The General Audience of February 18, is a two-for-one deal. Not only does Leo provide insight into the conciliar folly, it’s also a coming out party of sorts wherein Leo waves the Modernist flag for all to see.
As always, an article / transcript appears below the video.
TRANSCRIPT
As he continued his catechesis on the documents of Vatican II on Wednesday, February 18, Leo turned his attention to Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.
This document, as the future John Paul the Great Ecumenist wrote in his book, Sources of Renewal, was the Council’s attempt to answer the question, Church, what do you say of yourself?
In other words, Lumen Gentium is the Council’s ecclesiology.
The conciliar church’s description of itself, according to Leo:
…refers to God’s plan, which has a purpose: to unite all creatures thanks to the reconciliatory action of Jesus Christ, an action that was accomplished through His death on the cross.
In this, Leo provides a stellar example of the Council’s hyper focus on man by suggesting that the primary purpose of Our Lord’s saving work, which continues in the Church, is to unite all creatures.
This statement is somewhat stunning even for those who are fairly familiar with the Council documents. The first most obvious reason is that it ignores the ultimate purpose of Our Lord’s Sacrifice on the Cross.
It wasn’t directly ordered toward the reconciliation of creature to creature, but rather to reconcile man with God, to propitiate the Almighty in light of the debt incurred by original sin, to heal the division that was created between man and his Creator as a result, and to make salvation possible for those who would accept the fruits of Redemption as poured forth from the Cross.
Unity among men bears mention, but this is a secondary effect that is realized only when men willingly accepting the fruits of Redemption.
Nearly as disturbing is Leo’s suggestion that the purpose of uniting all creatures was accomplished through Christ’s death on the Cross.
He speaks as if this alleged purpose of God’s plan is a done deal. It was accomplished, he said.
As he continued his catechesis, he underscored that idea, saying in the very next breath:
This is experienced first of all in the assembly gathered for the liturgical celebration: there, differences are relativized, and what counts is being together because we are drawn by the Love of Christ that broke down the wall of separation between people and social groups (cf. Eph 2:14).
Wow… There’s a lot here to address.
First, the word experience stands out. Why? For one, because it’s very much subjective, and secondly, because it’s a staple of modernist thought as it was thoroughly exposed by Pope St. Pius X in his great Encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis.
It ends up that experience is a theme that Leo repeated throughout the Audience, as we’ll see moving forward.
Leo appealed to Ephesians 2:14 in saying that the Love of Christ broke down the wall of separation between people and social groups.
Now, that statement may initially sound sweet to pious ears, but it’s deficient to the point of being flatly erroneous – especially insofar as it’s being presented as catechesis, and this from an alleged pope no less.
Properly speaking, as long as we’re discussing experience, the wall of separation is broken down – not by the love of Christ as if man has no part of his own to play – rather it’s broken down through Baptism. This is how unity among men, otherwise called communion, is attained, in Christ.
This is what St. Paul is teaching in his Letter to the Ephesians. In the verse prior to the cited by Leo, in Eph. 2:13, we find:
But now in Christ Jesus, you, who were for some time afar off, are made near by the blood of Christ.
And how does one enter into Christ Jesus? The answer, again, is Baptism whereby one becomes a member of His Mystical Body.
The truth is that a wall of separation still exists among the non-Baptized peoples of the world and their various social groups. And yet Leo speaks as if there is no wallsimply because Christ loves us, each and every one.
When Leo gets to the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, we’ll find a similar disregard for Baptism. It’s part and parcel of the conciliar motif.
That said, let’s not be naïve, this phrase “wall of separation” as used by St. Paul refers to the “wall of partition” in the Temple in Jerusalem, the barrier that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the innermost area where only the Jews could enter.
There was an additional wall that separated the men from the women as well, a set up still commonly found in certain synagogues.
This is what moved St. Paul to write to the Galatians:
There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28 )
With this in mind, it’s reasonable to wonder if by citing the wall of separation being broken down, with no mention of Baptism, Leo was slyly expressing solidarity with the Jews, another common conciliar canard.
As we’ll see in this series if and when Leo gets to the text of Nostra Aetate, it also cites Ephesians 2 – I should say, misappropriates Eph 2 – while making the ludicrous claim that Christ made the Jews of our time one with the gentiles through His Cross.
One may have also noticed how Leo characterized the so-called liturgical celebration, otherwise known by most viewers of this channel as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He tells us with respect to the liturgy: What counts is being together.
Gather us in!
Speaking further of the liturgy, Leo once again stressed experience, saying:
Gathering together to celebrate, having believed in the proclamation of the Gospel, is experienced as an attraction exerted by the cross of Christ, which is the supreme manifestation of God’s love.
Once again, notice the appeal to experience! When Leo speaks of an attraction exerted by the cross, this might call to mind Pope St. Pius X once again, this time with regard to his treatment of the core modernist principle known as “vital imminence,” which he described as a movement of the heart, an interior impulse that manifests in a need for the divine.
That said, one might at least be grateful that Leo found a moment to mention the proclamation of the Gospel. I mean, surely he’s referring to the Church’s mission of teaching the nations everything whatsoever that Jesus commanded, right?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no, sorry, that’s not what he means.
At the Consistory of Cardinals in January, Leo said that the purpose of the Church is “to proclaim the Gospel.”
So far so good, but then he went on to cite Bergoglio’s Evangelii Gaudium, defining what that means as, “proclaiming the kerygma, the Gospel with Christ at its centre.”
“This,” he said, “is our mission.”
At this, we might ask: Exactly what is this kerygma of which he speaks?
If you’ll allow, I want to read a brief excerpt from an article that I wrote on this topic back in 2015. I’ll link it below.
“Kerygma” refers to the initial proclamation of Our Lord’s saving work to those who as yet have not encountered the message of salvation, or as Francis put it, “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.” (ibid)
According to the kerygmatic evangelical paradigm, the evangelist is primarily called to invite, encourage and accompanyhis listeners in experiencing God’s saving love, as opposed to teaching and forming them in the ways of Christian life.
Kerygma has little to do with teaching everything whatsoever that Our Lord commanded, and much to do with avoiding what the worldly might consider hard truths. And once more, we find that the believer’s experience is central to the kerygmatic mission!
This is what Leo means by “the proclamation of the Gospel.” He went on in his Audience to say about the experience of “gathering together to celebrate”:
It is feeling called together by God…
Feelings… nothing more than feelings…
Moving on, Leo once again stressed the role of experience, saying:
…the manifestation of what God wanted to achieve for the whole of humanity … is made known in local experiences…
This is yet another excellent example of modernism as dismantled by Pope St. Pius X.
Leo is stating that what God wanted to achieve, i.e., God’s will, is made known – not in the Divine Revelation entrusted to and explained by the Church’s sacred teaching authority – but rather is it made known in local experiences.
Pope Pius X indicates that, for the modernist, religious certitude is a function of individual experience, the authority of the Church is secondary to the religious consciousness of the believer, an awareness inspired by his experiences. The Holy Father describes the modernist mindset as follows:
Religious consciousness is given as the universal rule, to which all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in its teaching or legislative capacity.
The point is simply this: When Leo was first elected, the naïve were hoping he’d be a breath of fresh air. It ends up he’s cut not only from conciliar cloth but also good ol’ fashioned modernist cloth!
After having spoken as if Our Lord’s primary desire was to unite all creatures, and what’s more, this purpose has already been accomplished, Leo went on to contradict himself, which is a time-honored conciliar tradition. He said:
The condition of humanity is one of fragmentation that human beings are unable to repair…
Here, he speaks the truth: Unity among men has NOT been accomplished.
He later says, again, stating the truth:
It is through the Church that God achieves the aim of uniting people to Himself and reuniting them with one another.
But hold your applause. He also states with respect to the Church:
…this convocation cannot be limited to a group of people, but rather is destined to become the experience of all human beings.
No it’s not. This is nothing more than expressing hope that all will be saved.
The last major point raised with respect to Lumen Gentium in this Audience concerns the Council’s statement that the Church is the universal sacrament of salvation.
To be brief, a number of churchmen, like the eminent American theologian Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, objected to this idea for several reasons. For one, he believed that it might invite confusion insofar as there are only seven sacraments, not eight.
Fenton also objected to describing the Church as a sacrament by saying that it such a description neglects the traditional understanding of the Church as the “convocation of the faithful in Christ,” united in Christ as head, who rules via the Roman Pontiff, etc.
Furthermore, he was troubled by the fact that the Church as a sacrament finds no support in the most recent authoritative treatment of ecclesiology, namely, the 1943 Encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, wherein he described the Church as “the Mystical Body of Christ” … and a “visible society.”
I want to conclude this episode with one final quote from Leo stressing subjective human experience. This one is perhaps the most cringeworthy of all. He said:
Union with God is reflected in the union of human beings. This is the experience of salvation.
Does it sound to you as if Leo is referring to the Communion of Saints united in the beatific vision, ever joined together in the worship of Almighty God?
No, it doesn’t sound that way to me either. I think it’s pretty obvious he’s talking about the union of human beings in the here and now.
Sure, a foretaste of Heaven is made available in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but it seems reasonable to understand that Leo is speaking of man centered Utopian ideal.
“This,” Leo says, “is the experience of salvation.”
Now, at this, get out there and experience yourself some salvation. Until next time…
NOTE: The Kerygmatic Deception
