NEWS:  November 28, 2012
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Bird’s Eye View of the News

Atila Sinke Guimarães
JOHN XXIII WANTED A RUPTURE WITH THE PAST -   As part of the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the Council that started in October and will continue through the "Year of Faith," L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's principal daily organ, has been publishing articles on this topic. Today, I want to bring to the attention of my readers an article by Marco Roncalli titled "Vatican II in Exhibition" (October 10, 2012, p. 4). In it the writer presents an overview of the one-week exhibit in Bergamo, the city where John XXIII was born and raised.

The show was directed by Fr. Enzio Bollis, counted on the full support of the Diocese and was an initiative of the Pope John XXIII Foundation. It displayed normally inaccessible manuscripts and documents that sleep in the archives of the Foundation and were shown to the public for the first time. All the exhibits were related to the pontificate of Pope Roncalli.

Vatican II was convened explicitly against Vatican I

Among these documents was a note by Msgr. Loris Capovilla, secretary of John XXIII in which, on behalf of the Pope, he gave instructions for the redaction of the Bull Humanae salutis, the bull that convened the Council. On the text typed by Capovilla, there are side notes handwritten by John XXIII himself. It is clearly affirmed in this text, Marco Roncalli assures us, that the Pope did not desire to follow the course of Vatican I because "neither in its substance nor in its form would it correspond to the present day situation." We also see a rebuttal of the Church's position on the temporal order taught by Pius IX, because now, the note emphasizes, "the Church demonstrates that she wants to be mater et magistra [mother and teacher]."

John XXIII signing Humanae salutis

The exhibit shows that John XXIII convened the Council with the intent of discontinuity

John XXIII wanted to break with Vatican I

This revelation is, in my opinion, an extraordinary confirmation that John XXIII did not want any continuity with the previous Ecumenical Council convened and directed by Pius IX. When he affirmed that Vatican II must not follow Vatican I "either in its substance or in its form," he was saying that it should be completely different; this is not far from saying that it should be the opposite.

Indeed, to say that the substance should be different means that the doctrine defended must be different. To say that the form should be different means that the militant character of Vatican I's documents must be avoided. Incidentally, the reason alleged to explain a change in the Church's position regarding the world - that now she wants to be mother and teacher - confirms that he wanted Vatican II to steer clear of the militant spirit of Vatican I.

One of the common policies of the Vatican after 1975 - when a strong reaction against the Council became public and accelerated - has been to try to link Vatican II to Vatican I in order to give legitimacy to the former. It was for this reason that John Paul II beatified John XXIII together with Pius IX. This is also why we sometimes see the Vatican adopting "conservative" measures. And it is for this same reason that Benedict XVI is now insisting on the "hermeneutics of continuity." The goal of all these initiatives is to pretend the Council was not what it really was: a planned revolution in the Catholic Church that intended to destroy her and replace her with another completely different Church.

We have to thank Divine Providence for allowing the aforementioned article to be published in L'Osservatore Romano, thereby giving us a precious weapon to rebuff this insidious maneuver to save the Council by interpreting its multiple errors according to the previous doctrine of the Church. Is it possible to interpret the Non serviam of Satan under the light of the Quis ut Deus? of St. Michael?

Deliberate silence on Communism, officially recognized

Some time ago I reported (1) that Vatican official Card. Eugène Tisserant met with Russian schismatic metropolite Nikodin in August 1962 in the French city of Metz to establish a pact. The Russian Schismatic Church demanded from John XXIII that the Council would not condemn Communism. Only under this condition would the Russian Schismatic bishops attend the assembly as observers as Pope Roncalli desired. Tisserand accepted, and in fact no condemnation was made, even after 213 conciliar Fathers formally asked the Council to do so. (2)

Now, other documents have come to light in this Bergamo Exhibition that provide the follow-up of those August negotiations up to the eve of the Council, which opened on October 11, 1962. The fact that L'Osservatore Romano is publishing this report makes it an official confirmation of those until now semi-secret and unofficial negotiations that we named the 'Pact of Metz.'

Marco Roncalli, the author of this article and the president of the John XXIII Foundation, will explain to us these documents:

"Several documents re-set the climate of the [Vatican] negotiations with the Soviet Union to permit Catholic Bishops to participate in the Council along with the envoy of observers from the Russian Orthodox Church, who arrived on the eve of the Council after the visit to Moscow of Msgr. Johannes Willebrands, representative of the Secretary. In those documents we find the confirmation of some of the guarantees requested:

Cardinal Bea

A letter from Card. Bea confirms the concessions made at the Pact of Metz

"The assurance that there would be no condemnation of Communism or reference to the Soviet Union, which would have involved inevitable reflections of a political character with unpleasant developments for the Russian Church.

""The same demand was made for other topics such as peace and Atheism. In an attachment to a letter of [Card.] Bea of October 8, 1962 to the Cardinal Secretary of State Amleto Cicognani (who succeeded Tardini), there is reference to information obtained during Willebrands' visit:

"'Archbishop Nikodin raised the question of Atheism. How does it [the Council] intend to deal with it? Is it possible to avoid dealing with it to avoid political implications against certain nations? Certainly you must not think that we as orthodox bishops defend Atheism! This is not true, but we ask for an understanding of our situation. One can speak about Atheism without mentioning or alluding to a particular nation. Otherwise, one would run the risk of transforming a religious document into a political one.'"

Again, we owe the revelation of these documents to the Exhibit of Bergamo. Now we know for certain that it was under the direct orientation of Card. Bea and Vatican Secretary of State Card. Cicognani, id est, of John XXIII himself, that an order was issued to the Moderators of the Council not to permit any condemnations of Communism.

Who would imagine that when Our Lady prophesized in Fatima that Russia would spread its errors throughout the world, she was also including the Vatican and the Papacy among the promoters of those errors?

  1. 1. A.S. Guimarães, Animus Delendi II (Los Angeles: TIA, 2002), pp 28-30, note 16.
  2. 2. A.S. Guimarães, In the Murky Waters of Vatican II (Los Angeles: TIA, 2008), pp. 165-173.
Vatican II Exhibit Bergamo

Top left, the article on the Vatican II Exhibit  

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Posted November 28, 2011