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| Vatican II and the Hermeneutic of God Allowing Us to Learn Painful Lessons |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-23-2025, 06:37 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Vatican II and the Hermeneutic of God Allowing Us to Learn Painful Lessons
![[Image: 6350b1f814e14958d83406d08d15448e_L.jpg]](https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/media/k2/items/cache/6350b1f814e14958d83406d08d15448e_L.jpg)
Robert Morrison, Remnant Columnist | March 21, 2025
If we simply look at these three realities from the first days of the Council — abandoning the practice of condemning errors; appointing heterodox theologians as experts; and allowing the progressives to hijack the Council — it should be obvious that Vatican II began by betraying God and His truth.
“The Holy Spirit does not always prevent the necessary consequences of our negligence.” (Fr. Alvaro Calderon, Prometheus: The Religion of Man)
Among faithful Catholics who truly seek to understand the ongoing crisis in the Church, serious disagreements frequently arise regarding the best way to interpret Vatican II. On the one hand, many Traditional Catholics interpret the teachings of the Council to be a radical departure from what the Church has always taught — this framework of interpretation is often referred to as the “hermeneutic of rupture.” Conversely, many Catholics reject the hermeneutic of rupture because they believe that Vatican II, as an Ecumenical Council of the Church, could never actually break from the Church’s Tradition. These Catholics instead follow Benedict XVI in favoring the “hermeneutic of continuity,” whereby the Council is interpreted as being in continuity with what the Church has always taught.
As important as the debate over these two interpretive frameworks is, it fails to address two far more important questions: why did God permit the Council to create such problems, and what does He want us to learn from those problems? Indeed, if we focus on these questions we can better interpret not only what happened at Vatican II but also what has transpired for the past sixty years.
While the questions about why God permitted Vatican II to create such problems necessarily involves some speculation, we can get a solid foothold on the analysis if we recognize that the Council began with a few egregious betrayals of the Catholic Faith from John XXIII and the progressive Council Fathers. No serious Christian familiar with salvation history can possibly overlook this reality that the Council began by insulting God through the betrayals considered below. If God were to have rewarded such betrayals, or even allowed them to go unpunished, it surely would have been the first such occurrence in the history of mankind.
How the Council Began by Betraying God and His Truth
As discussed in a previous article, John XXIII’s opening address of Vatican II fundamentally rejected the Catholic Church’s approach to condemning errors:
Quote:“The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated.”
As we know in our own spiritual lives, it is generally a sin of presumption to needlessly cast aside the precautions that God wants us to take to avoid evils. John XXIII’s sin was immeasurably worse because it exposed the entire Catholic Church to the greatest possible dangers.
John XXIII exacerbated this betrayal of God’s truth when he named several heterodox theologians as influential experts for his Council, including Fathers Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, and Hans Kung. These men had been held under suspicion of heresy during Pius XII’s pontificate and yet they were given free rein to spread their errors during the Council.
Finally, we can also consider how the progressive theologians hijacked the Council during its opening session with an act of open rebellion, described by Fr. Ralph M. Wiltgen in his Rhine Flows Into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II:
Quote:“Archbishop Pericle Felici, Secretary General of the Council, was explaining the election procedures to the assembled Fathers in his fluent Latin when Cardinal Liénart, who served as one of the ten Council Presidents, seated at a long table at the front of the Council hall, rose in his place and asked to speak. He expressed his conviction that the Council Fathers needed more time to study the qualifications of the various candidates. After consultations among the national episcopal conferences, he explained, everyone would know who were the most qualified candidates, and it would be possible to vote intelligently. He requested a few days’ delay in the balloting. The suggestion was greeted with applause, and, after a moment’s silence, Cardinal Frings rose to second the motion. He, too, was applauded. After hurried consultation with Eugène Cardinal Tisserant, who as first of the Council Presidents was conducting the meeting, Archbishop Felici announced that the Council Presidency had acceded to the request of the two cardinals. The meeting was adjourned until 9 A.M. on Tuesday, October 16.”
While this may sound rather ordinary, here is how the coup was described by leading theologians:
Cardinal Leo Jozef Suenens. “This was indeed a brilliant and dramatic turn of events an audacious infringement of existing regulations! . . . To a large extent, the future of the Council was decided at that moment. John XXIII was very pleased.” (Suenens, Memories and Hopes)
Fr. Yves Congar. “This little point was important. To begin with, all points of procedure are important: they involve the work of a group. In this case, the principal importance rests in the fact that THIS IS THE FIRST CONCILIAR ACT, a refusal to accept even the possibility of a prefabrication.” (Congar, My Journal of the Council)
Fr. Joseph Ratzinger. “The Council had shown its resolve to act independently and autonomously, rather than be degraded to the status of a mere executive organ of the preparatory commissions.” (Benedict XVI, Theological Highlights of Vatican II)
Fr. Henri de Lubac. “This dramatic little episode is spoken of as a victory of the bishops over the Holy Office. Other victories will no doubt be more difficult.” (de Lubac, Vatican Council Notebooks Volume One)
As a result of this unholy coup, almost all of the preparatory work for Vatican II was abandoned and the heterodox theologians were permitted to play the most important roles in drafting the Council’s documents. For this reason, the initial drafts of the Council documents included the most liberal ideas that the heterodox theologians thought they could advance; and the final versions of those documents reflect the ways in which orthodox theologians and Council Fathers attempted to counteract the liberal ideas. This is why the Council documents juxtapose liberal and conservative ideas, without any real attempt to harmonize the contradictions — and this pathetic reality lends support to both the “hermeneutic of rupture” and the “hermeneutic of continuity.”
If we simply look at these three realities from the first days of the Council — abandoning the practice of condemning errors; appointing heterodox theologians as experts; and allowing the progressives to hijack the Council — it should be obvious that Vatican II began by betraying God and His truth. Moreover, these betrayals formed the foundation for the Council. Despite the best efforts of orthodox Council Fathers such as Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, and Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer, there was no way to recover from the fact the entire Council was built on a betrayal of God’s truth.
The Theological Experiment
If Pius XII and his predecessors were correct, then these betrayals would constitute a tremendous offense against God. These offenses would naturally deserve God’s punishment, and we know that God’s punishments and corrections often consist of Him permitting us to experience the folly of our misdeeds so that we will abandon evil and return to Him.
And so the opening days of Vatican II set up a theological experiment of sorts: would God allow the Council Fathers and the Church to experience the consequences of the betrayals, or would He instead reward evil behavior by blessing those betrayals? Would the bad actions of John XXIII and the progressive Council Fathers bear good fruits, or would they bear bad fruits?
The Lessons from the Experiment
The world did not need to wait too long to see the results from the experiment. Paul VI announced the results in the decade following the Council:
Quote:“The Church, today, is going through a moment of disquiet. Some indulge in self-criticism, one would say even self-destruction. It is like an acute and complex inner upheaval, which no one would have expected after the Council. One thought of a flourishing, a serene expansion of the concepts matured in the great conciliar assembly. There is also this aspect in the Church, there is the flourishing, but . . . for the most part one comes to notice the painful aspect. The Church is hit also by he who is part of it.” (December 7, 1968)
“Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety, confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement, and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were supposed to be opened to the light instead. . . Even in the Church this state of uncertainty rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom, quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of filling them.” (June 29, 1972)
Those who sought to defend the Church ought to have recognized that the crisis meant that they needed to reject the innovations of Vatican II. But two considerations prevented most otherwise serious Catholics from doing so: they blindly obeyed the hierarchy, and they believed that criticizing the Council would necessarily call into question the indefectibility of the Church. As a result, many Catholics who truly loved the Church were persuaded to defend what was destroying it.
And so, it seems, God permitted the evils to grow even worse so that souls would eventually wake up. Tragically, it has not been the wicked enemies of the Church who have prevented this awakening but the conservative Catholics who so vehemently oppose any real criticism of Vatican II. Were it not for the conservative Catholic defense of Vatican II, far more souls would have rejected the errors fueling the current crisis and worked to repair the damage that has been done.
Nonetheless, Francis’s hostile occupation of the papacy has afforded many faithful Catholics the occasion to realize that the conservative Catholic defense of Vatican II was always ill-conceived. Still other serious Catholics have sadly adopted the nonsensical belief that the crisis in the Church began with Francis — as though Paul VI was just imagining that the crisis existed when he made his alarming statements in 1968 and 1972. This polarization is among the least appreciated, but most monumental, effects of Francis’s reign.
Regardless of how many Catholics awaken to the reality of Vatican II, God has allowed the Council and its aftermath to teach the following painful lessons:
- The pre-Vatican II popes were right in the condemning errors that presently plague the Church
- Just a small amount of theological error is fatal
- Blind obedience can be catastrophic
- The Church’s enemies are aided by the compromises of good Catholics
- God preserves those who do not compromise with error
- The world suffers when the Church’s truth is obscured
- God will not be mocked
If, instead of promoting false ecumenism and religious liberty, Vatican II had emphasized these lessons, it would have been a tremendously useful Council. However, no matter how eloquently and emphatically the Council would have been able to speak on these matters, it never could have approached the value of seeing these lessons concretely demonstrated for over sixty years. We are, in this limited sense, better off for having suffered the evils brought about by the Council. In all other respects, the Council has been an unmitigated disaster for the Church and world because it was built on a foundation of betraying God and His truth.
Is this the best way of interpreting Vatican II — the hermeneutic of God allowing us to learn painful lessons? It depends. If we are content to suffer through this crisis without a satisfactory explanation for why God is permitting it, then we will have little interest in seeing the Council in light of the lessons we should learn from it. If, however, we are inclined to fit the plainly observable realities of Vatican II and its aftermath within the framework of what we know about God’s Providence, then it is arguably the most reasonable way to interpret the Council.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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| Archbishop Naumann will reconsecrate Kansas to Jesus through Mary in response to satanic event |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-19-2025, 07:12 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Archbishop Naumann will reconsecrate Kansas to Jesus through Mary in response to satanic event
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, announced that he will reconsecrate the state to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary just a few days before a so-called ‘black mass’ planned by a satanic group.
![[Image: c21fa3f2-d68c-472e-a204-ccf769387a26.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/c21fa3f2-d68c-472e-a204-ccf769387a26.jpeg)
Facebook, Archbishop Naumann
Mar 18, 2025
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Joseph Naumann will reconsecrate Kansas to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary ahead of a satanic so-called “black mass” to be held later this month.
In a March 14 parish announcement, Archbishop Naumann, along with the entire Kansas Catholic Conference, announced that he will reconsecrate Kansas to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary just a few days before a “black mass” planned by a Kansas-based satanic group, the Satanic Grotto (SG), intends to dedicate the state legislature to Satan.
“Satanic worship is disturbing, spiritually harmful, and an affront to every Christian,” the Archdiocese of Kansas City wrote. “Participants may claim that the destructive and offensive acts during a ‘black mass’ are part of their religious freedom or free speech rights under the First Amendment. However, these rights have limits and do not allow individuals to act in ways that include or incite lawless behavior.”
“We are deeply disappointed that such blasphemous acts that are intended to mock Catholic worship, the beliefs of all Christians, and those who believe in the one true God, are being allowed on the Kansas Statehouse grounds,” it continued.
“We must not allow ourselves to be provoked to anger or violence, as that would be cooperation with the devil. Instead, we should approach this situation with all confidence in God’s ultimate victory over Satan, sin and death. ‘And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matt. 16:18),” the archdiocese added.
The archdiocese detailed Archbishop Naumann’s plan to offer reparation ahead of the satanic event scheduled for March 28.
On March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the archbishop will celebrate an evening Mass for Expectant Parents. During the Mass, he will reconsecrate Kansas to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Additionally, on the day of the “black mass,” Archbishop Naumann will hold a Eucharistic Holy Hour at Assumption Church, directly north of the statehouse where the satanic ritual will take place. After the Holy Hour, he will celebrate Mass.
Faithful Catholics who cannot attend the Mass and consecration in person are encouraged to recite the Individual Consecration Prayer to consecrate themselves to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“Pray for the repentance and conversion of those participating in the satanic worship event,” the archdiocese advises.
Ahead of the event, Catholics are encouraged to contact Kansas Governor Laura Kelly and state legislators to express concern and request that the event be cancelled. Contact information can be found here.
Catholics across America are planning protests and prayer rallies in response to the satanic event.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, conservative Catholic organization American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP), is sponsoring a Rosary rally nearby as the blasphemous event takes place.
CatholicVote has also asked its followers to show up on the 28th to protest in order to “stop Eucharistic desecration.”
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| Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre - Volume II |
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Posted by: Stone - 03-18-2025, 08:37 AM - Forum: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
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Apologia pro Marcel Lefebvre
by Michael Davies
Volume II
Taken from the SSPX Asia website
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-na.ssl-images-am...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-na.ssl-images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fbooks%2F1450386955i%2F5698299.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=35ab981d006cc9950c8ab9adae2b62e93d8f758390981232c645f607fcc72f04&ipo=images)
Author’s Introduction
The first volume of the Apologia took the story of Archbishop Lefebvre up to the end of 1976. I had hoped to continue the account in this volume, but the amount of material I felt it necessary to include was such that it could cover only three more years, taking the story to the end of 1979. The last major incident in this book is the Archbishop's sacerdotal Golden Jubilee. I had also hoped, as I remarked in the Introdtiction to Volume I, to be able to give details of an agreement between the Pope and the Archbishop in this volume. Alas, no final agreement has yet been reached, but negotiations are still continuing. Let us pray that Volume III will contain details of this greatly desired reconciliation.
The major part of this book is taken up with the negotiations between the Archbishop and the Holy See, principally with the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Archbishop Lefebvre had long demanded that his case should he brought before this Congregation; his request was granted, and the resultant discussions are absorbing and of considerable historic interest. Unlike the treatment he received from the Vatican which was described in Volume I, I consider his treatment at the hands of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to have been scrupulously fair. The story is told here principally through the original documents which are presented without comment. The discussions were by no means one-sided. The questions put to the Archbishop were very perceptive and clearly gave him cause to think deeply about the basis for his attitudes and actions. In some cases he has clearly vindicated his position, but in others his answers were not quite as convincing. These negotiations are, of course, continuing. Further documentation will be provided in Volume III.
I have followed a strict chronological sequence, and have interspersed documentation on the negotiations with some of the Archbishop's sermons and accounts of his activities. The schedule he undertakes is quite staggering for a man in his seventies. His travels take him all over the world, to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, the United States of America, South America, and many European countries. Wherever he goes, the faithful have high expectations of him, and despite his personal fatigue and the weighty problems with which he has to deal he rarely disappoints them. He is always ready with a friendly smile, a kindly word, and inspirational sermon. The progress made by the Society at this time would have been almost miraculous even had it enjoyed the full support of the Vatican. The number of ordinations increased steadily, new seminaries were opened; there are now three in addition to Ecône-in Germany, the U.S.A., and Argentina. Schools were founded, church buildings purchased, and new Mass centers opened at an astonishing rate.
But at the same time evidence of problems within the Society began to emerge. The Archbishop was attracting considerable criticism from the fringe of the traditionalist movement for his alleged moderation and willingness to "compromise." A good number of priests outside the Society claimed that the New Mass was intrinsically invalid, and that there had been no true pope since Pope Pius XII. Some priests in the Society became infected by these theories, particularly in France and the U.S.A. And, almost inevitably, some young Society priests began to show alarming signs of arrogance. The Archbishop had taken a calculated risk in sending young men out to do pastoral work without the benefit of guidance and supervision from mature priests. Some proved worthy of the trust he had placed in them, others did not. Needless to say, reports of these tendencies reached the Vatican and added to the Archbishop's problems in working for a reconciliation. This was why he found it necessary to clarify his position on the New Mass and the Pope on a number of occasions, as this book will show. These internal problems became more serious after 1979, and will be dealt with in Volume III. The Archbishop felt obliged to expel a number of priests in subsequent years, including nine in the United States in 1983. Others left of their own accord. Sadly, some of these priests have had no scruples about making vindictive attacks upon t lie bishop who had given them their priesthood.
In June 1983, Archbishop Lefebvre resigned as Superior of the Society, to be succeeded by Father Franz Schmidberger who had been Superior of the German District. The Archbishop will continue to carry out the ordinations and confirmations, but will at least be relieved of the administrative burdens.
This book, as was its predecessor, is not directed primarily to Catholics who support the stand Archbishop Lefebvre has taken. Its aim is to provide factual material for those interested in discovering the truth about a man and a movement of great significance in the history of the Church during the post-conciliar epoch. No individual has been as consistently mispresented in the official Catholic press as the Archbishop. When the three volumes of the Apologia are available it will at least be possible for fair-minded Catholics to judge him by what he has said and done, rather than what he is alleged to have said and done.
I do not expect every reader to agree with all the Archbishop's opinions, actions, and judgments. I do not necessarily do so myself. He has admitted that he sometimes speaks with excessive indignation (see p. 112), and that his addresses have included "exaggerated expressions" (p. 290). But, as I have endeavored to point out several times in the present volume, it is necessary to set the case of the Archbishop within the overall context of the Conciliar Church, a context of accelerating self-destruction, of doctrinal, moral, and liturgical degeneration, widespread anarchy, and apparent impotence on the part of the Holy See to take any effective measures to restore order. In the U.S.A., for example, respected Catholics unconnected with the traditionalist movement are speaking of a de facto schism. In an editorial in the January 1983 issue of The Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Father Kenneth Baker, S. J., noted that in the United States: "We are witnessing the rejection of the hierarchical Church founded by Jesus Christ to be replaced by a Protestant American Church separate from Rome." This is a fact which must be kept in mind continually when passing judgment upon Archbishop Lefebvre. I would ask those readers who do not know him and are not familiar with his work to read his sermons carefully. How many bishops preach like this today? They disclose a man who has the Faith, loves the Faith, and lives the Faith.
I said earlier that the account of the negotiations with the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is absorbing. There will be one exception for some readers. This is Chapter XV, a long chapter which contains the Archbishop's defense of his position concerning religious liberty. Those who are not familiar with the background to this controversy may well find Chapter XV complex and difficult to follow. I suggest that they omit it, at least on a first reading. Most readers will find it less difficult if they first study Appendix IV to Volume I of the Apologia, This provides a fairly brief and simple introduction to this question, which is probably the greatest obstacle impeding a reconciliation between the Archbishop and the Vatican. The Archbishop's insistence upon the Society being allowed to use the Tridentine Mass and pre-conciliar sacramental rites is a disciplinary matter, and could be conceded by the Pope without great difficulty; but the question of religious liberty involves a serious disagreement on a matter of doctrine.
I would like to draw the reader's attention to the list of abbreviations contained on page xvii. All the abbreviations used in the book are, I hope, included here.
I am grateful to a number of people who have given me considerable help with this volume. I must mention first Miss Norah Haines who provided the typescript, checked the proofs with meticulous care, and compiled the index. Without her help it would never have been completed. I am equally grateful to Mrs. Carlita Brown who set the type and submitted to numerous last minute amendments without complaining. I must also pay tribute to Father Carl Pulvermacher for printing and collating the book single-handed. This has been a real community effort in what I believe is supposed to be the "spirit of Vatican II." Archbishop Lefebvre was kind enough to read through the proofs and make a number of corrections. There are several others whose help I would like to acknowledge publicly, but who have asked me not to do so.
I would like to stress the fact that although both volumes of' the Apologia have been published by the English-language publishers to the Society of St. Pius X, The Angelus Press, I have written them with complete independence. No attempt has ever been made to influence what I wished to say.
Finally, I would like to answer a question concerning which I receive a considerable amount of correspondence. Has Archbishop Lefebvre been excommunicated? No, he certainly has not. Statements claiming the opposite have been made in several countries. In order to settle the matter once and for all I wrote to the Vatican in April 1983, and received a letter signed by Cardinal Oddi, dated 7 May 1983, stating that Archbishop Lefebvre has not been excommunicated. However, those who would like him to be excommunicated will no doubt continue to insist that he has been, no matter what evidence to the contrary can be brought forward, which is just one one indication of why I consider it to have been so necessary to write Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre.
Michael Davies,
7 August 1983,
St. Cajetan, Confessor.
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