• . . . The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium.
  . . . Wherefore, as appears from what has been said, Christ instituted in the Church a living, authoritative and permanent Magisterium, which by His own power He strengthened, by the Spirit of truth He taught, and by miracles confirmed. He willed and ordered, under the gravest penalties, that its teachings should be received as if they were His own. As often, therefore, as it is declared on the authority of this teaching that this or that is contained in the deposit of divine revelation, it must be believed by everyone as true. ... But he who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all faith, since he thereby refuses to honour God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of faith.”(Leo XIII, Satis Cogitum, 8 ff.)
  

• “And here, beloved Sons and Venerable Brothers, We should mention again and censure a very grave error in which some Catholics are unhappily engaged, who believe that men living in error, and separated from the true faith and from Catholic unity, can attain eternal life. Indeed, this is certainly quite contrary to Catholic teaching.” (Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, 7)
  

• “This Council firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Catholic Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the church's sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Council of Ferrara-Florence, Session XI)
  

Quote:“12. How so great a variety of opinions can clear the way for the unity of the Church, We know not. That unity can arise only from one teaching authority, one law of belief, and one faith of Christians. But We do know that from such a state of affairs it is but an easy step to the neglect of religion or “Indifferentism,” and to the error of the modernists, who hold that dogmatic truth is not absolute but relative, that is, that it changes according to the varying necessities of time and place and the varying tendencies of the mind; that it is not contained in an immutable tradition, but can be altered to suit the needs of human life.

13. Furthermore, it is never lawful to employ in connection with articles of faith the distinction invented by some between “fundamental” and “non-fundamental” articles, the former to be accepted by all, the latter being left to the free acceptance of the faithful. The supernatural virtue of faith has as its formal motive the authority of God revealing, and this allows of no such distinction.” (Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, 1928)

by John Vennari (Catholic Family News)

• It would produce an upheaval of such magnitude that the entire world would realize that the Catholic Church had undergone a major revolution in line with modern ideas. It would be clear to all that an "updating" had taken place.
  

• A new theology would be introduced that would be in contradiction to previous teachings.
  

• The Freemasons themselves would voice their cockle-doodle of triumph believing that the Catholic Church had finally "seen the light" on such points as pluralism, the secular state, equality of religions, and whatever other compromises had been achieved.
  

Quote:"Our ultimate end is that of Voltaire and the French Revolution - -the final destruction of Catholicism, and even of the Christian idea...

The Pope, whoever he is, will never come to the secret societies; it is up to the secret societies to take the first step toward the Church, with the aim of conquering both of them.

The task that we are going to undertake is not the work of a day, or of a month, or of a year; it may last several years, perhaps a century, but in our ranks the soldier dies and the struggle goes on.

We do not intend to win the Popes to our cause, to make them neophytes of our principles, propagators of our ideas. That would be a ridiculous dream; and if events turn out in some way, if Cardinals or prelates, for example, of their own free will or by surprise, should enter into a part of our secrets, this is not at all an incentive for desiring their elevation to the See of Peter. That elevation would ruin us. Ambition alone would have led them to apostasy, the requirements of power would force them to sacrifice us. What we must ask for, what we should look for and wait for, as the Jews wait for the Messiah, is a Pope according to our needs...

With that we will march more securely towards the assault on the Church than with pamphlets of our brethren in France and even the gold of England. Do you want to know the reason for this? It is that with this, in order to shatter the high rock on which God has built His Church, we no longer need Hannibalian vinegar, or need gunpowder, or even need our arms. We have the little finger of the successor of Peter engaged in the ploy, and this little finger is as good, for this crusade, as all the Urban IIs and all the Saint Bernards in Christendom.

We have no doubt that we will arrive at this supreme end of our efforts. But when? But how? The unknown is not yet revealed. Nevertheless, as nothing should turn us aside from the plan drawn up, and on the contrary everything should tend to this, as if as early as tomorrow success were going to crown the work that is barely sketched, we wish, in this instruction, which will remain secret for the mere initiates, to give the officials in the charge of the supreme Vente (Lodge) some advice that they should instill in all the brethren, in the form of instruction or of a memorandum.

Now then, to assure ourselves a Pope of the required dimensions, it is a question first of shaping him... for this Pope, a generation worthy of the reign we are dreaming of. Leave old people and those of a mature age aside; go to the youth, and if it is possible, even to the children. You will contrive for yourselves, at little cost, a reputation as good Catholics and pure patriots.

This reputation will put access to our doctrines into the midst of the young clergy, as well as deeply into the monasteries. In a few years, by the force of things, this young clergy will have overrun - all the functions; they will form the sovereign's council, they will be called to choose a Pontiff who should reign. And this Pontiff, like most of his contemporaries, will be necessarily more or less imbued with the Italian and, humanitarian principles that we are going to begin to put into circulation. It is a small grain of black mustard that we are entrusting to the ground; but the sunshine of justice will develop it up to the highest power, and you will see one day what a rich harvest this small seed will produce.

In the path that we are laying out for our brethren, there are found great obstacles to conquer, difficulties of more than one kind to master. They will triumph over them by experience and by nearsightedness; but the goal is so splendid that it is important to put all the sail to the wind in order to reach it. You want to revolutionize Italy, look for the Pope whose portrait we have just drawn. You wish to establish the reign of the chosen ones on the throne of the prostitute of Babylon; let the Clergy march under your standard, always believing that they are marching under the banner of the apostolic keys. You intend to make the last vestige of tyrants and the oppressors disappear; lay your snares (nets) like Simon Bar-Jona; lay them in the sacristies, the seminaries, and the monasteries rather than at the bottom of the sea: and if you do not hurry, we promise you a catch more miraculous than his. The fisher of fish became the fisher of men; you will bring friends around the apostolic Chair. You will have preached a resolution in tiara and in cope, marching with the cross and the banner, a revolution that will need to be only a little bit urged on to set fire to the four corners of the world."(7)

Quote:There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions engaging the infallibility of the ecclesiastical Magisterium. The answer is known by whoever remembers the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964: Given the Council's pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing, in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility. . . (43)

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol, 3 (New York: Encyclopedia Press, 1913), pp. 330-331.
   
2. Rev. E. Cahill, S.J. Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement (Dublin: Gill, 1959), p. 101.
   
3. Yves Marsaudon, quoted in Dr. Rudolph Graber, Athanasius and the Church of our Time (Palmdale, CA: Christian Book Club, 1974), p. 39.
   
4. Cretineau-Joly, The Roman Church and Revolution,Vol. 2, orig. ed., 1859, reprinted by Circle of the French Renaissance, Paris, 1976. Msgr. Delassus reproduced these documents again in his work The Anti-Christian Conspiracy, Desclee de Brouwer, 1910, Tome III, pp. 1035-1092.
   
5. Michael Davies, Pope John's Council (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1992), p. 166.
   
6. Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus-On Freemasonry(Rockford, IL: TAN, 1978), par. 31.
   
7. Msgr. Delassus, The Anti-Christian Conspiracy (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1910), Tome III, pp. 1035-1092. The full text of "The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita" is also published in: Msgr. Dillon, Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked (Dublin: Gill, 1885; Palmdale, Calif.: Christian Book Club, n.d.), pp. 51-56.
   
8. For a true understanding of Catholic doctrine vs. modern errors, it is imperative to study the Papal Encyclicals and other documents against Liberalism, Modernism and
   
9. Freemasonry from the 19th and early 20th-century Popes. The most important of these are collected in The Popes against Modern Errors: 16 Papal Documents (Rockford: TAN, 1999).
   
10. Fr. Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, C.S.Sp. (Dublin: Regina Publications, 1939), chap. VII.
    
11. Quoted in ibid., p. 116 (143).
    
12. Fr. Vincent Miceli, The Antichrist (Harrison, NY: Roman Catholic Books), p. 133.
    
13. Pope Pius X, Pascendi ("On Modernism"), par. 1.
    
14. Fr. Vincent Miceli, The Antichrist (cassette lecture) (Keep the Faith, Inc.).
    
15. Raymond Dulac, Episcopal Collegiality at the Second Council of the Vatican (Paris: Cedre, 1979), pp. 9-10.
    
16. Graber, op. cit., p. 34.
    
17. Ibid., pp. 34, 35.
    
18. Ibid., p. 35.
    
19. Ibid.
    
20. Ibid., p. 36.
    
21. Ibid.
    
22. A full account of this fascinating history can be found in: Frere Michel of the Holy Trinity, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Volume 3: The Third Secret (Ft. Erie, Ontario: Immaculate Heart Publications, 1990), pp. 257-304.
    
23. Ibid., p. 298.
    
24. Vicomte Leon de Poncins, Freemasonry and the Vatican (Palmdale, CA: Christian Book Club, 1968), p. 14.
    
25. Bouyer, Dom Lambert Beauduin A Man of the Church (Casterman, 1964) pp. 180-181. Quoted by Fr. Dilder Bonneterre in The Liturgical Movement (Ed. Fideliter, 1980), P. 119.
    
26. Cf. Fr. Ralph Wiltgen S.V.D., The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (New York: Hawthorne, 1967; TAN, 1985); Michael Davies, Pope John's Council (New York: Arlington House, 1977;
    
27. Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1992); and Bishop Wycislo (see next note), which sings praises of the reform.
    
28. Most Rev. Aloysius Wycislo, Vatican II Revisited: Reflections by One Who Was There (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1987), p. x.
    
29. Ibid., p. 33.
    
30. Ibid., p. 27.
    
31. Ibid., pp. 27-34.
    
32. The entire story of the hijacking of the Council by liberal prelates and theologians, and the tragic consequences of this modernist coup, are superbly explained in Fr. Ralph Wiltgen,
    
33. S.V.D.'s The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (New York: Hawthorne, 1967; TAN, 1985) and in Michael Davies' Pope John's Council (New York: Arlington House, 1977; Kansas City:
    
34. Angelus Press, 1992).
    
35. This tactic was admitted by liberal Council peritus Father Edward Schillebeeckx. He said, "We will express it in a diplomatic way, but after the Council, we will draw the implicit conclusions." (Cited from the Dutch magazine De Bazuin, No. 16, 1965, in Iota Unum, by Romano Amerio, Kansas City, MO: Sarto House, 1996.) Another quote (or translation of the same quote) from Fr. Schillebeeckx reads, "We have used ambiguous phrases during the Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards' " (Archbishop Marcel
    
36. Lefebvre, An Open Letter to Confused Catholics, Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1992, p. 106.)
    
37. Cf. Michael Davies' The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty (Long Prairie, MN: Neumann Press, 1992) for evidence that Vatican II's Dignitatis Humanae (particularly Art. 2) reflects a contradiction with previous Papal teaching. The same is admitted without compunction by the progressive Council theologian Fr. Yves Cougar. See p. 26 of this booklet.
    
38. Quoted in Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, An Open Letter to Confused Catholics (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1992), p. 89.
    
39. Ibid., pp. 88-89.
    
40. Le Catholicisme Liberal, 1969; also Lefebvre, op. cit., P. 100.
    
41. The great theologian, Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (1388-1468), citing the doctrine of Pope Innocent III, teaches that it is possible for even a Pope to go against the universal customs of the Church. Torquemada writes, "Thus it is that Pope Innocent III states (De Consuetudine) that it is necessary to obey the Pope in all things so long as he himself does not go against the universal customs of the Church, but should he go against the universal customs of the Church, he need not be followed . . ." Cited from Father Paul Kramer, B.Ph., S.T.D., M. Div., A Theological Vindication of Roman Catholic Traditionalism, 2nd edition (St. Francis Press, India), p. 29.
    
42. Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 100.
    
43. Yves Cougar, O.P., Challenge to the Church (London, 1977), p. 147, in Michael Davies, The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty (Long Prairie, MN: Neumann Press, 1992), p. 203.
    
44. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), pp. 381-382.
    
45. Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 100.
    
46. Interview of Bishop Morris by Kieron Wood, Catholic World News, September 27, 1997.
    
47. Lefebvre, op. cit., p. 107.
    
48. Paul VI, General Audience of January 12, 1966, in Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, vol. 4, p. 700, in Atila Sinke Guimaraes, In the Murky Waters of Vatican II (Metairie: MAETA, 1997; TAN, 1999), pp. 111-112.
    

Quote:"It is now theologically possible for Protestants to use the same Mass as Catholics." (1)

• The Publicis Groupe, a leading PR firm, represents major companies within the technology, pharmaceutical and banking industries. These companies, in turn, have various partnerships with the U.S. government and global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
  

• Publicis is a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a “reset” of the global economy and a complete overhaul of our way of life. As such, Publicis appears to be playing an important role, coordinating the suppression of information that runs counter to the technocratic narrative.
  

• The role of the free press is to counter industry propaganda. That role has been effectively subverted through advertising. News outlets rarely report on something that might damage their advertisers.
  

• Publicis connects to the drug industry, banking industry, NewsGuard/HealthGuard, educational institutions, Big Tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Bing, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, global technocratic institutions like the World Health Organization, national and global NGOs like the CCDH and the World Economic Forum, and dominating health websites like WebMD and Medscape.
  

• These connections, taken together, explain how certain views can be so effectively erased. The answer to this dilemma is transparency. We must expose the machinations that allow this agenda to be pushed forward.
  

Quote:The anonymously funded CCDH also has an office in Washington, D.C. and the defamatory publicity campaign created in December 2020 was designed to not only discredit NVIC’s four-decade public record of working within the U.S. democratic system to secure vaccine safety and informed consent protections in public health policies and laws, but to destroy our small charity.

• Public libraries
  

• Schools
  

• MSN
  

• Bing
  

• Trend Micro and many others
  

Catholic Encyclopedia > The Sacrament of Penance

• that penance is not a mere human invention devised by the Church to secure power over consciences or to relieve the emotional strain of troubled souls; it is the ordinary means appointed by Christ for the remission of sin. Man indeed is free to obey or disobey, but once he has sinned, he must seek pardon not on conditions of his own choosing but on those which God has determined, and these for the Christian are embodied in the Sacrament of Penance.
  

• No Catholic believes that a priest, simply as an individual man, however pious or learned, has power to forgive sins. This power belongs to God alone; but He can and does exercise it through the ministration of men. Since He has seen fit to exercise it by means of this sacrament, it cannot be said that the Church or the priest interferes between the soul and God; on the contrary, penance is the removal of the one obstacle that keeps the soul away from God.
  

• It is not true that for the Catholic the mere "telling of one's sins" suffices to obtain their forgiveness. Without sincere sorrow and purpose of amendment, confession avails nothing, the pronouncement of absolution is of no effect, and the guilt of the sinner is greater than before.
  

• While this sacrament as a dispensation of Divine mercy facilitates the pardoning of sin, it by no means renders sin less hateful or its consequences less dreadful to the Christian mind; much less does it imply permission to commit sin in the future. In paying ordinary debts, as e.g., by monthly settlements, the intention of contracting new debts with the same creditor is perfectly legitimate; a similar intention on the part of him who confesses his sins would not only be wrong in itself but would nullify the sacrament and prevent the forgiveness of sins then and there confessed.
  

• Strangely enough, the opposite charge is often heard, viz., that the confession of sin is intolerable and hard and therefore alien to the spirit of Christianity and the loving kindness of its Founder. But this view, in the first place, overlooks the fact that Christ, though merciful, is also just and exacting. Furthermore, however painful or humiliating confession may be, it is but a light penalty for the violation of God's law. Finally, those who are in earnest about their salvation count no hardship too great whereby they can win back God's friendship.
  

Quote:As a means of regaining grace and justice, penance was at all times necessary for those who had defiled their souls with any mortal sin. . . . Before the coming of Christ, penance was not a sacrament, nor is it since His coming a sacrament for those who are not baptized. But the Lord then principally instituted the Sacrament of Penance, when, being raised from the dead, he breathed upon His disciples saying: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' (John 20:22-23). By which action so signal and words so clear the consent of all the Fathers has ever understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and to their lawful successors, for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after Baptism. (Sess. XIV, c. i)

• that the "binding" and "loosing" refers not to physical but to spiritual or moral bonds among which sin is certainly included; the more so because
  

• the power here granted is unlimited — "whatsoever you shall bind, . . . whatsoever you shall loose";
  

• the power is judicial, i.e., the Apostles are authorized to bind and to loose;
  

• whether they bind or loose, their action is ratified in heaven. In healing the palsied man Christ declared that "the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins"; here He promises that what these men, the Apostles, bind or loose on earth, God in heaven will likewise bind or loose. (Cf. also POWER OF THE KEYS.)
  

• Christ here reiterates in the plainest terms — "sins", "forgive", "retain" — what He had previously stated in figurative language, "bind" and "loose", so that this text specifies and distinctly applies to sin the power of loosing and binding.
  

• He prefaces this grant of power by declaring that the mission of the Apostles is similar to that which He had received from the Father and which He had fulfilled: "As the Father hath sent me". Now it is beyond doubt that He came into the world to destroy sin and that on various occasions He explicitly forgave sin (Matthew 9:2-8; Luke 5:20; 7:47; Revelation 1:5), hence the forgiving of sin is to be included in the mission of the Apostles.
  

• Christ not only declared that sins were forgiven, but really and actually forgave them; hence, the Apostles are empowered not merely to announce to the sinner that his sins are forgiven but to grant him forgiveness—"whose sins you shall forgive". If their power were limited to the declaration "God pardons you", they would need a special revelation in each case to make the declaration valid.
  

• The power is twofold — to forgive or to retain, i.e., the Apostles are not told to grant or withhold forgiveness nondiscriminately; they must act judicially, forgiving or retaining according as the sinner deserves.
  

• The exercise of this power in either form (forgiving or retaining) is not restricted: no distinction is made or even suggested between one kind of sin and another, or between one class of sinners and all the rest: Christ simply says "whose sins".
  

• The sentence pronounced by the Apostles (remission or retention) is also God's sentence — "they are forgiven . . . they are retained".
  

• "In the primitive Church there was no concept of the reconciliation of the Christian sinner by the authority of the Church, but the Church by very slow degrees only grew accustomed to this concept. Moreover, even after penance came to be recognized as an institution of the Church, it was not called by the name of sacrament, because it was regarded as an odious sacrament." (46)
  

• "The Lord's words: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained' (John 20:22-23), in no way refer to the Sacrament of Penance, whatever the Fathers of Trent may have been pleased to assert." (47)
  

• St. Augustine (d. 430) warns the faithful: "Let us not listen to those who deny that the Church of God has power to forgive all sins" (De agon. Christ., iii).
  

• St. Ambrose (d. 397) rebukes the Novatianists who "professed to show reverence for the Lord by reserving to Him alone the power of forgiving sins. Greater wrong could not be done than what they do in seeking to rescind His commands and fling back the office He bestowed. . . . The Church obeys Him in both respects, by binding sin and by loosing it; for the Lord willed that for both the power should be equal" (On Penance I.2.6).
  

• Again he teaches that this power was to be a function of the priesthood. "It seemed impossible that sins should be forgiven through penance; Christ granted this (power) to the Apostles and from the Apostles it has been transmitted to the office of priests" (On Penance II.2.12).
  

• The power to forgive extends to all sins: "God makes no distinction; He promised mercy to all and to His priests He granted the authority to pardon without any exception" (On Penance I.3.10).
  

• Against the same heretics St. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona (d. 390), wrote to Sympronianus, one of their leaders: "This (forgiving sins), you say, only God can do. Quite true: but what He does through His priests is the doing of His own power" (Ep. I ad Sympron., 6 in P.L., XIII, 1057).
  

• In the East during the same period we have the testimony of St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 447): "Men filled with the spirit of God (i.e. priests) forgive sins in two ways, either by admitting to baptism those who are worthy or by pardoning the penitent children of the Church" (In Joan., 1, 12 in P.G., LXXIV, 722).
  

• St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) after declaring that neither angels nor archangels have received such power, and after showing that earthly rulers can bind only the bodies of men, declares that the priest's power of forgiving sins "penetrates to the soul and reaches up to heaven". Wherefore, he concludes, "it were manifest folly to condemn so great a power without which we can neither obtain heaven nor come to the fulfillment of the promises. . . . Not only when they (the priests) regenerate us (baptism), but also after our new birth, they can forgive us our sins" (On the Priesthood III.5 sq.).
  

• St. Athanasius (d. 373): "As the man whom the priest baptizes is enlightened by the grace of the Holy Ghost, so does he who in penance confesses his sins, receive through the priest forgiveness in virtue of the grace of Christ" (Frag. contra Novat. in P.G., XXVI, 1315).
  

• that the Fathers insisted on a manifestation of sin as the necessary means of unburdening the soul and regaining the friendship of God;
  

• that the confession was to be made not to a layman but to priests;
  

• that priests exercise the power of absolving in virtue of a Divine commission, i.e., as representatives of Christ;
  

• that the sinner, if he would be saved, must overcome his shame and repugnance to confession.
  

While this article is about the Fall of the Monastery of Le Barroux (which ended up make a 'deal with Modernist Rome') and not about the Conciliar SSPX, the similarities in the approaches of both Dom Gerard and Bishop Fellay in trying to seek acceptance from their followers for essentially the same 'deal with Rome' are striking.

Taken from The Recusant - Issue 19 [August 2014]