Vatican’s Response to the Olympic Scandal Rewards the Mental Gymnastics of Conservative Catholics

[Stone]

The Vatican’s Response to the Olympic Scandal Rewards the Mental Gymnastics of Conservative Catholics

Robert Morrison, Remnant Columnist | August 5, 2024

The recent scandal of the Paris Olympics has brought all of this together in a blasphemous tableau. In it, we saw not only the LGBQT+ portrayal of the Last Supper but also the celebration of the French Revolution, complete with the decapitated head of Queen Marie-Antoinette singing along to a heavy metal song. But the most anti-Catholic touch of all has now been delivered by Francis’s Vatican, with its Communiqué about the opening ceremony.

In his Principles of Catholic Theology, Cardinal Ratzinger compared Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes, Dignitatis Humanae, and Nostra Aetate to the French Revolution of 1789:

“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty [Dignitatis Humanae] and world religions [Nostra Aetate]) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus. . . Let us be content to say that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789.” (Principles of Catholic Theology, 1987, pp. 381-2)

The future Benedict XVI was not mistaken in suggesting that Vatican II was an attempt at official reconciliation of Catholicism with the ideas of the French Revolution. The Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX, to which Ratzinger alluded, specifically condemned the Liberal ideas which resonated with the revolutionary ideas of 1789, and which eventually worked their way into Vatican II’s documents. We can see this clearly if we merely consider five statements condemned by the Syllabus of Errors, which were at least implicitly promoted by Vatican II:

* 15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.

* 16. Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.

* 17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.

* 79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism.

* 80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.

From the time of the French Revolution until Vatican II, the popes consistently condemned Liberal errors such as these because they threatened the Catholic Faith. Pope Pius VI was the first to condemn the French Revolution, and in his Quod Aliquantum from 1791 he wrote that the revolution sought to abolish the Catholic Religion:

“. . . this National Assembly has arrogated to itself the power of the Church, going so far as to establish so many strange things, which are contrary both to the Dogma and to ecclesiastical discipline, forcing the Bishops and all the Ecclesiastics to swear to carry out what it has decreed. Furthermore, anyone who notes from the Constitution of the Assembly itself should not be surprised by this fact that it aims at nothing else and seeks nothing else other than the abolition of the Catholic Religion and, with this, also of the obedience due to Kings. With this plan precisely establishes as a principle of natural law that man living in Society must be fully free, that is to say that in matters of Religion he must not be disturbed by anyone, and can freely think as he pleases, and write and even publish by means of print anything related to Religion.”

This last sentence surely seems correct to many Catholics today who champion the “freedom of expression,” but it was universally condemned by the popes prior to Vatican II. Pope Pius VI continued by explaining why such ideas were dangerous and absurd:

“The Assembly itself has declared that these statements . . . derive from the equality of men among themselves and from natural freedom. But what greater foolishness can be imagined than to consider all men equal and free in such a way that nothing is accorded to reason, with which man has mainly been provided by nature and by which he distinguishes himself from beasts? When God created the first man and placed him in the earthly Paradise, did he not at the same time impose the death penalty on him if he tasted the fruits of the tree of the science of good and evil? Didn't he immediately put a brake on his freedom with this first precept? And after man had made himself guilty by his disobedience, did not God add many other precepts, which were promulgated by Moses? . . . Where then is that freedom to think and act, which the decrees of the Assembly attribute to man living in society as an immutable right of nature? Therefore, for what results from these decrees, according to them it will be necessary to contradict the right of the Creator, through whom we exist, and from whose liberality everything that we are and that we have must be recognized.”

Liberals clamor for the “rights of man,” but the Catholic Church reminds us that the infinitely superior “rights of the Creator” must be respected if ever the two sets of rights conflict. The pre-Vatican II popes warned against the errors of Liberalism because these popes sought both to honor the “rights of the Creator” as well as to safeguard Catholics from the great evils that result from asserting “rights of man” that deviate from God’s law.

As we can see from the 1876 letter of Pope Pius IX to the editors of a Catholic newspaper of Rodez, the pre-Vatican II popes condemned these errors under the heading of “Catholic Liberalism” (promoted by “Liberal Catholics”):

“We certainly do approve your endeavor to defend and explain the decisions of our Syllabus, especially those points which condemn the so-called ‘Catholic Liberalism,’ which has a large number of adherents among honest men. This error seems to be close to the truth and thus becomes very dangerous since it so easily deceives those who are not on their guard, and, because it unperceivebly and secretly destroys the Catholic mind, it greatly reduces Catholic strength while increasing that of the enemy’s.” (quoted by Fr. A. Roussel in Liberalism & Catholicism, p. 122)

So those who opposed Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors were proponents of “Catholic Liberalism,” which “secretly destroys the Catholic mind.” Because Vatican II opposed and contradicted the Syllabus of Errors, the heirs of Catholic Liberalism became those “Conservative Catholics” who defend Vatican II’s efforts to reconcile Catholicism with the ideas of the French Revolution. As honest and devout as they may be, these Conservative Catholics have been deceived by the revolutionaries who convinced them that the Church could legitimately contradict what it had consistently taught.

As a result, these “Conservative Catholics” have spent the past sixty years questioning the horrendous fruits of Vatican II but consoling themselves with the thought that they were on the side of John XXIII and his successors. In recent years, Francis has made many of these Conservative Catholics far less secure in their convictions. Rather than realizing that the pre-Vatican II popes were correct — which might lead them to reject the novelties of the Vatican II revolution — these Conservative Catholics have generally tended to believe that Francis must be deviating from Vatican II, even though he continually reminds us that the Council is the entire theological foundation of his religious beliefs.

The recent scandal of the Paris Olympics has brought all of this together in a blasphemous tableau. In it, we saw not only the LGBQT+ portrayal of the Last Supper but also the celebration of the French Revolution, complete with the decapitated head of Queen Marie-Antoinette singing along to a heavy metal song. But the most anti-Catholic touch of all has now been delivered by Francis’s Vatican, with its Communiqué about the opening ceremony:

“The Holy See was saddened by certain scenes during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games and can only join the voices that have been raised in recent days to deplore the offence caused to many Christians and believers of other religions. At a prestigious event where the whole world comes together to share common values, there should be no allusions ridiculing the religious convictions of many people. The freedom of expression, which is clearly not called into question here, is limited by respect for others.”

According to the Vatican, it was the “religious convictions of many people” that was offended, not God and His Holy Catholic Church. And, justifiably, the Conservative Catholics are appalled at the Vatican's lukewarm condemnation of the opening ceremony’s grotesque blasphemy. Will they awaken to the reality that Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae — which Cardinal Ratzinger said was part of the Council’s embrace of the ideas of 1789 — contradicted the Syllabus of Errors when it asserted the rights of man demand freedom of religious expression, such as what we saw at the Olympics?:

“The social nature of man, however, itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community. Injury therefore is done to the human person and to the very order established by God for human life, if the free exercise of religion is denied in society, provided just public order is observed.”

So, according to Vatican II, the “social nature of man” requires that everyone should be able to freely express his or her religious beliefs (which obviously includes hatred for established religion) in community, limited solely by “just public order.” With this in mind, we can read again the last sentence of the Vatican’s Communiqué on the blasphemous Paris Olympics opening ceremony:

"The freedom of expression, which is clearly not called into question here, is limited by respect for others.”

The Vatican could not have issued a more forceful “condemnation” of the Olympic blasphemies without running afoul of the teaching of Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humanae. Some may wonder, though, why the Vatican did not condemn the Paris Olympics for banning various expressions of Christianity (and other religions). We have the ultimate explanation if we simply recall that Pope Pius VI told us that the French Revolution, which inspired the Vatican II revolution, “seeks nothing else other than the abolition of the Catholic Religion.” Thus, it should be obvious that we are all reaping what the proponents of Vatican II’s revolutionary ideas have sowed. The Conservative Catholics who have perfected their mental gymnastics over the decades by defending the Council’s novelties now have their filthy reward in the Olympic blasphemy and the Vatican’s faux condemnation of it.

Tolerating and promoting errors has brought us to this state of grave crisis in the Church and throughout the world, but all is not lost. As the Conservative Catholics were promoting the Vatican II’s embrace of the ideas of the French Revolution, they were also denouncing Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who left us with these words of holy inspiration in his They Have Uncrowned Him:

“As for me, I will not resign; I will not content myself with being present, my arms dangling, at the death-throes of my Mother the Holy Church. . . If this is how things are, you will understand that, in spite of everything, I am not a pessimist. The Holy Virgin will have the victory. She will triumph over the great apostasy, the fruit of Liberalism. One more reason not to twiddle our thumbs! We have to fight more than ever for the social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In this battle, we are not alone: we have with us all the Popes up through Pius XII inclusively. All of them combatted Liberalism in order to deliver the Church from it. God did not grant that they succeed, but this is no reason to lay down our weapons! We have to hold on. We have to build, while the others are demolishing.” (pp. 250-251)

With every passing day, Francis and his fellow revolutionaries give us further proof that the pre-Vatican II popes were correct in denouncing the Liberal errors that animated the Council’s unholy revolution. The fight of those pre-Vatican II popes, and all of the saints, is our fight, and we are assured of participating in God’s victory if we hold on while Satan and his minions insist that now is the time to give up.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!