Today’s edition of L’Osservatore Romano has a front-page article written by the President of the newly reconfigured John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences, Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri (pictured above).
Msgr. Sequeri opens his essay by calling his readers’ attention to the very source and inspiration for the mission of the Institute as he and his humble superior understand it.
No, it’s not Amoris Laetitia, but rather Vatican Council II – the same that represents, according to such men, that “new beginning that can never be breached by a return to tradition” (as I recently wrote).
Please forgive the repetition, but it must be said yet again that the crisis besetting the Church in our day did not begin with Francis, it is simply flourishing on his watch like never before; most notably with the publication of Amoris Laetitia – a document cut entirely from conciliar cloth.
So, how did the Council give rise to Amoris Laetitia and likewise to the Institute that its author has charged with the task of spreading its poison?
The Council Fathers, according to Msgr. Sequeri, are to be credited with providing what he calls “the full redemption of conjugal intimacy.”
That’s conciliar-speak for the way in which Vatican II broke with tradition by giving the impression that the “mutual help” rendered by spouses to one another has pride of place in marriage.
Holy Mother Church, by contrast, has always taught that the “primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; its secondary end is mutual help and the allaying of concupiscence.” (See, e.g., 1917 Code of Canon Law, and Pope Pius XI, Casti Cannubii 17)
Gaudium et Spes states:
By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown. (GS 48)
Two articles later, the text is clearer still:
Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents. (GS 50)
Let us stop here for a moment…
One may be tempted to see the traditional teaching reflected these statements, but what we are witnessing is nothing less than the subtlety of the Master Deceiver at its finest.
It is one thing to plainly teach, as tradition surely does, that the procreation and education of children is “the primary end of marriage;” it is quite another to suggest that this is but “their ultimate crown,” and that children are “the supreme gift of marriage.”
The former teaching makes perfectly clear that the procreation and education of children is a duty that is necessarily enjoined upon the spouses; whereas the latter teaching reduces it to something more akin to an ideal.
Sound familiar?
It certainly should as Amoris Laetitia refers to Christian marriage as an “ideal” nearly two dozen times.
The Council immediately goes on to state in Gaudium et Spes – 48:
Thus a man and a woman, who by their compact of conjugal love “are no longer two, but one flesh” (Matt. 19:ff), render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day.
NB: In this, the Council is speaking as if the very purpose – indeed, the primary purpose – of “conjugal love” is to allow a man and a woman to “render mutual help and service to each other.”
Tradition says otherwise.
The naïve may feel compelled to argue that the Council is guilty in this case of mere ambiguity; as if there was no deliberate intent to reverse the primary and secondary ends of marriage as taught by tradition.
The very next sentence in Gaudium et Spes, however, leaves precious little doubt:
As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union and the good of the children impose total fidelity on the spouses and argue for an unbreakable oneness between them. (ibid.)
Notice the order: mutual gift, intimate union, the good of children…
The new Code of Canon Law (1983), the Introduction to which identifies the Second Vatican Council as being “of supreme importance in regard” to the “reform” of the 1917 Code that it represents, is more explicit still:
The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized. (Can. 1055 §1)
Again, note the order: “the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.”
Let us briefly recap the progression whereby the traditional doctrine has effectively been reversed:
– The Council presents the “procreation and education of children” in a way that paints it, not as a duty, but as an ideal that arguably some may attain, while others may not.
– The Council speaks as if the very purpose of “conjugal love” is to allow a man and a woman to “render mutual help and service to each other.”
– In the new Code of Canon Law, primacy is explicitly given to “partnership” and “the good of the spouses.”
From here, as bitter experience alone tells us, an openness to contraception was all but inevitable.
You see, if the procreation and education of children is simply an ideal or a gift in marriage, then avoiding pregnancy no longer seems like such a big deal, does it?
Enter Francis, whose solitary gift to Holy Church is his boldness in making the rupture between conciliar Rome and Eternal Rome ever more plain…
Francis is already on record as giving his assent to “the possibility of taking recourse to contraception or condoms” in certain situations, and there is good reason to believe a more explicit rejection of the traditional teaching has been in the works for some time, and will also be carried forward by the new JPII Institute.
This brings us to the present day and Amoris Laetitia where the next logical step in this regrettable slide has been taken…
Given that the “mutual help and the allaying of concupiscence” has effectively been established in conciliar Rome as the supreme good and primary end of the “matrimonial covenant,” with “conjugal love” being the means by which it is rendered between a man and a woman, one can hardly be surprised to find Amoris Laetitia making such claims as:
- Certain adulterous “second unions” can be characterized by “Christian commitment.” (cf AL 298)
- These unions may feature concrete situations that do not allow those involved to act differently and decide otherwise than to continue living more uxorio without further sin. (cf AL 301)
- Doing so may be considered at times “the most generous response which can be given to God.” (cf AL 303)
- It may even be “what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits”! (ibid.)
Follow the logic…
If “while yet not fully the objective ideal” (cf AL 303), “Christian commitment” is present in a given union – second, third or otherwise illicit – who can possibly argue against “conjugal love” between the participants; after all, this is how the supreme good of “mutual help and the allaying of concupiscence” is brought to bear?
Apart from Vatican Council II, which paved the way by effectively reversing the traditional teaching about the ends of marriage, thereby removing the duty attached to conjugal love, we don’t end up here.
In saying that the Council Fathers provided “the full redemption of conjugal intimacy,” clearly Msgr. Sequeri couldn’t be more wrong, but let’s give credit where credit is due:
He is 100% correct in identifying Vatican Council II as the source and inspiration for the work he has been given to do as President of the newly reconfigured John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.
At this, I can think of no better way to conclude this post than to reiterate to large extent what I wrote just a few days ago:
In this, the centenary year of Our Lady’s miraculous appearance at Fatima, let us remain ever diligent in connecting her message and the present ecclesial crisis with the errors of the Second Vatican Council.
If Holy Mother Church always taught that the primary purpose of marriage was procreation and along comes what appears to be Holy Mother Church teaching a contradiction, then logic dictates that it could not be Holy Mother Church teaching the contradiction. I know it is not comforting to accept this truth but accept it we all should do. To deny this is to suspend reason for emotion. When that happens you open yourself to a slew of errors and lies all directed at your emotions. I accept the sedevacantist position, not because it comforts my emotions, but solely on right reason and logic.
As someone married for decades, I am sad to say that our ‘union’ is not growing more perfect day by day. Of course that would only be an ideal, not hardly attainable anyway.
The Anabaptists, in addition to being smeared as Pelagians for insisting on holy living from their members, were also smeared as Donatists (who were called schismatics long before they were redefined as heretics) for insisting that the church was a communion of saints, not a communion of sinners. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned….
Michael F Poulin
It seems pretty obvious that the ultimate goal is the acceptance of sodomy and same sex “unions.” There is no way to cleanse the Church of the overwhelming scourge of the morally disordered among the clergy.
I’m calling myself inert because I’m way passed sick to death of the metaphors of accompaniment, journeying, traveling, encountering, pilgramaging, and dialoguing. I’m not going anywhere. God isn’t going anywhere either. We aren’t meeting up, we’ve always been together. They have flogged the God and man in motion horse to death long ago. Also, I’m a human being, not a human person.
I wish they could just use plain speech and stop with the constant buzz words. But then people might actually figure out their point and journey out the door faster than they already are.
You lost me.
“primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children; its secondary end is mutual help and the allaying of concupiscence.”
Since the Church has gotten away from that clear and true teaching, birth rates have fallen to extinction levels even in Poland, not to mention Italy, once highly fertile, and even now Latin America.
Vatican II, it turns out, was a Death Council.
So from the school of “theology of the body”, “annulments for $200”, “Pedophile ring”, “pantheistic adoration” to the school of “sodomy” and “Amoris laetitia”.
Bergoglio is not “newly configuring” JP2. He is fulfilling the true intent of “St.” JP2 who was a True Son of Vatican II, the foundation of the pseudo-church, established by the demonic enemies of Christ.
Dear Louie,
I am speachless. Yes it is me again, “Mrs.Primary Purpose”. Words cannot express how deeply pleased and happy I am to read this post of yours and that you have taken the time to underline this. Could today with the “once in a lifetime” constellation of Virgo with the twelve crowns and the squashing of the serpent be the new dawn of her Immaculate Heart at work with the soon to be “loosing steam” Satan. Please keep up the great work. We need blogs like yours. Our family is so looking forward to Fatima’s 100th year Anniverssary. May God speed.
O God come to our assistance, O Lord make haste to help us.
Dear Friends in Christ – In 2008, at the request of John Vennari, R.I.P., I wrote a seven-part Series for Catholic Family News titled “John Paul II and the Theology of the Body – A Study in Modernism.” The 80-page mini-book is available for a small charge at http://www.newengelpublishing.com/products/Theology-of-the-Body.html. I normally don’t charge for my articles but this study was expensive in terms of time and money. I believe that given the current and even greater attack on marriage and family in the days ahead, and the fact that the Theology of the Body is being marketed for pre-school children, every Catholic should read take time out to read this expose, especially parents. God bless, Randy Engel, aka Catholic contributor.
Dear Frank III,
Please know as you write,
“Since the Church has gotten away from that clear and true teaching,..”,
that the Church as Church–One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic–could not as it cannot, somehow have, “gotten away from that clear and true teaching”. That is a perfect ontological absurdity, as Jesus the Christ, Who is the Truth, cannot through His Mystical Body and Bride–HIS Church, be in contradiction. God cannot be in contradiction and that is why the Angelic Doctor taught the law of non-contradiction. It is so easy in these days of the Great Apostasy to fall into this diabolical trap. As Christ Jesus commanded in Matthew 16:18, “You are Sephas and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” One error, as one error in Dogma or Morality, brings down His entire Church which CANNOT happen as He deemed it so. What you call the “Church”, as everyone else who believes that any pope since 1958 is a true Holy Roman Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, lives an internal contradiction which should induce cognitive dissonance, and that contradiction will take, as it has taken, many souls to an eternity in hell, as outside the Church there is no salvation, deFide. The “conciliar church” IS NOT the Church of Jesus Christ as it teaches heresy and that is ontologically impossible as God commanded so. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Yes, life is serious, because it reaches even into eternity; and very sad is the spectacle of those who seem to live only for pleasure.
Blessed Columba Marmion
Please forgive the repetition, but it must be said yet again that the crisis besetting the Church in our day did not begin with Francis, it is simply flourishing on his watch like never before;
This can never be repeated enough. Vatican II docs and the new mass have to GO!
I am so sorry for having to post this .However, every single Catholic needs to read this especially these crazy ignorant and poorly educated clerics whom we call our Church Leaders.
http://josephsciambra.com/surviving-gaybarely/
Secondly, today I rec’d a call from a parent whose daughter has her children in a Catholic school. The insurance companies that service various Diocese are requiring every parent who wishes to volunteer on school Field Trips to be fingerprinted and go through a four hour mini course to recognize what pedophilia is.The trouble is that the young mothers who participated say that the films are all on PEDOPHILE PRIESTS and so they are wondering if their children are safe in the sacristy ,classrooms or confessionals and questioning even if they should raise their children in the Catholic Church. I sent a note to a friend who was consultant for “Spotlight”, the movie. He said the crazy thing is that our priests themselves are getting zero education on the topic of sexual child abuse.
Glad to see Bishop Fellay signed this. Will it do any good? Let us pray.
http://fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/clerical-and-lay-scholars-send-pope-correctio-filialis-about-amoris-laetitia-32163?utm_source=Society+of+Saint+Pius+X+%7C+Newsletter&utm_campaign=673c045535-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8c13eb2341-673c045535-203946641
Dear my2cents,
You had this to say, “Glad to see Bishop Fellay signed this.” That would be the same Bishop Fellay who then embraces Jorge from hell as “Pope” Francis. The same Fellay who wrote the forward for and whose Angelis Press published the diatribe, “True or False Pope”, which literally as actually collapses under its own weight of error on page 19 of the 700 pages. The same Fellay who purports to reject the teachings of so called “VCII” as it teaches heresy (see the “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church”, “Lumen Gentium” 16), and yet suggests that although the Council teaches heresy, the church that it purports to be a “Council” of, as the “Catholic Church”, is indeed the Catholic Church, although it teaches heresy. And finally that the “Catholic Church” which teaches heresy is headed by a true Holy Roman Pontiff. This defies the law of non-contradiction in such a profound way that the gates of hell are indeed prevailing against the “conciliar church” and taking souls to hell because it is not, as it cannot be, the One, True Church established by the Son of God Who commanded that the gates of hell would not prevail against It. And as there is no salvation outside the Church, this church of the Antichrist can only lead souls to hell, deFide.
Nothing new under the sun. Bishop Fellay, “Cardinal” Burke—good cops. Jorge from hell and his coterie, bad cops. In the end, same church as the “conciliar church”, aka., the church of the Antichrist. I pray this helps. In caritas.
Great points. Thanks!
That’s a good price, I’m buying it. I’ve read all your other books. It should be called “Theology of the Baloney.”
In Caritas—I agree with you. That is why I was somewhat surprised (and glad) that Fellay signed it. If Fellay wakes up and sees Bergoglio for what he is (a heretic), then the SSPX could really fight the enemy and “restore all things in Christ”. Until then, the SSPX is on the wrong side of history. Thank you for your thoughts, In Caritas.
Good Sunday morning, my2cents,
In humility, this can never be about “agreement” with another miserable human creature, with me as the first, as it is not about “opinion”, as matters deFide cannot ever be. This can only be, as it ever has been, about Truth, as He is a divine Person, the Son of God, as God, made true Man and His spotless Bride and Mystical Body, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which our Lord Jesus Christ established for the singular purpose of our salvation, outside of which no salvation exists, deFide. In that specific understanding my2cents, the “conciliar church” is from hell as the church of the Antichrist, as our Blessed Lord and God commanded, Whoever is not with Me is against Me. We know with metaphysical certitude, the intellective place where right reason rests, that this creature beast thing from hell cannot be Christ Jesus’ Church, as there is only One, and it cannot teach heresy, because our Lord and our God deemed as so. All we have to know is that one, that is, one single crumb of heresy is taught in what is purported to be a “Council” of the spotless Bride of Jesus the Christ and we know with metaphysical certitude then, in that very moment, that the church which does this, cannot be the Church founded by the Son of God made Man. As it cannot be the Church of the Son of God and yet it poses as though it is, we know through the gift of the Faith, that which is both freely given and completely undeserved, that it is from the Evil One, who is the great imposter, accuser, and imposer of deception, for his sole purpose of bringing souls into an eternity of hell in perfect desolation as isolation, with him.
You see my2cents, by Fellay “signing it”, he acknowledges within that very act, that he believes Jorge from hell to be the Holy Roman Pontiff. There in lies the danger. It is tantamount to a “good dream” to think of Jorge from hell as “an heretic”, when in truth he is an apostate the likes of which makes Martin Luther as an heretic, to appear as, and if it were possible, a saint. We are living in the Great Apostasy where the truth is the lie and the lie is the truth. Only by the reception of grace, that gift of the Holy Ghost which is both freely given and completely undeserved, can anyone see through this utter quagmire as deception. A dense fog with no light, as immanently understood, in sight. In this time as our time, only the infinite Light of Grace, showing those who receive it, through to the end. Will the “good cop” Burke now somehow enter as the “great healer” and “mender” of all the evil which Jorge from hell has made manifestly evident? Perhaps only God knows? God bless and keep you and yours’. In caritas.
exactly