Living Tradition: disastrous fruit of the New Theology

When Pope John Paul II promulgated his motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta on 2 July, 1988, he claimed that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX), did not understand the true meaning of Catholic tradition.

The motu proprio, which means 'written on the Pope's own initiative' reads

The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, "comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth".

Headstone at the grave of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
It reads, 'what I received, I handed on.'

 The idea that Monsignor Lefebvre, probably the most fruitful missionary bishop of the last century did not understand Catholic tradition is laughable prima facie. Lefebvre served 30 years as a missionary priest, bishop, and Archbishop in French speaking Africa; baptized tens of thousands of converts; ordained hundreds of priests; founded 21 new dioceses and consecrated African bishops for each of them. He founded schools, convents, clinics, and seminaries. If anyone understood the root and germ of Catholic tradition it was Marcel Lefebvre.

Yet absolutely necessary to the revolution that culminated at the Second Vatican Council was this new understanding of tradition observed through the lens of evolutionary theory:

"Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis." (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Second Vatican Council)

Therefore, in an 'evolutionary concept of reality', that which is newest is always best. In the Hegelian system, the dialectic between the thesis [Tradition] and antithesis [the novelties produced by the Nouvelle Theologie] produces a synthesis ['living Tradition'] that becomes the new thesis. This dialectical method will always leave that which is ancient, venerable, immutable, and eternal at a sort of distant reference point for the sake of history. But make no mistake: for those who have accepted Vatican II's theory that "the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one," that which is newer (Vatican II) is better than everything that went before it.

This idea is of course the engine driving all the partisans of the Nouvelle Theologie of Henri de Lubac, Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, Dominique Marie Chenu, Yves Congar, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, and their coterie of Ressourcement theologians. Modern man would no longer be bound by the requirements impressed upon his conscience by objective reality and external authority; he now possessed new sciences that he believed rendered the Thomistic universe obsolete. This new Modern Man with his superior sciences required a new philosophy with which to approach the articles of divine revelation, and the neoModernist theologians were busy cooking up this very philosophy with the help of the Kantians and Cartesians.

Baptizing the theory of evolution was task number one for these innovators, and the prophet of their cause was Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.  Teilhard's theories were so bizarre that his own order forbade him from either teaching or publishing, a suppression which lasted until his death on Easter Sunday 1955. Teilhard studied in England under another Jesuit, Fr. George Tyrrell, whom St. Pius X excommunicated for the very same theological monstrosities which he named "Modernism" which was the "compendium of all heresies" that "ruins and destroys all religion" (Pascendi gregis, 1908).

About Modernism, St. Pius X warned,

"To finish with this whole question of faith and its shoots, it remains to be seen, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have to say about their development. First of all they lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must change, and in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of Evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject - dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself, and the penalty of disobedience is death.

... Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and as clearly flows from their principles."

Pope St. Pius X, ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS

This living religion which Pope John Paul II co-opted from de Lubac as 'living tradition' need not maintain any meaningful continuity with the capital 'T' Tradition of the Catholic faith:

"The advocates of the new theology follow the same current when, with Blondel, they define the truth as the mind's correspondence with infinitely variable and progressive life. And since truth is life and Tradition should transmit the truth, de Lubac concludes at the existence of a living Tradition. According to him, then, the ulterior beliefs of the Church need not necessarily be logically bound to what she has always explicitly believed from the earliest centuries."

Father Dominic Bourmaud, One Hundred Years of Modernism, Angelus Press, 2006, pages 248-249

(St. Thomas' definition of truth was the mind's correspondence with reality, not life, -editor.)

The conclusion to all this is obvious: for a religion to be true, it must be alive; and the sign of life is its changeability and 'progress.' The stable cosmos envisioned by the Church Fathers had to give way to the new theories proposed by Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein; the bold new scientific theories embraced by the Protestants must find acceptance in the Catholic Church as well. The philosophy and theology of St. Thomas had to be updated or even discarded with its objective realism and adherence to divine authority. What Modern Man needed was a living tradition that would prove to him that Catholics too, were constrained by the theory of evolution and that their religion was true because it too, was changing.

Now in a striking irony John Paul II himself is victimized by the contemporary adherents of living tradition. His firm commitment to traditional Catholic morality (paradoxically contained in a philosophical system which for him was quite dependent on man's subjective experiences) must now yield to Pope Francis' ethic of accompanying and listening to not only non-Christian religions, but to 'mother earth'! John Paul II's era is now passed; what he explained in Ecclesia Dei about the council is now coming to pass to leave him as history's casualty on the march to Teilhard's Point Omega.

John Paul II harshly condemned Archbishop Lefebvre for standing firm in what he received and faithfully passed on - the very definition of Catholic Tradition infallibly defined at the first Vatican Council in 1869-1870:

"For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Apostles."

And now, even though canonized in a hasty display of Pontifical hubris, Pope John Paul II's moral doctrine gives way to the latest, newest manifestation of living tradition. The cycle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is unending in the elastic world of evolution and perpetual flux. The demands of natural selection can never be contradicted. In fact, philosophical, theological, and moral change is the very signature of 'truth' and progress. Such is the living tradition bequeathed to us by the neoModernists.

In such an atmosphere where the tyranny of the new must always triumph, wisdom bids her children to stand firm with the maxim of Saint Vincent of Lerins:

"Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all."

This and this only is Tradition. Tradition does not 'live' in any evolutionary sense, and always maintains the same sense and meaning. May God help us to hold fast to the Tradition - Divine, Apostolic, and Ecclesiastical - handed onto to us by the Lord's Apostles, the Fathers, the Doctors, the martyrs, confessors, virgins, Saints, and faithful Pontiffs.

Way to Pachamama paved by John Paul II

Long before the Amazon Synod and the Pachamama, this canonized Pope made the synod possible:

"If you see me traveling the length and breadth of the whole world in my efforts to meet with people of all civilizations and religions, it is because I have faith in the seeds of wisdom which the Spirit has planted in the conscience of all these various peoples, tribes and clans; from these hidden grains will come the true resource for the future of mankind in this world of ours." 

(John Paul II's speech to youth in Ravenna, May 11, 1986, quoted in Tutte le encicliche dei Sommi Pontefici, ed. dall'Oglio, p.1821). 

Cardinal Muller's Manifesto of Faith

While I sincerely applaud both Cardinal Muller and Arcadia Films for this short but potent video, I can only recommend it to those who are outside the Church and are perhaps in doubt about the basics (what the video calls the fundamentals) of Catholic faith.

I know this will sound super negative and hyper critical, but you simply cannot utilize the sources of the conciliar religion to successfully defend the faith of all ages. No amount of appeals to the CCC, Vatican II, or "Saint John Paul II" can provide the required separation from this generation's submersion into the cesspool of errors ushered in by the Copernican Revolution and sealed at Vatican II.

This video is head and shoulders above Bishop Robert Barron's glossy, airbrushed travel brochure "Catholicism" but unfortunately draws from the same reference points and will not persuade many other than the already persuaded. It is bound to please conservative Catholics but does not rise to level of divine, apostolic, nor ecclesiastical tradition.

Cardinal Muller's manifesto reads much like Paul VI's Credo of the People of God: it seems to be saying all the right things but without the supernatural power that ought to accompany such proclamation.

In summary: using Vatican II to defend the Catholic faith on a polemical level is a fool's errand. It's elastic, amorphous 'pastoral language' is easy to manipulate and even use against divine and Catholic faith. We will follow Cardinals Muller, Burke, Sarah, and their conservative confreres as far as they will take us. Unfortunately that will be short of the distance required to conquer what we are now facing.

Full video here.

The Ottaviani Intervention at Fifty

On the 25th of September 1969 Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci published what is known today as the Ottaviani Intervention in order to persuade Pope Paul VI not to promulgate the Novus Ordo Missae, or new order of mass. The infamously 'fabricated' liturgy was assembled as a technical production by a committee of liturgists in order to provide a form of worship for Catholic faithful to experience "full and active participation" as recommended by the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium. 

These two princes of the Church acted in good conscience and out of loyalty to the Pope and to the Catholic Church. The summary of their scholarship prepared by a team of pastors and theologians under the direction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was ominous:

"...the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The canons of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery."

 Pope Paul referred the study to his Confraternity for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly headed by Cardinal Ottaviani as the Holy Office, which concluded that "the document contained many affirmations that were "superficial, exaggerated, inexact, emotional and false."

Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani

The intervention thus dismissed quickly disappeared from the limited public view it enjoyed (it was published by Jean Madiran's magazine Itineraires with permission of the authors). The French publication La Documentation catholique ran an article in February of 1970 (vol. 67, pp. 215–216 and 343) featuring an interview with Cardinal Ottaviani in which he seemed to do an abrupt about face regarding the new Mass. The Cardinal, now in his eighties and blind allegedly signed a statement affirming enthusiastic approval of it, which Madiran publicly disputed as fraudulent. In any event, neither Cardinal Bacci, Archbishop Lefebvre, nor any of the other signatories ever distanced themselves from the study.

On the occasion of a reprint on it's 25th anniversary, Cardinal Alphons Stickler declared

"The analysis of the Novus Ordo made by these two Cardinals has lost nothing of its value, nor, unfortunately, of its timeliness . ... The results of the reform are deemed by many today to have been devastating. It was the merit of Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci to discover very quickly that the modification of the rites resulted in a fundamental change of doctrine.” (November 27, 2004)

Which brings us to today. What of the Ottaviani Intervention's warnings has not come to pass?
Chapter VIII concludes

Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside of but within the Church. Her unity is not only threatened but already tragically compromised. Errors against the Faith are not so much insinuated but rather an inevitable consequence of liturgical abuses and aberrations which have been given equal recognition.

To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries was both the sign and pledge of unity of worship (and to replace it with another which cannot but be a sign of division by virtue of the countless liberties implicitly authorised, and which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic religion) is, we feel in conscience bound to proclaim, an incalculable error.

In June 1971 via the new missal's Notification Instructione de Constitutione Pope Paul VI suppressed the Missal of St. Pius V which John XXIII had renewed on the eve of Vatican II. The instruction forbade the public offering of the Traditional Latin Mass except in the case of elderly or infirm priests unable to learn the new rite and only then in solitude - without so much as an altar boy assisting. Pope John Paul II sustained this policy until an indult was permitted in 1984 which required the approval of the local bishop. Very few granted it.

Cardinal Antonio Bacci

The sad state of affairs in the Catholic Church today is an undeniable fact. Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) very candidly attributed the source of the crisis to the collapse of the sacred liturgy:

"I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part upon the collapse of the liturgy, which at times is actually being conceived of etsi Deus non daretur: as though in the liturgy it did not matter any more whether God exists and whether He speaks to us and listens to us.

But if in the liturgy the communion of faith no longer appears, nor the universal unity of the Church and of her history, nor the mystery of the living Christ, where is it that the Church still appears in her spiritual substance?"

I was dismayed by the banning of the old Missal," he [Cardinal Ratzinger] wrote, "seeing that a similar thing had never happened in the entire history of the liturgy...."

The occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Ottaviani Intervention should give us pause for sober reflection. We are yet in the thrall of 'experts' who tell us what is best for us dismissing 1900 years of Catholic Tradition to "discern the signs of the times." They tell us that all things are in perpetual evolution (condemned by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani generis in 1950) and that we must evolve with them. Yet this path has been tried and proven to be demonstrably deleterious to Catholic faith.

The Traditional form of the Roman Rite has enjoyed a breathtaking resurgence of vitality and popularity in the past few decades largely due to the persistent efforts of Lefebvre's Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX). While relentlessly condemned and vehemently opposed with all the weight of canonical approbation, the priests of the society patiently rebuilt the edifice of Catholic Tradition. Today, while still a tiny minority, the Traditional Mass is being juxtaposed with the new Mass of Paul VI by both theologians and children. The contrasts are stark, leaving some to wonder if the Novus Ordo is in fact the vehicle of a different religion.

Whatever one decides for their own life of piety and devotion, it is abundantly clear that the authors of the Ottaviani Intervention foresaw our time with startling alacrity. Fifty years hence with all the proofs one could desire as evidence, it is difficult to sustain the utility of the Pauline reforms.  The "canons of the rite definitively fixed at that time [which] provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery" have been removed for half a century. The result is what Dietrich Von Hildebrand dubbed The Devastated Vineyard.

A mini-history of orthodox worship

The first sacrifice was by the LORD God in the garden of Eden to clothe Adam and Eve. They received the ritual of sacrifice directly from Him. Abel continues the Tradition, as did Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Pasch is divinely revealed to Moses in Egypt and the blood of the Lamb spares the firstborn in Israel from the angel of death - yet only if they carefully and devoutly follow the instructions God gives through Moses.

Then God reveals to Moses the entire divine liturgy on Mt. Sinai leaving nothing to man's imagination. Every last detail - the dimensions of the tabernacle, its building material, its colors and thread, the way it is to be deployed, carried, sanctified; the altars, tables, furnishings, washings, rituals, ceremonies, priestly garments, step-by-step instructions were all revealed to Moses and received from God directly through the mediation of angels. Yet even so, the penchant for novelty and innovation was so strong in Israel that deviations from the Law of worship inevitably led them to syncretism and finally apostasy. The Old Testament Prophets were sent to call the people of Israel back to the conditions of the covenant God made with them. Through His Prophets He promised a New Covenant different from the old (Jeremias 31,31-35).

A sacrifice taking place in the tabernacle in the wilderness; 

the encampments of the Jewish tribes spread out to the horizon. 

(Colored lithograph)

Christ instituted the Mass of the New and Eternal Covenant at Passover and offered Himself on the Cross during the Passover. The veil in the temple was torn in two when He defeated sin and death by His priestly sacrifice. Thus, St. Paul teaches in his letter to the Hebrews, a "new and living way was made for us through His death" (Hebrews 10,20).

St. Paul goes on to teach explicitly that the temple ritual is a prefigurement and copy of the heavenly sanctuary. This is pure Catholic theology; it identifies the Mass on earth as but a reflection of the perfect worship the Son offers the Father in heaven (Pius XII, Mediator Dei). The sacrifice offered at the heavenly altar by our great High Priest can never be reformed, altered, or changed.

The Latin (Roman Rite) Mass was already standardized during the time of St. Gregory the Great (+604) to the point that the innovation of a single word in the Canon - one word! - inflamed Rome in riots. And it is St. Gregory's Missal that Pope Paul VI admits is essentially unchanged until his own fabricated, man-made liturgy appears in 1969.

We can never say that the Novus Ordo is a received rite. If you try, you will disagree even with Paul VI who admits it is not. It is approved, but not received, at least not through organic development.

The history of the worship of God is one of that which is revealed by God, received by chosen men, distilled through centuries of ecclesiastical Tradition, and devoutly preserved by His faithful servants. The Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum promulgated by Pope St. Pius V is a part of this Sacred Tradition. Strictly speaking, the Novus Ordo Missae is not.

The Myth of the Chaste Homosexual

An untold number of Catholic priests contend that they are homosexual but chaste. Taking St. Thomas Aquinas as our guide, we will see the futility of such a claim and the peril of succumbing to such a premise.

This claim is primarily an assault on the virtue of chastity. According to the Angelic Doctor

1. The word chastity derives from the chastening or rebuking of concupiscence. By such chastening, chastising or curbing, passion is held in control, and is kept in alignment with right reason. Chastity, therefore, is a virtue inasmuch as it steadily tends to keep human conduct under the control of reason.

2. And chastity is a special virtue for it concerns a special aspect of good, that is, the controlling, the keeping reasonable, of the tendencies of sex. (Summa Theologica 2.B.151)

 St. Paul writing to the Romans condemns sodomy as changing the natural use of sex into that which is against nature (cf. Romans 1,26-27). Therefore, the offense of sodomy is against reason. The person who self-identifies as homosexual has decisively rejected the natural law, and his own ability to reason. Chastity keeps the tendencies of sex in alignment with right reason. It is de fide that there are only two sexes:

And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

There is no third category.

Following St. Paul's analysis of the Fall and its consequences explained in Romans 1,24-32 it is evident that prior to the decision to self-identify as homosexual, there is a deliberate decision to reject the God of nature and exchange the truth for lies (1,25). This occurs in the will informed by an intellect darkened by the rejection of right reason (1,21). The heresy professed by very many today that they are 'born gay' is soundly refuted by Apostolic teaching:

Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and he tempteth no man. [14] But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured. [15] Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death.[16] Do not err, therefore, my dearest brethren. (St. James 1,13-16)

So we see clearly that the decision to self-identify as homosexual is not a simple acceptance of nature nor an agreement with the design of the Creator; it is a willful choice to reject the natural law and the faculties of reason.

Father Krysztof Olaf Charamsa (L), with his partner
Edouard. Photo: AFP

It is also important to acknowledge the term homosexual is itself a neologism of late advent (19th century) without roots in Catholic Tradition.  Catholic Tradition does not admit to any anthropological categories besides male and female. When treating this perversion, it is simply referred to as the sin against nature or the unnatural vice. The Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II employs the novel and troublesome terminology of homosexual persons and teaches that they are called to chastity (2359).  In it's discussion on chastity, the CCC teaches

Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man's belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift. (2337)

How then can a "homosexual person" live chastely without integration of his sexuality according the natural order established by the Creator? The answer is that he cannot.

Abstinence from unnatural sexual acts is not chastity.

 3. Chastity is not the same as the virtue of abstinence. For chastity is concerned with the control of sex pleasures, whereas abstinence is directly concerned with the control of the pleasures of the palate. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 2.B.151)

The disordered sexual desire of sodomy can never be an object of chastity. And the mere abstinence from sodomitical acts is not chastity. For a person to practice chastity he must agree with the Creator's order established in nature, witnessed to by the natural law, and follow the truth in his intellect. Man must submit his intellect to the faculty of reason as clearly taught by the witness of nature (Romans 1,20). To self-identify as "homosexual" is a clear and unambiguous rejection of reason.

By now it should be evident that sodomy is primarily a disease of the mind and the intellect.

"No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God… Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything.  Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor…. Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than any one else, because this is the worst sin that there is.” (St. Bernardine of Siena, Predica XXXIX, in Le prediche) 

What then is the real reason for maintaining the pretense of 'gay but chaste'? It is presented as a justification for men with no supernatural faith to continue in their careers as professional clerics. They argue that they are chaste and therefore present no imminent threat to the faithful; however, the primary menace to the Church comes not from their acts of sodomy alone but from minds that have rejected reason and the natural law.

Chastity is required for sanctifying grace to remain in the soul. Chastity requires sexual integrity under the control of right reason. Anyone who has adopted the lie of homosexualist ideology has manifestly rejected right reason and therefore cannot be chaste.

How many faithful Catholics have succumbed to this lie! And their ignorance is not a justification for sustaining this blight on chastity; Saint Paul writes

Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them. (Romans 1,32)

The danger is not only in the acts of sodomy, nor is it restricted to agreement with them. The danger to the soul is in consenting to sodomy as being a real sexual 'orientation' that as long as not acted on is safe. There is no chastity for the person who self-identifies as homosexual, even if he or she never practices sodomy.

Is there any hope then for the person who self-identifies as homosexual? The answer is yes as long as the conscience has not been fatally wounded. If the soul is willing to hear the truth and submit to right reason, then the mind can be renewed and the soul saved. Sadly, we know that such conversions are rare and the road of repentance arduous and exceedingly difficult. This is primarily because the intellect has been reordered to follow an entire architecture of falsehood that rejects nature, and in so doing, rejects the God of nature who planted reason in the conscience of men.

The ugly reality is that the myth of the chaste homosexual is a clever subterfuge employed by wicked clergymen who submitted themselves for holy orders fraudulently. They assert this claim to maintain their status as pastors and priests. But they have no supernatural faith and have rejected nature, reason, and conscience in order to maintain their identity as homosexuals, which in the final analysis is their true priority, even above obedience to God.