(LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XII began his 1826 encyclical on secret societies, Quo Graviora, with an image of how vigilant the Successors of Peter must be in protecting the Church against “the sects threatening the complete ruin of the Church”: 

Blessed Peter, Prince of Apostles, and his Successors have been given the Power and Care of Feeding and Ruling the flock of Christ, Our God and Savior. Hence, the more grave the evils threatening the flock, the greater the solicitude the Roman Pontiffs ought to employ in preventing them. For, those who have been placed in the topmost Watch Tower of the Church can discern from afar the artifices which the enemies of the Christian family undertake to destroy the Church of Christ: (which they will never achieve) they can point them out and expose them to the faithful, who may then guard against them; they can drive away and remove them by their Authority. Our Predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, understanding this most Grievous Duty imposed upon them, have unceasingly kept the watches of a good Shepherd, and by Exhortations, Doctrines, Decrees, and by their very life given for their sheep, have been solicitous about restraining and utterly abolishing the sects threatening the complete ruin of the Church.

It is clear that the “most Grievous Duty imposed upon” the Roman Pontiffs to guard the Church has been imposed by God. Moreover, when the popes warned against secret societies (such as Freemasonry), Liberalism, Modernism, and what we refer to today as false ecumenism, etc., those warnings applied not only for the benefit of those living during the pontificates in question but for all Catholics, for so long as those errors would threaten the Church. Thus, for example, we do not need to wonder today whether God wants us to reject Modernism — St. Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism over one hundred years ago is just as applicable today as it was then. 

Although we rightly detest the errors that threaten the Church, we know that God permits them to bring about greater good: “And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints” (Romans 8:28). When we fight to overcome those errors, we honor God, gain merit, and help fortify the Church against such errors in the future. Conversely, the failure to adequately combat errors generally leads to dire consequences. Hence, we do not have a right to disregard the warnings that God has given us through the popes — to do so would be to offend God and lead souls to hell. 

If we were able to go back in time and ask the pre-Vatican II popes what would happen if subsequent generations ignored their warnings by embracing the errors they had condemned, they would surely tell us that such folly would bring about widespread calamity and apostasy. We can imagine, for instance, what Pius IX would tell us if he had been given a vision of the following words from Cardinal Ratzinger’s observation about three key documents of Vatican II — Gaudium et Spes, Dignitatis Humanae, and Nostra Aetate:

If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty [Dignitatis Humanae] and world religions [Nostra Aetate]) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus… Let us be content to say that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. (Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 1987, pp. 381-2)

If Pius IX was not sufficiently mortified to learn that a Cardinal had referred favorably to Vatican II’s documents as a reconciliation with the era inaugurated by the French Revolution and a “countersyllabus,” we could mention to him that the views about the Council of this future pope (Benedict XVI) were generally the most conservative of any occupant of the papacy in the post-Conciliar era. Even John Paul II was inclined to favor more revolutionary interpretations of the Vatican II documents. 

We could continue our conversation with Pius IX by asking him if he had any ideas about what might have caused Paul VI to say the following in the years after Vatican II:

• The Church, today, is going through a moment of disquiet. Some indulge in self-criticism, one would say even self-destruction. It is like an acute and complex inner upheaval, which no one would have expected after the Council. One thought of a flourishing, a serene expansion of the concepts matured in the great conciliar assembly. There is also this aspect in the Church, there is the flourishing, but… for the most part one comes to notice the painful aspect. The Church is hit also by he who is part of it. (December 7, 1968) 

• Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety, confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement, and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were supposed to be opened to the light instead… Even in the Church this state of uncertainty rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom, quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of filling them. (June 29, 1972) 

It seems fairly certain that Pius IX would emphatically tell us that these evils were brought about precisely because the putative authorities of the Church had embraced errors that had been unambiguously condemned by the pre-Vatican II popes. 

How would Pius IX answer if we told him that our progressive theologians have insisted that he may have been right to condemn errors prior to the Council but, now that times have changed, the popes should not condemn the same errors today? Perhaps he would point us to the last error condemned in his Syllabus of Errors:

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution ‘Jamdudum cernimus,’ March 18, 1861.

He would have had no reason to condemn that error if the enemies of the Church were not trying to argue that the pope really ought to “come to terms with progress,” which is the exact mentality of those who argue that Pius IX would no longer issue the same condemnations today because times have changed. 

If we were to ask these pre-Vatican II popes if there was any sign that we had missed that ought to have told us that we were being led down the wrong path, it seems probable that they could point us to these words from John XXIII’s opening address of Vatican II (discussed in a previous article):

The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations. Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions and dangerous concepts to be guarded against and dissipated.

As mentioned above, the papal condemnations of the errors afflicting the Church remain in effect, even if John XXIII and his successors ceased condemning the errors. Nonetheless, the failure to repeat the requisite condemnations of errors when necessary has misled naive Catholics and non-Catholics alike into believing that the Church has made peace with error, which it can never actually do. 

Is it true, though, that the successors of John XXIII have not issued theological condemnations? No, the reality is that they stopped condemning actual errors and began to condemn those who still adhered to what Pius XII and his predecessors taught. Even if we had never heard of the term “diabolical disorientation,” we could readily see that it applies to this astounding reality. 

If we were able to talk with Pius XII and his predecessors about our crisis, they would tell us that we need to reject the errors that they had condemned because they remain poisonous today. This is a non-negotiable step, and no enduring progress can be made without it. But they would also tell us to heed these words from Pius IX’s Quanta Cura, which accompanied the Syllabus of Errors: 

But if always, venerable brethren, now most of all amidst such great calamities both of the Church and of civil society, amidst so great a conspiracy against Catholic interests and this Apostolic See, and so great a mass of errors, it is altogether necessary to approach with confidence the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace in timely aid. Wherefore, we have thought it well to excite the piety of all the faithful in order that, together with us and you, they may unceasingly pray and beseech the most merciful Father of light and pity with most fervent and humble prayers, and in the fullness of faith flee always to Our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed us to God in His blood, and earnestly and constantly supplicate His most sweet Heart, the victim of most burning love toward us, that He would draw all things to Himself by the bonds of His love, and that all men inflamed by His most holy love may walk worthily according to His heart, pleasing God in all things, bearing fruit in every good work. But since without doubt men’s prayers are more pleasing to God if they reach Him from minds free from all stain, therefore we have determined to open to Christ’s faithful, with Apostolic liberality, the Church’s heavenly treasures committed to our charge, in order that the said faithful, being more earnestly enkindled to true piety, and cleansed through the sacrament of Penance from the defilement of their sins, may with greater confidence pour forth their prayers to God, and obtain His mercy and grace.

So that is the answer: we must combat the errors threatening the Church and try to humbly petition God’s mercy as best we can, by trying to become saints. Of course we all want God to resolve the crisis in the papacy, but it seems possible that He is permitting the crisis in the papacy to alert us to the need to do our part, by rejecting error and pursuing holiness. If, like the Prodigal Son, we realize that we (collectively, as the Church Militant) have squandered our spiritual inheritance, then we must humbly return to what the Church taught prior to Vatican II. Even if we cannot achieve this perfectly, or without disagreements, we can honor God and serve the Church by fighting to restore what has been lost. 

Those who instead think we can petition God’s mercy to resolve the crisis in the papacy without first returning to what Pius XII and his predecessors taught are like those who imagine that the prodigal son would have done better to just ask the father to send more money to him in the foreign country. It may seem like the easier path, but it does not correspond with the lessons about God’s Providence that we know from salvation history. The more prudent approach, by far, is to learn and follow the holy wisdom of the popes who warned us about the evils we face today. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!