3. Your betrayal of Christendom

THE scandal of moral corruption rests on evidence which is incontestable: the facts are not open to debate. The scandal involved in your betrayal of Christendom in the political field also rests on incontestable evidence, but the interpretation of the facts by yourself and your supporters is so different that the scandal exists only for “ the people of the right ”, while “ the people of the left ” will rather applaud it. That is because, in our Western society, everything connected with politics has become a matter for personal opinion and individual liberty – this may be madness but it is a fact. The essence of the scandal is no less criminal for being so regarded by only one section.

We are Catholics over and above everything else, and this applies to you, Most Holy Father, to a supreme degree. Our loyalty to God and to Christ links us to that part of the world which is Christian, more especially to Latin Europe, where Christianity, though battered by assaults from within and without, remains most in evidence. Our love for the Church embraces those countries which have numerous churches, where the people are Catholic, where the State openly professes the Catholic Faith. Going beyond this circle, now unfortunately only very small, there are those other countries which merit our preference, where the people are Christian and our holy Religion can be freely practised and preached to the people. That is what we know as the free world which, as the result of colonisation and the work of the missionaries, would before long have spread to cover the whole of our planet. It is good to remind ourselves that the world was already well on the way to becoming Christian when the enemy stepped in.

Please forgive me, Most Holy Father, if I remind you of certain facts and of the obligations of a supernatural loyalty which you refuse to acknowledge.

The enemy I am referring to is not the Russian people, nor the Chinese people: it is, quite simply, ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM which, with lies and murder as its tools, is systematically conquering the world and installing its imperialism and its slavery, leading to a tyranny and a wholesale persecution of everything that is Christian, such as has never been known before.

Communism is overtly in command in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, whence it towers over Central Europe, and it is at the same time making headway in the Far East and the Middle East, ready to encircle Europe by way of Southern Asia and Africa. In addition, it has established a foothold in Cuba and also – with the help of the Church and so with your permission, in Chile. It is also spreading elsewhere, in the free world, under cover of the famous democratic liberties and “ in particular, that of religious liberty ” (Discourse of Pope Paul VI to the UN). It is aided and abetted by those nebulous doctrines of “ neutralism ” and “ peaceful coexistence ”, which are supposed to be so useful for business and finance. The gangrene has set in, and forms the greatest conceivable threat to the continued existence of mankind.

The other enemy, closely linked with this one, is THE ANTICOLONIALISM OF THE THIRD WORLD, a racist form of nationalism which seeks to attain independence with the help of revolution. Its seeds were sown, alas, by our own lay and socialist co-religionists and it has resulted in the wars of liberation won over us by the colonised peoples as a result of our own weakness.

Thus we can see the Free World shrinking in size, while the Communist World is in a state of expansion and “ colonisation ”. It has, for all practical purposes, disintegrated, leading to the formation of a Third World filled with revolt and jealousy against its former colonisers, and drawn towards international Communism by the manoeuvres and ideological pressure of the latter. It was not difficult to foresee that the lands lost to the Christian West would fall prey to the expansion of the Communist ruled East and Far East. Unable to proceed directly across Central Europe, the subversive and military forces of Communism are carrying on the war by stirring up anti-colonial “ wars of liberation ” throughout the Third World. And, while Europe remains threatened by direct invasion, North America is also at risk as a result of subversive activity, with the continuing risk of total war.

And what does the Pope do to help mankind faced with the threat of such a vast peril ? What does he preach in this ideological struggle ? What tactics does he employ when all the peoples have “ met together against the Lord and against his Christ ” (Ps. 2. 2) ?

The Pope is betraying the Christian world.

YOUR SO-CALLED NEUTRALISM

On January 29, 1965 you made one of those surprise gestures, one of those enigmatic “ acts ” which have the appearance of being “ Pontifical Acts ”, and which I have referred to as “ scandals ”: You gave back to the Turks the Standard of Lepanto. The trophy had been preserved for almost four hundred years in St. Mary Major, as an ex voto offering to the Blessed Virgin, Guardian and Protector of Christendom. The flag had been taken in the heat of the fight from a Turkish admiral during the famous naval battle on the October 7, 1571 which saved the West from the Moslem threat. St. Pius V had a vision of the victory at the very moment it was taking place, and he instituted the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary in order to perpetuate this miraculous outcome won through her intercession. The wars of religion were dividing and devastating Europe at that time, making it an easy prey to invasion by barbarians.

When making this gesture you issued a Brief addressed to the Turkish authorities, and this gives us some clue to your real meaning: “ The wars of religion are finished for good. ” The action and the words which accompanied it amount, together, to a scandal whose repercussions are infinite and irreversible.

With reference, first, to the past, your act seems to cast doubt upon the lawfulness of the Crusade preached by St. Pius V and the genuinely miraculous nature of the victory, as well as on the merits of the Pope who had called upon Christians to fight, and on the genuineness of his vision. But over and above all this, it is an insult to Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary and casts a veil of shame over her Feast on the October 7. To return the Standard implies that you feel the need to make honourable amends to the Moslem Turks and are ready to trample upon the Church’s past.

But the enigmatic element in your gesture has a bearing on the present rather than on the past: this is your way of making it clear that the new-style Papacy dissociates itself from the conflicts of those days, that it will not recognise anyone’s right to fight in the name of Christianity, nor look upon any people or state, even on one that persecutes the Church, as an enemy of God, against which all the rest are in duty bound to unite in a Crusade.

The wars of religion are over for good ? Let us forget about the Turks, to whom your gesture meant nothing and who greeted it with indifference or even irritation. But what about the others ? Are you no longer prepared to condemn even the most savage of persecutors ? Will you not bless the flags of those Christians who fight against them ?

At a moment when the West is once again oblivious of the peril in which it finds itself, when it is growing cold in the Faith and engrossed in its vices, when it is so sorely in need of the Pope to wake it up and give it courage to resist aggression and invasion – for is the state of affairs in 1971 not similar to that in 1571, and is the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean not a threat a thousand times greater than the Turks of yore ? – at the very moment when another St. Pius V should rise up and order pilgrimages to St. Mary Major in Rome, condemn the Communist infiltrations in the Church and in the free world, warn the Third World against the seductive treachery of Marxism, make himself the spokesman of the persecuted Christians, the Catholics suffering martyrdom, and, finally, bless the armies of the West fighting against the Communist forces or preparing to resist their onslaught... ...at this tragic moment in history, the Pope – you, Most Holy Father – go to the length of returning to the enemies of old, a piece of ancient rag which had lain at the feet of the Blessed Virgin in Rome as the ex voto offering of Christendom thankful for its deliverance !

I happen to recall this particular gesture among so many others which, not taking much note of political or diplomatic happenings, I let pass unnoticed. There is a whole series of acts of “ neutralism ”, of heartfelt praise bestowed on the apostles of peaceful coexistence in our day, which I may have noted in passing in my Letters to my Friends, and later in the Catholic Counter-Reformation, or which I could look up, if this Process required it. These various words and gestures were but a smoke screen hiding the very real movement of your diplomacy and your heart in the direction of Moscow and Peking, and towards guerrillas and terrorists in every country in the world.

You were glad to receive Martin Luther King ! You lavished praise upon Gandhi and Nehru. You remained blind and deaf to the pro-Communist campaigns and the encouragement of Black racialism by the first of these and the infringement of peace and the rights of peoples by the latter apostles of a false Non-Violence, prepared to annex the ancient French towns of the Indies and Catholic Portuguese Goa. Your heart remains ever cold in the face of the misery of your own children unjustly reduced to slavery. You don’t want to know anything about it, you say. When your politics are at stake, you are prepared to disclaim knowledge of anything or anybody.

You are, on the other hand, always ready to speak out against every injustice, every death sentence, every case of torture, anywhere in the world, provided only that it can be laid at the door of a Christian power and is carried out as part of the fight against subversion. I happen to remember, as it was one of the first of such instances, your intercession, conjointly with “ Mr. H ”, the UN President, and “ Mr. K ”, on behalf of three “ Black trade unionists ” condemned to death, for whom you requested a reprieve of the South African Government. That was in 1964, soon after Ecclesiam Suam. You wanted to make sure of being included among the “ defenders of justice ” and the “ fighters for peace ”. A little later you championed the cause of Civil Rights for the Blacks in the United States. And you offered your services, in your capacity of a “ friend of Man ”, as intermediary in Vietnam, in Cyprus, anywhere where there happened to be war.

But in your determination to ignore “ wars of religion ”, you shut your eyes to Communist aggression, to atheistic ideology in action, to revolutionary subversion. You claim always to be “ neutral ”; that is, you see an a priori equality between the claims and rights of Communism and the Free World, between aggressor and victim, between persecutor and the oppressed. You espouse non-violence, you seek settlements through negotiation; and backed by these high-sounding conceptions of human relationships you try to impose upon the Free World the obligation of giving up all resistance and seeking “ peace at any price ”, even at the cost of giving way to the enemy. It is thanks to you, to your pacifism and “ neutralism ”, that violence, aggression, and subversion are everywhere successful and the Free World knows only one defeat after another and is in continuous retreat before the modern Barbarians...with the sole exception of those parts where they refuse to listen to you, but go on fighting – even when you, like the rest of the world, are against them – because they are certain of being in the right, and have remained proud of their Catholic Faith: I am speaking about Portugal.

We are not underestimating the sordidness of the Free World, all the injustice, corruption, and religious divisions, not to speak of its rapidly spreading apostasy. It remains nevertheless A CHRISTIAN WORLD where the Church is free and able to work for the salvation of souls and the reform of society. By comparison with the savageness and terror of Communism and the anarchy and physical wretchedness of the Third World, it remains a world of civilisation, peace and prosperity: a privileged and happy world.

What is so shocking is that you should flatter it in its unbelief and religious indifference, its immorality and its disregard for the Laws and Rights of God. You do not even try to correct its faults. Have you ever done anything to shake its pride and selfishness, its sensuality and materialism, its utter disregard for the supernatural, by reminding it of its Christian calling and of the need to become Catholic once more ? You prefer, rather, to stir up the peoples to rebel against it, in the name of justice. You call upon it to share out its wealth equally among all, in a way which is a practical impossibility, and then you accuse it of racialism and violence, not in any attempt to correct its faults, but in order to aid its condemnation at the tribunal of world politics. Your seeking for justice is not guided by any zeal for God or for the salvation of souls, but by your interest in the progress of revolution.

You have no love for the Free World. For if you loved it, you would be harder on its faults; you would show yourself strict without fear of unpopularity. And in so doing, you would be conferring an immense benefit upon it, for it does indeed stand in urgent need of correction. But you would also take care to warn it against the threat it faces at the hands of the barbarians. You would remind it of its duty to defend its own life and liberty, and that of the peoples over whom it has for centuries exercised a benevolent protectorate. In so doing, you would be assuming the role of a St. Gregory, of a St. Pius V of the present day, for they were, in their time, THE DEFENDERS OF THE CITY, THE SAVIOURS OF CIVILISATION.

But you have no love for us. Perhaps you love the Third World, the Communist World, better ? If you had a true love for them, you would be concerned for the liberation of their peoples, and above all for their conversion, rather than seek the goodwill of their despotic rulers. What you love is your own image upon the scene of international politics, and therefore you take care to be on the winning side, idolised by crowds, and covered with honours by the great of this corrupt world. You demonstrate your neutralism by constantly invoking justice, liberty, equality, fraternity, prosperity, development, peace... We all know that these catch phrases, to which all can give what meaning they please, finally come to roost in the nest of the victors.

A RABID ANTI-COLONIALISM

It is certain gestures – unexpected, enigmatic – which stand out in my memory more than the myriads of words and formal rulings which it would be impossible for me to attempt to list. These deliberate acts of scandal shock public opinion but they are carried out too swiftly to allow any effective opposition or protest. Nevertheless, they leave a lasting impression and their full implication often does not become evident until much later.

In January 1965, for example, you included in your list of new Cardinals, among many bishops who merited the honour, the Archbishop of Algiers, Msgr. DUVAL. This caused feelings to rise in France, and especially among our unfortunate “ repatriates ”. But there was a tendency among our friends, who at the time still bore you a religious respect and an absolute confidence, to explain this decision as having been made at the urgent request of de Gaulle and Ben Bella. This interpretation – which, incidentally, showed you in a far from honourable light – demonstrated that your children were conscious of the paradox in the decision to raise to the rank of Cardinal a bishop who had shown preference to the Moslem terrorists over the peace-loving – too peace-loving – Christians of his own flock, and who had, as the result of his own efforts, lost all but a handful of his million-and-a-half faithful, not to speak of all the murders, desecration of churches and cemeteries and general devastation of all things Christian carried out with his backing by his Moslem friends. Such an accomplice of assassins you made into a Cardinal !

I tried at the time to explain what lay behind your action, to analyse your hidden intention: “ This confirms, alas, my conclusions concerning the New Church: we see how she makes a hero of this sorry idealist who has been doing his best to destroy everything Christian. ” Only, when I said “ the Church ”, I was speaking euphemistically: I should have specified: “ You, Most Holy Father ” !

Anti-colonialism had always existed in Rome, and when you returned there after your ten years in exile, it was much stronger than before. But it was you who strengthened its hand through your indefatigable diplomacy and innumerable discourses. This becomes evident on reading through the files of your speeches in Africa.

Thus, when you went to Uganda on July 29, 1969, the aim of your visit was supposed to be “ an essentially religious one ”. But during its course you gave a thousand signs of respect and affection – not to speak of material generosity towards its poor – to that bloodthirsty thief Obote, then Prime Minister, of whom the country was to rid itself before long. And you sent out from there, from the centre of Africa, a message of liberation and racial equality which amounts to an unequivocal call for a general uprising of Africa against the White man – in Rhodesia, South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola. For these peoples living in peace, could there have been a more dangerous incitement to subversion than came from you ?

“ Paul VI (by comparison with the Bishops of Africa) was not afraid to commit himself. He thus stated emphatically, in the face of Portugal and Rhodesia, that the Church gives her unreserved support to the claims for the liberty of the national territories – even if in certain cases this has to be achieved in stages. The Church, for her part, had contributed to the attainment of independence by African states by her insistence on the dignity of persons and peoples and by helping them to discover their dignity. She was setting an example, also, by Africanising her hierarchy or preparing to do so where it had not yet been possible. No African state had anything to fear from the Church, rather the contrary. ” (La Croix, August 4, 1969)

Did you not realise that in treating Obote as a brother and his Portuguese neighbour as a Samaritan, your anti-White – your Black – racialism was turning you into an accomplice of brutality ? You are truly a disciple of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in taking sides for “ the good savage ” against the European...

“ This courageous discourse not only gave rise to repeated applause from the audience, but also delighted the African journalists present, who rushed to the telephones and teleprinters in order to make the speech ‘ resound through the length and breadth of Africa ’ – to borrow an expression from the concluding remarks of the discourse. ” (La Croix, August 4, 1969)

These discourses formed a skilful and formidable intervention against the Whites in Africa. Your demand for Black independence and the ending of all racial discrimination was made in the name of justice and peace. You specified however that these should be brought about through obedience to the International organisations and not through violence. In other words, all conflict must cease and the opponents submit unconditionally to the decision of the United Nations This is where your bias comes in. For in thus insisting on lawful arbitration you condemn in advance those who will not agree to this and continue to fight, while you know full well, and also make it quite clear to the Blacks, that the majority vote of the UN would guarantee a decision in their favour. Thus your mediation in the name of the Gospel, of Peace and Justice, of Law and Non-Violence, is tantamount to a betrayal of established states who, whether you like them or not, are leading a lawful existence, in favour of guerrilla movements and all the various forms of Black terrorism.

What is so courageous about the things you said ? In speaking against colonialism, you are saying the same things as the UN, or the forces of international capitalism – concerned only with their immediate self-interest – or imperialist Communism, either the Russian or the Chinese variety, or the left-wing intellectuals of the West – not to speak of the young and progressivist missionaries who are so convinced that the Church will have a great part to play after it has helped the “ oppressed ” peoples to throw off their yoke while at the same time ridding herself of the shameful association with colonialism. In other words, you are in good company You are only saying what the rest of the World is saying: does it take so much courage to do that ?

The World is on the side of the terrorists, it is ready to excuse the brutal murderers of women and children. And so you too, are prepared to receive them at the Vatican. That was an occasion which illustrates to perfection the type of scandal – apparently without rhyme or reason – which is calculated to further your designs by “ unblocking ” the status quo. On the 1st July 1970, three leaders of the terrorist movements in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and the Cape Verde Islands, were received by you at the “ kissing of hands ” which followed the public audience.

The Osservatore Romano, faithful to your well-tried tactics, went out of its way to deny the calculated intention that lay behind your gesture: “ To express surprise, or to see it as a gesture of approval, would be a misinterpretation. ” Its own explanation is ready to hand: “ The Pope receives, as part of his mission, all those who request the consolation of his blessing (sic !). That was the case with the individuals in question... ” Your Secretariat of State, too, is ready to promote hypocrisy into a legitimate tool of diplomacy: “ There was no question of an audience in the strict sense of the word; but in the context of a gathering of a more general nature... in his capacity of Universal Shepherd... the Holy Father could not very well have replied with an absolute refusal... without any regard to the political designation assumed by these individuals, but purely in their capacity of Catholics or Christians, as they had been referred to in the request... the Holy Father… who had no concrete knowledge of their activities, and despite the fact that it did not lie within his competence to form a political assessment of the concrete situation in the region (sic) whence they came… etc., etc. ” Lies galore to support the terrorism.

The wind having thus been taken out of the sails of any complaints made by Portugal, the venom contained in this scandalous gesture was enabled to exert its full effect. Let me however, in parentheses, express my admiration for the generous outlook, condescension, and prudence shown by Professor Caetano, the Portuguese Head of State, in this matter: “ It is worthy of note... that Portugal, though calling itself a Catholic country, shows no regard in its colonial policy for the repeated teaching of the Popes for the rights of men and peoples. Significantly, Paul VI presented the three African leaders with a copy of the Encyclical Populorum Progressio. It is quite clear, also, that the three men had not, in any sense of the word, ‘ forced their way ’ into the Vatican, but that the Pope had personally desired to meet them. It goes without saying that such a gesture does not imply that he gives his blessing to terrorism, any more than the fact of continuing relations with the Portuguese government signifies approval of the action of the Portuguese forces in Africa... But the audience on the 1st of July does, in a certain sense, constitute a warning to the Portuguese government; for it demonstrates to the nationalists that they are not looked upon as outcasts from the Christian community, and that the Church does not stand surety for the colonial order established in the ‘ Portuguese territories ’ (the inverted commas appear in the original report). ” (From La Croix, July 9, 1970, quoted in Documentation Catholigue, 70, 718)

Your supposed neutralism is not able to hide from anybody your support for subversion, together with the disdain for international law which this implies, and together also – believe me, I am weighing my words carefully – with a disdain for the moral law of the Gospels and the Divine Law. I can think of nothing worse than Church authorities putting out lies in order to serve the interests of political murder. I would rather have the man with the knife between his teeth than the Vatican reporters assigned to such a task.

YOUR UNCONDITIONAL PRO-COMMUNISM

A Pope must, by definition, be unconditionally opposed to Communism. But in your case, this would form an obstacle to your Great Design of universal reconciliation. So you have come to favour Communism, though in a circumspect manner, hedged around with numerous precautions. You are, in fact, a CRYPTO-COMMUNIST. I shall not recount here the history of this gradual change of allegiance, this inversion of Vatican diplomacy, this careful and subtle rehabilitation of Marxist-Leninism which has today reached the stage at which Catholics in Western countries are given the go-ahead for joining the Communist party (Conference by Msgr. Matagrin, January 16, 1973, at the Mutualité in Paris) and a president of the movement Pacem in Terris – that is, a certain agent of Communism, is installed in a bishopric in Czechoslovakia.

You started with one trump card: the famous distinction made in Pacem in terris between the “ historical movement ” and the “ ideology ”. While the latter is fixed, the former is in a state of evolution. Assuming thus that Communism is in a state of evolution and betterment, you felt justified in holding out your arms towards it, receiving its emissaries, and generally working together with it “ for justice and peace in the world ”. Are these, the key words of your treason, not enough to bring to our mind – and to your own – all the facets of that fabric of scandal prepared by your Casaroli and his team over the past ten years ?

Sometimes it is the apparently trivial acts of scandal whose ultimate significance is greatest. There was, for example the “ sanatio in radice ” of the civil marriage of the Rev. Tondi, which you accorded him in 1965 – a service rendered to your former fellow worker at the Secretariat of State, who had become a Communist – let me see – before or after leaving you ? The granting of such a dispensation from the religious form of marriage – the application of canon 1138 – is something extraordinary (i.e. the recognition as canonically valid, of a civil marriage, contracted before any dispensation from the priestly vows – Tr’s note) Such a favour done to a former colleague – and an ardent worker for Moscow – poses an enigma. I think I know the answer – and so do you... (Tr’s Note. Fr Tondi had left the Church, formally joined the Communists, and contracted a civil marriage with a militant Communist in 1952, apparently after he had been accused, in the presence of Pius XII, of having given the Russians the names of priests sent to work behind the Iron Curtain)

Then there was that other great scandal which passed from fact into the records without bringing any serious criticisms upon its instigator, Msgr. Glorieux who, it is generally believed, would never have dared to do what he did had he not been certain of your backing: the silencing, on a fraudulent pretext, of the 300 bishops who in September 1965 petitioned for a formal condemnation of Communism by the Council. It was thus clear from the word go that it was the Pope’s wish that the Council should not issue such a condemnation; Communism, in other words, was to be rehabilitated !

I discussed at the time how your manner of referring to it, in an oblique fashion in your earliest Encyclical, was calculated to open the Church’s door to dialogue, reconciliation, and collaboration with the Communists. Your social Documents, of course, carried this a considerable stage further.

It would require a full and detailed study of your allusions to the persecutions and of your expressions of affection for its victims, to show conclusively – and backed by evidence – what public opinion has already grasped instinctively – that you desire at the very best to forget these unfortunates and to keep clear of the problem because it might interfere with your political moves towards good relations with the Communist States. But suddenly, in October 1971, the blinding truth burst like a flash of lightning upon the darkness in which the Vatican had enveloped the facts. Cardinal Mindszenty was forced – morally forced by you – to leave Hungary where he had languished, for Rome where you would be in the position to prevent his publishing his Memoirs.

And there was heard the shattering cry of Cardinal Slipyi by a Synod struck with sudden consternation, ashamed before this Confessor of the Faith, this survivor of the Soviet prisons, giving vent to his indignation against those traitors in Rome and elsewhere who were making their peace with the persecutors and forgetting about the millions of their brethren, hunted, deported and martyred by Soviet Communism. All present were forced to listen:

“ Out of fifty-four million Ukrainian Catholics, ten million have died as a result of the persecutions. The Soviet regime has suppressed all the dioceses. The bodies of the dead would build a mountain and yet there is nobody, even within the Church, who will so much as defend their memory. Thousands upon thousands of faithful remain imprisoned or deported.

“ But the diplomacy of the Vatican (that means yourself !) desires that we should keep silent about them, for they interfere with its negotiations. We are back in the days of the catacombs. Thousands upon thousands of the Church’s faithful have been deported to Siberia and as far as the Polar Circle, but the Vatican remains wilfully ignorant of this tragedy. Can it be that the martyrs have become an embarrassment to the Church ? ”

Alas !

It seemed, for one moment, as though the Church of Silence were going to disturb the silence of the Church. But no ! For all its parliamentary set-up, the bishops who were met in this Synod had no illusions about their own power if this should come into conflict with the absolute rule of your pro-Communist Secretariat of State. Since then, things have been made as difficult as possible for Cardinal Slipyi at the hands of your Civil Service, and the tombstone has been lowered once more upon those embarrassing witnesses who are shedding their blood for Christ… But the evidence is there to condemn you, Most Holy Father, before God and before men.

There is a whole series of events testifying to your friendship towards Communism: your meetings with Gromyko and Podgorny… and those long secret sessions with the notorious – and far too young – Archbishop of Leningrad, Msgr. Nikodim, who is a Soviet agent of the first rank. How is it that you have always so much to say to these people ? You may like us to believe that your concern is to better the lot of the persecuted among your children – but in that case, why all the mystery surrounding these meetings ?

And so, when we hear, today (from a statement by the Vatican, February 21, 1973), that the man who is now secretary of the Italian Communist party – Signor Berlinguer – has been your secret diplomatic agent for the past six years, negotiating with the Communist government in Hanoi , we have no difficulty in realising that the Vatican has become a platform for the propaganda and diplomatic activity carried on by international Communism in its efforts to conquer the West. Today, a base for negotiations and – who knows – perhaps tomorrow its general headquarters ? The lesson of Chile, where your friend Frei was replaced by the Communist Allende – who is not your enemy either – is there to teach us...

The surprises which you spring upon us have become more and more open: as public opinion becomes accustomed and more inclined to accept them, the enigmatic element is gradually being dropped. When you decided to build a hospital in war-torn North Vietnam, your gesture spoke of the terrible American bombings, of mutilated bodies and innocent civilian victims... Yes, your neutrality is always highly selective, tending to favour the interests of international Communist propaganda – until thinking people are able to say: “ The Pope has made himself the quarter-master of Communism and World Revolution. ” (J. Duquesne, The Left Hand of Christ)

Can there be any possible justification for such evident pro-Communist sympathy – one which effectively makes you into an agent and propagandist for the various Communist “ peace ” campaigns ? Could it be a “ rallying ” comparable to that attempted by Leo XIII, with the aim of bringing the persecutions to an end ? But that would be a sign of incredible naïveté ! And in any case, such a policy was absolutely condemned by all your Predecessors. Are you convinced of the victory and conquest of the whole world by Communism, and are you trying to ensure the survival of the Church by thus making friends with it – on the analogy of the “ prophetic anti-colonialism ” shown by Rome ? But the rebuffs suffered by the Church in the Third World which she had helped to de-colonise are as nothing compared with the implacable persecution which would fall to her lot from the very moment that Communism had triumphed – however much she might have contributed to achieving this victory ! So why ? There remains a mystery to which we have not yet found the answer.

Your message to China, your joy at the proclamation of the Cultural Revolution – including all the destruction and desecration that goes with it – put one in mind of Lamennais towards the end of his life. I hardly dare think this – but is there something about chaos itself which appeals to you ?

Do you remember what you said on the Feast of the Epiphany in 1967: “ We wish to tell the youth of China with what emotion and affection We look upon its present striving towards the ideals of a new life of hard work, prosperity, and harmony… We send our good wishes to China – so far from Us geographically, but so close spiritually... We should like to speak about peace also with those who are today in charge of the life of mainland China. We know to what an extent that human and Christian ideal is shared also by the people of China. ”

I commented at the time: “ What a revelation of feelings ! This harmony between Paul VI and Mao, between the innovators in the Church and the Red Guards, the mad dogs of Asia, shows up and intensifies the discord between civilised people, between Catholics. Why attempt to deny any longer that there exists between this Pope and this Council, this New Church on the one hand and ourselves on the other, a sort of permanent excommunication ? ”

It is significant that the last sentence of my paragraph was quoted by my then bishop, Msgr. Le Couëdic and a number of others after him, in various severe admonitions and warnings issued against our movement of CATHOLIC COUNTER-REFORMATION. For did it not amount to an open declaration of schism ? But not one of them dared to give its context: they could not afford to let people know the reason for this “ sort of permanent excommunication ”. For in that case, it would have been only too evident to their misguided flocks that the crime and the shame were on your side and not on ours. For what Catholic, faced with such a choice, would not sooner excommunicate you and your Red Guards, and remain, himself, with the Church of the Martyrs !

But, in order to find the ultimate reason of your hatred of the Christian West, of your blind anti-colonialism and your unconditional pro-Communism, we have to look more deeply. For behind the strangeness, there lies the enigma, and behind the enigma, the occult...