Following the aging pontiff’s death his Secretary of State, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, was elected to succeed him on 2 March 1939, taking the name Pius XII. Pope Pacelli had learned on the job the reality of communism. But after Adolph Hitler led his Nazis to attack Russia on 22June 1941 the pontiff was required to temper his leadership against communism at least partly because the American President, freemason Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pressured him that Stalin was needed as an ally against Hitler. On 3 Sept 1941 Roosevelt urged Pius XII that the Soviets had changed for the better:
The churches in Russia are open. I believe there is a real possibility that Russia may, as a result of the present conflict, recognize freedom of religion in Russia, although, of course, without recognition of any official intervention on the part of any Church in education or political matters within Russia…I believe that this Russian dictatorship is less dangerous to the safety of other nations than is the German form of dictatorship.
Because communism was founded on atheism and hatred for Christ, Pius knew it was an enemy of His Church with whom accord or coexistence was possible and after the war he strictly forbade any Vatican relations with it. Pius XII died of a lingering illness on 9 October 1958 and Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected Pope John XXIII on 28 October. John XXIII immediately reversed the direction of Pius XII politically by enthusiastically embracing Ostpolitik, or dialoguing with the Communist eastern European countries, and theologically by introducing what he considered to be a vital aggorimento, or updating of the Church to adapt to modern times.
On 17 August 1959 Pope John received an envelope containing the third part of the Secret of Fatima which he read several times both on his own and with the help of Portuguese translators. Its contents were shared with the leaders of the Holy Office, the Secretariat of State, and a few others. He said he preferred to leave to others the appraisal of it, writing only a personal note that was resealed it in the envelope with Lucia’s letter and kept on his writing table until his death. In fact by withholding the long-awaited and eagerly anticipated third part of the Secret from the Church and the world Pope John had de facto judged it unworthy of publication. The consequences of that papal decision are incalculable, but surely include a further loss “of extraordinary graces and miraculous help” so desperately needed to guide the Church in its conflict with those forces, visible and invisible, that are led by Satan’s cunning.
On 25 November 1961 the pontiff received birthday greetings from the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev praising his recent expressions of hope for world peace “as well as to the solution of international problems thanks to frank negotiations.” In joyful response Pope John privately expressed his belief that “Something is moving in the world. The Lord is using the humble instrument that I am to budge history. Today we have had a sign of Divine Providence.”
Pope John felt inspired to call for a new ecumenical council that he hoped would be the occasion for a new springtime, a “New Pentecost” in the Church, to which he, ardently desired that members of the Russian Orthodox Church attend. To that end Cardinal Eugene Tisserant for the Vatican and Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Nikodim for the Soviet Union concluded the “Vatican-Moscow Agreement” or “Metz Pact” at Metz, France on 18 August 1962. In consideration of the Soviets sending two Russian Orthodox observers to the council, the Vatican agreed tha the Second Vatican Council would abstain from any consideration of Communism and Russia. “Ever since that time the Holy See considers itself as still bound by the engagements taken by John XXIII. Communism is no longer ever mentioned by name in any pontifical document.”
On 11 October 1962 Pope John opened his council with a joyful and upbeat address, but included an explicit rejection of warnings such as those of Sister Lucia: “We feel that We must disagree with these prophets of doom, who are always forecasting worse disasters, as though the end of the world were at hand.” Tragically, the prophet to which he refers is not Sister Lucia to whom she appeared and spoke, but the “Woman clothed with the sun,” our August Queen of heaven and earth, of angels and men!
On 11 April 1963 John XXIII signed Pacem in Terris, his internationalist encyclical on World Peace, in which “he officially recognized the ‘charter of the rights of man’ of the United Nations, and he extolled a world community, of liberty equality and fraternity” wherein ideal societies of the future would “constructed on the good will of all men. And at the same time, the Pope practically lifted the prohibition of collaborating with the communists.” Moreover, he wrote that such collaboration “may possibly provide the occasion or even the incentive for their conversion to the truth. “ Pope John here officially promoted collaboration with Communists, accepting them as reasonable men of natural moral integrity. He might have said the same of Freemasonry. It appears that the pontiff here fails to fully grasp or appreciate the demonic spirit and the perverse nature of a totalitarian system such as communism, by whatever name it may call itself from time to time that demands the unconditional and uncompromising personal commitment of a de facto religion. This is surely because of the diabolical disorientation of the mystery of iniquity. That is why we must pray for our Pope as never before, or I believe errors will continue.
One cannot logically separate a communist from the errors of communism by whatever name they may call themselves as if a communist or a freemason were merely an atheist with strong socialistic or intellectual convictions. For a communist believes the ultimate good is the dictatorship of the proletariat, or other totalitarian regime, and all means that achieve that end are good. Morally-ethical categories are replaced by political expediency. As Harry and Bonaro Overstreet reported in their seminal study of communism in 1958, the necessary lie, slander, intimidation of the masses, and the liquidation of oppositional groups and hostile classes must not only be obediently carried out, but conscientiously accepted as the right thing to do by party members. In 1957 Margarita Aliger confessed during a conference of Soviet writers in Moscow that she had sometimes substituted “morally-ethical categories for political categories…[whereas] All the work of a Soviet writer is political work, and to accomplish it honorably is possible only when one follows firmly the party line and party discipline.” Hence, moral integrity consists in total personal dedication to use all means, including deception, liquidation, imprisonment, violence and terror, to achieve the ultimate good. A party member is forbidden to love his enemies and is obligated to define as enemies “all who are outside the ideological pale.” Cannot the same be said of the Freemason Calles in Mexico in the 1920’s?
No comments:
Post a Comment