As reported by Catholic News Agency (CNA), Catholic University of Valencia recently gave an honorary doctorate to Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Lunacy.
This is the department that is charged with carrying out the conciliar church’s ecumenical operation, specifically, by propagating and implementing Unitatis Redintegratio of Vatican II.
In his acceptance speech, Koch said:
For the Council, fidelity to its origins and conformity to the times were not opposed to each other. Rather, the council wanted to proclaim the Catholic faith in a way that was both faithful to its origins and appropriate to the times, in order to be able to transmit the truth and beauty of the faith to the people of today, so that they can understand it and accept it as an aid to their lives.
To exactly what “origins” was Koch referring?
Well, according to John XXIII, the entire idea of an ecumenical council originated in heaven.
In his Opening Address to the Council on October 11, 1962, he said:
We uttered those words [ecumenical council] in the presence of the Sacred College of Cardinals on that memorable January 25, 1959, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in the basilica dedicated to him. It was completely unexpected, like a flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts.
To be clear, Roncalli was not merely suggesting that his announcement took the cardinals by surprise, rather, he was claiming that he was just as shocked as everyone else by the words that came out of his mouth.
Later that same year, il Buon’ Papa wrote in his private journal (which, let’s be honest, he knew would become public upon his death), “I was the first to be surprised at my proposal.”
Shocking, I tell ya! It was as though the Paraclete was using me as a sock puppet!
If true, that would be flat out amazing. If not, then Roncalli’s claim would be little more than a diabolical, self-aggrandizing lie.
So, which is it?
Shortly after the big announcement, the Italian Weekly, Epoca, interviewed Cardinal Ottaviani who gave the following account:
He [Roncalli] had spoken about it [the idea of calling a council] to me from the moment of his election. Or, rather, to be more precise, it was I who visited him in his little room at the conclave on the eve of the election. Among other things, I told him, ‘Your Eminence, it is necessary to think about a council.’ Cardinal Ruffini, who was present at the conversation, was of the same mind. Cardinal Roncalli adopted this idea and later had this to say, ‘I have thought of a council from the moment when I became pope.’
Ah… so evidently, Cardinal Ottaviani had heavenly light flashing right out of his mouth shooting straight into the darkest recesses of Roncalli’s ears!
Seriously now, someone is lying, but who?
Roncalli’s diary offers some more clues.
As told in Professor Roberto de Mattei extensively footnoted book, “The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story,” Roncalli’s diary recorded what appears to be a single event on two separate dates, both of them well before the “surprise” announcement of January 25, 1958.
On January 20, Roncalli writes:
In an audience with Secretary of State Tardini, for the first time, and, I would say, as though by chance, I happened to mention the word ‘council,’ as if to say what the new pope could propose as an invitation to an enormous movement of spirituality for Holy Church and for the world … [Tardini replied.] ‘Oh! Oh? That’s an idea, right?’
The January 15th entry is very similar, but in this one Cardinal Tardini’s response is recorded as, “Oh! This is a luminous and holy idea. It comes right from heaven…” [Emphasis added.]
All indications are that Roncalli, who had it in mind to call a council, at the very least, since the eve of his election, liked the sound of Tardini’s words. So much so that by the time we arrive at the opening of that godforsaken event nearly four years later, Roncalli had apparently convinced himself that, indeed, the Council’s origins can be traced directly back to nothing less luminous and holy than a flash of heavenly light.
This brings us back to Kurt Koch and his recently received faux sheepskin from the Catholic University of Valencia.
While only he can say for certain what he had mind when speaking of the Council’s “origins,” one thing is absolutely certain, Vatican II is not founded upon the faith that comes to us from the Apostles, transmitted whole and entire throughout the centuries, explained by the teaching authority of the Holy Catholic Church (aka tradition).
This is no more obvious than with respect to Unitatis Redintegratio, the footnotes of which are devoid of any mention of the Church’s most recent magisterial texts on the topic of ecumenism, namely, Mortalium Animos (Pope Pius XI, 1928) and the Monitum (warning) issued by the Holy Office in 1929 under Pope Pius XII.
The reason for this is plain: The Decree on Ecumenism of Vatican II explicitly denies the teachings contained in the pre-conciliar decrees. [For a detailed breakdown of Unitatis Redintegratio, one that demonstrates beyond any doubt whatsoever that it represents a rupture with Catholic tradition, see HERE.]
Speaking of footnotes, among the most telling characteristics of the conciliar documents is the degree to which they play fast and loose with citations, taking Sacred Scripture and other texts entirely out of context in order to give wholesale novelties the appearance of tradition.
An especially blatant example can be found in Nostra Aetate 4 and its treatment of the Church’s relationship with the Jews of “our time” (Latin: nostra aetate). Here, the Council cites Ephesians 2 in support of the preposterous claim that modern day self-described Jews – persons who by definition reject Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice on Calvary – have been made one with believers in the Cross of Christ. [See HERE for a detailed treatment of this grievously sinful lie.]
In the case of Unitatis Redintegratio, not only are the footnotes devoid of the relatively recent aforementioned pre-conciliar magisterial texts on the topic of ecumenism, some of the footnotes that it does provide are entirely bogus.
For example, the Council states in UR 3 that the heretics “have a right to be called Christian and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.”
In support of this idea, the Council provides the following citation: “Cf. S. AUGUSTINUS, In Ps. 32, Enarr. 11, 29: PL 36, 299.”
This refers to St. Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 32, “Enarrationes in Psalmos,” as found in “Patrologia Latina” (a collection of ecclesiastical works in Latin edited by Fr. Jacques-Paul Migne), Volume 36, page 299.
Those are some impressive traditional roots, no?
One small problem: Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 32 (as well as Psalm 33 if one wishes to confirm that we are discussing the same numbering of chapters) says absolutely nothing relevant to the Council’s claim. Nothing.
Having died just eight months after telling the bishops gathered for the start of Vatican Council II this tall tale about a flash of heavenly light, Roncalli didn’t have the benefit of seeing the text of Unitatis Redintegratio, or any of the other fifteen conciliar documents. If he had, perhaps he would have recognized what is so glaringly obvious to us:
The conciliar scribes recorded their musings, not whilst immersed in the grace-filled glow of divine radiance, but rather did they write by the flickering flames of inglorious Hellfire.
