HOW DID THE FORTRESS OF THE PRE-VATICAN II CHURCH, WITH ITS DISCIPLINE, SOBRIETY, ASCETICISM, CLARITY AND ROMAN UNIVERSALITY COLLASPE OVERNIGHT?

I am not anti-Vatican II, but I am “anti” its ambiguous spirit that spread throughout the Church overnight like polio prior to the vaccine. I am convinced its demonic spirit of licentiousness, personal freedom, elevation of disordered conscience as well as ambiguity, confusion and a breach of what preceded this spirit, contributed and contributes mightily to the ugly distortion of the Sacraments of Holy Orders and the Most Holy Eucharist in blasphemous and sacrilegious ways as seen in the recent Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report. It exacerbated any pre-Vatican II sexual abuse there may have been and its mismanagement by the hierarchy from the top down to demonic proportions!

I despise those who dogmatize Vatican II which was a pastoral council and try to make infallible its spirit especially those things to which there can be legitimate dissent as expressed by the SSPX.

Rather than canonize Blessed Pope Paul VI, which in reality is a canonization of Vatican II’s 1960’s spirit of euphoria that Pope Francis so loves, maybe because it reminds him of His Holiness’ youth, the pope and bishops, priests and religious of the Church should do a thorough examination of conscience and return to the Church the great discipline, asceticism and sobriety as well as clarity of the pre-Vatican II Church to the present day. How bad would tightening up things be compared to what has happened to the Church which is nothing short of a moral catastrophe since Vatican II and precisely because of its demonic spirit and openness to the world--as St. John's Gospel understands the term "world."

But it is important to know that Blessed Pope Paul VI who suffered from the drug-like induced euphoria at the conclusion of the Council was quite chastened and was experiencing a terrible withdrawal from it by 1967 and certainly completely chastened by the time of his death.

The liberals, both faculty and seminarians of my seminary in Baltimore absolutely despised Blessed Paul VI by 1976, because of Humanae Vitae and his disavowal of Vatican II’s spirit toward the end of his pontificate.

This is an excerpt from a longer article found at Rorate Caeli:

De Mattei: The Death of Paul VI (August 6, 1978). An anniversary.

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana 

August 15, 2018

The accomplishment of this true and actual revolution in the Church was the elaboration of the new Ordo Missae, promulgated by Paul VI, on April 3rd 1969.  In October 1969, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci presented the Pope A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass, drawn up by a group of theologians of various nationalities, wherein it affirmed: “the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.”

Paul VI was not unaware of what was happening in those dramatic years. On January 18th 1967, Cardinal Journet delivered Maritain’s suggestions to him for a new “Profession of Faith” which would re-establish the basic truths of Christianity, turned up-side-down in the years following the Council. On that occasion, Paul VI asked the Swiss Cardinal for an assessment of the situation in the Church. “Tragic.” was Journet’s blunt reply. On December 7th 1968, in a speech to the Lombard Seminary, Paul VI pronounced these shocking words: “The Church today is going through a period of  anxiety. Some exercise self-criticism, it could even be said self-demolition. It is like an interior upheaval, complex and acute, which nobody would have expected after the Council.”   

Three years later, on June 29th 1972, referring to the situation of the Church, Paul VI stated with equal clarity “of having the sensation that from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God […]”. We thought that after the Council there would have been a day of sunshine for the history of the Church. Instead a day of clouds, storms, darkness, questing and uncertainties has come.” To surmount the crisis, the Pope followed the political strategy of condemning “opposite extremisms” which consisted in an attitude of indulgent benevolence for the positions of the progressives and severe sanctions against those, like French Archbishop, Marcel Lefebvre, who intended to remain faithful to the Tradition of the Church. 

Two  events troubled the life of Paul VI deeply: the contestation that he suffered in the summer of 1968 and the death of Aldo Moro, ten years later. 

Paul VI did not share the position of Cardinal Suenens, who was anxious for the approval of the use of the contraceptive pill, and despite the contrary advice of the “experts” the Pope had appointed to study the problem, on July 25th 1968 he reaffirmed the condemnation of contraception with the encyclical Humanae Vitae. This ‘against-the-current’ document was met with violent protests led by theologians, bishops and entire Episcopal conferences, starting with the Belgian conference presided over by Cardinal Suenens.  Paul VI felt betrayed by the Council Fathers closest to him and they in turn, considered him a ”traitor” pitting him against the utopia of the “good Pope” John XXIII.