LETTER FROM A PRIEST
Reply by W. F. Strojie
1 October 1981
This letter was sent to a regular reader of my writings, which person asked for comment on it... out of a charitable concern for the priest who sent it.
Since the Second Vatican Council this kind of letter from our reverend clergy is not uncommon; on the contrary (though hard to believe) it is typical. In fact, we receive no other kind from the New Order clergy. The most serious and restrained of my early papers, such as "The Enemy Within the Catholic Church", gets no reply at all from them, even though that paper is based on an encyclical (Pascendi) of a pope who has been canonized, St. Pius X. What I mean to say is, I am not setting up a selected easy target for myself to reply to. There's no other kind. I publish my reply to this one partly because I happen at this time to be responding to two other recent expressions of priests who support Vatican 2 and do its works, and partly to expose the kind of advice the average Catholic gets when he goes to his parish priest for answers about the serious charges some of us rightly make against the Vatican 2 reform - charges based on facts and doctrine, correctly quoting true popes and other doctors of the Church. To begin with this letter, from a Dominican priest:
Dear R...
"I am a great admirer of our present Pope John Paul II. I am convinced that he was divinely chosen to save our Church from the dangers that have threatened it since Vatican II. Vatican II was a true Ecumenical Council. I have read all its documents. It was the completely erroneous interpretation of the decrees of Vatican II which did all the harm. Pope John started it and would have guided it safely through had he lived. Paul VI did his best to overcome the harm done by those who - I am convinced maliciously and diabolically misinterpreted its decrees, but was too sick to follow through in his condemnation of the errors..."
I break off the letter here to comment on that part. So, then, what goes on now, this priest admits is "completely erroneous"; this despite the origin (so we were told) and guidance by the Holy Spirit. So why isn't this Dominican and a large number of others of our reverend clergy speaking out about these "misinterpretations"? How was it that Paul VI was too sick to condemn the errors? During more than thirteen years he was almost constantly talking or travelling - as a sick man could not possibly have done. To continue the letter:
"John Paul I was a very good Pope, possibly a saint, who would have been unable to handle the Church in the situation it now finds itself in. John Paul II is the Holy Spirit's choice to restore order in the Church and reform it. As history shows the church is constantly in need of reform since it is run by human beings - with all their human faults and failings - but Divinely guided..."
Here another break for comment: How does Father know that John Paul II is the Holy Spirit's choice to restore order? Did the Holy Spirit make a mistake in choosing John Paul I? Or is it implied that which seems to follow from these two sentences - that John Paul got in despite, the Holy Spirit? Perhaps because of a majority of bad cardinal-electors. And why is it now necessary to "restore order" in the Church? Weren't we told before, during, and since the Council that Vatican II was the work of the Holy Spirit, and that therefore we would see resulting from it a Great Renewal? We certainly were thus assured, over and over again. Anyway, what has John Paul II actually done to restore order? - going on a round of parades. "The Church is constantly in need of reform because run by human. beings". If so, then it is the human beings, not the Church - not the whole rite of the Mass, not all the Sacramental rites, etc. - who need reforming; and it is notorious that we do not see this human reform taking place; quite the opposite. More from the letter:
"I was particularly shocked by the perverted attack on the character of John Paul II in the pamphlet "A New Kind of Pope" you enclosed. "Obviously" (why obviously?) "it has been posed by one who looked like him..."
Comment: "He" looks very much like "him". So does the boy. The photos were published in Italy, in a popular magazine of large circulation. There have been no denials of the authenticity of the photos by the Vatican; no prosecution of the publisher by the Italian government, which has laws against false or contumacious publishing. The photos are authentic. In any case, this priest is seriously at fault in his rash judgement of me, which he carries to shameful extremes, as follows:
"Only an obscene and utterly depraved mind could make such an attack on a man of such an unblemished reputation..."
My dear Father: You can justly apply that to yourself, because of your rash judgment of me. And why do you overlook entirely the printed matter in my little pamphlet, which contains a factual short summary of the evil done by the Vatican 2 popes? The man adds a few more lines of scurrilous attack on my person, which I pass over. Next paragraph:
"I think of John Paul II as a great and holy man whom God has been pleased to give us at a time when His Church needed a strong and firm hand to guide it..."
Incredible! The man has done nothing (as I remarked before) but go on parade. The Church is in an even worse state than when he moved into the Vatican. Question: If God chose John Paul to save us, how can it be that a young Turk with a revolver can frustrate this Divine Intention? It is the New Clergy who have been claiming extraordinary divine assistance for our time, as our friend has just done. Now he presents more evidence - of another kind:
"As a prominent Jewish business man said to a friend of mine when both were present in Alaska when he stopped off there: "Your Pope is the only leader left in the world today."
I hardly know how to comment on that. Is it perhaps that being a "prominent Jewish business man" makes one a true prophet? Aside from "the only leader left in the world" not sounding very convincing, may we ask what kind of leader? There are leaders and leaders, not all of them good. Perhaps the Jewish business man has some particular direction in which he and his friends would like to see us led.
"John Paul II has an outstanding devotion to Our Blessed Mother. She will take care of him in her own motherly way. As she told the three children at Fatima "the Pope will suffer greatly..."
Now this is something I wonder about, which doesn't make the Fatima predictions more credible. Which pope? We have had six, counting the Vatican 2 Johns and Pauls, since Fatima. How long can this go on? More of this kind of 'reasoning', but not yet a word on the actual state of the Church, the wild doctrinal and liturgical reforms, etc. Our reverend letter writer tries to make something of the day John Paul 2 was wounded, and the date of his release from the hospital - "64th anniversary of Fatima; and Feast of the Assumption". This is the kind of response we get from the pious New Order clergy. Never facts of any consequence or significance; no Catholic doctrine. But let us end this thing:
"Thanks for sending me that clipping. I took the greatest pleasure in tearing it up! Reading it only increased my admiration for him. His enemies must indeed be in a bad way when they have to resort to such obscene methods to attack him."
As already mentioned: This priest had facts and doctrine on John Paul in the little pamphlet which he tore up. I am ready to reply to any priest or layman on that basis. We don't have to "resort" to anything else.
It is because we cannot get a reasoned response that it has seemed useful to expose the man, John Paul - especially since it is phoney 'charisma' upon which the Vatican 2 reformers rest their case. The Holy Spirit told us, they say. The Vatican 2 'seers' take up the same cry, with their 'messages from heaven.' I have been writing for years that the attack on the Church and her members is first of all an attack on our minds. G. K. Chesterton (our priest friend quotes him, so why not I) writes in his book on St. Thomas, "The Dumb Ox", that it is by this means of setting up a "mood" that the Gnostic heretics do their work. Except to distort and render ambiguous, they steer clear of facts and doctrine. |
