The Destruction of the Christian
Tradition (Part 5)

by

Rama P. Coomaraswamy, MD

Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 14, Nos. 1 & 2 (Winter-Spring, 1980). © World Wisdom, Inc.
www.studiesincomparativereligion.com

To read Part 4 of this series of articles, Tradition by Rama P. Coomaraswamy as it appeared in the Summer-Autumn 1979 edition of Studies in Comparative Religion">click here.

The Road to Hell is paved with “Good Intentions”

In the Gospel also we read that it was foretold that our foes should rather be of our own household, and that they who have first been associated in the sacrament of unity shall be they who shall betray one another.

(Epistles of St. Cyprian LIV)

Why have all these changes been instituted? One must remember that, as William Blake said of a former pontiff:

And Caiaph was, in his own mind,
A benefactor to mankind.

Either those responsible had a defective faith, or they were not even Christian! For all their “sincerity” and “good will”, they, like the Protestant Reformers of an earlier age, could not abide and accept Holy Mother Church as she had always been. It was perfectly obvious to those brought up in the traditional Church that her mind and thinking was diametrically opposed to that of so-called “contemporary man”. The innovators felt that if “the Church did not speak to modern man” (they themselves being modern man), it was clearly the Church that was at fault. Imbued with the false ideas of progress and evolution, they forgot that it was “modern man who would not listen to the Church”. Despite their decrying of the title, they were themselves “modernists” and “liberals” who sought to bring the Church—essentially a “timeless” structure—into the modern world: not as something inimical to the modern world, not as an entity whose function it was to instruct and guide the modern world in God’s ways, but as part and parcel of that world—in the “avant-garde” and “forefront” of its deviations from the norm that Christ established. It is precisely in this sense that the Conciliar Church has abandoned its role of “master” (magister) and declared itself to be the “servant” of the world.[1] They wished to make the Church “relevant” in a world that itself had lost all relevance and was entleert [emptied] of meaning, a world that was “alienated” and had lost sight of “the one thing necessary”. What is all this talk of “serving” the “world”, but the rendering unto Caesar of what is God’s?

Now, if the Church was to be “changed”, what guidelines and what authority was to be appealed to? They only alternative to “tradition” is in the last analysis, “private judgment”—the “collective” private judgment of those whose souls had been corrupted by the “collective” errors of our times. What resulted has been described by Malcolm Muggeridge as “suicide”.[2] It was both predictable and inevitable.

Aggiornamento is the battle cry of the innovators. With what is this aggiornamento to take place? What are some of the main themes that run through the thinking of the Post-Conciliar Church? Let us try to come to terms with this entity.

Paramount and basic is the modernist concept of “LIBERTY”.[3] This is in its extreme form what can be described as the absolute sovereignty of the individual in his entire independence of God and God’s authority. Rejecting the principle of absolute authority in religion, modern man holds that every individual (or sect) may reject part, or all, of the deposit of Revelation, and interpret whatever he chooses to retain according to the dictates of his private judgment. For man to submit to any authority that is higher than himself is for him to lose his “dignity” as man. (Anyone who does so is described as “rigid”, “old-fashioned”, “superstitious”, “unwilling to be a responsible person”, and above all, a person who is “opposed to progress”.) Now this “liberal” principle, impelled by the law of its own impotence, inevitably gives birth to endless differences and contradictions. In the last analysis, it is forced to recognize as valid, any belief that springs from the exercise of private judgment—dogma is replaced by mere opinion. Therefore does it finally arrive, by the force of its own premises, at the conclusion that one creed is as good as another; it then seeks to shelter its inconsistency under the false plea of “liberty of conscience”.

Stemming from this false idea of liberty that makes each man his own highest authority for the determination of the Truth, is the contention that all religious points of view are equally good (or bad). Surely, it is clear that a man, who under the plea of rational liberty has the right to repudiate any part of Revelation that may displease him, cannot logically quarrel with another man who, on the same grounds, repudiates the whole! Not only is one creed as good as another; no creed is as good as any. Modern man is tired of all the individualistic and subjective religious controversy that has resulted, and being totally unfamiliar with traditional concepts, cannot understand religious exclusivity. For him the supernatural is vaguely identified with the superstitious, faith with credulity, firmness with fanaticism, the uncompromising with the intolerant, and consistency with narrowness of outlook. The very idea that a religion should have the “fullness of the truth” appears to him both incongruous and offensive. Hence he not only holds that one religion is as good as another, but that all religions should be relegated to the “private sector” of our lives. All he asks of his fellow man is a modicum of “sincerity” and “good will”, and that he keep his religious views to himself. The very topic is not to be discussed “in polite society”. And these are precisely the ideas that are fundamental to the “Ecumenical Movement”, a phenomenon so patently anti-Christian that the Greek Orthodox Church in North America has been led to promulgate a document advising its followers to avoid any involvement in this form of “secularized Christianity”.

It further follows, once the above propositions are accepted, that no religion should hold a position of prominence in the state. Civil authority should treat denominations equally, whether they be good or bad. Since the possibility of objective truth is denied, religion becomes at best “tolerated”,—when it competes with the state for the “control” of mankind’s mind, it is decried as being “against progress”, and labeled as “the opiate of the people”. The basis for the authority of the civil state resides, not in God, but in the rights of the people (“self-determination”) to make their own laws in entire independence and utter disregard of any other criteria than the popular will expressed at the polls. These in turn are often controlled and manipulated by anti-Christian forces. Not infrequently what results is that Barabbas is released while Christ is crucified![4]

The idea of a “Catholic state” is not only rejected, it is seen as an “evil” to be destroyed. What is shocking is that such an attitude has been embraced by Vatican II! Listen to the documents:

The Christian faithful, like other men, should enjoy on the level of the state, the right of in no way being hindered from leading their lives according to their conscience. It is entirely in accord with the liberty of the Church and the freedom of religion that all men and all communities should have this right accorded to them as a civil and legal right.

This is why the hierarchy in such Catholic countries as Spain and Portugal have actively interfered with the political structure to favor its “liberalization” and “democratization”. And it naturally follows from such attitudes that there should be absolute freedom of worship, the supremacy of the state, the separation of Church and God from civil authority, secular education[5] and civil marriage. The New Church with a “mandate from Vatican II” is actively campaigning to promote the secularization of Catholic countries such as Italy and Ireland. In the practical order what results is that Communists, Freemasons and Satan worshippers are treated on an “equal footing” with Divine Revelation.[6]

Other consequences also result. In the realm of morality, no absolute values are to be embraced. What is considered to be for the greatest convenience of the most-people (often a well organised minority in practice) is legislated by the state, a process that allows for such abominations as abortion and euthanasia to become the “law of the land.” Apart from this, private morality is limited only by the need to protect others from the ravages of any one individual’s passions. This new moral outlook is propagandized under the title of “situation ethics”, and we find the Catholic Theological Society of America stating without any official contradiction that homosexuality and adultery can be considered acceptable, so long as they are, in the pseudo-scientific terms of modern psychology, “self-liberating, other-enriching, honest, faithful, socially responsible, life-serving and joyous”.[7] Those who will rapidly cry that such a statement is an “abuse”, should consider the teaching of Vatican II in which the faithful are instructed to:

blend modern science and its theories and the understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality and doctrine. Thus their religious practice and morality can keep pace with their scientific knowledge and with an ever advancing technology...

(Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World—Gaudium et Spes)

There can never be “Joy and Hope” in such a teaching as anyone who is a victim of modern technology well knows.

Beyond this, all hierarchy in values, in persons and in function is to be eliminated. (In practice, those established by God and based on the “natural law” are eliminated in favor of those established by a monied society or the state). Just as in the intellectual order, the “shackles” of Revelation were rejected in the name of “free thought” and “untrammeled reason”, which has resulted in some of the basest ideas known to the history of mankind being accepted as “normal”, so also in the political realm, the Kings, having rejected any control by the legitimate “spiritual authority”, were in turn destroyed by the monied interests—powers in turn are again threatened by still lower forces. A false “egalitarianism” (all souls are indeed of equal value in the eyes of God) that would make the “lowest common denominators” in all realms the criteria on which we base our value judgments is foisted upon society.[8] Thus for example, the fact that a priest is a man set apart with special privileges and even greater responsibilities is decried. Under the cry of “collegiality”, the Bishops encroach upon Papal authority. Priest’s “senates” are created to vie with the authority of the Bishops. The laity have preached to them a false concept of “the priesthood of the People of God” (a favorite theme of Luther) which allows them to claim the authority of the clergy, and the “hierarchical” structure of the sanctuaries is at great expense torn down so that instead of kneeling at the altar rail, they are invited to “sit around” the “table”, to handle the sacred vessels, and to join the “president” in the “Eucharistic meal” as an equal. Nothing will satisfy the forces of rebellion until the “lumpen-proletariat” rules the world, and the basest concepts of brutalized man (such as Russia’s “Gulags”, Hitler’s death camps, or for that matter the acceptance of abortion and euthanasia) become the statistical norm for proper thinking. Satan’s theme song will always be “Release Barabbas and Crucify Christ”—a perfectly “democratic” legalism and a classical example of how a small minority is able to influence the “popular vote” to its own sinister ends.

Now, the hierarchy of the New Church would have an aggiornamento with all these concepts. True, they do not embrace them in the extreme form—but the principles are accepted. It is an old dream of mankind that one can play with fire without getting burnt—that Christ and Barabbas can come to terms and “co-exist”, and that “one can have one’s cake and eat it”. The problem is, once the principles are accepted, the consequences must inevitably follow. Those who would “revolutionize” the Church would do well to remember the warning of the Jacobean Illuminato (Freemason), St.-Just, who was a leader of the French Revolution. “Whoever stops half-way revolution digs his own grave!” And thus we have a modern world that is splintered and chaotic, a world that is, in the phraseology of the historian, “post-Christian”; and in that of the psychologist, “alienated”; a “shark’s world” that chases after everything but “the one thing necessary”. And what role is left for the New Church to play in such a world? This is the question that poses itself to the modernist who would retain at least the semblance of his Christian roots.[9] The answer lays in “unity”, a mankind dedicated to the “new humanism”, to a “universal culture” acting in consort to build a “better world” in the future.[10]

The function of the New Church is to be a “catalyst” for this unity—“The Church is a kind of sacrament of intimate union with God, and the unity of all mankind, that is, she is a sign and an instrument of such union and unity…At the end of time, she will achieve her glorious fulfillment. Then…all just men from the time of Adam will be gathered together with the Father in the universal Church”. In these statements, taken from Vatican II, note the ambiguity, and disguised millenarianism. They continue. Of course, the Church “recognizes that worthy elements are to be found in today’s social movements, especially in an evolution towards unity”, and hence she must join and encourage all such elements, and she must “wipe out every ground of division so that the whole human race may be brought into the unity of the family of God”. Elsewhere, we are given further insights into this proposed unity. “Recent psychological research explains human activity more profoundly. Historical studies make a signal contribution to bringing man to see things in their changeable and evolutionary aspects. The human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one…Thus little by little, a more universal form of human culture is developing, one which will promote and express the unity of the human race… The Church further recognizes that worthy elements are to be found in today’s social movements, especially an evolution towards unity, a process of wholesome socialization and of association in civic and economic realms… It is a fact bearing on the very person of man, that he can come to an authentic and full humanity only through culture,[11] that is, through the cultivation of natural goods and values… The Church believes she can contribute greatly towards making the family of man and its history more human… Thus we are witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined first of all by his responsibility towards his brothers and towards history.” (All quotations here are from Vatican II.) Now all these statements falsify the nature and true ends of man, as well as the function of the Church. Further, they are based on a variety of parochial and theoretical sociological assumptions that have no basis in fact such as man’s inevitable “progress”, his “dynamic” and “evolutionary” character,[12] and the idea that we are in fact “building a better world”.[13]  Yet it is on just these false bases that the New Church would found its concept of “unity”. As Paul VI has said, “The time has come for all mankind to unite together in the establishment of a community that is both fraternal and worldwide…The Church, respecting the ability of worldly powers, ought to offer her assistance in order to promote a full humanism, which is to say, the complete development of the entire man, and of all men…to place herself in the avant-garde of social action. She ought to extend all her efforts to support, encourage and bring about those forces working towards the creation of this integrated man. Such is the end which the (new) Church intends to follow. All (Post-conciliar) Catholics have the obligation of assisting this development of the total person in conjunction with their natural and Christian brothers, and with all men of good will.” And why did Montini throw in his lot with such ideas? “Because”, as he has said on many occasions, “we have confidence in man, because we believe in that fount of goodness which is in each and every heart.”[14]  Rousseau could not have said it better!

According to Brian Kaiser, John XXIII saw Christian unity as a necessary precursor to the “unity of all mankind”. It is, as it were, the first step to be achieved. Thus the periti at the Council, wishing to stress similarities rather than differences, developed the concept of “imperfect communion”. The various Christian communities that are “outside full communion” with the Catholic Church must be integrated with her. “All those who believe in Christ (whether as God or as an ‘ethical-leader’ is never specified) and have received baptism, are in a certain communion with the Catholic Church, though not a perfect one.” They contain “elements” such as “the written Word of God, the life of grace, the theological virtues and the interior gifts of the Holy Spirit”, and hence, with them “the Church is linked for various reasons”. It is with these groups that “unity” is first of all to be established.

What is lost sight of is that the reason the Protestants lack “perfect” unity is because they reject the fullness of the faith, and accept, in various degrees, the whole liberal spectrum of false ideas that we have outlined in the preceding paragraphs.[15] In any event “unity” with the Protestants on the part of the true Church is a pure chimera. Apart from the fact that the “Prodigal son” must return to the “bosom of the Father”, and not the other way around, no two Protestants even within a given denomination fully agree—except by accident—on what they should believe. Among them, every shade, degree and variety of belief in the Christian dispensation finds easy lodgment. One can almost speak of a “sliding scale” of disbelief which finds its only “unity” in “protesting” against the fullness of the faith. Yet it is to accommodate such groups that the Post-conciliar Church has changed her doctrines and liturgy. Let us note however that these changes have all been in a one-way direction. What doctrine of the traditional Church have the various “ecclesiastical communities” accepted that they formerly rejected? Absolutely none. What ecclesiastical traditions have our “separated brethren” adopted? Again, absolutely none. Yet look at the many that the Neo-Protestant Church of Vatican II has abandoned, or if not positively rejected, at least allowed to fall into disuse. What Protestant “house of worship” resembles the sanctuaries we knew as children, and what Neo-modernist church of the Post-Vatican II era cannot be confused with that of a Reformation sect? As Michael Davies has pointed out with regard to the various “agreed statements” made with the Anglicans: “The agreement on the Eucharist and the Ministry does not affirm the Catholic position in a single instance where it conflicts with Protestantism”. And yet, we must concede that a certain kind of “unity” has been achieved between the Post-conciliar Church and the various Reformed “ecclesiastical communities”. The reason is clear. The Post-conciliar Church is itself a “Neo-Protestant” Church—indeed, it is “The Church of the latter-day Modernists”.

Those who would still doubt the nature of the compromises made in this direction have but to consider the official statements of the New Church. With regard to the liturgy for instance, Paul VI told us the changes were made for two reasons—“to bring it into line with Scripture”, and for “pastoral reasons”. He never personally specified just what “pastoral reasons” were, but the answer is to be found in other documents.

Thus it states in the ‘Letter to the Presidents of National Councils of Bishops concerning Eucharistic Prayers’,an official document of the “Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship”:

The reason why such a variety of texts have been offered (in the Novus Ordo), and the end result such new formularies were meant to achieve, are pastoral in nature: namely to reflect the unity and diversity of liturgical prayer. BY USING THE VARIOUS TEXTS CONTAINED IN THE (new) ROMAN MISSAL, VARIOUS CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES, AS THEY GATHER TOGETHER TO CELEBRATE THE EUCHARIST, ARE ABLE TO SENSE THAT THEY THEMSELVES FORM THE ONE CHURCH PRAYING WITH THE SAME FAITH, USING THE SAME PRAYER. They furthermore become one in their ability of proclaiming the same mystery of Christ in different ways—especially when the vernacular is used.

Here then is the reason for the changes. It is to promote the “unity” of all Christians “praying with the same faith”, and proclaiming “the same mystery of Christ” in different ways. The only problem is that the “faith” involved is not the Catholic faith, and the “mystery” involved is not the “recurring unbloody sacrifice of Calvary”. If it were, the “separated brethren” would simply become Catholics.[16]

This cry for a false unity with those who reject the teaching of the traditional Church, and even with the entire corpus of Christianity, this desire to be in the ‘avant-garde’ of the social forces that are creating the “new humanism”, the “wholesome socialization” of mankind, and the “universal culture” of the future is the reason why the traditional Mass had to be discarded and replaced by a parody. This is why the New “mass” never clearly teaches the doctrine of the Real Presence. This is why non-Catholic sects, nay even anti-Catholic sects, have no objection to using it. This is why the liberal press approves it, and this is why the world loves it.

Everything is to be sacrificed to this end—even the Sacred Species Itself. The Eucharist is now to become the “Sacrament of the New Unity”. It can be referred to as a benediction, the Lord’s Supper, the Lord’s Table, memory of the Lord—but never by that offensive word “Transubstantiation”. Read Paul VI’s entire Apostolic Constitution on the New “mass” and you will find that this hallowed word never once appears! Thus it is that Montini says: “The Catholic Church is determined to continue and intensify its contribution to the common effort of all Christians for unity…” (Not the efforts of Catholics in love and charity to bring the Protestants back to Unity.) And thus it is that he has expressed the hope that “the day would soon come when the unity of all Christians would be celebrated and sealed in a concelebrated Eucharist”. Both the “communitarian vocation” of mankind and “salvation history” demand it.

John XXIII had told us that “certain sacrifices would be necessary in order to achieve unity”. Paul VI and the Post-conciliar Church have made it clear just what these sacrifices are. They entail the sacrifice of what in essence can be called “the Christian tradition”.

Communism—The New Vatican “Ostpolitik”

In so far as the post-conciliar Church accepts the modernist idea of “progress”, i.e., the concept that man through the manipulation of certain “dynamic forces” and “historical processes” is capable of creating on earth some sort of perfect society, it accepts three of the fundamental tenets of Marxist theory. On their part Marxists find no difficulty in allowing a certain “religious freedom” if such belief involves faith in a “divinity” that would in no serious way interfere with their plans for world conquest. To concede that God is responsible for “progress”, that God is the “power” behind the “dynamic forces”, and that God in fact really wants what Russia wants, is to place God in the “service of the State”. As for private property, as Metropolitan Nikodim, one of the idols of the New Church, has opined, the Catholic Church finds nothing wrong with accepting “a public form of property such as is exemplified by socialism of the Soviet type”.[17]  Thus it is that long before the Second Vatican Council, the Communist state had taken steps to infiltrate and control the Russian Orthodox Church as well as various Western religious organizations such as the World Council of Churches. As long ago as 1927, Sergius, the Metropolitan of Moscow, had notably distinguished himself as an instrument of Communist policy by declaring himself to be in “total obedience” to the ruling powers—“the joys and victories of the Soviet Union are also our joys and our victories”. Even then the line of “detente” offered to the Church was that there is nothing incompatible between socialism and Christianity…indeed, Christ and the Apostles were “the first Communists”. The principle involved, to quote from a contemporary Communist document, was to “progressively replace the religious element” in Church teaching “by the Marxist element; we shall gradually transform the false conscience of the Catholics to the true conscience, so that they will eventually come around to destroying, by themselves, and for themselves, the divine images which they had themselves created. This is our line of struggle for victory against the counter-revolutionary Catholic Church”.[18]  Indeed, it seems that to promote such tactics, agents infiltrated the Church and rose to important positions, thereby producing devastating effects.[19]  The faithful pontiffs clearly and repeatedly warned the faithful of the dangers involved.

Pope Pius IX in 1846 called Communism “absolutely contrary to the natural law itself…” and added that “once adopted, would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even of society itself”. Leo XIII in 1878 called it “a mortal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin”. Pius XI in 1937 called it “a pseudo-ideal of justice, of equality and of fraternity…” and further stated that “Communism is intrinsically evil, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever”. It is in the light of such clear-cut statements that John XXIII’s proclamation to the effect that “the Church is not a dam against Communism. The Church cannot and should not be against anything…” is a clear-cut rupture with the past. No wonder that Khrushchev was delighted to congratulate Roncalli on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Aggorniamento was off and running.

It is well known that Msgr. (now Cardinal) Willebrands, in engineering on behalf of John XXIII the presence of the Russian Orthodox Church at the Council, promised that Communism would neither be attacked nor condemned—such was openly admitted at the Pan-Orthodox Conference of Rhodes in 1964 where this silence was described as the sine qua non for their very presence. Indeed, when the petition of Msgr. Castro Mayer, Bishop of Campos in Brazil, introduced such a condemnation signed by over four-hundred Bishops, it was, contrary to the rules of those who had by then captured the Council, “lost” and ignored. If this Council purported to deal with the problems of the Church in the modern world, such a “silence” was, to say the least, extraordinary.[20]

Subsequent to these initial acts of “treason” with regard to the truth and against the divine Kingship of Christ, the post-conciliar Church has made compromise after compromise to appease the Russians. NKVD (now KGB) agents such as Metropolitan Nikodim, who died in the arms of John-Paul I, have repeatedly been welcomed into the heart of the Vatican—those dripping with the blood of martyrs, being wined and dined at the expense of the faithful. Indeed Paul VI invited Nikodim to say Mass over the tomb of St. Peter! Of course, such hospitality was reciprocated. When Pimen was enthroned as the “Patriarch” of Moscow, Cardinal Willebrands was present as the official representative of Paul VI. When during his sermon Pimen proclaimed the total destruction of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and its “triumphal return to Russian Orthodoxy”, Cardinal Willebrands made no objection whatsoever. In matters as grave as this, such silence is equivalent to consent.[21]  On the other hand, when Msgr. Velychokovsky, a Bishop of the Ukrainian Uniate Church was released after many years in prison and returned to Rome, he was treated as a simple priest—to recognize his rank and pay him due honor would have been equivalent to recognizing the existence of the Catholic Church behind the Iron Curtain. The very reverse occurred when the false Bishop, Exarch Filaret, superior of the Russian Orthodox Church for the Ukraine and an agent for the KGB arrived. This man who was the person responsible for finding, betraying and arresting Bishop Velychokovsky was treated with the highest honors; he was a guest of honor at the Pontifical Collegium Russicum and of the Secretariat for the Union of Christians. Meanwhile, Father Mailleux S.J. of the Vatican Congregation for Oriental Rites and Rector of the Pontifical Collegium Russicum (and known as the “Red Priest”) declared that the Ukrainian Patriarchate should not be instituted because the Soviets would consider it to be a “hostile interference in the internal affairs of the USSR”. It was shortly after this that the Italian police discovered and exposed an international network of Russian Communist espionage functioning from within this Pontifical College, a fact which the Vatican hastened to use all its influence to suppress. When the Russian Orthodox Church proceeded to set up a “Vicarate” to “govern” the branches of the Ukrainian Church in Western nations, no protest whatsoever was made. Since that time several examples of the use of this “vicarate” to infiltrate espionage agents into the West have come to light, but then, in the eyes of the New Vatican “Ostpolitik”, they have a right “to interfere with the internal affairs of Western nations”. Things had become so obvious that by December 6, 1971, Newsweek Magazine stated that “the Vatican appears to be ready to sacrifice the union of five million Catholics of the Ukrainian Rite within the Soviet Union!” To this day, despite request after request from the some seven million Ukrainain Catholics, and despite the fact that Oriental rites with far fewer adherents have been granted the privilege, Rome has not established a Ukrainian Patriarchate. And not satisfied with this, Rome has made of Cardinal Slipyi, the highest ranking Ukrainian prelate, a virtual prisoner of the Vatican, prohibiting him “under obedience” from leaving Rome to visit Ukrainian communities on several occasions.

Now, it might be argued that all this compromise was done for the sake of alleviating the persecution of the Ukrainian Catholics under Russian political domination. In point of fact, it has allowed for the unrestricted persecution of these faithful Catholics as has been documented again and again; and throughout all of his reign, Paul VI, who never hesitated to criticize the abuses imposed upon the minorities in Western nations, has never once publicly spoken on this issue. All this led Cardinal Slipyi finally to speak out—to openly disobey the long silence imposed upon him against his will by the Vatican authorities. He stated at the World Synod in Rome in 1971 that

A dead hero is a more powerful stimulus for the Church than a living prisoner in the Vatican…Catholic Ukrainians who have sacrificed mountains of bodies and shed rivers of blood for the Catholic Faith and for their fidelity to the Holy See, even now are undergoing a very terrible persecution, but what is worse, they are defended by no one…or Catholic faithful are prohibited from celebrating the liturgy and administering the Sacraments, and must descend into the Catacombs. Thousands and thousands of the faithful, priests, and bishops have been thrown into prison and deported to the polar regions of Siberia. Now, however, because of negotiations and diplomacy, Ukrainian Catholics, who as martyrs and confessors suffered so much, are being thrown aside as inconvenient witnesses of past evils…

Spoken like a Cardinal Mindszenty, which brings us to consider another facet of the new Vatican “Ostpolitik”, one which causes every faithful Catholic to hang his head in shame and sorrow. This heroic prelate, the primate of Hungary, was, as the New York Times obituary notice stated, “regarded in the West as a symbol of anti-Communism”. He had for over thirty-five years refused to submit to the “atheistic and materialistic forces” of Fascism and Communism. Even liberal politicians and clerics recognized the greatness of this man. President Ford said at the time of his death that the Cardinal “stood for courage, integrity, and unfailing faith. There was an heroic quality about him that marked this man as a crusader for liberty”. Cardinal Cook of New York praised him as a man who had “endured sufferings far beyond the capacity of most human beings, yet he never ceased to be a symbol of courage, integrity and hope. He was a man of faith and of deep, uncomplicated and unswerving belief”. As is well known, he was released from a Communist prison by the abortive Hungarian revolution and because he refused to leave his country became a virtual prisoner in the American Embassy at Budapest. Here his presence proved to be a thorn in the side of the illegitimate Hungarian government and, to quote again the New York Times, he was “an embarrassment” to “the church which was seeking a modus vivendi with the Soviet bloc”. The post-conciliar Church therefore sought to have this Cardinal released from Hungary and actually entered into negotiations with him in order to commit him quietly to withdraw from public life and to cooperate with their betrayal of the Church in Hungary. These negotiations were carried on between Paul VI’s representative Msgr. Zagon and the primate, and were aimed at compromising his heroic stand in defense of both the Catholic faith and his native land. He finally left the American Embassy with the understanding that he was no longer welcome there and with the assurance that he would be free to speak for the truth with the support of Rome. Within two weeks of his departure the Vatican lifted the excommunication of the peace priests (those who had cooperated with the Communist regime in Hungary) and the L’Osservatore Romano portrayed his leaving as if this act had “removed an obstacle hampering good relationships between Church and state”. His attempts to support the struggles of Hungarian exiles were thwarted, and being refused suffragan Bishops, he started to travel throughout the West, despite his age and ill health, to visit personally the faithful for whom he felt he had a spiritual responsibility. His criticisms of the Communist party in Hungary were not pleasing to this government and Rome demanded that all his public statements, even his sermons, be approved by a “Roman adviser”. To this thought-control he refused to submit. Subsequently, without his approval, the Holy See gave the Hungarian Communist government a pledge that Cardinal Mindszenty would not “do or say anything that could possibly displease them”. In an attempt to fulfill this promise, his words were misquoted in the Catholic press—often whole paragraphs of his talks being omitted—with official connivance. Paul VI made several attempts to discourage the publication of his Memoirs[22]  (in which all these facts are documented)and when these were not successful, asked him to resign his office for “pastoral reasons”, and went so far as to state that there had been “no working primate in Hungary for twenty-five years”! This among other things would dilute his authority to speak and allow for the appointment of someone else to his office who was more acceptable to the Communist regime. When he refused to abdicate his charge, he was relieved of it—the Vatican publishing the fact as if he had in fact resigned himself—and all this on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the “show-trial” that had originally led to his imprisonment by the Communists. Cardinal Mindszenty was forced publicly to contradict this distortion of the truth and to deny that he had in any way willingly abdicated. Thus passed the waning years of one of the Church’s most staunch defenders, a man who had spent decades in prison under both the Nazis and the Communists, a man respected by the entire world, a man whose biography was written by a Jew in gratitude for what he did for the victims of oppression, and a man who was a national hero of the Hungarian peoples. One can do no better than to quote the closing words of his Memoirs: “There is nothing more to say. I found waiting to greet me at the end of the road, complete and absolute exile.”

There are of course still those that will argue that Paul VI made statements in which he condemned “atheistic totalitarian regimes”, and that, if at times he acted in a duplicitous manner, it was in order to ease the lot of those under persecution. The fact remains however that it is not within the bounds of decency, honor and Christian charity to act in such a manner, especially for a man who claims to be the Vicar of Christ. How incredible are the utterances of this man. Consider the following conversation between him and Archbishop Helder Camara of Olinda-Recife, Brazil, as reported in Le Monde, a very reputable French newspaper, September 26, 1974.

Opening his arms to Msgr. Helder Camara who approached him, Paul VI exclaimed: “Good morning, my Communist Bishop, How are you?” The Archbishop retorted “And good morning to you, Our Communist Pope!

The same reportage continued, Archbishop Camara noting that “It is as if one played the piano with four hands, I start the theme and the Pope finishes it.”

“How come one of yor predecessors considered himself to be a King?” asked Msgr. Camara. Pope Paul VI took up the refrain… “And that he was head of the Pontifical States”. Helder Camara: “Why is it that Pius IX believed that it was the devil who relieved him of these states and why did he not see that Garibaldi had been sent by God?” Pope Paul VI answered: “If one were to go through the archives of the Vatican one would see that Pius IX himself asked the Bishops to deliver him of all that, but that it was the French Bishops that forced it on him”.

Quite apart from the fact that Paul VI is here indulging in one of his favorite pastimes—that of re-writing history, this is a most unusual statement. Either Paul VI is serious in greeting Archbishop Camara as “his Communist Bishop”, or else he is acting like a buffoon in public. One may be permitted to wonder which alternative puts him in a better light. But, if we have any doubts about his actual thoughts, let us again quote him in a discussion of Communist China:

The Church recognizes and favors the just expression of the present historical phase of China and the transformation of ancient forms of aesthetic culture into inevitable new forms that rise out of the social and industrial structure of the modern world ... We would like to enter into contact once again with China in order to show with how much interest and sympathy we look on at their present and enthusiastic efforts for the ideals of a diligent, full, and peaceful life.

(Congregation for the Evangelisation of the Peoples. 1976)

One may also be permitted to wonder just how much his “interest and sympathy” helped the estimated thirty million murdered victims of Mao’s “transformation of ancient forms of aesthetic culture”.[23]  No wonder that members of the hierarchy openly expressed themselves as being in favor of “liberation theology”, and see in those who would “transform” the world, a new religion, termed “Atheistic Christianity”. No wonder that the National Jesuit News can publish a document entitled “National Planning and the Need for a Revolutionary Social Strategy: A Christian-Maoist Perspective”, in which the Society is told that it “must purge itself of its bourgeois social consciousness and identify with the proletariat”. No wonder Jesuit Father Juan Alfaro who teaches at the pontifical Gregorian University of Rome instructs the International Theological Commission that “Christ was a kind of Palestinian Che Guevara”. No wonder priests in South America are reported as active participants in guerrilla bands and that The Wanderer has given examples of where funds donated by the faithful for the missions have ended up in the hands of Communist organizations. Now, all this is not just “hair-splitting”; nor is it a matter of selecting the statements of a few madmen who falsely claim to represent the hierarchy. Consider the following statement put forth at a meeting held at the Catholic International Centre of Research and Information under the title of Pro Mundi Vita—an international conference that occurred in Brussels under the auspices of the University of Louvain—which recognized Mao-Tse-Tung as “a new Moses who took his country out of the oppression of feudalism and capitalism, as formerly the chosen people were taken out of the captivity of ‘Egypt’”.[24]   Admittedly this meeting was an “ecumenical colloquium”, but it was a colloquium in which the majority of participants were Catholics of high standing, including such luminaries as Cardinal Josef Suenens, Angelo Hernandez, Archbishop of New Delhi, India, and Bernard Jacqueline, vice-secretary of the Secretariat of Non-Believers of the Vatican (under whose aegis problems dealing with Communism would fall). Read with sorrow what the faithful are being taught:

The rejection of a pseudo-Christianity is not necessarily a rejection of Christ Himself…It would appear that China accepted the spirit of Christ from another source…that is, from Marxism. If the Chinese have, in fact, created a society with more faith, more hope, and more love than the “Christian” Apostles of Christ, we must follow where the spirit blows. The Chinese Society today…is I believe, further along than our own on the way to the true human society, the Kingdom of God, if you will. I believe China is the only truly Christian nation in the world in our days…

Through Marxism, the Christian ideas have reached China, ideas which were new to her…a mystique of disinterested work and service for others; an aspiration for justice; exaltation of a simple and frugal life; the elevation of the peasant masses and the disappearance of social classes—these are the ideals towards which the China of today is orientated. But are not these the ideals that have been incomparably expressed in the encyclicals pacem in Terris and Populorum Progressio and in the Synodal document Justice in the World? (Vatican II). Today Chinese children are being taught to have a sense of responsibility for the community, but isn’t this exactly what the Second Vatican Council has asked so insistently of the People of God?

Again, one must wonder how the “boat people” from Vietnam felt when Msgr. Nguyen Van Bihn, the Archbishop of Saigon, agreed to “cooperate” with the Communist regime, and what the faithful of South America felt when seventeen Bishops in Brazil published a document entitled “The Church in Vietnam is Disposed to Survive” (April 25, 1976) stating:

What difference does it make if the regime expels foreign missionaries…In the final analysis, were not the missionaries and the Churches also the symbol of the misery and the domination of our people? The regime which “liberates” our people can now enslave our Church.

It is ideas like this that led Helder Camara to appoint his personal friend and adviser, Father Joseph Comblin, to be a professor in his seminary. This infamous Belgian priest is the author of the famous “Comblin document”, which was published by the Brazilian government to show the blueprint that had been prepared to guide the Communists in taking over the country. To quote a pertinent passage:

Social reforms will not be made through persuasion, nor through platonic discussions in the Congress. How will these reforms be installed? It is by a process of force…the power will have to be authoritarian and dictatorial…the power must neutralize the forces that resist: it will neutralize the armed forces if they are conservative; it will have to control radio, TV, the press, and other media of communication and censor the destructive and reactionary criticisms…in any case, it will be necessary to organize a system of repression.

And again, to demonstrate the international character of the problem, let us quote the statement of the Bishops of Mozambique voicing support for Samora Machel, the Marxist president of this unfortunate country:

We pledge ourselves to the revolution which intends radically to transform society in Mozambique into a community for solidarity of all people of good will, whether believers of non-believers…

Finally, it is worthy of note that some of the more conservative members of the post-conciliar hierarchy are fully aware of what is happening and have attempted to speak out in warning. Consider the statement of Bishop Basil Losten of Philadelphia:

It is evident that Communism finds in religion today invaluable allies in its quest for global power and empire. The fantastic plan to turn the Church into an instrument of Communist conquest would be unbelievable if we did not see it all happening before our eyes…

Speaking to the Bishop’s Meeting in Chicago in 1977, he continued:

There are people on our staff of so-called consultants who take many trips to the Soviet Union or atheistically-dominated countries. They receive a certain amount of indoctrination and then return to poison our minds and the minds of the American Catholic public. Perhaps it is too late to turn the tide.

Needless to say, such statements are rarely if ever reported in the liberal post-conciliar Catholic press.[25]

And what of the present situation? It is in the light of this background that one must examine with great care the attitude of John-Paul II—committed as he claims to be to the carrying out of the programs established by Paul VI—towards Communism. Why is an ideology that could not tolerate a Mindszenty able to tolerate a Wojtyla? Has a modus vivendi been achieved in Poland that will be the guide to future relations between the Vatican and Communism? Or has in fact, the post-conciliar Church departed from the stance of the traditional Church with regard to this ‘intrinsically evil…plague’ that has “insinuated itself into the very marrow of human society”? A careful review of John-Paul II’s statements shows that while he is critical of some of the Communist’s methods of ruling, he has never questioned their very right to rule.[26]  When at the age of seventy-five Cardinal Wyszynski, the primate of Poland and former superior and close friend of Wojtyla submitted his resignation to the Vatican, the Communist government informed Paul VI that they would be happy to have him make an exception and retain Wyszynski in his present position.[27] Now, it must be remembered that Poland is a predominantly Catholic country, and its government must accept the reality of the Church whether it likes it or not. Why however does it tolerate some prelates and not others? The answer can be found by quoting Cardinal Mindszenty. In a talk given in America shortly before he died, he stated: “Of all the Hungarian Bishops, I am the only one who did not take the oath of fidelity to the Godless State.” A careful perusal of John-Paul II’s Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, as well as of his Puebla speech will show that while he is highly critical of certain aspects of the methods used by the Communists, he has never once clearly condemned Communism or denied their right to control the destiny of millions of his countrymen. He has criticised “social activism” on the part of priests, but not their adherence to Marxist principles.[28]  Nor can such a stance be excused on the basis of the necessity for “diplomatic neutrality”, for one cannot be “neutral” in the face of evil.

Now, a Catholic, despite what John XXIII has said, by his very nature must be anti-Communist. Such follows from the fact that the Church teaches that all authority and all rights come from God Himself, and must be exercised according to his will.[29]  What does this mean in the practical order? It means that although a ruler may enact certain laws against the will of God, these laws in themselves have no morally binding force. A ruler (or a government) does not necessarily lose authority because it makes mistakes in some of its legislation, but a Communist regime is intrinsically unjust and essentially opposed in principle to the will of God. It presumes to impose a fraudulent authority by force in order to eradicate from mankind the Faith, Hope and Charity which our Lord lived and died to give us. It believes, as we have pointed out elsewhere, that the future will prove its principles correct, and feels free to force those who will not join in the “dynamic forces of history” that are working towards its particular vision of “point Omega” to do so against their will. By controlling all access to food, clothing and shelter, it reduces its citizens to an actual state of slavery as long as they do the bidding of the state, they are rewarded materially, but if they oppose the state they are either murdered, enslaved in “corrective labor camps”, or incarcerated in psychiatric institutions. Above all, even as in Poland, they attempt to control the education of the children and by a variety of overt and covert techniques, subvert their religious belief, replacing it with the false tenets of Marxist-Leninism. Those who claim that in Poland, the Communists have come to accept the Church as more than a temporary necessity are unbelievably naïve. Now, how can anyone say that a band of atheistic murdering revolutionaries dedicated to the destruction of the Church, the dethronement of Christ, the spread of the Kingdom of Satan on earth, and indeed to the eradication of all belief in God, could ever be given by God authority to carry out such a program? How can a man who claims to be Peter’s successor ever act, as did Paul VI, to persuade the American government to return the crown of Saint Stephen (and against the manifest will of those to whom it extended political asylum) to those who have enslaved and tortured the true descendants of this royal prince? To admit that Communist governments rule legitimately is to claim that they derive their right to do so from God and to proclaim that God is therefore “divided against Himself”. It is nothing else than to offer to Caesar (or rather to a false Caesar) that which belongs to God. This is why Pius XI called Communism “a pseudo-ideal” and said that “no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever”. One can do no better than to conclude this section with the words of Pope Pius XII:

One cannot deny today what the anti-religious totalitarian state claims to demand from the Church, which it indeed expects to obtain as the price of tolerance and also of precarious recognition. Now, let us see what is the object of its claims:
   A mute Church, when its duty is to speak;
   A Church which consents to change the law of God, when its mission is to proclaim and defend it;
   A Church which discards its intangible doctrinal foundations on which Christ has established it, in order to submit itself willingly to the caprices of the opinion and instability of the crowds;
   A Church without energy to resist the oppression of consciences, to defend the legitimate rights of the people and their liberty;
   A cowardly and servile Church to the point of locking itself up in the temples of Christ by betraying the mission entrusted to it: “Go to all the thoroughfares and preach…go and teach all the nations…”
   May the Pope remain mute when the right of teaching the children is denied to their parents, according to the orders of a minority regime which wishes to move them away from Christ? And when this state over-stepping the limits of its competence, assumes the power of suppressing the dioceses, deposing the bishops, ransacking the ecclesiastical organization and removing from the latter the means indispensable for the well-being of souls.

(Speech to the Romans concerning the sacred rights of the Church, February 20, 1949)

All that this saintly pontiff feared has come to be reality in the post-conciliar Church!

Editor's note regarding this series of essays:  Rama P. Coomaraswamy first published The Destruction of the Christian Tradition in 1972. The series of essays that appeared in Studies was accomplished by choosing extended and representative portions of the book and then presenting them in five parts. A later edition of the same book, in its totality, was published by World Wisdom in 2006 under the guidance of Dr. Coomaraswamy, including some revisions. Readers are encouraged to refer to this volume should they need a fuller context for some of the facts and observations in the extracts which were published as articles in Studies.