Pope Benedict and the Continuation of the "Diabolical Disorientation

Martin Blackshaw
REMNANT COLUMNIST, Scotland
 

(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) If traditional Catholics wanted a sign from God  regarding Benedict XVI’s view on the restoration of sacred tradition in the Church, then that sign has surely been granted in the form of the Pope’s weekly Angelus address of October 30.

According to a Zenit report, it was during this address to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square that the Pontiff encouraged Christians to pray to keep the spirit of Vatican II alive.

And it gets worse. This Vicar of Christ, this visible head of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, spoke in glowing terms of the approaching 40th anniversary of such outrages as the Council’s Nostra Aetate, on relations with non-Christian religions.

His exact words, as quoted by Zenit, were: “Based on the principle according to which ‘all peoples form one community’ and for which the Church has the mission ‘to foster unity and charity’ among peoples, the Council ‘rejects nothing of what is holy and true’ in the other religions and announces to all Christ ‘Way, Truth and Life’ in whom men find the ‘fullness of religious life.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall Benedict announcing Christ ‘Way, Truth and Life’ when he visited a synagogue and a mosque during his recent visit to Germany for World Youth Day. In fact, if memory serves, he was rather at pains to point out to his respective Jewish and Muslim hosts that we all share a common father in Abraham.

If this kind of hypocrisy sounds familiar, it is because the Pharisees once attempted to silence Our Lord with claims that they were sons of Abraham. And how did He respond? By reminding them that God could turn the stones of the earth into sons of Abraham. In other words, it is quite spurious to call oneself a son of Abraham if one rejects Christ the Redeemer.

While on the subject of hypocrisy, let us cast a cursory glance at these other Nostra Aetate quotes in Benedict’s address.

To foster unity and charity among peoples”, he said. Meaning, let us all believe whatever we feel comfortable with as long as we are philanthropic about it, because “the Council rejects nothing of what is holy and true in the other religions.

Pardon my choice of words here, but what in the name of God can there be ‘holy and true’ in any religion apart from the supernatural one founded by the Son of God, the holy Catholic religion, in which alone unity is to be found in one fold and one shepherd, and whose adherents practice true charity in the Mass and the Sacraments and in the proclaiming of Christ crucified to a hostile world.

Herein lies the only “fullness of religious life”. There is no half or quarter-fullness in any false religion, as Benedict and Nostra Aetate seem to suggest. Indeed, St. Paul went so far as to declare the Gods of the false religions as so many manifestations of the devil.

Talking of St. Paul. How are we to reconcile the account, from the Acts of the Apostles, of this saint being lowered over the walls of the city in a basket in the dead of night to escape death at the hands of his Jewish persecutors, with a further reference in Benedict’s address to “the special bond that unites Christians and Jews?”

Did Our Lord imagine a special bond between Christians and Jews, I wonder, when he foretold the destruction of Jerusalem? Or did Benedict’s predecessors imagine it when they condemned Jewish inspired Communism and Freemasonry?

Let us be brutally honest. There is no special bond between Christians and Jews in the religious sense, nor has there ever been. It is a simple statement of fact that Christians accept Christ Jesus as the Messiah and Jews do not. This single fact precludes any possibility of a special bond not only with Jews, but also with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, or any other non-Christian body.

The question is, do the Jews believe that a religious and fraternal bond exists between themselves and Christians? I rather think not.

Witness in our own day the constant vilification of Pope Pius XII by the Jews, although it has to be stated in fairness that a few honourable Jewish souls have objected to this. Witness also the outrage and hostility directed by Jews at Mel Gibson for his portrayal on film of the passion and death of Our Saviour.

Or, go back a couple of years to the Vatican’s suspension of the work of a panel of Jewish-Catholic historians when it became clear that certain members of the Jewish contingent were “leaking false and tendentious reports to the press to the detriment of the Holy See.”

These were the words of respected Vatican historian Father Peter Gumpel, who further stated at the time with regard to the Jewish agenda: “In recent days, a violent assault has been unleashed against the Catholic Church.

No, there is no bond. Nor is there among faithful Catholics that “esteem for Muslims and for the followers of the other religions” that Benedict went on to quote approvingly from Nostra Aetate.

So, rather than praying to keep the spirit of Vatican II alive, let all Catholics of good will and true faith pray that God rescue the mind of Pope Benedict and our modernist Church hierarchy from the “diabolical disorientation” that is false ecumenism.

Only then can we hope to see the ambiguity of Benedict and his fellow doctrinal deviants return to such sound Catholic teaching as follows:

Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the Apostle that there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Eph. 4:5), may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself who said: “he that is not with me is against me” (Luke 11:23), and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with him. Therefore without a doubt, they will perish forever unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.

 …Pope Gregory XVI, Encyclical Mirari Vos 1832.