After starting of praising the good things about the Church prior to Vatican II, Bishop Sanborn has a good section about the weaknesses of Pius XII:
The bad in the reign of Pope Pius XII. In 1930, when Pope Pius XI was searching for a new secretary of state to replace Cardinal Gasparri, a certain Cardinal Cerretti, who was being considered for the post, described the then Cardinal Pacelli (Pius XII) as “indecisive and weak-kneed.” I think that this was an accurate observation of his character, and one which became a tragic flaw for him and the whole Catholic Church.
In other words, although Cardinal Pacelli had excellent intentions and sterling orthodoxy, it was difficult for him to turn these wonderful qualities into action.
In reading about him, I have also noticed that he had an exaggerated respect, even awe, for scholarship and physical science. While these things certainly should be taken seriously, we need to exercise a caution concerning them in modern times, owing to the extreme anti-Catholic prejudices of many scholars and scientists. He probably acquired this excessive admiration for scholarship and science at the Sapienza University in Rome, a once glorious institution under papal Rome that had been confiscated and taken over by the atheist and masonic Italian government after 1870. In any case, the fact that he was easily impressed by scholarship and science left him prey to the Modernist “scholars” and “scientists” who were circulating in the Church.
The last thing that the Church needed in 1939, the year of Cardinal Pacelli’s election to the papacy, was a weak and indecisive pope who was naive regarding the plots of the Modernists. During the reign of Saint Pius X (1903-1914), the Modernists merely submerged, only to appear later during the reign of Benedict XV (1914- 1922) and Pius XI (1922-1939). They used an entirely new instrument to spread their wicked heresy: the sacred liturgy. They hijacked the solidly Catholic liturgical movement started by Dom Guéranger and others in the nineteenth century. They wanted to make it a vehicle of ecuмenism, which is the direct product of Modernism. Prominent in this Modernist liturgical movement were Pius Parsch, Dom Beauduin, Gerard Ellard, Annibale Bugnini, and many minor authors of books and pamphlets promoting the same agenda.
The Modernists also resurfaced in the area of Sacred Scripture. Cardinal Bea, who was the confessor of Pius XII, was prominent among these. There were many others. Biblical Modernism soared under the reign of Pius XII.
Finally, there was the New Theology, which was a dogmatic revival of Modernism. Like the old Modernists, they detested Saint Thomas and with him the traditional theology and philosophy, and adapted Catholic theology to modern philosophical systems. The result was serious error and even heresy. Prominent among these neo-Modernists were Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI), Hans Urs von Balthasar, Edward Schillebeeckx, Yves Congar, Bernard Häring, Hans Küng, Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and many others. These theologians were freely circulating and writing under the reign of Pope Pius XII, and although some received official warnings from the Holy Office, they managed to survive the reign unharmed. Under Saint Pius X they would have been excommunicated and defrocked.
What the Church needed in 1939, after three decades of Modernism on the rise, was another Saint Pius X, someone who would repress the heresy with severity.
All these things having been said, let us now look at the bad aspects of Pius XII’s reign:
• The appointment of abominable bishops. The principal Modernist bishops of Vatican II were appointed by Pius XII: König, Döpfner, Suenens, Lercaro, Montini (later Paul VI), Wojtyla (later John Paul II), Cushing, Alfrink, Frings. These were prime the Council. How many more Modernist bishops were appointed whose names escape us? It should also be pointed out that Pius XII raised a known Modernist to the cardinalate, Angelo Roncalli, and made him the Patriarch of Venice, thereby giving him a direct line to the papacy. He also made Montini, also a known Modernist, the archbishop of Milan, and therefore papabile.
• Damage to the Liturgy. In 1948, Pope Pius XII established the Commission for Liturgical Reform, and appointed none other than Annibale Bugnini as its Secretary, the person directly in charge of it. He was a known liturgical Modernist at the time. Before long this freemason produced the reform of the Holy Week rites, promulgated in 1955 by Pope Pius XII. It contained many elements which would be later carried over into the New Mass, which was also authored by the same Bugnini, with the help of six Protestant ministers. Other changes to the Mass, the liturgical calendar, and the breviary were made in 1955, 1957, and 1958. These were in the direction of the ultimate liturgical reform under Paul VI.
• The spread of Modernism into the Roman seminaries. The Roman seminaries were the spawning ground for future bishops, and these seminaries became infected, right under Pius XII’s nose, with Modernism of all types. While no Modernist himself, Pope Pius XII nevertheless was weak and negligent in regard to the repression of Modernism, and thereby contributed much to the present destruction which we are now witnessing.
In summary, Pius XII’s reign was running on the momentum of the orthodoxy and vigor given to it by previous popes. By opening the door to Modernists in the episcopacy, the Curia, and seminaries, he gave them a free pass to destroy Catholicism in the Second Vatican Council.
Under Saint Pius X, the Modernist rats submerged into the bilge water of the Catholic ship.
After his death, they gradually made their way up to the many lower decks of this same ship, until finally they were scurrying all over the main deck under Pope Pius XII. He did little to stop this, but did much, through softness, weakness, and negligence, to foster it. After his death, with the accession of John XXIII, the Modernist rats were now at the rudder and the wheel. The rest is history.
Topic: What Pope Pius XI said about his successor (Read 1604 times)