[This article, by AS Fraser,
first appeared in Apropos No. 28, Christmas 2010. It has been posted on
the Apropos website www.apropos.org.uk ]
Monsignor Ronald Knox in his study, Enthusiasm(1),
remarks:
‘Shaftesbury
tells us that “inspiration is a real feeling of the Divine Presence, and
enthusiasm a false one”; but this easy habit of labelling and docketing is
everywhere the enemy of truth. What right have we to assume that the man who
lays credit to heavenly illumination must be either a saint or a fraud? Even
where a canonised saint is concerned, we know that his revelations are binding
on himself alone; we others are free to doubt them. We shall hesitate still
more about the ipse dixit of some religious leader, inside or outside the
Church, whose credentials we must needs assess on their own merits….(2)
Does this advice apply equally to the ipse
dixit [say so] of a Pope who may have claimed to have received some
inspiration or illumination or indeed none? We suggest that it does unless it
conforms to the already revealed teaching of the Church. We have no less a
teacher than St Paul on this question who in Galatians (1:8-9) warns us
that we must test what we are told against what has already been revealed:
‘But though we, or an angel from heaven,
preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be
anathema.
As we said before, so now I say again: If
any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him
be anathema.’
St Vincent of Lerins
We are not well enough versed in Scripture
to claim that such a warning doubly voiced is unique, but it is nevertheless
salutary and St Paul even cautions us against himself should he ever, for
whatever reason, preach a gospel other than that received and already preached
by him. Here we find the basis of St Vincent of Lerins’ formula that:
‘Curandum est, ut id teneamas quod ubique,
quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est.’ – ‘We must take care to hold that
which was everywhere, always and by everyone believed.’
St Vincent adds: ‘Hoc est enim vere
proprieque catholicum’ - ‘For that is truly and in the strictest sense
“Catholic”’.
It is true that St Paul’s warning is
directed against false teaching but nevertheless it does suggest to us that a
degree of discernment is required when appraising what a churchman or even a
pontiff might say where what is said does not fall within the remit of the
extraordinary or ordinary Magisterium of the Church.
Can one disagree with the Pope?
For Catholics inclined to papolatria(3) and who hang on any papal ipse dixit, we also cite the
modern and entirely reasonable argument of Fr. Calmel which was related by Jean
Madiran in his postscript to Fr. Calmel’s book, Brève apologie pour l’Eglise
du toujours. Monsieur Madiran recounts that, in the reign of Pius XII,
traditionalists (in France) were intemperate and imprudent regarding the
papacy, an attitude which led to the accusation of papolatry. He identified
Marcel Clement as particularly remiss in this regard
and cites the occasion when Monsieur Clement, following Jean Ousset’s example, ‘repeated
St Pius X’s phrase: “It is not possible to have holiness where there is
disagreement with the Pope”’. Madiran continues:
‘Fr. Calmel put much energy into rejecting
this proposition. The authority invoked did not weaken his conviction. St Pius
X is St Pius X – Fr. Calmel venerated him with all his heart but in this matter
the pope was expressing a private opinion which was incorrect. The history of
the Church shows us canonized saints who disagreed with popes who were not
canonized. Fr. Calmel also appealed to theology and to common sense. St Pius X
in this same discourse to priests of 2nd November
1912 … declared, “One cannot limit the field in which the Pope may and must
exercise his will”(4). Fr.
Calmel tells us that if one understands this in the sense that the field has no
limit or only the limit prescribed by each pontiff, in the absence of all
objective criteria, one falls into manifest error. He spoke in vain, the error
was not apparent to us. The course of events served to instruct us better.’(5)
The most dyed-in-the-wool supporters of
Vatican II, however, are unlikely to suffer from papolatrist or ultramontane
sentiments or at least they would have us so believe. They can, however, be as
equally papolatrist when the Pope conforms, at least in their estimation, to their
Modernist ideas or when his actions or motivations appear to suit their aims or
aspirations.
John XXIII’s Inspiration
Inspiration for the Second Vatican Council
is generally attributed to Pope John XXIII and by his own admission to
inspiration from on high. In his convocation of the Council, the Pope makes
reference to an inspiration which led him to call the Council:
‘For this reason, welcoming as from above
the intimate voice of our spirit, we considered that the times now were right
to offer to the Catholic Church and to the world the gift of a new Ecumenical
Council, as an addition to, and continuation of, the series of the twenty great
councils, which have been through the centuries a truly heavenly providence for
the increase of grace and Christian progress.’(6)
There is no doubt therefore that the
Second Vatican Council was called as a result of Pope John’s response to the ‘intimate
voice’ of his spirit which he welcomed ‘as from above’. As Ronald
Knox advised us in Enthusiasm, we are perfectly free to doubt, or at
least to question the Pope’s illumination. And in the light of the Council’s
fruits, the average Catholic Fruit Inspector, as Robert Hickson would put it,
has the right to draw his own conclusions.
Reasoned consideration or impulse?
In his opening speech to the Council, John
XXIII gives us what we will later show is an edited version of his account of
the inspiration which led to the Council – a deliberation arrived at, it seems,
not as a result of reasoned consideration but in response to what seemed an
impulse:
‘As regards the initiative for the great
event which gathers us here, it will suffice to repeat as historical
documentation our personal account of the first sudden bringing up in our heart
and lips of the simple words, “Ecumenical Council”. We uttered those words in
the presence of the Sacred College of Cardinals on that memorable January 25th,
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. And at the same time it gave rise to a great
fervour throughout the world in expectation of the holding of the Council.’(7)
Subsequent accounts of this inspiration
seem to conflict with this ‘historical’ account presented to the Council
Fathers in such effusive terms. Perhaps, however, it was merely an extremely
redacted version to highlight the inspiration rather than the actual
circumstances thereof.
Peter Hebblethwaite in his biography, John
XXIII – Pope of the Council, devotes a chapter to the subject of
inspiration of the Council. He reports the testimony of Cardinal Ottaviani,
given in an interview in Epocha on 8th December
1968(8), that he had visited Cardinal Roncalli in
his cell during the conclave and had said to him: ‘Your eminence, we have to
think about a council’. Cardinal Ottaviani then recalls:
‘Cardinal Ruffini who was also present,
was of the same opinion. Cardinal Roncalli made this idea his own, and was
later heard to say, “I was thinking about a council from the moment I became
Pope.”’(9)
Hebblethwaite remarks that, ‘Ottaviani
was of course here claiming credit for having been the first to propose the
summoning of the Council. It would be ill-becoming to accuse the pro-prefect of
the Holy Office of bare-faced lying’. Hebblethwaite, to be fair, records that
both Cardinals Ruffini and Ottaviani had form in their calls for a Council. He
reports that Ruffini had encouraged the newly elected Pius XII to call a
council, and that Ottaviani and Ruffini were associated in a 1948 project for a
council.
Hebblethwaite admits, however,
that it is John XXIII’s accounts of how and when the idea or inspiration came
to him, ‘that have muddled and misled everyone’
.
These accounts are recorded thus by
Hebblethwaite:
History of that inspiration
October 30th 1958:
Archbishop Capovilla states that John XXIII on this date first mentioned ‘the
necessity of holding a council.(10)
November 2nd 1958:
John XXIII noted in a memo after meeting Cardinal Ruffini that they had
discussed the possibility of calling a council.(11)
November 2nd 1958:
John XXIII says to Capovilla: ‘There should be a Council’.(12)
November 4th 1958:
John XXIII crowned Pontiff
Early November 1958: ‘He [John
XXIII] spoke about the Council to Giovanni Urbani, his successor as
Patriarch of Venice, and Girolamo Bortignon, bishop of Padua.’(13)
January 8th 1959:
John XXIII meets Don Giovanni Rossi and tells him: ‘I want to tell you
something marvellous, but you must promise to keep it secret. Last night I had
the great idea of holding a Council…The Holy Spirit doesn’t help the Pope. I’m
simply His helper. He did everything. The Council is His idea.’(14)
January 20th
1959: The Pope meets Cardinal Tardini and gauges his reaction
to the proposal of an Ecumenical Council.
January 22nd 1959:
John XXIII ‘now bubbling over with enthusiasm’ announces his intention
to hold a Council to the Andreotti family who were sworn to secrecy.
January 25th 1959:
John XXIII announces his intention to hold a Council to assembled Cardinals at
St Paul’s–without-the-walls.
May 8th 1962:
In an address to Venetian Pilgrims, John XXIII told them how the Council came
about:
‘Where did the idea of an Ecumenical
Council come from? How did it develop? The truth is that the idea and even more
its realisations were so unforeseen as to seem unlikely. A question was raised
in a meeting I had with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tardini, which led on to
a discussion about the way the world was plunged into so many grave anxieties
and troubles… What should the Church do? Should Christ’s mystical barque simply
drift along, tossed this way and that by the ebb and flow of the tides? Instead
of issuing new warnings, shouldn’t she stand as a beacon of light? What could
that exemplary light be?’
‘My interlocutor listened with reverence
and attention. Suddenly my soul was illumined by a great idea which came
precisely at that moment and which I welcomed with ineffable confidence in the
divine Teacher. And there sprang to my lips a word that was solemn and
committing. My voice uttered it for the first time: a Council.’(15)
Embarrassed commentators
Hebblethwaite could find it no more
becoming to accuse the Pontiff of bare-faced lying than to accuse Cardinal
Ottaviani. But he does acknowledge that this account poses a problem, and that
it would be simply false for the Pope to claim that he had never pronounced the
word ‘Council’ prior to 20th January 1959.
Hebblethwaite admits too that a passage in John XXIII’s Journal in which
he asserts a similar account ‘has embarrassed commentators’. Hebblethwaite
concludes that ‘the January 20th 1959
meeting cannot have happened exactly as he later described it because he
himself had already admitted to Felici that the proposals for a Roman Synod and
the revision of canon law [also aired at the meeting]
came to him from others. Hebblethwaite suggests by way of explanation, ‘That
[Pope] John’s memory faltered and that his unconscious editing of his
reminiscences is designed to emphasise, yet again that the idea of the Council
was an “inspiration” in the sense defined above.’(16)
The account of the inspiration for the
Council given to Council Fathers for the historical record, was, it seems, not
quite that ‘flash of heavenly light, shedding sweetness in eyes and hearts’.
Nor could his uttering of the words ‘ecumenical Council’ there be
remotely described as completely unexpected nor as a flash of heavenly light,
particularly so when he had already aired the idea with Tardini among others.
According to Hebblethwaite:
‘The seventeen cardinals were unresponsive
to his dramatic announcement. For all they appeared to care, he might have been
reading out his laundry list. He was bitterly disappointed. He said so plainly:
“Humanly speaking, we would have expected that the cardinals, after listening
to our address, might have crowded round to express their approval and good
wishes.” But they did nothing of the kind.’(17)
Wild fantasy
or binding inspiration
The whole question of inspiration
nevertheless was something that clearly figured in John XXIII’s mind.
Hebblethwaite is of the opinion that the Pontiff did not understand this as a
private revelation nor as a special vision or other such manifestation. He
proffers the opinion that such an inspiration was of the nature of ideas that
came in prayer and that Pope John would have discerned these spirits using the
Ignatian ‘discernment of spirits’, winnowing or evaluating them ‘according
to their persistence and the “consolation” or “desolation” they brought.’ According
to Hebblethwaite:
‘What Pope John most wanted to know was
whether the idea was “not some wild fantasy or spectacular improvisation, but
an inspiration (ispirazione) that bound him, as ever, to submit to the Lord’s
will” (Letture p.266). He feared in other words that it might be no more than a
temptation, a deceiving will o’ the wisp or an indulgent ego-trip. He wanted to
know whether it was “of God”, a grace, an inspiration.’(18)
One can only conjecture that this thought
continued to haunt him even years later, and perhaps accounts for his repeated
redaction of the circumstances surrounding his inspiration. If it was an idea
that arose out of prayer rather than a private revelation why was it expressed
more in the language of the latter rather than the former: ‘the flash of
heavenly light’, ‘the shedding of sweetness and light’, ‘a soul illumined with
a great idea’? Was his discernment of spirits exacting enough when he told
his friend Rossi that the night before he had had a great idea to hold a
Council? Certainly, both Paul VI and John Paul II held the opinion that John
called the Council under divine inspiration. Paul VI in his opening speech to
the Second Session of the Council suggested that gratitude and praise be given
to Pope John, ‘for having resolved - doubtless under divine inspiration – to
convoke this Council…’. John Paul II made reference too in his audience of
Wednesday 25th November 1981
to ‘the mysterious and irresistible inspiration of the Holy Spirit’ which
led John to convoke the Council.
It must be the Holy Spirit
There is no indication, however, that Pope
John, sought, as Peter Hebblethwaite charitably suggests, that discernment of
spirits through counsel other than his own. It appears that it was he alone who
decided the source of that inspiration – even though it is now admitted that
another voice or inspiration suggested a less than divine source to him. This
admission perhaps expresses the Pontiff’s fears more acutely than those we have
already quoted. He was not so much afraid of his inspiration being a wild
fantasy as something more sinister. Cardinal Franz König recounts:
In January 1959, while he was still
finally making up his mind whether he should call a council or not, he seemed
at times to be amazed by his own courage. Soon after he had announced that he
was summoning a council, he confided to me in a private audience how, during
the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity in January 1959, the idea suddenly
came to him. ‘My first thought was that the devil was trying to tempt me. A
council at the present time seemed so vast and complicated an undertaking. But
the idea kept returning all that week while I was praying. It became more and
more compelling and emerged ever more clearly in my mind. In the end I said to
myself, “This cannot be the devil, it must be the Holy Spirit inspiring me”’.(19)
One can only read this with amazement. The
Pontiff made the decision that his inspiration was divine rather than diabolic
because it became more and more compelling and emerged ever more clearly in his
mind. Such is hardly sufficient reason for determining the source of an
inspiration.
As Romano
Amerio reminds us, ‘In the case of Vatican II, there were no prior
consultations as to whether the council was necessary or opportune’,(20) and as Cardinal Pallavicini, historian of the Council of Trent,
remarked, ‘to convoke a General Council, except when absolutely demanded by
necessity, is to tempt God.’(21)
.
Was God tempted?
It is not for us mere mortals to decide
whether God was tempted or not. But we can assess the fruits thus far of the
Council not only according to our own calculation but by the Popes themselves.
John XX111 died before the Council began in earnest. He had been full of what
some have described in various ways as over-optimism. Had he lived to see the
post-conciliar period and the immediate inheritance of the Council he might
have questioned again from whence his inspiration came.
We know that Paul VI in a sermon on the
Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, 1972 (22) was
constrained to suggest that the smoke of Satan had somehow entered the temple
of God and that the Devil came to suffocate the fruits of Vatican II. He also
stated that ‘The Church is in a disturbed period of self-criticism, or what
would better be called auto-demolition. It is an acute and complicated upheaval
which nobody would have expected after the council. It is almost as if the
Church were attacking herself.’ Cardinal Ratzinger too, in his Jesus Interview,
admitted that the results of the Council ‘seem cruelly opposed to
everyone’s expectations, beginning with those of John XXIII and then of Paul
VI.’ He proceeded to acknowledge that ‘The net result therefore seems
negative: I am merely repeating here what I had already said ten years after
the close of the Council’s work – it is incontrovertible that this period has
definitely been an unfavourable one for the Catholic Church.’ (23) Cardinal Ratzinger did not blame this upon the Council but upon
what he called the Konzilsungeist, ‘the anti-spirit of the council’ which
‘held that everything that is new (or can be considered as such: how many
ancient heresies re-surfaced during those years, to be hailed as novelties!) is
always superior to what already exists. And according to this “anti-Spirit”,
the history of the Church was to be seen as making a fresh start as from the
Ecumenical Council of Vatican II.’(24)
Widespread apostasy
And in his meditation on the ninth station
of the Via Crucis in 2005 a few days before his election as Pope Benedict XVI,
the Cardinal made his famous observation about ‘filth’ in the Church.
But his meditation was perhaps not so much about child abuse, as was presumed
generally, but rather about widespread apostasy of which child abuse was but
one manifestation:
‘Should we not also think of how much
Christ suffers in His own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of His
Presence abused, how often must He enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we
celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that He is there! How often is
His Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many
theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even
among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to Him! How much
pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament
of Reconciliation, where He waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we
fall!’
In the prayer
following that unprecedented meditation, he describes the Church of today in
terms utterly devoid of the post-conciliar optimism which his predecessors
repeated mantra-like upon the deck as, in natural terms, the barque of Peter,
appeared to be sinking:
‘Lord, your Church often seems like a boat
about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more
weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into
confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you
time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy
on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag
you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to
rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your
Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You
stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your
Church. Save and sanctify us all.’
Vigilant and hostile intelligences
None of us will know this side of Heaven
whether John XXIII’s inspiration was of divine or diabolic origin. We do know,
however, as the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us, that the ‘the activity of
Satan does much more than merely add a further source of temptation to the
weakness of the world and the flesh; it means a combination and an intelligent
direction of all the elements of evil…’ and that ‘the perils of the
situation are incalculably increased when all may be organized and directed by
vigilant and hostile intelligences.’(25) We
know from the experience of such great Saints as the Curé d’Ars, that even
saints can be deceived by the Evil One who ‘imitates the inspirations of the
Holy Ghost’. The Curé d’Ars almost succumbed to temptation on occasion
because such ‘had worn the disguise of love for God.’
When we consider John XXIII’s inspiration
to hold a Council, therefore, we cannot know whether such was an inspiration or
an imitation. All we do know is that following from that inspiration, the
Church was subjected to a great revolution which has led to widespread apostasy
– an apostasy which has all the hallmarks of having been devised by ‘vigilant
and hostile intelligences’. Did not Sister Lucy of Fatima too, in a letter
to her friend, write about the ‘diabolical disorientation invading the world
and deceiving souls?’
Cardinal Ratzinger’s prayer, at the Ninth
Station of the Cross in 2005, was a clear recognition of that apostasy and its
diabolic author. The Apostle Paul has taught us how we must combat this
powerful enemy:
‘Put you on the armour of God, that you
may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not
against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the
rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the
high places.’ (Ephesians 6:11, 12).
Perhaps above all its great faults, the
post-conciliar Church in its over-optimistic hubris completely underestimated,
or even ignored, Satanic power – a power which can only be exorcised by ‘prayer
and fasting’ both of which were casualties of the post-conciliar
revolution. These tools are undoubtedly a prerequisite to ‘a grand and
possibly definitive ordering of the last Council in all its dimensions and
content’ at the highest level of the Magisterium – as called for by Mgr
Brunero Gherardini in his important work: The Ecumenical Vatican Council II
– A Much Needed Discussion. Until such a definitive ordering occurs we feel
that John XXIII’s legacy, the Second Vatican Council, will continue to
frustrate his concern in his opening speech, ‘that the sacred deposit of
Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously’.(26) In that same speech he declared: ‘We feel we must disagree
with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end
of the world were at hand.’ That his
successors should speak of the state of the Church in terms of near despair is
testimony to how wrong he was to consider that ‘Divine Providence is leading
us to a new order of human relations which by men’s own efforts and even beyond
their very expectations, are directed toward the fulfilment of God’s superior
and inscrutable designs.’ This new order does not sit well with his
successor’s assessment on Good Friday 2005 of a Church filled with ‘pride
and self-complacency’ - the first of which is the vice of the Father of
Lies, he who ‘imitates the inspiration of the Holy Ghost’. Would Pope
John XXIII have felt so confidant in his inspiration had he been granted a
vision of the consequences of the Council thus far?
ASF
NOTES:
1 Enthusiasm – A Chapter in the History of Religion, RA Knox, OUP (Clarendon Press), 1950.
2 Ibid. p.8
3 Literally, worship of popes – those who hang on every word of a Pope as
if it were revealed truth.
4 Alas, Paul VI subscribed to much the same sentiments, as those
expressed by St Pius X, in his attempted abrogation of the traditional Mass.
5 Louis Salleron was one of the few to share Fr. Calmel’s opinion at that
time.
6 Humanae Salutis, December 25th 1961, The Documents of Vatican II, Abbot
version. 1966, p.705
7 The Documents of Vatican II, Abbot version. 1966, p.711.
8 Testimony he
repeated in a conversation with Bernard R Bonnot, an American graduate student
in February 1975. cf. Pope John XXIII,
Peter Hebblethwaite, p. 283.
9 John XXIII, Peter
Hebblethwaite, p. 283
10 Ibid, p.307
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid. p.312
15 Quoted by Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII, p.316
16 Peter Hebblethwaite, John XXIII, p. 318
17 Ibid. p.322.
18 Ibid. p. 308
19 Cardinal Franz König, ‘It must be the Holy Spirit
–How Vatican II changed the Church’ The Tablet 21st December 2002.
20 Iota Unum, p.
48.
21 Hist. Conc. Trid. Lib. XVI. C. 10, tom.ii. p.800. Antwerp, 1670.
22 Only a summary exists in Italian of this Papal homily
on the Vatican website. In the volumes, The Teachings of Pope Paul VI, published
by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the homily is missing in its entirety!
23 An interview with Vittorio Messori in Jesus magazine.
1985 See ‘Why the Faith is in a State of Crisis’: Supplement to Approaches
No. 89. p. 9.
24 Ibid
25 Entry for “The Devil”.
26 Opening Speech to the Council,
The Documents of
Vatican II, Abbott version, p.713.
With thanks to Anthony Fraser at the
APROPOS website. A printable pdf version of this article is available there.
