Vatican Chief Ecumenist laments: No Consensus even on Goal of Ecumenism!

They can’t even agree on the point of it all…

Vatican Chief Ecumenist laments:
No Consensus even on Goal of Ecumenism!

It’s that time of the year again: From Jan. 18-25, the Vatican II Church observes the ecumenical “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity”, the Novus Ordo replacement of the former Chair of Unity Octave, first introduced by Pope St. Pius X in 1908. Earlier this month, the Vatican issued a lengthy document for the observance of this week and the entire year (on account of it being the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation), in which it called Martin Luther a “witness to the gospel” (see our critical coverage here).

While Francis is busy running around regurgitating ad nauseam the usual slogans about how ecumenism requires personal conversion so as to bring about reconciliation — as though this had anything to do with the doctrinal differences — the Vatican’s top ecumenical officer, “Cardinal” Kurt Koch, has candidly admitted that the whole circus is suffering from one pesky little problem: The different dialogue partners cannot agree on what the goal of ecumenism is. Minor detail!

On January 10, 2017, the Swiss “cardinal” spoke at a conference of the “Catholic” Theological Faculty of Paderborn, Germany. The theological disaster of a lecture was entitled, “In praise of diversity: Are Christian churches losing sight of unity?” While no complete transcript of the talk is available, it can be viewed in full as a video recording, and the academy’s web site has provided a written summary, which we have translated here:

“If the different ecumenical partners do not share a common goal, each of them having very different ideas about what Church unity consists of, then there is a great danger of going off into different directions, only to have to discover later on that one has possibly moved even further apart”, the Roman curial cardinal said. This danger has not diminished by any means in the past decades. So far, there has not been achieved any really viable consensus as to the goal of the ecumenical movement, Koch pointed out. Moreover, he added, some partial agreements [achieved] in the past are once again being called into question to an extent.

In Cardinal Koch’s view, the difficulty is exacerbated by the fact “that the ecumenical quest for the unity of the Church is strongly opposed by the pluralistic and relativistic spirit of the age, which is largely taken for granted today.” This spirit of the age [Zeitgeist], he said, can also be detected in the ecumenical mentality of the present, specifically in “an ecclesiological pluralism which has become plausible [to many], according to which the plurality and diversity of churches is considered a positive reality, and any quest for ecclesial unity is looked upon with suspicion.”

According to Koch, a decisive reason for the lack of a common and truly viable goal of the Christian denominations in ecumenism is the fact that “each church and ecclesial community has its own specific ideas about what church and church unity mean, and each strives to turn its denomination-specific concept into the goal of ecumenism”, Cardinal Koch explained. There are basically as many ideas about the goal of ecumenism as there are denominational ecclesiologies, he added. “This means that the lack of agreement about the goal of the ecumenical movement is essentially rooted in the fact that an ecumenical understanding about the nature of the churches [sic] and church unity is largely wanting.”

“The fact that the churches which have emerged from the Reformation have developed meanwhile into a ‘pluriverse’ [sic] that is virtually impossible to survey” is a further reason why there are so many ideas about the goal of ecumenism and why attempts at [ecclesial] unity have become more and more cautious, Cardinal Koch said. The recent appearances of new ecumenical dialogue partners confirm this phenomenon, according to Koch. “Ecumenical encounters today occur not only between the great historical churches but also, more and more, with the so-called free [independent] churches. The fast numerical increase of evangelical and charismatic groups and especially the breathtaking growth of pentecostal communities and movements, are of particular significance.”

Even if “the worldwide geography of Christendom has changed profoundly and the ecumenical situation has become more confusing and by no means any easier”, the question of [achieving] unity among Christian denominations nevertheless imposes itself, Cardinal Koch explained. “Without the search for unity, the Christian faith would abandon itself.” A preliminary ecumenical unity today could consist of “getting to know in depth the different Christian communities with their traditions, to understand them and to live from them. No church is so poor that it could not make a distinctive contribution to the greater Christian community. Yet no church is so rich that it would not need to be enriched by other churches, convinced that what the Holy Spirit has sown in other Christian churches is to be accepted as a gift which is also meant for ourselves.”

In order to figure out how to understand [the concept of] ecumenical unity, the description of the early church in Jerusalem in the Acts of the Apostles offers a helpful definition, Cardinal Koch said. There the unity of the Church is understood “as a visible unity in faith, in the sacraments, and in communal life with its appointed witnesses and thus also with its ecclesial ministries.” Ecumenical responsibility consists of “passionately working for the restoration of this communion so that all are of one mind, united in charity, enjoying unanimity and harmony. Because Christ so desires this communion, we have every reason to proceed on this ecumenical journey with serene passion and in passionate serenity”, Koch explained.

(“Lob der Vielfalt. Gerät den christlichen Kirchen die Einheit aus dem Blick?”, Theologische Fakultät Paderborn; our translation.)

As you may have noticed already, this thing is riddled with insufferable theological errors. We will look at those in a minute, but first let’s note that what Koch says here is really quite astounding: He admits that the most basic reason for the existence of the ecumenical movement — its very goal or purpose — is not clearly defined and is not agreed upon because viewed differently by, essentially, every participating sect! This is an admission of staggering proportions because it shows what an absolute failure and farce the entire ecumenical movement really is. If they cannot even agree on why they’re talking to each other to begin with, how could they ever come to an agreement on anything else?

The Novus Ordo Sect has repeatedly made clear that in their view, ecumenism is not about converting non-Catholics to Catholicism. In fact, they have positively excluded any such possibility, talking instead about “common witness”, a “common faith”, and “common mission” to preach the Gospel, as though heretics possessed the true Gospel (cf. Gal 1:8-9; 2 Jn 9) and as though they had any mission from God: “If any one saith, … that those who have neither been rightly ordained, nor sent, by ecclesiastical and canonical power, but come from elsewhere, are lawful ministers of the word and of the sacraments; let him be anathema” (Council of Trent, Session 23, Canon 7).

The doctrinal foundations for these heretical and erroneous ideas were laid by the infernal Second Vatican Council, promulgated by “Pope” Paul VI, according to which “elements” of the Catholic Church can also exist in other religions, and which claims that God uses these false religions as “means of salvation”:

• Vatican II’s False “Elements” Ecclesiology
• Vatican II on False Religions as Means of Salvation
• Vatican II Debate: Bp. Donald Sanborn vs. Dr. Robert Fastiggi

As long as the dogma was being kept intact that the Catholic Church is the only true Church to which all must convert, existing only as a single visible Body and not “in elements” anywhere, no participation in the ecumenical movement would have been possible for the Vatican II religion. Therefore, the dogma had to go. Of course Vatican II had to find a way to dispose of the hated dogma while appearing to uphold it. To this end, the false idea was introduced that the true Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church but also exists outside the Catholic Church in elements. This made ecumenism possible, and nothing has been the same since.

It is not difficult to see, especially with hindsight, how incompatible Vatican II ecclesiology is with Catholic ecclesiology. Until the Modernist takeover in 1958, the Church’s anti-ecumenical teaching on religious unity was simple, clear, and consistent, as the following magisterial documents demonstrate:

• Pope Pius IX, Holy Office Letter to English Bishops on Christian Unity (1864)
• Pope Pius IX, Holy Office Instruction to Anglican Puseyites on True Religious Unity (1865)
• Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes (1868)
• Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae (1894)
• Pope Leo XIII, Apostolic Letter to Archbishop Francis Satolli (1895)
• Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical  Satis Cognitum (1896)
• Pope St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Our Apostolic Mandate (1910)
• Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos (1928)
• Pope Pius XII, Canonical Warning Cum Compertum on Attending Ecumenical Gatherings (1948)
• Pope Pius XII, Instruction De Motione Oecumenica on the Ecumenical Movement (1949)

Since the Second Vatican Council, the true Catholic teaching has been jettisoned, and we have heard nothing but endless drivel about “dialogue”, “common witness”, “mutual understanding”, etc., ad nauseam, all of which has gradually and slyly subverted the traditional teaching on the unicity of the Catholic Church and her necessity for salvation.

To see how the Novus Ordo Sect understands its own ecumenism, consider, for example, what “Pope” Benedict XVI — who attended Vatican II as Fr. Joseph Ratzinger — said in 2009:

…[W]e must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith – ecumenism – is part of the supreme priority.

(Antipope Benedict XVI, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church concerning the Remission of the Excommunication of the Four Bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre”, March 10, 2009; underlining added.)

In 2005, the same Benedict XVI had already made clear that “what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history” was out of the question; and in his 2012 Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia, “Pope” Ratzinger frankly admitted that “dialogue does not aim at conversion, but at better mutual understanding” — before seeking refuge behind the ubiquitous Modernist “but” and then losing himself in gobbledygook about “drawing closer to the truth” while rushing to assure his audience that Catholics “do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us” — which can conveniently be interpreted in a hundred different ways, which is precisely what it is designed to do.

Until Francis, there was perhaps no clearer repudiation of the traditional Catholic position than in 1993, when the so-called Balamand Declaration was released, which rejected “the outdated ecclesiology of return to the Catholic Church” (“Uniatism, method of union of the past, and the present search for full communion”, n. 30). This declaration was the work of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, and it was referred to approvingly by “Pope” John Paul II in his 1995 manifesto on ecumenism, the encyclical Ut Unum Sint (n. 60).

Still, Francis has eclipsed everything that went before him. Just last year he vividly reinforced the Modernist rejection of the traditional Catholic position when he claimed that converting a non-Catholic to Catholicism is a “grave sin against ecumenism”. One could not express greater opposition to the traditional Catholic teaching that the Catholic Church alone is the true Church of Jesus Christ — for which reason all must convert to her for salvation — than by labeling it a “grave sin” to seek to bring people into this Church. To say that the Divine Commission (see Mt 28:19-20) is in fact a mortal sin, is a most damnable blasphemy!

On June 5, 1960, “Pope” John XXIII instituted what was then called the “Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity” in preparation for Vatican II. Six years later, Paul VI made this secretariat into a permanent part of the Roman Curia. In 1988, “Pope” John Paul II renamed it into the “Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity”, the name it retains to this day. What many people do not know — and what is indeed most bizarre — is that this “Pontifical Council” includes what it calls the “Commission of the Holy See for Religious Relations with the Jews”. It appears that for the Novus Ordo Church the Talmudic Jews are considered “Christians” — which, of course, would match their heretical mantra that the Jews are Catholics’ “elder brothers in the faith of Abraham”, a dangerous illusion that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself refuted when He confounded the Pharisees (see Jn 8:37-47; cf. Gal 3:16,29; Rom 4:13).

Today, “Cardinal” Koch is the chief ecumenist in the Vatican. He is the president of that wretched “Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.” In this role, he was preceded by the apostate “Cardinal” Walter Kasper and by “Cardinals” Edward Cassidy, Johannes Willebrands, and Augustin Bea.

Just the other day, “Pope” Francis congratulated Koch for an article he had written for Osservatore Romano, in which he says that Martin Luther would have “found his own council” in Vatican II, an assertion with which we cannot disagree. In fact, this dovetails perfectly with what “Bp.” Rudolf Voderholzer said in 2016, namely, that “not even Martin Luther could have imagined a better Pope than Benedict XVI”; for Benedict XVI, as Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, was one of the theological masterminds of the council, who once complained that the conciliar document Gaudium et Spes did not rely enough on the thought of Martin Luther.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the Vatican will honor the founder of Protestantism with a special stamp commemorating the Protestant Reformation later this year. After all, they now consider Luther a “witness to the Gospel”, something Pope Leo X was clearly not aware of. You just can’t make it up.

Anyway, let’s finally examine some of the salient points made by “Cardinal” Koch in his speech given in Paderborn.

So the Vatican’s top ecumenist laments “an ecclesiological pluralism which has become plausible [to many], according to which the plurality and diversity of churches is considered a positive reality, and any quest for ecclesial unity is looked upon with suspicion.” A few observations need to be made here: First, the multitude of Protestant sects is simply the natural consequence of the false principle that makes each individual believer the final authority in matters of faith and morals. What each Protestant believes is ultimately determined by nothing more than his own personal opinion of what the Bible teaches. Secondly, whether there be 10,000 Protestant denominations or only a single one (say, the Lutheran), it is still the same false principle that is at work in Protestantism: private interpretation of Scripture (and private judgment as to what constitutes Scripture in the first place) as the ultimate authority in matters of faith and morals. The number of different denominations is merely accidental to the problem — it makes, so to speak, a difference only in degree, not in kind. Thirdly, it is astounding that Koch would lament an ecclesiological pluralism, because the Vatican II Sect has at other times praised precisely that, nay, even worse, has praised a pluralism not just among “Christian” sects but among all religions: In a sermon delivered during the Vatican’s Good Friday liturgy in 2002, the preacher of the “papal” household (who still retains this role to this very day and preaches also to Francis), Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., blasphemously claimed that false religions “are not merely tolerated by God … but positively willed by Him as an expression of the inexhaustible richness of His grace and His will for everyone to be saved” (Sermon of March 29, 2002; English taken from here). Apparently Mr. Koch needs to have a chat with the Capuchin preacher, who will assure him that the diversity of Protestant churches is somehow an expression of divine goodness and grace!

It’s really funny but back in the days before Vatican II, when Pius XII was still Pope, there was no question at all as to what the goal was of any Catholic “ecumenical” endeavors: the conversion of the Protestants to Catholicism. The only way unity could be achieved was by ensuring that our erring brethren would abandon their schism and their heresies and return to the already-perfectly-unified fold of Christ. Hence in 1949, an instruction issued by the Holy Office, of which the Pope is the head, spoke clearly of “the aim of reconciling dissident Christians to the Catholic Church.” At the same time, it warned against false principles that might underlie this noble intention, and it urged caution against certain dangers associated with it:

As regards the manner and method of proceeding in this work [of converting non-Catholics], the Bishops themselves will make regulations as to what is to be done and what is to be avoided, and shall see that these are observed by all. They shall also be on guard lest, on the false pretext that more attention should be paid to the points on which we agree than to those on which we differ, a dangerous indifferentism be encouraged, especially among persons whose training in theology is not deep and whose practice of their faith is not very strong. For care must be taken lest, in the so-called “irenic” spirit of today, through comparative study and the vain desire for a progressively closer mutual approach among the various professions of faith, Catholic doctrine — either in its dogmas or in the truths which are connected with them — be so conformed or in a way adapted to the doctrines of dissident sects, that the purity of Catholic doctrine be impaired, or its genuine and certain meaning be obscured.

Also they must restrain that dangerous manner of speaking which generates false opinions and fallacious hopes incapable of realization; for example, to the effect that the teachings of the Encyclicals of the Roman Pontiffs on the return of dissidents to the Church, on the constitution of the Church, on the Mystical Body of Christ, should not be given too much importance seeing that they are not all matters of faith, or, what is worse, that in matters of dogma even the Catholic Church has not yet attained the fullness of Christ, but can still be perfected from outside. They shall take particular care and shall firmly insist that, in going over the history of the Reformation and the Reformers the defects of Catholics be not so exaggerated and the faults of the Reformers be so dissimulated, or that things which are rather accidental be not so emphasized, that what is most essential, namely the defection from the Catholic faith, be scarcely any longer seen or felt. Finally, they shall take precautions lest, through an excessive and false external activity, or through imprudence and an excited manner of proceeding, the end in view be rather harmed than served.

Therefore the whole and entire Catholic doctrine is to be presented and explained: by no means is it permitted to pass over in silence or to veil in ambiguous terms the Catholic truth regarding the nature and way of justification, the constitution of the Church, the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ. It should be made clear to them that, in returning to the Church, they will lose nothing of that good which by the grace of God has hitherto been implanted in them, but that it will rather be supplemented and completed by their return. However, one should not speak of this in such a way that they will imagine that in returning to the Church they are bringing to it something substantial which it has hitherto lacked. It will be necessary to say these things clearly and openly, first because it is the truth that they themselves are seeking, and moreover because outside the truth no true union can ever be attained.

(Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, Instruction De Motione Oecumenica, Dec. 20, 1949; underlining added; italics removed.)

How does “Cardinal” Koch’s drivel stack up against these clear and Catholic words of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII? The problem of different sects having different ideas about what unity means would not even exist if the Vatican II Sect hadn’t abandoned the teaching of Pius XII and his predecessors on these questions. For then there would only be a question of bringing Protestants into the Catholic Church, not of bringing Protestants and Catholics into some sort of different and false, yet-to-be-found notion of “unity”.

In his Paderborn speech, Koch makes this bizarre and probably heretical remark: “Without the search for unity, the Christian faith would abandon itself.” The truth is, of course, that the Catholic Church does not “search” for unity because she already possesses it perfectly. If one were to interpret Koch to mean that the Catholic Church would abandon her divine mission if she did not seek the conversion of non-Catholics to her fold, then this would be entirely correct, but of course this cannot be what Koch means, since he explicitly rejects this notion and instead hopes to attain some sort of “higher unity” with Protestants that positively excludes their conversion to Catholicism.

Koch’s subsequent recommendation that Catholics ought to be “getting to know in depth the different Christian communities with their traditions, to understand them and to live from them” is positively scandalous and clearly enourages heresy, especially Indifferentism. It is anyone’s guess as to what he may actually mean when he says we are to “live from” the traditions of heretical sects, but it’s definitely nothing Catholic. His claim that the Catholic Church is not “so rich that it would not need to be enriched by other churches”, i.e. by heretical sects, would have to be qualified as heretical or at least proximate to heresy. In his beautiful encyclical letter on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, Pope Pius XII taught that the Church is “a perfect society of its kind” and “is far superior to all other human societies; it surpasses them as grace surpasses nature, as things immortal are above all those that perish” (Mystici Corporis, n. 63). His predecessor, Pope Benedict XV, had likewise taught that the Catholic Church was “endowed by her Divine Founder with all the requisites of a perfect society” (Apostolic Constitution Providentissima Mater, n. 1; in Edward N. Peters, ed., The 1917 or Pio-Benedictine Code of Canon Law [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2001], p. 21).

“A perfect society,” the Jesuit Fr. Joachim Salaverri notes in his manual on ecclesiology, “is one that has as its end the full and supreme good of men in its own order, and possesses sufficient means really or by right (de iure) in order to obtain its end…” (On the Church of Christ, n. 938; in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, vol. IB; some italics removed). Pope Leo XIII, in his monumental encyclical on the unity of the Church, taught as follows:

God indeed even made the Church a society far more perfect than any other. For the end for which the Church exists is as much higher than the end of other societies as divine grace is above nature, as immortal blessings are above the transitory things on the earth. Therefore the Church is a society divine in its origin, supernatural in its end and in means proximately adapted to the attainment of that end; but it is a human community inasmuch as it is composed of men. For this reason we find it called in Holy Writ by names indicating a perfect society. It is spoken of as the House of God, the city placed upon the mountain to which all nations must come. But it is also the fold presided over by one Shepherd, and into which all Christ’s sheep must betake themselves. Yea, it is called the kingdom which God has raised up and which will stand for ever. Finally it is the body of Christ – that is, of course, His mystical body, but a body living and duly organized and composed of many members; members indeed which have not all the same functions, but which, united one to the other, are kept bound together by the guidance and authority of the head.

(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum, n. 10; italics given.)

The truth that the Catholic Church is a perfect society is not merely a theological opinion or even a doctrine but is a truth that “is of Catholic faith [de fide Catholica], because it is proposed by the universal ordinary Magisterium as a truth to be held” (Salaverri, On the Church of Christ, n. 948; italics given). In short, the teaching is a dogma — it is infallible.

Now, to claim, as the ecumenist Koch does, that the Mystical Body of Christ does not in and of itself enjoy all richness and glory which her Divine Founder wanted her to possess, that instead it is in need of being “enriched” or “perfected” by human-diabolical sects external to her, is a heretical blasphemy so frightening that one trembles to mention it even only to refute it. In addition, there is absolutely nothing — nothing — which the Holy Ghost sows “in other Christian churches” that would pertain to them as churches. If anything, the Holy Ghost may sow seeds in individual good-willed souls that are unhappily caught up in those churches, but this only as a stepping stone to their eventual conversion to the true faith and abandonment of the false religion to which they currently adhere. In any case, this has nothing whatsoever to do with heretical sects “enriching” the Catholic Church.

Lastly, Mr. Koch invokes the early Church in Jerusalem as a model of unity, and of course there he dutifully omits to mention that the early Church, perfectly unified, was simply the Catholic Church, not some hodgepodge of various sects or “ecclesial elements” the Apostles found lying around somewhere. This communion, this perfect unity, then enjoyed by the early Church is still enjoyed today, in the exact same essential way (albeit obscured by the Vatican II Sect) by the Catholic Church, and hence there need be no “working for [its] restoration”, whether passionately or serenely.

It is clear that Kurt Koch may be a lot of things, but Roman Catholic is not one of them. The entire ecumenical project is doomed to failure because it is flawed in its core principle: If unity between the Catholic Church and the different Protestant denominations is to be achieved without a conversion of the Protestants to Catholicism, then any agreement on theological matters — whether it be on the nature of justification, the existence of purgatory, or the veneration of the saints, for example — will be entirely accidental because it will not have come about as a consequence of the divinely established authority of the true religion binding wills and consciences, thus producing unity (cf. Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum, nn. 6ff.). Rather, any consensus, even if unanimous and regardless of the number of doctrines to which it extends, will simply have come about through mere happenstance: All the parties involved will just so happen to agree, which would entail that just as such an agreement can come about today, by the same token it can disappear again tomorrow. The Novus Ordo ecumenists are apparently coming to realize this only now, with Koch lamenting that “some partial agreements [achieved] in the past are once again being called into question”. Welcome to the bitter consequences of false principles! We could have told you as much in 1960.

But, not to worry. In the ever-expanding mess of ecumenism, Francis & Friends have found that they are already united — sometimes, kind of, for a while. And so we find Francis announcing on occasion that by serving the poor and caring for the downtrodden, “as Christians we are no longer divided, but rather united on the journey toward full communion” (source), whatever that may mean concretely (nothing, of course, but it sounds good, and that’s why he says it). Another Bergoglian favorite in this respect is the so-called “ecumenism of blood”, in which Catholics and heretics are also alleged to find unity (source), which is heresy. This is not a concept Francis came up with, though — oh no, it was already endorsed over 20 years ago by “Saint” John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint (see nn. 47-48; 83-84).

For those who don’t buy into either of these concepts of ecumenical “unity”, however, the Vatican II Church still has other options: Heretics are said to be united with Catholics also by means of “mission and conversion” (source), although, of course, they do not specify precisely who was commissioned, by whom, and to what end. Then, preaching is one thing, but what is being preached? Not every “gospel” is actually the true one (see Gal 1:8-9; 2 Jn 9), and of course one can only convert to either Catholicism or Protestantism (or something else), but certainly not to both religions together. Lastly, we note that praying with heretics is now considered another wonderful way to be ecumenically united (source; cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, n. 6), when in fact this is exactly what the Church has always condemned, as, for example, in Canon 1258 of the Code of Canon Law and in the canonical warning Cum Compertum published by the Holy See on June 5, 1948, which, we might add, was issued to warn Catholics specifically against ecumenical gatherings. Such details!

In 1928, Pope Pius XI had already explicitly condemned the very idea that underlies Novus Ordo ecumenism, namely, that the unity of the Church is only an ideal that is yet to be realized:

And here it seems opportune to expound and to refute a certain false opinion, on which this whole question, as well as that complex movement by which non-Catholics seek to bring about the union of the Christian churches depends. For authors who favor this view are accustomed, times almost without number, to bring forward these words of Christ: “That they all may be one…. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd” [Jn 17:21; 10:16], with this signification however: that Christ Jesus merely expressed a desire and prayer, which still lacks its fulfillment.

(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos, n. 7)

The Catholic Church alone is the true Church, the one founded by Christ (see Mt 16:18). Any other “churches” or “ecclesial communities” are sects, and although they may be folds with their own shepherds, they are false folds with false shepherds, as much as their religion is a false Christianity, a false gospel. Hence in the Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the same Pope Pius XI puts on our lips the desire that all who have abandoned the true Church will return to her: “Be Thou King of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions [=heretics], or whom discord keeps aloof [=schismatics], and call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith, so that there may be but one flock and one Shepherd”. There already is only one true flock and Shepherd, but there are plenty of false ones still. Vatican II ecumenism tries to combine the true flock and the false flocks into one “big-tent flock”, where everyone has “transcended” those pesky differences in a “reconciled diversity”. The true Catholic Church, on the other hand, seeks to eliminate the false flocks by converting all their hapless members to the one and only true flock, for that is her divine mission (see Mt 28:19-20).

What a difference between the Catholic position on ecumenism and the Novus Ordo/Vatican II position! As we have seen, the difference is the result of two essentially distinct ecclesiologies. Heretics and schismatics do not “break” the unity of the Body of Christ by their heresy or schism, they simply remove themselves from this perfect unity, which the Body of Christ possesses necessarily and by divine constitution.

After over 50 years of Vatican II ecumenism, the rotten fruits are visible to all. After decades of endless “dialogue”, the top Vatican ecumenist is now forced to admit that it is worse than ever: They cannot even agree on what the goal of the whole circus even is. That’s how bad it is.

Let this sink in for a while: After attempting for 50+ years to achieve unity, they must now concede that they do not even have unity on the very concept of unity. They disagree about what all the “dialogue” was even so much as supposed to accomplish. They can’t agree on why they’re even talking to each other to begin with. So, as far as their goal is concerned, not only have they not “gotten there” yet, nor do they know how to get there… they don’t even know what the “there” is! They cannot even agree on where they’re going! But somehow they are all eagerly participating in the journey. This is madness.

Vatican II ecumenism has been a colossal failure, and this is not surprising because it was doomed from the get-go, being based on heretical notions about the nature of the Church, as demonstrated in this post.

By the way, the fruits of the Vatican’s efforts toward ecumenical “unity” were glaringly on display on October 31 of last year, when “Pope” Francis traveled to Sweden and signed a joint ecumenical statement with a Lutheran sect that endorses homosexuality, abortion, contraception, and adultery, has female clergy, and is eager to build “tables where we can share the bread and the wine”. Clearly, they’ve come a long way since 1960!

We will conclude this post by holding up a mirror to one of the most popular falsehoods spread in favor of ecumenism, namely, the claim that what unites Catholics and heretics is just so much more than what divides them:

Image sources: Wikimedia Commons (Andreas Faessler; cropped) / own creation with internet photo
Licenses: CC BY-SA 4.0 / fair use