They are the victims of our enemy, not our enemy.

Our enemies are not theologians in so-called Catholic theology departments who have sold their souls for thirty pieces of scholarship and prefer the plaudits of their peers to the praise of God. They are also our patients.

Our enemy is not even the few really bad priests and bishops, candidates for Christ’s Millstone of the Month Award, the modern Pharisees. They too are victims, in need of healing.

Who, then, is our enemy?

There are two answers. All the saints and popes throughout the Church’s history have given the same two answers, for these answers come from the Word of God on paper in the New Testament and the Word of God in flesh in Jesus Christ.

Yet they are not well known. In fact, the first answer is almost never mentioned today. Not once in my life have I ever heard a homily on it, or a lecture by a Catholic theologian.

Our enemies are demons. Fallen angels. Evil spirits.

So says Jesus Christ: “Do not fear those who can kill the body and then has no more power over you. I will tell you whom to fear. Fear him who has power to destroy both body and soul in Hell.”

So says St. Peter, the first pope: “The Devil, like a roaring lion, is going through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Resist him, steadfast in the faith.”

So says St. Paul: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of wickedness in high places.”

So said Pope Leo the XIII, who received a vision of the 20th century that history has proved terrifyingly true. He saw Satan, at the beginning of time, allowed one century in which to do his worst work, and he chose the 20th. This pope with the name and heart of a lion was so overcome by the terror of this vision that he fell into a trance. When he awoke, he composed a prayer for the whole Church to use to get it through the 20th century. The prayer was widely known and prayed after every Mass—until the ’60s: exactly when the Church was struck with that incomparably swift disaster that we have not yet named (but which future historians will), the disaster that has destroyed a third of our priests, two-thirds of our nuns, and nine-tenths of our children’s theological knowledge; the disaster that has turned the faith of our fathers into the doubts of our dissenters, the wine of the Gospel into the water of psychobabble.

The restoration of the Church, and thus the world, might well begin with the restoration of the Lion’s prayer and the Lion’s vision, because this is the vision of all the popes and all the saints and our Lord himself: the vision of a real Hell, a real Satan, and real spiritual warfare.

I said there were two enemies. The second is even more terrifying than the first. There is one nightmare even more terrible than being chased and caught and tortured by the Devil. That is the nightmare of becoming a devil. The horror outside your soul is terrible enough; how can you bear to face the horror inside your soul?

What is the horror inside your soul? Sin. All sin is the Devil’s work, though he usually uses the flesh and the world as his instruments. Sin means inviting the Devil in. And we do it. That’s the only reason why he can do his awful work; God won’t let him do it without our free consent. And that’s why the Church is weak and the world is dying: because we are not saints.

And thus we have our third Necessary Thing: the weapon that will win the war and defeat our enemy.

All it takes is saints.

Can you imagine what twelve more Mother Teresas would do for the world? Can you imagine what would happen if just twelve readers of this article offered Christ 100% of their hearts and held back nothing, absolutely nothing?

No, you can’t imagine it, any more than anyone could imagine how twelve nice Jewish boys could conquer the Roman Empire. You can’t imagine it, but you can do it. You can become a saint. Absolutely no one and nothing can stop you. It is your free choice. Here is one of the truest and most terrifying sentences I have ever read (from William Law’s Serious Call): “If you will look into your own heart in complete honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not a saint: you do not wholly want to be.”

That insight is terrifying because it is an indictment. But it is also thrillingly hopeful because it is an offer, an open door. Each of us can become a saint. We really can.

What holds us back? Fear of paying the price.

What is the price? The answer is simple. T.S. Eliot defines the Christian life as: “A condition of complete simplicity/Costing not less than/Everything.” The price is everything: 100%. A worse martyrdom than the quick noose or stake: the martyrdom of dying daily, dying to all your desires and plans, including your plans about how to become a saint. A blank check to God. Complete submission, “islam,” “fiat”—Mary’s thing. Look what that simple Mary-thing did 2000 years ago: It brought God down and saved the world.

It was meant to continue.

If we do that Mary-thing—and only if we do that—then all our apostolates will “work”: our missioning and catechizing and fathering and mothering and teaching and studying and nursing and businessing and priesting and bishoping—everything.

A bishop asked one of the priests of his diocese for recommendations on ways to increase vocations. The priest replied: The best way to attract men in this diocese to the priesthood, Your Excellency, would be your canonization.

Why not yours?

Vol. 16 - No.6 - June 1998

Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College.
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