Fundamentally Flawed: In Defense Of Traditionalists

 

This year, the prestigious Oxford University Press published a scathing attack on Traditionalist Catholics, in a chapter about my spiritual father, Fr. Gommar A. DePauw, JCD (1918-2005) founder of The Catholic Traditionalist Movement in 1964. It is authored by a Vatican II sect Jesuit "priest," Mark S. Massa. When I looked at Massa's endnotes for the chapter on Fr. DePauw, I found that in two of those endnotes he cites my work on this blog. Needless to say, I couldn't let this book go unanswered. In this post, the following questions will be addressed:

• Who is Mark Massa and what does he believe?
• What is the main idea of his book?
• How does his book get Catholic Traditionalists, exemplified by Fr. DePauw, wrong? 

Who Is Mark Massa?

According to a conference on "Polarization in the U.S. Catholic Church," in which he participated at Notre Dame University:

 

Father Mark S. Massa, S.J. was educated at the University of Detroit, the University of Chicago and Harvard University. He received his M.Div. from the Weston School of Theology in 1980. After ordination he lived for a year in North Cambridge (St. John the Evangelist). At Fordham University, Fr. Massa was the first holder of the Karl Rahner, S.J., Chair in Theology, and directed the American Studies program for 12 years; in 2001 he founded the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies and served as its director until 2010. He currently serves as Dean of the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, where his research as Professor of Church History focuses on the Catholic experience in the United States in the 20th century. He is the author of seven books, including Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team, which won the AJCU/Alpha Sigma Nu Award for Outstanding Work in Theology for 1999-2000. ​

(See csrs.nd.edu/events/polarization/conference-participants; Emphasis mine). 

Mr. Massa (invalidly ordained in 1980 by the Pauline Rite), was the first holder of the Karl Rahner Chair of Theology, and founded the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, named after Fr. Charles Curran (b. 1934, ordained 1958). To see what he believes, one only needs to look at the heretical theologians he holds in esteem. 

Fr. Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner was born on March 5, 1904, in Freiberg, Germany. He was ordained a Jesuit on July 26, 1932. In the twentieth century (beginning in the late 1930s), Rahner, along with theologians  Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx, Marie-Dominique Chenu, Louis Bouyer, Jean Daniélou, Jean Mouroux and Joseph Ratzinger (later "Pope" Benedict XVI) began a Neo-Modernist movement that despised the Neo-Scholasticism which had served the Church so well. The movement was called "Nouvelle Theologie" (French for "New Theology") by the great anti-Modernist theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, often pejoratively called "the sacred monster of Thomism" by his enemies because of his love of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and his hatred of Modernism.

 In 1946, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange wrote a scathing criticism of the movement (which liked to call itself  ressourcement ---"return to the sources"), because they claimed they were "returning to patristic thought." Garrigou-Lagrange demonstrated that the theologians of the movement did not "return to the sources" but deviated from the long-standing theological tradition of the Catholic Church, thus creating a "new theology" all their own, and a disguised resurgence of Modernism. In 1950, Pope Pius XII responded with his great encyclical Humani Generis which condemned many of their errors, such as rejecting the traditional dogmatic formulations that emerged throughout Church history as a result of scholastic theology, re-interpreting Catholic dogma in a way that was inconsistent with tradition, falling into the error of dogmatic relativism and criticizing biblical texts in a way that deviated from the principles of biblical hermeneutics outlined by his predecessors (principally Pope Leo XIII).

Rahner's "Anonymous Christians" and Vatican II

 Almost all the theologians of the "new theology" were under suspicion of Modernism by the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office under Cardinal Ottavianni. Rahner was no exception. Before the death of Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Ottaviani tried unsuccessfully three times to convince the ailing Pontiff to have him excommunicated. In November 1962, "Pope" John XXIII appointed Rahner as a peritus at Vatican II. The heretic Rahner thus had complete access to the Council and numerous opportunities to share his heresy with the bishops.  Rahner's influence at Vatican II was widespread, and he was subsequently chosen as one of seven theologians who would develop Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic Constitution on the Church, which created the Vatican II sect with its damnable new ecclesiology. The Church of Christ is not identical to the Roman Catholic Church, but it is a separate entity which "subsists in" the Catholic Church, as well as false religions. 

 From this heretical notion of the Church came Rahner's most infamous heresy, that of the "anonymous Christian." According to Rahner:

"Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity… Let us say, a Buddhist monk… who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so, if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity." (Karl Rahner in Dialogue, p. 135)

This notion was encoded in the heretical Catechism of the Catholic (sic) Church, citing Lumen Gentium:

"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day." (See Catechism of the Catholic Church, New York: Doubleday, 1995, nos. 839-848)

We DO NOT adore the false "god" of the Mohammedans---"Allah."

Rahner in his own heretical words

The following quotes are all taken from the book, Karl Rahner in Dialogue his words in red:

How would you characterize the neo-scholastic theology before the Second Vatican Council?

Rahner: It had "a kind of defensive mentality, a certain defensive turning of the Church in on itself against the world… The Church certainly had great missionary success, but in fact only by exporting Western European Christianity to all the world… I also believe that one can say that neo-scholastic philosophy and theology, for all their accomplishments, are quite passé today."

So do you believe that the Holy Spirit works through other religions?

Rahner: "Certainly."

What do you think about the question of the ordination of women?

Rahner: "When the Vatican declaration against the ordination of women (even in the future) came out a few years back, I published an article saying that it failed to convince me. (Of course, it was not an infallible definition). Rome is digging in its heels, it seems to me, against the development that one ought to admit calmly might not be a bad thing."

What about clerical celibacy?

Rahner: "The obligation of the Church to provide sufficient clergy is of divine right and takes precedence over the ecclesiastically desirable law of celibacy. If, in practice, you cannot obtain a sufficient number of priests in a given cultural setting without relinquishing celibacy, then the Church must suspend the law of celibacy, at least there."

There you have it folks. A rabid heretic preaching universal salvation. He died in 1984, just after his 80th birthday. I wince when I think of the most probable fate of his soul, and the millions he has helped lead to Hell.

Fr. Charles Curran

A Modernist's Modernist, Curran was actually fired from his tenured teaching position at the Catholic University of America in 1986, when Ratzinger was "campaigning for pope." He was found unfit for his writings which contradicted traditional Church teaching. Curran sued the university and lost.  Curran:

• supports artificial contraception
• supports the direct murder of innocent unborn babies by abortion "in certain circumstances." In 1973, Curran declared, “there is a sizable and growing number of Catholic theologians who do disagree with some aspects of the officially proposed Catholic teaching that direct abortion from the time of conception is always wrong.” (See time.com/4045227/the-catholic-case-for-abortion-rights)
• supports euthanasia (assisted suicide)
• teaches masturbation is not sinful
• teaches that homosexual acts are a positive good. In the book  A Call to Fidelity,(2002) Curran is quoted on page 125: "I maintain, together with many others, that official hierarchical Roman Catholic teaching should accept the moral value and goodness of committed homosexual relationships striving for permanency and including homogenital sexual relations." (Emphasis mine)
• teaches divorce and "remarriage" is acceptable 
• teaches fornication is not sinful
• supports in vitro fertilization which is both unnatural and results in the murder of children who are conceived and "disposed"

On July 25, 1986, the Vatican II sect's "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" issued a letter to Curran (signed by "Cardinal" Ratzinger and approved by Wojtyla--JPII) stating:

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the Congregation has confirmed its position that one who dissents from the Magisterium as you do is not suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic theology. Consequently, it declines your compromise solution because of the organic unity of authentic Catholic theology, a unity which in its content and method is intimately bound to fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium.

The several dissenting positions which this Congregation contested, namely, on a right to public dissent from the ordinary Magisterium, the indissolubility of consummated sacramental marriage, abortion, euthanasia, masturbation, artificial contraception, premarital intercourse and homosexual acts, were listed carefully enough in the above-mentioned observations in July of 1983 and have since been published. There is no point in entering into any detail concerning the fact that you do indeed dissent on these issues.

(See vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19860725_carlo-curran_en.html). 

Curran would never wear his clerical attire after Vatican II, claiming it was "wrong" for priests to be seen as "special" or "set apart" and he urged people never to refer to him as "Father," but rather call him "Charlie." 

These are the ersatz "heroes" of the mostly suit-and-tie-wearing Mr. Massa (or perhaps "Marky"?). If you think he holds to heretical ideas like Curran and Rahner, take a giant step forward. 

Mr. Massa's Thesis

Massa's book, Catholic Fundamentalism in America (CFIA), has chapters on seven individuals which he believes are "fundamentalists"---or in his own words, "combine a sectarian understanding of religion with an aggressive anti-progressive stance." Furthermore, these seven people "...embody the Catholic fundamentalist impulse." What's disturbing is that Massa lumps together individuals who couldn't be more different under the term "fundamentalist" and "traditionalist." 

1. Leonard Feeney (1897-1978).  Feeney was a Jesuit excommunicated by Pope Pius XII in 1953 for heresy regarding the denial of Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood. He was reconciled to the Vatican II sect under Montini (Paul VI) without having to abjure his heresy. No mention is made by Massa of the fact he ran a child-abusing cult made of "married nuns" and "married brothers." 

He also fails to state that Feeney's denial of Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood were at the heart of his excommunication, not for upholding the dogma of the necessity of  the Catholic Church for salvation.

(See my post introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-sickness-of-soul.html). 

2. Fr. Gommar A. DePauw, J.C.D. (1918-2005) Founder of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement in 1964. A peritus (theological expert) at Vatican II, he led the fight for truth and tradition against the Modernists while the Robber Council was still going on. He is the only true Traditionalist Catholic in the book.

3. Mother Angelica (1923-2016) Founder of Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), and a Vatican II sect "conservative" nun. 

4.  Rod Dreher (b. 1967) Born a member of the Vatican II sect, Dreher became Eastern Orthodox in 2006. He wrote The Benedict Option in 2017, which opines that those calling themselves Christian should form their own communities and live away from secular society and its decadence. 

5. Warren Carroll (1932-2011) Vatican II sect founder of Christendom College.

6. Michael Voris (b. 1961) Former president of the "conservative" St. Michael's Media and a former (?) bisexual who was fired in 2023 for sending unsolicited shirtless "selfies" to male staff members. 

7. Eric Sammons (b. 1972) Protestant who became a member of the Vatican II sect in 1993 at age 21. He is Editor of the "conservative" Vatican II sect "Crisis Magazine." (crisismagaine.com).

Fr. DePauw is the only Traditionalist here. Feeney was a heretical madman and Dreher is EO. The others are "conservative" Vatican II sect members. So why does Massa place them all as "fundamentalists"? One thing they all believed in was objective truth. As Massa states, "Whatever Boniface VIII’s intention in 1302 [the dogmatic decree Unam Sanctam]  the church’s understanding of that phrase had evolved over the course of the centuries." (CFIA, pg. 38; Emphasis mine).  

The Paradigm of Modernism: Getting It All Wrong

For Massa, there are no unchanging, eternal truths. Using philosopher Thomas Kuhn's "paradigm shift," truth "evolves" over time. A paradigm shift is defined as "a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions." What Massa pushes is simply Modernism repackaged. 

Before exposing his Modernism, I want to focus on his tirade against Fr. DePauw. Massa's chapter on Father is called "Gommar DePauw and the Schismatical Worship of the Novus Ordo." He deplores Father's efforts to save the Traditional Mass. 

DePauw’s primitivist casting of the 1570 Missale Romanum simply witnessed to his unfamiliarity with serious Catholic scholarship that had been going on for several generations before he started prophetically witnessing to the “timeless” Missal of 1570: if Pope Paul VI’s promulgation of the novus ordo constituted a serious act of schism and heresy, did the same judgment apply to his predecessors, who had also made reforms in the mass rite (some of them significant)? Where did one draw the line?

(pg. 73). 

Fr. DePauw was an approved canonist who served as a peritus at Vatican II to some of the most orthodox and erudite bishops and cardinals. To consider such a theological giant unfamiliar with "serious Catholic scholarship" is ludicrous. The problem is that Massa thinks Modernists are "Catholic." The theology of the Traditional Mass, and its essential components, go back centuries before Trent. Massa asks where to draw the line on reforms of the Mass. If he had even half a brain, it should be axiomatic: the reforms of St. Pius X, and Pius XII (to give but two examples) did not deal with essentials unlike the Novus Bogus. The "reforms" of Vatican II includes the input of Protestants; six Protestant ministers helped create the new so-called "mass."

The International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) used the "scholarship" of a Protestant theologian, Joachim Jeremias, to change the words in the form of the Consecration over the wine from for many to for all. This placed heresy right into the heart of the (now invalid) Mass. From The Catechism of the Council of Trent on the Words of Consecration over the wine:

The additional words for you and for many, are taken, some from Matthew, some from Luke, but were joined together by the Catholic Church under the guidance of the Spirit of God. They serve to declare the fruit and advantage of His Passion. For if we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemer shed His blood for the salvation of all; but if we look to the fruit which mankind have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not unto all, but to many of the human race. When therefore ('our Lord) said: For you, He meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples with whom He was speaking. 

When He added, And for many, He wished to be understood to mean the remainder of the elect from among the Jews or Gentiles. With reason, therefore, were the words for all not used, as in this place the fruits of the Passion are alone spoken of, and to the elect only did His Passion bring the fruit of salvation. And this is the purport of the Apostle when he says: Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many; and also of the words of our Lord in John: I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me, because they are thine. (pg. 145; Emphasis mine). 

The words "for many" mean the many who will actually be saved and reap the benefit of the graces won for humanity by Christ's Passion and death (Known in theological terms as the "efficacy of Christ's Passion"). By changing it to "for all" it implies ALL PEOPLE WILL BE SAVED; the heresy of Universalism. It is what Vatican II teaches with the new and heretical ecclesiology whereby the Church of Christ is not identical with the Roman Catholic Church but "subsists" there and in other sects. Massa admits as much:

That document [Lumen Gentium] offered a two-word revision of the older understanding of the relation of the institutional Church to the “Mystical Body of Christ,” but two words that would revolutionize Catholics' understanding of their relation to other believers. In place of Pius XII’s famous identification of the institutional Catholic Church itself with the Mystical Body, the Council’s “Dogmatic Constitution” announced that the True Church “subsists” in the Roman Catholic Church. With that seemingly minor substitution of two words—asserting that the Church of Christ subsistit in rather than est (“is”) the Catholic Church—the entire question being debated by Feeney became something of an irrelevant point. (pg. 45; Emphasis mine: N.B. that Feeney had a heretical understanding of EENS escapes Massa. Nevertheless, Massa does understand--and approve--the heretical ecclesiology of Vatican II). 

Where to draw the line on reforms? How about these words of Pope Pius XII:

Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See. (See Mediator Dei, para. #62; Emphasis mine). 

The Novus Bogus universally changed the altar to the form of a table and eliminated black as a liturgical color. Many crucifixes have been replaced by a cross with a glorified Christ. Therefore, to answer Massa's query, you draw the line at adding condemned components and ultimately turning the Sacrifice of the Mass into a Protestant bread and wine service. 

 I'm cited twice in the book, and both refer to one of my posts on Father DePauw, which I called "Judge A Man By The Reputation Of His Enemies" 

(See introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2018/06/judge-man-by-reputation-of-his-enemies.html).

Ironically, the point of the post was that people who stood against everything Catholic hated Fr. DePauw. God had used a humble Belgian priest who refused to compromise the One True Faith to become--to friend and foe alike---the living embodiment of Catholicism in the wake of Vatican II. The post dealt, specifically, with Fr. Gregory Baum, an apostate priest who championed Modernism at the Council as a peritus, and clashed with Fr. DePauw frequently. Baum was one of the chief architects of Unitatis Redintegratio, which declared that Christ uses false religions as a "means of salvation."

Baum was a sodomite. His first homosexual encounter took place in 1963, while Vatican II was underway. It was a hook-up with another sodomite he met in a restaurant, and he found it "exciting."

Now, Fr. DePauw is attacked by a "priest" who is also a Modernist to the core. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in Heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (St. Matthew 5:11-12).  How great for Father DePauw! 

Massa writes: But much more was to come, as DePauw spoke to the large crowd for another three hours. His message that Saturday evening was hardly new, for the predictability of his public talks was precisely part of what drew hundreds of people to his public appearances. And on this particular Saturday evening DePauw rang yet again the changes of that well-known carillon: the “damnable Robber Council of Vatican II” under the control heretical liberals; that Council’s replacement of the “true mass” contained in the Missal of 1570 with the (Protestant) “new mass” (the novus ordo) promulgated by Vatican II, which spread heretical beliefs; the systematic silencing of disaffected lay people, “60% of whom are violently opposed to the liturgy changes” (at least according to DePauw, although the source for that statistic was never actually revealed). (pg. 53; Emphasis mine and the direct quote from my post). 

His second cite to my post: ["Cardinal"]Shehan demanded that DePauw immediately disband the group [Catholic Traditionalist Movement] or officially dissociate himself from it. Rather than comply with an explicit directive from his own bishop, DePauw moved his base of operations from Maryland to New York City, refusing to return to Maryland. Therewith, “the loathsome Lawrence Shehan” of Baltimore” (as DePauw and his disciples came to call him) immediately revoked DePauw’s faculties (the permission to say mass or celebrate the sacraments) and declared that the CTM was a renegade group formally condemned by the Baltimore archdiocese. (pg. 62; first emphasis mine and is the direct citation to my post--second emphasis mine, and I'm proud to be Fr. DePauw's "disciple").

When Shehan is reviled, it is not a badge of honor as described in the Sermon of the Mount, for what he did was going against Christ. What's interesting is that Massa actually left out the most important adjective I used---"the lothsome MODERNIST Lawrence Shehan." As I wrote, [Shehan] removed Fr. DePauw from his position as Dean of Admissions and replaced him with a young priest who was "pastoral" towards those candidates for the priesthood who were attracted to men (perverts). Upon his return from Vatican II, he found himself out of his teaching position, along with the other anti-Modernists installed by Archbishop Keough. By the mid-1970s, Mount St. Mary's Seminary was a cesspool of vice and error, giving Modernists and perverts as "clergy" for the Vatican II sect in Baltimore. Yet Massa finds fault not with Shehan, but Fr. DePauw. 

A couple of years before his death, a Vatican II sect reporter for a local Long Island newspaper was writing an article on different "houses of worship" in Westbury. He called Fr. DePauw for an interview. The reported asked arrogantly, "What makes you think you're better than the Diocesan clergy?" Without hesitation, Father responded, "Well, I'm far from perfect, but at least no one ever had to post bail for me!" (The reporter hung up and it never made the paper). 

As far as my being labeled a "disciple" of Fr. DePauw, it's the greatest honor I could hope for, but an appelation I must nevertheless reject. As Fr. DePauw told me long ago, "Don't ever let anyone call you a 'follower of Fr. DePauw.' I'm just a simple priest, unworthy to be followed by anyone. Tell anyone who says that to you, that you are a follower of Jesus Christ and a member of His One True Church, for only Christ deserves to have followers." 

N.B. TO MY READERS: I'm finding the quality of books put out by professional publishers to have declined greatly in the last 15 years or so. It would have been unthinkable just two decades ago to find glaring typos in such books; especially Oxford University Press. Yet there is a typo in each of the pages wherein I'm cited. Pg. 53: : the “damnable Robber Council of Vatican II” under the control [of] heretical liberals;... The word "of" is omitted. Pg. 62:  “the loathsome Lawrence Shehan” of Baltimore” (sic; the quotes were already closed after the name "Shehan"). Was the omission of the word "Modernist" in Massa's original manuscript, or do professional proof-readers no longer exist? I can cut myself some slack when a typo appears in one of my posts, as I'm the only person who checks it, and my time is limited. Before anything I write as a lawyer goes out, I make sure at least two paralegals check for any spelling or grammatical errors. In this age of spell check, AI, and all the rest, the quality of writing in professional publications has gone down. 

Modernism--The "Paradigm of Evil" and Synthesis of All Heresies

Modernism was beautifully explained and exposed by that great "Foe of Modernism," Pope St. Pius X in two documents, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, and Lamentabili Sane Exitu, both promulgated in 1907.

The pontiff answers the question: "What is Modernism?"

•  It is an amalgamation of errors. It begins with agnosticism.  According to this teaching, human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, which means things that appear to the senses, and it has no power to overstep these limits. Since we cannot know (or even infer) to the existence of things outside the scope of phenomena, the human intellect is incapable of knowing the existence of God.

• As a result, Modernism denies the supernatural as an object of certain knowledge. The Modernists who challenge all rational proof of the existence of God as the First Cause of everything in existence, both material and spiritual, fall victims to a "scientific agnosticism." For these, God is something which comes forth from man's subconscious. Religion is therefore essentially about feelings, specifically what makes you feel good; if Christianity, or any other religion, is what makes you feel good and more in touch with the Divine, then it is true for you. Religion has never consisted of creeds or objective truth but of feelings. This doctrine is known as vital immanence. Religion is a feeling or sentiment that comes from a subconscious need for the Divine.

• Modernists regard Divine Revelation as a purely natural emergence of religious knowledge from a natural sense known as the "religious sense." There is no "One True Church" and no Deposit of Revelation that needs to be guarded.  

•  The Modernist God is not transcendent; He is not "out there" but "totally within." As St. Pius X explained in Pascendi, the Modernist God was no more than a symbol and that "the personality of God will become a matter of doubt and the gate will be opened to pantheism." Do you notice how much of the Vatican II sect is infested with Eastern religion and philosophy, such as yoga and reiki? Have you seen in Nostra Aetate, how the Second Vatican (Robber) Council acknowledged "the good" that is in Hinduism and Buddhism? It comes from this erroneous idea of a "God within us all." It is also a trademark of the occult. 

• Since God is unknowable (as are miracles), the Bible cannot be held as historically accurate. We cannot consider Christ as God, or give credence to miracles. 

• Dogmas are taught to be subject to evolution from one meaning to another. As man's religious feelings evolve, so must dogma.  Dogma evolves into whatever accommodates the needs of the current culture. 

• "Same name, different meaning." When Modernists talk about Traditional doctrine, they affirm it with a different meaning so they sound orthodox while remaining heretics. When they profess, for example, "Our faith is based upon the Resurrection of Jesus Christ;" it could mean His physical and historical Resurrection as the Church teaches, or simply a symbolic story which was invented by the first Christians to promote faith in Christ who rose only in the mind of His believers.

• Catholic dogma is but a common consciousness of the believers. Thus, prompted by this "common consciousness," the believers came together in a society [Church] to formulate and systematize its beliefs. This (according to the Modernists) is how the Magisterium of the Church began.

In Massa's terminology, dogma and morals are "paradigms" that evolve over time. 

Condemned propositions from Lamentabili:

While I recommend reading the entire document, these selected condemned propositions are especially on point:

53. The organic constitution of the Church is not immutable. Like human society, Christian society is subject to a perpetual evolution.

54. Dogmas, Sacraments and hierarchy, both their notion and reality, are only interpretations and evolutions of the Christian intelligence which have increased and perfected by an external series of additions the little germ latent in the Gospel.

58. Truth is no more immutable than man himself, since it evolved with him, in him, and through him.

59. Christ did not teach a determined body of doctrine applicable to all times and all men, but rather inaugurated a religious movement adapted or to be adapted to different times and places.

Modernism in the Vatican II Sect:

• Worship. "Mass" is a four letter word not to be used. The "liturgy" or "celebration of the Eucharist (sic)" is not about the worship of God, but the entertainment of the people. The "assembly" must do everything, because there is no supernatural priestly order. Hold hands around a table, sing profane, banal songs, and have a touchy-feely "homily" about how "God loves us no matter what we do." Transubstantiation is a myth. The people stand (usually dressed like slobs or immodestly), while a layman or laywoman ("laytransgenders" can't be far behind) holds up the cracker and says "The Body of Christ." The recipient says "Amen" because it only becomes a symbol of Christ for us by consent of the assembly who memorialize Jesus. The more or less blessed cracker is then placed in unconsecrated hands to be chewed like cud and the tabernacle has been replaced by a hole in the wall. Massa claims that the changes are actually a restoration of older forms of worship. This is archaeologism, the false idea that a practice or prayer of the patristic Church is “better” or “purer” than a practice of the Church at a later time. It was condemned by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei of 1947. 

• The Sacraments. The sacraments are not visible signs of invisible graces instituted by the historical God-Man, Jesus Christ, but mere "expressions of faith" instituted by the "Christian community." In almost all cases, the primary and secondary effects of the sacraments have been inverted. Baptism is not about the remission of Original Sin and infusion of sanctifying grace. It is about "welcoming someone into the community of the People of God." The Eucharist is a memorial meal, not part of an Unbloody Sacrifice, and not the actual Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. Penance or Confession is now "Reconciliation, "where you get counseled by a glorified social worker ("priest") about being more "giving to the community" since offences against God are non-existent. Holy Matrimony is about the happiness of the couple first above all, and procreation is merely secondary (if considered at all). Holy Orders makes a man a "President of the Assembly." He is not in any way special or endowed with supernatural authority and power. Confirmation is having a "mature faith," not being a soldier for Christ. Extreme Unction is no longer to prepare the soul for Judgement (or restore bodily health, should God Will it), it's "Anointing of the Sick" for those who gather in the church with colds, headaches, and other maladies both mental and physical (the spiritual doesn't exist). 

• Morality. All morality is subjective. If God cannot be proven, and if Revelation is not possible, all moral actions are relative to the community in general, and can be overridden in almost all cases by the "conscience of the individual." Your personal happiness comes first, and whatever you "feel" is permissible is moral. In matters of sexuality, as long as "all parties consent," and "no one gets hurt," everything is allowed. Evils such as (but not limited to) birth control, euthanasia, divorce and remarriage, abortion, and homosexuality can all be condoned by a false notion of  "conscience." Dostoevsky said, "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." The same holds true if you hold to agnosticism and eschew the supernatural order. Morality "evolves." Soon, they will adopt Satanist Aleister Crowley's maxim, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." 

• The Church. All paths lead to God. There is no One True Church, since all religions are the subconscious need for the Divine manifested in various ways. No religion is more true or better than any other.Vatican II teaches, "Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in him [Christ], has been raised in us to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man." (See Gaudium et Spes, para. #22; Emphasis mine). Wojtyla (John Paul II) builds on this heresy, "What we have just said must also be applied-although in another way and with the due differences-to activity for coming closer together with the representatives of the non-Christian religions, an activity expressed through dialogue, contacts, prayer in common, investigation of the treasures of human spirituality, in which, as we know well, the members of these religions also are not lacking." (See Redemptor Hominis, para. #6; Emphasis mine). This means that Christ is somehow truly "within" all people regardless of whether or not they belong to the Catholic Church. How can anyone be damned if they are "in a certain way" united to Christ? Answer: They can't because Hell and Purgatory do not exist.  Dogmas can and must change with the times. God is within, so we are all connected to Him in some pantheistic way, building even more on the heretical teaching of Vatican II. Eastern philosophy and religions are embraced and extolled. Do yoga, transcendental meditation, and reiki. One can be "absorbed by the Divine," and perhaps even be reincarnated.  

No One Loves a Modernist Paradigm Shift More Than Bergoglio

On the Feast of All Saints, 2023, Bergoglio published his "Motu Proprio" Ad theologiam promovendam. In it he states what the Vatican II sect must do in theology:

1. Promoting theology in the future cannot be limited to abstractly re-proposing formulas and schemes of the past. Called to prophetically interpret the present and glimpse new itineraries for the future in the light of Revelation, theology will have to confront profound cultural transformations, aware that: “What we are living through is not simply an era of change, but a change of epoch” (Address to the Roman Curia, Dec. 21, 2013).

4. Theological reflection is therefore called to a turning point, to a paradigm shift, to a “courageous cultural revolution” (Encyclical Letter Laudato si’, 114) that commits it, first and foremost, to be a fundamentally contextual theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women daily live, in different geographical, social and cultural environments, and having as its archetype the Incarnation of the eternal Logos, its entering into the culture, worldview, and religious tradition of a people. From here, theology cannot but develop into a culture of dialogue and encounter between different traditions and different knowledge, between different Christian denominations and different religions, openly confronting everyone, believers and non-believers alike. Indeed, the need for dialogue is intrinsic to human beings and to the whole of creation, and it is the particular task of theology to discover “the Trinitarian imprint that makes the cosmos in which we live ‘a web of relationships’ in which ‘it is proper to every living being to tend toward another thing'” (Apostolic Constitution Veritatis gaudium, Proem, 4a).

(Emphasis mine).

Massa and Bergoglio both promote the Modernist agenda. They try to sound erudite with "paradigm shifts," but it's the same Modernist heresy condemned most forcefully nearly 120 years ago by Pope St. Pius X. 

Conclusion

When Modernists used to tell Fr. DePauw he was "opposed to change," his response was terse and powerful: "There is nothing more unchanging than God's Nature and human nature, and as long as that remains unchanged--and it always will--then the way Man relates to God must also remain fundamentally the same." Massa's book is a tirade against anything even slightly opposed to Modernist ideals. His writing contains an attack on Fr. DePauw, an approved canonist and theological giant, by Massa, the Modernist midget. In the meantime, the Vatican II sect, driven by Bergoglio and supported by Massa, continues to lead countless souls to Hell. And that is …truly loathsome.