I agree that this was what it was. I do think that most people just don't realize it. I know I didn't for a long time.
I don't think so. SSPX was almost nothing in 1972, and posed no threat whatsoever. I think people are imposing in hindsight what the SSPX later became onto that time period. There were little enclaves of Traditional Catholicism all over the world, and this was viewed as one of them.
By 1972, the seminaries and convents were emptying out, Montini sat at his desk approving one request for laicization of priests after another ... and the devastation of V2 was unfolding.
I agree with the NO Watch take above. Montini's intent was to spin the obvious devastation as the "smoke of Satan" ... rather than admitting that V2 was at fault, although that had in fact been his intention, so what was presented on the surface as a lament was really his exulting in the fact that he had gotten Satan into the Church.
Topic: Pual VI Smoke of Satan quote source (Read 3001 times)