December 1983 Print

Part III (Conclusion)
The Return To God As Summum Bonum

by Friedrich Wilhelm Bracht

Readers who have patiently followed the first two installments of this article can now reap their reward: to see how the author situates Archbishop Lefebvre in the context of the postconciliar Church, which itself is situated in the march of European history—in a way that is not flattering to the Church. The author is in the best tradition of modern European intellectuals, and we are grateful to Father Schmidberger, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X, for calling his work to our attention.

The old "Faith in Science" is outmoded; it is found today only among the uneducated, the half-educated and theologians. One possible explanation is some form of syncretic blend of Asian philosophy with Christian elements. This would not do in the long run, however, as a new summum bonum, since it would still be a case of God being for Man and not Man for God. Such a Renaissance would have to consist in a Renaissance of the principal existing religions, above all the kindred three: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (The personal God of Abraham in common to all three, the God of the Old Testament, Who unmistakably insists that Man is for HIM, God.) But the question arises: Where do these religions stand today?

Judaism, around the time of the French Revolution, gave up the idea of God as summum bonum for the sake of Man (Moses Mendelssohn). This was the condition for the emancipation of the Jews in the nineteenth century. They marched "with God" but no longer "for God." There are, of course, remnant groups of strictly orthodox Jews. But they are considered hopelessly reactionary and without influence. At best they are like dinosaurs in a museum, to be gazed at with a shake of the head.

Islam also offers a two-fold picture. Turkey has gone the way of the West. With God for the Fatherland; summum bonum is the Nation. This is also true for "socialist" Arab states, such as Gaddafi's Libya or Algeria (which are really "national" socialist). There are still in the Arab world, however, countries in which God has unquestionably remained to this day as summum bonum. (Significantly they are seen as "medieval," and the enlightened today think only of the most drastic methods of wiping them out.)

 

The Division in Christianity

Even the Christian world is divided. The Eastern, Orthodox, Church has essentially remained with God [as summum bonum], although there are politically-minded bishops whose Highest Good is apparently the Nation and not the Lord, such as Archbishop Capucci of Jerusalem and the deceased Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus. The Church as a whole, however, both now and then, puts God and not Man quite clearly in the first place, above all in their worship. The Orthodox have, to their credit, stood firmly on the eight Ecumenical Councils (fourth to ninth centuries). The SPIRIT blows where HE wills. They have had no Councils since then. This form of Orthodoxy offers a bridge to the Old Russian tradition (before Peter the Great—17th century), and if in Russia there is going to be a reawakening of awareness of "Holy Russia," then they will not look to Czar Nicholas. They must go back before the reforms of Peter the Great, therefore before the adoption of the Western European ideas from the Enlightenment, which, if thought out to their logical conclusions, lead to Capitalism, Socialism and Fascism—i.e., to the reign of Man and away from the "Kingdom of God."

The Protestants offer a shimmering multi-faceted picture. This is because they are splintered into an extraordinary number of sects—Lutherans, Reformed, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists (Puritans), to name only the most important. Part of them believe neither in a personal God (they proclaim rather as theological doctrine that "God is ... " dead nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ, Who for them is only Man. They deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, but not for the Arians' reason; because God is so infinitely above creation that He could never become Man; but rather the other way round, because for them Man has become God (in, with or through Jesus), so that the distinction between Man and God disappears. Here is Man as summum bonum. Even the general message of the churches announces purely human, humanitarian goals, and God is only the means of achieving these goals. "Liberation Theology" and the "Theology of Revolution" proclaim (purely worldly goals), quite openly, and without contradiction by the churches. There is still among Protestants a considerable minority of believers in the old sense, for whom God remains the summum bonum. In Germany they group themselves into denominations like the "No Other Gospel" sect and others similar. But these are regarded in the public opinion of today's climate of ideas as a rearguard action of hopeless reactionaries who wish only to complain and not to adapt, and as superstitious freaks who are beneath the notice of very Modern Minds, for whom God cannot be represented. They are not concerned with God, but only with class interests.

The Roman Church, as we saw, for a long time remained with God as summum bonum. All priests were bound to this position by an anti-Modernist oath. The Church has therefore generally been regarded as "reactionary." Catholics were considered "untrustworthy," on the assumption that, in a crisis (as in pagan Rome) they would opt for God and the Church against the Nation. They were consequently the victims of political discrimination in many countries, even in otherwise completely free countries like the U.S.A., where for a long time no Catholic could become president. (Significantly, until the time of J.F. Kennedy, whose presidency coincided with "aggiornamento" and the disappearance of the anti-Modernist oath.) The conservative line held out until the death of Pope Pius XII. God was the Alpha and the Omega. Theologians and priests who expressed the slightest doubt or tended to deify man, were censured or excommunicated. But since the death of Pius XII ... ?

Man in Place of God

It is painful to say it—but in order to clarify our intellectual and spiritual situation, we must think the unthinkable and express the inexpressible—after the death of Pius XII, the Roman Church put Man in place of God as summum bonum. The Church has therefore betrayed the Lord. The aggiornamento of John XXIII and other developments, above all after the Second Vatican Council, signal a change in summum bonum—from God to Man. The objection will be raised that such a betrayal is impossible because the Holy Ghost protects the Church. Yet: the SPIRIT blows where HE wills, and He blows where HE wills. Finally, it must be remembered that St. Peter himself betrayed the Lord three times.

This event itself, the change in summum bonum, remains under the surface of things. There is no need for a change in dogma. A dogmatic statement by pope or council need not be given and has not been given. (This may be providential as groundwork for a possible turning around.) The event is felt rather in a general awareness and in the liturgy. The event as such is seen and wished for by the reformers, even if it is scarcely ever mentioned in public discussion. So writes Wolfgang Seibel in Stimmen der Zeit for September, 1977:

Lefebvre's basic thesis is that the Council is, in the Church, the fulfillment of the French Revolution ... the Church must put a stop to this "disastrous compromise with the ideas of modern man" ... A religious-political system of thinking, which advocates an authoritarian state as the only true form of government, after the model of an authoritarian structure in the Church—and utterly rejects the principles of the modern state based on constitutional rights—this is what l'affaire Lefebvre is all about. Whoever sympathizes with this movement, whoever considers the one or the other challenge as right and just, must realize what he is letting himself in for and what he is supporting ... Pope and bishops must take a position, in the framework of the Council, on the central questions which Lefebvre poses ... Catholics and non-Catholics must be clear where the lines are drawn.

If one acknowledges the change in the French Revolution from God to Nation as summum bonum (Nation here = Man) and, in the Council, the rediscovery of the French Revolution through the Church and in the Church, one is forced to admit that the summum bonum of the postconciliar Church is no longer God, but Man. Man stands in the center, must stand in the center—so goes the saying. This is expressed in the liturgy (Communion in the hand), and also in the architecture of the churches (tabernacle removed from the altar, stuck in any old corner, hidden almost as if in shame). The demand of the proposed equality of all men goes so far that sayings of the Lord, handed down verbatim by tradition, are changed—and indeed their meaning is changed ("for all" instead of "for many"). The desire is to be "with God" for Man. God thus becomes a means of achieving human welfare. So prayer is energetically practiced, but fasting is much less energetically practiced, because that is not "meaningful" to "Contemporary Man" (so tender is pastoral concern!), and there is at least as much subjective piety among "progressive" Catholics as there was among the German princes at the Congress of Vienna. These developments are therefore as suspect in the Catholic Church as in the Protestant Church, because the Catholic Church is still strongly hierarchical, grounded upon obedience to the Pope, and groups (in the Protestant Church) like "No Other Gospel" can have no legal standing in the Catholic Church. This seems to lead to an almost unbearable distress among many of the faithful, some priests, and even a bishop here and there. The breakthrough to an answer lies with Archbishop Lefebvre, his seminary at Ecône, and its echo in the Catholic world.

 

Heavenly Aristocracy

This rejection of God as summum bonum which has taken place in all the great monotheistic religions (even if to different degrees and at different rates of speed), betokens a repaganizing (a return to heathenism), clearly seen not only in society of the State, but even in the Church. From the point of view of the Highest Good, it is precisely the characteristic of paganism, the world of the ancient gods, that people firmly believed in a god or gods. They are honored, their help sought in prayer, offerings are brought to them, but they are not themselves the summum bonum for Man. The summum bonum was in antiquity the Polis [city-state] and later perhaps the Roman state, but the gods were an other-worldly superhuman society of immortals, a kind of heavenly aristocracy. They were, finally, a part of nature, like sun, moon and stars. One prayed to them for the sake of Man, not for the sake of the gods as summum bonum. The analogy with the modern attitude "with God for King and Fatherland" or "with God for the Revolution" is obvious. Just so the analogy with the piety of the postconciliar Catholic Church. Here it is important to notice that all dogmas remain intact. You may perfectly well believe in the Triune God, you may believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Man, that He was born of the Virgin Mary; all that can remain unaltered. It can, however, be altered, if it seems useful for "Contemporary Man," perhaps on the grounds of pastoral concern, to make the Faith "meaningful." Only one thing has changed: the Triune God is no longer the most important thing for Man. The most important thing for Man is now Man. This can be based on "pastoral concerns," and is perhaps the background for these "pastoral concerns." In a word: the churches have now taken on precisely the attitude which the ancient pagan religions had adopted, and which the Roman state, the Roman emperor—quite understandably—demanded of the Christians at the time of the persecutions. And therefore, in order not to be forced to adopt this attitude, but rather to be allowed to worship God for His own sake as summum bonum, the martyrs of the ancient Church died. Even St. Peter!

And for good reason. The God of Abraham (therefore of the Jews, Christians and Islam) made a test of this question in demanding of Abraham the sacrifice of his highest earthly good, his only son. And with a clarity which excludes all doubt, He claims for Himself the place of Highest Good in the Decalogue. In the story of the rich young man, it is a question of an unconditional final decision of values. Whoever decides against God and for Man, has failed the test.

 

The Summum Bonum is God

And for this reason the churches today are empty. And the seminaries. And the monasteries. For this reason the churches of today, both for the dissidents from the East as well as in the West who are seeking a credible summum bonum, have lost their credibility. For there is no credibility in praying to God, in speaking of God, or in any crisis choosing God over "Contemporary Man" or "the Nation" or "World Revolution" or "Humanity." Naturally the Church is for Man, but this partial truth cannot be absolutized. It comes only in the second, or fifth or tenth place. For this reason the unconditional, honest, complete, credible return to God as summum bonum, at least in the major churches, is the condition on which Europe (and with it the world) can answer the great open question of meaning of today: the summum bonum is God.

A turn-around in Rome would have a powerfully symbolic and clear (unmistakable, in the meaning given by Father Seibles, S.J.) beginning, if the two martyrs of modern times, Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette of Austria, should be canonized. (We have seen that both of them, following St. Peter, died for God as their summum bonum.) To regain her credibility, the Roman Church must in any case turn around (to the Pope belongs the honor of leading the way here; here also lies the problem of Archbishop Lefebvre; Paul VI bungled it; John Paul I had too little time. What will the Polish pope do about it?) She (the Church) must change her direction ("do penance") without ifs, ands, or buts. Pater, peccavi [Father, I have sinned.] The summum bonum is God alone—no one else. Man must serve and give praise to God. He has no rights, only duties, toward God. Man is for God and only in the second or third place also for Man, and equally for all men, whether of yesterday, today or tomorrow.