Contra "Countersyllabus"

+We apologize in advance to our readers for beginning the liturgical year with overt (rather than subliminal) gravity, but we have come across a deeply disturbing statement in a 1987 work by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” which requires some extensive and direct rebuttal.

+Ratzinger, defending the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes, had this to say, pp. 381-382 (this excerpt is quoted in “The Devil’s Final Battle,” Chapter 6):

“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text (Gaudium et Spes) as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty, and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus ... Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. … the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution was, to a large extent, corrected via facti, especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789.”

+In response, some background is necessary. “The new era inaugurated in 1789” refers of course to the French Revolution. Contrary to the propaganda taught to us all in “school,” the French Revolution was not a “popular uprising” against Louis XVI and the French aristocracy. It was an event carefully planned by Freemasonry at the Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad in 1782, and executed through their front groups known as Jacobin Clubs.

+This brutal attack on the Old Catholic Order, and the French Crown which exemplified it, was engineered with two purposes in mind: first, as the fulfillment of revenge sworn by the Knights Templar for their suppression in France in 1307, on false charges, and the burning at the stake of Jacques de Molay, Templar Grand Master, in 1314. These indefensible acts were the responsibility of King Philip the Fair of France and Pope Clement V, who, though he absolved the Templars, was blackmailed by Philip into suppressing them (yes, the Freemasons and the Knights Templar are one and the same).

+But the French Revolution was much more than revenge. It was the first step in replacing the visible aristocracy with a hidden aristocracy of banking dynasties, who would rule the entire globe through the manipulation of paper money – specifically, the manipulation of debt through a fractional reserve system first perfected in the Bank of England. The Templars, after all, had distinguished themselves much more as the bankers of Europe than as Crusaders: it was their enormous wealth that had made them the target of King Philip.

+How would this hidden aristocracy rule? It would use two principles: one, the introduction of paper currencies which would gradually replace and empty the old wealth until it collapsed (hastened, to be sure, by wars which profited the manipulators of debt), and two, the promotion and enforcement of anarchy and its intermediate phase, “democracy.”¹ Emptying of wealth was initiated simply by applying this new banking system to the financing of governments. The promotion of anarchy was accomplished by various ruses, chief among them two. The first was Marxism, which re-cast, expanded and reinvigorated the principles of the French Revolution after they failed to catch fire throughout Europe. Marxism not only supplied a “philosophical” basis for anarchy, but also justified and supposedly ennobled the emptying process by calling for the “redistribution of wealth.”

(Where does all the “redistributed wealth” go? A tiny dribble of it ends up in the hands of the poor, the object of so much slavish utopian affection and middle class guilt. The rest ends up in the hands of bankers.)

+The second method of cultivating anarchy we will call the “Pleasure Island Deception.” Our readers may remember the allegory of Pleasure Island in the Walt Disney version of Pinocchio: Pinocchio and Lampwick, along with other urchins, are carried off with extravagant promises to Pleasure Island, a place where all boys are encouraged to act as they please, eat whatever they please until they are gorged, destroy anything they please, do and say anything they please. After engaging in this behavior for a certain period of time, they begin to transform into donkeys. When the transformation is complete, they are shipped off to the mines for a life of slavery.

+In other words, anarchy, which is really slavery, is created by appealing to the basest instincts of humanity, while labeling the unlimited indulgence of those instincts “freedom.” The more we are seduced by this, the more we indulge in “freedom,” the more enslaved we become.

+Why anarchy? As the enlightened despots well knew, anarchy among the populace is necessary to ensure the success of tyranny.

+Thus the background of the French “Revolution.” How is it, then, that the Church must “reconcile” herself to this, the work of Her enemies? How is it that She must do the very thing against which so many saintly Popes warned? How is it that Joseph Ratzinger, a learned man, convinced himself that either (a) the fruits of the French “Revolution” (the Reign of Terror, perhaps? Napoleon?) were benevolent and beneficial for mankind, and must be embraced in order for the Church renew itself and save more souls, or (b) the French Revolution unleashed forces too powerful for the Church to resist?

+Finally, what exactly was this “relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789”? It was that very orientation that surfaced and took control of the Church at Vatican II: aggiornamento, openness, cooperation, dialogue, ecumenism, Ostpolitik, the hand of “mercy” instead of “condemnation” (mercy, that is, toward everyone except those who attempted to preserve their Catholic traditions).

+We know now (though many knew it from the beginning) that this new attitude was nothing more than appeasement, the diplomacy of weakness, and it has failed as miserably as Neville Chamberlain failed with Hitler. It is, in fact, the “smoke of Satan” swirling through the Church: a diabolical doppelganger which disorients weak minds and inspires them to chase after what is merely an ersatz version of Catholic charity. In grasping at nothingness, they abandon truth, and so abandon their faith.

+The “fortress mentality” was too “one-sided”? The firm defense of truth in the face of evil is too “one-sided”? Perhaps all the post-Conciliar Neville Chamberlains have forgotten their politically correct manners, since pejorative references to the “fortress” would surely be offensive to all the Protestants who sing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

+In our next issue we will look at the “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” the so-called French Bill of Rights, to see if any of those 17 articles might prompt a new relationship between the Church and the world.

1. That democracy is an intermediate phase of anarchy is being demonstrated by the rapid balkanization and deterioration of the political, economic, and cultural structure of the United States.

Miscellanea CATHOLICA: A CALL TO SCHOLARS

+The Flying Buttress would be most interested in obtaining access to the original schema of Vatican II, carefully prepared before the Council but tossed out by the Masonic/Communist/liberal cabal once the Council was underway. If any of our readers knows if these documents are still extant, please reply. We would like to publish them, so that the faithful may compare them to the vague and self-contradictory mush that replaced them.

+We offer our gratitude to the Most Reverend Kevin Rhoades, Bishop of Harrisburg, PA, for establishing an ecclesial community to worship using the Missal of 1962.

+For our readers who prefer to see the humor in all things, here is what the popular mind can do with revised history (requires Rhapsody/Real Player).