Chapter VIII - Shadow and Penumbra
- When we retrospect the field of history...the various heresies that have from time to time appeared, seem clearly and distinctly marked off from the environment of the orthodox faith...But in this we are deceived; it is an illusion caused by distance. The distinction appears so clear, so definite only because we stand on the eminence of the present...A closer study, placing us in the intellectual contact with these epochs, enables us to observe taht never, in any period of history, were the dividing lines between truth and error defined with such geometrical exactness.
- In our own times Liberalism has its Semi-Liberalism, which is nothing else than Catholic Liberalism. This is what the Syllabus [of Errors] terms modern Liberalism...Liberalism is the baneful twilight of the truth beginning to be obscured in their intelligence, or heresy which has not yet taken complete possession.
- We should not fail to note that there are those who are just emerging from the darkness of error into the twilight of truth. This class has not fully penetrated into the domain of truth. That they will ever enter the city of light depends on their own sincerity and honesty. If they earnestly desire to know the truth in its fullness and seek it with sincere purpose, God's grace will not fail them...but on the border land between the realms of light and darkness the Devil is most active and ingenious in detaining those who seem about to escape his snares, and spares nothing to retain in his service a great number of people who would truly detest his infernal machinations if they only perceived them. His method in the instance of persons infected with Liberalism is to suffer them to place one foot within the domain of truth provided they keep the other inside the camp of error.
- It is because [the Liberal] has no real solid knowledge of the principles of truth and error that he is so easily deluded into the belief of his own intellectual superiority. He is in a mental haze - a fog which hides from him the abyss into which his vanity and pride, cunningly played upon by Satan, are invariably drawing him.
Chapter IX - Two Kinds of Liberalism
- Philosophy and theology teach that there are two kinds of atheism, doctrinal or speculative, and practical. The first consists in the open and direct denial of the existence of God; the second consists in acting and living without denying the existence of God, but yet as if He did not really exist...the latter are more numerous. It is the same with Liberalism and Liberals.
- Practical Liberalists are by far in the greater majority. Like a flock of sheep, with closed eyes, they follow their leaders. They know nothing in truth of principles and systems, and, did they perceive the perversity of their instructors, would perhaps detest the. But deceived by a false cry or shibboleth, they troop docilely after their false guides.
- Amongst Catholic Liberals, many of them go to Mass, even make novenas, and yet when they come in contact with the world lead lives of Practical Liberals. They make it a rule "to live up to the times," as they call it. The Church they believe to be somewhat out-of-date, and old fogy; that she is held back by a certain set of reactionaries, ultramontanes; but they have hopes that she will in the course of time catch up with the modern spirit of progress, of which they are the van. The barnacles of medievalism still encumber the bark of Peter...
- Then will a new theology be developed more in conformity with the needs of the times, more in harmony with the modern spirit which makes such large demands upon our "intellectual liberty."
(This is indeed the foundation of the Traditionalist argument - that Vatican II promoted a new theology: "Novus Ordo" (New Order), New Evangelization, etc. And we have certainly seen it repeated that the entire foundation of the council was to update the Church for these modern times and have even heard the analogy used of stripping the barnacles off of the ark)
Chapter X - Liberalism of all Shades Condemned by the Church
- Liberalism stands under the formal ban of the Church, which is sufficient for all faithful Catholics. It would be impossible for an error so widespread and so radical to escape condemnation. Upon its appearance in France, the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man, which contains in germ all the follies of Liberalism, was condemned by Pius VI.
(Pope Leo XIII famously said, "The world has heard enough of the so-called "rights of man." Let it hear something of the rights of God"; the controversy is certainly stirred by Dignitatis Humanae declaring many of the so called rights previously condemned by Pius VI, Leo XIII and others as fundamental rights of man)
- Gregory XVI, in his Encyclical Mirari Vos, explicitly condemned Liberalism...[then] God raised up to his Church Pius IX, who justly passed into history as the Scourge of Liberalism. Liberal error under all its forms, shapes and shades has been unmasked by this Pope.
- Numerous briefs and allocutions by Pius IX have clearly shown to Christian peoples what this baneful heresy is, and the Syllabus has put on the final seal of condemnation...Pius IX spoke thus: "Atheism in legislation, indifference in matters of religion and the pernicious maxims which go under the name of Liberal Catholicism are the true causes of the destruction of States; they have been the ruin in France...I have always condemned Liberal Catholicism and I will condemn it again forty times over if necessary."
- In 1873, St. Ambrose of Milan, the Sovereign Pontiff thus expresses himself: "People are not wanting who pretend to form an alliance between light and darkness, and to associate justice with iniquity in favor of those doctrines called Liberal Catholicism, which, based on the most pernicious principles, show themselves favorable to the intrusion of secular power upon the domain of spirituals; they lead their partisans to esteem, or, at least to tolerate iniquitous laws, as if it were not written that no one can serve two masters...Without being warned of it, perhaps without being conscious of it, they second the projects of wicked men, but also because keeping with certain limits, they show themselves with some appearance of probity and sound doctrine. They thus deceive the indiscreet friends of conciliation and seduce honest people who otherwise have strenuously combatted a declared error."
- The same said, "In truth you will extirpate the fatal root of discord and you will efficaciously contribute to unite and strengthen the minds of all in so combating this insidious error, much more dangerous than an open enemy because it hides itself under the specious veil of zeal and of charity."
- "It exhausts itself in interpreting the traditions and teachings of the Church by running them through the mold of its own private opinions."
Chapter XI - The Solemn Condemnation of Liberalism by the Syllabus
- Liberalism is always strategically cunning. It rejected these very plain condemnations on the ground that they had all been made to private persons, that they were, therefore, of an entirely private character, by no means ex cathedra, and, of course, not binding...A solemn official public document of a general character and universally promulgated would sweep away the cobwebs with which Liberal Catholics had endeavored to bind the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff...it was The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864. All faithful Catholics hailed it with an enthusiasm...Liberal Catholics thought it more prudent to strike at it covertly by overwhelming it with artificial interpretations.
- The Syllabus crystallizes all these errors and stamps them with the seal of the explicit and formal condemnation of the Church...Let us briefly enumerate them.
Condemnation of liberty of worship (propositions 15, 77 and 78); of the place of governments (propositions 20 and 28); of the absolute supremacy of the State (proposition 38); of the secularization of public education (proposition 45, 40 and 48); of the absolute separation of Church and State (proposition 15); of the absolute right to legislate without regard to God (proposition 56); of the principle of non-intervention (proposition 62); of the right of insurrection (proposition 63); of civil marriage (proposition 73 and others); of the liberty (license) of the press (proposition 79); of universal suffrage as the source of authority (proposition 60); of even the name of Liberalism (proposition 88).
- Liberals regard the Syllabus of Errors as their most detestable enemy, as the complete symbol of what they term Clericalism, Ultramontanism and Reaction, we may rest assured that it has been well interpreted in that quarter. Satan, bad as he is, is not a fool, and sees clearly enough where the blow falls with most effect...What he most abhors and defames possesses an unimpeachable guaranty of its truth.
Chapter XII - Like Liberalism but not Liberalism, Liberalism but not Like It
- To effect a confusion of ideas is an old scheme of the devil. Not to understand clearly and precisely is generally the source of intellectual error.
- Every heresy in the Church bears testimony to Satan's success in deceiving the human intellect by obscuring and perverting the meaning of words.
- For some, Liberalism consists in certain political forms; for others, in a certain tolerant and generous spirit opposed to despotism and tyranny; for others again it means simply civil equality; for many it becomes a vague and uncertain sentiment, which shapes itself into opposition to all arbitrary government.
(This is important to note, that some are well-intentioned but ignorant of truth to the effect that their own judgment - well-intentioned as it may be - is wrong).
- Their essence consists in the civil authority by virtue of which they govern, whether that authority be in form republican, democratic, aristocratic, monarchical; it may be an elective, hereditary, mixed or absolute monarchy. These various forms of themselves have nothing to do with Liberalism...if they acknowledge as the basis of public right the supreme morality of the Church and her absolute right in all things within her own competency, they are truly Catholic governments.
(It doesn't matter what style of government, it can still either be in union with God & the Church or divorced from it and therefore doomed to perdition)
- To believe that monarchies are of themselves (ex se) more religious than republics is an ignorant prejudice...A government, whatever be its form, is Catholic if its constitution, its legislation, and its politics are based on Catholic principles; it is Liberal if it bases its constitution, its legislation, and its politics on rationalistic principles.
- Let us suppose that the constitution and the legislation of this monarchy or of this government is based upon the principle of the absolute and free will of the king or upon the equally unrestricted will of the conservative majority, in place of being based on the principles of Catholic right...then, this monarchy and this conservative government would be thoroughly Liberal and anti-Catholic.
Chapter XIII - The Name Liberalism
- It cannot be said that we describe the situation in exaggerated terms...Liberalism and Catholic Liberalism have been explicitly condemned by Pius IX...the Liberalist current in Europe and America is anti-Catholic and rationalistic.
- Do they not regard as their sole and most potent enemy what they contemptuously term "Clericalism" "Ultramontanism" and do they not describe the Church as medieval, reactionary, the opponent of progress and the nurse of superstition? When then the term is so intimately associated with a Rationalism so radically opposed to the Church, how may Catholics use it with any hope of separating it from its current meaning?
- Rationalism is the toadstool that flourishes in its dark shades...[its advocates] place [themselves] in the ranks of the enemies of Jesus Christ!
- There is in our day a sect which calls itself "The Old Catholics' " Suppose that we, who are in the true sense of the word "old Catholics" "for our Catholicity dates from Calvary and the cenacle of Jerusalem" (which are proofs of its antiquity)...But could it not be properly objected that this is a false-sounding title, inasmuch as it is in our day the cunning device of a schismatical sect? Certainly it would give occasion to well-informed Catholics to believe that we were schismatic and to the schismatics, who style themselves "Old Catholics" occasion to welcome us as new comrades in their rebellion against the Church.
(What he is saying here is that there was a group at the time who CLAIMED to be holding to ancient Traditions but which actually had perverted those Traditions and was being condemned for its behaviors by the Pope for being schismatic; this is interesting to note because what we have today are Traditionalist Catholics claiming to hold to true Tradition while post-conciliar Novus Ordo Catholics also claim a "ressourcement" return to the roots of Tradition...and they take turns calling each other schismatic).
- It may be said that words are of little importance—why quibble in this way over the meaning of a term? We protest; words are of paramount importance, especially in our own day, when intellectual confusion so obscures fundamental truths in the modern mind. Words represent ideas. That is their value and their use. Modern error largely owes its success to its use of terms of an ambiguous character.
(In 1969 Cardinal Ottaviani submitted a formal denouncement of the Liturgical Reforms from the Novus Ordo Missae; among his chief complaints was that they had redefined the mass no longer as a sacrifice but instead as a general supper...Protestantizing the definition of the mass. He was dismissed and told that their definition of the mass in the general instruction was not a definition but rather a "description." He was effectively told it was all semantics and not to get hung up on words.)
- Agnosticism and Positivism have thus retained a Christian phraseology without the Christian meaning. They speak of God and sanctity and holiness and duty and freedom, but they have eviscerated the Christian meaning. Still these terms, with their former meanings, pass current in the public mind and so half-disguise the fatalism and paganism of the agnostic and positivist schools. Socialism has adopted the terms "liberty," "equality" and "fraternity" as its watchwords, where in reality they mean "revolution "destruction" and "despotism '" Yet it deceives the simple by thus disguising its real intent.
(The three words of the French Revolution denounced so many times as a false banner by former Pontiffs...Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness are the same variation of those former three perniciously deceptive words).
- St. Paul exhorts Timothy to be on his guard, not only against false science, but also against profane novelties of words ...It is a question of truth and salvation. No, you cannot be a Liberal Catholic; incompatibles cannot be reconciled. You cannot assume this reprobated name, although you may be able by subtle sophisms to discover some secret way of reconciling it with your faith.
(Pope Pius XII, On the Ecumenical Movement, 1949, #II They shall also be on guard lest, on the false pretext that more attention should be paid to the points on which we agree than to those on which we differ, a dangerous indifferentism be encouraged)
- Christian charity will not defend you, although you may repeatedly invoke it and would make it synonymous with the toleration of error. The first condition of charity is not to violate the truth, and charity cannot be the snare with which to surprise faith into the support of error. While we may admit the sincerity of those who are not Catholic, their error must always be held up to reprobation. We may pity them in their darkness, but we can never abet their error by ignoring it or tolerating it.
- Most to be feared, however, is not he who openly boasts his Liberalism, but he who eschews the name and, vehemently denying it, is yet steeped to the lips in it and continually speaks and acts under its inspiration. And if such a man be a Catholic by profession, all the more dangerous is he to the faith of others, for he is the hidden enemy sowing tares amidst the wheat.
Chapter XIV - Liberalism and Free-Thought
- Persons, societies, books, governments which reject, in matters of faith and morals, the only and exclusive criterion—that of the Catholic Church—are Liberals.
- THERE IS NO TRUE SPIRITUAL LIFE WHERE JESUS CHRIST IS NOT
(This applies to Jews, Muslims, pagans, etc.
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Session 11, 1442 It firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives)
- How much do perverse Catholics serve the devil by obstinately clinging to such associations and participating in their works! In the folly of their ignorance, which they assert against the wisdom of the Church, they harden their consciences to the practical guidance of the Holy See and blindly enlist in the service of an enemy whose cunning deludes them into the slavery of Hell—under the disguise of freedom! They forget that the Truth alone makes them free...Ultramontanism will never cause you to lose your soul; Liberalism is a broad road to the infernal abyss.
NEXT SECTION...
No comments:
Post a Comment