Vatican Prelate accidentally admits Vatican II Ecclesiology denies Unity of the Church

“Through [ecumenical] martyrdom, the Church is already one”…

Vatican Prelate accidentally admits Vatican II Ecclesiology denies Unity of the Church

‘Abp.’ Fabio Fabene (b. 1959) is the Vatican’s Secretary of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. In that role, he was interviewed recently by Rome Reports regarding Jorge Bergoglio’s recent establishment of the ‘Commission of the New Martyrs – Witnesses of the Faith’, which is “a working group at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to draw up a catalogue of all Christians – not only Catholics – who have shed their blood to confess Christ in the last quarter of a century” (Vatican News).

Bergoglio’s ‘ecumenical martyrdom’ or ‘ecumenism of blood’ heresy has been a topic on this blog a few times before, and there is no need to repeat all the evidence against it here:

In this post, we will look at the comments ‘Abp.’ Fabene made in his brief interview with Rome Reports because they contain a tacit admission that the magisterial teaching of the Vatican II Church with regard to the nature of the Church differs substantially (that is, in essence) from the traditional Roman Catholic teaching before Vatican II. Not that we needed confirmation of that, but it doesn’t hurt.

Here is the video clip in which Fabene’s comments appear:

Fabene said verbatim: “There are witnesses of the faith and new martyrs in all denominations. It is what the Pope calls the ecumenism of blood, that is, through the witness of faith, through martyrdom the Church is already united. The Church is already one. Precisely by virtue of the witness of our Christian brothers and sisters” (source).

The fact that Fabene speaks of “the faith” being had by “Christians” of “all denominations” — as if Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants believed in the same religion — is wholly absurd, but in this post we will focus on what he says about the Church’s unity. He claims that the Church is “already one” in the shared dying for the name of Christ regardless of belief or religious affiliation (the only condition being that it must somehow be “Christian”). But this is heretical on multiple grounds.

First, because an ecumenical martyrdom has been infallibly condemned by the Council of Florence (see Denz. 714), but also because the implication is that the Church founded by Jesus Christ does not possess unity as part of her very essence, that she is not already one per se. Fabene, as a follower of Francis and the other five false popes before him, believes that ecclesiastical unity is something still to be achieved, something that comes to the Church from the outside and is realized per accidens (by circumstance) in ‘ecumenical martyrdoms’, for example, in which we can catch a glimpse of the sought-after ecclesial unity actualized for a brief moment.

The pre-Vatican II papal magisterium had condemned such false concepts of religious unity again and again, and had ruled them out definitively as contrary to that unity with which Christ endowed His Church as an essential property, one she cannot lose. Here are but a few examples of the traditional Catholic doctrine that totally blasts the false Vatican II ecclesiology to smithereens:

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.

We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: ‘Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.’ [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: ‘Feed my sheep‘ [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.’

(Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctam; italics given; underlining added.)

…[A]ll groups entirely separated from external and visible communion with and obedience to the Roman Pontiff cannot be the Church of Christ, nor in any way whatsoever can they belong to the Church of Christ, namely, to that Church, which, in the Creed after the commendation of the Trinity, is proposed to be believed as the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, [and] the Catholic Church….

(Pope Pius IX, Holy Office Letter to Certain Puseyite Anglicans, Nov. 8, 1865; underlining added.)

No one can deny or doubt that Jesus Christ himself, in order to apply the fruits of his redemption to all generations of men, built his only Church in this world on Peter; that is to say, the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; and that he gave to it all necessary power, that the deposit of Faith might be preserved whole and inviolable, and that the same Faith might be taught to all peoples, kindreds, and nations, that through baptism all men might become members of his mystical body, and that the new life of grace, without which no one can ever merit and attain to life eternal, might always be preserved and perfected in them; and that this same Church, which is his mystical body, might always remain in its own nature firm and immovable to the end of time, that it might flourish, and supply to all its children all the means of Salvation.

Now, whoever will carefully examine and reflect upon the condition of the various religious societies, divided among themselves, and separated from the Catholic Church, which, from the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles has never ceased to exercise, by its lawful pastors, and still continues to exercise, the divine power committed to it by this same Lord; cannot fail to satisfy himself that neither any one of these societies by itself, nor all of them together, can in any manner constitute and be that One Catholic Church which Christ our Lord built, and established, and willed should continue; and that they cannot in any way be said to be branches or parts of that Church, since they are visibly cut off from Catholic unity.

(Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes, Sep. 13, 1868; underlining added.)

A good number of [those who call themselves Christians], for example, deny that the Church of Christ must be visible and apparent, at least to such a degree that it appears as one body of faithful, agreeing in one and the same doctrine under one teaching authority and government; but, on the contrary, they understand a visible Church as nothing else than a Federation, composed of various communities of Christians, even though they adhere to different doctrines, which may even be incompatible one with another….

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. For they are of the opinion that the unity of faith and government, which is a note of the one true Church of Christ, has hardly up to the present time existed, and does not to-day exist. They consider that this unity may indeed be desired and that it may even be one day attained through the instrumentality of wills directed to a common end, but that meanwhile it can only be regarded as mere ideal. They add that the Church in itself, or of its nature, is divided into sections; that is to say, that it is made up of several churches or distinct communities, which still remain separate, and although having certain articles of doctrine in common, nevertheless disagree concerning the remainder; that these all enjoy the same rights; and that the Church was one and unique from, at the most, the apostolic age until the first Ecumenical Councils.

…For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one [1 Cor 12:12], compacted and fitly joined together [Eph 4:16], it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head [cf. Eph 5:30; Eph 1:22].

(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos, nn. 6,7,10; underlining added.)

Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter [Mystici Corporis] of a few years ago, and based on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation.

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 27; underlining added.)

The false Second Vatican Council, by contrast, teaches:

…[M]en who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect. The differences that exist in varying degrees between them and the Catholic Church – whether in doctrine and sometimes in discipline, or concerning the structure of the Church – do indeed create many obstacles, sometimes serious ones, to full ecclesiastical communion. The ecumenical movement is striving to overcome these obstacles. But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ’s body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.

(Vatican II, Decree Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 3; underlining added.)

Here it does not matter if some ultra-conservative Novus Ordo thinker or some semi-traditionalist podcaster has found a way to spin these words into something approaching orthodoxy. The only thing that matters is how the Vatican II Church understands these words and applies them. The post-conciliar magisterium and its implementation in the practical orders speaks volumes in that regard:

Why this drastic change in teaching? The answer, quite simply, is ecumenism. The post-Pius XII Vatican wanted to join the ecumenical movement, and that would not have been possible to do while continuing to insist that “the only true union [is] by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ” (Pope Pius XII, Holy Office Instruction Ecclesia Catholica, sec. II).

The transition from the pre-conciliar doctrine to the Vatican II and post-conciliar teaching constitutes an essential doctrinal change, not merely an accidental one. Thus the change cannot be considered a development of doctrine but is necessarily a corruption. The two doctrines, in other words, are not complementary but fundamentally incompatible: If the one is true, the other must be false. They cannot both be true. And that seals the fate of Vatican II, proving it was a false council and therefore its solemn promulgator, Giovanni Battista Montini (‘Pope Paul VI’), cannot have been a true Pope. His goose is cooked.

Much has already been said on this web site about the Vatican II Church’s false doctrines concerning ecumenism and religious unity. Here is a selection:

Fabene’s candid, and perhaps unwitting, admission that he and his fellow-hierarchs do not believe the Church founded by Jesus Christ is already one in Faith, worship, and government per se is thus clearly a happy occurrence. For one thing, it confirms that the Novus Ordo Church cannot be the Catholic Church, and that Novus Ordo prelates do not believe what Catholics believe. Truly, they adhere to a new, false ecclesiology; an ecclesiology in which there is a “Church of Christ” that is something other than the Roman Catholic Church. This mythical “Church of Christ” is claimed to subsist in the Catholic Church (see Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, n. 8) but is clearly broader than it, apparently containing members from all kinds of heretical sects that have a valid baptism.

On account of this false ecclesiology, Novus Ordo believers have no choice but to affirm that the Church is not one in Faith, worship, or government but is divided; which is directly contrary to the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church”.

Let the Modernists have their ecumenical, synodal super-church of heresy and sodomy, their Naturalist “ark of fraternity” containing people of every religion under the sun, just as ‘Pope’ Francis said: “There are small ‘islands’ of the people of God, both Christian and of all other faiths, that hold in their heart the desire to be better.”

We Catholics will only accept the true Roman Catholic Church, and it is her alone we love: “One is my dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her” (Cant 6:8). Thus we will be true to the only Church founded by Jesus Christ: “For nothing more glorious, nothing nobler, nothing surely more honorable can be imagined than to belong to the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, in which we become members of one Body as venerable as it is unique; are guided by one supreme Head; are filled with one divine Spirit; are nourished during our earthly exile by one doctrine and one heavenly Bread, until at last we enter into the one, unending blessedness of heaven” (Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 91).

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