Pope Gregory XVI condemns Innovators who would “Renew” the Church

Vatican II condemned in 1833…

Pope Gregory XVI condemns Innovators who would “Renew” the Church

The ideas of the Vatican II revolution weren’t new in the 1960s. In the post-Reformation period, various errors along the lines of Liberalism and Modernism had already infected sundry innovators who were trying to introduce these novelties into the Church. The errors manifested themselves in revolutionary movements to bring the Church “up to date”, introducing vernacular tongues into the sacred liturgy, changing the Mass to correspond more to the demands of modern man, adapting Church discipline to modernity, etc.

The Holy See, of course, always sternly and competently condemned these errors and defended the Immaculate Bride of Christ from the snares of the innovators. One of the greatest documents defending the Church against the “renewal” proposed by the Liberals of the time is the encyclical Quo Graviora of Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846), published in 1833, which we highly recommend you read in full, but from which we shall provide only a brief excerpt for purposes of this post.

The Holy Father instructed his bishops as follows:

You know, venerable brothers, on what erroneous principles the abovementioned men and their followers depend and where that desire which moves them to begin effecting a revolution in the Church has its origin. We do not think it superfluous to clarify many of those things and to explain them here. A false idea has for a long time grown stronger and spread widely through these regions. This idea is spread by an impious and absurd system of indifference toward religious matters which claims that the Christian religion can become perfect in time. While the patrons of such a false idea are afraid to adapt the shaky possibility of perfection to the truths of faith, they establish it in the external administration and discipline of the Church. Moreover, in order to bring about faith in their error, they wrongfully and deceitfully usurp the authority of Catholic theologians. These theologians propound here and there a distinction between the teaching and the discipline of the Church which underlies this change, that it will always stand firm and never be harmed by any alteration. Once this is established, they state categorically that there are many things in the discipline of the Church in the present day, in its government, and in the form of its external worship which are not suited to the character of our time. These things, they say, should be changed, as they are harmful for the growth and prosperity of the Catholic religion, before the teaching of faith and morals suffers any harm from it. Therefore, showing a zeal for religion and showing themselves as an example of piety, they force reforms, conceive of changes, and pretend to renew the Church.

Truly such reformers use these principles. In addition, they disclose and propose them in many pamphlets…. While these men were shamefully straying in their thoughts, they proposed to fall upon the errors condemned by the Church in proposition 78 of the constitution Auctorem fidei (published by Our predecessor, Pius VI on August 28, 1794). They also attacked the pure doctrine which they say they want to keep safe and sound; either they do not understand the situation or craftily pretend not to understand it. While they contend that the entire exterior form of the Church can be changed indiscriminately, do they not subject to change even those items of discipline which have their basis in divine law and which are linked with the doctrine of faith in a close bond? Does not the law of the believer thus produce the law of the doer? Moreover, do they not try to make the Church human by taking away from the infallible and divine authority, by which divine will it is governed? And does it not produce the same effect to think that the present discipline of the Church rests on failures, obscurities, and other inconveniences of this kind? And to feign that this discipline contains many things which are not useless but which are against the safety of the Catholic religion? Why is it that private individuals appropriate for themselves the right which is proper only for the pope?

(Pope Gregory XVI, Encyclical Quo Graviora, nn. 4-5; underlining added.)

The underlined portions are typical errors spread by the Vatican II religion today and/or adhered to by a great number of people who believe themselves to be Roman Catholics. Yet, Holy Mother Church had long and frequently condemned these things as incompatible with and injurious to the true Faith. So much for that “hermeneutic of continuity”!

For example, in 1907, Pope Saint Pius X, quoting his predecessor Leo XIII, warned: “It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new social vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilization, and many other things of the same kind” (Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi, n. 55; underlining added). Is this not essentially a condemnation of the entire Vatican II religion in its very foundations?

Many people do not realize that a lot of the Church’s disciplines and laws are so closely bound up with divine revelation and the truths of the Faith that to change them would be tantamount to changing the Faith itself. This is why Pope Gregory speaks of the “law of the believer” producing “the law of the doer.” It is natural for a man to act as he believes, and to believe as he acts. Should there temporarily be a difference between the two, resulting in what is today often called “cognitive dissonance”, it will resolve itself before long, either by the person changing what he believes to agree with his actions, or by changing his actions to agree with his beliefs.

This is where the New Church has been so successful in destroying the true Faith in millions upon millions: They have changed the disciplines (for example, and most especially, the Holy Mass) to agree with the New Faith, and by making people act in accordance with the new beliefs, they have ensured that they will, before long, also change what they believe, gradually and without even so much as noticing it.

Perfect cases in point: Mass facing the people. Communion in the hand. Reducing the Holy Mass from the August Sacrifice of the Altar to a communal meal. Talking and dancing in church. Absurd clown liturgies. Using churches for profane events. Marriage “annulments” handed out so lightly and numerously that they are now the de facto “Catholic” equivalent to secular divorce, having harmed thousands of families, esp. children. And so forth. The list is endless.

Who today in the Vatican II Church is still a Catholic in what he believes and professes? The message the changes since Vatican II have been sending is essentially: God is not to be taken seriously; the Catholic Church is not to be taken seriously. Everything changes with the times, including religious things. And that’s precisely the message that people understood, and they imbibed it deeply and acted accordingly.

In short, the Novus Ordo Church has made itself irrelevant, and that is exactly what it is today and why no one in the secular world really takes it seriously. All the crocodile tears now being shed about “abuses” and desired “continuity” with the past and lost influence with the secular governments of the world, are not going to change the fact that this Vatican II Revolution was begun by and imposed from the top. Never forget this. It all began with Angelo Roncalli, “Pope” John XXIII. And it went downhill from there.

All of this was no accident, however; it was by design. It had been planned by those whom the true Popes had always warned us about as conspiring against the very Body of Christ: the Freemasons. Is it any wonder that ever since the beginning of the Vatican II Church, Freemasonry was no longer considered a threat to the church?

For a clearer picture, be sure to read the 1993 essay “Freemasons and the Conciliar Church” (PDF), made available exclusively on this web site with the gracious permission of the author. Also, see our 2013 post “Freemasons Support ‘Pope’ Francis” for additional information.

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Image source: Wikimedia Commons
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