objection: Paul VI, John
Paul I, and John Paul II are legitimately elected Popes. They are in possession
of apostolic succession and of apostolic authority to teach, rule, and sanctify
the Church. The teaching of Vatican II, as well as the reforms promulgated by
these Popes should be accepted as the teaching and discipline of the Catholic
Church. To subject these teachings and disciplines to scrutiny and rejection,
is to fall into the error of private
interpretation.
Response: As the reader may expect, I reject this analysis
of the current situation, that is, that the refusal of Vatican II and the
subsequent changes are an exercise in private interpretation. Rather the
refusal, as I said in Dissent of Faith,
springs from the very act of divine and catholic Faith, which, at one and the
same time, assents to the truth which is revealed by God and proposed by the
Church, and dissents from its logical contradictory.
For example, we
assent, by faith, to the proposition that Christ is really present in the Holy
Eucharist; at the same time, we dissent from the proposition that Christ is not
really present in the Holy Eucharist. The dissent is as strong as the assent,
and there is no faith without the dissent from what is opposed to the truths of
the faith. Hence the Church not only proposes the truth, but condemns
infallibly what is contrary to it.
But Vatican II
and the post-Vatican II “universal ordinary magisterium” has contradicted the
teaching of the Catholic Church on many points. Therefore the Catholic must
give his dissent, if he is to remain faithful to his Baptism.
This dissent, in
turn, gives rise, through a few simple logical steps, to a dogmatic fact that
the perpetrator of the false teaching could not possibly be teaching with the
authority of Christ. This would be blasphemous, and contrary to the promises of
Christ.
This argument
does not even touch on the personal
orthodoxy of the post-conciliar “popes”. It is a mere comparison of the
ordinary universal magisterium of the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church.
While faith is above reason, it is not opposed to reason, and the faith cannot
tolerate a contradiction in teaching any more than reason can.
The recognition of the true Church is
not an act of faith but an act of reason. As Garrigou-Lagrange puts it in his De Revelatione, man must be brought to
the conclusion that it is reasonable to make an act of faith in the Catholic
Church. Apologetics must bring a
reasonable person to the point that he recognizes that the Catholic Church has
the signs of being the one, true Church of Christ.
An absolute requirement of the genuineness
of the true Church of Christ is that it
not contradict itself in its official doctrine. For contradiction in
official doctrine would be a certain sign
of human corruption and of a purely human institution. Therefore even before
the act of faith, the oneness
of doctrine — the non-contradiction of doctrine — of the Catholic Church must
be apparent to all, even to those who do not have the faith.
Vatican II
destroys, therefore, the entire apologetical argument of the Catholic Church,
for it clearly contradicts on:
(1) religious
liberty (condemned by Mirari vos of
Gregory XVI and by Quanta Cura of
Pius IX);
(2) the unity and
unicity of the Catholic Church as the one true Church (the ecclesiology of
Vatican II was condemned by Pius XII in Mystici
Corporis);
(3) ecumenism
(condemned by the Apostolic Letter of Pius VIII, Summo iugiter of Gregory XVI, and Mortalium animos of
Pius XI).
The New Missal,
furthermore, contains a heretical definition of the Mass. This is to mention
only a few of the problems of Vatican II, but these are sufficient, indeed, one contradiction would be sufficient.
The objection
argues essentially that these teachings cannot be contradictory since they come
from a duly elected Roman Pontiff, who cannot err in teaching and legislating
concerning these matters. If there is contradiction, it must be only apparent,
and a benign interpretation of the documents would solve the problem.
I respond that in
these points Vatican II is clearly contradictory — virtually word for word in
some cases — and that the faith must reject these contradictions with even more
vehemence than reason would. Your argument requires the faith to do what is
intrinsically impossible, even for God, which is to affirm and deny the same
thing at the same time.
The faith cannot
say that the statement “Mary was not assumed body and soul into heaven” is somehow
reconcilable with the statement, “Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven”.
Any church which would demand such an assent from its adherents, despite
whatever “interpretation” may be given to it, is certainly not the Church, and would never stand the
test of time, since it does not stand the test of reason.
The acceptance of
Vatican II and its reforms as Catholic does immeasurable harm to, in fact
destroys, the unity of faith of the Catholic Church, and ruins the entire
apologetical structure, which is its appeal to reason and common sense.
The objection
argues that the Church’s apostolicity is a sufficient guarantee of the
orthodoxy of Vatican II. But apostolicity, thus understood, is excessively
restricted, for the Church must be apostolic not only in its succession of
popes and bishops, but also in its doctrine,
worship, and government.
Fr. Schultes
O.P., in his De Ecclesia Catholica
defines apostolicity in this manner:
Nota
apostolicitatis est charisma et proprietas Ecclesiĉ qua per legitimam, publicam
et numquam interruptam pastorum ab Apostolis successionem in identitate fidei, cultus et regiminis
continuatur. (Emphasis mine.)
[“The note of apostolicity is the charism and property of the Church
by which it is continued through a legitimate, public and never interrupted
succession of pastors from the Apostles in
identity of faith, worship and discipline.”]
Thus apostolicity
is not saved if there is not an identity of faith, worship, and discipline
throughout the successive pontificates. For as nearly all the authors point
out, the succession must be formal and not merely material, i.e., there must be
a single apostolic authority exercised by the diverse titulars of the
authority. It is this oneness of divinely assisted apostolic authority which
ensures the oneness of faith, worship, and government. Therefore
lack of identity of faith, worship and discipline is an infallible sign of lack
of divinely assisted apostolic authority.
But Vatican II
has broken the identity of faith, worship, and discipline, from which it
follows that the authority which has promulgated this non-identical —
non-catholic — faith, worship, and discipline cannot be apostolic authority, since apostolic authority is incapable of
doing such a thing. What is left in the Vatican is a purely material
succession of popes, i.e., the pure possession of the see without the authority
which naturally accompanies it. As far as authority goes, the see is vacant,
and the Church is in the same condition, authority-wise, as when a Pope dies
and another has not been elected.
The objection is,
if I understand it correctly: if there is
apostolic succession, there is unity of faith. My response is: if there is lack of unity of faith, there is
no (formal) apostolic succession. Both of these arguments, stated here as
hypothetical major premises, are true. Their value in a conclusion is dependent
upon the verification of the condition. Now the question is: which is prior?
Apostolic succession or faith?
I answer faith. Faith is metaphysically prior to
authority, since authority consists in a relation of the public person to the
community, the basis of which is the furtherance
of the common good of the community. But it is the Faith which determines
the common good, the finality, of the Church. Hence the profession of the true
Faith is a condition sine qua non of
the assumption of apostolic authority in the Church, and it (the Faith) must be
verified before apostolic succession is verified. But Vatican II, the New Mass,
and the New Code, contain contradiction to the teaching of the Church. This
contradiction is therefore an infallible sign that the material
incumbent of the throne of Peter lacks or lacked the necessary qualities to
assume apostolic authority, for we must believe by the virtue of divine and catholic faith that it is intrinsically
impossible that apostolic authority contradict itself in faith, worship and
discipline, whereas
it is not impossible, either by faith or reason, that an incumbent pope lose
his authority. Therefore the succession which Montini,
Luciani, and Wojtyla enjoy is a purely material succession, i.e., they have
been named by legal process to a position in which they are disposed to accept
this authority.
I agree that an
authoritative witness (e.g. a diocesan bishop) is necessary for the
authoritative recognition of the non-papacy of Paul VI, John Paul I and John
Paul II, but I maintain that the private, even collective recognition of the
fact by the faithful is both right and obligatory. For the individual baptized
Catholic has an obligation to reject what is contrary to the Faith. He
therefore rejects Vatican II as contrary to the Faith. When the hierarchy which
has accepted and promulgated Vatican II tells him to accept it, he must reject
their apostolic authority based on his prior rejection of Vatican II by his
virtue of faith.
This is the
entire sense of Galatians, I: 8, where St. Paul warns the faithful to
anathematize himself, an
apostle (“though we...”) if they
find that his doctrine does not match what they have already heard from him.
According to the theory described in the objection, this text would read, “But
though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which
we have preached to you, you must accept
the new gospel because it is preached you by an apostle, and just figure that
there is no contradiction between the two.”
St. Paul obviously charges the faithful with the
verification of the identity of the Faith in their apostolic teachers as a condition
for accepting them. In fact, if this Faith is lacking, the command is: let him be anathema.
According to the
apostolic command, therefore, the faithful must verify the teaching of those
elected to apostolic positions, at least implicitly by being ready to reject
them, anathematize them, if they should teach a false doctrine. This is an
unassailable argument which is properly theological, as it argues from the
authority of St. Paul, that the identity of faith is prior to apostolic
authority, and that the faithful themselves, and not necessarily bishops, can
and must recognize the identity or lack of identity of the Faith.
I concede to you,
however, that the authoritative
anathema must come from the authority of the Church. It is this authoritative
anathema which we all pray for and hope for. In the meantime, we gather in St.
Peter’s Square and shout to JP 2 one collective, unauthoritative but thunderous
ANATHEMA!
The method which
the objection proposes is to say that Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II are
unmistakably the successors of St. Peter, have been elected by due process, and
having been recognized as such by the entire Catholic hierarchy. Therefore they
have apostolic authority. Therefore their doctrine, worship, and discipline is
infallibly Catholic, and any contradiction must be held by the faith to be only
apparent and not real.
I respond by
saying that the act of faith, being an act of assent of the intellect, is made
with an implicit affirmation of the principle of contradiction, which principle
cannot, by metaphysical impossibility, bear its contradictory. To recall the
example cited above, the intellect cannot assent to, at the same time, the
proposition Christ is really present in
the Holy Eucharist and Christ is not
really present in the Holy Eucharist.
To do so would be the equivalent of asserting that a circle is a square,
which is intrinsically impossible.
The type of act
which Vatican II is requiring of the faith is an impossible act, i.e., to assent to contradictory teaching,
especially with the motive of God revealing and divinely assisted apostolic
authority proposing.
On the other
hand, what is not impossible, indeed what is seen as quite possible by many
theologians, is the loss of papal power by an incumbent. The act of faith,
therefore, in refusing the impossible and sinful act of asserting the opposite
of what it assents to by faith, turns back and rightfully and necessarily
refuses to recognize the apostolic authority in the promulgator. [1]
To
demand the acceptance of the contradictions of Vatican II in its doctrines,
worship, and discipline is to demand that the faithful posit the impossible act
of asserting contradictory propositions with the highest certitude. This ruins
the unity of faith, without which neither sanctity, apostolicity or catholicity
can survive as properties of the Catholic Church. For there is no
sanctification without supernatural truth, and there is no supernatural truth
without unity of truth. There is no catholicity without unity of faith, for
catholicity — universality — by
definition is one thing applied to many (unum
versus alia) .
Finally,
as we have seen above, there is no apostolicity without unity of faith, for
unity of faith is a necessary condition of the possession of apostolic
authority. The acceptance of Vatican II and its reforms therefore places the
Church in radical absurdity, strips
her of her four marks, and reduces her to being a purely human institution. The
refusal of Vatican II, its reforms, and the authenticity of the “popes” who
promulgated it, on the other hand, retains the unity of faith, retains the four
marks, retains the indefectibility of the Church.
The
moral continuity of the hierarchy is assured by the (1) material succession,
and (2) by the fact that the Church awaits a formal successor, that is, someone to assume apostolic power. This
expectation of the Church of a new pope, as well as the recognition of the
power of the papacy, provides the moral continuity from pope to pope in the
vacancy of the see at any pope’s death.
Furthermore,
the faith’s necessary rejection of apostolic authority in Paul VI, John Paul I
and John Paul II is overwhelmingly confirmed by the shambles to which the
Church has been reduced as a result of Vatican II. I cite the undeniable fact
that there has been a total and
unprecedented breakdown of faith in the institutions which were once
Catholic.
This
breakdown of faith, this Great Apostasy of which St. Paul and the Catechism of
the Council of Trent speak, is a direct result of this intrinsic disorder of
Vatican II. Having lived before, during and after the Council, I can assure you
that this Council was the cause of the breakdown of faith. The Catholic Faith
was intact in the institutions the Church before Vatican II; it disappeared
gradually as John XXIII and Paul VI instituted the reforms of the Council.
The
principal reason for this breakdown is the false doctrine of religious liberty
and ecumenism, which strips, if it were possible, the Catholic Church of its
essential quality of being the one, true Church of Christ, outside of which
there is no salvation. It strips the Church of its ability to teach with the
authority of God, and to bind the consciences of men.
The
great error of Vatican II is the supremacy
of the human conscience over the teaching of the Catholic Church. This
error is fundamentally protestant and masonic, and is an infallible sign that
those who have authoritatively taught it were certainly not teaching it with
the authority of Christ. In addition, I cite the absolutely apostatical conduct of the
post-conciliar “popes”.
If
you read Peter, Lovest Thou Me?, it
is impossible to reconcile Wojtyla’s magisterium or praxis with the Catholic Faith.
Yet his utterly disgusting ecumenical acts are thoroughly in accordance with
the Vatican II ecclesiology. He is not assailed as an evildoer by the Vatican
II hierarchy, but is rather praised for his apostasy of masonic-style religious
indifferentism and liberty of conscience. The principles for this unprecedented
breakdown of doctrine, worship, and discipline are contained in Vatican II and
the post-Vatican II “universal ordinary magisterium” of the modernist
hierarchy.
Finally,
the scenario of Vatican II non-popes is thoroughly in accordance with the
programs of the enemies of the Church since the French Revolution. They have
desired to place one of their own on the throne of Peter, and have predicted
that they would succeed. St. Pius X warned us of modernist infiltration in the
ranks of the clergy. Fogazzaro, the apostate priest, in his book, Il Santo, condemned by Saint Pius X,
describes a church like that of the Vatican II church, and warns the
conspirators never to leave the Church, but rather to be patient and to take it
over from within. The movement Rinovamento,
also from that period, had the same designs. The Catholic of the twentieth
century could therefore expect the
situation which we now see before us, and expect
to refuse authenticity to the authority which these modernist snakes claim to
possess.
(Sacerdotium
4, Summer 1992).
[1]
(What is repugnant from both points of view, i.e., of both the
faith and apostolic authority, is to recognize apostolic authority in the
post-conciliar Popes, but at the same time to reject their teaching and
discipline. It is repugnant from the point of view of the faith, for it removes
from the faith its condition sine qua
non, which is the proposition of the Church, for if the Church is fallible
in its proposition of truths, it cannot be a condition of the faith. It is
repugnant, furthermore, from the point of view of apostolic authority, since
such a “picking and choosing” of the teachings and decrees of the authority
implicitly denies the infallibility and indefectibility of this authority.
Unfortunately this is the position of the Society of Saint Pius X. For them,
the true authority which proposes the truths of the Faith infallibly is not the
“apostolic authority” of John Paul II, but rather the “authority” of Archbishop
Lefebvre. Thus they will accept a teaching, a liturgical practice, or a
discipline from John Paul II only if
it has been approved by Archbishop Lefebvre. The actual conditio sine qua non of the faith of the adherents of this group
is not the auctoritas Ecclesiĉ
proponentis, but the auctoritas
Archiepiscopi proponentis or accipientis.
Since his death on March 25, 1991, this group has not yet been subject to
the test of a divisive issue, for now that the Archbishop is deceased, the new conditio sine qua non of the faith of
the group will be auctoritas Patris
Schmidberger proponentis. Whether his authority will have the same pizzazz
is yet to be seen. I rather think that, when faced with a crossroads, they will
divide up over the question, “What would
the Archbishop have done in this case?”