How did we get to this point at which sincere Protestants offer us their condolences for the Francis scandal, while wayward Catholics — including the most powerful bishops and cardinals — denounce us for rejecting obvious heresies? St. Paul’s words about itching ears give us some guidance in evaluating this question:

“Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desire, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:2-4)

There is a perpetual battle between two sides: on the side of God are sound doctrine and truth; and on the side of Satan are fables and the desires of those with itching ears. It is clear that there will always be those who choose the wrong side, as evidenced by the fact that St. Paul offered this guidance for all Catholics who would engage in the perpetual battle. However, we also know that there will be times when many (perhaps most) Catholics choose the wrong side: “for there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine.”

For good reason, Henry Sire applied St. Paul’s warning to the post-Conciliar period in his 2015 book, Phoenix from the Ashes: The Making, Unmaking, and Restoration of Catholic Tradition:

“There are those who are unable to believe that the Church could have strayed as grievously as the traditionalist indictment argues, and they feel their position guaranteed by the assurances given by Christian teaching of the indefectibility of the Church. But the same teaching also contains grave warnings of afflictions that will threaten it. St. Paul writes, ‘Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof, ever learning and never attaining to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth, men corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith. For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears’ (2 Timothy 3:1 to 4:3). Those who have lived through the last fifty years can see exactly what he meant. We also have Christ’s prophecy of a time when there shall come false prophets ‘to seduce (if it were possible) even the elect’ (Mark 13:22).”

This assessment of the post-Conciliar period now appears more accurate than ever. As Sire wrote, some Catholics imagine that the Traditional Catholic indictment of the current crisis would run afoul of the promises surrounding the Church’s indefectibility — but these same promises of indefectibility are accompanied by warnings that the Church will indeed face assaults like those we see today.

Paul VI told us that the attention of his Council was “absorbed by the discovery of human needs.” By this, he obviously meant that the Council moved in the direction of the “religion of man who makes himself God.”

Given that we have apparently reached the point about which St. Paul warned, how did it happen, and what can we do about it? If Sire was correct in dating the beginning of this calamity to the end of the Second Vatican Council, then it is worth considering that John XXIII opened the Council with an address that thoroughly repudiated the key ideas of Pius XII’s Humani Generis, which exhorted the shepherds to maintain sound doctrine in the face of those who taught fables:

• Whereas Pius XII had attempted to silence and discipline Modernists, John XXIII appointed those same Modernists as Council experts.
• Whereas Pius XII had condemned errors, John XXIII announced that the Council would not condemn errors.
• Whereas Pius XII had warned against minimizing Church teaching for the sake of promoting unity among Christian religions, John XXIII announced that the Council would seek unity by reformulating doctrine to meet modern needs.

On its face, this looks like a movement away from truth and sound doctrine, toward fables and the desires of those with itching ears. If we jump forward to the Council’s closing address, we can see that Paul VI confirmed that the Council did indeed move in that direction:

“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 old story of the Samaritan has been the model of the spirituality of the council. A feeling of boundless sympathy has permeated the whole of it. 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.”

Paul VI described secular humanism in terms that highlighted its intrinsic opposition to Catholicism: “its horrible anti-clerical reality; and “the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God.” If, as Paul VI said, there was no battle between these religions, was it because secular humanism adapted itself to Catholicism? No, Paul VI told us that the attention of his Council was “absorbed by the discovery of human needs.” By this, he obviously meant that the Council moved in the direction of the “religion of man who makes himself God.”

So, if we simply consider the “bookends of the Council” provided by John XXIII and Paul VI, we have a strong indication that the Council did indeed herald the period in which men would no longer endure sound doctrine. As discussed in a previous article, we can also recognize that every aspect of the post-Vatican II revolution has served to bolster the “sinful old man” in us. In other words, we have seen both the realization of St. Paul’s warning that men would heap to themselves teachers to please their itching ears, as well as the fruits of Paul VI’s boast that the Council made peace with the man-focused secular humanism that everyone expected the Church to oppose.

The Church and its shepherds must therefore always reprove, rebuke, and exhort — otherwise, those with itching ears will find teachers to indulge their anti-Catholic desires.

Still, many otherwise faithful Catholics insist that we should not find fault with Vatican II because it did not expressly promote unambiguously heretical propositions. To understand why this is not a Catholic way in which to judge the Council documents, we can consider St. John Chrysostom’s words about St. Paul’s exhortation to “preach the word” faithfully — here he describes the relationship between reproving, rebuking, and exhorting:

“‘Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.’ What means ‘in season, out of season?’ That is, have not any limited season: let it always be your season, not only in peace and security, and when sitting in the Church. Whether thou be in danger, in prison, in chains, or going to your death, at that very time reprove. Withhold not rebuke, for reproof is then most seasonable, when your rebuke will be most successful, when the reality is proved. ‘Exhort,’ he says. After the manner of physicians, having shown the wound, he gives the incision, he applies the plaster. For if you omit either of these, the other becomes useless. If you rebuke without convicting, you will seem to be rash, and no one will tolerate it, but after the matter is proved, he will submit to rebuke: before, he will be headstrong. And if you convict and rebuke, but vehemently, and do not apply exhortation, all your labor will be lost. For conviction is intolerable in itself if consolation be not mingled with it. As if incision, though salutary in itself, have not plenty of lenitives to assuage the pain, the patient cannot endure cutting and hacking, so it is in this matter.

The Church and its shepherds must therefore always reprove, rebuke, and exhort — otherwise, those with itching ears will find teachers to indulge their anti-Catholic desires. However, as we saw with the opening address of John XXIII and closing address of Paul VI, the Council avoided reproving, rebuking, and exhorting with respect to anti-Catholic errors. Moreover, the Council documents were silent (or equivocal) on precisely those matters about which the Church must always speak most clearly.

And although it is by no means an exhaustive commentary on the ways in which the Council documents neglected to teach clearly, it is worth considering the first-hand account of Oscar Cullmann, a Protestant observer at the Council who worked closely with both Augustin Bea and Yves Congar:

“[T]he significant thing at this Council is exactly that it has succeeded to renew Catholicism, as has hardly ever been the case in its long history; it has even succeeded in moderating the rigidity of the dogmas without altering the smallest things in wording. This has become possible in two ways. On the one hand, an opposite thesis, so to say, in which the will for renewal comes to expression has been placed alongside the unaltered text of the old dogma. On the other hand, a shifting inside of the kernel of the established Catholic teaching which is established by the dogma is undertaken due to the principle of renewal in such a way that an order of preference is set forth among the truths which are expressed in the dogmas, and greater meaning is assigned to one than to another.” (Oscar Cullmann, Vatican Council II: The New Direction, p. 68)

He knew that this is the way in which the Council documents operated because he worked with those who drafted them and clearly understood the goal of “moderating the rigidity of dogmas” that offended non-Catholics. For present purposes, his words should make it sufficiently clear that the Council documents themselves did indeed deviate from the Church’s role of reproving, rebuking, and exhorting.

We must persevere, without fear of those who persecute us, and confidently preach and defend God’s unadulterated truth.

For sixty years, the Liberal and Modernist false-shepherds have taken this neutered approach to the Faith as their starting point, layering in anti-Catholic ideas as useful to satisfy itching ears. If we want to know what sixty years of this looks like, we can simply look to the Vatican’s recent document related to the blessing of same-sex unions, Fiducia Supplicans. Despite every indication that the document offers an “innovative” avenue to offer blessings of same-sex unions, its defenders have thoroughly demonstrated that their itching ears have no patience for truth, sound doctrine, or even common sense. Those with itching ears tell us that the only way for God to save the souls of poor same-sex couples is to bless their sinful union — never mind the reality that the individuals in question could act like every other Catholic seeking to overcome sinful inclinations and (a) go to Confession and try to amend their lives, and/or (b) seek a blessing that does not involve presenting themselves as a couple.

At some point — and perhaps we have already reached it — the itching ears will have another desire that demands satisfaction: anyone who tries to tell them that they should follow sound doctrine must be banished. Rigid and backward Traditional Catholics must be silenced, or eliminated, because they hatefully repeat the words of Jesus, St. Paul, and all the saints. In his commentary on St. Paul’s passage about itching ears, St. John Chrysostom emphasized that this will happen at some point:

“‘They shall heap to themselves teachers,’ he says, ‘having itching ears.’ Seeking for such as speak to gratify and delight their hearers. ‘And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables.’ This he foretells, not as willing to throw him into despair, but to prepare him to bear it firmly, when it shall happen. As Christ also did in saying, ‘They will deliver you up, and they will scourge you, and bring you before the synagogues, for My name's sake.’ [Matthew 10:17] And this blessed man elsewhere says, ‘For I know this, that after my departures shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.’ [511 xx. 29] But this he said that they might watch, and duly use the present opportunity.”

It is fitting that St. John Chrysostom links St. Paul’s words to those of Jesus, and we can heed Our Lord’s words from this same exhortation:

“And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. . . .Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops.” (Matthew 10: 22, 26-27)

We must persevere, without fear of those who persecute us, and confidently preach and defend God’s unadulterated truth. Today, the greatest enemies of the Church still exploit the insidious work of Vatican II to lead souls to hell, so we must absolutely insist on the antidote that God gave us, through St. Paul: 

“Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.”

This is the way to best serve God, and it is the primary way to directly counteract the growing itching ear syndrome. Opposing the ways in which Vatican II undermines sound doctrine and promotes anti-Catholic fables is not a “Trad” flaw, but a Catholic duty.  Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

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