• “Deepening the link between liturgy and synodality will help all Christian communities, in the diversity of their cultures and traditions, to adopt celebratory styles that make visible the face of a synodal Church.”
  
• “The whole Church has always been comprised of a plurality of peoples and languages, of vocations, charisms and ministries at the service of the common good, as well as of local Churches. In turn, these local Churches have always possessed their own rites and disciplines as well as their own distinctive theological and spiritual heritage. The unity of this diversity is realised by Christ, the cornerstone, and the Holy Spirit, the source of all harmony. This unity in diversity is precisely what is meant by the catholicity of the Church.”
  
• “The appreciation of contexts, cultures and diversities, and of the relationships between them, is key to growing as a missionary synodal Church and to journeying, prompted by the Holy Spirit, towards the visible unity of Christians.”
  

• “From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an ‘insanity’ . . . that ‘liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way.’” (Blessed Pope Pius IX’s, Quanta Cura)
  
• “This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.” (Dignitatis Humanae, Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom)
  

Quote:“Can Catholics celebrate Pride Month, when the LGBTQ community marks its place in society? . . .  Can they do this when pride is one of the traditional seven deadly sins? Isn’t it wrong to show pride? First, it’s important to remember that there are (at least) two kinds of pride. The first is the satisfaction that can come from your own accomplishments. This can turn into vanity, which is something to avoid. . . . So the first kind of pride can be a threat to humility, to discipleship and to the spiritual life overall. But the second kind of pride is a consciousness of one’s own dignity. And that’s closer to what Pride Month is meant to be for the LGBTQ community: a recognition of the human dignity of a group of people who have, for centuries been, treated with contempt, rejection and violence.”

Quote:“Another objection is marking Pride Month during the same month that Catholics celebrate the Month of the Sacred Heart. But, as I see it, the two are complementary, not contradictory. The Sacred Heart teaches us how Jesus loves; Pride Month reminds us whom Jesus invite us to love today.”

Quote:“From what has been said so far, it is easy to see what is meant by the devotion to the Sacred Heart: by this devotion we mean the ardent love which we conceive for Jesus Christ at the remembrance of all the marvels which He has wrought to show His tender love for us, especially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the miracle of His love; we mean the keen regret which we feel at the sight of the outrages which men commit against Jesus Christ in this adorable Mystery; we mean the ardent desire which presses us to leave nothing undone to make reparation for these outrages by every possible means. That is what we mean by devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and that is what it consists in.” (p. 55)

Quote:“As the end of devotion to the Sacred Heart is none other than a very ardent and tender love for Jesus Christ, it is evident that to have this devotion one must be in the state of grace, and have an extreme horror of every kind of sin incompatible with this love. The Sacred Heart being the source of all purity, nothing sullied can even enter It. Whatever we may say or do for His love and for His glory, if we do not live in the state of grace, is devoid of supernatural merit.” (p. 97)

Quote:“To love is to ‘wish good’ to someone, says St. Thomas; but every specific good is subordinated to the supreme good. That is why giving God, the Infinite Good, to those who do not know Him, by instructing them, is so pleasing to God. It is the same with praying for the conversion of unbelievers, of sinners, that they may arrive at faith or recover divine grace.” (p. 462)

Quote:“The dignity of the human person is acquired by observing the divine law. He who despises the  divine law thereby loses his dignity. Do the damned still preserve their dignity in hell? It is impossible to speak with veracity of liberty, of conscience, of the dignity of the human person except by reference to divine law. This observance of divine law is the criterion of human dignity. Man, the family, civil society, possess dignity in the measure in which they respect the divine law. Divine law itself indicates to us the rules for the right use of our liberty. Divine law itself marks out the limits of constraint permitted to the authorities established by God. Divine law itself gives the measure of religious liberty.” (from Archbishop Lefebvre’s I Accuse the Council!, p. 64)

Quote:“The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. . . It is in accordance with their dignity as persons — that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility — that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth. However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.”

Quote:“Exploring our transness and living our trans lives in response to a moral or spiritual conviction is a part our search for and response to (what we have found to be) truth. In this respect, it is part of the process whereby we pursue a morally dignified life, in accordance with our nature and obligation as free beings. Moreover, the Church also teaches that we cannot exercise our freedom in accordance with our nature and duty if we are coerced in doing so. And this is the case even if human freedom might also need to be ‘freed’ to stop it making mistakes in that search. This is the principle that underpins the Church’s affirmation of religious freedom (Dignitatis Humanae, §2) – which applies even to bad and/or mistaken people.”

Quote:“Now that the Ecumenical Council is coming to an end and the declaration on relations with the Jewish people has been approved with such a resounding majority, I feel the need to express to you both personally and in the name of the organizations I represent our gratitude for the wise yet also courageous manner in which you and your secretariat have brought this far-from-easy declaration to success. I am sure that Your Eminence knows that we are not happy about several changes in respect to the previous draft, but in this sinful world nobody ever gets everything he wants . . .” (p. 524)

Quote:“How ironic that the primary catalyst in connection with the reorientation of the Catholic Church's attitudes toward Jews and Judaism should have been a Jew. Having lost his wife, daughter and son-in-law in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, septuagenarian French Jewish historian Jules Isaac emerged from the Second World War to wage a single-handed campaign, in words and in deeds, for the rectification of Roman Catholic teachings about Jews and Judaism, contemptuous teachings, argued Isaac, that over-reached the bounds of scriptural and historical accuracy, contemptuous teachings, contended Isaac, that had sustained and nourished other varieties of anti-semitism for nearly two millennia. We now know that it did not occur to John XXIII to add to the agenda of Vatican II the relationship between the Church and the Jews until one week after the close of the pre-preparatory phase of Vatican II when John XXIII met one-on-one with Jules Isaac.”

Quote:“I then explained my request regarding [Christian] teaching and its historical grounding. But how, in a few minutes, could I explain this spiritual ghetto in which the Church had ultimately confined old Israel — along with the physical ghetto? I described the bookends which sandwiched the Christian epoch, at one end a pagan antisemitism, incoherent and preposterous in its accusations and at the other end, racial antisemitism, Hitlerian, the most virulent of our day, though no less incoherent and preposterous. But between the two, the only variety [of antisemitism] that was coherent and by which one could be taken in, is that which has engendered a certain Christian theology, by force of circumstances, since the Jewish negation constituted the primary impediment to Christian proselytizing in the gentile world.” (p. 187)

Quote:“‘Freemasons, what do you want? What do you ask of us?’ Such is the question that Cardinal Bea went to ask the B’nai B’rith before the beginning of the Council. The interview was announced by all the papers of New York, where it took place. And the Freemasons answered that what they wanted was ‘religious liberty!’ — that is to say, all the religions put on the same footing. The Church must no longer be called the only true religion, the sole path of salvation, the only one accepted by the State. Let us finish with these inadmissible privileges. And so, declare religious liberty. Well, they got it: it was Dignitatis humanae.” (p. 214)

Quote:“In March 1964 a B'nai B'rith delegation of three met with Pope Paul VI and communicated the ‘profound interest’ of the Jewish community in the proposed declaration on religious freedom and Catholic-Jewish relations.”

Quote:“There were prelates indifferent to the Jewish question, but strongly opposed to the statement on religious liberty for fear it would be used to undermine the authority of the church and encourage indifferentism or Communism. The ultra-conservatives were opposed to both.”

Quote:“Thus, it is our sincere hope that the Ecumenical Council would acknowledge the integrity and permanent preciousness of Jews and Judaism.”

Quote:“Another difficulty I have often encountered in contacts with Jews is the fear that our only desire is to ‘convert’ them — a word which all too often brings back very painful memories, and that whatever the Church does is ultimately directed to this hidden purpose. And by ‘convert’ is understood, if not use of actual force and pressure, at least the intention of seducing men by subtle argument and astute manipulation to betray their own conscience. However, on this count also the Church has nothing to hide. In the conciliar document she explicitly and openly declares that it is both her duty and her desire to preach Christ who is ‘the way, the truth and the life,’ in whom God has reconciled all things to himself. From the beginning it is pointed out that the aim of the document is to investigate all that men have in common and which encourages them to live together and fulfill their common destiny; not, therefore, to dwell upon what divides and differentiates them.” (pp. 19-20)

Quote:“In addition, in the conciliar document on religious liberty, the Church solemnly declares as her own teaching the duty and the right of every man to pursue truth and justice according to the dictates of his own conscience, unimpeded and untrammeled. In the Declaration with which this commentary deals, she exhorts her own members to recognize, preserve and promote whatever is spiritually, morally, socially or culturally valuable in different religions from their own.” (p. 20)

Quote:“‘Passages in the New Testament say that those who believe and are baptized will be saved, and those who refuse to believe will be damned. Some passages also say that the hard-heartedness of the Jews leaves them in darkness, deserted by God,’ according to Catholic theologian Gregory Baum, another of those who drafted Nostra aetate (No. 4). ‘They say that salvation is in Jesus and in no other name, and that the Gospel is the single offer of redemption for the sinful world. (Of course, there are also passages with a different message.) On the basis of the exclusivist biblical texts, the Church began to teach extra ecclesiam nulla salus,’ (outside the Church there is no salvation.) After the Holocaust, the Church, recognizing, not without shame, the cultural impact of its anti-Jewish discourse and the implications this discourse had in legitimizing antisemitism, was to read Paul’s letter to the Romans in a new way.” (p. xviii)

Quote:“He wrote that he considered resigning from the priesthood but did not go through with the formality. He later married a divorced ex-nun who he says ‘did not mind that, when we moved to Montreal in 1986, I met Normand, a former priest, with whom I fell in love.’”

Quote:“For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels: and then will He render to every man according to his works.” (Matthew 16: 26-27)

Garcia Moreno signs the Concordat between Pope Pius IX & the Republic of Ecuador, 1862

Quote:“Senators and Representatives. Of all the great gifts which God has vouchsafed our Republic from the inexhaustible treasure of His mercy, I consider that the greatest is to see you reunited, through His protecting support, beneath the shadow of the peace that He grants to us and preserves in us, although we are nothing, capable of nothing, and know not how to reply to His paternal goodness except by an inexcusable and shameful ingratitude.

Carrying a large cross down the streets of Quito during Holy Week

“But a few years ago, Ecuador was daily experiencing those sad words, first uttered by the ‘liberator’ Bolivar in his last message to the Congress of 1830: 'I blush to confess it, independence is the only good we have acquired, and that at the cost of every other.'

“Since that time, however, placing all our hope in God, we have distanced ourselves from the torrent of impiety and apostasy that storms the world in this age of errors, and today have reorganized into a truly Catholic nation. And we see that everything has turned out to the good and prosperity of our dear country.

“Ecuador was a corpse, from which life had fled; like a carcass it laid, preyed upon by the multitude of horrible insects that liberty or putrefaction was continually breeding in the darkness of the sepulchre. But today, at the command of that supreme Voice which bade Lazarus rise from his fetid tomb, our country also has returned to life, though it still retains the bands and winding-sheet of death, that is, the remains or the wretchedness and corruption in which we were buried.

“To prove the truth of my words, I need but give a brief account or the advances made by us in the two last years, just as I find them recorded in greater detail in the documents and particular reports of each minister. And in order to ascertain more exactly how far we have proceeded during this period of regeneration, I shall compare the present state of affairs with the one from which we took our start; not, indeed, with a view to our own praise, but in order to glorify Him to whom we owe all, and whom we adore as our Redeemer and Father, as our Protector and God.” (Here follows an enumeration or all the advantages obtained, which he summarizes).

Garcia Moreno with Jesuits, whom he returned to the country after they were expelled by a previous Masonic government

“To the full liberty which the Church possesses among us and to the apostolic zeal of our virtuous pastors are due the reform of the clergy, the improvement in morals and the diminution of crime, which is so striking that in a population of more than one million, there is not to be found a sufficient number of criminals to people our penitentiary.

“To the Church again are we obliged for those religious congregations that produce such an abundance of good fruits by the instruction they give to children and youth, and the help they extend towards the sick and abandoned. We are their debtors for the renewal of the religious spirit in this year of jubilee and sanctification, and for the conversion of 9,000 savages on our eastern province to a Christian and civilized life.

“On account of the vast tract of country there is urgent need in this province of a second Vicariate. If you authorize me to treat this matter with the Holy See, I will see to its establishment. I intend, moreover, to further its commerce by rooting out the speculations and violent exactions to which the poor inhabitants have long been subject on the part of inhuman traders. Yet laborers are wanting; and, to form these, we must yearly come to the aid of our venerable and most zealous Archbishop in the building of a large seminary, which he has not hesitated to commence, relying on the protection of Heaven and our own efficacious cooperation.

“Do not lose sight of the fact that our small successes would be short-lived and useless had we not founded the social order of our Republic on the ever-assailed and ever-victorious rock of the Catholic Church. Her divine teaching, which neither individuals nor nations can reject without losing themselves, is the rule of our institutions and the law of our legislation.

“As faithful and docile children of that venerable, august and infallible Pontiff, whom all the powers of earth have abandoned as a vile and cowardly impiety besets him, we have continued to send him every month our small pecuniary succor, set aside by you for him in 1863. Since our want of strength obliges us to remain passive spectators of his slow martyrdom, may this poor gift be at least a proof of our good will and affection, and a pledge to him of our obedience and fidelity.

“In a few days my present term of office will expire. The Republic has enjoyed six years of peace, interrupted only by a momentary rising in 1879 of the natives of Riobamba against the white population. During these six years we have marched forward with rapid strides on the way to true progress under the visible protection of Providence. The results would certainly have been far more magnificent had I possessed the qualities for governing, which unfortunately I lack, or endeavored to be more fervent about the accomplishment of good.

“If I have committed defects, I ask your pardon a thousand times, and with sincere sorrow do I implore forgiveness of all my fellow-citizens, being persuaded that my will had no part in them. If, however, you think that I have succeeded in anything, attribute it to God first and to the Immaculate Dispensatrix of the inexhaustible treasures of His mercy, and next to yourselves, the people, the army, and to all who have assisted me with their advice and fidelity in the fulfillment of my arduous duties.

Signed, Gabriel Garcia Moreno
Quito, August 1865

Quote:“Ultimately, every Christian, making the sign of the cross upon himself, expresses in an adequate and full manner the heart of the Trinitarian and Paschal faith. The People of God in its entirety must give an account of its faith and its hope (cf. 1Pt 3:5): in this sense they are all theologians.”

Quote:“In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.”

Quote:“The Church is one beyond its visible divisions, holy beyond the sins of its members and the errors committed by its institutional structures, catholic and apostolic beyond the identity and cultural retreats and the doctrinal and ethical torments that ceaselessly agitate it.”

Quote:“This does not mean to affirm that the truth of faith is historical and changeable: it means rather that the recognition of the truth and the deepening of its understanding constitute a historical task of the one subject-Church.”

Quote:“Believing with the Church means for each generation to participate in its incessant efforts for a deeper and more complete understanding of the faith. The obligation of fidelity cannot be reduced to a form of passive docility alone: it is an obligation of active appropriation for all disciples, with the support and under the supervision of the living magisterium of the college of bishops. The latter, when they agree, have the authority to decide in a binding way whether or not a theological interpretation is faithful to the source – Christ and the apostolic Tradition. The Magisterium adds nothing to the Revelation accomplished in Christ and attested in the Scriptures, except the clarifications of dogmatic development, since the Church exercises there her role as authentic interpreter of the Word of God through acts of creative fidelity to Revelation: 'Thus, the judgment regarding the authenticity of the sensus fidelium belongs in the final analysis not to the faithful themselves nor to theology, but to the Magisterium.’”

Quote:“The light shed by the assembly of Nicaea on Christian revelation allows us to discover an inexhaustible richness that continues, through the centuries and cultures, to find depth and to manifest itself in ever more beautiful and new aspects. These different facets are highlighted especially by the prayerful and theological rereading that most Christian traditions make of the Symbol, each on the basis of a different relationship with the fact that a Symbol of faith exists. It is also an opportunity, for each and every one, to rediscover or even discover its richness and the bond of communion between all Christians that this Symbol can constitute.”

Quote:“We have already emphasized how the insistence of the different Christian traditions allows us to enhance the riches of the text of the Creed (cf. supra § 17). The common celebration of Nicaea could be an ecumenical path of mutual enrichment that will offer, along the way, a better understanding of the mystery, a greater communion between ecclesial traditions and a stronger attachment to the common profession of the Christian faith.”

Quote:“Despite its insistence on history, the Creed does not explicitly mention or evoke a large part of the content of the Old Testament, nor, in particular, the election and history of Israel. Obviously, a Creed must not be exhaustive. Nevertheless, it is useful to underline that this silence in no way signifies the transience of the election of the people of the old covenant.”

Quote:“The election of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the irrevocable covenant with the people of Israel already reveal the covenant that God wishes to establish with all nations and with every human being in an indestructible fidelity.”

Quote:“Thus the Church of Christ acknowledges that, according to God's saving design, the beginnings of her faith and her election are found already among the Patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all who believe in Christ-Abraham's sons according to faith — are included in the same Patriarch's call, and likewise that the salvation of the Church is mysteriously foreshadowed by the chosen people's exodus from the land of bondage. The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles. Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles. making both one in Himself."

Quote:Evidently it is true that the Jewish people is no longer the people of God in the sense of an institution for the salvation of mankind. The reason for this, however, is not that it has been rejected, but simply that its function in preparing the kingdom of God finished with the advent of Christ and the founding of the Church.” (p. 96)

Quote:“The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated.”

Quote:“Archbishop Pericle Felici, Secretary General of the Council, was explaining the election procedures to the assembled Fathers in his fluent Latin when Cardinal Liénart, who served as one of the ten Council Presidents, seated at a long table at the front of the Council hall, rose in his place and asked to speak. He expressed his conviction that the Council Fathers needed more time to study the qualifications of the various candidates. After consultations among the national episcopal conferences, he explained, everyone would know who were the most qualified candidates, and it would be possible to vote intelligently. He requested a few days’ delay in the balloting. The suggestion was greeted with applause, and, after a moment’s silence, Cardinal Frings rose to second the motion. He, too, was applauded. After hurried consultation with Eugène Cardinal Tisserant, who as first of the Council Presidents was conducting the meeting, Archbishop Felici announced that the Council Presidency had acceded to the request of the two cardinals. The meeting was adjourned until 9 A.M. on Tuesday, October 16.”

Quote:“The Church, today, is going through a moment of disquiet. Some indulge in self-criticism, one would say even self-destruction. It is like an acute and complex inner upheaval, which no one would have expected after the Council. One thought of a flourishing, a serene expansion of the concepts matured in the great conciliar assembly. There is also this aspect in the Church, there is the flourishing, but . . . for the most part one comes to notice the painful aspect. The Church is hit also by he who is part of it.” (December 7, 1968)

“Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety, confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement, and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were supposed to be opened to the light instead. . . Even in the Church this state of uncertainty rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom, quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of filling them.” (June 29, 1972)

• The pre-Vatican II popes were right in the condemning errors that presently plague the Church
  
• Just a small amount of theological error is fatal
  
• Blind obedience can be catastrophic
  
• The Church’s enemies are aided by the compromises of good Catholics
  
• God preserves those who do not compromise with error
  
• The world suffers when the Church’s truth is obscured
  
• God will not be mocked
  

The Roots of Francis’s Anti-Catholic Legacy Will Be Preserved By the Adulation for John Paul II



Pope John Paul II embraces Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio after presenting the new cardinal with a red beretta at the Vatican Feb. 21, 2001

Quote:“As long as the root of this weed is not torn out, it will sprout again, and your virtue will perish. In time, you may discover that you are stripped of good habits and in continual danger of falling back into your former disorders. Never hope to acquire solid virtue unless you destroy your own particular failings by performing frequent acts which are directly opposed to them.”

Quote:“We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth. We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which derived from it. All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the destruction of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the abolition of the Sacrifice of the Mass and of the sacraments, to the disappearance of religious life, to a naturalist and Teilhardian teaching in universities, seminaries and catechectics; a teaching derived from Liberalism and Protestantism, many times condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church. No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries.”

Quote:"The root of this schismatic act can be discerned in an incomplete and contradictory notion of Tradition. Incomplete, because it does not take sufficiently into account the living character of Tradition, which, as the Second Vatican Council clearly taught, ‘comes from the apostles and progresses in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. There is a growth in insight into the realities and words that are being passed on. This comes about in various ways. It comes through the contemplation and study of believers who ponder these things in their hearts. It comes from the intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience. And it comes from the preaching of those who have received, along with their right of succession in the episcopate, the sure charism of truth.’”

Quote:“And the servants of the goodman of the house coming said to him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?”

Quote:“Saint John Paul II not only reaffirmed this ecumenical path but also officially invited other Christians to reflect on the exercise of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. In his milestone encyclical letter Ut unum sint (1995) he used the biblical notion of ‘episkopein’ (‘keeping watch’) to describe this ministry (UUS 94), whose primacy is defined as a ministry of unity (UUS 89) and a service of love (UUS 95). Assuming his particular ecumenical responsibility, and ‘heeding the request made of [him],’ Pope John Paul II recognized the need ‘to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation’ (UUS 95). Convinced that a mutually acceptable ministry of unity cannot be defined unilaterally, he extended an open invitation to all pastors and theologians from the different ecclesial traditions, repeating a request already made in 1987 in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I . . .”

Quote:“This canon is the most scandalous of the whole 1983 Code of Canon Law. It is the open door to active communicatio in sacris, i.e., active religious participation with non-Catholics. Canon 1258 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law very strictly prohibited such participation. Rev. Fr. Dominicus M. Prümmer, O.P., a Swiss professor at the University of Fribourg, gives the very simple reason: ‘It is indeed nothing else than the negation of the Catholic Faith and the acknowledgment of a heterodox worship.’ Participation in the Sacraments is the most important part of the worship, especially for Holy Communion. Now Christ has founded and espoused only one Church, and only the voice of the Bride is agreeable to the Bridegroom. Only the voice of the Son is agreeable to the Father. The active participation in non-Catholic worship is the practical denial of the nature of the Church.”

Quote:“In the Holy Spirit, every individual and all people have become, through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, children of God, partakers in the divine nature and heirs to eternal life.” (p. 3)

“Jesus Christ makes us sharers in what He is. Through His Incarnation, the Son of God in a certain manner united Himself with every human being. In our inmost being He has recreated us; in our inmost being He has reconciled us with God, reconciled us with ourselves, reconciled us with our brothers and sisters: He is our Peace.” (p. 5)

“[T]he Church believes that human dignity is based on the fact that God has created each person, that we have been redeemed by Christ, and that, according to the Divine Plan, we shall rejoice with God forever.” (p. 6)

“In the name of the solidarity that binds us all together in a common humanity, I again proclaim the dignity of every human person: the rich man and Lazarus are both human beings, both of them equally created in the image and likeness of God, both of them equally redeemed by Christ.” (p. 7)

“Each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has united Himself for ever through this mystery.” (p. 8)

“This is man in all the fullness of the mystery in which he has become a sharer in Jesus Christ, the mystery in which each one of the four thousand million human beings living on our planet has become a sharer from the moment he is conceived.” (pp. 8-9)

“The persons whose names are contained in [The Book of the Dead of Auschwitz] were incinerated, they underwent tortures and were finally deprived of life solely, in most cases, because they belonged to a certain nation rather than another . . . In the light of faith, we see that this witness of heroic fidelity to their ethnic identity became the Holocaust which united them to God in eternity, and a seed of peace for future generations.” (p. 10)

“[E]ternal damnation remains a real possibility, but we are not granted without special divine revelation, the knowledge of whether or which human beings are effectively involved in it.” (p. 25)

Quote:“With respect to the First Commandment of God, for example, how are we to evaluate the gestures of a pope who, by his remarks and by kissing the Koran, seems to raise it to the status of the Word of God? Or who begs John the Baptist to protect Islam? Who is pleased to have participated actively in animist worship in the sacred forests of Togo? A few decades ago, according to the norms of ecclesiastical law, such gestures would have been enough to cast the suspicion of heresy on the person who had made them. And today they have supposedly become, as if by magic, signs of the virtue of faith practiced to a heroic degree?”

Quote:“For decades, ‘pretending’ has been a powerful shield. For some, also a weapon. For many others a comforting survival mechanism.  Pretending relies upon a lot, including definitions of mis-dis, & mal-information. However, pretending is no match for the fact there is only truth and lies.”

Quote:“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,' will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’ A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..”

Quote:“It was inevitable. We have been together from the outset of the conversation where we admitted to ourselves that sooner or later the pretending was going to have to stop. Well, here we are. President Donald Trump begins a very uncomfortable process to peel back the mask that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy represents. This is needed . . .”

Quote:“The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated.”

Quote:“By the frankness and openness of its debates, the Council has put an end to what may be described as the inflexibility of the system. We take ‘system’ to mean a coherent set of codified teachings, casuistically-specified rules of procedure, a detailed and very hierarchic organization, means of control and surveillance, rubrics regulating worship — all this is the legacy of scholasticism, the Counter-reformation and the Catholic Restoration of the nineteenth century, subjected to an effective Roman discipline. It will be recalled that Pius XII is supposed to have said: ‘I will be the last Pope to keep all this going.’” (Congar, Challenge to the Church: The Case of Archbishop Lefebvre,

Conservatives and liberals alike reached similar conclusions about the Council, and in the years immediately following Vatican II, no serious observer would have honestly believed that the Council really was in continuity with what the Church had always taught. Pretending otherwise was only popularized long after the Council, most importantly through the later work of Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI). As Cardinal Ratzinger had stated closer to the end of the Council, though, he saw it as a true break from what the pre-Vatican II popes had taught, and a reconciliation with the principles of the French Revolution:

[quote]“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty [Dignitatis Humanae] and world religions [Nostra Aetate]) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus. . . Let us be content to say that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789.” (Principles of Catholic Theology, 1987, pp. 381-2)

Quote:“At the heart of Synod 2021-2024, ‘For a Synodal Church. Communion, participation, mission’ is a call to joy and to the renewal of the People of God in following the Lord and in their commitment to serving His mission. The call to be missionary disciples is based on our common baptismal identity and is rooted in the diversity of the contexts in which the Church is present and finds its unity in the one Father, the one Lord, and the one Spirit. It is a call to all the baptised, without exception.” (Instrumentum Laboris for October 2024 session)

Quote:“The Church, today, is going through a moment of disquiet. Some indulge in self-criticism, one would say even self-destruction. It is like an acute and complex inner upheaval, which no one would have expected after the Council. One thought of a flourishing, a serene expansion of the concepts matured in the great conciliar assembly. There is also this aspect in the Church, there is the flourishing, but . . . for the most part one comes to notice the painful aspect. The Church is hit also by he who is part of it.” (December 7, 1968)

“Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety, confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement, and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were sup- posed to be opened to the light instead. . . Even in the Church this state of uncertainty rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom, quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of filling them.” (June 29, 1972)

Fray Luis de Granada

Quote:“Have by you Lewis of Granada entire. Let him be your second breviary. Saint Charles Borromeo had no other theology to preach but Lewis of Granada, yet he preached very well; but this is not his principal use; it is that he will form your mind to the love of true devotion and all spiritual exercises necessary for you. My wish is that you begin to read him with the great Guide for Sinners, that you then pass on to the Memorial, and, in fine, that you read all he wrote. But to read him with fruit you must not run through him hastily; he must be pondered, and have his full weight, and chapter after chapter must be mused upon and applied to the soul with much thought and prayer to God. You must read him with reverence and devotion, like a book containing the most useful inspirations man can receive from on high, and thereby reform all the powers of the soul.”[v]

Quote:“Before entering upon this subject, bear in mind that there; are two principles in which you must be firmly established if you would change your life and give yourself to God. The first is a just appreciation of the importance of the labor you are about to undertake; you must be convinced that this is the sole interest, the sole profit, the sole wisdom in the world.”

Quote:“The second principle with which you must be imbued is that as this is such a glorious and profitable engagement, you must undertake it with vigor and a firm determination to conquer. Be persuaded that all the dangers which you will encounter will be of little moment compared to the sublime end you have in view. It is a law of nature that nothing great is accomplished without labor and trouble, You will no sooner have resolved to give yourself to God than Hell will send out its forces against you.”

Quote:“Your first determination must be a deep and unshaken resolution never to commit mortal sin, for it can only rob us of the grace and friendship of God. Such a resolution is the basis of a virtuous life.”

Quote:Holiness is synonymous with repentance for past sins, penitential works, and good (i.e., meritorious) deeds—all grounded in a firm decision to sin no more.

Quote:“A reading of ‘Peter, Lovest Thou Me?’ is enough to fill a faithful Catholic with despair, were it not that we have Our Lord’s promise that He will never desert His Church. He will truly be with us all days, but what trials we must endure, only He in His mercy knows. We can watch the world becoming more and more evil by the day, and we can watch the Princes of the Church doing nothing in its defense. More clearly can we see the warnings given by Our Blessed Lady at La Salette, at Lourdes, at Fatima. At La Salette she told us that ‘Rome will lose the truth and become the seat of the Antichrist.’ Our Lady gave to Sr. Lucia a third part to her message at Fatima, which was to be published in 1960. The world still waits, but it almost certainly spoke of a general apostasy. Is that not what we are witnessing today?”

Quote:“The churches and separated communities, although we once believed that they suffered from deficiencies, are not totally deprived of importance and value in the mystery of salvation. The Spirit of Christ does not refuse to use them as means of salvation, through the strength deriving from the fullness of grace and truth which has been conferred on the Catholic Church.” (p. 42)

“Nostalgia for the unity of Christians makes common cause with that of unity of the whole human race. The new concept of a ‘People of God’ has made us revise the old truth about the possibility of redemption outside the limits of the Catholic Church. This gives rise to the attitude of the Church towards the other religions, which is based on the recognition of their spiritual values, humans and Christians together, reaching out to such religions as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism . . .” (p. 45)

“In celebrating the Redemption we go beyond the historic misunderstandings and contingent controversies to find once more what is common to all Christians, that is to say, like the redeemed.” (p. 111)

“Christians and Moslems, we meet one another in faith in the one God, our creator, our guide, our just and merciful judge. We strive to put into practice in our daily lives the will of God, following the teaching of our respective holy books.” (p. 140)

“Christians and Moslems, we have many things in common as believers and as men . . . We believe in the same God, the only God, the living God. Respect and dialogue require mutual reciprocity in all areas, especially concerning fundamental liberties and more particularly religious liberty. Each man expects to be respected for what he is and what he believes.” (p. 141)

“Jerusalem must become the city of man, in which the believers of the three great monotheistic religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam — live in full liberty and equality, as do the believers of other religious communities, in the recognized guarantee that this city is the sacred patrimony of all, and is destined for adoration of the One God, of mediation and the work of fraternity.” (p. 200)

Quote:“To read these lines presenting the true face of John Paul II is a terrifying experience for the faithful Catholic, it fills the soul with sadness and dread.”

Quote:“Also, it raises serious problems of faith for any true Catholic; problems that often have no solution, although they explain the perplexity and confusion which are now troubling even those whose faith is strongest. The Pope is Peter, the rock on which Christ founded His Church. He is the one whose faith must not fail; who is to confirm his brethren; feed his sheep; feed the lambs. It is he who, assisted by the Holy Ghost has, for almost twenty centuries in this manner given the Papacy a moral credibility unique in the history of the world. Is it conceivable that, since the 1960s, the Apostolic See has been occupied by Popes who have been the cause of the ‘auto-demolition of the Church,’ and are spreading within it ‘the smoke of Satan’? Leaving aside the pertinent question of what these Popes are, we are certainly obliged to ask ourselves questions about what they do, and we can observe with alarm and amazement that they are introducing the Revolution of ’89 into the Church, complete with its motto, its charter, which is fundamentally opposed to the principles of the Catholic Faith.”

Quote:“This book is very enlightening on the activities of John Paul II, a true follower of Paul VI. We have the facts before our eyes which, enlightened by the immutable Catholic Faith, are now, with increasing sorrow and grief, seeing the Church threatened with complete ruin.”

Quote:“Echoing the Popes before the 1960s, who foretold the disasters that would come upon the Church if their warnings were not listened to and their condemnations not heeded, and echoing the prophesies of Our Lady of La Salette and Fatima, let us strive to re-establish the Church upon the eternal principles taught by the Magisterium for nearly twenty centuries, rejecting the errors of the Liberal Modernist Revolution, even when these errors may be endorsed by those who occupy the See of Peter.”

Quote:“The Declaration we made on November 21, 1974 after the first visit to Rome is still relevant, and we were obliged to reaffirm it after our second visit in 1987. We must reject Modernist Rome as it pursues its course of destroying the Faith and Christianity. It is our daily duty to repudiate it by attaching ourselves to the eternal Rome, proclaiming more than ever the need for the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, Mary Our Queen. To bring about the coming of this Reign, we need Bishops, we need priests and religious who have but one name on their lips, and one love in their hearts: that of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Quote:“Receptiveness, and certainly not relativism, nor any change of doctrine, is the spirit and heart of Fiducia supplicans, the declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on the blessing of couples who live in irregular situations, which I signed in December 2023. It is the people who are blessed, not the relationships. It arises from the wish not to ascribe one situation or one condition to the entire life of those who seek to be illuminated and accompanied with a blessing. Everyone in the Church is invited, including people who are divorced, including people who are homosexual, including people who are transgender. The first time that a group of transgender people came to the Vatican, they left in tears, moved because I had taken their hands, had kissed them . . . As if I had done something exceptional for them. But they are daughters of God! They can receive baptism on the same conditions as other believers and can perform the responsibilities of godparents on the same conditions as others, and likewise be witnesses to a marriage. No provision of canonical law forbids it.”

Quote:“From a sociological point of view, it is interesting to consider the phenomenon of traditionalism, this ‘backwardism’ that regularly returns each century, this reference to a supposed perfect age that each time is another age. With the liturgy, for example. It has now been ruled that the possibility of celebrating Mass in Latin, following the missal prior to the Second Vatican Council, must be expressly authorized by the Dicastery for Divine Worship, who will allow it only in special cases. For the reason that it is unhealthy for the liturgy to become ideology. It is curious to see this fascination for what is not understood, for what appears somewhat hidden, and seems also at times to interest the younger generations. This rigidity is often accompanied by elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets. Not a taste for tradition but clerical ostentation, which then is none other than an ecclesiastic version of individualism. Not a return to the sacred but to quite the opposite, to sectarian worldliness. These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited.”

“The Spirit is the paraclete, the one that supports and gives company, that is a breath of life, not an anesthetizing gas. One day, as I was teaching two hundred young children at San Miguel, one of them confused it with paralytic and made me smile… but that is precisely the Church that we mustn’t be, a Church that is fixed, frozen. Our task certainly is to discern, to understand what today is asking of us, but in the knowledge that rigidity is not Christian, because it denies this movement of the Spirit. Rigidity is sectarian. Rigidity is self-referential. Rigidity is a daily heresy. It mistakes the Church for a fortress, for a castle standing high up, which looks down distantly and self-importantly on the world and on life, rather than living inside it.”

“Christians are not those who go backward. The flow of history and grace go up and down like the sap of a tree that bears fruit. Without this flow there is fossilization, and going backward is not conducive to life, ever. There is no progress, there is no movement. Life, whether vegetal or animal or human, dies. Progress means change, dealing with new situations, accepting new challenges. Vincent of Lérins, the fifth-century saint venerated by Catholics as well as members of the Orthodox Church, wrote in his Commonitórium primum that the dogma of the Christian religion follows these laws: It progresses, solidifying with years, growing with time, deepening with age. Human understanding changes over time, and the way that people perceive and express themselves changes—it is one thing for a man who expresses himself by carving the Winged Victory of Samothrace, another thing for Caravaggio, yet another for Chagall and then Dalí. And so too does human conscience deepen. . . Our responsibility is to journey in our own time, to continue growing in the art of meeting needs and providing for them with creativity of Spirit, which is always discernment in action. The Church is certainly not an orchestra in which everyone plays the same note but one in which each person follows their own score, and it is precisely this that must create harmony. It is wonderful that brothers and sisters have the courage to form their own ideas, to discuss them, to say what they think: Aspiring to unity does not mean uniformity. But then, we must still sit around the same table. In many respects, it can be said that the last ecumenical council has not yet been fully understood, lived, and applied. We are on the way and need to make up for lost time. When anyone asks me whether the time is right for a new council, for a Vatican III, I reply not just that the answer is no but that we still need to fully implement Vatican II. And need to sweep away even more the culture of courtliness, in the papal court and everywhere else. The Church is not a court, it is not a place for coteries, favoritism, machination, nor is it the last European court of an absolute monarchy. With Vatican II, the Church became a sign and instrument for the unity of the whole human race.”

Quote:“For, the doctrine of faith which God revealed has not been handed down as a philosophic invention to the human mind to be perfected, but has been entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding ‘Therefore […] let the understanding, the knowledge, and wisdom of individuals as of all, of one man as of the whole Church, grow and progress strongly with the passage of the ages and the centuries; but let it be solely in its own genus, namely in the same dogma, with the same sense and the same understanding.’ (Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, 23, 3).”

Quote:“If we clerics don’t understand what a woman is and what a woman’s theology is, we will never understand what the Church is. One of the great sins we have committed has been to ‘masculinize’ it. The Church therefore needs to be ‘demasculinized’—while knowing, at the same time, that to ‘masculinize’ women would be neither human nor Christian, since the other great sin is certainly clericalism. It is therefore not a question of co-opting all women into the clergy, of making everyone become deacons in holy order, but of enhancing the Marian principle, so that it is even more important in the Church than the Petrine principle: Mary is more important than Peter, and the mystical nature of the woman is greater than the ministry. As has been stated in the concluding document of the Synod on Synodality in October 2024, at which I chose for the first time not to make my apostolic exhortation, considering it to be immediately operative, there are no reasons to prevent women from assuming guiding roles in the Church: That which comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped. The question of access by women to diaconal ministry, with regard to which it is necessary to act with discernment, remains open to study. Whereas it is necessary to favor in every way the presence of women in the training of new priests: Seminarians will certainly obtain great benefit from it. It is true that women already provide a brilliant contribution to theological research and are present in positions of responsibility in ecclesiastical institutions or as community leaders, but it is necessary to give immediate and full concreteness to all opportunities provided, particularly where they remain unimplemented.”

Quote:“It is no good a person saying with total certainty that they have met God. If someone has answers to all the questions, this is proof that God is not with them. It means that they are a false prophet, someone who exploits religion, who uses it for themselves. The great guides of God’s people, like Moses, always left space for doubt.”

Quote:“But Christian hope is infinitely more than this: It is the certainty that we are born no longer to die, that we are born for the pinnacles, to enjoy happiness. It is the awareness that God has always loved us, and will always love us, and never leaves us alone. The apostle Paul says: ‘What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? […] No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us’ (Romans 8: 35–37). Christian hope is invincible because it is not a desire. It is the certainty that we are all traveling, not toward something that we want to be there, but something that is already there. . . . Hope never disappoints. Optimism is a valuable asset, an attitude of the mind, a quality of character that makes us lean toward a more positive view of things. But all the same, it is something that can be betrayed. Hope cannot. God cannot deprive us of hope, because He cannot deny Himself.”

Quote:“Lanza del Vasto, a polymath writer, philosopher, Christian thinker, and nonviolent campaigner against war and nuclear armament, an artisan of peace, noted that the worst lie, the greatest and most dangerous lie, is ‘truth minus one.’ Not truth, but its contrived appearance, its comic or dramatic distortion: an attitude that makes falsity credible, error acceptable, that makes the inept arrogant, the ignorant wise, the incompetent powerful. Judas is the master of the plausible, the master of gossip. And gossip and plausibility are the most treacherous opponents of the truth of things. There is always something devilish in gossip and in false accusation.”

Quote:“Thus those who were with us and were working with us for the rights of Our Lord, for the salvation of souls, are now saying, ‘So long as they grant us the old Mass, we can shake hands with Rome, no problem.’ But we are seeing how it works out. They are in an impossible situation. Impossible. One cannot both shake hands with modernists and keep following Tradition. Not possible. Not possible.”

 +Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Écône Address, September 1990

Quote:“We must make up our minds if we too want to collaborate in the destruction of the Church and in the ruin of the Social Kingship of Christ the King, or are we resolved to continue working for the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ?”

Quote:“Certainly the question of the liturgy and the sacraments is important, but it is not the most important. The most important question is the question of the Faith. This question is unresolved in Rome. For us it is resolved. We have the Faith of all time.”

Quote:“Friends, to the Church’s defenders, to those fighting on the battlefield, they look to our enemies on the other side. ‘After all, we must be charitable, we must be kind, we must not be divisive, after all, they are celebrating the Tridentine Mass, they are not as bad as everyone says’—but THEY ARE BETRAYING US—betraying us! They are shaking hands with the Church’s destroyers.”

Quote:“We have to choose between you and the Council on one side, and your predecessors on the other; either with your predecessors who stated the Church’s teaching, or with the novelties of Vatican II.”

Quote:“Stay in touch with them to bring them back, to convert them to Tradition, yes, if you like, that’s the right kind of ecumenism! But give the impression that after all one almost regrets any break, that one likes talking to them? No way!”

Quote:“No, the Good Lord does not want this fight to come to an end… We find ourselves caught up in the continuation of the same fight, and we thank God.”

Quote:“Humanly speaking, there is no chance of any agreement between Rome and ourselves at the moment.”

Quote:“We have to choose between you and the Council on one side, and your predecessors on the other; either with your predecessors who stated the Church’s teaching, or with the novelties of Vatican II.”