Posted on 07/18/2024 2:45:42 PM PDT by ebb tide
Five years before the publication of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s Communism and the Conscience of the West, Pope Pius XII wrote his 1943 encyclical on the Mystical Body of Christ, Mystici Corporis Christi, in which he affirmed that the Mystical Body of Christ is the Catholic Church, whose membership consists of the following:
“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.”
These words obviously pose a problem for those who seek to unify all Christians through a process that does not depend upon non-Catholics accepting the Church’s unadulterated and immutable teaching. As such, Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis is an essential reference point for understanding how the proponents of false ecumenism have sought to create a church that superficially resembles the Catholic Church but is in fact an “ape church” that purports to unite all baptized Christians, whether or not they “profess the true faith.”
"All baptized people are part of the Church regardless of the beliefs." This hitherto untenable notion has now become so widely accepted that one can scarcely find a theologian who opposes the Synod on Synodality’s insistence that all baptized are part of the “Synodal Church.”
As we read in Fr. Stjepan Schmidt’s biography of Cardinal Augustin Bea, the primary player in Vatican II’s ecumenical efforts knew he had to solve the “problem” posed by the above passage from Mystici Corporis:
“An important point on which Bea hoped the Council would provide clarification was that of church-membership of Christians separated from us. . . We shall first try to give an idea of the problem facing [Cardinal Bea] in this field, and how he set about solving it. . . The problem sprang from a solemn passage in the encyclical Mystici Corporis of Pius XII . . .” (Schmidt, Augustin Bea: the Cardinal of Unity, p. 402)
Fr. Schmidt proceeded to describe the various ways in which Bea attempted to solve the problem presented by Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis, principally by (a) arguing that all the baptized are members of the Church, and (b) replacing the concept of the “Mystical Body of Christ” with other concepts that would not exclude non-Catholics. We can consider not only Bea’s words on these concepts but also how they have been advanced since the Council to the point of being fully incorporated in the Synod on Synodality documents.
Church-Membership of All Baptized. We can assess the significance of Bea’s role in advancing the “church-membership of all the baptized” by considering two quotations from Fr. Schmidt’s biography:
Bea recognized that Pius XII’s clear statement that a baptized person was not a member of the Church — and therefore not a member of the Mystical Body of Christ — unless they profess the true Faith posed a major problem to his ecumenical project, so he endeavored to effectively negate the Mystici Corporis teaching by emphasizing that all baptized people are part of the Church regardless of the beliefs.
As we know, though, the Synodal Church does not actually welcome “all the baptized,” for it rejects those baptized who happen to insist that Pius XII and his predecessors were correct in denouncing the errors that have fueled the Vatican II revolution.
This hitherto untenable notion has now become so widely accepted that one can scarcely find a theologian who opposes the Synod on Synodality’s insistence that all baptized are part of the “Synodal Church,” as we find in the new Instrumentum Laboris:
“At the heart of Synod 2021-2024, ‘For a Synodal Church. Communion, participation, mission’ is a call to joy and to the renewal of the People of God in following the Lord and in their commitment to serving His mission. The call to be missionary disciples is based on our common baptismal identity and is rooted in the diversity of the contexts in which the Church is present and finds its unity in the one Father, the one Lord, and the one Spirit. It is a call to all the baptised, without exception”
This insistence that the call of the Synodal Church goes out to welcome all the baptized regardless of their religious beliefs — “without exception” — is an evident rejection of the exclusivity found in Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis. As we know, though, the Synodal Church does not actually welcome “all the baptized,” for it rejects those baptized who happen to insist that Pius XII and his predecessors were correct in denouncing the errors that have fueled the Vatican II revolution. If we knew nothing else about the Synodal Church, this alone would suffice to alert us that it is Satan’s ape church.
Replacing the Concept of the Mystical Body of Christ. Fr. Schmidt also described how Bea approached the topic of Church membership in crafting the Council’s documents:
“[Bea] suggested that it might be more prudent to avoid reference to ‘members’ of the church, for although the concept of membership is found in St. Paul, it maybe has a considerably different meaning there. Furthermore, if we are to have any hope of providing an adequate idea of the church, we must not confine ourselves to the concept of the mystical body of Christ, in view of the fact that the New Testament also gives a number of other images: kingdom, vineyard, family, house and people are all used as metaphors to illustrate its various aspects.” (p. 366)
When Bea spoke of prudence, he was of course thinking of the most “prudent” way to overcome the obstacles to false ecumenism presented by Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis. We can evaluate the success of Bea’s efforts by recalling the words of Benedict XVI, in his February 14, 2013 “farewell” address to the clergy of Rome:
“[I]n the quest for a complete theological vision of ecclesiology, a certain amount of criticism arose after the 1940’s, in the 1950’s, concerning the concept of the Body of Christ: the word ‘mystical' was thought to be too spiritual, too exclusive; the concept ‘People of God’ then began to come into play.”
So, according to Benedict XVI, the concept of the “Mystical Body of Christ” (as affirmed by Pius XII) was “too exclusive,” meaning that it excluded non-Catholics. So the Council instead advanced the concept of the “People of God.” The Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, dedicated a lengthy, but virtually inscrutable, chapter to the concept of the “People of God,” which served in practice to replace Pius XII’s clear concept with one that is so amorphous that it can be used to perfectly serve the objectives of false ecumenism.
We know, however, that actual Catholic teaching does not change in this way — what Pius XII taught in 1943 remains the teaching of the true Catholic Church. As such, we know that the Synodal Church is indeed — as Francis insisted from the opening of the Synod — intended to be a different Church (i.e., not the Catholic Church).
And so today we see the concept of the “People of God” used throughout the Synod on Synodality documents. Thus, the new Instrumentum Laboris has 44 mentions of “People of God,” including this statement, which highlights its ecumenical importance:
“The call to be missionary disciples is based on our common baptismal identity and is rooted in the diversity of the contexts in which the Church is present and finds its unity in the one Father, the one Lord, and the one Spirit. It is a call to all the baptised, without exception: ‘The whole People of God is an agent of the proclamation of the Gospel. Every baptised person is called to be a protagonist of mission since we are all missionary disciples’ (ITC, no. 53).”
As we can see, Bea’s victory over Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis is complete in Francis’s Synodal Church. We know, however, that actual Catholic teaching does not change in this way — what Pius XII taught in 1943 remains the teaching of the true Catholic Church. As such, we know that the Synodal Church is indeed — as Francis insisted from the opening of the Synod — intended to be a different Church (i.e., not the Catholic Church). This new Synodal Church is a counterchurch and ape church, which Archbishop Sheen described with great accuracy in 1948:
“In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be a brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.” (Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, p. 24)
Archbishop Sheen did not despair in writing these words, for he knew that Satan’s ape church could never prevail against God’s Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. But he also knew that many would be deceived, and therefore lost, through following the counterfeit church.
This is what we witness today. Sixty years of catechetical abuse, both in the education of new Catholics and the formation of priests, has led us to the point at which relatively few clerics have even the slightest inkling that Francis’s wicked Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church even though Francis told us from the beginning that he was creating a different church. Most clerics do not even appear to see any contradiction in Francis’s Synodal Church embracing essentially every religious belief in the world other than Traditional Catholicism.
Those who understandably argue that there is no precedent for removing Francis might consider that there is also no precedent for a man simultaneously being the leader of Our Lord’s Catholic Church and Satan’s Synodal Church.
As argued in a 2022 Remnant article, the truly unprecedented circumstances surrounding the Synodal Church should inspire the remaining faithful bishops to prayerfully consider whether it is God’s will for them to call an imperfect council to potentially remove and replace Francis. Francis unambiguously opposes the “true Faith” so, according to Mystici Corporis, Pope Pius XII would not have recognized him as a member of the Catholic Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ. Accordingly, we cannot depend entirely on precedents that are predicated on the hierarchy wanting to serve God rather than Satan. We must instead turn to God and do all we can to discern His will.
For many, such as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the nature of the current crisis was relatively clear by the early 1970s. If God has permitted that crisis to grow tremendously worse today, surely it is to allow souls to turn to Him while we still have time. Perhaps it is not God’s will that the remaining faithful bishops would remove and replace Francis — indeed, it seems even more probable that such a step would not occur without direct intervention from God. Nonetheless, those who understandably argue that there is no precedent for removing Francis might consider that there is also no precedent for a man simultaneously being the leader of Our Lord’s Catholic Church and Satan’s Synodal Church.
For those of us who are not bishops, the sign of Satan’s Synodal Church is a clear call for us to turn to God as saints, trying to be as faithful as possible to the abundant graces He gives us. If Satan has sufficient power and influence today to erect his ape church in Rome, he presumably has more power than ever to devour souls who remain lukewarm in the face of the storms that threaten us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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“In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be a brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ.” (Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West, p. 24)
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