
A Modern Parable
Vatican
II
and the
Model of a Failed
Corporation

Imagine
a corporation that is very large; indeed, has many thousands of managers
and employees, and what is more, more than a billion customers. The
corporation has prospered for 2000 years with the business model it
had developed and which had been rigorously maintained by a succession
of over 200 presidents and many more board members. The customers have
been satisfied and in no way found the business wanting in the way of
customer service and business policy.
A new president
is then elected — and without any compelling warrant or reason, decides
to change the business model dramatically. The managers and the employees
are told — despite any evidence — that the business is wanting and could
prosper more, even though it is at the apex of any competing businesses
by several magnitudes of order. Business had been good, the customers
happy, and the employees as well, but he and a handful of likeminded
board members wished to change not only the model, but the erstwhile
universally admired architecture of its thousands of stores throughout
the world — as well as discarding all the lofty artwork that characterized
its interiors to more accord with its less successful competitors. What
is more, they had decided to replace the means of exchange itself, so
that from now on every customer had to use the currency of the country
where each store is located, instead of the credit card that had been
issued by the company to be seamlessly used anywhere in the world in
any of its stores. To make matters worse, if you left your own country
you had to surrender the company credit card and use the currency of
the country you were visiting, even if you did not understand it … or
trust it.
Decline Hailed as Growth
Within a few years, this once monolithic business, viewed as a paradigm
of success in its area of competence, loses tens of thousands of employees
and managers and — most importantly — the customer base, once in the
area of 75% repeat business fell to 40%, and in a few more years to
less than 25%.
Remarkably,
the new president — and his successors — hail the change as a
success, despite metrics in every area that show it in decline
— indeed, almost in receivership! The stores close by the
thousands, or are consolidated in an effort to stop the hemorrhaging
of customers.
Then, in the middle of this disastrous downward spiral, the corporation
is hit, in successive years, with over $3 Billion dollars of loss in
the way of lawsuits due to negligent hiring practices; practices that
resulted in employees being charged with large-scale and sordid misconduct,
in fact, misconduct of the vilest sort, together with the incessant
litigation that followed.
$?
Shall the customers pay for the company’s negligence — or rather,
be forced to pay the lawyers and the victims for the negligence of the
managers? Incredibly, this appears to be necessary, for the corporation,
even after selling off large portions of its portfolio and closing many,
many, of its stores, faces more lawsuits still as many of its
manager, and even its board members, continue to be indited for salacious
crimes.
In the meanwhile,
the customers become fewer and fewer, and to compound the problem, there
are no new, trustworthy, employees to be had as a result of the magnitude
of the scandal. The schools of management (hint: seminaries)
must, of course, close also, for there are no more candidates (seminarians)
for the positions which themselves are fewer and fewer.
Despite this,
the Chairman (in the case of the Catholic Church, pope Francis) and
the Board (the bishops and cardinals) are determined more than ever
— not to return to the successful and prosperous method of the last
2000 years (the Tridentine or Latin Mass that preceded Vatican II for
two millennia) but to continue in its new business model which is crumbling
daily with still further departures from the past, becoming itself increasingly
arthritic, along with its remaining customers.
What do you see
in all this? What is your assessment of its management and its future
as a viable business? The question, of course, is rhetorical, except
for the doctrinaire few who maintain that — despite all appearances
and metrics — it is actually prospering in its manifest decline.
Receivership
This is a vignette
of the state of the “modern” Catholic Church in receivership subsequent
to Vatican II. It is the state of the Church today. And many increasingly
wonder if it is the same Church at all — given the changes that followed
— and still follow — that ill-fated Council that effectively defected
from the Faith and went the Way of the World.
Counterfeit: another religion altogether?
What is essentially understood as “The Conciliar Church of Vatican II,”
— “The Post-Conciliar Church,” — or the “Novus Ordo (New Order) Church”
(you choose) appears to be a significant network of homosexual clerics
and pedophiles at all levels, most of whom had lost their faith
altogether. From Paul VI’s
very first Encyclical Ecclesiam Suam in 1964, it “progressively”
(in both senses of the word) became an institutional exercise in self-loathing,
a distancing of itself from what was uniquely, historically, and conspicuously
Catholic. Confronted with the moral and cultural collapse of the 1960s
and the subsequent conflict with faith, reason, and authority, the Church
sought to address these issues not on the terms that had ever sustained
her through two millennia of continual crises, but rather, on terms
that were congenial to the world, a world in moral, social, and political
chaos.
Rather than
confronting the world with a competing vision to the chaos
that wracked it, the “new” Church conformed to the world (so
much so, in fact, that the chaos it encountered outside its cloister
walls soon leached into and was now internalized in the chaotic doctrines
it produced), ending the hostility by surrendering to it — and 70 years
later, under the pontificate of Francis, even collaborating with
it!
As a result, the once distinguishable, singular, and uniquely identifiable,
Roman Catholic Church became an iteration of itself: itself,
but another instance of itself, which is to say not itself. If
you find this confusing, then you have understood the plight of “modern”
Catholicism. Some argue, and not without substance, that it well may
have become another religion altogether; a religion distinct from, and
not identical to, nor in continuity with, the Holy Catholic Church that
preceded it for 2000 years.
“Hermeneutics of Continuity?”
What about the “Hermeneutics” that is often discussed as a bridge of
sorts between the Catholic Church and the Post-Catholic Vatican II Church?
This pretentious word means little more than Scriptural interpretation,
and methods of interpretation in general. It was Benedict, however,
who coined the phrase “Hermeneutic of Continuity” in December
2005 and applied it to the failed effort to demonstrate that the Church
prior to Vatican II is effectively the same Church that
emerged from that unfortunate Council — however great the disparity
between the two.
In short, it refers to the proposition that — despite all compelling
and verifiable indications that it had, in fact, changed, and
had changed significantly — the Church of Pope Pius XII (and
all 259 of his predecessors for 2000 years) and that of Francis … are
identical. That every other religion even remotely cognizant of Catholicism
soberly recognizes that this is untrue, few, very few, Catholic churchmen
will. And fewer “Princes of the Church” still. Possibly the only one
who may not contest this is the pope, Francis himself, who appears
to have made every effort in 10 years to instigate a schism — to cut
off, once and for all, the “old” that is drawing off young blood from
the “new.” Like his tyrannical counterpart in North Korea, he is determined,
in the Church, to stamp out all remembrance of the past, together with
every vestige of anything that preceded him and the Second Vatican Council.
Balkanization of the Church
Amid the great confusion surrounding this novel concept of a “Hermeneutic
of Continuity,” perhaps the greatest is its presuming to provide
an “interpretation” of something present, not simply through
what preceded it, but from which it significantly differs. Indeed,
precisely as a result of what is experienced as discontinuity
it has arguably culminated in a crisis of identity. The notion of Vatican
II as an “organic development” has become increasingly difficult to
sustain given the undeniably profound changes that occurred within the
Church and which still occur unabated. These changes have, in turn,
resulted in a balkanization of the Church into conflicting and irreconcilable
factions within it, much as had inevitably occurred within Protestantism.
Far from a “hermeneutic of continuity,” what we now confront is
not an evolution so much as it is a mutation., a fundamental
change in the Churches’ understanding of itself, its mission and its
relevance. What is more, we must ask, since when did the Church
need an interpretation of itself? Is this even a meaningful question?
Calculated
Ambiguity to Suppress Actual Understanding
Of the many
problems plaguing the Church (to say nothing of other learned institutions)
is its penchant for literal and verbal complexity and
ambiguity; the saying of something that sounds profound — such
as a “hermeneutic of continuity” — but in the end is without substance.
It possesses a sense of impenetrable density; something opaque
to immediate understanding or comprehension, an aura of meaning,
but is ultimately empty of it. It appears to have gavitas,
but is found wanting. It conceals itself as a cypher, something
written in secret code that only the “initiated” — those who have the
“cognitive superiority,” the “necessary intelligence” — unlike you
— can grasp.
We then come
to understand the purpose of obfuscation: if a statement cannot
be understood, how can it be attacked? It is transparent
and dishonest rhetorical device: if attacked, deflect the attack by
indicting the attacker; specifically, his supposed lack of understanding
or intellectual perspicacity.
The attempt
to reconcile what has essentially become the “Post-Catholic Conciliar
Church” with all that had preceded it for so many centuries has consistently
failed. Why? Because There is no “Hermeneutic of Continuity”
— and no “Hermeneutic of Rupture.”
The entire
notion of a “hermeneutic” at all between Vatican II and the Pre-Conciliar
Church has become, for all intents and purposes, a mere literary device,
a bromide that has the gravitas of a cliché. The failure, or
more often than not, the unwillingness, to honestly acknowledge
the “Hermeneutic of Continuity” to be the discredited project it has
resulted in, now verges on culminating in schism.
Why? Given the widespread scandal, confusion, and the recurring odor
of heresy that has both inundated the Church, and, most especially,
characterized the pontificate of Francis — a pontiff who holds himself
to be the bold embodiment and most vigorous “enforcer” of all
the doctrines that effectively corrupted Catholicism following Vatican
II1
— it has become increasingly difficult, if not actually impossible,
to reconcile the Roman Catholic Church that existed for 2000 years with
the Ecumenical “Faith Community” that emerged as an impoverished resemblance,
a mere simulacrum, of what preceded it.
Too Many, Too Conspicuous, and Too Profound
The points of difference have become too many, too conspicuous, and
too profound to ignore for the sake of “dialogue”, “accompaniment” (whatever
this Bergoglian novelty means) and a Church understanding it as “her
task of promoting unity and love … and fellowship … among men and
nations,”
2
still less, “dialogue”, “accompaniment” (whatever this novelty means),
in place of her primary role which is, and ever has been the Salvation
of Souls (Canon Law 175), rather than improving society, establishing
economic and social equity among peoples and nations, and simply promoting
“fellowship” and feeling good about ourselves and others no matter how
morally abhorrent our lives, how obscene our desires, and how
contemptuous our indifference to God.
In fact, the “Hermeneutic of Continuity” proposes to do something more
than simply pretend that a continuity exists where one does not exist,
or, if however remotely, can be only tenuous at best: it seeks to tether
us to what we have found to be foreign to our Catholic religion:
holding the strange and false gods of other religions to be the same
God that Catholics worship and have always worshipped;
3
to
go so far as to show reverence to the Amazonian pagan goddess
Pachamama in the Vatican Gardens, and to display this naked idol
as a centerpiece in the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina
in Rome.4
The scandal throughout the world was palpable.
Let us, then, be painfully clear: the Catholic Faith is, in fact,
largely beside the point in the Post-Catholic-Conciliar-Church.
Other … “Ecclesial Communities,” …. however factionalized
into a thousand sects by irreconcilable disagreements with each other
— both Protestant and Orthodox —we are now to understand are equally
able to bring us to Heaven! And not even specifically Christian
religions, but any religion: Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. All
are acknowledged in the Ecumenical Doctrine of Vatican II to be viable
alternatives — not just to Catholicism, but to Christianity itself.
(see footnote
3)
So, Why Be A Catholic At All?
This is the huge question, perhaps the most conspicuous
question that no one wishes to ask — and answer — for two reasons:
first, to simply ask it is to summarily indict the very raison
d'etre of Vatican II: what was its purpose as a convocation
of Catholics if it abolished every reason for being Catholic rather
than something, anything, else? The second reason is that the question
is impossible to be coherently answered for effectively the same reason,
which is … there is no reason! The documents of Vatican
II provide not just no compelling reason, but no reason at
all to be a Catholic, remain a Catholic, or become a Catholic.
Away with
you, then, to the mosque, the temple, the gurdwara, or pagoda. However
culturally inflected the worship, the end is the same if you are on
board with Francis & Friends, with Ecumenism, Synodality, and the “Art”
of Accompaniment.
6
On the other hand, if you have maintained your genuine Catholic Faith
against the reproach of men in white robes, scarlet caps, amaranth zucchettos,
and a dazzling array of “modern” stylized crosiers who do not despise
pagans, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists — but who despise you, Catholic
Man and Catholic Woman as — to use Francis’s derogative word for us
— “indietrists” as “backward-ists,” “looking-backward-ists.”
Didn’t Christ warn us that even those within the household will despise
us as bastards, not belonging to the house at all?
5
Children’s
parents and grandparents: this is a parable only. But tell the children
of something which once was unspeakably beautiful — and manifestly holy.
Assure them that it still is … somewhere ... and always will be, in
spite of every effort to suppress it, obscure it, and abolish it by
men who have made a treaty with the world rather than keeping a covenant
with God.
___________________________
1 Most notable among which
are “The Decree on Ecumenism” (Unitatis Redintegratio), “The
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions”
(Nostra Aetate), “The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (Lumen
Gentium), and “The Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity” (Ad
Gentes).
2 Nostra Aetate
1
https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html
3
Lumen Gentium 2.16.126
“But
the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator.
In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing
to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and
merciful God.
4
https://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/amazonian-breast-and-the-descent-into-madness.htm
https://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/does-francis-defy-god-for-the-sake-of-ecumenism.htm
5
https://www.boston-catholic-journal.com/catholicism-as-art-the-art-of-accompaniment.htm
6 St. Mat.
10.36-39
Geoffrey K. Mondello
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal
Feast of Purification
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
February 2, 2024
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Comments?
Write us:
editor@boston-catholic-journal.com

Totally
Faithful to the Sacred Deposit of Faith entrusted
to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse 3.8)
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