Innovator, you are betraying Christ

IN all the controversies between the Catholic Church and the heresies, schisms and sects which claim to draw their authority, though outside and against the Church, from the name of Jesus Christ, there is always one question that immediately occurs: Which side has parted from the common truth, who has broken unity and who, therefore, has altered the traditional and truly Christian doctrine ? In certain cases the answer is not absolutely clear. Was Hilary of Poitiers right against everyone else, or was it the great Auxentius of Milan who innovated and who divided the Church after complete reconciliation on the “ homoean ” doctrine had been reached ? Today, is it not we who are dividing the Church and who are claiming to arrest the “ living tradition ” counter to the greatest of all councils, visibly inspired by the Spirit (But what Spirit) ? Or is it rather you, whose novelties demand – contrary to the Tridentine tradition – “ a more profound tradition ”, and whose reformation is preserving unity around the centre, around Yourself, the common Father ?

In cases of doubt, another question put to the two sides has always proved to be decisive: Beginning with whom, starting from when, and on what particular issue, according to you heretics and schismatics, has the Church you incriminate, or that part of the Church from which you have separated, broken with her Founder and lost the grace of the Holy Spirit ?

No sectarian has ever given a definite and clear answer to this question. No matter what name he stops at, or dogmatic definition and disciplinary decision he stumbles over, the controversy will quickly catch him out. By going back to the date he gives and the person he designates, he will be shown that the doctrines and disciplines he claims to be adulterated were all present at that time, that the scandals on which he bases his indictment were admitted and tolerated by the true Church, and going back step by step to Apostolic times, he will be made to see that, despite all his anathemas, the true faith has always been preserved and the splendour of holiness and of all the virtues has ever been manifest, due to the untiring assistance and gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Having been checked first once and then a second time, the sectarian will look for new and better answers. Descending the scale of time, he will accuse first one Doctor of the Church and then another until he reaches St. Paul or St. John, whom he will accuse of being the first to falsify the divine message and to corrupt Christian morals. Or ascending the scale of time, he will come to St. Pius X or Pius XII and he will end by seeing that all these holy doctors and pontiffs are in agreement and that it is impossible to impute responsibility for division to any other date or any other person than himself, to no other adulterous doctrine but his own, or that of the heresiarch and schismatic whose authority he claims. Thus he will have to accuse himself of the sin with which he reproached the Church of God.

If you were to excommunicate us, Most Holy Father, not for our irreverence, which would be insignificant in such a grave matter, but on the basic issues, denouncing us before the Church of God for heresy, schism, sectarian innovation, alteration of the Gospel and violation of God’s law, you would be hard put to say when, through whom and over which particular this scandal arose. You would be unable to produce a date; you could not name one of our masters nor could you cite any irregularity or certain error.

Is it Pius XII who, in his condemnation of modernity, was lacking in fidelity to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost and who failed to recognise the signs of the times ? Might it be that Teilhard, Congar, Rahner and Küng carried the Holy Spirit off with them at the time of their ban ? But already in the past Pius XI, Pius X, Leo XIII himself and Pius IX above all had all pronounced identical condemnations on the prophets of modernity who claimed the authority of a higher light. From Maritain to Lammenais, from the Second Vatican Council to the false Council of Pistoia, from Pistoia to the Confession of Augsburg, and from there to the Cathars... how far back does one have to go before reaching the original culprit responsible for this fatal division whereby the Church and “ modern ” world are in opposition to one another ? One must go back to Gnosticism, Most Holy Father, condemned by the Apostle St. John, and to those pagan and judaising cosmologies denounced by St. Paul as Satan’s outworn ideas !

You like challenges. Here is a challenge from the traditionalists of the Counter-Reformation, for whom you have no love. Tell us from what date, from what person and for what cause we deserve to be condemned, and in what particular issue we have been unfaithful to the Church’s faith and dogma or rebellious towards her discipline ! That is our challenge, one that we know you cannot accept. That is why we are sure of living and dying in peace, if we remain faithful to our traditions in the truth and charity of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, outside which there is no salvation for either us or You.

If, on the other hand, you were to address such a challenge to us… but neither you nor any of yours would ever do so, because you know that we would have no difficulty in accepting it. And so, without waiting for this question which will never be put, I am going to tell You when, through whom and on what fatal doctrines your supposedly evangelical and certainly Conciliar sect parted from the tradition of the faith and broke the Church’s holy unity. I shall show you clearly and precisely where the heresy, schism and scandal lie in your personal life. And then, I shall show you how you have worked with all the authority of your pontificate to make the entire Church topple over into your camp until the goal of universal apostasy is reached.

But in demonstrating these things, I have perfect confidence in the Church of Peter, the Church of Rome, for it is written that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.