The earlier encyclical to which Pius XII referred was his 1943 Mystici Corporis, on the Mystical Body of Christ. In Mystici Corporis, the pope stated that the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and he specified its membership:

“Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.”

Francis’s Synod on Synodality is essentially creating the antithesis of the Church Pius XII described: the only ones excluded from the Synodal Church are those who profess the true Catholic faith. How did this happen?

These words remain true today, but for the past sixty years the apparent authorities in Rome have attempted to obscure, and even directly contradict, this truth. Indeed, as discussed below, Francis’s Synod on Synodality is essentially creating the antithesis of the Church Pius XII described: the only ones excluded from the Synodal Church are those who profess the true Catholic faith. How did this happen?

We must begin with an indispensable key to understanding the crisis: Vatican II would have turned out much differently if the progressive architects had told the truth about their motivations and objectives. If they had done so, many of the Council Fathers who had good will, but lacked sufficient awareness of the evils threatening the Church, would have rejected the anti-Catholic novelties. But, like most savvy criminals, the architects of Vatican II did not widely broadcast their true motivations.

Fortunately, though, Fr. Stjepan Schmidt’s biography of Cardinal Augustin Bea — Augustin Bea: Cardinal of Unity — includes the candid backstory for the ecumenical maneuvering that shaped the Council and laid the foundations for Francis’s Synodal Church. As summarized in a previous article, Fr. Schmidt’s biography shows us Bea’s involvement in almost every aspect of the current crisis. However, for present purposes the most important insights from Fr. Schmidt relate to Bea’s thought process in attempting to overturn Pius XII’s clear teaching about the Mystical Body of Christ.

As Fr. Schmidt described, Bea wanted the Council to “provide clarification” on the “church-membership” of non-Catholic Christians:

“An important point on which Bea hoped the Council would provide clarification was that of the church-membership of Christians separated from us. . . We shall first try to give an idea of the problem facing the cardinal in this field, and how he set about solving it.” (p. 402)

As we saw above, Pius XII had already “clarified” the matter, making it clear that members of the Church must “profess the true faith.” Was Bea unaware of this apparent solution to his problem? No, this clear statement from Pius XII was the “problem” facing Bea:

“The problem sprang from a solemn passage in the encyclical Mystici Corporis of Pius XII, which stated: ‘Only those are to be accounted really members of the church who have been regenerated in the waters of baptism and profess the true faith, and have not cut themselves off from the structure of the body by their own unhappy act or been severed therefrom for very grave crimes, by the legitimate authority.’” (p. 402)

Vatican II would have turned out much differently if the progressive architects had told the truth about their motivations and objectives.

Before recounting how Bea went about solving the “problem” caused by Pius XII’s clear Catholic teaching, we can briefly consider why that teaching created a problem. As Fr. Schmidt related, Bea objected to Pius XII’s teaching because it offended Protestants:

“[T]his doctrine seriously offends other Christians. And here the cardinal quoted a lecture given by a Lutheran professor on dogmatic theology (whom he does not name), who said that no Christian can understand how the aforementioned doctrine of Pius XII on the limits of the church, the mystical body of Christ, could have ignored the salvific efficacity of a validly conferred baptism, and simply have considered it as non-existent. It is impossible to understand how baptism can be valid, but ineffective with regard to salvific incorporation into Christ.” (p. 366)

The Lutheran professor was true to his false religion in objecting to Catholic teaching, but that should come as no surprise. Those Catholics who worry about Pius XII’s words being too offensive apparently do not fully grasp the significance of the warnings from Our Lord that we must actually do His will to be saved:

“Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of My Father in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Baptism alone will not lead souls to heaven if they fail to do God’s will, which includes following the truths He entrusted to His Church (once they have reached the age of reason). Unlike Bea, Catholics are willing to risk “offending” non-Catholics because they consider that a small cost to pay if they can help prevent non-Catholics from hearing those dreadful words of condemnation from Our Lord.

So how did Bea go about “solving the problem” of Protestants being offended by the Church doing what Our Lord established it to do — i.e., to “teach the nations” (Matthew 28:19-20), which requires teaching souls to be Catholic? According to Fr. Schmidt, one of Bea’s approaches was to eliminate, or at least minimize, the references to Church “membership”:

“[T]he cardinal moved on to a positive suggestion as to how to proceed in regard to this difficult question. First of all, he suggested that it might be more prudent to avoid reference to ‘members’ of the church, for although the concept of membership is found in St. Paul, it maybe has a considerably different meaning there. Furthermore, if we are to have any hope of providing an adequate idea of the church, we must not confine ourselves to the concept of the mystical body of Christ, in view of the fact that the New Testament also gives us a number of other images: kingdom, vineyard, daily, house and people are all used as metaphors to illustrate its various aspects.” (p. 366)

Here we can see the astoundingly manipulative mindset of Cardinal Bea, with his desire to replace clear Catholic ideas with vague concepts, all for the ostensible purpose of pacifying Protestants. Pius XII’s words did not serve his ecumenical goals, so he sought to work around them.

Francis’s Synod on Synodality takes Bea’s unholy work as a starting point, treating all baptized people as the People of God and scarcely mentioning differences between Catholics and Protestants.

In the event that Bea could not persuade the Council Fathers to eliminate the concept of “membership” in the Church, he sought to introduce the concept of “complete” adherence to the Church:

“However, if we wish at all costs to use the term ‘members of the church’ we can maybe do so as follows: ‘Those who adhere completely to the Catholic Church as means of salvation can be called members in the full and strict sense.’” (p. 366)

As Fr. Schmidt described, Bea attempted to justify this theory of complete/incomplete membership based on the following language from Pius XII’s 1947 encyclical on the liturgy, Mediator Dei:

“By the waters of baptism, as by common right, Christians are made members of the Mystical Body of Christ the Priest, and by the ‘character’ which is imprinted on their souls, they are appointed to give worship to God.”

If Bea had wanted to honestly interpret this passage, he would have acknowledged that the Church-membership status of Protestants who have reached the age of reason is determined not only by baptism but also the other criteria Pius XII listed in Mystici Corporis:

"Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed.”

Yes, baptism is the way in which one becomes a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, and those who have not reached the age of reason cannot “profess the true faith” or “commit grave faults,” so they cannot be excluded from membership in the Mystical Body of Christ simply because they are baptized in a non-Catholic church. However, as Pius XII’s words plainly state, those who do not profess the true faith — that is, those who profess a non-Catholic faith once they reach the age of reason — are not included in the membership of the Mystical Body of Christ.

God has permitted the fruits of Vatican II’s ecumenical experiment to become so nauseating and toxic that we will finally abandon the tree.

Bea apparently had no interest in honesty, so he contrived a new version of Pius XII’s words:

“[T]he encyclical Mystici Corporis denies that heretics and schismatics belong to the mystical body, which is the church, only in the full sense in which Catholics are said to belong to it. That is, it denies full sharing in the life which Christ communicates to His church . . . but the encyclical does not by any means rule out all forms of membership of the church or deny all influence of the grace of Christ.” (p. 403)

What does this manipulation of Pius XII’s clear language accomplish? And why does Bea mention the “influence of the grace of Christ,” which has nothing to do with the question at hand? Fr. Schmidt connected the dots for us:

“This reference to the influence of the grace of Christ paves the way for the following statements: ‘Because, fundamentally, even if not fully, they belong to the church, they also have the benefit of the influence of God’s grace . . . The Holy Spirit . . . works in a special and powerful way in them too, although, as we have said, not in such a full manner as in the members visibly united with the Catholic Church.’” (p. 403)

This differs fundamentally in substance, tone, and intent from Pius XII’s clear formulation of the question of who belongs to the Mystical Body of Christ. Pius XII taught the truth to honor God and leads souls to heaven; Bea distorted that teaching to placate Protestants.

Fr. Schmidt quoted Bea’s disciple, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, to emphasize the truly revolutionary nature of Bea’s innovations:

“In his study Cardinal Willebrands points out what a novelty the line taken by the president of the secretariat really was at the time: ‘The idea of our common baptism and its ecumenical consequences has become our natural heritage today, but things were very different then. A respected and influential Roman theologian — not an Italian — publicly stated that Bea’s explanations in this connection were ‘absolutely untenable.’” (p. 404)

When Cardinal Willebrands said “things were very different then,” he means before Bea began trying to solve the “problem” of Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis. Through Bea’s machinations, ideas that had been “absolutely untenable” under Pius XII found their way into Vatican II’s documents, including Lumen Gentium:

“The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. . . Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power.”

These words closely follow Bea’s innovative interpretation of Pius XII’s language from Mystici Corporis, quoted above. And the last sentence appears to exude the same spirit Pius XII condemned in Humani Generis: “Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation.”

We must reject not only the insidious Synod on Synodality, but also every single innovation that Pius XII denounced in Humani Generis.

Although most Council Fathers would not have realized where Bea’s line of thinking would ultimately lead, Professor Romano Amerio identified the ultimate destination in his Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century:

“[Bea] views a reunion as a matter of making explicit a unity that is already there, and which has simply to be realized. He thinks the Catholic Church is in the same position, and that it too needs to become aware of the deeper reality of the total Christ which is a synthesis of all the scattered groups in Christendom. No reversion of some groups towards another, but a conversion of everyone to a new centre which is the hidden and deeper Christ.” (pp. 551-552)

Francis’s Synod on Synodality takes Bea’s unholy work as a starting point, treating all baptized people as the People of God and scarcely mentioning differences between Catholics and Protestants. Thus, the Instrumentum Laboris for the current session states the following:

“On the path we have travelled, this aspect of synodality emerges with particular strength in relation to other Churches and ecclesial Communities, to which we are united by the bond of one Baptism. The Spirit, who is ‘the principle of the Church’s unity’ (UR 2), is at work in these Churches and ecclesial Communities, and invites us to embark on paths of mutual knowledge, sharing and building a common life. . . . Everywhere, in tune with the Magisterium of the Second Vatican Council, the profound desire to deepen the ecumenical journey also emerges: an authentically synodal Church cannot but involve all those who share the one Baptism.”

Remarkably, relatively few Catholics appear to notice or care that the Synod essentially treats all baptized Christians the same way — this, then, is the ultimate tribute to Bea’s deceptions. The Synodal Church has been formed: it resembles the church Bea envisioned, and is not the Catholic Church, which Pius XII sought to defend.

If we can find any silver lining at this point, perhaps it is the fact that we can no longer pretend that the solution to the Church’s crisis resides in going back to the seemingly less insane times we enjoyed under Benedict XVI, John Paul II, Paul VI, or John XXIII. God has permitted the fruits of Vatican II’s ecumenical experiment to become so nauseating and toxic that we will finally abandon the tree. We must reject not only the insidious Synod on Synodality, but also every single innovation that Pius XII denounced in Humani Generis. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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