Infiltration

by Taylor Marshall

  Regarding Muslims, Nostra aetate reads: “The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God.”95 Do Muslims adore the Trinity rightly, or do they merely aim their worship toward a philosophical God? Do they really “submit wholeheartedly to His inscrutable decrees”? Do they submit to the divine decree regarding baptism, monogamy, and Sunday obligation? These words are patently false or tremendously stretched.

  One can easily see that Pope Paul VI’s eager enthusiasm for ecumenism is rooted in this document that presupposes that false religions can and do lift the soul to “perfect liberation,” “supreme illumination,” and “submission to His inscrutable decrees.” Pope Leo XIII and Pope Saint Pius X would not have agreed with these theological assertions, but Freemasons would agree wholeheartedly that any and all religions suffice to illuminate humanity. Whether Pope Paul VI was indeed a Freemason has never been substantiated, but his thinking conformed to Freemasonic goals so much that even the venerable Padre Pio once quipped after the election of Paul VI: “Courage, courage, courage! For the Church is already invaded by Freemasonry,” adding also, “Freemasonry has already arrived at the slippers of the Pope.”96 No doubt the Freemasons rejoiced when, during Vatican II, Pope Paul VI ascended to the altar of Saint Peter’s, removed his papal tiara and laid it on the altar to signify that he renounced the glory and power of the world and sought only to accompany the world as one without a crown. The days of Pope Pius X were definitively over.

  Pope Paul VI promulgated Dignitatis humanae on 7 December 1965, and the next day he closed the Second Vatican Council and stated: “The magisterium of the Church did not wish to pronounce itself under the form of extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements.”97 This effectively hamstrung the Council. It’s true that theological statements are made throughout the Conciliar documents. Yet the Council made no extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements. Nothing binding came from Vatican II. Paul VI clarified this a little over one month later when he explained: “In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it has avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogma carrying the mark of infallibility.”98 By a divine miracle, the pope of Vatican II taught that Vatican II contained no extraordinary dogma and did not carry the mark of infallibility — meaning the documents of Vatican II are fallible and may contain error. Unlike the previous twenty ecumenical councils, the pope placed an asterisk next to Vatican II.

  In the years following the Council, the crypto-Modernist theologians created a theological journal by which they could continue and promote the so-called spirit of Vatican II and the aggiornamento of the Catholic Church. The founders of this new journal were the victorious theologians of the nouvelle théologie who had drafted and composed the documents of Vatican II:

  Karl Rahner

  Hans Küng

  Edward Schillebeeckx

  Joseph Ratzinger

  Henri de Lubac

  Anton van den Boogaard

  Paul Brand

  Yves Congar

  Johann Baptist Metz

  The journal was aptly named Concilium and was created in order to disseminate the spirit of the recently completed Council. For the crypto-Modernist theologians, the previous twenty councils remained in the attic. As Karl Rahner had emphasized, only the existential present moment was required to apply theology pastorally to the needs of modern humanity. To disseminate their bolder theology to colleges and seminaries, Concilium was published five times annually in six languages: Croatian, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Father Schillebeeckx had admitted, “We used ambiguous phrases during the [Second Vatican] Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards.”99 The journal Concilium would be the means by which they would “interpret them afterwards.”

  Concilium went off the rails. Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx especially led the guard into open heterodoxy as they challenged the historicity of the Immaculate Conception, the virgin birth of Christ, the Resurrection of Christ, the miracle of transubstantiation, the assumption of Mary, and other de fide dogmas of the Catholic Church. Concilium theologians also advocated more extreme liturgical reforms for the sake of enculturation and pastoralism.

  Concerned over the increasingly radical direction of Concilium, several theologians associated with aggiornamento hit the brakes and determined to create a new journal that sought to remain within the boundaries of Catholic orthodoxy; they named it Communio. The founders of Communio in 1972 were Joseph Ratzinger, Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Walter Kasper, Marc Ouellet, and Louis Bouyer. The years following the implementation of the Novus Ordo Mass in 1970 were turbulent in the Catholic Church, and factions arose. Traditionalists held to Thomism and the moral theology of Saint Alphonsus Liguori and begged for the traditional Latin Mass. They were led by Cardinal Ottaviani and Archbishop Lefebvre. Rahner, Küng, and Schillebeeckx continued in their giddy enthusiasm for Modernism under Paul VI, but Ratzinger, de Lubac, and Balthasar retreated to a more conservative interpretation of Vatican II. This latter group, while embracing nouvelle théologie, would develop the theology and language of the “Reform of the Reform” and the “Hermeneutic of Continuity.” Pope John Paul II certainly embraced this “Reform of the Reform” persuasion. He enthusiastically tapped Ratzinger in 1981 to serve as his chief theological adviser as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

  The Ratzingerian epic from 1981 to his resignation from the papacy in 2013 is a thirty-two-year project to restrain the “spirit of Vatican II” released by Rahner, Küng, Schillebeeckx, and even by Ratzinger himself in the 1960s. The legacy of the “John Paul conservatives” or “Ratzingerians” lived on through Communio but also through the books of Ignatius Press, which widely published the works of John Paul II, Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Balthasar, de Lubac, Ouellet, Schönborn, and Bouyer and created the Ratzingerian legacy for theologians of the 1980s through the 2000s. Magazines such as First Things, the programming of EWTN, the advent of Catholic radio, and the writings of George Weigel and Father Richard John Neuhaus further popularized what it meant to be a “JP2 Catholic” or a “JP2 priest.” And yet the Catholic Church still leaned toward Hans Küng-liberalism in nearly every diocese, chancery, and seminary.

  While John Paul II had little patience for the traditionalists, the later years of Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) show growing sympathy for the traditionalist position and the possibility of a smaller, more faithful Church. In fact, it seems that Ratzinger eventually became one of the “prophets of doom” that John XXIII warned us about in his spirit of optimism.

  87 Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium (21 November 1964), no. 8.

  88 This also finds its way into Eucharistic Prayer III: “To our departed brothers and sisters and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance to your kingdom.”

  89 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. William V. Dych (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 264–277.

  90 Ibid., 284.

  91 Pope Pius XII recounts this story of Saint Benedict in his Encyclical Fulgens radiatur (21 March 1947), no. 11.

  92 Second Vatican Council, Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions Nostra aetate (28 October 1965), no. 1.

  93 Ibid., no. 2.

  94 Ibid.

  95 Ibid., no. 3.

  96 Original Italian: “Coraggio, coraggio, coraggio! perché la Chiesa è già invasa dalla Massoneria, aggiungendo: La Massoneria è già arrivata alle pantofole del Papa.” Franco Adessa, Chi è don Luigi Villa? (Oconomowoc, WI: Apostolate of Our Lady of Good Success, 2011), 6. Padre Pio said this regarding Paul VI toward the end of 1963. The Italian word used by P
adre Pio, pantofole, is the term usually used to refer to the slippers worn by the pope.

  97 Pope Paul VI, Discourse closing Vatican II, 7 December 1965.

  98 Pope Paul VI, Audience of 12 January 1966.

  99 Cited in Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1992), 106.

  20

  Infiltration of the Liturgy

  I hear around me reformers who want to dismantle the Holy Sanctuary, destroy the universal flame of the Church, discard all her adornments, and smite her with remorse for her historic past.”

  — Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (future Pope Pius XII) to Count Enrico P. Galeazzi

  Pope Paul VI’s opening address to the resumed Second Vatican Council indicated that the Council would focus not on dogma but on the role of the bishop, ecumenism and unity with non-Catholics, and dialogue with the contemporary world. On 4 December 1963, the Council approved its first constitution — the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy titled Sacrosanctum concilium. It passed with a vote of 2,147 to 4. The goal of the document was to reform the Catholic liturgy so that the laity would more actively participate in the worship of God.

  Pope Pius X had previously urged that all Catholics learn to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in his 1903 motu proprio on music, titled in Italian Tra le sollecitudini:

  Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.100

  Liturgical scholars note that this is the first historical exhortation to “active participation” of the laity in the liturgy. The text, however, has been exaggerated in the Italian translation, which reads “partecipazione attiva,” and also in the English version, which reads “active participation.” In the original Latin version of the text, the qualifier “active” is nowhere present: “quae est participatio divinorum mysteriorum,”101 or “which is the participation in the divine mysteries.” The idea of “active participation” is not the official Latin version of the text. It has been added. Even if “active participation” is included, the context of the document is music and Gregorian chant and, indeed, Pope Pius X did desire the congregation to know the sung responses and participate in Gregorian chant.

  The Second Vatican Council, however, meant something quite different by “active participation” when it stated:

  The rite of the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, may be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active participation by the faithful may be more easily achieved.

  For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary.102

  Here the baptismal “royal priesthood” of the laity is confused and conflated with the ordained ministerial priesthood. The document explains that the need for “active participation” requires “rites to be simplified.” Why? Because laypeople need to be able to perform them to fulfill “active participation.” This is a dangerous approach to “simplifying” the Roman Rite. The text and rubrics of the Holy Mass and liturgy are not subject to simplifying rites. Note also that Sacrosanctum refers to the traditional Roman Rite with terms such as “duplicated,” “added with but little advantage,” “discarded,” “suffered injury,” and “accidents of history.” The liturgy is reduced to utility, since the rites will be henceforth changed “as may seem useful or necessary.” This is Bugnini’s approach to liturgy — and it was also the approach used by Martin Luther for Lutherans and by Thomas Cranmer and Martin Bucer for the Anglican liturgy.

  Lex orandi, lex credendi: the law of prayer is the law of belief. If you change the liturgy and prayers, you will necessarily change the Faith. Sacrosanctum concilium also called for the vernacular, and by 1965, modifications to the liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass were made ad experimentum, as Bugnini had successfully achieved ten years previously in 1955 with the Holy Week Reform. Pope Paul VI immediately began making modifications to the liturgy to conform it to the new “active participation” of Sacrosanctum concilium:

  1964: Pope Paul VI appoints Bugnini secretary of the Council for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy.

  1964: Pope Paul VI reduces the Eucharistic fast to one hour before reception of Holy Communion.

  1965: Pope Paul VI allows an experimental missal. The changes include the following:Use of the vernacular is permitted.

  Freestanding table altars are encouraged.

  The psalm Judica is omitted at the beginning of Mass.

  The Last Gospel is omitted at the end of Mass.

  The Leonine Prayers after Low Mass (including the Saint Michael Prayer), ratified by Pope Leo XIII, are suppressed.

  1966: National episcopal conferences are ratified by Pope Paul VI’s motu proprio Ecclesiae sanctae.

  1967: The document Tres abhinc annos simplifies the rubrics and vestments of the priest. Concelebration of priests at the altar is made standard. Holy Communion under both species is now permitted to the laity.

  1967: Married deacons are allowed by Pope Paul VI in Sacrum diaconatus ordinem.

  1968: Pope Paul VI changes the Rite of Ordination for Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

  1969: Pope Paul VI grants the indult for Holy Communion in the hand to nations where it is “already the custom” (Holland, Belgium, France, and Germany).

  1969: Pope Paul VI promulgates the Novus Ordo Missae with his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of 3 April.

  1969: Pope Paul VI appoints Bugnini secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship in May.

  1970: Novus Ordo Missale of Pope Paul VI is published on 26 March.

  All these changes were drafted and implemented by Bugnini, who finished his work by being appointed secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. Most notably, the Freemasonic Bugnini arranged for the abolishing of the powerful Leonine Prayers after Low Mass going back to Pope Leo XIII (three Hail Marys, the Salve Regina, the prayer to Saint Michael, and prayer for defense of the Church). The naive optimism of Vatican II wrongly led Pope Paul VI to remove the protection of Our Lady and Saint Michael over the liturgy and the universal Catholic Church.

  Before Bugnini’s Mass was formally published to the world in 1970, a group of holy cardinals and bishops joined together in one last-ditch effort to block the Pauline-Bugnini reforms over concerns that the Bugnini Mass promoted theological error. This was the Ottaviani Intervention of 1969.

  100 Pope Pius X, Tra le sollecitudini (22 November 1903).

  101 Pope Pius X, Motu Proprio SS.MI D. N. PII PP. X de musica sacra. Acta Sanctae Sedis, 388.

  102 Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium (4 December 1963), no. 50.

  21

  Ottaviani Intervention against Pope Paul VI

  When the 1969 Novus Ordo Missae of Bugnini was unveiled, the stalwart French missionary Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre gathered twelve theologians to study the liturgy thoroughly. Led by the eminent Thomist theologian Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers, O.P., they produced an academic presentation for Pope Paul VI titled A Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae. Cardinal Ottaviani and Antonio Cardinal Bacci wrote an introduction to this document and presented the study to Pope Paul VI on 25 September 1969 — the feast day of Saint Pius X. For this reason, A Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo M
issae is most often referred to as the “Ottaviani Intervention.” The cover letter by Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Bacci explains that the Novus Ordo departs from the theology of the Council of Trent in text and in theology and will cause confusion among priests and laity alike.

  They argued that the Novus Ordo Mass undercut the oblationary, sacrificial, and sacerdotal doctrines of the Council of Trent. In other words, the new Mass leaned toward Protestantism. This was not a baseless accusation. Six Protestant scholars had been invited to Vatican II to participate in discussions regarding ecumenism and liturgy: A. Raymond George (Methodist), Ronald Jaspar (Anglican), Massey Shepherd (Anglican), Friedrich Künneth (Lutheran), Eugene Brand (Lutheran), and Max Thurian (Reformed Community of Taizé). Max Thurian, as a Protestant liturgist, had the most influence on the outcomes leading to the Novus Ordo Mass. At supper once with Hans Küng, Max Thurian and another Protestant scholar, Roger Schutz, asked him what they should do at this historical moment of the Council, to which Küng replied: “It is best for you to remain Protestants.”103

  The theological group behind Lefebvre pleaded that they at least be allowed to use the previous rite. The goal was that this presentation would gain support and lead Pope Paul VI to delay or scrap the new Bugnini rites. And if the promulgation did move forward, perhaps a universal indult might be offered to those priests who did not want to celebrate the Novus Ordo.