Contending For The Faith---Part 44

 

In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e.,  the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month.  This is the next installment.

Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:

• The existence and attributes of God
• The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all 
• The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
• The truth of Catholic moral teaching
• The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II 

In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.

Leo Suenens: A Villain of Vatican II

In defending the Faith, it's important to know who the chief architects of the Robber Council were who put us in the Great Apostasy. This post will feature a horrific man: “Cardinal”Leo Suenens of Belgium. 

Leo Suenens was born in 1904 of a pious Belgian family. Belgium was one of the most Catholic countries in the world, with numerous vocations and large families. Suenens' family wanted him to go into economics and manage their large fortune, but he decided to become a priest. Ordained at age 23 in 1927, Suenens would obtain a Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and was consecrated auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Mechelen in 1945 by order of Pope Pius XII. He became the new Archbishop in 1961 under Roncalli, and the archdiocese was renamed Mechelen-Brussels. Suenens received the "cardinal's hat" from false pope John XXIII in 1962. 

At Vatican II, he would reveal himself to be one of the most influential Modernists, hell-bent on destroying the One True Church. Suenens was a close friend of Masonic pervert Giovanni Montini ("Pope" Paul VI), and was one of the leaders of the Modernists with Cardinals Alfrink and Frings. It was Suenens who named the first heretical document of Vatican II Lumen Gentium, as he had crafted much of the language in the opening paragraphs, which contained the false ecclesiology of the newly spawned Vatican II sect he helped to create. Here is a very unflattering picture painted of Suenens from his autobiography Memories and Hopes, his work on collegiality Co-Responsibility in the Church, Vatican II Revisited--Reflections by One Who was There, by Bp. Aloysius Wycislo, and Twelve Council Fathers, by W. Abbot.

 Suenens:

• Was inspired by Modernist theologian Edward Schillebeecxk, a Dominican priest who was suspect of Modernism prior to Vatican II. After the Council, Schillebeecxk denied Transubstantiation, and derided the bodily Resurrection of Our Lord as a "crude and naive realism" that has "nothing to do with a corpse."

• Was motivated by ecumenism in everything he did. He rejected the idea there was only One True Church of Jesus Christ

• Supported the heretical idea of a "democratic" collegial Church, which destroys both the hierarchical structure of the Church instituted by Christ, and denigrates the pope to an Eastern Schismatic status as "first among equals" 

• Worked most closely at the Council with periti (theological experts) Fr. Karl Rahner and Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, the future "Pope" Benedict XVI--both arch-heretics

• Had a meeting with four Anglican "bishops." He knelt before them and asked for their "blessing"

• Gave the opening address at the second session of Vatican II, blasphemously comparing Roncalli to St. John the Baptist, with the speech entitled There Was a Man Sent by God Named John

• Asked Montini (Paul VI) to reject the traditional teaching condemning artificial contraception and was furious when his former friend didn't. Montini was told by Cardinal Ottaviani that he would lose all credibility if he did so, and he listened to him instead, issuing Humanae Vitae. Too bad Cardinal Ottaviani did not reject Montini's false "papacy"

•   Did all he could to undermine Church teaching on contraception which earned him praise from Planned Parenthood

• Spoke in favor of a "new understanding of marriage" at Vatican II whereby the sexual union of the spouses could be considered legitimate without any reference to procreation

• Rejected unchanging Catholic moral standards when he said, "Morality is first and foremost alive, a dynamism of life, and therefore subject to interior growth that rejects any kind of fixity." (Emphasis mine)

• Triumphantly proclaimed, "Vatican II is the French Revolution in the Church..."

Suenens: Destroyer of Vocations

In 1962, on the eve of the Robber Council, Suenens published a book entitled The Nun in the World. It has been credited with causing countless nuns to leave the convent, and radicalize those who remained. 

On pg. 75, Suenens writes:

To revalue the religious life of today means to bring the religious life into harmony with the evolutionary state of the world and womankind, to retain from the past everything of lasting value that can be adapted to circumstances, and to accept the positive contribution of feminism in order to improve the apostolic yield. (Emphasis mine). Had this been written under Pope Pius XII, Suenens would have been censured. Roncalli's favorite Modernist had been very careful to keep his Modernism close to his vest and only speak as a Catholic, until it was safe to show his true colors. 

The results of his book and the "reforms" he pushed through at Vatican II were felt almost immediately. Here's what was reported in The Ladies Home Journal in 1967--a scant five years after Suenens' book and only two years after the Robber Council ended:

It began in the winter of 1962-63, when the spark of the Second Vatican Council caught fire around the world, when, in his memorable encyclical, Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII preached a modern revolution of truth, justice, freedom and love. That same winter, a remarkable book appeared, called The Nun in the World. Written by Belgium’s Cardinal Suenens, considered one of the Church’s leading progressives, it called upon nuns everywhere to emerge from their convents and play a more active role in easing the tensions and problems not only of the Roman Catholic Church, but of all mankind.

“A community of nuns often gives the impression of being a fortress whose drawbridge is only furtively and fearfully lowered,” wrote Cardinal Suenens. “Her world shrinks, and, if she is not careful, will end up no more than a few square yards in size…The religious of today appears to the faithful to be out of touch with the world as it is, an anachronism.” Cardinal Suenens’ book swiftly became, according to scholars Edward Wakin and Father Joseph F. Scheuer, “a manifesto for progressive-thinking nuns in America.”

According to reliable estimates, at least 3,600 professed sisters left their convents for good. These were not uncertain novices or postulants, but mature women who had taken their vows and served the Church for years. Most importantly, they did not leave because they did not want to be “religious” any longer—but because they did...Here are some of the things they told me:

• “I just thought I’d be more of a Christian if I left. Instead of saying that I want what Christ wants, I began to feel that the good things I want might be the same as what Christ wants.”

• “I left to be free, to be able to live my own rhythm. Now life is new. It’s like being a newborn baby in a fifty-year-old body. Before, I didn’t know what I meant to be a citizen of the United States.”

• “I had to leave the convent to do what I entered it to do—live for others.”

• “Being a sister is great when you are young. But once you start observing older sisters, you begin to see where it all leads. I started to wonder how long it would take me to become as bitter as some of them.”

(Taken from unamsanctamcatholicam.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/the-nuns-that-quit.pdf)

As to the radicalized nuns who remain:

Amidst the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, many nuns felt their vows called them to dedicate themselves to social causes. Sister Helen Prejean explains how she came to lead a life devoted to reforming the prison system: “Start looking at the signs of the times, look at where the people are suffering, look at where the people are in need," Prejean says. "And I'm kind of a story, or an embodiment, of what happened to nuns out of Vatican II, because it brought me eventually to poor people in New Orleans and to death row.” Given broadened autonomy in convent life, nuns found themselves posed as radicals, living a communitarian life aside from the confines of a modern capitalist society. Adam Horwitz, a millennial activist whose “Nuns and Nones” program puts young social justice advocates into convents— living with and learning from nuns—explains, "These are radical, badass women who have lived lives devoted to social justice,” said Mr. Bradley, "and we can learn from them.” (See studiotheatre.org/plays/play-detail/2019-2020-doubt/religious-radicals; Emphasis mine) 

Suenens asked Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers, a former nun who wrote a hit song Dominique in 1962, to write songs for the so-called "Catholic Charismatic Movement." Deckers wrote a song in praise of contraception, blasphemously called Glory be to God for the Golden Pill in 1967, which is what caught Suenens' attention. Deckers would become a lesbian and, falling into financial problems, she and her lesbian lover would commit suicide together in 1985. 

Suenens: A Charismatic Apostate

In 1967, during the nascent Vatican II sect turmoil of ecumenical frenzy and near universal apostasy, students at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University began exposing themselves to Pentecostal influences because of "spiritual aridity." They were envious of the "changed lives" among many Protestant friends and decided to pray for similar "graces." A weekend "retreat" gave them what they wanted. Various people approached Protestant ministers, laity, and prayer groups. All received "Baptism in the Spirit" after having heretical hands laid on them in prayer. The movement began to grow in leaps and bounds. Today, they even call themselves "Charismatics" instead of Catholics, showing their disdain for even the name of the sect posing as the True Church. They despise anything associated--even remotely--with the beliefs and practices of authentic Catholicism. The Vatican II sect allowed them to form groups and spread their heresies as a "Charismatic Movement." Suenens almost immediately became their number one supporter. 

For the 50th anniversary of the Catholic (sic) Charismatic Movement (CCM) in June 2017, Francis asked the Charismatics to organize the celebration at the Circus Maximus in Rome. On this occasion, Bergoglio quoted the late Belgian "Cardinal" Leo Suenens, the strongest episcopal promoter of the movement in its early days, who called it "a current of grace, a renewing breath of the Spirit for all the members of the Church." (See ncregister.com/daily-news/vatican-creates-new-office-to-serve-catholic-charismatic-renewal-movement)

According to Church teaching, the charismata or "special gifts" of the Holy Ghost such as prophecies, healings, miracles, etc., were given to prove the claims of the Church and to foster conversions. With the achievement of the Church’s moral universality, the need for such phenomena ceased because of the presence in the Church of people of every nationality and because of the Church’s proven record as the One True Religion. Likewise, speaking in tongues was given so that all could hear and understand the preaching of the Gospel. None of these gifts were given for the personal sanctification of the individuals who received them. St. Augustine, Tract. xxxii, states, "Whereas even now the Holy Ghost is received, yet no one speaks in the tongues of all nations, because the Church herself already speaks in the languages of all nations: since whoever is not in the Church, receives not the Holy Ghost."

According to theologian Scheeben: The internal perfection [of the Apostles] arose from the fact of their being eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of the whole Revelation, and of their being so filled with the Holy Ghost that each of them possessed a complete and infallible knowledge of revealed doctrine; while the external perfection was the gift of miracles, by which they were able to confirm the authenticity of their testimony...As soon as the original and fundamental promulgation of the Gospel was complete there was no longer any necessity for the extraordinary Apostolate. (See A Manual of Catholic Theology, [1890], 1:37-38; Emphasis mine). 

Theologian Van Noort teaches: Therefore, as apostles, each of them had (a) a direct divine mission to carry out both of the aforementioned tasks all over the world. Furthermore, (b) they enjoyed the charisms (1) of revelation, (2) of infallibility (in matters pertaining to their mission), and (3) of miracles. The apostolate was, to begin with, by its very nature an extraordinary gift, confided to these men alone. (See Dogmatic Theology, [1961], 1:39; First emphasis in original, second emphasis mine). In end-note #19, Van Noort references the work of heretical theologian Oscar Cullmann (d.1999). Cullmann, a member of the Lutheran sect, was an "observer" at Vatican II and a driving force behind the One World Church ecumenical movement. Cullmann advanced the heretical view that apostolic grace must perish with the Apostles or survive them in its entirety. Van Noort responds that the dilemma is resolved in Catholic theology by distinguishing between a mission of the Apostles which is an extraordinary, noncommunicable charism relating to the founding of the Church, and an ordinary communicable and non-miraculous charism relating to the preservation of the Church. It is only the latter that is carried down through the ages by the Apostolic Succession of Catholic bishops.

The charismata is therefore not in use after the founding of the Church. Yes, there have been certain saints in the Church that had various miraculous gifts, but this is not (as the Charismatics claim) true of all members of the Church. The vast majority are devoid of any miraculous deeds. 

The CCM is heretical to the core, and has its origin in the Pentecostal Protestant sect of the 19th century. The Pentecostal sect revived what they believed to be glossolaly or "speaking in tongues." On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception 2018, false pope Jorge Bergoglio announced the formation of "CHARIS," or "Catholic Charismatic Renewal International Service." This new body within the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life will replace the two existing services known as the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Service and the Catholic Fraternity.

Why would Suenens care so much about the CCM? One word: Ecumenism.

Leading the People into a One World Religion

There are four major problems with the Charismatic Movement:

1. It implicitly denies there is only One True Church. 

If these "gifts" of the Holy Ghost (allegedly speaking in tongues, "healings," etc.) are true in the "Catholic" Church and they also happen in various Protestant denominations, then it stands to reason that there are "elements of truth and sanctification" outside the True Church by which people can achieve holiness and salvation. (Sound familiar?).

2. It replaces the hierarchy with an alleged direct contact with God, and denies the Indefectibility of the Church.

Priests are seen as "one of the guys." Being able to roll on the ground "speaking in tongues" is more important than the ability to offer the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Charismatics will also say things like, "God has put it on my heart that I should..." Or, "God told me..." If you have direct contact with God, why do we need the Church and Her hierarchy as intermediaries between God and people? If the Church teaches one thing, but God has supposedly told you something different, guess which one will be obeyed. The charismatics also deny Indefectibility by claiming that an integral part of the Church (charismata) was absent for centuries, so the Church was somehow deficient. This is impossible if the Church is Indefectible.

3. It denies traditional Catholic spirituality and leads to deception (and even possession) by evil spirits.

Say goodbye to the Rosary, novenas, and The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. St. John of the Cross, one of the greatest masters of the spiritual life had this to say:

• "And I greatly fear what is happening in these times of ours: If any soul whatever after a bit of meditation has in its recollection one of these locutions, it will immediately baptize all as coming from God and with such a supposition say, 'God told me,' 'God answered me.'  Yet this is not so, but, as we pointed out, these persons themselves are more often the origin of their locution."  (See St. John of the Cross: The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Book II Ch. 29) 
• "Through the desire of accepting them one opens the door to the devil.  The devil can then deceive one by other communications expertly feigned and disguised as genuine.  In the words of the Apostle, he can transform himself into an 'angel of light' (II Cor. XI:14). (...)  Regardless of the cause of these apprehensions, it is always good for a man to reject them with closed eyes.  If he fails to do so, he will make room for those having a diabolical origin and empower the devil to impose his communications.  Not only this, but the diabolical representations will multiply while those from God will gradually cease, so that eventually all will come from the devil and none at all from God.  This has occurred with many incautious and uninstructed people."  (See St. John of the Cross: The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Book II Ch. 11)

4. It has the same goal as Modernism and Masonry: A One World Church Without Catholicism

Charismaticism is pan-denominational, with an alien and non-Catholic theological idea of "baptism in the Holy Spirit" as if you come into direct contact with God. It vitiates the need for the Mass and Sacraments. It is also rooted in the Modernist ideal of experience over reason. Charismatics cannot give a reasoned theological explanation of how jumping, dancing, rolling on the floor, laughing uncontrollably, and (allegedly) speaking in tongues brings one closer to God or even why God would manifest Himself in behaviors usually associated with mental patients. Finally, your beliefs don't matter. As long as you profess belief in some vague form of "Christianity" (The Great Architect of the Universe, perhaps), you are all part of "the Church" and can have an "experience of God." 

Conclusion

My spiritual father, the late, great canonist Fr. Gommar A. DePauw, showed me a picture taken at Vatican II with himself standing between Bishop Blaise Kurz and "Cardinal" Suenens. Father was one of the theological experts (a peritus) at Vatican II who helped Bp. Kurz and the other traditional prelates who fought the Modernists. Fr. DePauw was heartbroken that a fellow Belgian would work to destroy the very Church he loved so much and served so well. He and Bp. Kurz spoke in private with Cardinal Suenens in a long meeting during which they implored him to repent of his Modernism and return to the Catholic Faith. Suenens turned a deaf ear and showed them the door, asking that they never come back to talk to him. 

Today, as a result of Vatican II and the Charismatic movement, the percentage of Belgians who claim to be Catholic (V2 sect) is less than 60%. Only 5% attend the Novus Bogus "mass" on Sundays, and nearly one-third of Belgians declare themselves atheists or agnostics. The ravages of the Charismatic movement are not limited to Belgium. What Suenens started is nothing less than the rejection of anything even remotely Catholic, and he wanted the True Church to be replaced by a One World Church of "direct experiences of God." This is pure Modernism.

Suenens was one of the principle architects of Vatican II and the damnable documents Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes. His promotion of worldly life and his blasphemous writings have helped decimate the religious vocation, and his teachings led nuns of the 1960s to abandon their vocations and become radicals. His CCM helps destroy traditional Catholic teaching and promote ecumenism. Suenens, a Villain of Vatican II, went to judgement in 1996. I shudder to think of his fate if he did not sincerely repent. Suenens promoted speaking in tongues. Like the "cardinal's" master, Satan, the tongue with which he spoke was decidedly forked.