In his 1968 book about the aftermath of Vatican II, Is it the Same Church?, Frank Sheed described the way in which Catholic views on contraception changed in the 1960s:

“Up to, say, 1960 it was assumed by everyone, inside the Church and outside, that the Church taught definitively and unchangeably that artificial contraception was a grave sin. Catholics who used it knew that in the eyes of the Church they were sinning and that they must not receive the Blessed Eucharist until they repented of the use and abandoned it. Now there are voices all about us raised in question, not only of the prohibition’s rightness, but of whether the Church can actually be said to have taught it.” (p. 51)

1960 was the year the Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill. It was also the year in which the Third Secret of Fatima was to have been released because, as Our Lady of Fatima communicated to Sister Lucia, the meaning would have been clearer then. The world was certainly changing, but Catholic views of contraception should not have been changing.

Why, we may ask, would Ecumenism and the Council’s words about non-Catholics have shaped how Catholics thought about whether they would be willing to go along with Church teachings they did not favor, such as the prohibition on contraception?

By the time Sheed wrote his book in 1968, Vatican II had concluded, but the world still waited for Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae. A few of Sheed’s comments on contraception give us a picture of how the Council shaped Catholic views on the subject:

“The law against artificial contraception looms as a larger obstacle to Ecumenism than any doctrinal or liturgical difference. A Catholic bishop told me of a conversation he had just been having with an Episcopalian bishop, in which contraception was the one matter on which there was no hope of agreement — unless the Church changes her teaching.” (p. 61)

“Any who are not convinced by the Pope’s utterance on [contraception] may feel that their personal decision is for their own conscience to make. And while the Second Vatican Council speaks most lucidly upon the rights of men outside the Church to follow their conscience, I have not found that it discusses the relation of the Catholic conscience to her own teachings or comments if it feels them contrary to it.” (p. 64)

Why, we may ask, would Ecumenism and the Council’s words about non-Catholics have shaped how Catholics thought about whether they would be willing to go along with Church teachings they did not favor, such as the prohibition on contraception? After all, as Sheed wrote, prior to 1960, Catholics knew that “the Church taught definitively and unchangeably that artificial contraception was a grave sin.” Catholics accept many teachings they would not incorporate in a Christian-based religion of their own choosing (i.e., Protestantism), so what changed with the Council?

As a frame of reference, how did Catholics view the Church before the Council? In his 1943 encyclical, Mystici Corporis, Pius XII had emphasized that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ and that only Catholics belong to it:

“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. (Mystici Corporis, §22)”

This was entirely consistent with what the Church had always taught. Catholics also knew that there was no salvation outside the Catholic Church (absent extraordinary circumstances, generally involving invincible ignorance) and that they could not knowingly reject any of the Church’s teachings. Moreover, they had been told that even the most sincere and pious Protestants were likely going to hell because they followed a false religion.

Regular Catholics recognize that the Council could have simply restated what the Church has always taught but instead chose to say things that diminished the importance of being Catholic and lessened the danger of being Protestant. And then these regular Catholics have to decide: is the Council incorrect, or was everything that came before it incorrect?

And then Catholics saw that the Council appeared to say something quite different. Each of the statements below from the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) and Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) called into question the belief that a person needs to belong to the Catholic Church and follow its teachings to please God and save his or her soul:

Protestants are in Communion with the Catholic Church. “The children who are born into these [separated] Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection. For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.” (Unitatis Redintegratio §3)

Protestants Belong to the Body of Christ. “The differences that exist in varying degrees between [separated brethren] and the Catholic Church — whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church — do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion. The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” (Unitatis Redintegratio §3)

Protestant Religions are Means of Salvation. “The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation. It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.” (Unitatis Redintegratio §3)

“The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter.  For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God. They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power.” (Lumen Gentium §15)

When “experts” who want to defend Vatican II read these statements, they immediately begin searching for arcane justifications for why Vatican II’s ecumenical passages comport with what the Church has always taught. However, when regular Catholics read these statements, they have a different reaction. Regular Catholics recognize that the Council could have simply restated what the Church has always taught but instead chose to say things that diminished the importance of being Catholic and lessened the danger of being Protestant. And then these regular Catholics have to decide: is the Council incorrect, or was everything that came before it incorrect?

Is it mere coincidence that these changes in Catholic beliefs — particularly on contraception and abortion — align with the agenda of today’s globalists?

Going back to Sheed’s commentary, these novelties from Vatican II help us better understand why so many Catholics were prepared to disobey Paul VI’s reaffirmation of the prohibition on using contraception. It was one thing to accept the Church’s hard teachings when Catholics thought the Protestants were going to hell because they followed a false religion, but now that the Council praised Protestant religions and said they lead souls to heaven, why would one bother following hard teachings that the Protestants rejected? And, more importantly, if Pius XII and his predecessors had been lying about the need to be Catholic, why would anyone trust the Church anymore?

The experts who defend Vatican II refuse to see this, but hundreds of millions of Catholics did. Many left the Church. Others became like those whom Judge Robert Bork described in his Slouching Towards Gomorrah (written before he became Catholic):

“The practices and beliefs of the Catholic laity offer a good test case because the Catholic Church’s teachings on contraception, abortion, divorce and remarriage, and the infallibility of the pope on matters of faith and morals, are unusually clear. Yet it is also clear that many of the laity display the Tocqueville syndrome and ‘keep their minds floating at random between liberty and obedience.’ A 1985 New York Times/CBS News poll shows that 68 percent of Catholics favored the use of artificial birth control, and 73 percent thought Catholics should be allowed to divorce and remarry, and 79 percent believed you can disagree with the pope on these issues and still be a good Catholic. Catholics even have higher abortion rates than do Protestants and Jews. I have no figures on comparative divorce rates, but anyone with a large Catholic acquaintance has seen a large number of divorces. The Church has accommodated itself to this reality, the Zeitgeist, by granting annulments, even of long-standing marriages that have produced children. In short, Catholics’ obedience to their doctrines would seem to run at the same level as Protestants’ to theirs.”

Catholics stopped being Catholic, but retained the title; and the vast majority of the Church’s false shepherds did nothing to counteract that development — indeed they generally led the way. This all happened long before the world knew Jorge Bergoglio, so we must not believe those who suggest that the Church’s problems began in earnest when Benedict XVI stepped aside.

These vipers who support Francis, his Synod, and the Council, while condemning Traditional Catholics for believing what the Church has always taught, are Satan’s most prized fools. But God is with us, so let us proclaim His truth from the rooftops, especially when Satan’s minions do all they can to stop us.

Is it mere coincidence that these changes in Catholic beliefs — particularly on contraception and abortion — align with the agenda of today’s globalists? Although Traditional Catholics have mixed views on the late Fr. Malachi Martin, his The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church has an insight with which most of us can agree:

“The Modernist mind foresees all sorts of ‘goodies’ for mankind, and quite a spectacular development, if people will only consent to change. The one obstacle to that sustained and spectacular development of Modernism promised was a certain stubborn resistance to change, a certain fixity of religious belief, the clinging by many to ancient dogmas. Of course, any organized religion presented such an obstacle. But, for the new race of unbelievers and Modernists, the Christian churches and in particular the Roman Catholic Church were the prime creators of the obstacle . . . There was [in Catholicism] a whole gamut of such traditional teachings dealing with every aspect of human life from before the womb and beyond, into God’s eternity. Such traditions could not be changed without altering Catholicism completely.” (pp. 265-266)

Various enemies of the Church — Modernists, Freemasons, globalists, Satan — have overlapping allegiances and goals, such that this statement about Modernists applies to those who seek to enslave us all today. They needed to get Catholics out of the way, and the best way to do that was to convince Catholics that they could become Protestants and still call themselves Catholic. This is precisely why they needed Vatican II.

Whether one believes the messages of Fatima or not, we know for certain that John XXIII read the message in 1960 and decided to not release it, contrary to the wishes conveyed by Sister Lucia in the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Given that many who have apparently read the full secret indicate that it involves the great apostasy in the Church, beginning with the papacy, it is easy to see why those who sought to undermine what the Church has always taught would refuse to release a message that would alert the world to the dangers of their new orientations.

All rational and reasonably well-informed people realize that a globalist enemy seeks to enslave us. That same enemy had to first undermine the defenses of the Catholic Church, and this was accomplished primarily through Vatican II. As any powerful enemy would do, our enemies have deployed their troops of experts to defend the Council (the Faucis of theology), doing all they can to gaslight and intimidate those who have eyes to see and the backbone to tell the truth. These vipers who support Francis, his Synod, and the Council, while condemning Traditional Catholics for believing what the Church has always taught, are Satan’s most prized fools. But God is with us, so let us proclaim His truth from the rooftops, especially when Satan’s minions do all they can to stop us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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