Guest Post By David Martin
Perhaps the greatest curse of our time has been the misguidance of the flock of Christ under the illusion of divine guidance, a treacherous path that was set in motion at Vatican II. Cardinal Ratzinger even told his friend Fr. Ingo Dollinger—a close friend and spiritual child of St. Padre Pio—that the Third Secret of Fatima spoke of "a bad council and a bad Mass," presumably referencing the Second Vatican Council. https://onepeterfive.com/cardinal-ratzinger-not-published-whole-third-secret-fatima/
But some will lash out at this, arguing that a dogmatic council cannot err because it is guided by the Holy Spirit. But who ever said Vatican II was dogmatic? The fact is that there was no dogma defined at the Council. Benedict XVI while a cardinal even pointed out the non-infallible status of Vatican II, as we see in his address to the bishops of Chile in 1988:
"The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of super-dogma which takes away the importance of all the rest." (Cardinal Ratzinger on Vatican II)
Pope Paul VI also cited the non-infallible status of Vatican II when he said that the Council "avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church’s infallible teaching authority." (General Audience, December 1, 1966)
The Holy Father also said in 1970: "In many areas the Council has not so far given us peace but rather stirred up troubles and problems that in no way serve to strengthen the Kingdom of God within the Church or within its souls."
It was this same pope who lamented the outcome of Vatican II on the ninth anniversary of his coronation, when he declared: "From some fissure the smoke of Satan entered into the temple of God." (June 29, 1972)
The fact is that Vatican II in many ways dissented from Church teaching. For instance, the Council teaches that "it is allowable, indeed desirable that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren" on the grounds that "The Holy Spirit does not refuse to make use of other religions as a means of salvation." (Unitatis Redintegratio)
This radically contradicts the Church's infallible teaching that the Holy Spirit works only through the Catholic Church, outside of which there exists no salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus). Pope Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors condemned the Protestant notion that "Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation."
The Syllabus of Errors also warned against attempts to revolutionize the Church, yet the conciliar document Gaudium et Spes (in conjunction with the documents on Religious Liberty and Ecumenism) was intended to counteract the Syllabus of Errors and to revive the rebellious principles of the French Revolution of 1789. Cardinal Ratzinger attested to this in his 1982 book, Principles of Catholic Theology:
"We might say that it [Gaudium et Spes] is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter-syllabus... Let us be content to say that the text serves as a counter-syllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789." (Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 381-382, Ignatius Press, 1987)
Hence, we see Vatican II conniving with the French Revolution of 1789, which was Masonically generated to instigate rebellion against the Faith, just as the Council connived with Luther's Reformation which was generated for this same purpose. But as with the Reformation, the Vatican II revolution was waged under the pretext of a reform so that people would see it as "magisterial."
What we are witnessing today is the Magisterium vs. the counter-magisterium, which is precisely what Pope John Paul II while a cardinal was trying to alert us to in his prophetic warning about the rise of an "anti-Church" that would preach an "anti-Gospel." During his visit to America in 1976, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla delivered this prophetic message in Philadelphia, on the occasion of the bicentennial anniversary of American Independence.
"We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. We must be prepared to undergo great trials in the not-too-distant future; trials that will require us to be ready to give up even our lives.... How many times has the renewal of the Church been brought about in blood! It will not be different this time."
A true renewal would mean restoring the Church to its former position of honor as it stood before Vatican II. Such efforts will inevitably bring great persecution and even "blood" upon those who push for this, so great is the modern-day addiction to the conciliar idol of change.
Let's face it, the new church of man stemming from of Vatican II promises confused Catholics that they can now dispense with 'archaic' rules and regulations, assuring them that God accepts them as they are, and that they can even live in adultery knowing that "no one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel." (Amoris Laetitia, 297)
What we're really looking at today is a revival of Martin Luther, the culprit who first generated this crack-pot theology. Consider Luther's famous advice to his disciple-companion Philip Melanchthon:
"Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly… No sin will separate us from the Christ, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day." (From Luther’s letter to Philip Melanchthon, August 1, 1521, LW Vol. 48, pp. 281-282)
Reviving the cause of Luther in fact was a key objective of the Second Vatican Council, as affirmed by Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, a prominent figure of the Council who said: "The accusation of connivance with the Reformation is therefore not without foundation."
Conniving with the Reformation is something the post-conciliar church officially recognizes, as we read in the 1980 Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commission which grew out of Vatican II: "Among the ideas of the Second Vatican Council, we can see gathered together much of what Luther asked for, such as the following: description of the Church as ‘The People of God’ (a democratic and non-hierarchical idea); accent on the priesthood of all baptized; the right of the individual to freedom of religion."
Unfortunately, this connivance has now reached the point that the Vatican on October 31 issued a postage stamp on which Martin Luther is depicted kneeling with St. John before Jesus. Shall the Vatican also issue a stamp with Hitler kneeling before Jesus?
The point being that Luther was a heretic and notorious enemy of God, who taught that Jesus was an adulterer, who rejected six books of the Bible, who dubbed the Sacrifice of the Mass "sacrilegious and abominable," and who utterly cursed the papacy. Should Rome be commemorating Luther and praising him as "a witness to the Gospel?"
It was for reason that Luther was excommunicated in 1521, whereupon the Council of Trent later condemned his Reformation, decreeing that those who hold to its errors are an anathema. How is it then that Rome is now praising a heretic who the Church officially holds to be an enemy of the Christian Faith?
The answer: Vatican II had a key role in infecting the Church with this heresy. There were six known Protestant delegates at the Second Vatican Council who played a significant role in shaping the Council documents. Michael Davies confirms this in his book on the New Mass where he states that "six Protestant observers were invited to advise this Consilium. They played an active part in the preparation of the New Mass." Their names for the record were: Canon Jasper, Dr. McAfee Brown, Professor George Lindbeck, Professor Oscar Cullmann, Pastor Rodger Schutz, and Archdeacon Pawley.
Cardinal Augustine Bea, who headed the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity, boasted of the contribution made by these Protestant delegates in formulating the Decree on Ecumenism, when he said: "I do not hesitate to assert that they have contributed in a decisive way to bringing about this result."
Professor B. Mondin, of the Pontifical Propaganda College for the Missions, stated that delegates such as Dr. Cullmann made "a valid contribution" to drawing up the Council documents.
This is not to mention people like Gregory Baum, the ex-priest and gay advocate who drafted the conciliar document Nostra Aetate for the Second Vatican Council, or Annibale Bugnini, the suspected Freemason who was the principal architect of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which laid out the design for the new Mass.
Hence Vatican II in the final analysis was neither dogmatic, nor was it magisterial in the ordinary sense, but was a carefully contrived revolution to instigate departure from Church tradition, but in such a way that this is seen as the work of the Holy Spirit.
This is why the Third Secret of Fatima urgently needs to be released, because only then will it shed light on what really happened at Vatican II and how it has caused the Church in our time to degenerate under the illusion of progress.