http://en.radiovaticana.va/m_articolo.asp?c=628717

(Vatican Radio) – On Wednesday, the eve of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the Pope’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, published a special edition dedicated to Vatican II. It opens with an article written by Pope Benedict XVI on his personal memories of the great ecuмenical gathering. Penned this past summer in Castel Gandolfo, the article is in fact the preface to a collection of writings by the young Prof. Joseph Ratzinger at the time of the Council, which, however, have never been published. Edited by Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, [current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – ed], the complete collection is due to be published in Germany , by Herder.

Below we publish the full text of the preface:

It was a splendid day on 11 October 1962 when the Second Vatican Council opened with the solemn procession into St Peter’s Basilica in Rome of more than two thousand Council Fathers. In 1931 Pius XI had dedicated this day to the feast of the Divine Motherhood of Mary, mindful that 1,500 years earlier, in 431, the Council of Ephesus had solemnly recognized this title for Mary in order to express God’s indissoluble union with man in Christ. Pope John XXIII had chosen this day for the beginning of the Council so as to entrust the great ecclesial assembly, which he had convoked, to the motherly goodness of Mary and to anchor the Council’s work firmly in the mystery of Jesus Christ. It was impressive to see in the entrance procession bishops from all over the world, from all peoples and all races: an image of the Church of Jesus Christ which embraces the whole world, in which the peoples of the earth know they are united in his peace.

It was a moment of extraordinary expectation. Great things were about to happen. The previous Councils had almost always been convoked for a precise question to which they were to provide an answer. This time there was no specific problem to resolve. But precisely because of this, a general sense of expectation hovered in the air: Christianity, which had built and formed the Western world, seemed more and more to be losing its power to shape society. It appeared weary and it looked as if the future would be determined by other spiritual forces. The sense of this loss of the present on the part of Christianity, and of the task following on from that, was well summed up in the word “aggiornamento” (updating). Christianity must be in the present if it is to be able to form the future. So that it might once again be a force to shape the future, John XXIII had convoked the Council without indicating to it any specific problems or programmes. This was the greatness and at the same time the difficulty of the task that was set before the ecclesial assembly.

The various episcopates undoubtedly approached the great event with different ideas. Some of them arrived rather with an attitude of expectation regarding the programme that was to be developed. It was the episcopates of Central Europe – Belgium, France and Germany – that came with the clearest ideas. In matters of detail, they stressed completely different aspects, yet they had common priorities. A fundamental theme was ecclesiology, that needed to be studied in greater depth from a Trinitarian and sacramental viewpoint and in connection with salvation history; then there was a need to amplify the doctrine of primacy from the First Vatican Council by giving greater weight to the episcopal ministry. An important theme for the episcopates of Central Europe was liturgical renewal, which Pius XII had already started to implement. Another central aspect, especially for the German episcopate, was ecuмenism: the shared experience of nαzι persecution had brought Protestant and Catholic Christians closer together; this now had to happen at the level of the whole Church, and to be developed further. Then there was also the group of themes: Revelation – Scripture – Tradition – Magisterium. For the French, the subject of the relationship between the Church and the modern world came increasingly to the fore – in other words the work of the so-called “Schema XIII”, from which the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World later emerged. This point touches on the real expectations of the Council. The Church, which during the Baroque era was still, in a broad sense, shaping the world, had from the nineteenth century onwards visibly entered into a negative relationship with the modern era, which had only then properly begun. Did it have to remain so? Could the Church not take a positive step into the new era? Behind the vague expression “today’s world” lies the question of the relationship with the modern era. To clarify this, it would have been necessary to define more clearly the essential features that constitute the modern era. “Schema XIII” did not succeed in doing this. Although the Pastoral Constitution expressed many important elements for an understanding of the “world” and made significant contributions to the question of Christian ethics, it failed to offer substantial clarification on this point.

Unexpectedly, the encounter with the great themes of the modern epoch did not happen in the great Pastoral Constitution, but instead in two minor docuмents, whose importance has only gradually come to light in the context of the reception of the Council. First, there is the Declaration on Religious Liberty, which was urgently requested, and also drafted, by the American Bishops in particular. With developments in philosophical thought and in ways of understanding the modern State, the doctrine of tolerance, as worked out in detail by Pius XII, no longer seemed sufficient. At stake was the freedom to choose and practise religion and the freedom to change it, as fundamental human rights and freedoms. Given its inner foundation, such a concept could not be foreign to the Christian faith, which had come into being claiming that the State could neither decide on the truth nor prescribe any kind of worship. The Christian faith demanded freedom of religious belief and freedom of religious practice in worship, without thereby violating the law of the State in its internal ordering; Christians prayed for the emperor, but did not worship him. To this extent, it can be said that Christianity, at its birth, brought the principle of religious freedom into the world. Yet the interpretation of this right to freedom in the context of modern thought was not easy, since it could seem as if the modern version of religious freedom presupposed the inaccessibility of the truth to man and so, perforce, shifted religion into the sphere of the subjective. It was certainly providential that thirteen years after the conclusion of the Council, Pope John Paul II arrived from a country in which freedom of religion had been denied by Marxism, in other words by a particular form of modern philosophy of the State. The Pope had come, as it were, from a situation resembling that of the early Church, so that the inner orientation of the faith towards the theme of freedom, and especially freedom of religion and worship, became visible once more.

The second docuмent that was to prove important for the Church’s encounter with the modern age came into being almost by chance and it developed in various phases. I am referring to the Declaration “Nostra Aetate” on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. At the outset the intention was to draft a declaration on relations between the Church and Judaism, a text that had become intrinsically necessary after the horrors of the Shoah. The Council Fathers from Arab countries were not opposed to such a text, but they explained that if there were an intention to speak of Judaism, then there should also be some words on Islam. How right they were, we in the West have only gradually come to understand. Lastly the realization grew that it was also right to speak of two other great religions – Hinduism and Buddhism – as well as the theme of religion in general. Then, following naturally, came a brief indication regarding dialogue and collaboration with the religions, whose spiritual, moral, and socio-cultural values were to be respected, protected and encouraged (ibid., 2). Thus, in a precise and extraordinarily dense docuмent, a theme is opened up whose importance could not be foreseen at the time. The task that it involves and the efforts that are still necessary in order to distinguish, clarify and understand, are appearing ever more clearly. In the process of active reception, a weakness of this otherwise extraordinary text has gradually emerged: it speaks of religion solely in a positive way and it disregards the sick and distorted forms of religion which, from the historical and theological viewpoints, are of far-reaching importance; for this reason the Christian faith, from the outset, adopted a critical stance towards religion, both internally and externally.

If at the beginning of the Council the dominant groups were the Central European Episcopates with their theologians, during the Council sessions the scope of the common endeavour and responsibility constantly broadened. The bishops considered themselves apprentices at the school of the Holy Spirit and at the school of reciprocal collaboration, but at the same time servants of the word of God who were living and working in faith. The Council Fathers neither could nor wished to create a new or different Church. They had neither the authority nor the mandate to do so. It was only in their capacity as bishops that they were now Council Fathers with a vote and decision-making powers, that is to say, on the basis of the Sacrament and in the Church of the Sacrament. For this reason they neither could nor wished to create a different faith or a new Church, but rather to understand these more deeply and hence truly to “renew them”. This is why a hermeneutic of rupture is absurd and is contrary to the spirit and the will of the Council Fathers.

In Cardinal Frings I had a “father” who lived this spirit of the Council in an exemplary way. He was a man of great openness and breadth, but he also knew that faith alone leads us out into the open, into that space which remains barred to the positivist spirit. This is the faith that he wished to serve with the authority he had received through the sacrament of Episcopal Ordination. I cannot but be ever grateful to him for having brought me – the youngest professor of the Catholic theology faculty of the University of Bonn – as his consultant to the great Church assembly, thereby enabling me, alongside the others, to attend that school and to walk the path of the Council from within. The present volume contains a collection of the various writings that I presented at that school. They are thoroughly fragmentary offerings, which also reveal the learning process that the Council and its reception meant and still means for me. I hope that despite all their limitations, these various offerings, combined, will help to make the Council better understood and to implement it in a healthy ecclesial life. I warmly thank Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller and his collaborators at the Pope Benedict XVI Institute for the extraordinary commitment they have taken on in order to produce this volume.

Castel Gandolfo, on the Feast of Saint Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli
2 August 2012

Benedictus PP. XVI

The Church, which during the Baroque era was still, in a broad sense, shaping the world, had from the nineteenth century onwards visibly entered into a negative relationship with the modern era

Also notice that since the nineteenth century, or at least the early twentieth, you had the beginnings of the influence of Freemasons and Communists on the leadership of the Church, which development ultimately led to the infiltration of the clergy BY those agents of sin.

All of this started to happen when those who were supposed to be leading Holy Church busied themselves with gaining the approval of the intellectuals of the world and stopped teaching the laity and the clergy to make the Church a bastion of holiness.

Many in the Church seemingly gave up the fight to restore England and the rest of Europe to Catholic obedience; this tolerance of free-thinker liberalism and pseudo-intellectual posturing allowed for the creep of disobedience throughout Europe and by extension throughout the young United States. Remember that Washington, Jefferson et al were Europeans shaped by Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ, freethinking ideology and occultism. As their brethren in Europe strove for a 'new age', so, too did these menwork to make the US a stronghold of so-called 'religious liberty'.

The Church entered into a seemingly visibly negative relationship with the modern era precisely because many in the Church desired to be at once admired by the world AND somehow still faithful to Our Lord, Who said that no one can serve two masters.

Today, Ratzinger and his ilk are suffering from the same problem. They desperately want to be accepted as the intellectual and philosophical peers of the pagan world, yet they want to represent Christendom to the people as well. It simply cannot be done.

That intellectual and philosophical rigor and power which changes and shapes society from within the Church is born of the Holy Ghost, as in the case of men like Aquinas or Newman, not of a marriage between liberal thought and political maneuvering.

Has Pope Benedict XVI ever thought about hell and what it's like?

It was a splendid day on 11 October 1962 when the Second Vatican Council opened with the solemn procession into St Peter’s Basilica in Rome of more than two thousand Council Fathers. In 1931 Pius XI had dedicated this day to the feast of the Divine Motherhood of Mary, mindful that 1,500 years earlier, in 431, the Council of Ephesus had solemnly recognized this title for Mary in order to express God’s indissoluble union with man in Christ. Pope John XXIII had chosen this day for the beginning of the Council so as to entrust the great ecclesial assembly, which he had convoked, to the motherly goodness of Mary and to anchor the Council’s work firmly in the mystery of Jesus Christ.

Wonders never cease, apparently.  


Is B16 trying to rub salt in the wound?

Or, does it just come naturally for him?  





Has he ever stopped to think about what hell will be like?  






So 1500 years after the Council of Ephesus in 431 had solemnly defined
the title "Mother of God" (please note:  the title is missing from the
Popes fancy penwork!), and Pius XI saw fit to finally give Her the Feast
Day she had to wait 1 and 1/2 millenia for, John XXIII (of infalicitous
memory) saw fit to open the abominable Council-without-any-objective
on her Feast day  ----  AND ----  mind you, never mention the title
of Our Lady, her most elevated title, the one other than which she has no
higher, nor, not only did J23 not bother to say, "Mother of God," he
presided over the forthwith abandonment of the Feast Day itself, in a
helter-skelter hop-scotch of seemingly random dates that would end up
with Mother of God displacing the Feast of the Circuмcision on January 1st
(more commonly known as "New Year" anyway, so who cares anymore??).

That's right, folks!  Our Blessed Mother waited for 1500 years, about the
same amount of time the St. Philomena waited for her relics to be
discovered, for her Feast Day, the Divine Maternity of Mary, and then, only
33 years later (a Freemasonic magic number, no less!) it would be dropped
like an old hat.  All under the watch of this pope of infalicitous memory.

And today, 50 years down the road, B16 has the nerve to hype it up.........


But you're not going to hear any of that from the Conciliar minion fan club
president, are you?  No, you're not.  



What you'll hear is quite the opposite:

"It was a splendid day on 11 October 1962 when the Second Vatican Council opened..."

And,

"It was impressive to see in the entrance procession bishops from all over the world..."

And,

"It was a moment of extraordinary expectation. Great things were about to happen..."






Does he ever think about what hell is going to be like?






And the quite opposite stuff just goes on and on:

"The previous Councils had almost always been convoked for a precise question to which they were to provide an answer. This time there was no specific problem to resolve..."


Wait a minute..  No specific problem to resolve??  WHAT DO YOU CALL
COMMUNISM AND 50 MILLION DEAD VICTIMS?  NO PROBLEM??????

Oh, right..  Maybe Communism was a problem, and Vat.II could have been
called to solve it. . . . .  BUT.. N-o-o-o-o-o-O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o!  

They could have sliced it, diced it and hung it out to dry in 5 minutes with
the Collegial Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for
they had all the bishops right there, with the Pope,

And would they??. . . . . . . .  N-o-o-o-o-o-O-O-O-O-O-o-o-o-o!


"But precisely because of this, a general sense of expectation hovered in the air..."

And,

"The sense of this loss of the present on the part of Christianity, and of the task following on from that, was well summed up in the word “aggiornamento” ..."  

(I guess aggiornamento means NOT doing the Consecration as
Our Lady asks us!)

And,

"So that it might once again be a force to shape the future, John XXIII had convoked the Council without indicating to it any specific problems or programmes. This was the greatness and at the same time the difficulty of the task that was set before the ecclesial assembly..."

So the great task of deconstructing or "demythologizing" Scripture and
the Mass and the Church was a noble task at hand, was it?  WAS IT??





Has this cleric ever given a second thought to what it will be like in hell??

Maybe you should spend more time contemplating the horrors of hell before you cast judgment of the soul of Pope Benedict XVI.

What do you mean by this, Rows?

Maybe you should spend more time contemplating the horrors of hell before you cast judgment of the soul of Pope Benedict XVI.

SUBjectively, no one can judge the state of the soul of another, but OBjectively, we can, and should judge the actions.  

Objectively speaking the "actions" of V2, and those who propagated it, including Benedict XVI, have destroyed the faith of far too many as can be docuмented by the downward spiral of the number practicing Catholics, abandonment of their vocation by priests, and the stampede of brothers and sisters from their orders; hence we can say that those who foisted the changes of V2 upon the faithful have, objectively speaking, placed their own souls in peril by their actions which cause others to lose their faith.

I would fear for my salvation if I had to appear, unrepentant,  before Almighty God knowing that I was the cause for even ONE person to lose his faith.  Let us hope and pray that those responsible for V2 will have the grace to repent of their sins and seek absolution before their end of days.

For those participants in V2 who have already died we can only pray for their souls and trust in the judgement of God.  Should they already be damned, the Blessed Mother will redirect our prayers for the benefit of a holy soul in purgatory.

Marsha