"I hear around me reformers who want to dismantle the Holy Sanctuary, 
destroy the universal  flame of the Church, to discard all her adornments, 
and smite her with remorse for her historic past," --Eunenio Cardinal 
Pacelli, later Pope Pius XII,  (1939-1958), to Count Enrico Pietro 
Galeazzi.


"A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the 
Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that 
man has become God, that His Son is merely a symbol, a philosophy 
held by so many others, and in the churches Christians will search in 
vain for the red lamp where God awaits them, like Magdalen weeping 
before the empty tomb, "Where have they taken HIM?"  -- Pope Pius XII


"We observe elsewhere, with anxiety and some apprehension an undue
fondness for innovation and tendency to stray from the path of truth and
prudence. Certain plans and suggestions for the liturgical revival are mingled
with principles with, either in fact or by implication, jeopardize the sacred
cause they intended to promote and sometime introduce errors."  -- Pope Pius XII


"The day the Church abandons her universal tongue {LATIN} is the day before
she returns to the catacombs." Pope Pius XII 


"The desire to restore everything indiscriminately to its ancient condition
(antiquarianism) is neither wise nor praiseworthy. It would be wrong, for
example, to want the altar restored to its ancient form of table; to want
black eliminated from the liturgical colors, and pictures and statues
excluded from our churches; to require crucifixes that doe not represent
the bitter sufferings of the divine Redeemer." (Pope Pius XII, Encyclical
Letter "Mediator Dei") 


"Eucharistic devotion such as is noted in the silent visit by the devout
in church must not be thought of as a conversation with God.  This would
assume that God was present there locally and in a confined way.  To
justify such an assertion shows a lack of understanding of the
Christological mysteries of the very concept of God.  This is repugnant to
the serious thinking of the man who knows about the omnipresence of God. 
To go to Church on the ground that one can visit God Who is present there
is a senseless act which modern man rightfully rejects." 

DIE SACRAMENTALE BEGRUNDUNG CHRISTLIKER EXISTEND        
Cardinal Ratzinger


"We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy
everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our
separated brethren that is for the Prostestants " 
   
-- Annibale Bugnini, the main author of the New Mass 
Osservator Romano 19 March 1965

"The Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of any
 merely human society.  For it was founded by Christ the Lord.
 It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should
 be  noble, majestic, and non-vernacular." 

   --Pope John XXIII, " Veterum Sapientiae" 22 February 1962


"  There is great unrest at this time in the Church and what they 
    are questioning is the faith. I am alarmed, when I reflect on the 
    Catholic world, that non-Catholic thinking sometimes seems to 
    prevail within Catholicism and it could happen that this non-Catholic 
    thinking within Catholicism will become stronger in the future. 
    But it will never represent the Church's thinking. A small flock 
    must survive, no matter how small it may be. "   --Pope Paul VI


" The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to
more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should
shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and
relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new
opinions. 

        Many think that these concessions should be made not only
in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which
belong to the deposit of the faith.

        They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain
those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which
are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church
has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son,
to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the
doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind.

The Vatican Council says concerning this point:

"For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed,
like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but
has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be
faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred
dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church,
has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the
pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them." 
                        -Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.

        We cannot consider as altogether blameless the silence which
purposely leads to the omission or neglect of some of the principles
of Christian doctrine, for all the principles come from the same
Author and Master, "the Only Begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the
Father."-John i, I8. They are adapted to all times and all nations,
as is clearly seen from the words of our Lord to His apostles:
"Going, therefore, teach all nations; teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all
days, even to the end of the world."-Matt. xxviii, 19. Concerning
this point the Vatican Council says: "All those things are to be
believed with divine and catholic faith which are contained in the
Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by
a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal magisterium,
proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed."-Const. de
fide, Chapter iii.

Let it be far from anyone's mind to suppress for any reason any
doctrine that has been handed down. Such a policy would tend rather
to separate Catholics from the Church than to bring in those who
differ. 

        There is nothing closer to our heart than to have those who
are separated from the fold of Christ return to it, but in no other
way than the way pointed out by Christ. "

      (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae)


"What then should a Catholic do if some portion of the Church
detaches itself from communion of the universal Faith? What
choice can he make if some new contagion attempts to poison,
no longer a small part of the Church, but the whole Church at
once, then his great concern will be to attach himself to antiquity
 which can no longer be led astray by any lying novelty."

	-- Saint Vincent of Lerins

Points To Ponder

AN ILLEGAL COUNCIL

The illegal Council of Pistoia, was held in September of 1786 by the Bishop
of Pistoia and Prato, in a daring effort to secure the errors of Jansenism.
The Council attempted to spread errors by emphasising the notion of "Community",
by give bishops more authority "to restore to the bishops their native rights
abusively usurped by the Roman Court".

Vatican II has done the same with the collegiality of bishops, and many other
errors of the illegal Council of Pistoia.

Pope Pius VI commissioned four bishops, assisted by theologians of the secular
clergy, to examine the Pistorian enactments, and deputed a congregation of
cardinals and bishops to pass judgment on them. They condemned the council and
stigmatized eighty-five of its propositions as erroneous and dangerous. 

Pius VI on 28 August, 1794, dealt the death-blow to the influence of the council
in his Bull "Auctorem Fidei", which condemned the propositions of this illegal
council:

    "[To contend that] ways must be prepared for people to unite their 
     voices with that of the whole Church -- if this be understood to
     signify the introduction of the use of the vernacular language into
     the liturgical prayers -- is condemned as false, rash, disturbing
     to the order prescribed for the celebration of the sacred mysteries,
     easily productive of many evils." (Auctorem Fidei)
				
Later in history, Pope Pius XII would again repeat the warning against
tampering with the liturgy in his encyclical "Mediator Dei" :

   "This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless
    antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise.

    It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were
    responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those
    resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church,
    ... had every right and reason to condemn." 

                                (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei)

      Has the Church then not already condemned Vatican Council II ?



Good Intentions ?

  "We must remember that if all manifestly good men were on one side
   and all the manifestly bad men on the other, there would be no danger
   to anyone, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders.

   It is the good men, good once, we must hope good still, who are to do
   the work of Antichrist and so sadly to crucify the lord afresh . . . .

   Bear in mind this feature of the last days that this deceitfulness arises
   from good men being on the wrong side." -- Fr. Faber