Author Topic: Father Feeney's letter to Pius XII. (Read 3874 times)

Raoul76 · « **on:** February 28, 2010, 02:22:53 PM »

I'd never seen this before and found it fascinating, especially because he sticks to the real EENS heresy, salvation in false religions. I'm not sure if the sections all in caps were written that way or if my source emphasized these sections. Probably the latter. But his emphasis is on the right things.

To Pope Pius XII
Your Holiness:

It is with the deepest anguish that I write to you, the Vicar of Christ on earth, to ask you to protect me in the crusade which God has given me to wage in your defense and in the defense of our Holy Faith in the United States of America...

Your Holiness must believe me when I tell you that the condition of the Church in the United States of America in the matter of doctrine is utterly deplorable. There is no doubt about it that we are slowly becoming a National Church, controlled not in the least by Your Holiness, but by the National Catholic Welfare Council of Washington, D.C. Americans are not being taught the Catholic Faith as it is contained in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors and in the definitions of the Councils of the Church. THEY ARE BEING TAUGHT WHAT A COMMITTEE OF EXTREMELY DEFICIENT AMERICAN THEOLOGIANS THINK WILL INTEREST THE AMERICAN MIND WITHOUT EVER EMBARRASSING OR CHALLENGING IT.

I am writing this letter to Your Holiness simply, and as a child. Your Holiness may see already that it is not a legally organized docuмent. It is a cry of anguish from my priestly heart. In order not to tire you with too many details, may I tell you in brief statement what is the fundamental heresey universally taught by Catholics, priests, and teachers, in the United States of America? This is the doctrine that American Catholics are being taught:

"THE WAY TO BE SAVED IS BY BEING SINCERE TO YOUR RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND LEADING A GOOD LIFE. If one of your convictions happens to be that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ, then you are obliged to join it. If you do not sincerely think it is the one way to salvation, then you are invincibly ignorant and God will save you, apart from the Church. YOU ARE THEN SAID TO BELONG TO THE SOUL OF THE CHURCH, and whatever you desire for yourself in the way of salvation, Catholic theologians are prepared to call "Baptism of Desire". Were you to sincerely think that the Roman Catholic Church is not the true Church of Christ, it would be a sin for you to join it."

Your Holiness, I assure you in all my honour, in the sanctity of my Sacrament and whatever voice I have to be heard in profession of Faith, that the above statement is the substance of what is being taught all Americans as the means to eternal salvation. I am bold enough to say that you know what I am telling You is the truth. There is no Pope in history who has been as close to the American mind as you have been. I personally heard You speak in New York when I was one of the editors of "America", and I know that this is true. Every day You defer calling a halt to the wild Liberalism of the American hierarchy, A LIBERALISM WHICH PAYS NOT THE SLIGHTEST ATTENTION TO YOUR MESSAGES AGAINST INTERFAITH MOVEMENTS AND AGAINST EXPOSING OUR CATHOLICS TO THE DANGERS OF HERETICAL PERVERSION, THE MORE WILL GROW THE SPIRIT OF INDIFFERENCE AND APOSTASY IN OUR LAND, AND TEN YEARS FROM NOW WILL BE TOO LATE TO SAVE IT.

I know along with the challenge which I offer to Your Holiness, while prostrate at your feet in reverence and love, there go thousands of graces to enable you as Christ's Vicar to save the world for our Holy Faith. UNLESS YOU ARE THE THUNDERING LEADER OF THE WORLD, OTHER THUNDERERS WILL TAKE YOUR PLACE, be they the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Stalins or the Roosevelts, who have already so confused the world that is waiting for our Pontiff to speak.

...Every one of my thousands of readers in America knows that I will never give up my Faith, and many are scandalized that I received so little protection in my profession of it. I beseech the protection of the Vicar of Christ on earth.

With profoundest respect, I am...
(signed) Father Leonard Feeney, S.J.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #1 on:** February 28, 2010, 03:06:33 PM »

Quote from: Raoul76

"THE WAY TO BE SAVED IS BY BEING SINCERE TO YOUR RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS AND LEADING A GOOD LIFE. If one of your convictions happens to be that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ, then you are obliged to join it. If you do not sincerely think it is the one way to salvation, then you are invincibly ignorant and God will save you, apart from the Church. YOU ARE THEN SAID TO BELONG TO THE SOUL OF THE CHURCH, and whatever you desire for yourself in the way of salvation, Catholic theologians are prepared to call "Baptism of Desire". Were you to sincerely think that the Roman Catholic Church is not the true Church of Christ, it would be a sin for you to join it."

Sound familiar, folks? Remember that the people who persecuted Father Feeney are the same ones who engineered Vatican II.

Vatican II's errors all boil down to the statement above from Father Feeney.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #2 on:** February 28, 2010, 03:13:14 PM »

Thanks for posting this, Raoul. Yes, Father Feeney makes no mention of the explicit Baptism of Desire here but sticks to the distorted implicit BoD that's proximate to heresy.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 28, 2010, 07:37:45 PM »

Ladislaus said:

Quote

Yes, Father Feeney makes no mention of the explicit Baptism of Desire here but sticks to the distorted implicit BoD that's proximate to heresy.

Minus the "proximate to" :wink:

Caminus · « **Reply #4 on:** February 28, 2010, 07:38:49 PM »

This letter could be affirmed by any traditional priest.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 01, 2010, 01:16:11 AM »

Father Feeney said

Quote

If you do not sincerely think it is the one way to salvation, then you are invincibly ignorant and God will save you, apart from the Church. YOU ARE THEN SAID TO BELONG TO THE SOUL OF THE CHURCH, and whatever you desire for yourself in the way of salvation, Catholic theologians are prepared to call "Baptism of Desire".

Caminus, what Fr. Feeney is decrying in the above is almost exactly what is taught by the traditional priests. He just exaggerates a little to make his point ( sort of like he did later by denying BoD for catechumens? )

The traditional priest would not say that "whatever you desire for yourself in the way of salvation" is baptism of desire. They would actually say that someone in a false religion can be in a state of grace and saved as a voto member of the Catholic Church without knowing it, which is equally as ridiculous as what Father Feeney laments above. But it sounds better. That is because the "trads" are careful to say that it is the Church doing the saving DESPITE the religion practiced by the one in invincible ignorance.

Alexandria · « **Reply #6 on:** March 01, 2010, 01:48:32 PM »

I've read a lot of books and articles on Father Feeney. He said in the late forties that if the Vatican didn't intervene then, in twenty years it would be too late. The priest was right. I found it amazing that theology was already so far gone in Jesuit universities in general (and with the Jesuits in particular) already in the forties.

I don't think we ever had in the USA the unadulterated faith. It seems to me, from everything I have read, that it was always being watered down to appease the wrath of the WASP crowd.

Belloc · « **Reply #7 on:** March 01, 2010, 02:20:03 PM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

distorted implicit BoD that's proximate to heresy.

sorry, not proven heresy

Belloc · « **Reply #8 on:** March 01, 2010, 02:21:48 PM »

Quote from: Caminus

This letter could be affirmed by any traditional priest.

True, though for some, Feeney is the hero and man of the hour......

Belloc · « **Reply #9 on:** March 01, 2010, 02:22:28 PM »

Quote from: Alexandria

I don't think we ever had in the USA the unadulterated faith. It seems to me, from everything I have read, that it was always being watered down to appease the wrath of the WASP crowd.

True, Americanism not only existed, but won....

Ladislaus · « **Reply #10 on:** March 01, 2010, 05:36:45 PM »

Quote from: Belloc

Quote from: Caminus
This letter could be affirmed by any traditional priest.

True, though for some, Feeney is the hero and man of the hour......

Father Feeney WAS a hero, even if he did go a little far on a couple of points. He was practically alone. Even today he's reviled by most (including most Traditional Catholics) for defending the Faith against the very same people who engineered Vatican II.

Alexandria · « **Reply #11 on:** March 01, 2010, 05:38:42 PM »

It's the only thing that the novus ordo, SSPX, CMRI, SSPV et als, all agree on - Father Feeney.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #12 on:** March 01, 2010, 07:49:15 PM »

Quote from: Belloc

Quote from: Ladislaus
distorted implicit BoD that's proximate to heresy.

sorry, not proven heresy

I wrote "proximate to" heresy.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #13 on:** March 01, 2010, 07:59:11 PM »

Quote from: Alexandria

It's the only thing that the novus ordo, SSPX, CMRI, SSPV et als, all agree on - Father Feeney.

Interesting, isn't it? Makes you go "hmmm". Though the Novus Ordo actually "tolerates" the "Feeneyites", whereas a priest of SSPV was known to have refused last sacraments to a Feeneyite on her deathbed.

People don't realize that very nearly all the Vatican II errors derive from the gravely erroneous propositions called out by Father Feeney in the letter above.

It's the foundation for the new Vatican II "subsistit" ecclesiology, for ecuмenism, and for religious liberty.

If I believed in the "invincible ignorance implicit baptism of desire salvation" proposition, I would immediately drop all theological objections to Vatican II. So I have a hard time seeing how Traditional Catholics can attack V2 and at the same time uphold and promote the principles which underly it.

roscoe · « **Reply #14 on:** March 01, 2010, 08:22:13 PM »

Quote from: Alexandria

It's the only thing that the novus ordo, SSPX, CMRI, SSPV et als, all agree on - Father Feeney.

Unfortunately, TCW also agrees.

Author Topic: Father Feeney&#039;s letter to Pius XII. (Read 3874 times)

Author Topic: Father Feeney's letter to Pius XII. (Read 3874 times)