Along with so many other spiritual writers, Dom Scupoli followed St. Paul in employing this imagery of the “old man” of sin struggling against the “new man” of Christ’s grace. If he was correct, then we can conclude that Satan and his minions would do everything possible to bolster the old man in us by turning us toward human considerations rather than the will of God.
Before examining how the ongoing Vatican II revolution aims to bolster the sinful old man in each of us, it is worthwhile to consider another passage about our spiritual combat. Dom Eugene Boylan had this to say in his This Tremendous Lover:
“The old self in us struggles hard against its death, and in every single action we are confronted with the choice: Who shall live in this particular moment in me — myself or Christ? The self asserts its claim, but the choice rests with our free will, even though the grace of God comes to our aid. We can decide; we have the awful power of saying no to God, of denying Him life in us. It is true that we depend on His grace for the power to do good: but grace does not take away our freedom, nor can we escape responsibility for a refusal. The two lives are present in us; that of Christ which He wants to make ours, and that of the old Adam, our own independent self. In every single deliberate action we have to choose between them.” (p. 48)
Twice in this passage, Dom Boylan referred to the choice we must make “in every single deliberate action” we undertake. God wants us to choose Him, but “we have the awful power of saying no to God, of denying Him life in us.” Every time we say “no” to God, we reinforce the old man and forfeit some of what God wants us to have.
According to Paul VI, Catholics would have expected the Council to condemn secular humanism, but it instead embraced the “religion of man who makes himself God.”
Knowing all of this, Holy Mother Church does everything possible to help us say “yes” to God. Everything about the Church shows us the way, and provides us the means, to choose the life of Christ over the old man — everything helps us to choose what God can offer over what mankind can offer.
With this in mind, we can better appreciate the truly sickening and diabolical nature of Paul VI’s words to close Vatican II:
“Secular humanism, revealing itself in its horrible anti-clerical reality has, in a certain sense, defied the council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none. . . . The attention of our council has been absorbed by the discovery of human needs (and these needs grow in proportion to the greatness which the son of the earth claims for himself). But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind.”
According to Paul VI, Catholics would have expected the Council to condemn secular humanism, but it instead embraced the “religion of man who makes himself God.” He asked the modern humanists “who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities” to give the Council credit for its work honoring mankind.
This orientation away from God and toward man helps us understand the Council’s doctrinal errors, as Fr. Alvaro Calderon described in his Prometheus: The Religion of Man; and this orientation away from God also sets the stage for each of the post-Conciliar initiatives that have aimed to bolster the old man in us:
Liturgy. For most Catholics, the daily or weekly Mass will represent the epitome of devotion to God. If we compare the Traditional Latin Mass to even a reverently-celebrated Novus Ordo Mass, we can see numerous ways in which the Novus Ordo bolsters the old man in those who celebrate and attend it: the orientation of the priest toward the people rather than God; the relative lack of kneeling; the removal of many references to “sacrifice” in the Mass itself; and the way in which Holy Communion is distributed and received. Thus, far from being a daily or weekly reminder that we have far to go in fighting against the old man, the Novus Ordo — even if it is reverently celebrated — promotes the idea that the new man and old man are basically the same, and certainly not in mortal combat against each other.
Not only did false ecumenism repel souls from the Church, it also had the practical effect of suppressing the truth about the defects of non-Catholic religions.
Penitential Practices. Since Vatican II, almost every penitential practice has been softened or eliminated. Given the reality that we need penance to combat the old man and bring ourselves into submission to God’s will, the dire consequences of abandoning penitential practices would have been obvious to anyone who actually understood the Catholic Faith. Crucially, the dramatic reduction in penitential practices impacts not only the particular practice in question — such as Friday abstinence from meat — but also contributes to the false belief that penance in general is no longer necessary or even valuable.
False Ecumenism. In Prometheus, Fr. Calderon persuasively argued that humanism was the key to Vatican II; indeed, he defined the Council in terms of humanism:
“Using simple language, we can define the Second Vatican Council as the officialization of a Catholic humanism.” (p. 9)
Throughout the Council, though, the progressive architects used arguments in favor of ecumenism to implement the changes tending toward humanism. Led by Cardinal Augustin Bea, the Council’s advocates of false ecumenism sought to minimize the differences between Catholicism and non-Catholic religions — all for the stated purpose of drawing souls to the Church, which never happened. Not only did false ecumenism repel souls from the Church, it also had the practical effect of suppressing the truth about the defects of non-Catholic religions, as Fr. Dominique Bourmaud wrote in One Hundred Years of Modernism:
“The true mode of operation of conciliar ecumenism is to hide the truth; it is like the doctor who, by charity, would spare the cancer of his patient under the pretext that the evil may well be of good faith. We will see where ecumenism was to lead under John Paul II, not only hiding the truth but making it serve as an instrument in the propagation of the error of religious syncretism.”
If we see all religions as legitimate paths to salvation — with only insignificant differences separating them — then it is preposterous to insist that one must follow the Catholic Church’s far more restrictive moral teachings, which all work to combat the sinful old man in us. As a result, Catholics who believe the lies of false ecumenism naturally come to doubt the necessity of following the various practices the Church gives us to prevail in the spiritual combat.
If meanings of doctrines can evolve so that the Church’s teachings mean something contrary to what they once meant, then the Church is no longer a truth-teller, and there is no basis for trusting it when it tells us we must overcome the sinful old man if we want to save our souls.
Accommodating Sin. Once Holy Mother Church appears to turn a blind eye to sin, it signals to the flock that the sinful old man is not as bad as Catholics had once imagined. Today we see obvious examples with Francis and his Synodal Church, as they “accompany” the sinner and his sins. For decades, though, the false shepherds have done little to counteract the growing acceptance of various sins.
One monumental example of this is the widespread acceptance of contraception. Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on contraception but did so in a way that opened the door for Catholics to become comfortable with openly rejecting the Church’s moral teaching. Here are Paul VI’s words from the end of the encyclical, encouraging pastors to not be so severe with sinners:
“Now it is an outstanding manifestation of charity toward souls to omit nothing from the saving doctrine of Christ; but this must always be joined with tolerance and charity, as Christ Himself showed in His conversations and dealings with men. For when He came, not to judge, but to save the world, was He not bitterly severe toward sin, but patient and abounding in mercy toward sinners? Husbands and wives, therefore, when deeply distressed by reason of the difficulties of their life, must find stamped in the heart and voice of their priest the likeness of the voice and the love of our Redeemer. . . . Let them never lose heart because of their weakness.”
All of this could of course be read in a Catholic sense, but we can see how it has been applied in practice for several decades: pastors have been so indulgent with the faithful that the overwhelming majority of Catholics believe it is fine to use contraception. The message is clear: yes, it is better to choose the life of Christ, but never lose heart (and never stay away from Communion) if you are too weak to even attempt to overcome the sinful old man.
Doctrinal Evolution. We are truly persuaded to combat our natural inclinations only when we are convinced it is necessary to obtain some good, especially salvation. And rational believers will only be convinced of the Church’s teaching if they accept as true the following words from St. Pius X’s Oath Against Modernism:
“I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously.”
If meanings of doctrines can evolve so that the Church’s teachings mean something contrary to what they once meant, then the Church is no longer a truth-teller, and there is no basis for trusting it when it tells us we must overcome the sinful old man if we want to save our souls.
We often debate specific doctrinal matters about Vatican II but this comprehensive effort to disable our combat against sin is arguably the most consequential evil flowing from the Council. Only Satan could be responsible for this.
For all practical purposes, many Catholics who sincerely desire to practice the Faith have grown comfortable with doctrinal evolution so long as it does not impact their personal beliefs about morality — this is why we find so much opposition to Francis’s promotion of the LGBTQ agenda from people who are far less opposed to the insidious false ecumenism movement. Unfortunately, this leads to a Protestant mentality that invariably safeguards the sinful old man in us.
Promotion of Sinful Old Men. Finally, actions speak louder than words and we can all see that John XXIII and his successors have deliberately promoted sinful old men to the highest positions in the Church. St. John Paul II gave us not only the Prayer Meeting at Assisi to enthrone false ecumenism but also a list of Cardinal appointments that includes: Joseph Bernadin, Godfried Danneels, Henri de Lubac, Carlo Maria Martini, Bernard Francis Law, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Walter Kasper, Theodore McCarrick, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Karl Lehmann, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
We know these men — and so many more who have been promoted by the post-Vatican II shepherds — by their absolute determination to bolster the sinful old man in their own lives. One of the scandalous impacts, among many, of having more of Satan’s men than God’s men at the top of the Catholic hierarchy is that many Catholics come to believe that the fight against sin is not especially important.
Given the fact that everything about the Vatican II revolution works together to bolster the sinful old man, we must conclude that this has been a deliberate process of overturning what the Church has always taught. We often debate specific doctrinal matters about Vatican II but this comprehensive effort to disable our combat against sin is arguably the most consequential evil flowing from the Council. Only Satan could be responsible for this.
Almost every novelty from John XXIII to Francis has ultimately come from Satan, and we must reject all of it. If God is permitting such great evil from Francis today, surely it is so that we can finally awaken to the need to fight valiantly against the revolution that installed Bergoglio in the papacy.
We should applaud the fact that many shepherds have resisted Francis’s attempts to bless same-sex unions, and pray that they all awaken to the difficult reality that Francis did not begin this revolution against the Church — in fact, he was not even ordained to the priesthood until after the Council ended and he is a faithful son of Vatican II. When Francis condemns traditional Catholics for being rigid and backward, his meaning is evident: by rejecting the Vatican II revolution, Traditional Catholics rigidly adhere to the backward insistence on combatting the sinful old man in each of us.
Our bad shepherds have left us in a difficult position, but God did not leave us orphans. In his 1991 book addressed to priests and seminarians of the Society of St. Pius X, Spiritual Journey, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre gave us all marching orders for combatting this disastrous revolution of Vatican II:
“We will never fully understand the struggle between the good and the wicked throughout history as long as we do not see it as the personal and unyielding battle for all time between Satan and Jesus Christ. What duty befalls upon every man because of this fundamental and unyielding battle between the two opposed leaders of mankind? It is the duty never to compromise, on whatever it may be, with that which is of Satan or his followers, and to enlist ourselves beneath the standard of Jesus Christ, and there to remain always and fight valiantly.” (p. 37)
Almost every novelty from John XXIII to Francis has ultimately come from Satan, and we must reject all of it. If God is permitting such great evil from Francis today, surely it is so that we can finally awaken to the need to fight valiantly against the revolution that installed Bergoglio in the papacy. This is the most important battlefront in the world today. If we fail to fight as saints now, we will almost certainly face unspeakably worse evils in the future. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
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