Pope Says Three Catholic Phrases. Pollyannas Are Delighted.

 

In a very small whiff of fresh air in the stench in which we are living, Pope Francis has said two or three things which really sound Catholic. Look at the Patheos crowd delighting in being able to tell themselves the Pope is orthodox, after having waited 12 hours for the broken clock to show the right time.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s as bad as that: Francis must only say a couple of words vaguely resembling Catholicism every couple of months, and the enthusiastic following of the blind is assured to him.

The words aren’t even so strong, not by any standard of even V II Popes. From what I could read he does not give strong warnings, merely some words of encouragement on abortion, and some very veiled words against so-called “same sex marriage”. There is no mention of murder of the unborn, no mention of dangers for the soul. And it’s clear this Pope mentions dangers for the soul anytime this is convenient to his agenda (mafiosi, capitalists, or even honest churchgoers who are “dead inside”).

I have read no mention of “culture of death”; no mention of hell, Satan, punishment. He praises a very weak Pope, and shows even in his “strongest” moments he can’t manage to be stronger than Pope Paul VI in his lack of decisiveness and incisiveness, basically having one encyclical to show for 13 years of disastrous Pontificate. 

The mention of so-called same-sex marriage is so veiled it can’t even be safely attributed to the topic, in another show of blatant Jesuitism. Even those rare words of Catholic sanity (requested, I think, from the local clergy because of the recent confrontation about contraception) are a very poor show. But hey, the Pollyannas happily eat excrements every day. Give them tofu once, they’ ll think it’s tiramisu’.

Lastly, let me measure this Pope with his own, very famous words: if the contracepting and faggot-marrying Philipinos are in good faith, and seek the Lord, and follow their conscience, who is he to judge?

The man destroys the very basis of Catholicism. Then people praise him when he happens to say something resembling it. Which, for heaven’s sake, even Satan himself could and would do.

M

 

 

A Positive Effect Of Last Week’s Chaos

Paul VI's beatification in pictures

In another amusing development, the Beatification of Paul VI has been almost ignored in the uproar caused by last week's events.

Think of it: it is clear that Pope Paul's Beatification was planned as the final apotheosis of the Great Push Towards Hell. On the day Francis gloriously proclaims a New Religion for our time, his Glorious Predecessor, the man who saw the beginning of this Glorious Push brought to completion in the Council, is also remembered. Look, world, how the Spirit is Guiding them both!

No doubt, Stage I of the Revolution had to be celebrated in the same day as Stage II made its formal, triumphal appearance in the world. The Synod Fathers would have been praised as the new and more daring generation of Council Fathers, building what they once started to new, breathtaking heights. Francis, the Humble Innovator, would have stood there in front of the entire planet, hailed by atheist, perverts, dissenters, and assorted enemies of the Church as he says to those he has just betrayed that he is merely continuing on the path of the V II “tradition”. By beatifying Paul in death, he would have beatified himself in life.

It wasn't to be. A burning defeat is what TMAHICH got instead. The final address to the Bishops had to be hastely rewritten, trying to mask Francis' complicity with the heretics – actually: Francis' steering of the heresy – and attempting to paint him as the good old uncle, saying “tut-tut” to both Traditionalists and Heretics in that oh so gentle, amiable way of his when he is not massacring some beautiful Catholic order.

In all this mess, Pope Paul was as irrelevant in death as he was in life. A fitting destiny for the man who refused to stop the already clear drive towards betrayal, and allowed all this madness to start in earnest.

Two words on this beatification (Paul does not deserve better) to close. I do not know if the man is in hell, and it is to be hoped he saved his sorry Modernist head in the end. He certainly got the grace of a slow death with the sacraments and abundant time to repent, so one can only hope he made the most of it. Still, Beatifications are not binding for Catholics. Therefore, Yours Truly will hold this beatification to be the same as everything Francis does:

Rubbish.

M

 

 

Suggestions For My Beatification

Pray that it does not die because of global warming!

Dear readers: at some point I will, like everyone of us, kick the bucket and, hopefully, be sent straight in the direction of Purgatory.

During that time of suffering and atonement, it would be a great consolation to me to know that, on earth, I have been beatified. Beatifications are not infallible, so I do not need to worry, from purgatory, that things aren't exactly like Pope Francis V thinks. I am, also, sure many of you would want to see me beatified; though you don't know anything of my sinfulness; an ignorance that is, in these cases, very convenient.

The way I propose you go about after my departure from this vale of tears is the following: any time something bad might happen, ask for my intercession that it may not happen.

For example, if I were now dead – sorry, but not right now – you could ask for my intercession for any or all of the following:

1. That there is no war over Crimea.

2. That there is no war over Eastern Ucraine.

3. That the conflict in Syria ends.

4. That Chelsea does not lose (half of you; the other half, that it may lose) against Atletico Madrid.

5. Put here three or five of your dangers you ask me to see averted.

6. Repeat the following day.

You will, then, soon notice a lot of these dangers have not transformed into the feared tragedy. You have asked me for intercession, and what was feared has not happened. If this is not a valid cause for beatification, I don't know what is, do I?

At this point, you will have tons of material to push my cause.

I am confident that, as similar causes are swiftly advancing, with your help I will reach the coveted prize still in the very first phase of my permanence in Purgatory.

“Blessed Mundabor Of Blogdom”.

Yep. Sounds good.

You don't need to start now. Wait that this blog has suddenly stopped publications for some months first. Then start with everything you can:

“That road crossing is dangerous; oh Mundabor, pray for me that I may not have a car accident in it!”

I see myself in the company of soon-to-be Blessed Paul VI already.

Mundabor

 

Jesus, The Beatnik

From Father Ray Blake’s blog:

I can’t help thinking of Abp Annibale Bugnini writing the Missal of Paul VI and composing the present Lectionary through a haze of whatever was smoked in 60s. Maybe I am being unfair and he didn’t smoke anything but the Pauline Lectionary has a decided 60s feel to it. The image of God, of Jesus is not organic, it has the feel of one particular period in history, to me it is decidedly Beatnik to early Hippie. If it hadn’t been compiled after two World Wars and the Holocaust it would probably have been quite different, if Bugnini or Paul VI had been different types of men the image of God presented to us would be quite different. Because fundamentally it is their image of God, it is not the image that St Thomas Becket, St Francis, St John of the Cross, St John Vianney, or Padre Pio met every day at the altar.

[…]

The OF Lectionary presents us with a new theology; the ancient Lectionary formed the theology of the Church, it was an unchanging ‘given’. What Bugnini produced was very much the product of the Council and 20th century theology. It comes from the same school that applied the scalpel to excise the cursing psalm, that separated that bit about eating and drinking one’s own condemnation from the Epistle for Corpus Christi and so many other bits and pieces that they were uncomfortable with, that simply did not reflect the theological fashion of the time.

Yes, we now have a lot more scripture but it is carefully selected, carefully edited and from a very particular time in Church history and produced by very strange men indeed, some of whom were quite unsaintly, who had their own image of God they wanted to impose on the Church.

These excellent words reflect in a very beautiful way the problem of modern Liturgy concerning the way it transmits the Faith. It does it confusedly, wrongly, and one-sidedly.

There was a time – in the first years of comparing the Traditional Mass and the Novus Ordo – in which I thought the vastly more extensive readings of the latter would be an advantage compared with the older form.

Only slowly I have come to the conclusion that a deformed tree can never have straight branches, and what at first sight might seem good turns out after a more attentive examination to be faulty.

Yes, there are more scriptures in the Novus Ordo. But the faithful sitting in the old pews knew the doctrine much better, had a much better grasp of the Scriptures in what really counts – that is: the ordering of their own and their loved’ lives – and had less Scripture at Mass simply because the Gospel and the other readings were not there to teach the faithful what the Scripture says, but to drive home a point in a short, forceful way.

Some readings of the Tridentine Mass are just a few lines. But those few lines drive a spear through your heart. It is a lightning, not a school lesson.

For now more than forty years, one and a half generation of faithful have been served the extensive Mass readings of the Novus Ordo, but their knowledge of the very basic truths of Catholicism is so dismal that illiterate peasants of, say, France circa 1850 would shame them day in and day out. Those simple people probably didn’t have any meaningful or extensive knowledge of the Old Testament, but they knew perfectly well about life and death, heaven and hell, sin and repentance, rebellion and obedience, normality and perversion, morality and scandal. I am absolutely sure when they died they had a better hand of cards than many cafeteria Catholics of today; and mind, it is not that they weren’t sinful, either.

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. Again, if the tree is bad the fruits will not be good, and if the liturgy is disfigured it is only a matter of time until the faith of the pewsitter is disfigured, too.

Very probably, neither Father Blake nor your humble correspondent will ever know whatever Bugnini & Co. smoked, but I suspect that in the mixture there must have been a good dose of accommodation, arrogance, irreligiousness, or outright faithlessness.

Mundabor

Why Pope Francis Is Losing

Alas, he has come back...

I have just written about the rather unprecedented (I think; the German clergy is certainly not new to provocations) initiative of the German clergy, who are more or less collectively, and under the protection of a couple of hundred “experts”, attacking the sacrament of holy orders.

The aggressive attitude and the appeal to a number of “experts” – as if Right and Wrong depended on numbers – remind one of the so-called “Dutch Schism”, also carried out with the help of gatherings, votes on motions, and the like.

Whilst the German Zeitgeist-prostitutes (I insist on this term, because it's the most fitting I can find, and think its use in connection with the German clergy should be greatly increased) are for now not at the level of open defiance of Catholic values the Dutch managed to stage (remaining unchallenged for around fifteen years and unpunished afterwards, one must add) they are certainly not very far away; and in fact, to maintain that open defiance should not be a taboo anymore is, in a sense, defiance already in act.

What consequences can, therefore, be drawn by the growing aggressiveness of the German clergy, now fully devoted to Mammon – the Kirchensteuer – in preference to God – Catholic values -? In my eyes, we can draw the following ones:

Already the fact that the exercise (defined as “four-day meeting”, but clearly the dry run of an open revolt) took place shows how much the Papal authority is suffering. No one fears the Pope, least of all the Germans who are the most powerful contributors to the Church finances. With Bergoglio, they knew they had someone they would not have to be worried about. They are now starting to demand the price of their support. The mere fact that the “meeting” took place is a humiliation for the Holy Father; a humiliation which he has richly deserved merely by allowing that such a gathering, and with such an agenda, be thinkable, let alone executed.

In addition, we must consider the “meeting” cannot and will not remain at the present, already extremely grave level of dissent. It is in the nature of such “revolutionary” movements than every cry for reform be outdone for a louder cry for harder reform. When the point is reached where taboos can be individually questioned, who is to say which taboos shall not be questioned?

The situation in Germany is slowing becoming worse than in Austria, because whilst in Austria the likes of Cardinal “how much I like fags”- Schoenborn at least pretends to want to preserve some kind of orthodoxy, in Germany the top ranks of the Clergy have put themselves, as the Germans love to say, “at the top of the movement”, openly encouraging and formerly promoting dissent within the Church.

Unless Pope Francis wakes up – and I use these words on purpose, in the hope that he is merely sleeping the sleep of the parish priest unaware of what happens around him – he will be remembered as a worse accessory of the demolition troops than Paul VI, whom Francis himself dares to call “great”. I have waited a couple of days before commenting on this, in the hope the Pope would move. Alas…

What I fear we must brace ourselves for is a Papacy marked by semi-autonomous provinces, each one lead by a clique of prostituted clergy making their own policy to please the masses, and abandoning themselves to horrible abuses in the sure knowledge the Pontiff – who is even ashamed of the title – will limit himself to this or that admonition and this or that exhortation, but in the substance will simply ... sleep.

Pope Francis is clearly losing control of the Church, and the horrible question is whether he wants it in the first place. What we see as a humiliation for the Pope, he may simply see as the fitting behaviour for… the bishop of Rome.

Mundabor

 

Responsibility

Giotto, "Jesus encourages the money changers to consider, if they can, leaving the temple". No, wait...

Responsibility comes from the Latin respondere, “to answer”.

The person who is responsible is the one who has to answer if things go wrong. He is in charge, therefore he is the first one to whom guilt is apportioned. To be in charge means to be the one who is in trouble when bad things happen, the first one who has some explaining to do, and it better be good.

This is a very simple concept. Empires have been built on it. Schools have used it all the times. Countless generations of parents have availed themselves of it. In church matters, Popes and Bishops have used it for almost two thousand years. Ask John Wyclif, or Jan Hus, or the Cathars how it worked. They’ll tell you in no uncertain terms.

The concept seems to be slowly dying. Responsibility is not seen as being in charge anymore, but rather as being the one who is supposed to make some noise.

Look at how many children behave (in church and outside) and consider to what extent this generation is enslaved to the whims of one’s own children, with an army of spineless parents not able to do anything more than to make their impotence and incompetence known to the general public. Make no mistake, the next generation of drug addicts, alcoholics, spineless, spoiled rotten eternal adolescents is growing under our very eyes. They can’t even behave in church, but they are supposed to get through the trouble and challenges of a lifelong marriage. Good luck with that.

Look at how teachers behave, their ability to promptly and severely punish – and therefore, being feared; and therefore, being obeyed and respected – almost completely vaporised by a generation who has demonised the very concept of authority and is simply terrified of every physical contact.

Look at the bishops, all too often reduced to be the smiling spectators of a dynamic which they, even when they don’t like it, feel obliged to leave unopposed. Unless, of course, they are pleased with it.

And look at the Popes, with the past century introducing an extraordinary, unprecedented Papal behaviour like publicly denouncing that from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God, without acting to close the goddamn fissure at once, and with utmost energy. Don’t think that this doesn’t continue today; it only happens in a less tragically ineffective way. Sadly, modern Popes don’t reign. They encourage.

The last generation seems to be the first one for which talking is considered a valid substitute for acting; again, so many people play the game (with their own children; with their own pupils; with their own priests; with their own cardinals and bishops) that this has become normal, and accepted as “the way things go”.

The one in charge is the one who has to act.

If he doesn’t, he’ll have to answer for it, some day.

Mundabor

A critical analysis of “Sacrosantum Concilium”

“Rorate Coeli” re-published a brilliant contribution from a member of the American Catholic Lawyers association, Christopher Ferrara. The contribution is longish, but fascinating and even if it has been written some years ago, it still maintains a great deal of actuality.

Mr. Ferrara examines SC with a lawyer’s spectacles, with a view of seeing what SC mandates and what it allows. It seems to be that his detailed analysis has as main aims:

1) to ascertain to what extent the Novus Ordo we know and hate has been authorised by SC;
2) to understand how it could be approved by certainly conservative bishops, in primis by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre;
3) to see whether the Latin Mass can be restored based on SC, and
4) what is the way forward, if not.

To 1), Mr. Ferrara convincingly proves that every modification originated by the Novus Ordo (and which does not constitute an obvious, liturgical abuse) can easily be justified in the light of SC. He points out (as Romano Amerio before him had often done) to the utterly contradictory mixture of conservative and progressive norms, with solemn statements of the will to preserve tradition immediately followed by the authorisation to proceed to sweeping modification every time that unspecified local needs should be taken into account. This apparent hysteria is, as it is clear now, rather the fruit of the will of Bugnini & Co. to reassure conservative Bishops with solemn statements of continuity of tradition whilst at the same time opening vast portals to utterly unspecified, arbitrarily decided changes by local communities. The strategy obviously worked as the document was approved and the sweeping liturgical modifications introduced in the following years were never seen by both Paul VI and JP II as being against the letter or the spirit of Sacrosanctum Concilium. Ferrara’s case is solidly made: the argument that the Novus Ordo itself (again: leaving aside liturgical abuses) is not in compliance with SC’s norms is untenable. The Novus Ordo we have today is very clearly what was wanted, the fragmentation of the rite into a myriad of different languages and regional variations explicitly desired.

To 2), Ferrara points out to an important psychological, if not legal, factor in the Bishop’s approval. Sacrosanctum Concilium is so structured, that no substantial changes are made mandatory. The picture coming out from the reading is one of a document saying “we want to leave pretty much everything as it is, unless we introduce changes“. The options about changes are, though, so many and so undetermined, that the door to an almost unrecognisable Roman Rite was open wide. We know the results.

As Ferrara brilliantly writes,

A lawyer knows that the dangers in a contract from his client’s perspective lie not so much in what the terms of the contract provide as in what they permit the other party to do. The danger is in the loopholes. Quite simply, SC permits all manner of drastic things to be done to the Roman liturgy. It is one long collection of loopholes. If a lawyer entrusted with the task of protecting the Roman liturgy from harmful innovation had drafted this document, he would be guilty of gross malpractice.

This makes also clear why conservative Bishops like Lefebvre did approve the document. It wouldn’t have been prudent to reject the document altogether in view of its stated conservative character, but it was wise to point out to the dangers to which a mediocre wording would expose the Church. Archbishop Lefebvre actually did both (approving and warning) and in retrospect I would say that his conduct appears – once more – wise.

To 3), the obvious conclusion from what has been said up to now is that the idea that the New Mass is a violation of Sacrosanctum Concilium is untenable. This point seems very important to the author, which leads me to think that years ago the theory must have enjoyed vast popularity. But really, to espouse such a thinking would not only contradict the clear wording of SC (of which Ferrara brings many examples) but would also imply that two Popes have been gravely erring for decades in the interpretation of such an important Conciliar document.

To 4), the author has an interesting perspective. In his eyes, SC should not be modified or specified or guidelines to its interpretations given. Sacrosanctum Concilium deals with the Novus Ordo; it is not a doctrinal statement about how the Mass should look like, but merely a document stating how the mass may be modified. As things stand now, SC has been already implemented or, as Ferrara says in legal terms, has “merged” with the new Mass. Therefore there is, in legal terms, no SC anymore, only the New Mass it generated. As a consequence, the setting aside of the Novus ordo Mass will be the setting aside of Sacrosanctum Concilium. No need for any backpedaling, or modifications, or new interpretations. Just put the NO in the coldest part of the freezer and no further action will be required. Conversely, as SC clearly authorised all the sweeping changes we have experienced, its twisting to let it mean that those changes were never authorised or its modification to let it say the contrary of what it always meant doesn’t really make sense.

Let us conclude with the author’s very reasonable words:

The only way to restrain that mentality and restore liturgical sanity in the Roman Rite is full restoration of our Latin liturgical tradition – taken from us overnight, only 30 years ago.

Mundabor

The Rosary old and… new?

Saw no need to "improve" the Rosary: Paul VI.

Beautiful article in the Remnant about the reasons why the “luminous mysteries” should be discarded.

The first one is the historic origin of the Rosary in the Psaltery. When monks started to have the obligation to read all the Psalms (150 in number) every day, the increasing number of conversi (lay people who lived in the monastery helping the monks, generally to expiate grave sins or otherwise to perfect themselves but without becoming monks) made it necessary to create a comparable devotion accessible to them. As most conversi were illiterate, they started to be given the task of reciting 150 Pater Noster every day. In time, this devotion spread to the generality of the lay people in form of 150 Ave Maria. Thus we have a direct link to the Rosary with the Psaltery. An addition of a fourth cycle of mysteries makes of the entire rosary a cycle of 200 Hail Marys and the traditional link with the Psaltery is lost.

Secondly, the division of the Rosary in three parts and three sets of mysteries has been traditionally linked to the Trinity. This is why Pope Paul VI says that the Rosary is wisely distributed in three parts. The addition of a fourth part destroys the traditional link of the Rosary with the Trinity.

Thirdly, in any innovation of the Rosary there is an element of change. After the innovation madness of the last decades, we now know that change is not something good in itself; on the contrary, it creates confusion. What has been honoured and considered orthodox praxis by the centuries should be transmitted unaltered to the following generations. If it ain’t broken…….

Fourthly (and this is not in the article, but is a fact nevertheless) the Rosary has been shaped in his main traits by Marian apparitions to St. Dominic, Blessed Alan de la Roche and lastly to the children of Fatima. The idea that a Pope should add his own suggestions on how to improve on various Marian apparitions really, really doesn’t feel right.

Further interesting elements emerge from this article: the first is the attempted ravaging of the Rosary by the notorious Annibale Bugnini (it is amazing not only what damage the man has caused, but what further damage he wanted to cause), attempt stopped by Pope Paul VI who therefore spared the Rosary from undergoing the same treatment Bugnini inflicted to the Mass. The second is the laud given by the notoriously anti-Catholic New York Times to JP II’s “suggested” changes. Please note the words of the Article: JP II is commended for “crossing another frontier”, because in the NYT’s world if you cross a frontier of traditional Catholicism you must be doing something good. More explicitly, the NYT informs his probably unaware readers that the Pope will be “making a significant change in the Rosary, a signature method of Catholic prayer for centuries now”. Now, the NYT is certainly not interested in the improvement of Catholic spirituality. What it is interested in, is that something which has gone on for centuries is now going to change. They know very well that every time someone gives a shove to a traditional devotion, the faith is weakened as a result. The third is that even in the Vatican’s mind the changes reflect the late Pope’s “creativity” and “courage”. That “creativity” in relation to traditional Catholic devotions be not only contemplated, but even praised speaks volumes about the theological approximation and tireless devotion to “change” which used to afflict the Vatican in those years. Only eight years later, we read these words with stunned disbelief. That they could come from the Vatican is even more disquieting than the fact that they should be praised by their enemies at the NYT.

A bad History teacher doesn’t change History and a bad teacher of Catholicism doesn’t change Catholicism. But both will transmit their mediocrity to their pupils.

This is, of course, no theological matter. Still, traditional Catholic devotions play (or should play) an important role in a Catholic’s life and should be therefore left alone. It is now high time to abandon the shallowness and fashion-conscious thinking making us believe that “change” be something good. Change for the sake of change is not good and is not courageous, and “creativity” is nothing to do with tradition.

I invite you to recite the Rosary every day, and to do it as many generations before us have done.

Mundabor

John XXIII, Paul VI and the role of the Pope

He started the "abbrutimento...."

I am now in the process of reading (and digesting) Romano Amerio’s Iota Unum. Professor Amerio was chosen as perito from the Bishop of Lugano during the fateful years of the Second Vatican Council and therefore not only had all the documents going through his desks, but was also best informed on the background events.

Professor Amerio’s ruthlessly honest analysis of the changes experienced by the Church in the way it presents itself – and of how the Church hierarchy has modified the way of interpreting Her role – offers the starting point for a vast number of discussions. Today I would like to dwell on the role of the Pope.

Professor Amelio identifies the role of the Pope as being basically twofold: direction and prescription. The first is the identification and formulation of proper rules of conduct which are in themselves not binding but mere suggestions; the second the prescribing and enforcing of a certain behaviour. Historically, Popes have used both functions in various ways, but the ability of the Pope to act as a source of prescriptive law (that is: to demand and to enforce rather than merely to suggest) has never been downplayed.

.... and he continued it.

With the Second Vatican Council, a dramatic change occurs. The papacy shifts, to use Amerio’s words, “from governing to admonishing”. The first function is clearly downplayed and considered more or less obsolete, the second one is now declared to be the weapon of choice.

Let us read from the Opening Speech of the Council: confronted with the problem of how to deal with error, John XXIII declares that the Church

prefers today to make use of the medicine of mercy, rather than of the arms of severity.

John XXIII indicates that the Church wants to resist error

by showing the validity of her teaching, rather than by issuing condemnations

This concept that mercy and severity be intrinsically opposed (so spread today, even in the everyday language) is a novel idea. It is, in fact, contrary to the firmly held belief of the Church that, as Amerio beautifully puts it,

the condemnation of error is itself a work of mercy, since by pinning down error those laboring under it are corrected and other are preserved from falling into it.

This tragically weak conception of the role of the Papacy rests on the rather naive idea that errors be, in the long term, self-correcting; that in other words be sufficient for the Church to merely point out to the right thinking in order for the straying sheep to, in time, see the errors of their ways and naturally come back to orthodoxy.

This new concept of the way a Pope exercises his powers – which Amerio aptly calls, with Isaiah, Breviatio Manus Domini or “foreshortening of the arm of the Lord” – does not die with John XXIII but continues unabated, and even in a dramatically accentuated form, under the pontificate of his successor Paul VI.
Paul VI is so weak that when the “Dutch schism” occurs (an unbelievable event in which a so-called “Dutch Pastoral Council”, a gathering of more than 5000 representatives of the Church in Holland, convened in the presence of the Bishops and voted with a 90% majority for the abolition of priest celibacy, the employment of secularised priests in pastoral position, the right of bishops to exercise a deliberative vote on papal decrees and even the ordination of women) his reaction is to point out to all the errors of the deliberation, but at the same time to ask the bishops: “what do you think that We can do to help you, to strenghten your authority, to enable you to overcome the present difficulties of the Church in Holland?”.

This is breathtaking. Paul VI is confronted with a compact group of heretical bishops and far from severely punishing them, he asks them what he can do to strenghten their authority. Here we see not only the great personal weakness of the Pope, but the utter inability of the new “soft” approach toward error to avoid its spreading and its becoming more and more aggressive. The Dutch schism was in fact not silenced until John Paul II demanded obedience rather than meekly suggesting it.

But Paul VI was not the only one. Let us read the words of Cardinal Gut, the then prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, regarding Paul VI’s approach to liturgical abuses:

“Many priests did whatever they liked. They imposed their own personalities. Very often unauthorised initiatives could not be stopped. In his great goodness and wisdom, the Holy father then made concessions, often against his own inclinations”.

Here, a Cardinal sees in the giving in to unlawfulness an indication of “goodness and wisdom”. Furthermore, the repeated indication of initiatives which “could not be stopped” by those whose job would have been to stop them reveals all the scale of the weakness dominating the Vatican corridors in those fateful years.

Even heresies can be stopped. Even extremely spread ones. It just takes the right people at the helm.

Only two days ago I have pointed out to the great courage and firmness showed by Pope Pius XII in front of Nazi evil. Today I point out to the “self-demolition” (not my words: Paul VI’s) started just a few years after the death of that great Pope.

The contrast couldn’t be more dramatic.

Mundabor