Catechism of the Crisis In the Church, Pt. 6
Fr. Matthias Gaudron
The chapter on Vatican II continues with an account of the "time bombs" carefully planted in the conciliar documents by Fr. Rahner & Co., and the admission by a Protestant observer that he was the originator of the key phrase "subsistit in."
29) Should all the Vatican II documents be rejected?
The documents of Vatican Council II can be divided in three groups: 1) Some are acceptable, because they are in conformity with Catholic doctrine, as for example the decree on the formation of priests; 2) others are equivocal, that is, they can be understood correctly, but can also be interpreted erroneously; and 3) some cannot be understood in an orthodox way; in their present formulation, they are unacceptable. This is the case for the declaration on religious freedom. The ambiguous texts can be accepted if they are, in Archbishop Lefebvre's words, interpreted in the light of Tradition. The texts of the third group cannot be accepted until they have been rectified.
l What accounts for the ambiguous nature of certain Vatican II documents? The equivocations were deliberately introduced into the conciliar texts to deceive the conservative Fathers. They could be deluded by insisting on the fact that fundamentally the text did not mean anything else than what the Church had always taught. But afterwards, it was possible to use these passages to defend heterodox theses.
l Is there any proof that these ambiguities were deliberately introduced? Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler confirmed this when they wrote, for example, that "a certain number of important theological questions about which no agreement could be reached were left open by choosing formulations that could be interpreted differently by particular groups and theological tendencies at the Council."1
l How could such imprecision in the conciliar documents be justified? This deliberate ambiguity was justified by the fact that the Vatican Council II was only meant to be a pastoral council, and that it was thus not necessary to draft its documents with the theological clarity required for a dogmatic council.
l Can you provide some examples of these calculated ambiguities? One example of this ambiguity is the notorious expression "subsistit in" introduced in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, on the Church (I, 8), which declares that the Church of Christ "subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church.
l What is the traditional teaching on this subject? The traditional teaching expressly says that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. This word "est" is still found in the first drafts of this constitution on the Church. It was subsequently replaced by the expression subsistit in. It is evident that this change was not made without a reason.
l Why is the word "est" here important? The Catholic Church is not only a certain embodiment of the Church of Christ: it is the Church of Christ, which signifies that there is an absolute identity between the Church founded by Christ and the Catholic Church. The other ecclesial communities never belong to the Church of Christ. The expression "subsistit in" introduces an ambiguity on this point.
l How is this expression ambiguous? It is possible to understand the "subsistit in" in an nearly traditional manner. But this expression was introduced by the innovators to justify a new conception of the Church after the Council. According to this conception, the Catholic Church is but one realization of the Church of Christ, and other Churches can also be considered as belonging to the Church of Christ.
l Who backed this new conception? Cardinal Willebrands, for example, declared:
The subsistit in underscores yet another aspect, which, in the spirit of the conciliar discussion on Lumen Gentium, is as important as the preceding one. In the formulation that was inspired by Humani Generis and especially Mystici Corporis [two Encyclicals of Pius XII], the est was exclusive. It established quite simply what Cardinal Liénart, in his discourse, presented as a strict identity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mystical Body, "as if the full Mystical Body were limited to the boundaries of the Roman Church." Subsistit in is meant to signify, on the contrary, that the Church, which we profess in the Creed as being one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, is found in this world as an established, organized society in the Catholic Church, although it extends farther than its visible borders....Subsistit in thus expresses both the conviction that the Church founded by God in the beginning is found in the Catholic Church, and the certitude that it extends nevertheless beyond the Catholic Church, albeit incompletely.2
According to this interpretation, the Catholic Church is perhaps the best form of the Church of Christ, but it is only one among others. This statement is in absolute contradiction with the Catholic faith.
l Is the identity of the person at the origin of this new expression "subsistit in" known? The Protestant pastor Wilhelm Schmidt claimed the paternity of this new expression. Here is his testimony:
At the time I was pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross at Bremen-Horn, and during the third and fourth sessions, an observer at the Council as the representative of the Evangelical Fraternity Michael, at Cardinal Bea's invitation. I submitted in writing the formulation "Subsistit in" to the man who was then the theological adviser of Cardinal Frings: Joseph Ratzinger, who relayed it to the Cardinal.3
30) What are the principal errors of Vatican II?
The two most harmful conciliar errors are religious liberty and ecumenism, which shall be treated of in detail in the next two chapters. To these must be added the teaching on episcopal collegiality. Finally, there is to be found in many conciliar documents a naive belief in progress and wonder at the modern world which is truly frightening.
l What is episcopal collegiality? The principle of episcopal collegiality rises in opposition to the exercise of authority. The pope and the bishops must no longer use their power, but must direct the Church collegially, or collectively. Today the bishop is the head of his diocese in theory only; in practice, he is bound, at least morally, by the decisions of the bishops' conference, the priests' councils, and different assemblies. Rome no longer dares uphold its own authority over the episcopal conferences, but in general yields to their pressure. The idea of equality propagated by the French Revolution has been imposed. It is based on the false notion of Rousseau, which denied the existence of an authority willed by God and attributed all power to the people. This theory is contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture: "Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God" (Rom. 13:1-2).
l Is there a link between collegiality and the two principal errors of the Council (religious liberty and ecumenism)? These three errors of the Council–religious liberty, collegiality, and ecumenism–correspond exactly to the principles of the French Revolution: liberty, equality, fraternity. This correlation illustrates Cardinal Suenens's statement that Vatican II was 1789 in the Church.
l In which conciliar texts does one find a naive belief in progress? The most serious example of a naive belief in progress is found in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. It rhapsodizes in an astonishing manner on the progress of the modern world, even though it daily strays farther from God. We read in Section 12: "According to the almost unanimous opinion of believers and unbelievers alike, all things on earth should be related to man as their center and crown." And in Section 57, Christians are exhorted "to work with all men in the building of a more human world." A world in which man is the center and end, and in which all should collaborate in the realization of an earthly paradise corresponds to the Freemasons' idea of the world, and not to that of Catholics.
l What is the Christian teaching on this point? Catholic doctrine teaches that God alone is the end of all creatures, and that there cannot be true peace or happiness on earth unless men give themselves to Jesus Christ and follow His commandments.
l In the final analysis, what judgment can be made of Gaudium et Spes? Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger called Gaudium et Spes a counter-Syllabus, and rightly so. This Vatican II document in effect positively affirms what Pius IX denied and condemned in the catalogue of contemporary errors that he established in 1864 and which bears the name of Syllabus.
l Did Cardinal Ratzinger explain why he described Gaudium et Spes as a "counter-Syllabus"? The Cardinal justified his analogy by explaining that in the 1960's the Church appropriated "the best values of two centuries of liberal culture," values which, he said, "originate outside the Church" but which now have found a place within it.4
l Is it a bad thing for the Church to appropriate values that originate outside it? The real question is, rather, can there be genuine moral values outside the Church? The Church received from Christ the plenitude of religious truth and good. Liberalism is only the corruption of Christian ideas gone mad, as G. K. Chesterton would say. Everything good it might possess was stolen from the Gospel; but everything that belongs to liberalism properly speaking (unbridled liberty, rejection of authority established by God, etc.) is, of itself, anti-Christian. That is why Pius IX repeatedly condemned liberalism, and in the last proposition of his Syllabus denounced the following error: "The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization."5 It is precisely this reconciliation and this friendship that are advocated by Vatican II in general and Gaudium et Spes in particular.
31) Isn't Vatican II infallible insofar as it is an organ of the ordinary magisterium?
Some claim that even if Vatican II did not produce any acts of the extraordinary magisterium, it would possess the note of infallibility as an organ of the ordinary and universal magisterium, since almost all the bishops of the world were present. Moreover, they say, ecumenism and religious liberty are taught nowadays by the bishops of the entire world, which would also be equivalent to the exercise of the ordinary and universal magisterium, which is infallible.
But this argumentation is flawed. Vatican II, a "pastoral" council, refused to invoke its authority to define anything; it did not impose religious liberty and ecumenism as truths of faith, and that is why it escapes the extraordinary magisterium. But, by the same token, it also escapes the infallible ordinary magisterium, for there can be no infallibility if the bishops do not authoritatively certify that the teaching they dispense belongs to the deposit of the faith (or is necessarily linked to it), and that it must be held as immutable and obligatory.
l Are not some Vatican II teachings presented as "based on Revelation," "in conformity with Revelation," "handed down by the Church," or "decreed in the Holy Spirit"? Those are pious formulas, but very insufficient to assure infallibility. It would be necessary to impose this teaching authoritatively as necessarily linked to divine Revelation, which is immutable and obligatory. But religious liberty and ecumenism are novelties, contrary to previous Church teaching. In fact, the bishops do not impose them firmly and precisely as immutable truths. In preaching them, they do not invoke their authority as guardians of the deposit revealed to the Apostles, but rather they present them in a liberal ("pastoral") fashion as the fruit of a dialogue with the modern world and as the reflection of what Christians believe today. This is enough to exclude infallibility.6
l Thus one cannot invoke the Church's ordinary and universal magisterium with regard to ecumenism and religious liberty? One cannot invoke the ordinary and universal magisterium in favor of ecumenism and religious liberty, but one could justly affirm that it is the condemnations declared over the course of the last two centuries against religious liberty and ecumenism that are infallible by reason of the ordinary magisterium.
l Do the current Church authorities acknowledge the non-infallibility of Vatican II? Cardinal Ratzinger expressly stated in 1988 that Vatican II is not infallible:
The truth is that the Council itself did not define any dogma, and limited itself to a more modest level, simply as a pastoral council. In spite of this, numerous are those who interpret it as if it involved a "super-dogma" that alone has importance.7
l Why are the current authorities so attached to Vatican II, since they recognize at the same time that it is not infallible? In fact, from the beginning, Vatican II has been the object of a dishonest trick. During the Council, they insisted on its pastoral character in order to avoid having to express themselves with theological precision; but afterward, they pretend to give it an authority equal or even superior to that of previous councils and pontifical documents. This dishonest trick was denounced by one of the participants at the Council, Archbishop Lefebvre, in 1976: "It is imperative, therefore, to shatter the myths which have been built up around Vatican II–this Council which they wanted to make a pastoral one, because of their instinctive horror for dogma, to facilitate the introduction of Liberal ideas into an official text of the Church. By the time it was over, however, they had dogmatized the Council, comparing it with that of Nicaea, and claiming that it was equal if not superior to the Councils that had gone before it!"8
Translated exclusively for Angelus Press from Katholischer Katechismus zur kirchlichen Kriese by Fr. Matthias Gaudron, professor at the Herz Jesu Seminary of the Society of St. Pius X in Zaitzkofen, Germany. The original was published in 1997 by Rex Regum Press, with a preface by the District Superior of Germany, Fr. Franz Schmidberger. This translation is based on the second edition published in 1999 by Rex Regum Verlag, Schloss Jaidhof, Austria. Subdivisions and slight revisions made by the Dominican Fathers of Avrillé have been incorporated into the translation.
1 K. Rahner and H. Vorgrimler, Kleines Konzilskompendium: Sämtliche Texte des Zweiten Vatikanums (Fribourg: Herder, 1986), p. 21.
2 Johannes Willebrands, Mandatum Unitatis (Paderborn: Bonifatius Verlag, 1989), p. 352.
3 Pastor Wilhelm Schmidt (not to be confused with the ethnologist of the same name), letter of August 3, 2000, to the author of this Catechism. (Pastor Schmidt made clear in his letter that "I have no objection to the publication of this information.")
4 Interview of Cardinal Ratzinger by the Italian journalist Vittorio Messori, published in English as The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985).
5 Condemned proposition, DS 2980.
6 See on this subject the arguments developed by Fr. Calderon in Sel de la Terre, No. 47, pp. 60-69 and 91-95.–Note of the Dominican Fathers.
7 Cardinal Ratzinger, Allocution to the Bishops' Conference of Chile, July 13, 1988 (quoted in Itinéraires, February 1989, p. 4.
8 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council (1976; Angelus Press, 1982), pp. x-xi.
I Accuse The Council
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
For further reading on the dangers of the documents of Vatican II, we recommend I Accuse the Council by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. This is a collection of the 12 interventions (a speech at the Council drawing attention to a deficiency in a proposed text) of Archbishop Lefebvre. Some of these interventions are accompanied by Archbishop Lefebvre's proposed re-wording, some have a short commentary by the Archbishop on that session of the Council. You will see that most of his interventions dealt with ecumenism, collegiality and religious liberty, but also on the Missionary Activity of the Church, among others. We often forget that Archbishop Lefebvre was the Superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers at that time–the largest missionary order in the Church. And he had spent most of his priesthood as a missionary priest and bishop in Africa.
In 1966, Cardinal Ottaviani was so concerned about the effects of the Council, that he wrote to every bishop in the world and asked for their thoughts on the matter. Archbishop Lefebvre's devastating reply is included: He warned that the faithful would become confused, doubting the necessity of the Church, the sacraments, the conversion of non-Catholics, and the necessity of authority.
89pp, softcover, STK# 3072 $10.00
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