Modernism: Word games
As Pope St. Pius X explained in his Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis – On
the Doctrines of the Modernists – such persons often play fast and
loose with language; “twisting words” and engaging in certain “novelties
of words.”
To this end, the Holy Father cited his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII,
who charged “the children of darkness” with “perverting the meaning and
force of things and words.”This propensity for manipulating language on the part of evil-doers gives rise to the invention of new terminologies that only serve to obscure the truth.
In the socio-political realm, phrases like “pro-choice,” “women’s health” and “reproductive rights” serve as prime examples.
Turning our attention back to the modernists who operate from within the Church, the Second Vatican Council has provided an outstanding example with its use of the phrase “separated brethren,” which appears in the text of Unitatis Redintegratio – the Decree on Ecumenism – more than a dozen times.
In this post, I propose that we play our own word game, or rather, Word game – as in Microsoft Word.
Let’s begin by copying and pasting the text of the Decree on Ecumenism in a Word doc.
Then, using the “find and replace” tool, let’s replace every instance of “our separated brethren” with the plain truth – “heretics, schismatics and apostates.”
What emerges, while not especially surprising to regular readers of this space, does provide a lesson in the importance of language, and the way in which evil is always served when it is anything other than clear and direct.
Here are just some examples of what our Word game produces:
Every effort [must be made] to avoid
expressions, judgments and actions which do not represent the condition
of heretics, schismatics and apostates with truth and fairness and so
make mutual relations with them more difficult.
Catholics must gladly acknowledge and
esteem the truly Christian endowments from our common heritage which are
to be found among heretics, schismatics and apostates.
Nor should we forget that anything
wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of heretics,
schismatics and apostates can be a help to our own edification.
So we humbly beg pardon of God and of heretics, schismatics and apostates, just as we forgive them that trespass against us.
It is the urgent wish of this Holy
Council that the measures undertaken by the sons of the Catholic Church
should develop in conjunction with those of heretics, schismatics and
apostates…
One wonders, how many bishops and priests in the year of the Decree’s
promulgation (1964); men whose seminary formation took place in the
decades before the Council and who daily offered the Mass of Ages, would
have gone along with this program?As it is, the Council has managed to convince generations of what Archbishop Lefebvre called “confused Catholics” – both lay and ordained – that the ecumenical movement operates in service to God.
While we’re at it, let’s play a different kind of Word game.
This time, we’re going to refashion the Council’s ode to human progress, otherwise known as Gaudium et Spes, by substituting every occurrence of “man” with “Christ the King.”
Here are some examples of what emerges:
For the human person deserves to be
preserved; human society deserves to be renewed. Hence the focal point
of our total presentation will be Christ the King, whole and entire,
body and soul, heart and conscience, mind and will.
It devolves on humanity to establish a
political, social and economic order which will growingly serve Christ
the King and help individuals as well as groups to affirm and develop
the dignity proper to them.
Hence under the light of Christ, the
image of the unseen God, the firstborn of every creature, the council
wishes to speak to all men in order to shed light on the mystery of
Christ the King and to cooperate in finding the solution to the
outstanding problems of our time.
All things on earth should be related to Christ the King as their center and crown.
In this case, by replacing “man” with “Christ the King,” what emerges
in many instances is a text wherein the right order of things is
restored; thus exposing the presence of an anthropocentrism in the
original document that can only be considered diabolical.Let’s play just one more…
Starting with the text of Dignitatis Humanae – the Declaration on Religious Freedom – everywhere we find the word “right,” we’re going to plug in “no right;” i.e., the exact opposite.
What should emerge – that is, if the substance of the document is in any way consonant with authentic Catholic doctrine – is a text that cries out for condemnation.
Among the concepts that emerge are the following:
This Vatican Council declares that the
human person has no right to religious freedom … No right to immunity
from external coercion exists in those who do not live up to their
obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it.
Hmmm… sounds an awful lot like the traditional teaching, doesn’t it?
“By the fact that the indiscriminate
freedom of all forms of worship is proclaimed, truth is confused with
error, and the Holy and Immaculate Spouse of Christ is placed on the
same level as heretical sects and even as Jewish perfidy.” (Pope Pius
VII, Post tam diuturnas, 29 April 1814).
“Every man is free to embrace and profess
that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider
true.” (Condemned by Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, no. 15)
“The empire of Christ over all nations
was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to
teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to
their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the
religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be
placed ignominiously on the same level with them.” (The situation
lamented by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, 1925)
In conclusion, the Word games we just played are anything but games;
rather, they represent a serious effort to call our attention back to
one of the specific evils that Our Lady came to forewarn us about at
Fatima; namely, the “suicide of altering the faith” that took place at
Vatican Council II.In this, the centenary year of her miraculous appearance, let us remain ever diligent in connecting the message of Fatima with the errors of the Council, which, in large measure, are synonymous with the errors of Russia.
