Introduction

« Several other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious were climbing a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a large Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with its bark; before reaching there, the Holy Father passed through a large city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way » (Third Secret of Fatima)

Vatican II CALLED INTO QUESTION

« What shall we do with Vatican II? » asked Jean Rigal in La Croix of February 20, 2003:

« Forget it gradually? Endeavour to extend the promising paths that it opened? Undertake studies on entirely new realities?

« These questions are in the hands of Catholics, replies a theologian, personally according to the responsibility of each, and collectively [sic!]. John Paul II took care, several times, to specify that “ the teaching of the Council remains the path on which the Church must advance towards the future ”. » And then he added: « Vatican II can not be properly “ welcomed ” if not from within its intrinsic dynamic, in the spiritual and institutional transition that it wanted to carry out, in the fervour that it instilled in the Church… A wide open worksite is offered to us. »

We see the dialectic that for forty years has brought into conflict the supporters of the Conciliar Reformation who refer to the letter of the texts and to it alone, with those of the Permanent Reformation, claiming to draw from their “ spirit ”, in order to forge ahead. In other words, the tardi, seeing the building « half in ruins », say: that is enough now! While the zelanti want to complete the work and destroy what remains standing. What a pity!

And if one saw fit to ask him who, for forty years, has not ceased to announce such « ruins » and who was opposed to this insane enterprise of autodemolition from the beginning, the first and the only one! –this autodemolition that assumed the flattering titles of “ reformation ”, “ aggiornamento ”, “ openness to the world ”? If only one went to the trouble of questioning Fr. de Nantes, the founder of the Catholic Counter-Revolution, on the future of Vatican II, or rather on that of the Catholic Church, which alone matters?

He had already replied on October 11, 1965, to the journalist, André Giovanni who had asked him:

« Give us an undisputed, an absolute sign of the truth of your convictions, of the charity of your fight. A sign of hope!

– This sign, we all have it and it belongs to everyone of us, it is the Secret of Fatima. When the Blessed Virgin decided to enlighten her children, one can only fall to one’s knees to listen to Her. »

Let us resume the study of the criticism of the Conciliar texts that was developed by Fr. de Nantes at the very moment when they were being elaborated, discussed, promulgated, and then once again, ten years later, in a masterful way, in « Preparing Vatican III », the Council of Catholic Restoration.

THE SPIRIT OF A NEW RELIGION

On October 11, 1962, a new spirit raised a storm in the Church. A new religion attempted to substitute itself for the ancient one. To understand this, one only has to compare the opening discourse of the Council, which contains not less than eight heresies! with the Letter that the parish priest of Villemaur wrote the same day to his friends, in which one can sense the dawning of the angor Ecclesiae that seized him at the sight of the media hype that surrounded the Council:

« The Council has quickly ceased to be a divine fact prepared for in silence and prayer, in the ardour of penance, and has taken the very human shape of an enormous news item, a sort of National Radical Party Congress. In the eyes of the faith, it ought to be a thrilling mystery, a grandiose hope, because the Holy Spirit Himself should come to the aid of His Church to give her a clear and visible impulse. But in all the articles, discussions and surveys, open to exaggeration to make a greater impression, the Council has become a purely sensational human event… » (Letter to My Friends n^o 120 [French edition])

In his speech, Pope John XXIII showed his « complete disagreement with the prophets of doom who always announce catastrophes » and promised that the Council would be « like a resplendent dawn rising on the Church ». As for him, Fr. de Nantes, quoted the Prophet Jeremiah: « Without concern they dress my people’s wound, saying: Peace! Peace! whereas there is no peace. » (Letter n^o 118)

In their well known “ Message to the World ” of November 4, 1962, the Conciliar Fathers, at least the progressivist minority of those who had taken charge right from the start, called on men of good will to « build in this world a more just and fraternal city ». In their humanist project, they scandalously forgot the persecuted from the Soviet Goulag: « Never as much as in our present times have Christians, have civilised people been so indifferent to blood shed for our defence and our salvation », noted Fr. de Nantes (Letter n^o 175) Yet at Fatima, Heaven took interest in the martyrs.

John XXIII convened the Council « somewhat like Louis XIV had convened the states general in 1789… We know how it turned into revolution, through the euphoria which swept over the Constituents… They wanted to create a new and rational world; all that they managed to do was to destroy the old one and amass ruins. » (Letter n^o 153, French edition only)

AMBIGUOUS TEXTS

The phenomena well known to our democratic societies functioned: « The procession of bishops penetrated into a dreadful mixing machine. The two thousand good willed conservatives that composed this mitred crowd, instead of being directed by the Pope towards the doctors of the faith, and there were some! were going to be continuously delivered up to the preaching and the pressure of the progressivist clan becoming every day more arrogant. The Council’s tribune gave it an authority, a means of propaganda which could never have been imagined! It floated its ideas, its mirages, its demands, in the face of Rome and its offices. The entire flock of bishops listened to these novelties, somewhat dumbfounded, then set themselves into motion, entered into this new game, while elsewhere, the same speeches taken up and amplified by the press went about rousing all the Catholic peoples of the universe. Progressivism came from Rome! The Curia? John XXIII had set it aside, cast suspicion on it from the first discourse. The doctors of the faith? Their opinions were still to be accepted, but like useless and regrettable complaints, which would be taken into account, but nothing more. From the start, they were unable to prevail. They were only allowed to make a gallant last stand » (Letter n^o 184, September 25, 1964, French edition)

The outcome was « compromise texts whose lack of realism was situated half way between true dogmatic definitions, impossible in such a climate, and practical decisions for which no one could guarantee the enforcement in the anarchy into which the Church was sliding; half way between the truth of some and the error of others, between good and evil, according to opportuneness and the strength of external pressures. Neither theology nor discipline would find much to glean in these long texts steeped in ambiguities. The great work that had been announced was stillborn. The innovators, certain that they would prevail, already saw even further and seized hold of the future. They lost interest in the texts that the compromising hacks were elaborating in the commissions. Already fixed before being promulgated, excessively tempered, they will have nothing but documentary interest; they will indicate the direction of the irresistible reformation which has already overtaken them, like beacons on the road of evolution. In the vanguard of progress, what is important is the speeches made by the leaders, their audacity, their extravagance. Uttered in Saint Peter’s they acquire the value of prophetic illumination. The innovators are preparing Vatican III, and this is not a joke. We must not remain idle » Everyone to their battle stations then!

Taken from He is Risen! n°7, March 2003, p. 11-12