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Oh, the pontifical prophets of doom and gloom! Reading
pre-conciliar encyclicals could lead one to believe that the Church has
been led by a succession of papal pickle-pusses. Those serious,
aware-of-the-existence-of-evil Popes simply weren't as fun and
entertaining as those who go on world tours to offer paganized Rock and
Roll Masses, and their style of dour warnings against Freemasonry, the
machinations of usurers, the doings of "impious men," Communism, Nazism
-- and in such dramatic, passionate language -- were, once upon a
glorious time, par for the Encyclical course.
From Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos
(1832):
You know what
storms of evil and toil, at the beginning of Our pontificate, drove Us
suddenly into the depths of the sea. If the right hand of God had not
given Us strength, We would have drowned as the result of the terrible conspiracy
of impious men....
... Now is truly the time in which the powers of darkness
winnow the elect like wheat. "The earth mourns and fades away....And
the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof, because they have
transgressed the laws, they have changed the ordinances, they have
broken the everlasting covenant...
...We see the destruction of public order, the fall of
principalities, and the overturning of all legitimate power
approaching. Indeed this great mass of calamities had its inception in
the heretical societies and sects in which all that is sacrilegious,
infamous, and blasphemous has gathered as bilge water in a ship's
hold, a congealed mass of all filth.
From Leo XIII's Humanum Genus (1884):
The Roman
Pontiffs Our predecessors, in their incessant watchfulness over the
safety of the Christian people, were prompt in detecting the presence
and the purpose of this capital enemy immediately it sprang
into the light instead of hiding as a dark conspiracy; and ,
moreover, they took occasion with true foresight to give, as it were on
their guard, and not allow themselves to be caught by the devices
and snares laid out to deceive them.
The first warning of the danger was given by Clement XII in
the year 1738, and his constitution was confirmed and renewed by
Benedict XIV.Pius VII followed the same path; and Leo XII, by his
apostolic constitution, Quo Graviora, put together the acts and decrees
of former Pontiffs on this subject, and ratified and confirmed them
forever. In the same sense spoke Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, and, many
times over, Pius IX.
Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi
Dominici Gregis (1907):
There has
never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was
not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy
of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking
perverse things," "vain talkers and seducers," "erring and driving into
error." It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have
witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the
Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving
to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them
lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ....
...That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative
especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not
only among the Church's open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded
and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous
the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many
who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the
ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the
Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay
more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the
enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put
themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly
into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of
Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with
sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and
ordinary man.
Pope Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris (1937):
Nevertheless,
the struggle between good and evil remained in the world as a sad
legacy of the original fall. Nor has the ancient tempter ever
ceased to deceive mankind with false promises. It is on this
account that one convulsion following upon another has marked the
passage of the centuries, down to the revolution of our own days. This
modern revolution, it may be said, has actually broken out or threatens
everywhere, and it exceeds in amplitude and violence anything
yet experienced in the preceding persecutions launched against the
Church. Entire peoples find themselves in danger of falling
back into a barbarism worse than that which oppressed the greater part
of the world at the coming of the Redeemer.
This all too imminent danger, Venerable Brethren, as you have
already surmised, is bolshevistic and atheistic Communism, which aims
at upsetting the social order and at undermining the very
foundations of Christian civilization...
...There is another explanation for the rapid diffusion of the
Communistic ideas now seeping into every nation, great and small,
advanced and backward, so that no corner of the earth is free from
them. This explanation is to be found in a propaganda so truly
diabolical that the world has perhaps never witnessed its like before.
It is directed from one common center. It is shrewdly adapted to
the varying conditions of diverse peoples. It has at its disposal great
financial resources, gigantic organizations, international congresses,
and countless trained workers. It makes use of pamphlets and reviews,
of cinema, theater and radio, of schools and even universities. Little
by little it penetrates into all classes of the people and even reaches
the better-minded groups of the community, with the result that few are
aware of the poison which increasingly pervades their minds and hearts.
...A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy
of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press
of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to
explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily
incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the
horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of
Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a
world organization as vast as Russian Communism. This silence is due in
part to shortsighted political policy, and is favored by various
occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow
of the Christian Social Order.
Pope Pius XII's Humani Generis (1950):
Disagreement and
error among men on moral and religious matters have always been a cause
of profound sorrow to all good men, but above all to the true and loyal
sons of the Church, especially today, when we see the
principles of Christian culture being attacked on all sides.
But then comes
John XXIII, the "Good Pope," as the press called him (clue number one
that, in spite of the level of his personal holiness, his Pontificate
would be dangerous to the Faith). In his opening
address to the Second Vatican Council, he said:
In the daily
exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to
our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not
endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure. In these modern
times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that
our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse, and they
behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, none
the less, the teacher of life. They behave as though at the time of
former Councils everything was a full triumph for the Christian idea
and life and for proper religious liberty.
We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always
forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.
Well, was John
XXIII right or were two millennia of his predecessors right? After the
Council he convened -- the Council that he optimistically thought would
bring on a new, glorious dawn -- what happened? The "Turn on, Tune In,
Drop Out" 1960s; the "Me Generation, Do Your Own Thing, I'm OK, You're
OK" 1970s; the materialistic and drug-ridden 1980s; the decadent, Jerry
Springer 1990s with its incredible coarsening of popular culture;
radical feminism; the sexual revolution which had no winners; the rise
of AIDS; the abortifacient Pill; the legalization of abortion;
pornography's not only easy availability but its being shoved in our
faces every time we open our e-mail boxes or turn on our televisions;
the demise of the family; the "celebration" of active homosexuality1
and sexual depravity; drug abuse entering middle class life and
becoming as common as Big Macs; the secular Press attacking the Church
with vehemence -- and Hollywood doing the same; the rise of
neo-paganism, Wicca, and New Age theosophy; the loss of national
sovereignty...
And in the Church Herself? The near-death of the Roman Rite, except in
the SSPX and Brazil, until we were granted an indult to pray the way Pope Saint Pius V (another Chicken
Little, no doubt) said we could forever; homosexualist invasion of
our seminaries and pulpits; the destruction of church buildings, overt
Modernist dissent by priests, religious, and hierarchs; the -- well,
you know the drill.
Why would John XXIII believe (or feel) that his predecessors were, at
the least, silly in their warnings to the faithful? What had changed by
1962 that would lead His Holiness to consider his predecessors a bunch
of Scrooges? Why was he so quick to write off those who warned him
that convening a Council would be an entrée for Modernist corruption?
Christians in the West are, generally, so "fat and happy" with our fast
food and technology that we look back at the past and think, "Yup, the
world must be a better place 'cause I'm so fat and happy," and in
measuring man's "progress" (ahem) solely in terms of creature comforts,
one could say that we are "better off." We have to get off the couch
less often than we did before to change channels. That's an
improvement. And so few people in the West are starving; that is
certainly good. But, though technologies have their benefits, true
progress can't be measured in such terms; it can only be measured in
terms of souls brought to Christ through His Church -- His true Church
with Her ancient teachings and Sacraments.
We've been brainwashed enough by "history" textbooks and civics courses
that we actually believe we've defeated Communism. But that's a load,
my friends. Communism -- which has never been a foe to the usurious,
fiat-money Capitalism which funded its revolutions -- has merely
changed its name; it is now the United Nations, diversity and
sensitivity training, gender feminism, high taxes, violations of the
principle of subsidiarity, the "Third Way" without Catholic
doctrine and recognition of Christ's Kingship, neo-conservatism, the
Democratic and Republican Parties, and so on. It's the stuff of which
NPR, PBS, public school education and the like are made, and its spirit
is seen in the NY Times and Boston Globe every single day. And, lest we
forget, North Korea exists, Cuba exists, Brazil just "elected" a
Communist president to match those of many of her Latin neighbors, huge
chunks of Africa are de facto Communist (or Muslim, name your poison),
and Communism-qua-Capitalism is still the governmental form in China,
home to a billion souls (and a place which has a government led,
pro-abortion, anti-Pope, "official Catholic Church" (the CPA) while the
real Catholic Church there is underground -- persecuted by the
government and ignored by "Rome" who courts the CPA!)
Yeah, we defeated Nazism, but since the publication of leftist Rolf
Hochhuth's 1963 play slandering Pope Pius XII (a play heavily
publicized by Communist governments, and cultural Marxists in the
West), an entire industry has sprung up blaming the Church for the
existence of Nazism in the first place. In the second place, the Nazi
anti-Jew racist ideology has been replaced by racist Zionism, all
funded by the U.S.of A. and cheered on by a goodly-sized segment of
American Protestants.
And then there's anti-West, anti-Catholic Islam to deal with (another 1
Billion souls, another fifth of the world's population); about the only
things Islam gets right are that there is one God (not that they know
Him), that usury and abortion and contraception and pornography suck,
and that men and women are different. And in getting these things
right, these anti-Christians get more right than does the typical
American or European "Catholic" Bishop.
Aside from technological advances, the only real improvements have been
in the area of race relations in the West, but racial hypersensitivity,
identity politics, forced "diversity," cultural relativism, the racism
that is called, for some reason, "reverse racism," and religious
indifferentism
have taken the place of that "old-fashioned" bigotry born of ignorance
of the other and the felt "need" for scapegoats.
Yup, the world is doing fine.
And here is the point of my tale: one of the Church's main problems is
that Her hierarchs have forgotten that She had always had, now has, and
will have an Enemy until Jesus Christ comes again in glory at the Last
Judgement:
Matthew
10:16-18-36
Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise
as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men. For they will
deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their
synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings
for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles... And you
shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall
persevere unto the end, he shall be saved... Do not think that I came
to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For
I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter
against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household.
According to Our
Lord's prophecies concerning the nature of the Christian life, those
old Popes weren't so "pessimistic" and "gloomy" as the Pollyanna, "Gee,
ain't things swell? Mass is so 'fun' nowadays" types believe. The old
Popes knew that the Evil One has plans and, rightly perceiving the
various ways those plans were being carried out, had the guts to preach
the Truth about them. That's not being "pessimistic"; that's called
being realistic and a true Christian.
And now for the table of statistics which refute those happy-dappy
neo-conservative Catholic sentiments typified by the following, found
in a blog. The writer -- after quoting Pope John XXIII's opening address to the Second Vatican
Council mentioned above, the speech that pooh-poohs those papal
hand-wringers -- writes:
<Blinders
On>
Oh, that we might now live up to that hope he expressed so beautifully!
Sure, there have been some bumps in the Church's path since those days.
But none of these -- not a one -- has been or could be sufficient to
cause us to doubt the inspiration of that Council which began forty
years ago. It was a good thing. It was the right thing. What the Church
needs today is not a reversal of the Council, but a deepened experience
of life according to its wisdom and vision.
There are some today who are angry. There are some who are
disappointed. There are some who can only mutter curses against the
Holy Father or the bishops. Some imagine that the promise of Vatican 2
was cut off. Some imagine that Vatican 2 brought "the Smoke of Satan"
into the Church [Editor: um, yeah, that was Paul VI!]. Both the
reactionary right and the reactionary left are wrong. John Paul II has
shown us the way toward an authentic living out of the hope of Blessed
John XXIII. May God give his Church the grace to continue to walk in
this path, guided by the Spirit which has guided the Church since
Pentecost.
</Blinders Off>
Here is the
dose of reality concering the Church in the United States:
Mass attendance among Catholics:
1958: 3 out of 4
2002: 1 out of 4
Lay religious teachers who condone:
contraception: 90%
abortion: 53%
divorce and remarriage: 65%
missing Mass: 77%
Catholics aged 18-44 who don't believe in the Real
Presence: 70% (that is, 70% of Catholics in this age group are
material heretics)
Priests in USA:
1930-1965 doubled to 58,000
Since 1965: 45,000
Projection: by 2020: 31,000, half over age 70
Priestless parishes:
1965: 1%
2002: 15%
Ordinations in USA:
1965: 1,575
2002: 450
Seminarians:
1965: 49,000
2002: 4,700 (down by 90%)
Seminaries:
1965: 600
2002: 200
Sisters:
1965: 180,000
2002: 75,000, average age 68
Teaching nuns:
1965: 104,000
2002: 8,200 (down by 94%)
Jesuits:
1965: 3,559
2000: 389
Christian Brothers seminarians:
1965: 912
2000: 7
Franciscans:
1965: 3,379
2000: 84
Number of Catholic High Schools: down 50%
Number of Catholic Parochial Schools: down by
4,000
Number of Catholic marriages: down 33%
Number of Annulments:
1968: 338
2002: 50,000
(Statistics
from article Index
of Catholicism's Decline, by Pat Buchanan, who cites Kenneth C.
Jones's Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church Since
Vatican II.)
As to the
blogger's line, "May God give his Church the grace to continue to walk
in this path, guided by the Spirit which has guided the Church since
Pentecost," I have this to say: Why, in the name of all that is Holy,
would we want to continue in the path characterized by the statistics
above -- the path that leads to loss of faith, to the eradication of
our liturgy, and to the destruction of doctrine, the priesthood, the
religious life, and Catholic culture?
Yes, the Holy Ghost was there at Vatican II. He prevented any
of the Modernist doctrines from being presented as solemn definitions.
He was there with those traditional (then "conservative") Bishops who,
listening to Him, barely kept things in check. He was there when the Nota
Praevia to Lumen Gentium was added. Since those times, He
has been ignored in favor of ambiguity and warmy-cozy feelings. The
Holy Ghost can be resisted, you know:
Acts 7:51
You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist
the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do you also.
He will,
however, guide the Church until the end of time, and the gates of Hell
will not prevail. But He never, not once, promised us a rose
garden of springtimes. Quite the opposite.
Notes:
1 Note the use of the word "active" here.
Homosexuality, in itself, is not a sin. I repeat: homosexuality is not
a sin. Homosexuality is the unchosen
attraction to one's own sex. It is a temptation, a sexual orientation.
Homosexuals qua homosexuals
are no more sinners than anyone else. The Church teaches that
homosexuals, like everyone else, should be treated with charity, and
that any unjust discrimination toward them is not right. What is sinful is acting on homosexual
desires.
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