Tradcast Express, it's Friday, September 8th, 2023.
In less than a month, the great Synod on Synodality will open in the Vatican.
And some people in the conservative Novos Ordo and traditionalist Recognize and Resist camps
are warning that Pope Francis is about to create a different church.
And not without reason, in his 2021 opening address for the Synodal Process,
yes, this bureaucratic Synod on Synodality has been in the making for two years now,
Francis said this,
Quote,
Father Yves Congar, of blessed memory, once said,
There is no need to create a nobility.
There is no need to create another church, but to create a different church.
That is the challenge.
For a different church, a church open to the newness that God wants to suggest,
let us with greater fervor and frequency invoke the Holy Spirit and humbly listen to him,
journeying together as he, the source of communion and mission, desires,
with docility and courage.
Unquote.
A few days ago, on September 4th,
the Remnant's Robert Morrison published an article entitled,
Now that Francis has created Congar's different church, can we stop calling it Catholic?
Now, it puzzles me when people are acting as if that different church hadn't long come into being already,
specifically at the Second Vatican Council, which met from 1962 until 1965.
Vatican II even changed the date.
They changed the definition of the church and introduced a new ecclesiology.
Whereas Pope Pius XII had taught in his encyclical Mystici Corporis of 1943
that the mystical body of Christ is the Catholic Church, in Latin, est,
and seven years later again emphasized in his encyclical Humani Generis
that the mystical body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.
Vatican II instead taught in Lumen Gentium No. 8
that the, quote,
one church of Christ, constituted and organized in the world as a society,
subsists in the Catholic Church,
although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.
Unquote.
And if you thought that that difference is not significant,
well,
you have decades of ecumenism to prove you wrong.
In fact, it was none other than the late Joseph Ratzinger,
also known as Benedict XVI,
who, in his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Destruction of the Faith,
under John Paul II,
confirmed that the Council's teaching differs from the prior teaching of Pope Pius XII.
In 2001, Ratzinger wrote in the Vatican's in-house newspaper,
quote,
And he's talking about the subsists in,
subsistit in, in Latin.
With this expression, the Council differs from the formula of Pius XII,
who said in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi,
the Catholic Church is, est, the one mystical body of Christ.
The difference between subsistit and est conceals within itself
the whole ecumenical system.
The theoretical and practical consequences of this change in theology
are visible in the ecumenism the Vatican II Church has taught and legislated
in its official magisterial documents since the Council.
None of these changes are visible in the ecumenism the Vatican II Church has taught and legislated in its official magisterial documents since the Council.
None of these fake authorities in the Vatican today
believe or teach that the only religious unity that is possible,
according to Catholic doctrine,
is that of all non-Catholics converting to Catholicism,
so that soon there may be but one flock and one shepherd,
as Pope Pius XI put it in his prayer for the consecration of the human race
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
That teaching has long been rejected by the modern church,
and it's clear that present-day ecumenism would not be possible
if the Vatican claimed that only the Catholic religion is true
and therefore all must convert to it.
How much of a difference there is between the traditional Catholic doctrine
and the new teaching since Vatican II
can be seen, for example, in what Pope Francis said
to a delegation of Lutherans from Finland
on January 1, 1936,
and January 17, 2020.
He quoted approvingly from a report on Catholic-Lutheran dialogue
that speaks of Catholics and Lutherans as
Just keep that in mind, for next time some Novus Ordo apologist tells you
that Sedevacantists are just a bunch of heretics and schismatics.
But there's more.
Even from just today, when the Vatican held a press conference
to talk about the ecumenical prayer vigil
that will be held September 30th on the eve of the Synod.
When you read the transcript of that,
it becomes very clear that these supposed Catholics
believe that all the baptized are the people of God,
regardless of their beliefs or denominational affiliation.
There. There is your new church.
It's not the Synodal Church, though.
It's the Vatican II Church, the Conciliar Church.
It was the false Pope Paul VI who referred to the Church of Vatican II
as the Conciliar Church as far back as March 8, 1966,
just three months after the Council closed.
In an address to Laity, he said,
For it is not a matter merely of collecting and spreading the Council's teachings,
but of transforming oneself into the image of the Conciliar Church,
renewed in its prayer, in the expression of its faith and its hope,
and in the clarity of its dialogue with all Christians and all men."
And wouldn't you know it?
Robert Morrison's article of August 29th, 2023,
the one immediately preceding the one about Congar's different church,
has,
So then, why all the fuss about this different church or new church
that Francis is supposedly about to create?
The new church has been around since the 1960s.
Granted, it's quite possible that Francis wants to kick things up a notch
and create a yet more different church, so to speak,
but it won't be a transition from Catholic Church
to Synodal Church.
But merely from Conciliar Church to Synodal Church.
So, who cares?
Now, as regards Robert Morrison and the Remnant and those who agree with them,
I want to tell these recognize-and-resist traditionalists
that they themselves are contributing to the idea of a different church,
a false church, with their erroneous position.
Because, according to them,
the Catholic Church is a church,
in which the Pope can be an apostate.
He can teach heresy and other errors.
He can canonize false saints.
He can legislate evil and harmful disciplinary laws.
He can issue defective and harmful sacramental rites.
He can even cripple the Catholic Mass
and reduce it to a Protestant supper service.
Most of all, according to the recognize-and-resist trads,
the Pope can teach something
that not only doesn't have to be accepted
by the faithful,
but may even have to be rejected
and effectively overruled by self-styled Orthodox Catholics
who publish articles and videos against him and his teachings.
In order to know the real Catholic doctrine,
according to the recognize-and-resist trads,
you cannot go by the Holy See's official acts and pronouncements.
No, you have to subscribe to a newspaper in Minnesota
or a YouTube channel in Texas.
It's rather odd.
They even go so far as to host every year
what they call a Catholic Identity Conference.
In fact, it's coming up at the end of this month again
here in the United States.
It's a conference that does not, of course,
have the backing of the local Novus Ordo bishop
and is nothing but a private event, essentially,
that simply considers itself faithfully Catholic.
Now, everything I've said here
is not meant as a judgment
on any particular Catholic faith.
It's not meant as a judgment on any particular Catholic faith.
It's not meant as a judgment on any particular individual.
It's not meant as a judgment on any particular Catholic faith.
This isn't about judging hearts or whatever.
I completely understand that most of these people
are presumably quite sincere
and genuinely trying to please God.
They're all just struggling to figure out
how to respond to the insanity we've seen
since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958.
So, I get it.
But that's beside the point.
What I'm criticizing is not any particular person's intentions
or subjective state of conscience before God.
Rather, I'm criticizing the objective course of action
that is taken
and the flawed theological position that underlies it.
Just as they do, by the way,
when they critique Sedevacantism.
So, I'd like to tell Robert Morrison
that with his false recognize and resist traditionalism,
he too is contributing plenty himself
to that new and different church,
an absurd church
or a travesty of a church
which one has to continually resist
in order not to be led to hell by it.
He too should stop calling it Catholic.
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