Did the Bergoglio Vatican remember in any way that October 11 marked the 55th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II? Aldo Maria Valli remembered and wrote this off-the-beaten track commentary
on John XXIII's allocution to open that Council.
To open Vatican II, John XXIII’s address was entitled
‘Gaudet Mater Ecclesia’ (Mother Church rejoices)
In which, despite an optimism which proved to be quite naïve,
he repeatedly said that the Church must reaffirm and confirm its Magisterium.
[Yet Bergoglio et al who profess to practice the true 'spirit of Vatican II'
choose to dismiss all Magisterium before the present pope's]
Translated from
October 11th is the anniversary of the solemn opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 (that year like this year, it was a Thursday,) and Pope John XXIII’s historic allocution entitled Gaudet Mater Ecclesia
[which I shall henceforth refer to as GME]. (I would have liked to write this earlier but as a grandfather, I had to celebrate a granddaughter’s third birthday today.)
I shall be frank:
There was a time that I identified with Pope John’s address – when I, too, thought that the ‘prophets of doom’, as Papa Roncalli called them, were truly just that. But eventually, I had to acknowledge that they had more than enough reason for their pessimism.
When I hear the
incipit of the pope’s allocution
[the first three words which gives the document its title], I am assailed by a mixture of emotion and discomfort. Emotion because I imagine the dreams of those who believed in good faith in what the Council could do (I say ‘I imagine…’ because I was only four years old at the time). And discomfort because
many of those dreams turned into nightmares, as we see in our day.
Still, it is good to recall that in GME,
Pope John – despite an optimism which in the light of the current situation of the Church can seem to us ingenuous – he repeatedly declared that the Church must reaffirm and confirm her Magisterium.
In fact, he says, in a central passage:
In calling this vast assembly, the latest and humble successor of the Prince of Apostles who now speaks to you intended a renewed affirmation of the Church's teaching authority which is unfailing and perdures until the end of time. This teaching authority, taking into account the errors, needs, and opportunities of our age, is through this Council being exhibited in an extraordinary way to all people throughout the world.
He would say farther on:
The greatest concern of the Ecumenical Council is this, that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be more effectively defended and presented… But for this teaching to reach many fields of human activity which affect individuals, families, and social life, it is first of all necessary that the Church never turn her eyes from the sacred heritage of truth which she has received from those who went before …The twenty-first Ecumenical Council… wishes to transmit whole and entire and without distortion the Catholic doctrine which, despite difficulties and controversies, has become the common heritage of humanity.”
As we see,
the pope reiterates his intention to confirm his brothers in the faith without changing that faith.
However, GME also contais some words that have allowed its initial premise to be set aside.
“But our task is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with an antiquity. Eagerly and without fear, we must devote ourselves to the task our age demands, pursuing the path which the Church has followed for twenty centuries… For the deposit of faith, the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, are one thing; the fashion in which they are expressed, but with the same meaning and the same judgement, is another thing.”
It was this fissure – the manner of presenting doctrine - that the champions of ‘renewal’ availed of to push their cause in a way that led to abuses. [Because they have completely ignored that pregnant condition that John XXIII underscored, “but with the same meaning and the same judgment”.]
It is the same fissure used even now to change that doctrine which, John XXIII insisted, should remain unchanged.
The paladins of ‘renewal’ [it’s really ‘wreckovation’ – wrecking what has stood for over two centuries to replace it with the church of Bergoglio and its ad hoc dicta institutionalizing Bergoglio’s personal opinions as his church’s doctrine. Besides, Vatican-II ideologues have always insisted that the council marked the birth of a 'new church'. That is not renewal at all. It's creating a 'new church' altogether.] have chosen a word to be their slogan and standard: pastoral.
In doing so, they have availed of yet another passage in GME in which the pope says
“types of presentation must be introduced which are more in accord with a teaching authority which is primarily pastoral in character”.
From which was born a sort of ideology of the ‘pastoral’, a ‘pastoralism’w hich has since led to numerous maladies, such as spontaneism (think of the new liturgy!) and activism, but also the surrender to laicism and secularism.
Pope John had a beautiful line that
“it is clearer than ever before that the truth of the Lord remains forever”. But the very moment when he invoked the ‘pastoral spirit’, he opened the door to doctrinal contestation.
But there is another passage in GME that was widely instrumentalized:
“At the present time, the spouse of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy rather than the weapons of severity”. Another fissure that has allowed equivocation, abuse and heterodoxy. Next to ‘pastoral’, ‘mercy’ has become the slogan of the extreme ‘renewalists’. [I still prefer to call them ‘wreckovators].
In short, GME already contained the viruses that led the Church to sickness. Pope John’s attempt to establish a balance was of little worth. It is true he said that
“the Catholic Church, as she raises the torch of religious truth in this Ecumenical Council, wishes to show herself to be the most loving mother of all, kind, patient, and moved by mercy and goodness towards her separated children”, but in fact,
the torch of Catholic truth was soon set aside, as more and more, the idea of mercy was detached from the idea of justice.
I advise young people, who have not already done so, to read GME. Fifty-six years have passed since then, and Peter’s barque, governed by John XXIII’s successors through often tempestuous waters, has continued somehow to navigate through.
But GME in itself already contains in nucleus the entire history and the entire tragedy of the post-Vatican II Church.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/10/2018 04:37]