Unpublished preface

Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò

Unpublished preface

to an essay (never published) edited by Maike Hickson
containing my interventions on the Second Vatican Council

Sit autem sermo vester: Est, est; non, non ;
Quod autem his abundantius est, a malo est.

But let your speech be yea, yea : no, no ;
And that which is over and above these, is of evil.

Mt 5:37

 

Every society is endowed with a common language, just as every discpline adopts a specific lexicon so as to be able to communicate clearly and unequivocally. Language, in fact, is an essential instrument, because it permits the transmission of concepts, thoughts, and passions. This also happens in the family, in which idioms, expressions, and experiences that unite and bind its members are created and handed down. It is therefore no coincidence if, in the course of history, the Church also has given herself a language and way of speaking that is proper to her, through which to transmit in a complete and clear way the doctrine of which she is the depository, the liturgy that the Lord taught her, and the spirituality that unites the souls of the baptized of all times and places. Likewise, the citizens of a nation feel united not only by sharing Faith, traditions, and laws, but also by the language which expresses them.

The profane and dechristianized world, aware of the very important role that language plays in the constitution of the social fabric, has adopted its own lexicon, often using an ancient term with a new meaning, replacing a term considered foreign to its mindset or even deleting it from its common parlance. Many expressions born in a purely Catholic context – I think for example of the use of the term “Christian” as a synonym for “person” which is typical of the Italian regional dialects – have been banned from language, because they expressed a way of being, of thinking, of believing that today is considered divisive or incompatible with the reigning ideology. The Orwellian “Newspeak” has banished any trace of Catholicity from spoken and written language, aware that the cancellation of a culture is completed in the cancellation of language. They must also make the words “father” and “mother” disappear, because the very existence of these words represents a threat for those who want to destroy the family, the father figure and the mother figure, the authority of the “good family man” and the wise ruler, the divine paternity of God and the maternity of the Church.

And just as a loving mother understands the babbling of the little one she holds on her lap but also knows how to teach him the language with which he will have to communicate with his fellow men, so the Holy Church does not reject the poverty of expression of the simple faithful but also educates them in the Faith, sharing theological language and teaching them to address the Divine Majesty in the sacred language in the solemn act of public worship. Both the theologian and the “old lady,” each with their own cultural background, are able to understand one another because “they speak the same language” and because this language should not serve to distance people but to bring them closer together: the wise together with the ignorant, the rich with the poor, God who is completely perfect together with sinful man.

If a teacher could not communicate with his own students using terms that they both understand, knowledge could not be transmitted nor could thought be completely expressed. For this reason the Church, She who is Teacher just as Her Head is Teacher, has always adopted a clear and specific language with which to teach the Catholic Truth and condemn the errors of heretics – who, it bears remembering, have always been able to spread their errors precisely through the fraudulent use of the theological lexicon. And since Scholastic thought does not allow for that imprecision in which the Modernists  are able to insinuate their doctrines, they have concentrated their efforts precisely against it and its terminology: “They therefore continually deride and despise Scholastic philosophy and theology. Whether they do this out of ignorance or out of fear, or out of both together, what is certain is that the desire for novelty always goes hand-in-hand with hatred of Scholastic thought; there is no more obvious indication that someone is beginning to turn to Modernism than when he begins to abhor Scholasticism” (Saint Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi, part II).

If we take any magisterial document promulgated up until the Pontificate of John XXIII, we can recognize one consistent doctrine expressed in the same language, a language that finds perfect correspondence amidst the multiplicity of languages: for example, by referring to the same concept with the terms essence, substance, nature, person in Greek, Latin, Italian, etc. And we find this identical language in the Liturgy, where the lex credendi becomes prayer without losing any of its vigor; indeed, it acquires more vigor in the ritual of the sacred action and in the singing of Gregorian chant. There is no liturgical composition, sequence, hymn, antiphon, preface, or collect that is not perfectly consistent with the regula fidei it expresses: “ut in confessione veræ sempiternæque deitatis, et in personis proprietas, et in essentia unitas, et in majestate adoretur æqualitas” – “so that, in the confession of the true and eternal Godhead, you may be adored in what is proper to each Person, and in the unity of essence, and in the equality of majesty” (Preface of the Most Holy Trinity).

If instead we venture to read any document of Vatican II and the Magisterium following it, even without dwelling on the content it expresses, we cannot fail to notice a dissonance, a entirely new lexicon, a terminological imprecision that has no precedent in the Catholic Magisterium and, in contrast, seems to plagiarize the writings of the Modernists with impunity, adopting all of their imprecision, equivocity, and deliberate abandonment of Catholic clarity – to say nothing of the reformed liturgical texts, in which approximation borders on culpable vacuity, if one simply analyzes a contemporary sacred song. And if in the Seventies we saw Protestant chorales being inflicted that would have made any German Catholic horrified, today that abyss of doctrinal nothingness is accompanied by profane music and tribal rhythms. In short, the language of the Council is not the language of the Church, just as the liturgy of the Council is no longer the language of the Tridentine liturgy. Rightly there are liturgists and modernist theologians who admit, with the impudence that always distinguishes heretics, that the celebration of the Traditional Mass ought to be tolerated only for elderly Catholics and conversely prohibited for the young, since it “does not correspond to the ecclesiology of Vatican II.” It is a confession of guilt that is stubbornly denied by the supporters of the hermeneutic of continuity, who erroneously think that Catholic doctrine can be preserved even though it is expressed in profane language and – what is worse – such language is employed even in the Liturgy. But in this way the essential distinction between the sacred and profane, which even the pagans understood, is erased.

[Allow me to express a particular thanks to Dr. Maike Hickson, who has collected my interventions and edited this edition;] just as I thank those who have offered their contribution to the discussion on Vatican II and the message of Fatima, permitting the reader to develop an informed evaluation of these historic events. In my opinion, all the contributions in our book are valid and serve to highlight and understand different approaches to these questions. As this book demonstrates, there is a very clear connection between the apostasy in the Church announced by Our Lady and its concretization in the Second Vatican Council, in the doctrinal and moral deviations that it originated and on whose basis the Montinian liturgical reform was conceived. The ease with which the highest levels of the Hierarchy were able to disobey the requests of the Virgin is disconcerting, beginning with the failure to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart. Even more painful, in my opinion, is that in the face of the punctual concretization of the evils that it was warned would result from such disobedience, the Hierarchy still persists today in dissembling and denying the Immaculata the due tribute that she awaits in order to save the Church and the world. Let us take comfort in the words of the Virgin: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph,” and let us pray that this is finally the time in which the requests of the Queen of Heaven are fulfilled.

If what some people report is true, namely, that the third part of the Secret of Fatima explicitly mentions a Council and a Mass not in conformity with the Will of God, it is not surprising that their advocates wished to conceal the contents of the Secret, since it would have thwarted their assault against the Church of Christ. Indeed, it seems to me that this finds further confirmation in the revelations of La Salette and in those of Bruno Cornacchiola, in which that warning is repeated by Our Lady, who in Her humility will crush the head of the ancient Serpent. And we know that nothing can modify the decrees of Providence.

This collection of my writings on the Council touches on many themes and allows us to understand in an organic and articulated way what I consider to be the serious critical issues of Vatican II and the liturgical reform which it imposed on the Church. With this preface, however, I would like to add some tiles to the mosaic, recalling the attention of the reader to an aspect that is sometimes overlooked. I am convinced that in order to introduce the Revolution into the Church, the Innovators also had to resort to a change of the modalities of the exposition of the Magisterium, replacing the adamantine clarity of Catholic language with those circiterisms that Romano Amerio was the first to denounce. We do not need to “open up new paths” nor to be “inclusive” – we need rather to be converted, to live in the grace of God and to give Him glory, so as to deserve eternal reward.

Christ is the Eternal Word of the Father, and in the eternity of the One and Triune God there is a sublime and very simple communication in which the Word is generated by the Father and in which the Holy Spirit proceeds from them both. The Word of God is creative; it is true; it is clear. The word of Satan is destructive, lying, and equivocal because it deceives. The restoration of the Church of Christ and the defeat of the sect that eclipses her today will have to begin from the understanding of this linguistic and lexical phenomenon, returning to speaking according to the Gospel in spirit and truth: Let your speech be yes, yes, no, no; anything more comes from the Evil One (Mt 5:37).

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

19 May 2021
S.cti Petri Celestini Papæ et Confessoris
Feria IV post Ascensionem

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