The Word of God (1):
Introduction to a tryptic on the Catholic Religion

“We have examined, judged and rejected the principal “ideocracies”, or prevailing ideologies, still being proposed today for the salvation of mankind. And this deserved severity causes us no regrets. It is ridiculous and truly stupid to dream of a return to ancient paganism, whether civilised or barbaric, as does the “new right” or “new culture”, which would take us back two thousand years and barbarise us in its bourgeois way. It is inconceivable that the civilised world should agree to be renewed by being plunged into neo-Islamic fanaticism or neo-Semitic anarchism. After a brief infatuation, the contemporary prophets of these religious hysterias rouse no more than fear and disgust.

“Nor can we allow Anglo-protestant Freemasonry to destroy our Latin nations, our Christian countries by corrupting them; nor can we abandon them to Communism, Freemasonry’s offspring or brother and ally.

“Thus, wherever we look we can only see dangers and monstrosities, or the derisory phantasms of armchair intellectuals.”

This was how Father de Nantes summed up the previous lectures that he had given in his 1979-1980 series of lectures at the “Mutualité” conference hall, which he entitled: “The Confrontations of the Century”. It consisted of a series of critical examinations of the various currents of contemporary thought:  neo-paganism, atheistic Judaism, Freemasonry and Shiite neo-Islamism. Father de Nantes’ analysis of these currents led him to denounce their inhuman nature and to propose realistic means of remedying or preventing them.

However, after having determined that these other religions and ideologies were too fanatical, sectarian and totalitarian to be acceptable, Father de Nantes asked the question: “Should we not now subject the Church to the same analysis and examine the criticisms that have been levelled against her? For there has been no lack of criticism, from the beginning and already against Jesus Christ Himself, against the Apostles and particularly against Saint Paul, then from age to age until modern times when the criticism reaches a paroxysm of dismaying and alarming proportions?”

That is why Father de Nantes reserved the last three lectures of his series on “The Confrontations of the Century” for the study of the Catholic religion, in a triptych on the Bible, the Gospel and the Church, to determine whether Old Testament Judaism, Gospel Christianity and the Catholic Church have solved the problem of religious fanaticism and totalitarianism.

Then he proceeded with the introduction to the triptyic:

“There remains Judeo-Christianity, or more precisely, ancient Judaism and Christianity. Having criticised the others exactly and severely, we must now examine ourselves with the same impartiality and rigour. Is our religion so perfect that it commands the attention of everyone as “the” future solution, humanist and divine, in contrast to so many empty or perverse ideologies? If it has roused against itself criticism, opposition and even sincere hatred, how can we propose it as ‘the way, the truth and the life’ (Jn 14:6), without first submitting it to a critical examination?

“This we shall do in its three stages: Bible, Gospel, Church. For unlike all the rival ideocracies, which are absolutely inert, at present stagnant, outside time, more especially if they pride themselves on evolutionism and claim to be ‘historical dialectics’ – they are all theories fabricated by some egghead to be introduced one day into the course of time, with neither fore nor after – our religion has been, is and will be a development, the dramatic unfolding of an effective transformation of mankind under the effect of a divine Word that is continuous, of a divine work stretching across the centuries. It is a praxis even more than a theoria a transformation of the world rather than a thought about the world.

“In order to make a critical examination of our religion, we shall need to proceed by stages, distinguishing what has been and is no more, what has been and still remains, and what is today and what will be in future. We might almost have said: For the Bible has been, the Gospel was and remains, the Church is and will be.

“First of all we shall examine the Jewish Bible, the religion that has ceased to be, which we would never dream of reviving, but which for two thousand years was the religion of our God, Yhwh, which we could therefore never despise even though we no longer want it, because He Himself no longer wants it. We know that this religion is over now but we guard its memory faithfully; we meditate on its teachings and we keep its Revelation intact without practising its law.”

Father George de Nantes

Excerpts from The Religion of the Bible Odious, Justified, Obsolete, Catholic Counter-Reformation no. 131, February 1981.

(In the first part of the triptych, Father de Nantes’ indictment is so implacable that you will feel disorientated and distressed. Let this not discourage you. You have to persevere to the end of the series to fully understand and benefit from the teaching of the theologian of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.)

To make this triptych more easily accessible, we divide it into 11 chapters:

THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE: ODIOUS, JUSTIFIED, OBSOLETE
Catholic Counter-Reformation no. 131 – February 1981

1. The Religion of the Bible, Odious?
2. A Justified Religion
3. A Transitory and Obsolete Religion

THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH ESTABLISHED, FOUGHT AGAINST, VICTORIOUS
Catholic Counter-Reformation no. 132 – March 1981

4. From the Old to the New Testament
5. The Kingdom of God established
6. The Kingdom of God rejected
7. The Kingdom of God victorious

THE CHURCH OF THE CHRIST – HOLY UTOPIA, PERMANENT MIRACLE
Catholic Counter-Reformation no. 133 – April 1981

8. From the Kingdom of God to the Church of Christ
9. The Church above All
10. Imposture, Mirage or Mystery
11. The Miracle of the Church, Subsistent Utopia