04-06-2021, 01:01 PM
This article has several transcription errors because of it's machine (OCR) conversion from PDF. For example, a capital 'B' may appear as a three, a lowercase 'i' may appear in place of a number one, etc. I have corrected as many as I have noticed using context. Some I cannot correct, such as the correct spelling of some names, etc. But the article is powerful enough even with these imperfections in transcription to understand the full weight of the points being made. - The Catacombs
In April 1976, a book stunned Italian Catholics, and sent shock waves throughout Christendom. The work, printed in Florence and entitled Nel Fumo di Satana. Verso t’ultimo scontro (“In the Smoke of Satan. Towards the Final Clash.”), was a penetrating critique on the state of the Church since the Second Vatican Council.1 Singled out for direct strike was “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini, C.M. (1912-1982), the Secretary of the Conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship who had presided over the fateful “reform” of the liturgy.
“The reform has been conducted,” charged the book, “by this Bugnini who has been unmasked at last; he is indeed what we long expected: a Freemason.”2 Few allegations made since Vatican II have been more biting — a top Church official accused of being an enemy of the very Church he is sworn to defend. What makes it all the more credible is the author. Tito Casini was no muckraker, but a writer of good reputation, particularly noted for his works on the Mass.3
This revelation did not originate with Casini, however, who was merely reporting an incident from the previous summer, when a priest visited “Pope” Paul VI’s office, plopped on his desk a dossier identifying Bugnini as a Lodge brother, and warned he would go public with the information if action was not taken immediately. Paul appointed Bugnini to the post of Pro – Nuncio of Iran, an assignment as far from scrutiny as was possible, and dissolved the Congregation.
To no ones surprise, this “papal” solution did not rest well with traditionalists, and the threatened disclosures were forthcoming. A month before Casini’s blockbuster, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre declared in his Letter to Friends and Benefactors: “Now, when we hear in Rome that he who was the heart and soul of the liturgical reform is a Freemason, we may think that he is not the only one. The veil covering the greatest deceit ever to have mystified the clergy and baffled the faithful, is doubtless beginning to be torn asunder.”4 In addition, the June 1976 issue of the Italian publication SI, SI, No, No, and four months later, the October edition of the French journal La Contre–reforme catholique, among others, carried the news.5
Meanwhile, Bugnini (pronounced Boo nyee’ nee], who vehemently denied ever having set foot in a lodge, was getting acclimated to life in the Islamic country where he was to remain until shortly before his death.6 The controversy soon abated and was forgotten, but, as he writes in his memoirs, there were some intent on beating a “dead horse”:
But last year, a decade after the death of the much-maligned “archbishop,” signs of life have been detected in the old nag, and the bomb is heard ticking again. An Italian-based Conciliar magazine, 30 Days, raised the issue over the summer. A twelve page section, intriguingly entitled “Dossier: Freemasonry and the Application of Liturgical Reform,” promised to answer the controverted question. Did it?
Code Name: “Buan”
“Dear Buan [alleged Masonic code name of Bugnini — JKW] ,” the letter, dated July 14, 1964, began:
An incriminating document to be sure, perhaps damning. But even more so was the reply allegedly made on July 2, 1967, by Bugnini:
And what does the article’s author, Andrea Tornielli, think of the documents? He at first voices the same uncertainty that many would have in evaluating them:
In the course of the study, however, these ambivalent features are neatly, if obliquely, “resolved” to absolve Bugnini, Paul VI, and company from any wrong doing (mention is made of the “valuable diplomatic work” by Bugnini during his exile in Iran, coincidently the same period of time in which the Shah was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini). In fact, before the article is half over the whole issue seems to be forgotten by the writer. Far more space is devoted to examining how the post—Conciliar liturgy switched from Latin to the vernacular than in exploring the Bugnini affair (Tornielli, having reflected that the “reforms” matched the stated intention of the “Dear Buan” letter, could have gone into this in more depth when talking about the Conciliar liturgy).
Not that the discussion is uninteresting. Quite the contrary, for the material covered includes incidents from Bugnini’s earlier career, as well as his working relationship with Paul VI. Tornielli writes:
In 1962, Bugnini, who was Secretary of the Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy, suffered what he called “my first exile,” when first, the Commission’s head, Cardinal Arcadio Larraona, dismissed him, and then Pope John XXIII “relieved [him| of his post as teacher of Liturgy at the Pontifical Pastoral Institute of the Lateran University.”12 An unidentified “elderly prelate” told 30 Days:
At times, though, it appeared that Paul VI was the faithful executor of Bugnini’s wishes. Tornielli recalled how in 1967 the pontiff requested (through the Vatican Secretariat of State) that “daily and feastday missals should always contain, if in a smaller font, the Latin text alongside the vernacular translation.”15 This intervention was rejected for “technical reasons.” Why? The answer is supplied by Paul’s loyal innovator, Annibale Bugnini: “The principle, good in itself, ran into enormous difficulties: the excessive size of liturgical books, technical difficulties, especially for certain countries that do not even use Latin characters….”16 In the end, the latter position won out.
This episode is enlightening for a number of reasons. From the standpoint of the “reformers,” the faster Latin was jettisoned, the faster their novel lex orandi could fully replace the real Catholic liturgy. Since an all-vernacular new “Mass” was the ultimate goal, and ancient, venerable Latin prayers were cast aside to make way for modern ones (which had, at best, only a tenuous relationship with former traditional orations), why should these liturgical editors even consider the additional fuss and expense involved with publishing bilingual volumes? If the whole purpose of the “reform” was to dispense with Latin completely, why bother to include it in the new sacramentaries at all? As for Paul Vis reaction, it was the subterfuge typical of Conciliar “popes” in every area of religious life. Despite the fact that he lived for more than a decade after this intervention, Pope Montini did nothing to halt the liturgical revolution. Far from making anything resembling a comeback, Latin was pushed further and further into the background, a policy that John Paul II — his televised Latin Christmas Masses notwithstanding— has done nothing to change.
The 30 Days feature also includes a brief interview with Bugnini’s friend and liturgical collaborator Father Gottardo Pasqualetti, who helped him edit his memoirs and supplied a foreword for them. In response to a question from Andrea Tornielli concerning the details of the Iran exile, he states:
Pasqualetti dismisses the suggestion that Paul VI signed the notorious General Instruction to the New Order of the Mass without carefully reading it. While allowing for the possibility “that something slipped the Pope’s attention [such as the heretical Article 7, perhaps?— JKW],” he emphasizes the fact that Bugnini and Paul VI “spent many hours together revising all the texts.”18 Despite such close collaboration, Pasqualetti maintains that part of the reason for Bugnini’s exile had to do with pressure the Vatican was experiencing over the Novus Ordo Missae, and that afterwards a campaign was launched to undo the secretary’s work. “In 1975,” he says, “not only was the former secretary of the Consilium ousted, but every trace of him was obliterated and what he had created was destroyed. Still today, when prelates in the Congregation for Divine Worship speak of the years of the liturgical reform, they avoid mentioning Bugnini.19 And Tornielli concludes his article on a similar note, writing how Bugnini’s departure supposedly signaled a marked contrast from the earlier “glory years” of liturgical “reform”: “Something went irremediably wrong after that period. It was Paul VI, once so trusting of Bugnini, who ousted him in the years after the Council. The reform could be said to have well and truly come to an end.”20
In the final analysis, the 30 Days cover story proves to be less an expose than a tease. Little of the text deals with the provocative topic promised in the title; instead, the reader is furnished with details of the “reform” in light of Vatican II, how missals and breviaries became “delatinized,” and a history of the Consilium, The subject of Freemasonry and its infiltration of the Church receive only a passing glance. What could have been an in-depth examination of the scandal and just how “the outcome of Bugnini’s reforms fully matches the intentions expressed in [the two contested letters],” as well as a valuable contribution to understanding Masonic machinations, ends up as merely an exercise in journalistic sleight of hand that reveals nothing really new about the subject.
The Occupied Church
Unlike the 30 Days spread, the present article will not flinch when confronted with the issue. Although Bugnini’s involvement with, secret societies may be forever shrouded in the darkness associated with those cabals, it is still possible to make educated inferences based upon what is known. It is far too important for Catholics to be able to identify the contours of the shadow army that is waging a relentless war against the Church to dismiss such allegations without a careful consideration of these facts.
So what is to be concluded about Bugnini? While many reputable sources readily believed his guilt, the charges did not go unchallenged. “Was he a Mason, or wasn’t he? (Perhaps only his Grand Master, assuming he had one, knew for sure.) Was he sincere in his denial or merely covering his tracks? Bugnini s secret — if there was one — went with him to the grave. Given the lack of a public confession on his part, and a similar lack of uncontested evidence linking him to the group, the natural conclusion is to declare the issue stalemated, and leave it at that.
It is true that, aside from the disputed dossier, there is no direct proof of Bugnini’s involvement with the Lodge. Still, there are other avenues of investigation that can be made. If his membership cannot be definitively proven, there is substantial indirect evidence to link him with the Lodge or, at least, to demonstrate that what he implemented bears a striking resemblance to the stated goals of the Church’s declared enemies.
In 1975, the French author Jacques Ploncard d’Assac wrote a book with the provocative title, L’Eglise Occupee (The Occupied Church). The thesis of the study is explained by him as follows: “If one succeeds in demonstrating that all the ‘novelties’ which trouble the Church today are nothing but past errors which have repeatedly been condemned by Rome, one will be able to conclude that the Church, at this end of the 20th century, is occupied by a strange sect, exactly as a country is able to be occupied by art enemy army.”21 He begins a chapter entitled “A Secret Society Within The Church?” by stating:
It is upon this demonstrable premise (of enemies seeking to burrow into the Church, the better to destroy her) that any consideration of the Bugnini case must begin. Otherwise, critics will readily dismiss talk of a Masonic prelate as simply the paranoid fantasy of traditional Catholics. Regarding the assembling of the following evidence, there are certain points to be kept in mind. First, nothing was used that could reasonably be rejected as fraudulent or questionable. Much of it is taken from pre-Conciliar Vatican sources, or captured secret society documents that the Holy See deemed authentic, and ordered the publication thereof. Second, other documents are cited that, though not ruled on by the Church, are public in nature. These include printed statements by the Masons and their professed allies. In short, what is to be considered is fact, and it is from this fact that some rays of light can be cast on the Bugnini affair.
Planned Subversion by Christ’s Enemies
The modern movement to eradicate the Roman Catholic Church can be traced to the mid-1700s, when a group of fervent and vocal apostates came together during the so-called Enlightenment. While “freethinkers” could be found at that time throughout Europe ridiculing every Church teaching and practice, the foul center from which the attacks emanated was France, particularly in those false intellectuals responsible for writing and editing the infamous Encyclopedie (or, in English, Encyclopedia). The guiding light of the Encyclopaedists was one Francois Marie Arouet, better known to the world by his nom de plume — Voltaire.
Like many of the Encyclopaedists, Voltaire was a Freemason. For fifty years he invariably closed his letters to fellow radicals with the motto, “ecrasons nous I’infame” (“let us crush the wretch” — meaning defeat Christ and His Church). This infernal hatred of Catholicism to which, nevertheless, he nominally adhered, wedded to literary genius, led the celebrated Catholic writer, Jacques Cretineau-Joly to describe him as “the most perfect incarnation of Satan the world ever saw.”23 The following incident involving Voltaire is related by Monsignor George Dillon: “A lieutenant of police once said to him that, notwithstanding all he wrote, he should never be able to destroy Christianity. ‘That is exactly what we shall see’, he replied.”24
The attacks of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists had a profound effect on the intellectual climate of France, and helped spark the social fomentation that would culminate in the great bloodletting of the 1789 Revolution. Their contribution in so advancing the aims of Freemasonry has not been lost on the Lodge. Father Clarence Kelly, in his study Conspiracy Against God & Man, quotes from an address given at the 1904 Congress of the Grand Orient as follows:
And yet, despite the scarlet sea they helped precipitate, these antichrists never failed to hide behind pious affectations or veiled language when the occasion warranted such duplicity. Monsignor Dillon writes of Voltaire:
He was also, as the school he left behind has been ever since, a hypocrite. Infidel to the heart’s core, he could, whenever it suited his purpose, both practice, and even feign a zeal for religion. On the expectation of a pension from the King, he wrote M. Argental, a disciple of his, who reproached him with his hypocrisy and contradictions in conduct. “If I had a hundred thousand men I know well what I would do; but as I have not got them I will go to communion at Easter and you may call me a hypocrite as long as you wish.” And Voltaire, on getting his pension, went to communion the year following….26
Following the lead of their mentor, the Encylopaedists were quite skilled in the art of artifice, their impious lies hidden in a forest of ambiguities and code words. Gustave Combes, in his book Revival of Paganism, states that they employed all their ingenuity in veiling their attacks so that the state authorities might not become alarmed or the general reader be on his guard. One of the most illustrious of the compilers, d’Alembert, speaks of “this secret war” which stealthily undermined that it might better destroy. Naigeon and Condorcet speak of “those insinuating articles” where “one tramples religious prejudices under foot without seeming to do so at all,” where “the respected errors” are betrayed systematically by the “weakness of their proofs,” where they are staggered by “the proximity of truths which penetrate to the very roots of their falsity.”27
This all sounds very reminiscent of the Modernists’ methods a century later.28 Although the careful Catholic of today could see through much of the Encyclopedia’s mendacity, it nevertheless deceived many in its era. Combes writes:
Corrupting the Faithful through Bad Clergy
The point of this rather lengthy digression is to emphasize that with the Enlightenment Satan’s war against Christ moved into a new phase. Through most of the Church’s history, a heretic, when exposed, would then openly commence to assail her. But this changed with Voltaire and his disciples. No longer (with a few notable exceptions) would the enemies of the Church launch into frontal attacks against her; henceforth the plan would be to subtly deride her teachings and authority — and, when possible, to internally subvert her. Instead of rattling off the usual string of vituperations, they would remain like a viper at the bosom of the Church, and, when confronted with their errors, throw up their hands in mock surprise, exclaiming, “Surely, you can’t believe I meant that.” Then, unless thoroughly exposed, they steadfastly (if falsely) professed the orthodoxy of their beliefs and their undying fidelity with Rome. Just a bit more elucidation on this point in order to show its progression up to Vatican II.
This change was manifested almost immediately. During the French Revolution, when most faithful bishops and priests were going underground to save their heads, a new breed of clergy emerged, who had no scruples about trying to tie the Revolutionary — and utterly un-Catholic — slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” with the Church. While these “Constitutional clergy,” as they were called, made the pretense of loyalty to all things Catholic, the ruse did not last very long. Pope Pius VI suspended them, and forbade the faithful to receive the sacraments from them. As early as 1775, with his first encyclical Inscrutabile, the same pontiff had warned about Masonry’s infiltration, not only in the highest levels of civil government, but even into the clerical ranks 30 Nine years before this, Pope Clement XIII, in his antimasonic encyclical, Christianas Reipubliciz.
Salus, strongly suggested the same:
Pius’ immediate successor, Pius VII, seeing the rise of a related secret society, the Carbonari, exposed their duplicity when he wrote:
Nevertheless, despite the Vatican’s crackdown on the “Constitutional clergy” (which was perhaps too mild), a pernicious pattern was set, and the enemies saw no reason to abandon it.
The revolutionary clerics in France were but the outward manifestation of a larger clandestine movement radiating through all of Europe. Their transformation, in fact, mirrors what was also being propagated in Germany. Bavarian police in 1785 seized and published documents of a radical anti-Christian group it had suppressed, the secret Illuminati cult. In those writings, Adam Weishaupt, an apostate ex-university professor, and the leader of the Illuminati, taught a form of “liberation theology” almost two hundred years before it became fashionable in Conciliar circles:
The suppression of the Illuminati, however, did not spell an end to such activities. In 1846 Pope Pius IX authorized the publication of the documents of the Alta Vendita, which had been confiscated by the Pontifical Government. This group, commonly thought to be the governing body of continental Freemasonry at the time, made the following prediction:
What could have stimulated it to have made such a bold long-range forecast? The answer: The commitment to a prolonged infestation of the Church.
This Permanent Instruction, as it was called, made it clear to the initiates that to achieve its goal the Lodge must triumph over and utterly destroy the Holy See, because anything short of this would mean “the Christian idea…, if left standing on the ruins of Rome, would be the resuscitation of Christianity later on.” 35 How did the Alta Vendita think it could accomplish such an objective? A key to the scheme involved initiating behind the scenes what today would be called smear (or disinformation) campaigns against the most ardent defenders of the Faith amongst Church hierarchy. Noting that “a word can sometimes kill a man,” the conspirators suggest that meddlesome clergy be dealt with in the following manner:
A Freemasonic Altar
Lest there, be any mistake, “members” of the Alta Vendita were obliged to make every effort to appear as faithful Catholics. In mapping out their plan for the destruction of the Catholic • Church, the secret masters of this dark brotherhood taught:
Further on, the point is again hammered home:
Here, then, are the methods by which the Church’s enemies sought to .bring her to nought: feign devotion, but subtly sow seeds of contempt for those in positions of authority, with the aim of subverting her. There is even more to this devilry, for the Permanent Instruction, all the while emphasizing this mock Catholicism, continues:
But the plot against the Church was, of course, already in full stride. As early as 1806, the Abbe Augustin Barruel, a “papist” priest who was forced to flee France during the Revolution, presented to Pius VII details of the anti-catholic conspiracy’s program, which had been obtained from a former member of the sect. His Holiness not only acknowledged their authenticity, but went so far as to warn the faithful by quoting from them. Relevant to the study in question is the following article derived therefrom:
Then in 1845, Pope Gregory XVIs Secretary of State, Cardinal Tommaso Pernetti, revealed in a letter the awful reality:
And who, objectively examining these remarks (and the spiritual fallout of Vatican II), cannot instantly see a parallel with the following Alta Vendita command:
The preceding excerpts from the Church and her enemies make it clear that a protracted war was the intent; a conflict that would ultimately lead to the Church’s dissolution. Equally evident is the fact that these infidels would attempt to destroy her from within. And that long before Vatican II they had already made considerable headway in their intrigue.
Setting Their Sights on Rome
How successful have they been? Before going on, a point raised in the previous texts needs to be underscored: The goal of these subversives was to penetrate to the highest levels of the Church, and, if possible, to set up a pseudo-hierarchy of their own choosing. “The Pope,” they maintain, “will never come to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to corne first to the Church, in the resolve to conquer the two.”42 What they desired was nothing short of a controlling interest in how the Holy See would be ruled, but they did not allow themselves to expect too much:
What was sought was “a Pope according to our wants” — in other words, a Pope who could be swayed and manipulated to their ends.44 While that subject is worthy of note (and perhaps can be explored in depth on another occasion), its relevance to the current discussion is how it was to be brought about. As shown above, the means of execution would be a generation ot clergy imbued with the poisonous doctrines of the Lodge — a stratagem that was already being implemented a century-and-a-half ago, at a time [shudder] when strong Popes sat upon the Chair of Peter!
The statements of one such priest, an Abbe Roca (1830-1893), are of great importance to an understanding of conspiratorial thinking, as he wrote and spoke openly and at great length about these aims. Read in light of what has occurred since Vatican II, much of what he had to say sounds almost prophetic. He was, to quote worst kind of apostate, and was a member of the most important secret societies, and an element consciously disposed to destroy the Church.”’45
According to Dr. Rudolf Graber, a traditionally-oriented Conciliar bishop in Germany:
Rocas version of Christ had much in common with the later evolutionary pantheism of Teilhard de Chardin; so similar are they that one could easily mistake one for the other. For example, speaking in 1889 in Paris at the International Spiritualist Congress, sponsored by the Grand Orient Masons of France, Roca declared:
In like manner, he claimed about the Savior’s Person: “An incarnation of the uncreated reason to the created reason, a manifestation of the absolute in the relative, the personal Christ is a central symbol, a sort of physical hieroglyph who always speaks and acts in a peculiar [sic] way. He is the Man-Book mentioned by both the Kabbala and the Apocalypse.”48
The notion of dogmas evolving is, of course, textbook Modernism, as is the premise that Jesus’ life is more important in its subjective symbolism for believers than in its objective reality 49 Such an unexpected harmony of teachings gives all the more reason to leave open the very real possibility of a hidden bond between Masonry and Modernism (the latter, say, being specifically devised in the Synagogue of Satan as a particularly formidable weapon with which to wound the Church). Roca once boasted that a thousand apostate priests like him had remained inside the Church to sow the seeds of her downfall.50 An exaggeration? Perhaps. But before it be too hastily dismissed, other points need to be considered that strengthen its credibility.
First, there are testimonies given by such loyal Catholic clergymen as Cardinal Bernetti and Abbe Barruel of a massive number of priests in the Church who were either conscious infiltrators, or else utterly saturated in their thinking with errors being spread by the Lodges. And second, the extent to which Modernists were found to have proliferated less than twenty years after Roca’s claim must not be forgotten. Saint Pius X, in Pascendi, alludes to a situation which could never have occurred had there not already been a significant penetration of this fifth column into Catholic seminaries. The Modernists, he writes:
When many priests are discovered, who not only are deficient in such crucial subjects, but who also sound like Freemasons and the like in their pronouncements, it is hardly rash to question the seminaries. Were it but a handful of such priests identified, they could be considered anomalies that had somehow managed to get themselves ordained. But when it becomes evident that many of them existed, the onus must fall principally on seminaries for having given them a false formation. During Saint Pius1 war against Modernism, he ordered apostolic visitations of every diocese in Italy. Carlo Falconi writes: “many [of these visits] resulted in the closing down of seminaries [italics added], the removal of eminent ecclesiastics, and uncompromising reports on the bishops.”52 Such a process of uprooting the noxious weeds needed to be carried out on a thorough worldwide basis, but this program of purifying the seminaries effectively came to an end with the saint’s death in 1914.
If, for the sake of argument, Pius X had done nothing else of real significance during his years as Pope besides engaging these subversives in combat the way he did, such an heroic effort certainly would be of itself a. strong reason for his canonization, and equally compelling grounds for according him status as one of the greatest defenders of the faith of all time. But his attempt to expose the perpetrators was, alas, a question of too little, too late. Unfortunately, he was trying to fight in little more than a decade, a condition that had a century or more to fester. However valiantly Saint Pius strove to remedy the situation, he was faced with a task that, humanly speaking, was next to impossible. Even with divine aid, the work was arduous, as already he was faced with a sizable part of the hierarchy that viewed the crisis with relative indifference, and others who, in varying degrees, actually supported the calls for change. The Modernists’ triumph finally took place after his death, for not one of his successors exhibited his attentiveness, his fighting spirit, or his profound insights into the truly grave state in which the Church found herself (perhaps they were deluded by the widespread false reports, believed by far too many, that the fight was over — a deceit that, arguably, was the Modernists’ greatest victory}. But these traits were absolutely obligatory for a Vicar of Christ in those crucial years, if the battle was to be won by the forces of good. Sadly, they were largely found wanting in those pontiffs. Whatever praise justly can be given his successors, the fact remains that the utmost degree of vigilance was not maintained, and, consequently, the very cradles of the priesthood had become nurseries of the revolution.
Roca foresaw this to a great extent. The infiltrators, he taught, would soon be strong enough to cause a split within the Church. They were to create a faction to do battle with traditional priests: “By now they [traditional and subversive priests] form a ring, which will break in the middle, and each of its halves will form a new ring. The schism is about to occur whereby there will be a ‘progressivism’ ring and a ‘reactionary’ ring.”53 While no literal schism occurred, there is ample evidence that a virtual one was already forming.54 But only in 1962, with the commencement of Vatican II, would this rupture begin to make itself fully manifest.
Far more telling as far as Bugnini is concerned, Roca, in a book entitled Abbe Gabriel, saw into the future with a truly diabolical foreknowledge:
Elsewhere, he would declare:
Correspondingly, the agenda presented in Modernist Antonio Fogazzaro’s // Santo includes many clandestine elements of its own. The novel’s conspirators realize that to accomplish their “renewal” of the Church, absolute secrecy is required until sufficient numbers have been won over to the cause. In one passage, a member outlines both the group’s objectives and fears to // Santa’s “hero,” Giovanni Selva:
Selva responds that strength is to be found in unity:
Jacques Plocard d’Assac writes:
While Fogazzaro places his characters in then-contemporary society, he would almost certainly have known that he was not the first to advance such views. He calls for a prolonged struggle, spelled out so many times before in conspiratorial literature:
In 1908, Free-masonry was sufficiently confident of realizing its objective that one of its leaders, J.M. Jourdan, could publicly declare: “The goal is no longer the destruction of the Church but rather to make use of it by infiltrating it.”61′ By the end of Vatican II, the Lodge was positively ecstatic. Yves Marsaudon, State Minister of the Supreme Council of Prance (Scottish Rite Masons), would then exalt:
But Marsaudon does not stop with this. Even more incriminating is the following:
Burn in our Masonic Lodges, freedom of expression has now spread over the Dome of St. Peter’s…this is the Revolution of Paul VI. It is clear that Paul VI, not content merely to follow the policy of his predecessor, does in fact go much further… [italics added — JKW]. 63
Treason in the Church
When Archbishop Lefebvre ordained 16 priests at Econe Switzerland in June 1978, an article appeared with this byline in the Italian daily, // Giornale di Bergamo. Entitled “Why We Rebel,” it was a defense of his stand against Conciliar Rome and a rejection of its attacks on him and his Society of Saint Pius X. The article contained some of the Archbishop’s strongest criticisms of Vatican II, including this scathing accusation of betrayal in high places:
If Archbishop Lefebvre was right in his contention, the foulest plot ever launched against the Church has achieved much of its objective. Surely, considering the substantial destruction of Christian tradition experienced in the last three decades, it would be, in Michael Davies’ words, “stretching coincidence a little too far to insist that the correspondence of what is happening now with what the secret societies have been aiming at is mere chance.”65 Before tying all of this in directly with the Bugnini controversy, two more examples from the twentieth century are in order to demonstrate how the Church has been infiltrated.
The first case is famous, due to the unusual use of a veto from a secular ruler to decide a papal election. In 1903, three years before // Santo was condemned by Rome, a conclave was convoked to elect a successor to Pope Leo XIII. In early balloting, the leading candidate was Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, Leo’s Secretary of State. Although he received enough votes for election, Rampolla never uttered the Accepto required to make him Pope. For, before he was given the opportunity, Poland’s Cardinal Jan Puzyna of Cracow, acting in behalf of Austro—Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, rose to invoke a veto, which, all but forgotten, was nevertheless honored.
No explanation for the veto was asked at that time, nor was any given. Some speculated that there were political motives, as Rampolla had used his office to encourage — among other things — friendlier relations between the Holy See and France, and no doubt such considerations factored into the decision to oppose him. Years later, however, an even more significant reason emerged: Franz Joseph, it was said, had discovered that Rampolla was a Mason. There is little, if anything, to show that Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto, who was then elected Pope Saint Pius X, knew of this membership. But it is instructive to consider that one of his very first acts as Pope was to replace Rampolla as Secretary of State with the Spanish prelate, Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val.
Admittedly, nothing can be made of this per se, except that Pius did not accept the claims of the pro-Rampolla camp that he was irreplaceable as a papal diplomat. And yet, the election of Saint Pius and Rampolla’s dismissal, providential acts of the Holy Ghost, assured the condemnation of Modernism. Just as importantly, this, in turn, has proven crucial in giving today’s Catholic resistance the infallible footing upon which to attack the whole Vatican II-engendered religion.
Cardinal Rampolla is not the only cleric with ties to the Holy See who has been accused of being an infiltrator. Approximately half a century after the fateful 1903 conclave an incident took place that, while less celebrated than the Rampolla affair, was far more verifiable. In his book on Communism’s war against Christianity, The Church in Today’s Catacombs, Sergiu Grossu, a Paris-based Rumanian refugee, quotes Pierre de Villemarest (from a study entitled “Soviet Espionage in France”) concerning an all but forgotten — but extremely important — episode in recent Church history. The full text will be given because it not only illuminates a crucial discovery in the pre-Conciliar Church and evidence of a continuation of this subversion after the Council, but also because it demonstrates that enemies of the Church (Communist; Masonic; Modernist) have employed a similar — and, perhaps, interlocking— strategy to destroy her:
In the early fifties NATO Secret Services discovered that, within the usual network of espionage and counter—espionage, the Soviets had set up a department especially for the penetration of churches. In satellite countries the goal had been set in 1945: infiltrate the churches in order to control, if not dissolve, them. In 1949 a second objective was grafted to the first: penetrate the Western, Catholic, and Orthodox churches exactly as other specialists penetrate Moslem, Protestant, and other groups; then on the one hand look for fellow travelers, on the other to recruit agents.
This slow penetration of the churches in order to dissolve them from inside and lead them to revise the foundations of their dogma is a doubly subversive task and depends exclusively on espionage. Agents are, of course, selected with extreme care…
At the beginning of the fifties, a Jesuit priest and professor of theology at the Gregorian University was caught in the act of stealing documents from the vault where the secret records of the Vatican are kept. His name is Alighiero Tondi. He was the secretary ofMsgr. Montini, who was then a direct collaborator of Pius XII and is today no less a figure than Pope [sic] Paul VI.
An investigation has been going on for some time under the direction of a French priest associated with the Vatican who had been an officer of the Second French Bureau in Algiers during the war. For two years each time priests were secretly sent to the Eastern countries to replace those confined, deported, or shot by the regimes, a Communist welcome committee was immediately on the spot to arrest them too, even before they could take office. In addition, certain secret resolutions were obviously leaked once in a while to the Italian Communist Party in matters of managing the assets of the church.
When Alighiero Tondi was caught, he admitted that he became a priest in 1936 under orders of a special division of the Italian Communist Party and that during his training he even took a course at the Lenin University of Moscow, where the chief spies are trained. Since 1944 he had been sending his information directly to Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party.
The Vatican has its laws. Tondi was simply expelled from the order and its sacred confines. The following year he married Carmen Zanti, a Communist militant. Since then he travels all over Europe: in March 1965 he stayed in East Germany to advise Walter Ulbricht in matters of religious policy. Since Msgr. Montini became Pope, Alighiero Tondi declares, rightly or wrongly, that he has been pardoned because “those in high places” were able to understand that he has always had one goal: to work for peace and the reconciliation of souls [through espionage, betrayal of trust, theft of secret documents, disgracing the priesthood, etc.? — JKW].67
Lest the specifics of Tondi’s crime be unclear, a French semi-traditional priest, Abbe” Georges de Nantes, in an open letter to Paul VI, reports that “he [Tondi] had been accused, in the presence of Pius XII, of having given the Russians the names of priests sent to work behind the Iron Curtain.”68 Elsewhere in the Abbe” de Nantes’ publications is the following statement:
During a dramatic confrontation with Cardinal N., …[Tondi]
An early Freemasonic Apron admitted having given the Soviets [the] names of priests sent clandestinely to the U.S.S.R.; these were all subsequently arrested and killed.
It is known that Tondi was Church marriage by favor of Paul VI after he became Pope [sic]’, he found ‘work’ again in Rome in 1965.69
One last point about Tondi adds insult to injury. In 1984 a study on the Jesuits by German author Manfred Barthel was published in English. Essentially a history, the book devotes its later chapters to up-to-date reporting of the order. Barthel quotes from a 1961 expose” entitled Confessions of an Ex-Jesuit, that “describe the horrors of the author’s novitiate some time during the late 1940s…”70 He says that it was published by an East Berlin publisher, and written \)y…Alighiero Tondi. Whether through design or ignorance, no mention is made of Tondi’s other career, and so many readers would lose the choice irony in Tondi’s recollections (here by way of Barthel’s paraphrase): “Special permission was…required to send a letter or even a postcard;…and incoming as well as outgoing mail was censored.”71
That the methods of the Communists resemble those of the Masons should hardly come as a surprise. In Humanum Genus, Pope Leo XIII points out that both strive to replace Christian civilization with a neo-pagan world order:
Earlier in the same letter, Leo writes:
Joint efforts by these forces in the twentieth century have included the bloody persecution of Catholics in Mexico during the 1920's, and the Spanish Civil War a decade later. More directly germane to the subject at hand, and of profoundest significance even today, Masons and Communists around the world joined in praising the Second Vatican Council. How telling that the two leading anti-Catholic forces in the world, which should have been condemned by the Council, ended up being among its greatest apologists!74
The War Against the Mass
“Justly,” writes Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, “has St. Bonaventure called the Mass a compendium of all God’s love and of all his benefits to men. Hence the devil has always sought to deprive the world of the Mass by means of heretics, constituting them precursors of Antichrist, whose first efforts shall be to abolish the holy sacrifice of the altar, and according to the prophet Daniel, in punishment of the sins of men, his efforts shall be successful: And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice because of sins."75
For many Catholics the prophecy of Daniel was fulfilled in 1969, when Paul VI promulgated the publication of a “new order of the Mass.” There can be no question that with the introduction of the new “Mass” the Conciliar revolution shifted into a higher gear. All of the errors of the Council now more quickly became apparent and spread with greater ease; the Novus Ordo Missae constituting their very embodiment. Whereas the Latin Mass is a sacramental action aimed at giving glory to God, the object of the new “Mass” is a social action centered around the congregation.
The Latin Mass is one thing, and one thing only, the perfect mode of divine worship. For the “reformers,” however, this was precisely the problem with it. Oh, they pushed the idea that the Mass had to be made more “relevant” and “understandable” to the man in the pew, and that a “return to ancient liturgical forms” was the way to accomplish this.76 But, in truth, there was only one real reason for eliminating the Tridentine Mass: Its continued survival constituted a major obstacle to the imposition of a new belief system on Catholics; hence, it had to go. Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy summed this up well, when he wrote:
This is in line with the apostate Roca’s thinking, who, along with calling for “the scientific, economic, and social transfiguration of our…sacraments,” writes:
The new “Mass,” likewise, would need to reflect the “ecumenical,” “humanistic,” “universalist,” “socially relevant” activism of the Conciliar Church — abominations like the civil rights “Mass,” the farm workers’ “Mass,” the Marxist “Mass,” the feminist “Mass,” the homosexual “Mass,” which removed the focus from God to “special interest groups” required a fitting service for their “social gospel” messages. And they got just that with the “reformed” rite. While these are extreme manifestations, to be sure, they are accepted extremes in the Conciliar religion and serve to underscore the doctrinal gulf that separates the true Catholic faith from the new “Catholic” faith.
The reputation of “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini ultimately stands or falls with the Novus Ordo Missile. Either the rite for which he is universally regarded as “architect” is orthodox, and hence obliging to all Catholics, or it is an impious “ecumenical” sacrilege, for the Church has never allowed “middle ground” or “gray areas” when the salvation of souls is at stake. Either it is Catholic or it is not — the faithful may not “roll dice” when a fundamental of the Faith is involved.
Bugnini was no “supporting player” in the area of “reform,” but one of the prime movers for a period of nearly thirty years. His singular career in the field began in 1948, when, as a 36 year-old priest, he had gained sufficient support in the Holy See to be named Secretary of the Commission for General Liturgical Restoration, a post he held until 1960. After this, he successively became: Secretary, Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy (1960-1961); Peritus, Conciliar Commission on the Liturgy (1962-1964); Secretary, Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution of the Liturgy (1964-1969); and Secretary, Congregation for Divine Worship (1965-1975). And as mentioned earlier, he had shown interest in Protestant writings on liturgical “reform” as early as 1944. Nowhere is there any clearer example than the Bugnini resume of how the seeds that produced the wicked harvest of Vatican II were being secretly sown in high places many years in advance.
While the question of the new “Mass” has been dealt with at length by many authors, a brief passage on its orations (Collects, Secrets, and Postcommunion) is sufficient to demonstrate its radical departure from Catholic tradition. On the back cover of Father Anthony Cekada’s booklet, The Problems with the Prayers of the New Mass, appears the charge that the Bugnini “Mass” is a “systematically de—Catholicised” rite, and the following examples are given:
When these omissions are considered tout ensemble, the mentality that emerges is precisely what Pope Leo stated to be the teaching of the Lodge in Humanum Genus:
Father Cekada’s findings are damning, to say the lease, as are other critiques of the new “Mass,” but Bugnini never wavered from the position that he and his “reform” of the Mass were thoroughly Catholic. In the May 1980 issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, a letter of his appeared in which he took to task the writer of a previous letter to the editor. Bugnini stated:
This denial is absurd, to say the least. The “causes of the weakening of the faith” are not “many and complex,” as claimed, but are such as can be directed, quite simply, to one source, and only one — the Second Vatican Council. At no time in Church history have designations such as “pre-Conciliar” and post-Conciliar” had the sort of relevance that they do today. Conciliar “reforms” — liturgical and otherwise — utterly transformed the way Catholics viewed their Church, and did, in fact, alienate millions of them. But, far worse, when the Mass was taken from them, and the mockery substituted in its place, confusion, alienation, and corruption rose exponentially in direct proportion with the spread of that substitution.
By 1980, however, Bugnini could say anything he pleased. The celebrated Ottaviani intervention, eleven years before, which properly attacked the new “Mass” as “teem[ing] with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic faith,” received nothing in the way of recognition from Paul VI except a cosmetic touching up of the General Instruction of the Order of the New Mass. The revolutionaries had won the battle, and Bugnini’s letter is more on the order of a mopping up operation than anything approximating actual combat.
The arguments that have been repeatedly used to defend the Liturgical “reforms” bear an eerie resemblance to those already rioted of the Mason Roca, who, nearly one hundred years before the fact, called for a “transformation…at an ecumenical council” so that the liturgy would “return the Church to the venerable simplicity of the apostolic golden age, and harmonize it with the new stage of modern conscience and civilization.” The Council justified altering the liturgy so that a “noble simplicity [its term]” could be achieved, or in Bugnini’s words:
“Rediscovery of the spirit, then, and the effort to make the rites speak the language of our time so that the men and women may understand the language of the rites, which is both mysterious and sacred.”82 The zeal of the “reformers” was so pronounced that the Benedictine Dom Cipriano Vagaggini, peritus (“expert”) at Vatican II who helped draft its Constitution on the Liturgy (praised by Bugnini for his “brilliant, clear exposition” of the issues), dares write in his book, The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform:
Well worth citing in this discussion are remarks by Pope Pius XII, who is held up by Bugnini as having “put the seal of his authority on this whole movement…"84
While it is true that Pius favored some liturgical reform, never would he have countenanced revolution. In fact, in his 1947 encyclical on the Sacred Liturgy, Mediator Dei, he condemns innovations that some were then introducing into the Church — innovations that both harken back to those proposed by Roca and the Modernists, and point straight ahead to the Novus Ordo Missae. While Pius could have been stronger in denouncing them, his condemnation, nonetheless, places a great burden of proof on those upholding the new “Mass.” For among the novelties His Holiness singles out for censure are:
Pope Pius also attacks those who argue for “the restoration of all the ancient rites” on the grounds that such ceremonies carry “the savor and aroma of antiquity” and have “significance for latter times and new situations.”86 Finally, he warns against the notion of the laity “concelebrating” Mass with the priest, and against the innovator who would:
When viewed with the luxury of hindsight, it seems as though Paul VI, Bugnini, Vagaggini, and the other “reformers” drew up a list of these proscribed ideas and practices, and proceeded to do all that was possible to work them all into the Novus Ordo Missae and its rubrics. Bugnini used Pope Pius’ commitment to genuine reform as a pretext to advance his own career and to justify his utterly destructive pseudo-Mass. In the end, however, his machinations had already been condemned by the very pontiff he claims had given “the seal of his authority” to said “reforms.”
The Bugnini Verdict: Guilty or Not Guilty?
Before attempting anything resembling a summation of the “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini case, the evidence must be reviewed. First, stock must be taken of the known aims of the Masons and their allies, as well as the extent to which they fulfilled them. Likewise, Bugnini is entitled to his day in court.
The documentation regarding Masonic goals can be outlined as follows:
• Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church through its infiltration, involving plants who would feign orthodoxy, while promoting revolutionary ideas.
• Corruption of other clergy and the laity.
• Denunciation of truly orthodox clergy (and other faithful Catholics).
• Development of a faction (or bloc) of sympathetic clergy to sway opinion to the “progressive” side.
• Infiltration to reach even unto the Holy See.
• Engagement of said bloc to redirect Catholic teachings and sacraments into “new” directions at an “ecumenical” council.
What about the realization of chose goals? Consider these findings:
• Proof of such internal subversion is manifest; so much so that, over 200 years ago, a pope could explicitly note it in an encyclical, and more than a century-and-a-half ago, evidence was in the hands of the Holy See demonstrating massive infiltration.
• More than a century ago, a papal Secretary of State noted a widespread doctrinal perversion of young clergy, in line with the teachings of the Lodge.
• “Catholic” attacks on Popes and others who promoted orthodoxy.
• Increasing sympathy for “loyal” dissenters.
• Infiltration reaching even unto the Holy See.
• An “ecumenical” council, in which traditional teachings and sacraments were surgically removed, and replaced with “progressive” ones, a move openly applauded by the enemies of the Church.
When the evidence is dispassionately examined, it becomes now clear that there is a close correlation between the sustained infiltration and the Vatican II coup d’etat. It is also obvious that radical alteration of the liturgy was regarded as key to institutionalizing the revolution. This conspiracy that today poses as the Church, the most insidious campaign ever mounted by the forces of hell against the Spotless Bride of Christ, is exposed as un-Catholic by the destruction it has wrought. “By their fruits you shall know them,” declared the Lord.88
Was Bugnini oblivious to all that was going on around him? He lived for more than a decade after the promulgation of the new “Mass,” — his handiwork — and saw both the just criticism it drew, and the ruin it wrought. Yet never for a moment did he acknowledge that the Novus Ordo Missae might be to blame for the harm caused to the Church. The theme of his 900+ page memoirs is hammered home time and again — the “reform” is perfectly “valid,” and any reasons for subsequent weakening of the faith, while “many and complex,” are completely unrelated to the new “Mass.” In truth, however, almost all of the principal elements of the Conciliar service have been shown to be both proscribed by Pope Pius XII and in keeping with Masonic errors about human nature.
Bugnini’s defense is likewise suspect when viewed from the practical order. Anyone who makes an objective study of the modern crisis of faith that has developed in the Church, can trace it first to the Council, and, then, to the promulgation of the new “Mass.” And the progress of this crisis can be seen to accelerate dramatically after the Novus Ordo Missae was imposed throughout the body of the Church. The desecrating of the churches (trashing of altars, chalices, statues, and other sacred accouterments), the trivializing of worship, confession reduced to a counseling session, more empty pews, the decline of vocations (both priestly and religious), the promotion of a false “social gospel,” the open opposition by “Catholics” of essential moral and dogmatic teachings, the falling off of conversions, the rash of pedophile clergy, etc. are the fruits of conciliar “reforms,” including this “valid” revision.
Unfortunately for the “reformers,” some Catholics did not take kindly to the changes. Poor Bugnini caught the brunt of this displeasure. He reports as follows:
While the common reaction is to recoil at the idea of someone spitting in another’s face, the more important question is: Given the circumstances, was she justified — if not in her act, at least in the sentiment behind it? Even a pontiff so mild in nature as Saint Pius X had instructed that the proper greeting of Catholics to Modernists was to beat them with fists. Should an ecclesiastic who subverts his post in line with Masonic goals fare any better?
And yet Bugnini never admitted to any connection with the Lodge; in fact, he strenuously denied it. He records in his memoirs the following passage from a letter written on October 22, 1975 to Paul VI:
To paraphrase Shakespeare: The prelate doest protest too much methinks! While his refutation may appear reasonable at first glance, its underlying weakness is revealed on closer examination. For how can a man who was ordained in 1936 claim total ignorance of a group that the Church had for nearly two centuries repeatedly condemned as being the principal instrument of Satan inmodern times, and that has as its final goal, in the words of Leo III, “to ruin the Holy Church, so as to succeed, if it is possible, i the complete dispossession of Christian nations of all the gifts icy owe to Our Saviour Jesus Christ”?91 But it is the very duty of a priest to know the enemies that seek to devour his flock the better to protect it. Hence, even were he not lying, Bugnini would still — by is own admission — be guilty of culpable ignorance and willful negligence. In his haste to distance himself from the rumor, he has given all the more reason to doubt him.
In January 1980, he again attempted a defense of himself, in a letter to the editor of Homiletic & Pastoral Review. This time he actually went on the offense. Bugnini talks about how in 1976 polemics on freemasonry spread in the ecclesiastical circles, and at first 2, then 17 and then 114 names were paraded around,” accuses Si, Si, No, No of “calumny and defamation” (though he dismisses talk of a lawsuit as “to give too much importance to people who behave in a shameless way”), and declares “not one of the prelates pointed out by them has ever had anything to do with freemasonry.” 92
Here, again, his apologetic leaves much to be desired. His recalling of the different numbers of Masons that were “paraded round” is very reminiscent of the treatment Senator Joseph McCarthy received from leftist critics of his efforts to expose Communists in the United States Government in the 1950s. The tactic is similar: By ridiculing the discrepancies in counting, the very premise of infiltration is also ridiculed. Given two hundred years of internal subversion that had continued to quietly spread, without much opposition, like a cancer in the Church, are even 114 Masonic prelates all that incredible? 93 In any case, even if the higher number is too great, it still does not make the basic premise flawed, since Masonic infiltration is a historical fact beyond debate. Interesting, as well, is his countercharge of “calumny and defamation.” Was Bugnini’s stated reason for not pursuing a libel suit legitimate, or was there the ulterior motive of putting the potentially explosive controversy behind him?
But the most telling moment of all comes when Bugnini attempts to get the other suspected Masons off the hook (or is it “off the harpoon*.”). Not one of them, he somberly intones, “has ever had anything to do with freemasonry.” Its impossible to know which list it is to which he refers (it cannot be the one with just two names, as he would have worded it “neither” instead of “not one of the prelates]”), but in either case he is making a categorical statement that is asinine on the face of it for at least two reasons:
1) if, as earlier claimed, he knows absolutely nothing about Masonic aims and methods, there would be no way on earth that he would be able to spot the tell—tale signs that might give away the cover of a Masonic operative; and
2) even if he did have knowledge in this area, it would still be impossible to have certitude that each and everyone was innocent, short of an in-depth investigation of their past and 24 hour-a-day surveillance. The cover of the Communist plant “Father” Tondi, for example, was sufficiently good that he was trusted to work in as sensitive an area as the Vatican Archives.
Therefore, given his own admission of ignorance about the Lodge, Bugnini cannot be trusted in this statement either. It is perfectly logical, though, to presume that a Mason would do his best to help his “brothers” maintain their cover.
Against the backdrop of these protestations of innocence are remarks by one of Bugnini’s chief accusers. Vatican correspondent Mary Martinez once challenged Si, Si, No, No’s editor, a retired priest named Father Francesco Putti, about not revealing his sources. He responded:
This hardly sounds like the sort of man prone to allow rash judgement to push him into making libelous charges. It is only prudent to preserve the confidentiality of the evidences source, since disclosure could well prove fatal. While defenders of Bugnini would dismiss Father Putti’s comments as simply self-serving, why, it must be asked, have other reputable clergymen, as important as Cardinal Siri, also accepted the authenticity of the “Buan” dossier had they not been privy to knowledge of its source and considered it a reliable one?
In summation, one fact in the Bugnini case can be stated with absolute certainty: A conspiracy has taken place. The question involves which conspiracy theory to believe. Either Annibale Bugnini was a Mason who used his office to tamper with the sacred liturgy or he was the victim of a terribly vicious smear by those bitter over the changes made since Vatican II.
The closest thing to a “smoking gun” in this case are the letters cited near the beginning of this article, 30 Days’ Andrea Tornielli writes “the outcome of Bugnini’s reforms fully matches the intentions expressed in them,” but holds out the possibility of them being “forgeries,” since they seem “too crude and blunt.” As to this latter point, it is instructive to compare these letter samples with the fragments of secret documents found elsewhere in the present article. The rhetoric will be found quite often alike; the Alta Vendita’s Permanent Instruction, for example, is no less “crude and blatant” in its phrasing than the “Buan” letters.
Torniellis “forgeries” argument focuses on the idea that the perpetrator wanted “to created rival ‘factions’ in the Curia.” He does not elaborate on who this might have been, or exactly what the motive was for such a divisive move. As has been shown many times, creating factions within the Church is the Masonic modus operandi. But by the time of the Bugnini disclosures, there was no need for the Lodge to have continued that tactic — it had already achieved its goal, and to proceed as before would have been unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive. What if, some might argue, the scheme was perpetrated by traditional Catholics? The problem there is that it is difficult to see what they believed they could gain by such a move. A rollback to pre—Vatican II days? Surely, anyone clever enough to have hit upon such an idea as fabricating authentic—looking Masonic papers would not be so naive as to believe that there was any way for a restoration to be accomplished by such means. By the mid-1970s, Curial conservatives were a dwindling few and already without significant influence.
And in the final analysis, as long as Paul VI was in power, there was not the slightest chance of the “reforms” being rescinded; anyone in the Curia who refused to be a Vatican II “team player” would be shown the door. No ethical Catholic, of course, would consider employing such a deceit as fake documents, while no realistic Catholic would believe in the long-range value of such a tactic.
The greatest determinant for settling the Bugnini case boils down to one question: Who is more worthy of trust — Bugnini or his accusers? When considered in this light, the matter becomes much clearer. Bugnini’s defense consisted of answers that are either plainly false (e.g., no souls have been harmed by the reform) or transparent in their evasiveness (e.g., no knowledge of Masonry). In a word, he seemed to be stonewalling as though he had something to hide. It strongly resembles the sort of behavior characteristic of past infiltrators. His accusers, on the other hand, have made Catholic restoration the whole of their lives. They had no other reason to oppose him than the harm he was doing to their beloved Church, and their opposition is buttressed with a substantial amount of historical corroboration. No base motivation has been uncovered concerning them.
While the case against Bugnini is based on circumstantial evidence, thus preventing the final degree of certitude, that evidence is nonetheless compelling, sufficiently so to bring a conditional verdict of guilty. In all likelihood, “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini, in addition to being the chief “architect” of the new “Mass,” was also its chief Mason, Some, while agreeing with this assessment, would say: “All right, maybe Bugnini was a Mason. But what difference does it make, since the new “Mass” is just as harmful either way?” In the practical order of things, it is true, the difference is negligible, but there is the bigger issue, and that is the plight of the Church. Some have said that we are experiencing the Good Friday of the Church. An apt description, even down to the fact that, like Our Lord, the Church is victim of both betrayal and conspiracy. Catholics cannot expect any restoration to begin in earnest until they are able to clearly identify the enemy. While Conciliar clerics who are conscious subverters may be few overall, it is they, most assuredly, who have the greatest control and who are setting the agenda. Hence, those traditionally oriented Conciliarists who insist on circulating petitions, writing letters to their local “bishop,” and the like will continue in their frustration, because they fail to see that the fort is being occupied by enemy forces who are wearing Catholic uniforms as a ruse. And until the day when they have at last awakened to the truly grim dimensions of the crisis, the cohorts of Annibale Bugnini — from St. Peter’s Basilica down to the most humble mission chapel — will continue their impious drive to de-Catholicize the world. Pope Leo XIII’s statement on Freemasonry takes on a new significance in the midst of this continuing occupation, and ends with a note of resolve that every Catholic must carry in this fight:
Foot Notes
1 Translation made here and in note seven is courtesy of Mrs. Joseph Cornello.
2 Cited, DAVIES, MICHAEL Pope John’s Council, Volume Two: Liturgical Revolution (Dickinson, TX: Angelus Press 1980, 4th printing), p. 166. In the Italian it reads: “a conclusione di una Riforma—condotta da un Bugnini chc si e infine scoperto per ci6 che si sospettava: massone.” Ibid., p. 319 n. 26.
3 An ironic confirmation of his reputation can be found in Bugnini’s own memoirs: “There were also manifestations of extreme intolerance [against the “reforms”—JKw], The most violent came from a rather well-known Italian writer, Tito Casini, a fervent Catholic who had drawn inspiration from the liturgy for some of his better publications.” Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy: 1948-197;;, trans. Matthew J. O’ConncIl (Collegcville, MN: Liturgical Press 1990), p. 280. pg3
4 Cited, DAVIES, p. 166.
5 Cf. BUGNINI, p. 91 n. 36.
6 It seems fitting-/>ffrf/’c_7’utf/rr-thac a man who contributed so greatly to the Conciliar apostasy would be compelled to spend his final dap in a nation of infidels.
7 BUGNINI, p. 91 n. 36. For the sake of fairness, and since the staff of the cited publication is not present to defend themselves, an anticipated counter-question from them is offered: How is it that a. Freemason is able, not only to remain undetected in the Church for decades, but to ascend to htr highest ranks?
8 Cited, ANDREA TORNTELU, “In Search of Babel,” )0 Days [English language edition], No. 6, I99Z, p. 41.
9′ Cited, ibid., pp. 41-42.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., pp. 42-43.
13 Cited, ibid., p 43.
14 Cited, ibid., p. 42.
15 Cited, ibid., p. 45.
16 Cited, ibid, A most illuminating passage, particularly given tliat Latin is supposedly the official Language of the Conciliar “Catholic” Church.
17 Dismissed and Deported,” p. 46.
18 Ibid., p. 47. According to Bugnini, Paul VI assured him of “complete confidence” in the “reforms,” to which the latter replied: “Holy Father, the reform will continue as long as Your Holiness retains this confidence. As soon as it lessens, the reform will come to a hah.” Bugnini, op, cit,, p. xxviii.
19 Ibid.
20 p. 49. Would someone fleasf tell the tens of thousands of Conciliar churches around the world that, since liturgical “reform” is now officially over, there is nothing to stop them from dropping the new “Mass” and returning to the Mass of Pope Saint Pius V. The notion that it has ended is preposterous, however, as is evident by more than a quarter of a century of liturgical sabotage, a reality which is clearly corroborated in the text and in a passage by Bugnini cited in footnote 17. Neither Paul VI nor his successors have made the slightest effort to “undo” the new “Mass,” but have ever been ardent promoters of it.
21 (VouilK: Diffusion de la Pensde Franchise 1975), p. 7. I am indebted to Father Joseph Collins for his translation of excerpts from L’tfglise Occupte. (Page listings arc taken from the book, not the translation.)
22 Ibid., pp. 199-100, In April 1906 II Santo was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by Pope Saint Pius X.12
23 Cited, MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D., Gmnd Orient freemasonry Unmasked (London: Britons Publishing Co. 1965 edition), p. 33. Pope Leo XIII had the Italian edition of this work published in Rome at his own expense.
24 Ibid., p. 34.
25 (Boston & Los Angeles: Western Islands 1974), p. 78. While it is true that sometimes a translation can strip a quotation of its original gist, the word “device” seems particularly.appropriate here, as in the definition given by Webster’! New Collegiate Dictionary: “A scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem.”
26 Op. fit., p. 56,
27″ trans. Rev. Augustine Stock, O.S.B., (St. Louis & London: B. Herder Book Co. 1950), p, ^^.
28 The similarities were not missed by Sodalitium Pianum, the watchdog group approved by Pope Saint Pius X to monitor Modernist activities. One hostile author, commenting on the organization and its head, Monsignor Umberto Benigni, writes: “As for Bcnigni’s secret police, its methods were infinitely more arbitrary [sic, than those of the Holy See-JKVf]. The brother of a priest who collaborated with him even became a Freemason in order to ascertain whether the lodges had any links with the Modernists.” Carlo Falconi, The Popes of the Twentieth Century: From Pius X to John XXIII, trans. Muriel Grindrod (Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown & Co. 1967), p. 41. Among the parallels pointing to such a nexus are: (l) secrecy and dissimulation; (2) the heresy that all religions are true and equally pleasing to God; (3) the companion heresy that Jesus Christ is not the unique Saviour of mankind and the only begotten Son of God, but merely one in a long line of illustrious religious teachers including Krishna, Buddha,
Mohammed, etc.; (4) the heresy that all religions (including Catholicism) ate subject to fundamental doctrinal and sacramental change—or “evolution”; (5) the hiding of a pernicious agenda behind an innocuous public face; and (6) the goal of internally subverting the Catholic Church. Did Saint Pius also see a Masonic/Modernist connection? Conciliar antimasonic author Paul A. Fisher believes so. In his booklet, Their Codis the Devil: Papal Encyclicals & Freemasonry, Fisher, having already cited Pope Leo XIII on Masonry’s attempts to corrupt priests, writes:
Once again, in Pascmeli Dominici Gregii (On the Modernists), September 8, 1907, a Pope expressed concern about penetration of Masonic philosophy into the Church.
Pius X wrote: “…partisans of error [a term he and his predecessors frequently applied to adherents of Freemasonry — JKW] are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid…in her very bosom and heart.” His Holiness went on to say he was referring specifically to Catholic laymen cont’d, and those in “the ranks of the priesthood itself, who…thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church…who vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and…assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.” (Baltimore: American Research Foundation 1991), pp. 31-32. Likewise, Saint Pius’ portrayal of Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” closely resembles Pope Gregory XVl’s description of Masonry in Mirari Voi (1832) as a cesspool in which “are congregated and intermingled nil the sacrileges, infamy, and blasphemy which are contained in the most abominable heresies.”
29 Of. at., p. 13.
30 “Etiam in sanctuarium insinuant (Even should they penetrate into the sanctuary).” See Monsignor £. Jouin, Papacy dr Freemasonry (Hawthorne, CA: Christian Book Club: n.cl.), p. 10.
31 Cited, ibid., p. 9.
32 Cited, FATHER EDWARD CAHILL, S.J., Freemasonry & the Anti-Christian Movement (Dublin: Gill & Son, 1949, 3rd impression), p. 121.
33 Cited, AJIRIAGA, p. 394. cabala: (variously spelled cabbala, kabala, kabbala, etc. from the Hcb. qabbalah, lit., the received or traditional lore). A collection of writings surfacing in medieval times that contains Jewish ritual magic and “mystical” interpretations of scripture. It has long been a favored text of Rosicrucians, advanced Freemasons, and other occultists — “Christian” and non-Christian alike.
34″ Citcd, CAHU.L, p. 101.
35 Cited, DILLON, pp. 89-90.
36″ Cited, ibid., p. 92. Any similarity between this plan of action and the relentless libeling of such great pontiffs as Popes Pius IX and Saint Pins X by certain Conciliar authors should in no way be regarded as coincidental.
37 Cited, ibid., p, 90, First France had been the center of intrigue, then Germany, and now Italy. But note most carefully that, whatever allowances are made to national temperament and culture, the fundamental conspiratorial elements remain the same no matter the locus: secrecy, false piety, and, above all, the unswerving plan to subvert Christian principles.
38 Cited, ibid., p. 93. For those inclined to scoff at such dire warnings, it is already well established that another secret society that originated in Italy, the Cosa Nostra (or Mafia), has demonstrated that such threats can be — and are — carried out with regularity.
38A Cited, ibid., p. 94.
393 Cited, ARRIAGA, p. 394.
40 Cited, ibid., p. 397. It should be noted that at the time this was written, the term “spirit of the sects,” referred more to Masonry and its kindred than to Protestant churches. Let those who doubt the insidious penetration of the Lodge into the Church ponder over the fact that this was written more than 50 years before Saint Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism, and over 100 years before the destructive culmination of Vatican II.
41 Cited, CAHILL, p. 103.
42 Cited, DILLON, p. 90.
43 Ibid., pp. 90-91.
44 Ibid., p. 91. Perhaps the Lodge got far more than that for which it bargained. On October II, 1991, the Mexican political journal Proccsso interviewed one Carlos Vazqucz Rangel, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Masons in Mexico. There he claims: “On the same day [no date given-JKw] in Paris the profane [Masonic jargon for rion-Mason-]Kw] Angelo Roncalli [John XIII] and Giovanni Montini [Paul VI] were initiated into the august mysteries of the Brotherhood [i.e., Freemasonry]. Thus it was that much that was achieved at the Council was based on Masonic principles.” (Documentation via Mary Ball Martmcz, author and former Vatican correspondent.) While skepticism is in order, the frightening thought is that were these alleged memberships proven, the
overwhelming response of traditional Catholics would be (and with good reason) something resembling: “Oh, really? Well, that doesn’t surprise me too much.” Such is the depth of the Conciliar iniquity that even the most grevious outrages hardly seem shocking anymore!
45 Of. at., p. 186.
46 Athanasius drthe Church of Our Time, trails. Susan Johnson (Hawthorne, CA: Christian Book Club of America, n. d.), p. 34.
47 Cited, ARRIAGA, p. 187.
48 Ibid.
49 In Lamcntabili, Pope Saint Pius X condemned (among others) the following propositions of the Modernists: 29. It is permissible to grant that the Christ of history is far inferior to the Christ Who is the object of faith; 36. The Resurrection of the Saviour is not properly a fact of the historical order…; 37. In the beginning, faith in the Resurrection of Christ was not so much in the fact itself of the Resurrection as in the immortal life of Christ with God; 58. Truth is no more immutable than man himself, since it evolved with him, and through him; 59. Christ did not teach a determined body of doctrine applicable to all times and to all men, but rather inaugurated a religious movement adapted or to be adapted to different times and places; 64. Scientific progress demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption be readjusted; and 65. Modern Catholicism can be reconciled with true science only if it is transformed into a non-dogmatic Christianity; that is to say, into a broad and liberal Protestantism. Anne Frcemantle, The Papal Encydicak in Their Historical Context (New York: Mentor Books 1956), pp. 204, 205, 206 &L 207.
50 See GRADER, p. 38.
51 Frecmantle, p. 197.
52 Op. at., p. 40.
53 Ibid., p. 189.
54 Cf., the on-going series in these pages of Father Francesco Ricossa’s study on John XXIII, “The Pope of the Council.”
55 Cited, ARRIAGA, p. 194.
56 Cited, ibid., p. 189. Roca’s compatriot in occultism, Stanislas dc Guaita waxes poetic about a coming “reformation” of the sacraments: “O rites! O dead symbols!
[italics added] Your soul will return to you when Christianity, strengthened again by the sap from its source, will be transfigured; when the eternal religion that manifests itself uttering the restoring wind of its intimate esotcricism (occult doctrine, known only to the initiates) will revive the dead letter through the kiss of the immortal spirit.” Cited, Arriaga, p. 190.
57 Cited, GRUBKR, pp. 44-45.
58 Cited, PLONCARD D’ASSAC, p. 22.1.
59 Ibid.
60 Cited, ibid., p. 200.
61 Cited, GRUBER, pp. 38-39.
62 Cited, RAMA P. COOMARASWAMY, M.D., The Destruction of the Christian Tradition (London: Perennial Books 1981), p. 179 n. 28.
63 Ibid. Defenders of the Council will argue that these quotes mean nothing, since their source cannot be counted on for veracity. Perhaps, but then the following Masonic response to the Holy See needs to be added to place Marsaudon’s remarks in perspective. After Pope Leo XIII issued his antimasonic encyclical of 1884, Humanum Genus, the following response was made by Dumesnil de Gramont, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France:
What a terrible text this encyclical contains…and one which our brothers ought to read frequently. Terrible and surprising too, when you consider that its author is still considered as the finest, the most clear-sighted and most liberal of modern popes. One is overwhelmed by its vehement tone, the violent epithets, ihe audacity of the accusations, the perfidy of the appeals to secular repression. All the odious fables, all the absurd grievances which, not so long ago, were circulated in France by antimasonic factions, are implicitly and even explicitly contained in this document which, we are sorry to say, seems rather to resemble the work of a pamphleteer than of a Pontiff. Cited, Vicotme Le’on de Poncins, Freemasonry & the Vatican, trails. Timothy Tindal-Robcrtson (Palmdale, CA: Christian Book Club of America 1968), p. 33.
To sincere Conciliar defenders of the “reforms” the following question is posed: Why should a Masonic attack on Humanum Genus, which the Lodge had every reason to oppose, be accepted as truly expressing the Masonic reaction to it, while Masonic praise of Vatican II, which both parallels, in some ways, Masonic thinking, and which has caused untold harm to souls, be dismissed as false? Do you, it is wondered, even have an answer—or will you resort to mere alibis*. Please God, some who read this will have the scales removed from their eyes, and by grace, seek to separate themselves from that iniquitous body. For it is high time that those remaining in the Conciliar Church, but who evince real devotion to tradition and who take no shame in being called Catholics, renounce this Masonic /MfHdo-Church (in which all dogma ultimately is optional), and return to chutches that still cling to the Deposit of Faith—for the love of Christ!
64 Cited, MARY MARTfNEZ, From Rome Urgently (Rome: Statimari 1979), p. 108. No attempt will be made here to explain the contradiction between statements like this and the late Archbishop’s off-and-on negotiations with what, by his own admission, was a Masonically—infested Vatican. May he rest in peace. Incidentally, the Masonic official quoted in footnote 40 confirms the charge, stating: “[W]ithin the eight city blocks that make up the Vatican State no fewer than four Scottish Rue lodges are functioning. Many of the highest Vatican officials are Masons and in certain countries where the Church is not allowed to operate, it is the lodges that carry on Vatican affairs, clandestinely.” Although doubt is always reasonable when a Mason is the source of information, given the history examined in the present article and the ongoing Conciiiar apostasy, nothing should be ruled out. counter-Church: The expression did not originate with the Archbishop. Monsignor Jouin quotes from a 1902 issue of the Masonic review, L’Acacia, as follows: “FREEMASONRY IS A CHURCH: It is the Counter-Church, Counter—Catholicism: It is the other church-the church of HERESY, of Freetbought; the Catholic Church is considered as the arch-type church, the first church, the church of dogmatism and orthodoxy [original punctuation -JKw].”Of>. cit., p. 8.
65 Op. cit.. p. 168.
67 trans. Janet L. Johnson (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House 1975), pp. 139-140. While Villemarest indicates the infiltration of various denominations, the Communists know who their real enemy is. Grossu cites a 1957 secret directive of the Chinese Communist Party, which, after ordering comrades to “methodically wedge themselves into all sectors of ecclesiastical action [the Legion of Mary is mentioned by name — JKw],” and to base all their subversive work on the revolutionary dictum, “crush the enemy by using the enemy itself,” concluded: “Any comrade occupying a post of command must have thoroughly understood that the Catholic church, enslaved by imperialism, must be cut down and wholly destroyed [italics added throughout — JKW]. Protestantism, which makes the mistake of following a policy of coexistence, must be hindered from making new conquests,…iff can let….die a natural death.” Op cit., p. 137-138. Long before the Tondi scandal, however, Vladimir Lenin had given the order to Communists: “To put an end to religion it is much more important to introduce class war into the bosom of the Church than to attack religion directly,” Cited, Poncins, of. cit., p. 208.
68 Liber Accusationis in Paulum Scxtum (n.p: league of the Catholic Counter Reformation, 1973), p. 6on.
69 Contre-Reforme Catholiquc auXXe sitcle. No. 97, p. ix. Cited, Micliel San Pictro, Saul, why do you persecute Me? (n.p., n.d.), p. 17. Thanks to Gary Giuffrc for his kind sharing of this information.
70 translated and adapted by Mark Howson, The /rsuits: History dr Legend of the Society of Jesus (New York: William Morrow 1984), p. 304.
71 Ibid., One can only wonder how long Tondi was able to slip his Judas messages under the censor’s nose — if that was, in fact, his mode of espionage — before being found out.
72 (Rockford, IL: TAN Books 1978 cd. of the 1884 encyclical), p.i6.
73 Ibid., p. 2.
74 And Conciliar defenders of the Council can take on a revolutionary tone. In his book The Drama, of Vatican 11, Henri Fesquet lists among “Vatican ll’s achievements” an item that could even warm the stone-cold hearts of Voltaire and Weishaupt: “This liberation of Catholic thought, too long imprisoned in the negative tide of the Counter-Reformation, in a way enables the Church to take up the standard of the French Revolution, which made the rounds of the secular world before coming to rest in Catholicism, whence it originated [sic -JKW]. Liberty, equality, fraternity: this glorious mono was the quintessence of Vatican II, as Hans Kiing recently suggested.” trans. Bernard Murchland (New York: Random House 1967), p. 815.
75 Dignity dr Duties of the Priest, ed. Rev. Eugene Grimm (Brooklyn, NY, St. Louis, Toronto: Redcmptorist Fathers 1927), pp. 210—111. Rohurautem datum cst ci contra juge Sacrijtciurn propterpeccata.-DAN. 8: 12.
76 It never has been explained satisfactorily by the “reformers” as to how a return to liturgies that have been out of use for more than a mtllennhim-ana-fi-. /wrought to be more beneficial to twentieth-century Catholics than the rite codified in 1570 by Pope Saint Pius V. But, then, it cannot be explained, for it is mere rhetoric. The prayers of the latter are based on those assembled almost a thousand years before by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, and which the Church has always attributed to Apostolic origins. There arc two major points to be noted from this: l) Conciliar claims to antiquity arc transparently fraudulent, as is also evident by the six Protestant “observers” who helped formulate the new “Mass,” and the grevious deletions of essential Catholic teachings (to be shown in this article); and 2) unlike the Conciliar Church, the Roman Catholic Church has never conformed to “the spirit of the age,” but has shown itself ever to be the Church for all ages, requiring the faithful to comply with its timeless teachings and sacraments. The appeal to a false “antiquity” as an excuse for the introduction of corrupting liturgical changes, employed centuries earlier by Anglican “reformers,” was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in his 1896 letter,
Afostolicae Cume, as follows: “They knew only too well the intimate bond which unites faith with worship, ‘the law of belief with the law of prayer,1 and so, under the pretext of restoring it to its ancient form, they corrupted the order of the liturgy in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators.”
77 Of. tit., p. 137.
78 Cited, ARRIAGA, of. cit., p. 191. Roca’s use of the past tense may seem odd, since he talks in another place [quoted earlier in this article] about the liturgical transformation he expects to occur as the result of z future ecumenical council. There is no contradiction, however, because he is, in the present context, evidently speaking to other Masons who shared with him knowledge of “transfigured sacraments” that were already being used in the Lodge. His remarks, then, would refer to Masses that he and other Masonic priests had said before they received “enlightenment,” after which they were then able to remove “the veil of liturgy” and concoct socially “meaningful” replacements. Such parodies were being performed in secret societies long before Roca. For example, Pope Pius VII, in his 1821 encyclical EccUsiam, wrote about the Carbonari: “They blasphemously profane and defile the Passion of Jesus Christ by their blasphemous ceremonies. They dishonour the Sacraments of the Church (for which they sacrilegiously substitute others invented by themselves) and even turn into ridicule the very mysteries of the Catholic religion.” Cited, Cahill, of. cit., pp.
79 (Rockford, IL: TAN Books 1991)
80 Of. cit., p. ii.
81 BUGNINI, op. cit., p. 94.
82 Ibid., p. 45. To claim that “the spirit” is lost — in need of “rediscovery” — in the rite promulgated by Pope Saint Pius V is hardly possible to interpret in a Catholic sense.
83 trans. Peter Coughlan (Staten Island, NY: Alba House 1967), p. 90. This book, writes Bugnini, “was the basis for the new Eucharistic Prayers of the Missal.” of. at., p. 450 n. 4. Thanks to Mr. <5i Mrs. William Zeitz for this book.
84 Of. at., p. 6.
85 Frccmantle, op. cit., p. 279. K
86 Ibid., p. 180. ”
87 Ibid.
88 MATT. 7: l6.
89 BUGNINI, op. tit., p. 181 n. 9.
90 “Ibid., p. 92.
91 Cited, JouiN, op. cit. p. 2O. A “dispossession” that largely has been accom-lished, and that has not been challenged by the Conciliar “Catholic” Church. lather, that apostate body seems content coexisting — and sometimes even col-iborating — with the neo-pagan world.
92 Op. cit.. pp. 92, 93.
93 Not to mention the successful subversion of the Modernists
94 Op. fit., p. 109.
95″ Cited, JOUIN, op. tit., p. ^6.
THE BUGNINI FILE: A STUDY IN ECCLESIAL SUBVERSION
by John Kenneth Weiskittel [adapted]
Hannibal Bugninius, magnus architectus novae liturgiae, non solum Novi Ordinis Missae sed etiam Hebdomadae Sanctae “instauratae” anni 1955, ipse iam vivens colendi Magnum Architectum Universi accusatus est. Quamvis evidentia non sit certa, nihilominus gravia argumenta mentem inducunt ad credendum Bugninium massonem fuisse, et conscienter, tamquam agentem inimicorum Ecclesiae, sacram liturgiam diruisse. Evidentiam huius accusationis auctor loannes Weiskittel adducit, simul cum ea praebens historiam coniurationum societatum secretarum quae ut se inter clerum Ecclesiae Catholicae insinuerent iam abhinc ducenti annos sibi proposuerunt.
In April 1976, a book stunned Italian Catholics, and sent shock waves throughout Christendom. The work, printed in Florence and entitled Nel Fumo di Satana. Verso t’ultimo scontro (“In the Smoke of Satan. Towards the Final Clash.”), was a penetrating critique on the state of the Church since the Second Vatican Council.1 Singled out for direct strike was “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini, C.M. (1912-1982), the Secretary of the Conciliar Congregation for Divine Worship who had presided over the fateful “reform” of the liturgy.
“The reform has been conducted,” charged the book, “by this Bugnini who has been unmasked at last; he is indeed what we long expected: a Freemason.”2 Few allegations made since Vatican II have been more biting — a top Church official accused of being an enemy of the very Church he is sworn to defend. What makes it all the more credible is the author. Tito Casini was no muckraker, but a writer of good reputation, particularly noted for his works on the Mass.3
This revelation did not originate with Casini, however, who was merely reporting an incident from the previous summer, when a priest visited “Pope” Paul VI’s office, plopped on his desk a dossier identifying Bugnini as a Lodge brother, and warned he would go public with the information if action was not taken immediately. Paul appointed Bugnini to the post of Pro – Nuncio of Iran, an assignment as far from scrutiny as was possible, and dissolved the Congregation.
To no ones surprise, this “papal” solution did not rest well with traditionalists, and the threatened disclosures were forthcoming. A month before Casini’s blockbuster, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre declared in his Letter to Friends and Benefactors: “Now, when we hear in Rome that he who was the heart and soul of the liturgical reform is a Freemason, we may think that he is not the only one. The veil covering the greatest deceit ever to have mystified the clergy and baffled the faithful, is doubtless beginning to be torn asunder.”4 In addition, the June 1976 issue of the Italian publication SI, SI, No, No, and four months later, the October edition of the French journal La Contre–reforme catholique, among others, carried the news.5
Meanwhile, Bugnini (pronounced Boo nyee’ nee], who vehemently denied ever having set foot in a lodge, was getting acclimated to life in the Islamic country where he was to remain until shortly before his death.6 The controversy soon abated and was forgotten, but, as he writes in his memoirs, there were some intent on beating a “dead horse”:
Quote:The “bomb” thus fizzled out, but in the ensuing years there was still a desire, especially on the part of the authorities, to conduct a thorough examination of the charges. It was not possible, after all, simply to let doubts, hesitations, and suspicions stand unchallenged; justice and a love of truth [sic] could not accept that. V. Levi’s denial, “Riflessioni di fine settirnana,” L’Osservatore Romano, October 10,1976, elicited further charges in Si, Si, No, No. (The question arises of how such a poisonous, anti-conciliar publication, filled with lies and calumnies, could have prospered, even if directed by a priest, at Grottaferrata, so close to Rome.)7
But last year, a decade after the death of the much-maligned “archbishop,” signs of life have been detected in the old nag, and the bomb is heard ticking again. An Italian-based Conciliar magazine, 30 Days, raised the issue over the summer. A twelve page section, intriguingly entitled “Dossier: Freemasonry and the Application of Liturgical Reform,” promised to answer the controverted question. Did it?
Code Name: “Buan”
“Dear Buan [alleged Masonic code name of Bugnini — JKW] ,” the letter, dated July 14, 1964, began:
Quote:[W]e inform you of the task that the Council of Brothers has established for you in agreement with the Grand Master and the Princes to the throne and we charge you:.,.to spread de—Chrisdanization by confusing rites and languages and to set priests, bishops and cardinals against each other. Linguistic and ritualistic babel means victory for us, since linguistic and ritual unity has been the strength of the Church…Everything must happen within a decade.8
An incriminating document to be sure, perhaps damning. But even more so was the reply allegedly made on July 2, 1967, by Bugnini:
Quote:Peerless Grand Master…the steps towards deconsecration are being taken rapidly. Another Instruction has been issued which went into effect on June 19 last. By now we can claim victory, as die vernacular is sovereign in the whole of the liturgy, even in the most essential parts…There is maximum freedom of choice in the various formularies, allowing for even personal initiative and…chaos…In brief, I believe I have sown the seeds of maximum license with the document, according to your instructions. I had to fight bitterly and make use of every wile to have it approved by the Pope, in the face of my enemies in the Congregation for Rites. Fortunately for us, we won immediate backing from our friends and brothers in the Universa laus, who are loyal. I thank you for the sum sent and in the hope of seeing you soon, I send you my embrace. Your Brother Buan.9
And what does the article’s author, Andrea Tornielli, think of the documents? He at first voices the same uncertainty that many would have in evaluating them:
Quote:Are these documents — highly compromising for the man involved, who always denied any contact with Freemasonry — authentic or forgeries? It is impossible to know since the letters were typewritten, then photocopied by a mysterious “mole” said to have leaked them to certain bishops and cardinals, including the Archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri and the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Dino Staffa. If they are authentic, die letters denote a deliberate attempt to erode Catholic doctrine and liturgy from the inside. But they might also be forgeries, cunningly leaked by someone eager to create rival “factions” within the Curia. There is no doubt that the wording of the two missives seems too crude and blunt. But the outcome of Bugnini’s reforms fully matches the intention expressed in them.10
In the course of the study, however, these ambivalent features are neatly, if obliquely, “resolved” to absolve Bugnini, Paul VI, and company from any wrong doing (mention is made of the “valuable diplomatic work” by Bugnini during his exile in Iran, coincidently the same period of time in which the Shah was overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini). In fact, before the article is half over the whole issue seems to be forgotten by the writer. Far more space is devoted to examining how the post—Conciliar liturgy switched from Latin to the vernacular than in exploring the Bugnini affair (Tornielli, having reflected that the “reforms” matched the stated intention of the “Dear Buan” letter, could have gone into this in more depth when talking about the Conciliar liturgy).
Not that the discussion is uninteresting. Quite the contrary, for the material covered includes incidents from Bugnini’s earlier career, as well as his working relationship with Paul VI. Tornielli writes:
Quote:Immediately after the Second World War, Fr. Annibale Bugnini was Secretary of the Liturgical Commission set up by Pius XII to shape the reform of the Holy Week rites. But his reformist bent was of earlier. In 1944 he had asked Msgr. Arrigo Pintonello to translate certain texts on renewal of the liturgy written by German Catholics and Protestants….11
In 1962, Bugnini, who was Secretary of the Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy, suffered what he called “my first exile,” when first, the Commission’s head, Cardinal Arcadio Larraona, dismissed him, and then Pope John XXIII “relieved [him| of his post as teacher of Liturgy at the Pontifical Pastoral Institute of the Lateran University.”12 An unidentified “elderly prelate” told 30 Days:
Quote:“They got rid of the secretary because he wanted to change things that were not to be touched and especially because he was not fit tor the task.”13 The “exile” would be brief, however, and Bugnini would later be able to state: “I was a faithful executor of the wishes of Paul VI and of the Council.”14
At times, though, it appeared that Paul VI was the faithful executor of Bugnini’s wishes. Tornielli recalled how in 1967 the pontiff requested (through the Vatican Secretariat of State) that “daily and feastday missals should always contain, if in a smaller font, the Latin text alongside the vernacular translation.”15 This intervention was rejected for “technical reasons.” Why? The answer is supplied by Paul’s loyal innovator, Annibale Bugnini: “The principle, good in itself, ran into enormous difficulties: the excessive size of liturgical books, technical difficulties, especially for certain countries that do not even use Latin characters….”16 In the end, the latter position won out.
This episode is enlightening for a number of reasons. From the standpoint of the “reformers,” the faster Latin was jettisoned, the faster their novel lex orandi could fully replace the real Catholic liturgy. Since an all-vernacular new “Mass” was the ultimate goal, and ancient, venerable Latin prayers were cast aside to make way for modern ones (which had, at best, only a tenuous relationship with former traditional orations), why should these liturgical editors even consider the additional fuss and expense involved with publishing bilingual volumes? If the whole purpose of the “reform” was to dispense with Latin completely, why bother to include it in the new sacramentaries at all? As for Paul Vis reaction, it was the subterfuge typical of Conciliar “popes” in every area of religious life. Despite the fact that he lived for more than a decade after this intervention, Pope Montini did nothing to halt the liturgical revolution. Far from making anything resembling a comeback, Latin was pushed further and further into the background, a policy that John Paul II — his televised Latin Christmas Masses notwithstanding— has done nothing to change.
The 30 Days feature also includes a brief interview with Bugnini’s friend and liturgical collaborator Father Gottardo Pasqualetti, who helped him edit his memoirs and supplied a foreword for them. In response to a question from Andrea Tornielli concerning the details of the Iran exile, he states:
Quote:It was a real tragedy for Bugnini. The most painful thing about it for him was that he was removed without being told the reasons for it. Even when the Pope [sic] gave him an audience no mention was made of it. According to Bugnini the decision was brought about by a conspiracy based on forged documents concerning his alleged Masonic membership.17
Pasqualetti dismisses the suggestion that Paul VI signed the notorious General Instruction to the New Order of the Mass without carefully reading it. While allowing for the possibility “that something slipped the Pope’s attention [such as the heretical Article 7, perhaps?— JKW],” he emphasizes the fact that Bugnini and Paul VI “spent many hours together revising all the texts.”18 Despite such close collaboration, Pasqualetti maintains that part of the reason for Bugnini’s exile had to do with pressure the Vatican was experiencing over the Novus Ordo Missae, and that afterwards a campaign was launched to undo the secretary’s work. “In 1975,” he says, “not only was the former secretary of the Consilium ousted, but every trace of him was obliterated and what he had created was destroyed. Still today, when prelates in the Congregation for Divine Worship speak of the years of the liturgical reform, they avoid mentioning Bugnini.19 And Tornielli concludes his article on a similar note, writing how Bugnini’s departure supposedly signaled a marked contrast from the earlier “glory years” of liturgical “reform”: “Something went irremediably wrong after that period. It was Paul VI, once so trusting of Bugnini, who ousted him in the years after the Council. The reform could be said to have well and truly come to an end.”20
In the final analysis, the 30 Days cover story proves to be less an expose than a tease. Little of the text deals with the provocative topic promised in the title; instead, the reader is furnished with details of the “reform” in light of Vatican II, how missals and breviaries became “delatinized,” and a history of the Consilium, The subject of Freemasonry and its infiltration of the Church receive only a passing glance. What could have been an in-depth examination of the scandal and just how “the outcome of Bugnini’s reforms fully matches the intentions expressed in [the two contested letters],” as well as a valuable contribution to understanding Masonic machinations, ends up as merely an exercise in journalistic sleight of hand that reveals nothing really new about the subject.
The Occupied Church
Unlike the 30 Days spread, the present article will not flinch when confronted with the issue. Although Bugnini’s involvement with, secret societies may be forever shrouded in the darkness associated with those cabals, it is still possible to make educated inferences based upon what is known. It is far too important for Catholics to be able to identify the contours of the shadow army that is waging a relentless war against the Church to dismiss such allegations without a careful consideration of these facts.
So what is to be concluded about Bugnini? While many reputable sources readily believed his guilt, the charges did not go unchallenged. “Was he a Mason, or wasn’t he? (Perhaps only his Grand Master, assuming he had one, knew for sure.) Was he sincere in his denial or merely covering his tracks? Bugnini s secret — if there was one — went with him to the grave. Given the lack of a public confession on his part, and a similar lack of uncontested evidence linking him to the group, the natural conclusion is to declare the issue stalemated, and leave it at that.
It is true that, aside from the disputed dossier, there is no direct proof of Bugnini’s involvement with the Lodge. Still, there are other avenues of investigation that can be made. If his membership cannot be definitively proven, there is substantial indirect evidence to link him with the Lodge or, at least, to demonstrate that what he implemented bears a striking resemblance to the stated goals of the Church’s declared enemies.
In 1975, the French author Jacques Ploncard d’Assac wrote a book with the provocative title, L’Eglise Occupee (The Occupied Church). The thesis of the study is explained by him as follows: “If one succeeds in demonstrating that all the ‘novelties’ which trouble the Church today are nothing but past errors which have repeatedly been condemned by Rome, one will be able to conclude that the Church, at this end of the 20th century, is occupied by a strange sect, exactly as a country is able to be occupied by art enemy army.”21 He begins a chapter entitled “A Secret Society Within The Church?” by stating:
Quote:The idea of infiltrating the Church, in order to sway its doctrine and control its hierarchy, strange as it may seem, has never ceased to obsess the various occult sects. The best—known attempts of accomplishing this end were those of the “Illuminati” of Bavaria in the i8th century, and that of the Alta Vendita in the 19th.
In 1906 there appeared in Paris the French translation of a book by the Italian author Antonio Fogazzaro entitled Il Santo — The Saint. Only mediocre by novelistic standards, the book would undoubtedly have passed into oblivion were it not that it served to propagate the tenets and methods of the modernist sect.
And these were astonishing enough; the plan consisted in nothing less than establishing a secret society within the very bosom of the Church, in view of seizing control of the highest positions in the hierarchy, so as to bring about an evolution of the Church in conformity with the ideas of the modern age.22
It is upon this demonstrable premise (of enemies seeking to burrow into the Church, the better to destroy her) that any consideration of the Bugnini case must begin. Otherwise, critics will readily dismiss talk of a Masonic prelate as simply the paranoid fantasy of traditional Catholics. Regarding the assembling of the following evidence, there are certain points to be kept in mind. First, nothing was used that could reasonably be rejected as fraudulent or questionable. Much of it is taken from pre-Conciliar Vatican sources, or captured secret society documents that the Holy See deemed authentic, and ordered the publication thereof. Second, other documents are cited that, though not ruled on by the Church, are public in nature. These include printed statements by the Masons and their professed allies. In short, what is to be considered is fact, and it is from this fact that some rays of light can be cast on the Bugnini affair.
Planned Subversion by Christ’s Enemies
The modern movement to eradicate the Roman Catholic Church can be traced to the mid-1700s, when a group of fervent and vocal apostates came together during the so-called Enlightenment. While “freethinkers” could be found at that time throughout Europe ridiculing every Church teaching and practice, the foul center from which the attacks emanated was France, particularly in those false intellectuals responsible for writing and editing the infamous Encyclopedie (or, in English, Encyclopedia). The guiding light of the Encyclopaedists was one Francois Marie Arouet, better known to the world by his nom de plume — Voltaire.
Like many of the Encyclopaedists, Voltaire was a Freemason. For fifty years he invariably closed his letters to fellow radicals with the motto, “ecrasons nous I’infame” (“let us crush the wretch” — meaning defeat Christ and His Church). This infernal hatred of Catholicism to which, nevertheless, he nominally adhered, wedded to literary genius, led the celebrated Catholic writer, Jacques Cretineau-Joly to describe him as “the most perfect incarnation of Satan the world ever saw.”23 The following incident involving Voltaire is related by Monsignor George Dillon: “A lieutenant of police once said to him that, notwithstanding all he wrote, he should never be able to destroy Christianity. ‘That is exactly what we shall see’, he replied.”24
The attacks of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists had a profound effect on the intellectual climate of France, and helped spark the social fomentation that would culminate in the great bloodletting of the 1789 Revolution. Their contribution in so advancing the aims of Freemasonry has not been lost on the Lodge. Father Clarence Kelly, in his study Conspiracy Against God & Man, quotes from an address given at the 1904 Congress of the Grand Orient as follows:
Quote:In the eighteenth century the glorious line of Encyclopaedists formed in our temples a fervent audience which was then alone in invoking the radiant device as yet unknown to the crowd: “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” The revolutionary seed quickly germinated amid this elite. Our illustrious Freemasons d’Alembert, Diderot, Helevcius, d’Holbach, Voltaire, Condorcet, completed the evolution of minds and prepared the new era. And when the Bastille fell, Freemasonry had the supreme honour of giving to humanity the charter (i.e., the Declaration of the Rights of Man) which it had elaborated with devotion. (Applause.)25
And yet, despite the scarlet sea they helped precipitate, these antichrists never failed to hide behind pious affectations or veiled language when the occasion warranted such duplicity. Monsignor Dillon writes of Voltaire:
Quote:Voltaire, “the most perfect incarnation of Satan the world ever saw. ”
He was also, as the school he left behind has been ever since, a hypocrite. Infidel to the heart’s core, he could, whenever it suited his purpose, both practice, and even feign a zeal for religion. On the expectation of a pension from the King, he wrote M. Argental, a disciple of his, who reproached him with his hypocrisy and contradictions in conduct. “If I had a hundred thousand men I know well what I would do; but as I have not got them I will go to communion at Easter and you may call me a hypocrite as long as you wish.” And Voltaire, on getting his pension, went to communion the year following….26
Following the lead of their mentor, the Encylopaedists were quite skilled in the art of artifice, their impious lies hidden in a forest of ambiguities and code words. Gustave Combes, in his book Revival of Paganism, states that they employed all their ingenuity in veiling their attacks so that the state authorities might not become alarmed or the general reader be on his guard. One of the most illustrious of the compilers, d’Alembert, speaks of “this secret war” which stealthily undermined that it might better destroy. Naigeon and Condorcet speak of “those insinuating articles” where “one tramples religious prejudices under foot without seeming to do so at all,” where “the respected errors” are betrayed systematically by the “weakness of their proofs,” where they are staggered by “the proximity of truths which penetrate to the very roots of their falsity.”27
This all sounds very reminiscent of the Modernists’ methods a century later.28 Although the careful Catholic of today could see through much of the Encyclopedia’s mendacity, it nevertheless deceived many in its era. Combes writes:
Quote:The reader cannot help feeling that atheism taints every line. But on the whole the Encyclopedia is so discreet and good-natured that he feels reluctant to condemn it as subversive unless he reads so attentively that he discovers its true meaning and the savage nature of the attack. Furthermore, this atheism appears in places where the reader would least expect it; for example, under headings that have no bearing on any religious subject. In these scholarly articles, essentially harmless, the Encyclopedia displays its most venomous criticisms of “Christian fanaticism.”
But whether its doctrine is expressed stealthily or openly, whether it takes the form of irony or invective, in any case it has but one purpose: to smite Christianity on every flank, to undermine the foundations of civilization without a thought of mercy, to destroy all authority and every sound principle. To accomplish this purpose, it marshaled ail the forces of irreligion that had been secretly spreading through the world during the previous two centuries, and turned to their own account all the charges that had been made against the Church. The Encyclopedia brought into one place all the arguments and refutations by the anti-religious philosophers, forming a vast summa that set itself up triumphantly against the Summa of St. Thomas; a new gospel sprung from the depths of the human mind, which was intended to supplant that Gospel supposedly revealed by God. It was, in fact, to be the herald of a new era which it would bring to the world.29[
Corrupting the Faithful through Bad Clergy
The point of this rather lengthy digression is to emphasize that with the Enlightenment Satan’s war against Christ moved into a new phase. Through most of the Church’s history, a heretic, when exposed, would then openly commence to assail her. But this changed with Voltaire and his disciples. No longer (with a few notable exceptions) would the enemies of the Church launch into frontal attacks against her; henceforth the plan would be to subtly deride her teachings and authority — and, when possible, to internally subvert her. Instead of rattling off the usual string of vituperations, they would remain like a viper at the bosom of the Church, and, when confronted with their errors, throw up their hands in mock surprise, exclaiming, “Surely, you can’t believe I meant that.” Then, unless thoroughly exposed, they steadfastly (if falsely) professed the orthodoxy of their beliefs and their undying fidelity with Rome. Just a bit more elucidation on this point in order to show its progression up to Vatican II.
This change was manifested almost immediately. During the French Revolution, when most faithful bishops and priests were going underground to save their heads, a new breed of clergy emerged, who had no scruples about trying to tie the Revolutionary — and utterly un-Catholic — slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” with the Church. While these “Constitutional clergy,” as they were called, made the pretense of loyalty to all things Catholic, the ruse did not last very long. Pope Pius VI suspended them, and forbade the faithful to receive the sacraments from them. As early as 1775, with his first encyclical Inscrutabile, the same pontiff had warned about Masonry’s infiltration, not only in the highest levels of civil government, but even into the clerical ranks 30 Nine years before this, Pope Clement XIII, in his antimasonic encyclical, Christianas Reipubliciz.
Salus, strongly suggested the same:
Quote:“The enemy of all Good has sown the evil seed in the field of the Lord and the evil has grown rapidly, to such an extent that it threatens to destroy the harvest. It is time to cut it down.”31
Pius’ immediate successor, Pius VII, seeing the rise of a related secret society, the Carbonari, exposed their duplicity when he wrote:
Quote:“They affect a special obedience and wondrous zeal for the Catholic faith, and for the person and teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom they sometimes impiously dare to call the ruler of their society, and their great teacher.”32
Nevertheless, despite the Vatican’s crackdown on the “Constitutional clergy” (which was perhaps too mild), a pernicious pattern was set, and the enemies saw no reason to abandon it.
The revolutionary clerics in France were but the outward manifestation of a larger clandestine movement radiating through all of Europe. Their transformation, in fact, mirrors what was also being propagated in Germany. Bavarian police in 1785 seized and published documents of a radical anti-Christian group it had suppressed, the secret Illuminati cult. In those writings, Adam Weishaupt, an apostate ex-university professor, and the leader of the Illuminati, taught a form of “liberation theology” almost two hundred years before it became fashionable in Conciliar circles:
Quote:Let Christians believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was the great inventor of the Masonic trinomial, “liberty, equality, and fraternity,”that this is the doctrine He taught, but that it must be understood with the teachings of the sects. Our doctrine is the very divine doctrine Jesus Christ taught His disciples [sic — JKW] and whose intimate and real meaning belongs to the secret discourses of the lodges….[Here we have the cabala.] This doctrine gives the whole human race the means to attain complete freedom….Nobody has opened ways so safe to freedom as our great Jesus of Nazareth.33
The suppression of the Illuminati, however, did not spell an end to such activities. In 1846 Pope Pius IX authorized the publication of the documents of the Alta Vendita, which had been confiscated by the Pontifical Government. This group, commonly thought to be the governing body of continental Freemasonry at the time, made the following prediction:
Quote:“Our ultimate end is that of Voltaire and of the French Revolution — the final destruction of Catholicism, and even of the Christian idea. The work we have undertaken is not the work of a day, nor of a month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a century, perhaps; in our ranks the soldier dies; but the fight goes on….34
What could have stimulated it to have made such a bold long-range forecast? The answer: The commitment to a prolonged infestation of the Church.
This Permanent Instruction, as it was called, made it clear to the initiates that to achieve its goal the Lodge must triumph over and utterly destroy the Holy See, because anything short of this would mean “the Christian idea…, if left standing on the ruins of Rome, would be the resuscitation of Christianity later on.” 35 How did the Alta Vendita think it could accomplish such an objective? A key to the scheme involved initiating behind the scenes what today would be called smear (or disinformation) campaigns against the most ardent defenders of the Faith amongst Church hierarchy. Noting that “a word can sometimes kill a man,” the conspirators suggest that meddlesome clergy be dealt with in the following manner:
Quote:If he is in advance, a declared enemy,…envelope him in all the snares which you can place beneath his feet; create for him one of those reputations which will frighten little children and old women; paint him cruel and sanguinary; recount, regarding him, some traits of cruelty which can easily be engraved in the minds of the people. When foreign journals shall gather for us these recitals [planted, of course, by the Lodge itself—JKW), which they will embellish in their turn (inevitably because of their respect for truth [sic]), show, or rather cause to be shown, by some respectable fool those papers where the names and the excesses of the personages implicated are related. As France and England, so Italy will never he wanting in facile pens which know how to employ themselves in these lies so useful to a good cause. With a newspaper, the language of which they do not understand, but in which they will see the name of dieir delegate or judge, the people have no need of other proofs. They are in the infancy of liberalism; they believe in liberals, as later on, they will believe in us, not knowing very well why.-“36
A Freemasonic Altar
Lest there, be any mistake, “members” of the Alta Vendita were obliged to make every effort to appear as faithful Catholics. In mapping out their plan for the destruction of the Catholic • Church, the secret masters of this dark brotherhood taught:
Quote:[T]o attain more certainly to that result,…we must not pay attention to those braggarts of Frenchmen, those cloudy Germans, those melancholy Englishmen, all of who imagine they can kill Catholicism, now with an impure song, then with an illogical deduction; at another time, with a sarcasm smuggled in like the cottons of Great Britain, Catholicism has a life much more tenacious than that. It has seen the most implacable, most terrible adversaries, and it has often had the malignant pleasure of throwing holy water un the tombs of the most enraged. Let us permit, then, our brethren oj these countries to give themselves up to the sterile intemperance of their anti-Catholic zeal. Let them mock at our Madonnas and our apparent devotion. With this passport u>e can conspire at our ease, and arrive little by little at the end we have in view [italics added].37
Further on, the point is again hammered home:
Quote:“If it pleases you, in order the better to deceive the inquisitorial eye, to go often to confession, you are as by right authorized to preserve the most absolute silence regarding these things. You know tliat the least revelation, that the slightest indicadon escaped from you in the tribunal of penance, or elsewhere, can bring on great calamities and that the sentence of death is already pronounced upon the reveaier, whether voluntary or involuntary.”38
Here, then, are the methods by which the Church’s enemies sought to .bring her to nought: feign devotion, but subtly sow seeds of contempt for those in positions of authority, with the aim of subverting her. There is even more to this devilry, for the Permanent Instruction, all the while emphasizing this mock Catholicism, continues:
Quote:That reputation will open the way for our doctrines to pass to the bosoms of the young clergy, and go even to the depths of convents. In a few years the young clergy will have, by force of events, invaded all the functions. They will form the council of the Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose the Pontiff who will reign; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of his contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the Italian and humanitarian principles which we are about to put into circulation….38
But the plot against the Church was, of course, already in full stride. As early as 1806, the Abbe Augustin Barruel, a “papist” priest who was forced to flee France during the Revolution, presented to Pius VII details of the anti-catholic conspiracy’s program, which had been obtained from a former member of the sect. His Holiness not only acknowledged their authenticity, but went so far as to warn the faithful by quoting from them. Relevant to the study in question is the following article derived therefrom:
Quote:4. That, on our Italian soil, they had already recruited as members more than 800 ecclesiastics [italics added — JKW], both secular and regular, among whom there were many parsons, professors, prelates, and some bishops and cardinals; and that, as a result, they did not relinquish having a Pope of their own party.39
Then in 1845, Pope Gregory XVIs Secretary of State, Cardinal Tommaso Pernetti, revealed in a letter the awful reality:
Quote:Our young clergy is already imbued with liberal ideas. …They have abandoned serious studies. Most of the priests who wiil succeed us in the leading positions are a thousand cirnes more plagued by the liberal vice…; most of them do not know the nature of the things that are taking place and let themselves be influenced by suggestions from which spring forth the great crises of the Church. The same spirit of discord is to be found everywhere among the pries ts,…They have broken with the past to become new men. The spirit of the sects replaces the true love of neighbor, and individual pride is growing in the dark.40
And who, objectively examining these remarks (and the spiritual fallout of Vatican II), cannot instantly see a parallel with the following Alta Vendita command:
Quote: “Make men’s hearts vicious and corrupt, and you will no longer have Catholics.
Draw away the priests from the altars, and from the the practice of virtue. Strive to fill their time with other matters…it is the corruption of the masses we have undertaken — the corruption of the people through the clergy, and the clergy by us — the corruption which ought one day to enable us to lay the Church in the tomb….41
The preceding excerpts from the Church and her enemies make it clear that a protracted war was the intent; a conflict that would ultimately lead to the Church’s dissolution. Equally evident is the fact that these infidels would attempt to destroy her from within. And that long before Vatican II they had already made considerable headway in their intrigue.
Setting Their Sights on Rome
How successful have they been? Before going on, a point raised in the previous texts needs to be underscored: The goal of these subversives was to penetrate to the highest levels of the Church, and, if possible, to set up a pseudo-hierarchy of their own choosing. “The Pope,” they maintain, “will never come to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to corne first to the Church, in the resolve to conquer the two.”42 What they desired was nothing short of a controlling interest in how the Holy See would be ruled, but they did not allow themselves to expect too much:
Quote:We do not mean to win die Popes to our cause, to make them neophytes of our principles, and propagators of our ideals. That would be a ridiculous dream, no matter what manner of events may turn. Should cardinals or prelates, for example, enter, willingly or by surprise, in some manner, into some part of our secrets, it would be by no means a motive to desire their elevation to the See of Peter. That elevation would destroy us….43
What was sought was “a Pope according to our wants” — in other words, a Pope who could be swayed and manipulated to their ends.44 While that subject is worthy of note (and perhaps can be explored in depth on another occasion), its relevance to the current discussion is how it was to be brought about. As shown above, the means of execution would be a generation ot clergy imbued with the poisonous doctrines of the Lodge — a stratagem that was already being implemented a century-and-a-half ago, at a time [shudder] when strong Popes sat upon the Chair of Peter!
The statements of one such priest, an Abbe Roca (1830-1893), are of great importance to an understanding of conspiratorial thinking, as he wrote and spoke openly and at great length about these aims. Read in light of what has occurred since Vatican II, much of what he had to say sounds almost prophetic. He was, to quote worst kind of apostate, and was a member of the most important secret societies, and an element consciously disposed to destroy the Church.”’45
According to Dr. Rudolf Graber, a traditionally-oriented Conciliar bishop in Germany:
Quote:[Roca’s] name is not to be found in either theological and ecclesiastical dictionaries or the Freemason’s Dictionary. He was born in Perpignan in France, where he attended the Carmelite school, was ordained to the priesthood in 1858 and made an honorary canon in 1869. He travelled to Spain, the United States of America, Switzerland and Italy. He was very well—versed in the occult sciences and disseminated extensive propaganda, in particular among the youth. Because of this he came into conflict with Rome. Despite being excommunicated he continued his activities, preached revolution and proclaimed the coming of the “divine synarchy [a term coined by Roca to signify rule by his hoped—for occult “Catholic” church — jfcw]” under a Pope converted to scientific Christianity. He speaks of a new, enlightened Church influenced by the socialism of Jesus and the Apostles….46
Rocas version of Christ had much in common with the later evolutionary pantheism of Teilhard de Chardin; so similar are they that one could easily mistake one for the other. For example, speaking in 1889 in Paris at the International Spiritualist Congress, sponsored by the Grand Orient Masons of France, Roca declared:
Quote:With the world and because He is the world, Christ evolves and becomes transformed. Nobody will ever be able to stop Christ’s whirlwind. Nobody will be able to brake the course of evolution that Christ leads all over the world and [that] will overwhelm everything. The dogmas evolve with it, since they are living things, like the world, like man, like all organic beings. Since they are echoes of the collective conscience, they follow, as it does, the course of history.47
In like manner, he claimed about the Savior’s Person: “An incarnation of the uncreated reason to the created reason, a manifestation of the absolute in the relative, the personal Christ is a central symbol, a sort of physical hieroglyph who always speaks and acts in a peculiar [sic] way. He is the Man-Book mentioned by both the Kabbala and the Apocalypse.”48
The notion of dogmas evolving is, of course, textbook Modernism, as is the premise that Jesus’ life is more important in its subjective symbolism for believers than in its objective reality 49 Such an unexpected harmony of teachings gives all the more reason to leave open the very real possibility of a hidden bond between Masonry and Modernism (the latter, say, being specifically devised in the Synagogue of Satan as a particularly formidable weapon with which to wound the Church). Roca once boasted that a thousand apostate priests like him had remained inside the Church to sow the seeds of her downfall.50 An exaggeration? Perhaps. But before it be too hastily dismissed, other points need to be considered that strengthen its credibility.
First, there are testimonies given by such loyal Catholic clergymen as Cardinal Bernetti and Abbe Barruel of a massive number of priests in the Church who were either conscious infiltrators, or else utterly saturated in their thinking with errors being spread by the Lodges. And second, the extent to which Modernists were found to have proliferated less than twenty years after Roca’s claim must not be forgotten. Saint Pius X, in Pascendi, alludes to a situation which could never have occurred had there not already been a significant penetration of this fifth column into Catholic seminaries. The Modernists, he writes:
Quote:, “are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open,” and include “many…[in] the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, [are] lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church [italics added].”51
When many priests are discovered, who not only are deficient in such crucial subjects, but who also sound like Freemasons and the like in their pronouncements, it is hardly rash to question the seminaries. Were it but a handful of such priests identified, they could be considered anomalies that had somehow managed to get themselves ordained. But when it becomes evident that many of them existed, the onus must fall principally on seminaries for having given them a false formation. During Saint Pius1 war against Modernism, he ordered apostolic visitations of every diocese in Italy. Carlo Falconi writes: “many [of these visits] resulted in the closing down of seminaries [italics added], the removal of eminent ecclesiastics, and uncompromising reports on the bishops.”52 Such a process of uprooting the noxious weeds needed to be carried out on a thorough worldwide basis, but this program of purifying the seminaries effectively came to an end with the saint’s death in 1914.
If, for the sake of argument, Pius X had done nothing else of real significance during his years as Pope besides engaging these subversives in combat the way he did, such an heroic effort certainly would be of itself a. strong reason for his canonization, and equally compelling grounds for according him status as one of the greatest defenders of the faith of all time. But his attempt to expose the perpetrators was, alas, a question of too little, too late. Unfortunately, he was trying to fight in little more than a decade, a condition that had a century or more to fester. However valiantly Saint Pius strove to remedy the situation, he was faced with a task that, humanly speaking, was next to impossible. Even with divine aid, the work was arduous, as already he was faced with a sizable part of the hierarchy that viewed the crisis with relative indifference, and others who, in varying degrees, actually supported the calls for change. The Modernists’ triumph finally took place after his death, for not one of his successors exhibited his attentiveness, his fighting spirit, or his profound insights into the truly grave state in which the Church found herself (perhaps they were deluded by the widespread false reports, believed by far too many, that the fight was over — a deceit that, arguably, was the Modernists’ greatest victory}. But these traits were absolutely obligatory for a Vicar of Christ in those crucial years, if the battle was to be won by the forces of good. Sadly, they were largely found wanting in those pontiffs. Whatever praise justly can be given his successors, the fact remains that the utmost degree of vigilance was not maintained, and, consequently, the very cradles of the priesthood had become nurseries of the revolution.
Roca foresaw this to a great extent. The infiltrators, he taught, would soon be strong enough to cause a split within the Church. They were to create a faction to do battle with traditional priests: “By now they [traditional and subversive priests] form a ring, which will break in the middle, and each of its halves will form a new ring. The schism is about to occur whereby there will be a ‘progressivism’ ring and a ‘reactionary’ ring.”53 While no literal schism occurred, there is ample evidence that a virtual one was already forming.54 But only in 1962, with the commencement of Vatican II, would this rupture begin to make itself fully manifest.
Far more telling as far as Bugnini is concerned, Roca, in a book entitled Abbe Gabriel, saw into the future with a truly diabolical foreknowledge:
Quote:I feel that divine worship, as regulated by the liturgy, ceremonies, rites, and rulings of the Roman Church, will suffer a transformation soon, at an ecumenical council [italics added]. It will return the Church to the venerable simplicity of the apostolic golden age, and will harmonize it with the new stage of modern conscience and civilization.”55
Elsewhere, he would declare:
Quote:And we priests, let us pray for, bless, and glorify the wonderful task of bringing about the scientific, economic, and social transfiguration of our religious mysteries, symbols, dogmas, and sacraments [italics added]. Maybe you do not realize our forms are outdated and we are worn out, abandoned by the Spirit and alone; our hands are full of empty shells and dead letters.56
Correspondingly, the agenda presented in Modernist Antonio Fogazzaro’s // Santo includes many clandestine elements of its own. The novel’s conspirators realize that to accomplish their “renewal” of the Church, absolute secrecy is required until sufficient numbers have been won over to the cause. In one passage, a member outlines both the group’s objectives and fears to // Santa’s “hero,” Giovanni Selva:
Quote:We probably all agree that the Catholic Church can be compared to an old temple which, originally of noble simplicity and great religious spirituality, has been disfigured and overloaded with all kinds of ornamentation and stucco-work during the course of the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries….But I cannot believe that we all agree as to the quality and quantity of the remedial measures. And I should therefore hold it to be more appropriate to come to an agreement on the nature of die reforms before preceding to the establishment of this Catholic Freemasonry. Indeed, I wish to go further. I believe that even if your ideas were in complete agreement, I should not advise you to bind yourselves by a tangible bond. My misgivings are of a very delicate nature. You confidently believe that you can swim under water like cautious fish and do not bear in mind that the sharp eye of the exalted Fisherman or one of his representatives can very well detect you and catch you with a well-aimed harpoon….57
Selva responds that strength is to be found in unity:
Quote:Isolated, each of us can be struck down: today, for example, Professor Dane; tomorrow, Dom Fare”; the day after, Dom Clement. But the day when the imaginary harpoon is launched, and upon being drawn back is found to have attached to it not only prominent lay persons, but also priests, monks, some bishops and perhaps even cardinals, who, pray tell, will be the fisherman, great as he may be, that will not out of fright let the harpoon fall back into the water with all that is attached to it?”58
Jacques Plocard d’Assac writes:
Quote:The plan is clear: they must influence enough minds with their ideas that Rome (i.e., the Pope, referred to as the Great Fisherman) will hesitate to condemn. When that day comes, the Church will have been conquered from within, the victim of public opinion — and the modernists know only too well that they are able to forge such public opinion, and that is their task.59
While Fogazzaro places his characters in then-contemporary society, he would almost certainly have known that he was not the first to advance such views. He calls for a prolonged struggle, spelled out so many times before in conspiratorial literature:
Quote:We are only a small group of Catholics, both in Italy and outside of Italy, clergy and laity, who desire a reform in the Church…In order to achieve this, we must CREATE AN OPINION WHICH WILL LEAD THE LEGITIMATE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH TO ACT ACCORDING TO OUR VIEWS, be it twenty, thirty, or even fifty years…60
In 1908, Free-masonry was sufficiently confident of realizing its objective that one of its leaders, J.M. Jourdan, could publicly declare: “The goal is no longer the destruction of the Church but rather to make use of it by infiltrating it.”61′ By the end of Vatican II, the Lodge was positively ecstatic. Yves Marsaudon, State Minister of the Supreme Council of Prance (Scottish Rite Masons), would then exalt:
Quote:The sense of universal ism that is rampant in Rome these days is very close to our purpose of existence. Thus, we are unable to ignore the Second Vatican Council and its consequences… With all our hearts we support the “Revolution of John XXIII” …This courageous concept of the Freedom of Thought that lies at the core of our Freemasonic lodges, has spread in a truly magnificent manner right under the Dome of Saint Peters…62
But Marsaudon does not stop with this. Even more incriminating is the following:
Burn in our Masonic Lodges, freedom of expression has now spread over the Dome of St. Peter’s…this is the Revolution of Paul VI. It is clear that Paul VI, not content merely to follow the policy of his predecessor, does in fact go much further… [italics added — JKW]. 63
Treason in the Church
When Archbishop Lefebvre ordained 16 priests at Econe Switzerland in June 1978, an article appeared with this byline in the Italian daily, // Giornale di Bergamo. Entitled “Why We Rebel,” it was a defense of his stand against Conciliar Rome and a rejection of its attacks on him and his Society of Saint Pius X. The article contained some of the Archbishop’s strongest criticisms of Vatican II, including this scathing accusation of betrayal in high places:
Quote:We say in all conscience we are not obliged to submit to the suppression ofEcone because we see behind the way in which the order originated a hand which is not that of the Church, an attitude lacking in all respect far Canon Law which is not the attitude of the Church. We are forced to believe it is the enemy penetrated into the Church which orders this suppression and that the enemy is Freemasonry.
The constant progress of heresy and apostasy farces us to recognize Masonic influence in the Roman Curia and even the presence of a Masonic lodge within the Vatican itself. There is now… a veritable occupation of the Vatican by a counter—Church born of Protestantism and determined to spread all the errors which the popes have condemned for the last 400 years.64
If Archbishop Lefebvre was right in his contention, the foulest plot ever launched against the Church has achieved much of its objective. Surely, considering the substantial destruction of Christian tradition experienced in the last three decades, it would be, in Michael Davies’ words, “stretching coincidence a little too far to insist that the correspondence of what is happening now with what the secret societies have been aiming at is mere chance.”65 Before tying all of this in directly with the Bugnini controversy, two more examples from the twentieth century are in order to demonstrate how the Church has been infiltrated.
The first case is famous, due to the unusual use of a veto from a secular ruler to decide a papal election. In 1903, three years before // Santo was condemned by Rome, a conclave was convoked to elect a successor to Pope Leo XIII. In early balloting, the leading candidate was Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, Leo’s Secretary of State. Although he received enough votes for election, Rampolla never uttered the Accepto required to make him Pope. For, before he was given the opportunity, Poland’s Cardinal Jan Puzyna of Cracow, acting in behalf of Austro—Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, rose to invoke a veto, which, all but forgotten, was nevertheless honored.
No explanation for the veto was asked at that time, nor was any given. Some speculated that there were political motives, as Rampolla had used his office to encourage — among other things — friendlier relations between the Holy See and France, and no doubt such considerations factored into the decision to oppose him. Years later, however, an even more significant reason emerged: Franz Joseph, it was said, had discovered that Rampolla was a Mason. There is little, if anything, to show that Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto, who was then elected Pope Saint Pius X, knew of this membership. But it is instructive to consider that one of his very first acts as Pope was to replace Rampolla as Secretary of State with the Spanish prelate, Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val.
Admittedly, nothing can be made of this per se, except that Pius did not accept the claims of the pro-Rampolla camp that he was irreplaceable as a papal diplomat. And yet, the election of Saint Pius and Rampolla’s dismissal, providential acts of the Holy Ghost, assured the condemnation of Modernism. Just as importantly, this, in turn, has proven crucial in giving today’s Catholic resistance the infallible footing upon which to attack the whole Vatican II-engendered religion.
Cardinal Rampolla is not the only cleric with ties to the Holy See who has been accused of being an infiltrator. Approximately half a century after the fateful 1903 conclave an incident took place that, while less celebrated than the Rampolla affair, was far more verifiable. In his book on Communism’s war against Christianity, The Church in Today’s Catacombs, Sergiu Grossu, a Paris-based Rumanian refugee, quotes Pierre de Villemarest (from a study entitled “Soviet Espionage in France”) concerning an all but forgotten — but extremely important — episode in recent Church history. The full text will be given because it not only illuminates a crucial discovery in the pre-Conciliar Church and evidence of a continuation of this subversion after the Council, but also because it demonstrates that enemies of the Church (Communist; Masonic; Modernist) have employed a similar — and, perhaps, interlocking— strategy to destroy her:
In the early fifties NATO Secret Services discovered that, within the usual network of espionage and counter—espionage, the Soviets had set up a department especially for the penetration of churches. In satellite countries the goal had been set in 1945: infiltrate the churches in order to control, if not dissolve, them. In 1949 a second objective was grafted to the first: penetrate the Western, Catholic, and Orthodox churches exactly as other specialists penetrate Moslem, Protestant, and other groups; then on the one hand look for fellow travelers, on the other to recruit agents.
This slow penetration of the churches in order to dissolve them from inside and lead them to revise the foundations of their dogma is a doubly subversive task and depends exclusively on espionage. Agents are, of course, selected with extreme care…
At the beginning of the fifties, a Jesuit priest and professor of theology at the Gregorian University was caught in the act of stealing documents from the vault where the secret records of the Vatican are kept. His name is Alighiero Tondi. He was the secretary ofMsgr. Montini, who was then a direct collaborator of Pius XII and is today no less a figure than Pope [sic] Paul VI.
An investigation has been going on for some time under the direction of a French priest associated with the Vatican who had been an officer of the Second French Bureau in Algiers during the war. For two years each time priests were secretly sent to the Eastern countries to replace those confined, deported, or shot by the regimes, a Communist welcome committee was immediately on the spot to arrest them too, even before they could take office. In addition, certain secret resolutions were obviously leaked once in a while to the Italian Communist Party in matters of managing the assets of the church.
When Alighiero Tondi was caught, he admitted that he became a priest in 1936 under orders of a special division of the Italian Communist Party and that during his training he even took a course at the Lenin University of Moscow, where the chief spies are trained. Since 1944 he had been sending his information directly to Palmiro Togliatti, general secretary of the Italian Communist Party.
The Vatican has its laws. Tondi was simply expelled from the order and its sacred confines. The following year he married Carmen Zanti, a Communist militant. Since then he travels all over Europe: in March 1965 he stayed in East Germany to advise Walter Ulbricht in matters of religious policy. Since Msgr. Montini became Pope, Alighiero Tondi declares, rightly or wrongly, that he has been pardoned because “those in high places” were able to understand that he has always had one goal: to work for peace and the reconciliation of souls [through espionage, betrayal of trust, theft of secret documents, disgracing the priesthood, etc.? — JKW].67
Lest the specifics of Tondi’s crime be unclear, a French semi-traditional priest, Abbe” Georges de Nantes, in an open letter to Paul VI, reports that “he [Tondi] had been accused, in the presence of Pius XII, of having given the Russians the names of priests sent to work behind the Iron Curtain.”68 Elsewhere in the Abbe” de Nantes’ publications is the following statement:
During a dramatic confrontation with Cardinal N., …[Tondi]
An early Freemasonic Apron admitted having given the Soviets [the] names of priests sent clandestinely to the U.S.S.R.; these were all subsequently arrested and killed.
It is known that Tondi was Church marriage by favor of Paul VI after he became Pope [sic]’, he found ‘work’ again in Rome in 1965.69
One last point about Tondi adds insult to injury. In 1984 a study on the Jesuits by German author Manfred Barthel was published in English. Essentially a history, the book devotes its later chapters to up-to-date reporting of the order. Barthel quotes from a 1961 expose” entitled Confessions of an Ex-Jesuit, that “describe the horrors of the author’s novitiate some time during the late 1940s…”70 He says that it was published by an East Berlin publisher, and written \)y…Alighiero Tondi. Whether through design or ignorance, no mention is made of Tondi’s other career, and so many readers would lose the choice irony in Tondi’s recollections (here by way of Barthel’s paraphrase): “Special permission was…required to send a letter or even a postcard;…and incoming as well as outgoing mail was censored.”71
That the methods of the Communists resemble those of the Masons should hardly come as a surprise. In Humanum Genus, Pope Leo XIII points out that both strive to replace Christian civilization with a neo-pagan world order:
Quote:“Yea, this change is deliberately planned and put forward by many associations of Communists and Socialists; and to their undertakings the sect of Freemasons is not hostile, but greatly favors their designs, and holds in common with them their chief opinions.”72
Earlier in the same letter, Leo writes:
Quote: “At this period…, the partisans of evil seem to be combining together, and to be struggling with united vehemence, led on or assisted by that strongly organized and widespread associations called the Freemasons.”73
Joint efforts by these forces in the twentieth century have included the bloody persecution of Catholics in Mexico during the 1920's, and the Spanish Civil War a decade later. More directly germane to the subject at hand, and of profoundest significance even today, Masons and Communists around the world joined in praising the Second Vatican Council. How telling that the two leading anti-Catholic forces in the world, which should have been condemned by the Council, ended up being among its greatest apologists!74
The War Against the Mass
“Justly,” writes Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, “has St. Bonaventure called the Mass a compendium of all God’s love and of all his benefits to men. Hence the devil has always sought to deprive the world of the Mass by means of heretics, constituting them precursors of Antichrist, whose first efforts shall be to abolish the holy sacrifice of the altar, and according to the prophet Daniel, in punishment of the sins of men, his efforts shall be successful: And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice because of sins."75
For many Catholics the prophecy of Daniel was fulfilled in 1969, when Paul VI promulgated the publication of a “new order of the Mass.” There can be no question that with the introduction of the new “Mass” the Conciliar revolution shifted into a higher gear. All of the errors of the Council now more quickly became apparent and spread with greater ease; the Novus Ordo Missae constituting their very embodiment. Whereas the Latin Mass is a sacramental action aimed at giving glory to God, the object of the new “Mass” is a social action centered around the congregation.
The Latin Mass is one thing, and one thing only, the perfect mode of divine worship. For the “reformers,” however, this was precisely the problem with it. Oh, they pushed the idea that the Mass had to be made more “relevant” and “understandable” to the man in the pew, and that a “return to ancient liturgical forms” was the way to accomplish this.76 But, in truth, there was only one real reason for eliminating the Tridentine Mass: Its continued survival constituted a major obstacle to the imposition of a new belief system on Catholics; hence, it had to go. Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy summed this up well, when he wrote:
Quote:One final problem remained. The Reformers feared that “nothing would come out of the Council.” Even though they had managed to insert into the “official” Documents of the Council their false ideas, they knew that this alone was insufficient….Change would occur far too slowly for the impatient innovators. The greater majority of the faithful had never asked for the Council (the Curia had opposed it also), and were perfectly content with the way the Church had always been. Even John XXIII had acknowledged and praised it as being “vibrant with vitality.” For most people things would have gone on much as before. It was absolutely necessary to introduce into the fabric of the everyday life of the Christian, all these new ideas, the “new economy of the Gospel.” How then to achieve this? The answer was obvious. One had to “reform” the liturgy.77
This is in line with the apostate Roca’s thinking, who, along with calling for “the scientific, economic, and social transfiguration of our…sacraments,” writes:
Quote:As long as Christian ideas remained in a state of sacramental incubation, in our hands and under the veil of liturgy, they were unable to exert any efficacious and scientifically decisive social effect upon the organic and public government of human societies.78
The new “Mass,” likewise, would need to reflect the “ecumenical,” “humanistic,” “universalist,” “socially relevant” activism of the Conciliar Church — abominations like the civil rights “Mass,” the farm workers’ “Mass,” the Marxist “Mass,” the feminist “Mass,” the homosexual “Mass,” which removed the focus from God to “special interest groups” required a fitting service for their “social gospel” messages. And they got just that with the “reformed” rite. While these are extreme manifestations, to be sure, they are accepted extremes in the Conciliar religion and serve to underscore the doctrinal gulf that separates the true Catholic faith from the new “Catholic” faith.
The reputation of “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini ultimately stands or falls with the Novus Ordo Missile. Either the rite for which he is universally regarded as “architect” is orthodox, and hence obliging to all Catholics, or it is an impious “ecumenical” sacrilege, for the Church has never allowed “middle ground” or “gray areas” when the salvation of souls is at stake. Either it is Catholic or it is not — the faithful may not “roll dice” when a fundamental of the Faith is involved.
Bugnini was no “supporting player” in the area of “reform,” but one of the prime movers for a period of nearly thirty years. His singular career in the field began in 1948, when, as a 36 year-old priest, he had gained sufficient support in the Holy See to be named Secretary of the Commission for General Liturgical Restoration, a post he held until 1960. After this, he successively became: Secretary, Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy (1960-1961); Peritus, Conciliar Commission on the Liturgy (1962-1964); Secretary, Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution of the Liturgy (1964-1969); and Secretary, Congregation for Divine Worship (1965-1975). And as mentioned earlier, he had shown interest in Protestant writings on liturgical “reform” as early as 1944. Nowhere is there any clearer example than the Bugnini resume of how the seeds that produced the wicked harvest of Vatican II were being secretly sown in high places many years in advance.
While the question of the new “Mass” has been dealt with at length by many authors, a brief passage on its orations (Collects, Secrets, and Postcommunion) is sufficient to demonstrate its radical departure from Catholic tradition. On the back cover of Father Anthony Cekada’s booklet, The Problems with the Prayers of the New Mass, appears the charge that the Bugnini “Mass” is a “systematically de—Catholicised” rite, and the following examples are given:
Quote:Gone from these [Novus Ordo Missae — JKW] prayers are such Catholic concepts as “sacrifice,” “reparation,” “hell,” “the gravity of sin,” “snares of wickedness,” “the burden of evil,” “adversities,” “enemies,” “evils,” “tribulations,” “afflictions,” “infirmities of soul,” “obstinacy of heart,” “concupiscence of the flesh and the eyes,” “unworthiness,” “temptations,” “wicked thoughts,” “grave offenses,” “loss of heaven,” “everlasting death,” “eternal punishment,” “hidden fruits,” “guilt,” “eternal rest,” “true faith,” “merits,” “intercession,” “heavenly fellowship,” “fires of hell,” etc."79
When these omissions are considered tout ensemble, the mentality that emerges is precisely what Pope Leo stated to be the teaching of the Lodge in Humanum Genus:
Quote:But the…Freemasons, having no faith in those things which we have learned by the revelation of God, deny that our first parents sinned, and consequently think that free will is not at all weakened and inclined to evil. On the contrary, exaggerating rather our natural virtue and excellence and placing therein alone the principle and rule of justice, they cannot even imagine that there is any need at all to overcome the violence and rule ofourfassions.80
Father Cekada’s findings are damning, to say the lease, as are other critiques of the new “Mass,” but Bugnini never wavered from the position that he and his “reform” of the Mass were thoroughly Catholic. In the May 1980 issue of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, a letter of his appeared in which he took to task the writer of a previous letter to the editor. Bugnini stated:
Quote:1) By the grace of God my faith in the Holy Eucharist was and is that of the Holy Catholic Church. I challenge [name of his critic — JKW]…to find a single expression in the liturgical reform that puts in doubt faith in the Holy Eucharist.
2) As for the “liturgical revolution,” which would have alienated “millions” of people from the faith, he makes a gratuitous claim. The author knows very well that the causes of the weakening of faith in our time are many and complex. The liturgical reform not only [has] not deviated from the faith, but has been the most valid factor, has given the faithful a faith more convincing, strong and operative in charity.81
This denial is absurd, to say the least. The “causes of the weakening of the faith” are not “many and complex,” as claimed, but are such as can be directed, quite simply, to one source, and only one — the Second Vatican Council. At no time in Church history have designations such as “pre-Conciliar” and post-Conciliar” had the sort of relevance that they do today. Conciliar “reforms” — liturgical and otherwise — utterly transformed the way Catholics viewed their Church, and did, in fact, alienate millions of them. But, far worse, when the Mass was taken from them, and the mockery substituted in its place, confusion, alienation, and corruption rose exponentially in direct proportion with the spread of that substitution.
By 1980, however, Bugnini could say anything he pleased. The celebrated Ottaviani intervention, eleven years before, which properly attacked the new “Mass” as “teem[ing] with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic faith,” received nothing in the way of recognition from Paul VI except a cosmetic touching up of the General Instruction of the Order of the New Mass. The revolutionaries had won the battle, and Bugnini’s letter is more on the order of a mopping up operation than anything approximating actual combat.
The arguments that have been repeatedly used to defend the Liturgical “reforms” bear an eerie resemblance to those already rioted of the Mason Roca, who, nearly one hundred years before the fact, called for a “transformation…at an ecumenical council” so that the liturgy would “return the Church to the venerable simplicity of the apostolic golden age, and harmonize it with the new stage of modern conscience and civilization.” The Council justified altering the liturgy so that a “noble simplicity [its term]” could be achieved, or in Bugnini’s words:
“Rediscovery of the spirit, then, and the effort to make the rites speak the language of our time so that the men and women may understand the language of the rites, which is both mysterious and sacred.”82 The zeal of the “reformers” was so pronounced that the Benedictine Dom Cipriano Vagaggini, peritus (“expert”) at Vatican II who helped draft its Constitution on the Liturgy (praised by Bugnini for his “brilliant, clear exposition” of the issues), dares write in his book, The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform:
Quote:“The present Roman [i.e., Tridentine — JKW] canon sins in a number of ways against the requirements of good liturgical composition and sound liturgical sense that were emphasized by the Second Vatican Council.”83
Well worth citing in this discussion are remarks by Pope Pius XII, who is held up by Bugnini as having “put the seal of his authority on this whole movement…"84
While it is true that Pius favored some liturgical reform, never would he have countenanced revolution. In fact, in his 1947 encyclical on the Sacred Liturgy, Mediator Dei, he condemns innovations that some were then introducing into the Church — innovations that both harken back to those proposed by Roca and the Modernists, and point straight ahead to the Novus Ordo Missae. While Pius could have been stronger in denouncing them, his condemnation, nonetheless, places a great burden of proof on those upholding the new “Mass.” For among the novelties His Holiness singles out for censure are:
Quote:[T]hose who make use of the vernacular in the celebration of the august Eucharistic Sacrifice; those who transfer certain feast—days —which have been appointed and established after mature deliberation — to other dates; those…who delete from the prayer-books approved for public use the Sacred texts of the Old Testaments, deeming them little suited and inopportune for modern times.85
Pope Pius also attacks those who argue for “the restoration of all the ancient rites” on the grounds that such ceremonies carry “the savor and aroma of antiquity” and have “significance for latter times and new situations.”86 Finally, he warns against the notion of the laity “concelebrating” Mass with the priest, and against the innovator who would:
Quote:…wish the altar restored to its primitive table-form;…want black excluded as a colour for the liturgical vestments;…forbid the use of sacred images and statues in churches;…order the crucifix so designed that the Divine Redeemer’s Body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly,…disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See….87
When viewed with the luxury of hindsight, it seems as though Paul VI, Bugnini, Vagaggini, and the other “reformers” drew up a list of these proscribed ideas and practices, and proceeded to do all that was possible to work them all into the Novus Ordo Missae and its rubrics. Bugnini used Pope Pius’ commitment to genuine reform as a pretext to advance his own career and to justify his utterly destructive pseudo-Mass. In the end, however, his machinations had already been condemned by the very pontiff he claims had given “the seal of his authority” to said “reforms.”
The Bugnini Verdict: Guilty or Not Guilty?
Before attempting anything resembling a summation of the “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini case, the evidence must be reviewed. First, stock must be taken of the known aims of the Masons and their allies, as well as the extent to which they fulfilled them. Likewise, Bugnini is entitled to his day in court.
The documentation regarding Masonic goals can be outlined as follows:
• Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church through its infiltration, involving plants who would feign orthodoxy, while promoting revolutionary ideas.
• Corruption of other clergy and the laity.
• Denunciation of truly orthodox clergy (and other faithful Catholics).
• Development of a faction (or bloc) of sympathetic clergy to sway opinion to the “progressive” side.
• Infiltration to reach even unto the Holy See.
• Engagement of said bloc to redirect Catholic teachings and sacraments into “new” directions at an “ecumenical” council.
What about the realization of chose goals? Consider these findings:
• Proof of such internal subversion is manifest; so much so that, over 200 years ago, a pope could explicitly note it in an encyclical, and more than a century-and-a-half ago, evidence was in the hands of the Holy See demonstrating massive infiltration.
• More than a century ago, a papal Secretary of State noted a widespread doctrinal perversion of young clergy, in line with the teachings of the Lodge.
• “Catholic” attacks on Popes and others who promoted orthodoxy.
• Increasing sympathy for “loyal” dissenters.
• Infiltration reaching even unto the Holy See.
• An “ecumenical” council, in which traditional teachings and sacraments were surgically removed, and replaced with “progressive” ones, a move openly applauded by the enemies of the Church.
When the evidence is dispassionately examined, it becomes now clear that there is a close correlation between the sustained infiltration and the Vatican II coup d’etat. It is also obvious that radical alteration of the liturgy was regarded as key to institutionalizing the revolution. This conspiracy that today poses as the Church, the most insidious campaign ever mounted by the forces of hell against the Spotless Bride of Christ, is exposed as un-Catholic by the destruction it has wrought. “By their fruits you shall know them,” declared the Lord.88
Was Bugnini oblivious to all that was going on around him? He lived for more than a decade after the promulgation of the new “Mass,” — his handiwork — and saw both the just criticism it drew, and the ruin it wrought. Yet never for a moment did he acknowledge that the Novus Ordo Missae might be to blame for the harm caused to the Church. The theme of his 900+ page memoirs is hammered home time and again — the “reform” is perfectly “valid,” and any reasons for subsequent weakening of the faith, while “many and complex,” are completely unrelated to the new “Mass.” In truth, however, almost all of the principal elements of the Conciliar service have been shown to be both proscribed by Pope Pius XII and in keeping with Masonic errors about human nature.
Bugnini’s defense is likewise suspect when viewed from the practical order. Anyone who makes an objective study of the modern crisis of faith that has developed in the Church, can trace it first to the Council, and, then, to the promulgation of the new “Mass.” And the progress of this crisis can be seen to accelerate dramatically after the Novus Ordo Missae was imposed throughout the body of the Church. The desecrating of the churches (trashing of altars, chalices, statues, and other sacred accouterments), the trivializing of worship, confession reduced to a counseling session, more empty pews, the decline of vocations (both priestly and religious), the promotion of a false “social gospel,” the open opposition by “Catholics” of essential moral and dogmatic teachings, the falling off of conversions, the rash of pedophile clergy, etc. are the fruits of conciliar “reforms,” including this “valid” revision.
Unfortunately for the “reformers,” some Catholics did not take kindly to the changes. Poor Bugnini caught the brunt of this displeasure. He reports as follows:
Quote:[W]hile attending a meeting of traditionalists in Rome, a woman recognized the secretary of the Consilium [i.e., Bugnini, here using third person as he was wont to do], was filled with a holy anger, and attacked him in St. Peters Square with scorching words and spat in his face. He received many letters, more or less anonymous, that were filled with unquotable insults and, in one case, even threatened him with death.89
While the common reaction is to recoil at the idea of someone spitting in another’s face, the more important question is: Given the circumstances, was she justified — if not in her act, at least in the sentiment behind it? Even a pontiff so mild in nature as Saint Pius X had instructed that the proper greeting of Catholics to Modernists was to beat them with fists. Should an ecclesiastic who subverts his post in line with Masonic goals fare any better?
And yet Bugnini never admitted to any connection with the Lodge; in fact, he strenuously denied it. He records in his memoirs the following passage from a letter written on October 22, 1975 to Paul VI:
Quote:I have never had any interest in Freemasonry; I do not know what it is, what it does, or what its purposes are. I have lived as a religious for fifty years, as a priest for forty; for twenty—six my life has been limited to school, home, and office, and for eleven to my home and office alone. I was born poor and live as a poor man….90
To paraphrase Shakespeare: The prelate doest protest too much methinks! While his refutation may appear reasonable at first glance, its underlying weakness is revealed on closer examination. For how can a man who was ordained in 1936 claim total ignorance of a group that the Church had for nearly two centuries repeatedly condemned as being the principal instrument of Satan inmodern times, and that has as its final goal, in the words of Leo III, “to ruin the Holy Church, so as to succeed, if it is possible, i the complete dispossession of Christian nations of all the gifts icy owe to Our Saviour Jesus Christ”?91 But it is the very duty of a priest to know the enemies that seek to devour his flock the better to protect it. Hence, even were he not lying, Bugnini would still — by is own admission — be guilty of culpable ignorance and willful negligence. In his haste to distance himself from the rumor, he has given all the more reason to doubt him.
In January 1980, he again attempted a defense of himself, in a letter to the editor of Homiletic & Pastoral Review. This time he actually went on the offense. Bugnini talks about how in 1976 polemics on freemasonry spread in the ecclesiastical circles, and at first 2, then 17 and then 114 names were paraded around,” accuses Si, Si, No, No of “calumny and defamation” (though he dismisses talk of a lawsuit as “to give too much importance to people who behave in a shameless way”), and declares “not one of the prelates pointed out by them has ever had anything to do with freemasonry.” 92
Here, again, his apologetic leaves much to be desired. His recalling of the different numbers of Masons that were “paraded round” is very reminiscent of the treatment Senator Joseph McCarthy received from leftist critics of his efforts to expose Communists in the United States Government in the 1950s. The tactic is similar: By ridiculing the discrepancies in counting, the very premise of infiltration is also ridiculed. Given two hundred years of internal subversion that had continued to quietly spread, without much opposition, like a cancer in the Church, are even 114 Masonic prelates all that incredible? 93 In any case, even if the higher number is too great, it still does not make the basic premise flawed, since Masonic infiltration is a historical fact beyond debate. Interesting, as well, is his countercharge of “calumny and defamation.” Was Bugnini’s stated reason for not pursuing a libel suit legitimate, or was there the ulterior motive of putting the potentially explosive controversy behind him?
But the most telling moment of all comes when Bugnini attempts to get the other suspected Masons off the hook (or is it “off the harpoon*.”). Not one of them, he somberly intones, “has ever had anything to do with freemasonry.” Its impossible to know which list it is to which he refers (it cannot be the one with just two names, as he would have worded it “neither” instead of “not one of the prelates]”), but in either case he is making a categorical statement that is asinine on the face of it for at least two reasons:
1) if, as earlier claimed, he knows absolutely nothing about Masonic aims and methods, there would be no way on earth that he would be able to spot the tell—tale signs that might give away the cover of a Masonic operative; and
2) even if he did have knowledge in this area, it would still be impossible to have certitude that each and everyone was innocent, short of an in-depth investigation of their past and 24 hour-a-day surveillance. The cover of the Communist plant “Father” Tondi, for example, was sufficiently good that he was trusted to work in as sensitive an area as the Vatican Archives.
Therefore, given his own admission of ignorance about the Lodge, Bugnini cannot be trusted in this statement either. It is perfectly logical, though, to presume that a Mason would do his best to help his “brothers” maintain their cover.
Against the backdrop of these protestations of innocence are remarks by one of Bugnini’s chief accusers. Vatican correspondent Mary Martinez once challenged Si, Si, No, No’s editor, a retired priest named Father Francesco Putti, about not revealing his sources. He responded:
Quote:No, I don’t. But I can tell you this: every word I print is documented. I publish nothing about which I am not absolutely certain. Take the case of Cardinal [Gabriel — JKW] Garrone, the Frenchman who heads the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education. If you read my paper you will find I consider him the greatest destroyer of the Church in the world today. He has ruined the whole field of Catholic education, emptied the seminaries in Italy and abroad [perhaps not an entirely bad idea, given what is now being taught in them! — JKW], destroyed the catechism. I write and publish these accusations but I do not say he is a Mason. I have no proof of that. If tomorrow you come to me with convincing proof that Cardinal Garrone is a Mason, I will print it but not before.94
This hardly sounds like the sort of man prone to allow rash judgement to push him into making libelous charges. It is only prudent to preserve the confidentiality of the evidences source, since disclosure could well prove fatal. While defenders of Bugnini would dismiss Father Putti’s comments as simply self-serving, why, it must be asked, have other reputable clergymen, as important as Cardinal Siri, also accepted the authenticity of the “Buan” dossier had they not been privy to knowledge of its source and considered it a reliable one?
In summation, one fact in the Bugnini case can be stated with absolute certainty: A conspiracy has taken place. The question involves which conspiracy theory to believe. Either Annibale Bugnini was a Mason who used his office to tamper with the sacred liturgy or he was the victim of a terribly vicious smear by those bitter over the changes made since Vatican II.
The closest thing to a “smoking gun” in this case are the letters cited near the beginning of this article, 30 Days’ Andrea Tornielli writes “the outcome of Bugnini’s reforms fully matches the intentions expressed in them,” but holds out the possibility of them being “forgeries,” since they seem “too crude and blunt.” As to this latter point, it is instructive to compare these letter samples with the fragments of secret documents found elsewhere in the present article. The rhetoric will be found quite often alike; the Alta Vendita’s Permanent Instruction, for example, is no less “crude and blatant” in its phrasing than the “Buan” letters.
Torniellis “forgeries” argument focuses on the idea that the perpetrator wanted “to created rival ‘factions’ in the Curia.” He does not elaborate on who this might have been, or exactly what the motive was for such a divisive move. As has been shown many times, creating factions within the Church is the Masonic modus operandi. But by the time of the Bugnini disclosures, there was no need for the Lodge to have continued that tactic — it had already achieved its goal, and to proceed as before would have been unnecessary and perhaps even counterproductive. What if, some might argue, the scheme was perpetrated by traditional Catholics? The problem there is that it is difficult to see what they believed they could gain by such a move. A rollback to pre—Vatican II days? Surely, anyone clever enough to have hit upon such an idea as fabricating authentic—looking Masonic papers would not be so naive as to believe that there was any way for a restoration to be accomplished by such means. By the mid-1970s, Curial conservatives were a dwindling few and already without significant influence.
And in the final analysis, as long as Paul VI was in power, there was not the slightest chance of the “reforms” being rescinded; anyone in the Curia who refused to be a Vatican II “team player” would be shown the door. No ethical Catholic, of course, would consider employing such a deceit as fake documents, while no realistic Catholic would believe in the long-range value of such a tactic.
The greatest determinant for settling the Bugnini case boils down to one question: Who is more worthy of trust — Bugnini or his accusers? When considered in this light, the matter becomes much clearer. Bugnini’s defense consisted of answers that are either plainly false (e.g., no souls have been harmed by the reform) or transparent in their evasiveness (e.g., no knowledge of Masonry). In a word, he seemed to be stonewalling as though he had something to hide. It strongly resembles the sort of behavior characteristic of past infiltrators. His accusers, on the other hand, have made Catholic restoration the whole of their lives. They had no other reason to oppose him than the harm he was doing to their beloved Church, and their opposition is buttressed with a substantial amount of historical corroboration. No base motivation has been uncovered concerning them.
While the case against Bugnini is based on circumstantial evidence, thus preventing the final degree of certitude, that evidence is nonetheless compelling, sufficiently so to bring a conditional verdict of guilty. In all likelihood, “Archbishop” Annibale Bugnini, in addition to being the chief “architect” of the new “Mass,” was also its chief Mason, Some, while agreeing with this assessment, would say: “All right, maybe Bugnini was a Mason. But what difference does it make, since the new “Mass” is just as harmful either way?” In the practical order of things, it is true, the difference is negligible, but there is the bigger issue, and that is the plight of the Church. Some have said that we are experiencing the Good Friday of the Church. An apt description, even down to the fact that, like Our Lord, the Church is victim of both betrayal and conspiracy. Catholics cannot expect any restoration to begin in earnest until they are able to clearly identify the enemy. While Conciliar clerics who are conscious subverters may be few overall, it is they, most assuredly, who have the greatest control and who are setting the agenda. Hence, those traditionally oriented Conciliarists who insist on circulating petitions, writing letters to their local “bishop,” and the like will continue in their frustration, because they fail to see that the fort is being occupied by enemy forces who are wearing Catholic uniforms as a ruse. And until the day when they have at last awakened to the truly grim dimensions of the crisis, the cohorts of Annibale Bugnini — from St. Peter’s Basilica down to the most humble mission chapel — will continue their impious drive to de-Catholicize the world. Pope Leo XIII’s statement on Freemasonry takes on a new significance in the midst of this continuing occupation, and ends with a note of resolve that every Catholic must carry in this fight:
Quote:Pope Leo XIII
“There is no denying that in this foolish and criminal plan it is easy to understand the implacable hatred and passion for revenge which animate Satan toward Jesus Christ. We refuse to follow the dictates of such iniquitous masters that bear the names of Satan and of all evil passions [emphasis added].”95
Foot Notes
1 Translation made here and in note seven is courtesy of Mrs. Joseph Cornello.
2 Cited, DAVIES, MICHAEL Pope John’s Council, Volume Two: Liturgical Revolution (Dickinson, TX: Angelus Press 1980, 4th printing), p. 166. In the Italian it reads: “a conclusione di una Riforma—condotta da un Bugnini chc si e infine scoperto per ci6 che si sospettava: massone.” Ibid., p. 319 n. 26.
3 An ironic confirmation of his reputation can be found in Bugnini’s own memoirs: “There were also manifestations of extreme intolerance [against the “reforms”—JKw], The most violent came from a rather well-known Italian writer, Tito Casini, a fervent Catholic who had drawn inspiration from the liturgy for some of his better publications.” Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy: 1948-197;;, trans. Matthew J. O’ConncIl (Collegcville, MN: Liturgical Press 1990), p. 280. pg3
4 Cited, DAVIES, p. 166.
5 Cf. BUGNINI, p. 91 n. 36.
6 It seems fitting-/>ffrf/’c_7’utf/rr-thac a man who contributed so greatly to the Conciliar apostasy would be compelled to spend his final dap in a nation of infidels.
7 BUGNINI, p. 91 n. 36. For the sake of fairness, and since the staff of the cited publication is not present to defend themselves, an anticipated counter-question from them is offered: How is it that a. Freemason is able, not only to remain undetected in the Church for decades, but to ascend to htr highest ranks?
8 Cited, ANDREA TORNTELU, “In Search of Babel,” )0 Days [English language edition], No. 6, I99Z, p. 41.
9′ Cited, ibid., pp. 41-42.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., pp. 42-43.
13 Cited, ibid., p 43.
14 Cited, ibid., p. 42.
15 Cited, ibid., p. 45.
16 Cited, ibid, A most illuminating passage, particularly given tliat Latin is supposedly the official Language of the Conciliar “Catholic” Church.
17 Dismissed and Deported,” p. 46.
18 Ibid., p. 47. According to Bugnini, Paul VI assured him of “complete confidence” in the “reforms,” to which the latter replied: “Holy Father, the reform will continue as long as Your Holiness retains this confidence. As soon as it lessens, the reform will come to a hah.” Bugnini, op, cit,, p. xxviii.
19 Ibid.
20 p. 49. Would someone fleasf tell the tens of thousands of Conciliar churches around the world that, since liturgical “reform” is now officially over, there is nothing to stop them from dropping the new “Mass” and returning to the Mass of Pope Saint Pius V. The notion that it has ended is preposterous, however, as is evident by more than a quarter of a century of liturgical sabotage, a reality which is clearly corroborated in the text and in a passage by Bugnini cited in footnote 17. Neither Paul VI nor his successors have made the slightest effort to “undo” the new “Mass,” but have ever been ardent promoters of it.
21 (VouilK: Diffusion de la Pensde Franchise 1975), p. 7. I am indebted to Father Joseph Collins for his translation of excerpts from L’tfglise Occupte. (Page listings arc taken from the book, not the translation.)
22 Ibid., pp. 199-100, In April 1906 II Santo was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by Pope Saint Pius X.12
23 Cited, MONSIGNOR GEORGE F. DILLON, D.D., Gmnd Orient freemasonry Unmasked (London: Britons Publishing Co. 1965 edition), p. 33. Pope Leo XIII had the Italian edition of this work published in Rome at his own expense.
24 Ibid., p. 34.
25 (Boston & Los Angeles: Western Islands 1974), p. 78. While it is true that sometimes a translation can strip a quotation of its original gist, the word “device” seems particularly.appropriate here, as in the definition given by Webster’! New Collegiate Dictionary: “A scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem.”
26 Op. fit., p. 56,
27″ trans. Rev. Augustine Stock, O.S.B., (St. Louis & London: B. Herder Book Co. 1950), p, ^^.
28 The similarities were not missed by Sodalitium Pianum, the watchdog group approved by Pope Saint Pius X to monitor Modernist activities. One hostile author, commenting on the organization and its head, Monsignor Umberto Benigni, writes: “As for Bcnigni’s secret police, its methods were infinitely more arbitrary [sic, than those of the Holy See-JKVf]. The brother of a priest who collaborated with him even became a Freemason in order to ascertain whether the lodges had any links with the Modernists.” Carlo Falconi, The Popes of the Twentieth Century: From Pius X to John XXIII, trans. Muriel Grindrod (Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown & Co. 1967), p. 41. Among the parallels pointing to such a nexus are: (l) secrecy and dissimulation; (2) the heresy that all religions are true and equally pleasing to God; (3) the companion heresy that Jesus Christ is not the unique Saviour of mankind and the only begotten Son of God, but merely one in a long line of illustrious religious teachers including Krishna, Buddha,
Mohammed, etc.; (4) the heresy that all religions (including Catholicism) ate subject to fundamental doctrinal and sacramental change—or “evolution”; (5) the hiding of a pernicious agenda behind an innocuous public face; and (6) the goal of internally subverting the Catholic Church. Did Saint Pius also see a Masonic/Modernist connection? Conciliar antimasonic author Paul A. Fisher believes so. In his booklet, Their Codis the Devil: Papal Encyclicals & Freemasonry, Fisher, having already cited Pope Leo XIII on Masonry’s attempts to corrupt priests, writes:
Once again, in Pascmeli Dominici Gregii (On the Modernists), September 8, 1907, a Pope expressed concern about penetration of Masonic philosophy into the Church.
Pius X wrote: “…partisans of error [a term he and his predecessors frequently applied to adherents of Freemasonry — JKW] are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid…in her very bosom and heart.” His Holiness went on to say he was referring specifically to Catholic laymen cont’d, and those in “the ranks of the priesthood itself, who…thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church…who vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and…assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.” (Baltimore: American Research Foundation 1991), pp. 31-32. Likewise, Saint Pius’ portrayal of Modernism as the “synthesis of all heresies” closely resembles Pope Gregory XVl’s description of Masonry in Mirari Voi (1832) as a cesspool in which “are congregated and intermingled nil the sacrileges, infamy, and blasphemy which are contained in the most abominable heresies.”
29 Of. at., p. 13.
30 “Etiam in sanctuarium insinuant (Even should they penetrate into the sanctuary).” See Monsignor £. Jouin, Papacy dr Freemasonry (Hawthorne, CA: Christian Book Club: n.cl.), p. 10.
31 Cited, ibid., p. 9.
32 Cited, FATHER EDWARD CAHILL, S.J., Freemasonry & the Anti-Christian Movement (Dublin: Gill & Son, 1949, 3rd impression), p. 121.
33 Cited, AJIRIAGA, p. 394. cabala: (variously spelled cabbala, kabala, kabbala, etc. from the Hcb. qabbalah, lit., the received or traditional lore). A collection of writings surfacing in medieval times that contains Jewish ritual magic and “mystical” interpretations of scripture. It has long been a favored text of Rosicrucians, advanced Freemasons, and other occultists — “Christian” and non-Christian alike.
34″ Citcd, CAHU.L, p. 101.
35 Cited, DILLON, pp. 89-90.
36″ Cited, ibid., p. 92. Any similarity between this plan of action and the relentless libeling of such great pontiffs as Popes Pius IX and Saint Pins X by certain Conciliar authors should in no way be regarded as coincidental.
37 Cited, ibid., p, 90, First France had been the center of intrigue, then Germany, and now Italy. But note most carefully that, whatever allowances are made to national temperament and culture, the fundamental conspiratorial elements remain the same no matter the locus: secrecy, false piety, and, above all, the unswerving plan to subvert Christian principles.
38 Cited, ibid., p. 93. For those inclined to scoff at such dire warnings, it is already well established that another secret society that originated in Italy, the Cosa Nostra (or Mafia), has demonstrated that such threats can be — and are — carried out with regularity.
38A Cited, ibid., p. 94.
393 Cited, ARRIAGA, p. 394.
40 Cited, ibid., p. 397. It should be noted that at the time this was written, the term “spirit of the sects,” referred more to Masonry and its kindred than to Protestant churches. Let those who doubt the insidious penetration of the Lodge into the Church ponder over the fact that this was written more than 50 years before Saint Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism, and over 100 years before the destructive culmination of Vatican II.
41 Cited, CAHILL, p. 103.
42 Cited, DILLON, p. 90.
43 Ibid., pp. 90-91.
44 Ibid., p. 91. Perhaps the Lodge got far more than that for which it bargained. On October II, 1991, the Mexican political journal Proccsso interviewed one Carlos Vazqucz Rangel, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Masons in Mexico. There he claims: “On the same day [no date given-JKw] in Paris the profane [Masonic jargon for rion-Mason-]Kw] Angelo Roncalli [John XIII] and Giovanni Montini [Paul VI] were initiated into the august mysteries of the Brotherhood [i.e., Freemasonry]. Thus it was that much that was achieved at the Council was based on Masonic principles.” (Documentation via Mary Ball Martmcz, author and former Vatican correspondent.) While skepticism is in order, the frightening thought is that were these alleged memberships proven, the
overwhelming response of traditional Catholics would be (and with good reason) something resembling: “Oh, really? Well, that doesn’t surprise me too much.” Such is the depth of the Conciliar iniquity that even the most grevious outrages hardly seem shocking anymore!
45 Of. at., p. 186.
46 Athanasius drthe Church of Our Time, trails. Susan Johnson (Hawthorne, CA: Christian Book Club of America, n. d.), p. 34.
47 Cited, ARRIAGA, p. 187.
48 Ibid.
49 In Lamcntabili, Pope Saint Pius X condemned (among others) the following propositions of the Modernists: 29. It is permissible to grant that the Christ of history is far inferior to the Christ Who is the object of faith; 36. The Resurrection of the Saviour is not properly a fact of the historical order…; 37. In the beginning, faith in the Resurrection of Christ was not so much in the fact itself of the Resurrection as in the immortal life of Christ with God; 58. Truth is no more immutable than man himself, since it evolved with him, and through him; 59. Christ did not teach a determined body of doctrine applicable to all times and to all men, but rather inaugurated a religious movement adapted or to be adapted to different times and places; 64. Scientific progress demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption be readjusted; and 65. Modern Catholicism can be reconciled with true science only if it is transformed into a non-dogmatic Christianity; that is to say, into a broad and liberal Protestantism. Anne Frcemantle, The Papal Encydicak in Their Historical Context (New York: Mentor Books 1956), pp. 204, 205, 206 &L 207.
50 See GRADER, p. 38.
51 Frecmantle, p. 197.
52 Op. at., p. 40.
53 Ibid., p. 189.
54 Cf., the on-going series in these pages of Father Francesco Ricossa’s study on John XXIII, “The Pope of the Council.”
55 Cited, ARRIAGA, p. 194.
56 Cited, ibid., p. 189. Roca’s compatriot in occultism, Stanislas dc Guaita waxes poetic about a coming “reformation” of the sacraments: “O rites! O dead symbols!
[italics added] Your soul will return to you when Christianity, strengthened again by the sap from its source, will be transfigured; when the eternal religion that manifests itself uttering the restoring wind of its intimate esotcricism (occult doctrine, known only to the initiates) will revive the dead letter through the kiss of the immortal spirit.” Cited, Arriaga, p. 190.
57 Cited, GRUBKR, pp. 44-45.
58 Cited, PLONCARD D’ASSAC, p. 22.1.
59 Ibid.
60 Cited, ibid., p. 200.
61 Cited, GRUBER, pp. 38-39.
62 Cited, RAMA P. COOMARASWAMY, M.D., The Destruction of the Christian Tradition (London: Perennial Books 1981), p. 179 n. 28.
63 Ibid. Defenders of the Council will argue that these quotes mean nothing, since their source cannot be counted on for veracity. Perhaps, but then the following Masonic response to the Holy See needs to be added to place Marsaudon’s remarks in perspective. After Pope Leo XIII issued his antimasonic encyclical of 1884, Humanum Genus, the following response was made by Dumesnil de Gramont, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France:
What a terrible text this encyclical contains…and one which our brothers ought to read frequently. Terrible and surprising too, when you consider that its author is still considered as the finest, the most clear-sighted and most liberal of modern popes. One is overwhelmed by its vehement tone, the violent epithets, ihe audacity of the accusations, the perfidy of the appeals to secular repression. All the odious fables, all the absurd grievances which, not so long ago, were circulated in France by antimasonic factions, are implicitly and even explicitly contained in this document which, we are sorry to say, seems rather to resemble the work of a pamphleteer than of a Pontiff. Cited, Vicotme Le’on de Poncins, Freemasonry & the Vatican, trails. Timothy Tindal-Robcrtson (Palmdale, CA: Christian Book Club of America 1968), p. 33.
To sincere Conciliar defenders of the “reforms” the following question is posed: Why should a Masonic attack on Humanum Genus, which the Lodge had every reason to oppose, be accepted as truly expressing the Masonic reaction to it, while Masonic praise of Vatican II, which both parallels, in some ways, Masonic thinking, and which has caused untold harm to souls, be dismissed as false? Do you, it is wondered, even have an answer—or will you resort to mere alibis*. Please God, some who read this will have the scales removed from their eyes, and by grace, seek to separate themselves from that iniquitous body. For it is high time that those remaining in the Conciliar Church, but who evince real devotion to tradition and who take no shame in being called Catholics, renounce this Masonic /MfHdo-Church (in which all dogma ultimately is optional), and return to chutches that still cling to the Deposit of Faith—for the love of Christ!
64 Cited, MARY MARTfNEZ, From Rome Urgently (Rome: Statimari 1979), p. 108. No attempt will be made here to explain the contradiction between statements like this and the late Archbishop’s off-and-on negotiations with what, by his own admission, was a Masonically—infested Vatican. May he rest in peace. Incidentally, the Masonic official quoted in footnote 40 confirms the charge, stating: “[W]ithin the eight city blocks that make up the Vatican State no fewer than four Scottish Rue lodges are functioning. Many of the highest Vatican officials are Masons and in certain countries where the Church is not allowed to operate, it is the lodges that carry on Vatican affairs, clandestinely.” Although doubt is always reasonable when a Mason is the source of information, given the history examined in the present article and the ongoing Conciiiar apostasy, nothing should be ruled out. counter-Church: The expression did not originate with the Archbishop. Monsignor Jouin quotes from a 1902 issue of the Masonic review, L’Acacia, as follows: “FREEMASONRY IS A CHURCH: It is the Counter-Church, Counter—Catholicism: It is the other church-the church of HERESY, of Freetbought; the Catholic Church is considered as the arch-type church, the first church, the church of dogmatism and orthodoxy [original punctuation -JKw].”Of>. cit., p. 8.
65 Op. cit.. p. 168.
67 trans. Janet L. Johnson (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House 1975), pp. 139-140. While Villemarest indicates the infiltration of various denominations, the Communists know who their real enemy is. Grossu cites a 1957 secret directive of the Chinese Communist Party, which, after ordering comrades to “methodically wedge themselves into all sectors of ecclesiastical action [the Legion of Mary is mentioned by name — JKw],” and to base all their subversive work on the revolutionary dictum, “crush the enemy by using the enemy itself,” concluded: “Any comrade occupying a post of command must have thoroughly understood that the Catholic church, enslaved by imperialism, must be cut down and wholly destroyed [italics added throughout — JKW]. Protestantism, which makes the mistake of following a policy of coexistence, must be hindered from making new conquests,…iff can let….die a natural death.” Op cit., p. 137-138. Long before the Tondi scandal, however, Vladimir Lenin had given the order to Communists: “To put an end to religion it is much more important to introduce class war into the bosom of the Church than to attack religion directly,” Cited, Poncins, of. cit., p. 208.
68 Liber Accusationis in Paulum Scxtum (n.p: league of the Catholic Counter Reformation, 1973), p. 6on.
69 Contre-Reforme Catholiquc auXXe sitcle. No. 97, p. ix. Cited, Micliel San Pictro, Saul, why do you persecute Me? (n.p., n.d.), p. 17. Thanks to Gary Giuffrc for his kind sharing of this information.
70 translated and adapted by Mark Howson, The /rsuits: History dr Legend of the Society of Jesus (New York: William Morrow 1984), p. 304.
71 Ibid., One can only wonder how long Tondi was able to slip his Judas messages under the censor’s nose — if that was, in fact, his mode of espionage — before being found out.
72 (Rockford, IL: TAN Books 1978 cd. of the 1884 encyclical), p.i6.
73 Ibid., p. 2.
74 And Conciliar defenders of the Council can take on a revolutionary tone. In his book The Drama, of Vatican 11, Henri Fesquet lists among “Vatican ll’s achievements” an item that could even warm the stone-cold hearts of Voltaire and Weishaupt: “This liberation of Catholic thought, too long imprisoned in the negative tide of the Counter-Reformation, in a way enables the Church to take up the standard of the French Revolution, which made the rounds of the secular world before coming to rest in Catholicism, whence it originated [sic -JKW]. Liberty, equality, fraternity: this glorious mono was the quintessence of Vatican II, as Hans Kiing recently suggested.” trans. Bernard Murchland (New York: Random House 1967), p. 815.
75 Dignity dr Duties of the Priest, ed. Rev. Eugene Grimm (Brooklyn, NY, St. Louis, Toronto: Redcmptorist Fathers 1927), pp. 210—111. Rohurautem datum cst ci contra juge Sacrijtciurn propterpeccata.-DAN. 8: 12.
76 It never has been explained satisfactorily by the “reformers” as to how a return to liturgies that have been out of use for more than a mtllennhim-ana-fi-. /wrought to be more beneficial to twentieth-century Catholics than the rite codified in 1570 by Pope Saint Pius V. But, then, it cannot be explained, for it is mere rhetoric. The prayers of the latter are based on those assembled almost a thousand years before by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, and which the Church has always attributed to Apostolic origins. There arc two major points to be noted from this: l) Conciliar claims to antiquity arc transparently fraudulent, as is also evident by the six Protestant “observers” who helped formulate the new “Mass,” and the grevious deletions of essential Catholic teachings (to be shown in this article); and 2) unlike the Conciliar Church, the Roman Catholic Church has never conformed to “the spirit of the age,” but has shown itself ever to be the Church for all ages, requiring the faithful to comply with its timeless teachings and sacraments. The appeal to a false “antiquity” as an excuse for the introduction of corrupting liturgical changes, employed centuries earlier by Anglican “reformers,” was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in his 1896 letter,
Afostolicae Cume, as follows: “They knew only too well the intimate bond which unites faith with worship, ‘the law of belief with the law of prayer,1 and so, under the pretext of restoring it to its ancient form, they corrupted the order of the liturgy in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators.”
77 Of. tit., p. 137.
78 Cited, ARRIAGA, of. cit., p. 191. Roca’s use of the past tense may seem odd, since he talks in another place [quoted earlier in this article] about the liturgical transformation he expects to occur as the result of z future ecumenical council. There is no contradiction, however, because he is, in the present context, evidently speaking to other Masons who shared with him knowledge of “transfigured sacraments” that were already being used in the Lodge. His remarks, then, would refer to Masses that he and other Masonic priests had said before they received “enlightenment,” after which they were then able to remove “the veil of liturgy” and concoct socially “meaningful” replacements. Such parodies were being performed in secret societies long before Roca. For example, Pope Pius VII, in his 1821 encyclical EccUsiam, wrote about the Carbonari: “They blasphemously profane and defile the Passion of Jesus Christ by their blasphemous ceremonies. They dishonour the Sacraments of the Church (for which they sacrilegiously substitute others invented by themselves) and even turn into ridicule the very mysteries of the Catholic religion.” Cited, Cahill, of. cit., pp.
79 (Rockford, IL: TAN Books 1991)
80 Of. cit., p. ii.
81 BUGNINI, op. cit., p. 94.
82 Ibid., p. 45. To claim that “the spirit” is lost — in need of “rediscovery” — in the rite promulgated by Pope Saint Pius V is hardly possible to interpret in a Catholic sense.
83 trans. Peter Coughlan (Staten Island, NY: Alba House 1967), p. 90. This book, writes Bugnini, “was the basis for the new Eucharistic Prayers of the Missal.” of. at., p. 450 n. 4. Thanks to Mr. <5i Mrs. William Zeitz for this book.
84 Of. at., p. 6.
85 Frccmantle, op. cit., p. 279. K
86 Ibid., p. 180. ”
87 Ibid.
88 MATT. 7: l6.
89 BUGNINI, op. tit., p. 181 n. 9.
90 “Ibid., p. 92.
91 Cited, JouiN, op. cit. p. 2O. A “dispossession” that largely has been accom-lished, and that has not been challenged by the Conciliar “Catholic” Church. lather, that apostate body seems content coexisting — and sometimes even col-iborating — with the neo-pagan world.
92 Op. cit.. pp. 92, 93.
93 Not to mention the successful subversion of the Modernists
94 Op. fit., p. 109.
95″ Cited, JOUIN, op. tit., p. ^6.
"So let us be confident, let us not be unprepared, let us not be outflanked, let us be wise, vigilant, fighting against those who are trying to tear the faith out of our souls and morality out of our hearts, so that we may remain Catholics, remain united to the Blessed Virgin Mary, remain united to the Roman Catholic Church, remain faithful children of the Church."- Abp. Lefebvre