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| http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/cardinal-burke-takes-on-the-modernist-agenda/ |
The photo above is a screen capture from National Catholic Register. The title struck me, so I had to take a look.
Obviously one of the primary discussion topics of those who attend Mass at SSPX chapels is the topic of "Modernism," one which the patron of the Society wrote of frequently and vehemently condemned as the "synthesis of all heresies."
He imposed the "Oath Against Modernism" to be sworn by all active clergy, and of course wrote perhaps his most famous work Pascendi detailing every type of Modernist error from practical, theological and philosophical fronts.
One of the chief assertions of Traditionalist Catholics in general is that the Modernists hijacked the Second Vatican Council and are chiefly responsible for the ruin in the Church over the last 50 years.
So, given the title, I wanted to see what His Eminence, a proponent of the Council, had to say about the problems plaguing the Church and the world today.
As an aside, please let me make it clear that I have no desire to detract or calumniate His Eminence in any way.
In fact, while I am for the most part unfamiliar with Cardinal Burke, I have heard from a number of Traditionalists that he is among the more orthodox in the College, favorable to the Tradition and at least "sympathetic" (as was Pope Emeritus Benedict as it seemed) to the Society of St. Pius X (though unfortunately confused about the severe nature of what is happening in the Church - video available here).
The link to the article by Edward Pentin can be found beneath the screen capture above.
I would like to point out that in no way do I suppose to proclaim that everything post-conciliar is negative and/or influenced by the Modernists. In fact, I typically find that in reading any post-conciliar text (whether formal or informal), there is typically there within what could be called "the good, the bad and the ambiguous."
So without further ado...
THE GOOD
“A thinly disguised population-control agenda is steadfastly at work in the sheep’s clothing called ‘maternal health,’” he said. But the agenda, he noted, “actually has nothing to do with maternity and nothing to do with health [speaking of abortion and contraception].“One only has to read the daily newspaper or turn on the television for the evening news to know that Christians holding to the truth of the moral law is no longer tolerated by many and that the secularist agenda...
He called for “strong, supportive and traditional families, with a mother and father who love their children unconditionally,” as well as women and mothers who uphold the virtues of “purity, chastity and modesty and respect for the integrity of marriage and the family.”
You will notice certain key words I have underlined right on that image: "people of goodwill, human dignity, New Evangelization" (should have been underlined anyway, oops).
THE AMBIGUOUS
(Stepping out of order)
Cardinal Raymond Burke has rallied all people of goodwill to take a firm stance in protecting and promoting human dignity...
“We cannot be deceived,” Cardinal Burke said. “There is no greater issue facing human dignity today than the relentless attack on human life, the integrity of the human body.”
“If people do not acknowledge the dignity of all human beings without exception, the common good, authentically understood, can never thrive,” he said.
The cardinal called for a movement “toward a New Evangelization regarding human life."
“The transformation of hearts by which one truly believes in the dignity of all men, without boundary, is the most fundamental means of a New Evangelization,” he said.
I have bolded and underlined three terms above which all hit the headline screen capture at the start of this post.
- Human Dignity (mentioned 12 times in this essay)
- New Evangelization (mentioned 6 times)
- People of "Goodwill" and "the common good" (mentioned 3 times)
I would make a wager with anyone that he could not turn on EWTN radio for more than 30 minutes to any program without hearing at least one of those three mentioned (throw in with those "social justice, religious freedom, conscience rights" and you have hit the full gamut of post-conciliar hot words). There is currently an ad running right now that hits all of those words following the words "You believe in [social justice, freedom of religion and conscience, etc.]..."
The reason why those words above are ambiguous:
- What does human dignity mean?
- What in the world is the "New Evangelization?"
- What makes a person of "goodwill" versus of "bad will?" Who is of "bad will?"
In addition to the two aforementioned works of Pope St. Pius X, another shorter encyclical was written by the Holy Father called Notre Charge Apostolique (Our Apostolic Mandate) in 1910 condemning the Sillonist movement. The Sillonists were those in France who had joined under the pompous attempt at the elevation of man as supreme arbiter of good and evil, strongly imbued with the virulent ideals of the French Revelution, namely: LIBERTÉ (Liberty), FRATERNITÉ (Fraternity), ÉGALITÉ (Equality).
This encyclical will cover the problem with the phrase "HUMAN DIGNITY."
Here are some excerpts:
[Modernists] have a particular conception of human dignity, freedom, justice and brotherhood; and, in an attempt to justify their social dreams, they put forward the Gospel, but interpreted in their own way...they flatter themselves with the idea of raising human dignity.
The Sillon has a praise-worthy concern for human dignity, but it understands human dignity in the manner of some philosophers, of whom the Church does not at all feel proud. The first condition of that dignity is liberty, but viewed in the sense that, except in religious matters, each man is autonomous...A socio-political set-up resting on these two pillars of Liberty and Equality (to which Fraternity will presently be added), is what they call Democracy.
The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which they found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. But Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas...
...At the root of all their fallacies on social questions, lie the false hopes of [Modernists] on human dignity. According to them, Man will be a man truly worthy of the name only when he has acquired a strong, enlightened, and independent consciousness, able to do without a master, obeying only himself, and able to assume the most demanding responsibilities without faltering. Such are the big words by which human pride is exalted, like a dream carrying Man away without light, without guidance, and without help into the realm of illusion in which he will be destroyed by his errors and passions whilst awaiting the glorious day of his full consciousness...? Did the Saints who brought human dignity to its highest point, possess that kind of dignity?
A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity...Yes, we can truly say that the [Modernist plan], its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train.
We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."
It is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
ONE WORLD CHURCH PAINTING?
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| Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the "Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue" |
Whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross...these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.
The false and seductive platform of "human dignity" was warned about by several Popes prior to the Second Vatican Council, not just St. Pius X.
Looking at the movements within the Church since Vatican II, it escapes me how anyone can bring himself to read the above text and then find it entirely reconcilable with everything being promoted in the last 50 years.
Whether intended or not, this promotion of the phrase "human dignity" has led to the flatulent elevation of man exactly as Pope St. Pius X said it would. It puts into the minds of men that they themselves need to more deeply understand the grandeur of their own existence, planting at least on some subconscious level that he is either just as good as everyone else or perhaps even better.
But this belief is nothing other than the manifestation of pride and vanity.
The Litany of Humility by Merry Cardinal del Val (Sec. of State to Pius X) gives us a true understanding of the dignity of man, one which is rooted in complete and utter self-abnegation and a living out of Mark 8:34.
One may begin to understand the right order of his place in the universe when he proclaims in the mirror each morning, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
THE NEW EVANGELIZATION
First of all, the title alone prompts one to ask, "what was the old evangelization, and why do we need something new?"
I first heard this term a few years ago when I initially came back into the Church. People my age kept talking about it over...and over...and over. Typically when you have been exposed to a topic numerous times, you begin to be able to infer what it means and what it is all about. With this particular subject, the inverse happened: I found myself getting more and more confused.
I finally asked a few friends about it. None of the answers really had any lucidity, and no two answers were the same.
Go ahead and do a Google search for the term, and you will find a number of posts by the likes of Fr. Robert Barron, the USCCB, or Catholic.com.
It just comes across as vague nonsense, and notably missing is any reference to the Church Militant or calling upon our Confirmation Virtue of Courage.
Catholic Answers actually had an entire show on this topic, and Dr. Scott Hahn at least touched on it a bit:
This is a 9 minute video. And all he says could be summarized with the following: "We are all called to be missionaries on some level."
That's great, and it's true. But what is "New?" Specifically, what are we called to do differently?
At the 2:48 mark, he spouts out an entirely fallacious argument that the post-conciliar Church has been more "Evangelical" because, according to him, First Vatican Council doesn't mention "evangelization" once whereas Second Vatican Council mentions it over 150 times.
This is a Class A Post-Conciliar Red Herring on multiple fronts:
a.) Vatican I was not called to be about the Church's missionary spirit; it was called largely and almost exclusively to call light to the nature of the Papacy and its Infallibility
b.) Vatican I is about 9,000 words; Vatican II and all its documents are over 185.000 words covering far more subjects. Just as a side note, and just to put the latter in perspective, the Council of Trent - considered to be the preeminent dogmatic council in Church history covering any and all topics - was only 85,00 words.
c.) I have all of the Vatican II documents pasted into one massive Word document. The combination of the letters "evangel" (so as to include evangelize, evangelization and evangelical) are only found 80 times (not 150). "Evangeliz" only 35. And "evangelization" only 3 times. This simply shows that the nature of what he is stating is not entirely factual/accurate.
d.) Saying that just because Vatican II uses this word "evangelization" means the Church has taken on a new attitude toward the world is discounting all the martyrs and missionaries in Church history back to Her birth on Pentecost. The word "evangelize," except in the case of the "four evangelists" et al., perhaps simply was not part of common lexicon. However, that does not diminish the overwhelming missionary spirit of the Church for the 1900 years prior to the Council. In addition, one need only go to the Catholic Relief Services web site to find out that today's "evangelization" is no longer about conversion to the One, True faith but rather about humanitarian relief and the propagation of Western socio-economic ideals. Right on their web site, you do not need to be Catholic to work as a missionary for Catholic Relief Services.
Now, Dr. Hahn mentions that the real "blossoming" of this New Evangelization was with the promulgation of the papal encyclical Redemptoris Missio in 1990 by Pope John Paul II.
So it is perhaps prudent to take a look at some of what is proposed in that encyclical.
#8 The Second Vatican Council replies to those concerned with safeguarding freedom of conscience: "The human person has a right to religious freedom.... All should have such immunity from coercion by individuals, or by groups, or by any human power, that no one should be forced to act against his conscience in religious matters, nor prevented from acting according to his conscience, whether in private or in public, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.
>> For more on why this is wrong, just check out my last post Religious Freedom? How about a Catholic United States instead...
>> This declaration flies in the face of Traditional 1900 year Catholic teaching and says that no one should be forced to act against his conscience...within due limits. Here we get again into the ambiguous of the Council, but the result is that pure EVIL is allowed to be given equality of place in society like the practice of satanism and witchcraft, abortion, pornography, contraception, divorce, etc. These "due limits" are never clarified, and the result is a sugar coated chaos ball.
#17 The Church's task is described as though it had to proceed in two directions: on the one hand promoting such "values of the kingdom" as peace, justice, freedom, brotherhood, etc,, while on the other hand fostering dialogue between peoples, cultures and religions, so that through a mutual enrichment they might help the world to be renewed and to journey ever closer toward the kingdom.
>> Remember the quote from Notre Charge Apostolique? "[Modernists] have a particular conception of human dignity, freedom, justice and brotherhood...A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity."
>> Also, "mutual enrichment?" This suggests that the Catholic Church has something to be learned from false religions or from outside of her, some way to be enriched by other beliefs or cultures. This idea was expressly condemned by Pope Pius XII in On the Ecumenical Movement (1949): "What is worse, that in matters of dogma even the Catholic Church has not yet attained the fullness of Christ, but can still be perfected from outside..."
#25 It is the Spirit who is the source of the drive to press on, not only geographically but also beyond the frontiers of race and religion, for a truly universal mission.
>> Transcending the frontiers of religion for a more truly universal mission? Remember in Notre Charge Apostolique when Pope Pius said they were trying to form a "One World Religion?"
This video (LINK) regrettably says it all. Pope John Paul II paying homage to a pagan who, in spite of every possibility, never converted. Proclaiming "respect for the unique dignity for every human being...a NEW WORLD ORDER, a civilization of love, can be achieved..."
Finally, the topic of "men of goodwill" and the "common good."
The Traditional and Authentic Catholic teaching is that the common good is for men to first and foremost reach their intended final destination of Heaven - eternal life.
This takes complete precedence over the temporal life, though it certainly does not mean the temporal is to be ignored.
The Church has always promoted both the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy, but the former is more important than the latter.
Better a man be baptized, die and go to heaven at age 18 than never convert, live a life of comfort and health and die and go to hell.
This is perhaps best summarized by Pope Pius IX in Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863)
God forbid that the children of the Catholic Church should even in any way be unfriendly to those who are not at all united to us by the same bonds of faith and love. On the contrary, let them be eager always to attend to their needs with all the kind services of Christian charity, whether they are poor or sick or suffering any other kind of visitation. First of all, let them rescue them from the darkness
of the errors into which they have unhappily fallen and strive to guide them back to Catholic truth..."
Much like New Evangelization leads to the logical question of "why and what was the old?," speaking about "men of goodwill" leads one to ask "what does this mean and who are the men of ill will?"
Our Lord said in Mt 12:30: "He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth." Since we believe in "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism," and that the Catholic Church is the "one true Ark of Salvation," we may logically conclude that all those outside of the Church are - whether intentionally or unintentionally - "enemies" of the Church and therefore of Our Lord and his Salvific Mission. This being said, there are undoubtedly those who try, following the activity of actual grace in their lives, to do God's will. However, the Church teaches that all actual grace in a non-Catholic's life is given by God for the express intent of leading him or her to the one true Ark.
Our Lord said "seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened." So, in a certain sense, though God be the final and sole arbiter of each man's eternal destination and of his conscience and deeds, our Lord has told us that if we are truly seeking, aka "of goodwill," we will find aka "be baptized / converted to Catholicism."
Now, the men who were - up until 1983 - openly declared to be enemies of the Church, of complete ill-will, and even "servants of Satan" were Freemasons. Not all Masons, but really the sect itself and its leaders.
Here are some comments from Pope Leo XIII on Freemasonry:
Custodi di Quella Fede (1892)
#4 The satanic intent of the persecutors has been to substitute naturalism for Christianity, the worship of reason for the worship of faith, so-called independent morality for Catholic morality, and material progress for spiritual progress...
#8-10 Masonic patriotism is no less than sectarian egotism which yearns to dominate everything...this sect tries to overthrow the Catholic Church and to cut off its divine sources...pride, greed, and sensuality...three concupiscences...spread slowly...masonry is an enemy of God...We have loudly repeated the warning.
#15 Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God.
Contrast these comments with the last formal declaration by the Church on Freemasonry:
Cardinal Ratzinger (CDF) - Irreconcilability between Christian faith and Freemasonry (1983)
"It is certainly not necessary to emphasize that following the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church too is pressing in the direction of collaboration between all men of good will...
...the community of good will, that is, in the Masonic fraternity."
One must ask himself, how does a sect of Satanic libertines suddenly, 100 years later, become a community of good will???
So, back to the original subject...Cardinal Burke takes on the Modernists.
I don't see any formal decree being put together and promulgated with canons like the Syllabus of Errors. All I see are Church representatives, His Eminence among them, defending - as She always has - the lives of innocent human beings (the unborn) and of the sanctity of matrimony (though its sacramental nature has been largely perverted over the last 50 years).
This is hardly the fierce battle against Modernism. This is simply one of the last remaining good fruits hanging, clinging to the branches of a tree which has been uprooted and replanted in radioactive soil now putting forth inedible, poisonous apples.
I will probably need to go back and revise/edit this post later...but for now, Pax Christi sit semper Vobiscum.
http://tylernethercott.blogspot.com/2013/05/resist-modernism.html
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