I wish he would stop coping. He has been so adamant about being faithful to Leo/Prevost these days still having even his picture as his channel thumbnail for quite awhile now.



He basically argues that there was legitimate ecuмenism before Vatican II and that it still continues according to guidelines laid down by orthodox theologians and ecclesiastical authorities, even from the time of the Council. He cites Fr. O'Connell, CSSR who wrote about ecuмenism in the American Ecclesiastical Review and even a catechism on ecuмenism in the 1960s.



That now reminds me of a catechism storybook I used to have by Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, SVD (author of many Catholic children's books), that I believe was published around the time of Vatican II. It was already promoting ecuмenism in a story about three brothers who were Catholic priests and had a Protestant mother. She was on her deathbed, but after discussion, the three priests decided not to disturb her conscience by exhorting her to convert to the Catholic faith. (There were also anecdotes about Lincoln and against racism in the book.) Most of the book perhaps was fine except for a few problematic anecdotes like above.



Wagner of Scholastic Answers also quotes from Apostolici Sedi nuntiatum of 1864 from the Holy Office (https://novusordowatch.org/pius9-letter-on-christian-unity-1864/), which actually condemned the Branch Theory from my cursory reading in context the quote he gave. He failed to give any quote from the Holy Office docuмent addressed to Anglicans in 1865 that he mentioned but quoted Mortalium animos at times too. I recall the Novus Ordo theologian Eduardo Echevarría (recently sacked from the seminary in the Archdiocese of Detroit) saying that Mortalium animos had something in it or that it could be reversed as Vatican II did. He talked about "reversals." This is not merely a matter of prudence though but of dogma.



Benedict XV is quoted as well, but as much as Benedict XV was sound in doctrine and said and did some good things, he let the guard down against the modernists. Pius XI and Pius XII also underestimated the situation and failed to stop their onslaught which came about more craftily.



Any comments and thoughts?