If We Want to Promote the Kingship of Christ, We Must Dethrone False Ecumenism

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If We Want to Promote the Kingship of Christ, We Must Dethrone False Ecumenism

Robert Morrison - Remnant Columnist | November 22, 2024

No rational observer familiar with Vatican II or its implementation can truthfully deny that the Council’s ecumenical movement was condemned by Pius XII and his predecessors.

“If they elect Roncalli, everything would be saved; he would be capable of calling a council and of consecrating ecumenism.” (Dom Lambert Beaudin, quoted in Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s They Have Uncrowned Him, p. 160)

Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical “concerning some false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine,” Humani Generis, was the last forceful condemnation of anti-Catholic errors prior to Vatican II. In it, he specifically denounced errors that have been largely unopposed, and even promoted, by the apparent Catholic hierarchy since the Council. Critically, the entire ecumenical movement propelled by John XXIII and his Council constitutes a direct repudiation of these words from Humani Generis:

“Some say they are not bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter 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.”

In the name of achieving Christian unity, John XXIII, Cardinal Augustin Bea, and the Council’s other progressive innovators sought ways to undermine this fundamental truth defended by Pius XII. Whereas the Church has always taught that true Christian unity can occur only through a process of non-Catholics becoming Catholic, Vatican II’s innovators sought to pave the way for the borders between Catholicism and Protestantism to seemingly blur and ultimately vanish. As discussed in a previous article, Francis’s Synod on Synodality has essentially achieved this wicked goal by creating the new “Synodal Church,” which is simply Protestantism in union with a “Bishop of Rome.”

Although the existence of the Synodal Church truly represents a new level of wickedness, it should also lead us to reflect on the evils of false ecumenism upon which it depends. No rational observer familiar with Vatican II or its implementation can truthfully deny that the Council’s ecumenical movement was condemned by Pius XII and his predecessors. Moreover, as we can see so clearly with Francis’s Synodal Church, many of the most important initiatives undertaken by Rome in the past sixty years have had the primary purpose of furthering false ecumenism, including:

• Most obviously, the interreligious prayer gatherings initiated by John Paul II’s Prayer Meeting at Assisi
  
• The promulgation of the Novus Ordo Mass, which omitted almost everything that makes the Traditional Latin Mass objectionable to Protestants
  
• Increased roles for the laity, and a corresponding subordination of the clergy, to better reflect Protestant practices
  
• A diminished role of the papacy, seen most clearly in the recent “Bishop of Rome” document
  
• A deceptive attempt to water down Catholic teaching so that it no longer presents a serious obstacle to Protestants, although in reality Catholic teaching cannot evolve in that way
  

In one way or another, almost every unholy development from Rome since the Council has contributed to the advancement of false ecumenism.

Perhaps because false ecumenism has proliferated for the past sixty years, many serious Catholics no longer object to its manifestations. Thus, many Catholics who would argue that Francis is an antipope, or at least the worst pope in history, generally do not complain about the ecumenical prayer gatherings we see from Francis. Likewise, relatively few of Francis’s most vocal opponents appear to have taken issue with the Bishop of Rome document, which clearly highlights the influence of John Paul II in asking non-Catholics to help Catholics reach a new understanding of the papacy:

“Saint John Paul II not only reaffirmed this ecumenical path but also officially invited other Christians to reflect on the exercise of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. In his milestone encyclical letter Ut unum sint (1995) he used the biblical notion of ‘episkopein’ (‘keeping watch’) to describe this ministry (UUS 94), whose primacy is defined as a ministry of unity (UUS 89) and a service of love (UUS 95). Assuming his particular ecumenical responsibility, and ‘heeding the request made of [him],’ Pope John Paul II recognized the need ‘to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation’ (UUS 95).”

This passage from the Bishop of Rome document helps us understand why those who decry Francis’s heresies can nonetheless remain silent on false ecumenism: they cannot criticize false  ecumenism without also calling into question the initiatives of Francis’s predecessors.

Unfortunately, we can have no realistic hope of counteracting those trying to destroy the Catholic Church from within unless we uproot false ecumenism and reassert the Catholic teaching defended by Pius XII and his predecessors. As Fr. Dominique Bourmaud wrote in his One Hundred Years of Modernism, false ecumenism has been the convergence point for the greatest evils afflicting the Church, including Modernism, religious liberty, and the refusal to accept the authority of Jesus Christ and His Church:

“Of all the topics treated at the Council, that of ecumenism certainly best reveals the affinity and the unity of thought between the Council and the modernists. In fact, the periti who directed the Council are the same men who were targeted and exiled for their modernist ideas fifteen years earlier. It should come as no surprise that the ecumenism advocated and put into practice at the Council should be of modernist inspiration. Ecumenical unity cannot arise from the truth of facts and realities, and so poses a theoretically insoluble problem, to be resolved only in practice. Accordingly, the only solution can be to sacrifice truth and the principle of non-contradiction in the name of an artificial unity maintained by equivocation. To promote ecumenism means signing a treaty of non-aggression, granting all religions citizenship in the great pantheon of creeds. The only commandment is the exclusion of exclusivity: freedom for all in all things, except for those who believe in the truth. The Catholic Church herself is warmly invited to take her place in the assembly, on the condition that she abdicate her pretension to a monopoly of holiness, truth, and unity. The logical consequence of conciliar ecumenism is religious liberty. Religious liberty is the public denial of the distinction between good and evil, between true and false. Religious liberty is the refusal to accept Jesus Christ and His Church as supreme authorities over man. It is the practical affirmation of the egological, modernist conscience, independent of all exterior rule of action or thought. It is the affirmation of liberty as the principle and the sovereign right of man, transcending God and His laws.”

Because the ecumenical innovators refuse to abide by the Church’s teaching that unity can occur through a process of non-Catholics becoming Catholic, they must “sacrifice truth and the principle of non-contradiction in the name of an artificial unity maintained by equivocation.”

The entire ecumenical movement depends upon this assault upon reason and Catholic truth. As such, those who try to oppose Francis and his fellow destroyers, while simultaneously adhering to the principles of false ecumenism, deprive themselves of the only weapon capable of overcoming our enemies: unadulterated Catholic truth. It is, in other words, a futile exercise to insist that Francis must stop promoting heretical nonsense while we turn a blind eye to the heretical nonsense upon which he depends to promote much of his heretical agenda, namely false ecumenism.

To put a finer point on the issue, we can look to some of the infallible teachings of the Catholic Church that are undermined by the false ecumenism that Vatican II promoted (long before most of us had heard of Jorge Bergoglio). Dr. Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma lists the following infallible truths (among others) which are directly opposed to false ecumenism, because that baneful error encourages non-Catholics to remain outside of the Catholic Church and the sacraments (other than Baptism) which it alone can provide, especially Confession:

• Membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation. (De fide.)
  
• The Sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for the salvation of mankind. (De fide.)
  
• The justified person is not able for his whole life long to avoid all sins, even venial sins, without the special privilege of the grace of God. (De fide.)
  
• The grace by which we are Justified may be lost, and is lost by every grievous sin. (De fide.)
  

Any Catholic who seriously attempts to persevere in the state of sanctifying grace knows how absolutely malicious it is for the ostensible authorities of the Catholic Church to even remotely suggest to non-Catholics that they do not need to convert to Catholicism. If we truly love our neighbor, we necessarily want him to have the truths and graces which the Catholic Church offers. If this is not the case, we do not truly love our neighbors.

Turning to the promotion of the Kingship of Christ. Our Lord became man and died for our sins so that we can honor God and save our souls. He also established the Catholic Church, providing it with His truth and the sacraments we need to save our souls and honor God. False ecumenism asserts that men do not need to make use of the Catholic Church — they can remain in their non-Catholic religions that Our Lord did not establish. In this way, false ecumenism constitutes an unmistakable assault on the Kingship of Christ. With false ecumenism, Our Lord becomes merely an advisor, with no real authority to command.

What can be done? We can simply insist on the truths taught by Pope Pius XII and his predecessors in opposition to the false ecumenism that has proliferated since Vatican II. If we insist that false ecumenism is a damnable lie that has only served to lead souls away from the Catholic Church, then we will no longer agree to accept “Christian unity” as the purported justification for essentially all of the disastrous initiatives carried out in the name of the Vatican II revolution. When that happens, we can promote the Kingship of Christ with the full truth that Our Lord has left His Catholic Church, without having to agree to the terms of our enemies who seek only to crown Him with thorns. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!