Jean-Pierre Maugendrepresident of Catholic Renaissance, writes:
Presumption is like a boomerang, the real always ends up coming back to you. The Second Vatican Council announced the ” church spring “. Sixty years later here we are in the heart of winter. Like a mantra, however, the pope and the bishops continue to repeat: the council, fidelity to the council, etc. This is ” in accordance with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council that Pope Francis, by the motu proprio Custodian traditions, decreed that ” the liturgical books promulgated by the Holy Pontiffs Paul VI and John Paul II are the only expression of the lex orandi of the Roman rite (art 1), erasing with a stroke of the pen 2,000 years of liturgical Tradition.
An anthropocentric Church
Much has already been written on the texts of the Council. There is one track that has perhaps not been sufficiently explored, however, within this option specific to Catholic liberalism consisting in making concessions to modernity in order to better convey the message of the Church. Paul VI and the council bring about a radical paradigm shift. The Church which was the mystical body of Christ (Mystici corporis ChristiPius XII, June 29, 1943) becomes “ expert in humanity » (Populorum progressio, Paul VI, March 26, 1967). At the same time when, according to the famous formula of the closing speech of the Second Vatican Council by Paul VI, she affirmed to have ” more than anyone the cult of man”. From theocentric, better christocentric, the Church became anthropocentric. The liturgy became community self-celebration » (The spirit of the liturgyCardinal Ratzinger) and the reminder of the truths of the faith gave way to teaching increasingly centered on moral and social subjects.
A part of the Church pushed these social aspirations to their extreme consequences, rallying the theology of Liberation and calling, through the modification of social structures, for the advent, from here below, of the Kingdom of Heaven. A dangerous utopia to which we owe, in particular, the dazzling development of all the Protestant sects in Latin America. Moreover, this humanity which it was appropriate to serve and whose worship it was necessary to celebrate was, in reality, a deeply mutilated humanity. The conciliar optimism culpably forgot the existence of original sin, a reality of faith which strikes all men. Finally presented in a pleasant light, the truths of the Gospel could only, thought the innovators, arouse the adhesion of the crowds amazed by their splendors and too often, in reality, put off by the counter-testimony of the practitioners who were, according to the expression of Patrick Buisson (The end of a world), that ” deceptively close “.
Everything was done to disgust the faithful who left the Church on tiptoe, the others – atheists, agnostics or indifferent – continuing to go about their business outside the Church. The missionary religious communities were transformed into ” development actors », the chaplains of Catholic Action married and the popes multiplied the social encyclicals, which is not a bad thing in itself when one does not incline towards demagoguery. Liturgical and strictly theological or doctrinal questions were somewhat neglected, with the notable exception of certain encyclicals of Pope John Paul II (Fides and ratioSeptember 14, 1998, ecclesia of eucharistiaApril 17, 2003, etc) and action in favor of the traditional liturgy of Pope Benedict XVI (summorum pontificumJuly 7, 2007) who, no doubt overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task to be accomplished, renounced the sovereign pontificate.
It is no coincidence that the latest book by Bishop Schneider Mass Catholicis subtitled: Put God back at the center of the liturgy. What does Mgr Aupetit, former archbishop of Paris think of it, who blandly declared on the air of Radio Notre Dame September 6, 2021 “Catholics are often divided over subordinate questions such as, for example, the way of celebrate mass »? Subordinate the manner of celebrating the mass where the sacrifice of Calvary is renewed? Where is the sacrifice of our Redemption accomplished? But what is the religion of Bishop Aupetit?
A Moral Debacle
The liturgy ceased to be the prayer of the Church and became the ” meeting that allows the man of become fully human (§33, Desiderio desideravi, Francois, June 29, 2022). Ecclesiology having opened in a liberal manner (ecumenism, relationship to other religions, religious freedom) and this big move (Guillaume Cuchet) In fact, the truths of the faith were no longer taught, the sovereign pontiffs chose to invest the moral and social field of Humanae Vitae (Paul VI, July 25, 1968) to Laudato if (François, May 24, 2015) via Evangelium vitae (John Paul II, March 25, 1995) and Centesimus annus (John Paul II, May 1, 1991). The facts are there. Brutal! Stubborn! Irrefutable! Never the hold on societies, especially Western and formerly Christian, of what John Paul II called the ” culture of death » (Evangelium vitae) has been so strong, as the recent midterm elections in the United States clearly demonstrated.
In France, the bishops who had not opposed, according to the testimony of Simone Veil, the decriminalization of abortion, are now assisting, arms dangling, at the legalization of euthanasia and the constitutionalization of IVG. But there is worse. On Good Friday 2005 during the meditation on the Stations of the Cross, Cardinal Ratzinger replacing Pope John Paul II, already very weakened and on the threshold of the great passage, declared:
” What defilements among the Church and particularly among those who in the priesthood should belong to her totally! How much pride and self-sufficiency! (…) Often, Lord, your Church seems to us a boat ready to sink, a boat that is taking on water from all sides. And in your field we see more chaff than goodgrain “.
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger certainly had information that would be made public in the years to come, about sex scandals involving bishops and priests, even cardinals. What is the credibility of the moral discourse of the Church of France, in the face of political authorities and media powers, when a significant part of its hierarchy is entangled in affairs in which simple fornication is the least serious manifestation? ” When the monkey wants to climb the coconut tree, he must have the clean buttocks says an exotic saying. We are far from it.
Restore All in Christ
In his first encyclical (E supremi apostolatusOctober 4, 1903), the Holy Pope Pius X presented his program as follows:
” We declare that Our sole purpose in exercising the Supreme Pontificate is to “restore all in Christ” so that “Christ may be all and in all”.
Whatever Cardinal André Vingt-Trois may say, the times we live in are much more dramatic than in the time of the Borgias because the current crisis in the Church is not only moral but also liturgical, doctrinal and disciplinary. Therefore, no moral restoration will be possible if it is not preceded by a real intellectual and spiritual reform that no longer puts man but Christ at the heart of the life of the Church. Not the Christ of Yes yes in the country in the land of care bears » whose conciliar celebrations are too much for us to hear. But Christ crucified, died and rose again, to deliver us from the slavery of sin. A traditional Christ one might say. Quite simply, the eternal Christ.