The Hijacking of John XXIII’s Ecumenical Council
By David Martin
There is no disputing the disaster wrought by Vatican II and how it set into motion an insidious departure from tradition that has left the Holy City “half in ruins.” Even as we recall the conciliar tempest that first convened fifty-four years ago, its gale force continues to uproot the Faith, blow apart revered Catholic practices, topple the Church’s edifice, and spread doctrinal debris throughout the Church. Why the tribute to Pope John? Should his “aggiornamento” be rewarded this way?
It’s important that people have the inside scoop on Vatican II and that they understand Pope John’s true intentions for the Council, lest it appear that heresy and modernism are being “canonized.” Modernists were beaming over John XXIII’s canonization because they were seeing this as a plug for Vatican II, but we need to distinguish between the Council he initiated and the Council that actually ensued.
GOOD INTENTIONS
The fact is that Vatican II was started with good resolves. Pope John’s design was not to change the Church, but to restate sacred tradition, evidenced in his opening speech on October 11, 1962: “The major interest of the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred heritage of Christian truth be safeguarded and expounded with greater efficacy.” (John XXIII)
Without diluting the Faith, the pope was simply trying to adopt a more effective means of projecting the orthodox Faith to the modern world. His update did not include the watering down of doctrine or the alteration of liturgy, but consisted in utilizing the media and state-of-the-art technology to better project the light of tradition to a spiritually darkened world.
For there were dangers threatening the Faith at that time, especially the evils of evolution and abortion. Apostasy was forthcoming and man was already on the eve of forgetting his Maker, so the pope was making a special effort to dispel the ensuing darkness and uphold the orthodox Faith “with greater efficacy.”
To this end he and his best men worked arduously for nearly three years to draft the outline for the Second Vatican Council, known as the 72 schemas. According to the most conservative thinkers of Rome, the preparatory schemata were orthodox and worthy of use, but modernists were enraged that the Holy Father had put together the outline without conferring with them beforehand. Hence a decision was made before the Council to block Pope John’s plan for Vatican II.
COUNCIL HIJACKED
According to Michael Davies and many others, a number of “suspect theologians” hijacked the opening session of the Council by seizing control of its drafting commissions, thus enabling them to scrap Pope John’s plan and to draft a new plan of their own. A key instigator of the pack was Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx of the Netherlands, a known heretic who denied the historicity of the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Eucharist (Transubstantiation), and who had drafted and disseminated a 480-page critique aimed at rallying the progressive “Rhine bishops” to reject the original plan for Vatican II. The design of these progressivists was to revive Luther’s “Reformation” under the guise of a renewal, something that Schillebeeckx had openly confessed to.
Benedict XVI himself pointed out in 2013 how a “virtual council” had risen up to usurp the “real Council” at Vatican II, and lamented how “it created so many disasters, so many problems, so much suffering: seminaries closed, convents closed, banal liturgy.” (Benedict XVI, addressing the parish churches of Rome, February 14, 2013) This echoes the words of Pope Paul VI who stated that the good efforts at Vatican II were hampered by “the devil” who came along “to suffocate the fruits of the Ecumenical Council.” (June 29, 1972) Hence it is worth recounting the opening session, that we have a clearer perspective of what really took place at the Second Vatican Council.
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| Cardinal Achille Liénart of France |
His demand was acceded to and hailed a victory in the press, thus allowing the progressives of the Rhine coalition to rise up and capture the key positions of the Council. This then enabled them to scrap Pope John’s plan for Vatican II and to draft a new agenda of their own, thereby giving birth to the conciliar reform.
Liénart reportedly confessed on his deathbed that he was a 30th degree Freemason, which would explain his illicit intervention. The preeminent Romano Amerio who had contributed significantly to the drafting of the original Vatican II outline cites how the legal framework of the Council was violated right from the onset: “This departure from the original plan” came about “by an act breaking the Council’s legal framework” so that “the Council was self-created, atypical, and unforeseen.” (Professor Romano Amerio, Iota Unum, 1985)
At the center of this coup to overthrow Vatican II were Cardinals Alfrink, Frings, and Liénart of the Rhine Alliance. A crucial vote was to be taken to determine the members of the drafting commissions when Cardinal Liénart, a 30th degree Freemason, seized the microphone during a speech and demanded that the slate of 168 candidates be discarded and that a new slate of candidates be drawn up. His uncanny gesture was heeded by the Council and the election was postponed. Leinart’s action deflected the course of the Council and made history, and was hailed a victory in the press. The date was October 13, 1962, the 45th Anniversary of Our Lady’s last apparition at Fatima. (Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, the Rhine Flows into the Tiber)
In his February 14, 2013, address to the clergy of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI brilliantly recounts this coup d’ etat at Vatican II: “On the programme for this first day were the elections of the commissions, and lists of names had been prepared, in what was intended to be an impartial manner, and these lists were put to the vote. But right away the Fathers said: ‘No, we do not simply want to vote for pre-prepared lists. We are the subject.’ Then, it was necessary to postpone the elections, because the Fathers themselves…wanted to prepare the lists themselves. And so it was. Cardinal Liénart of Lille and Cardinal Frings of Cologne had said publicly: no, not this way. We want to make our own lists and elect our own candidates.”
The above statement is of no small significance. Herein Benedict confesses that Liénart and his clique rejected the list of candidates that John XXIII had approved in an “impartial manner,” so that they could create their own list and elect their own candidates in a partial manner. This indeed is what happened!
When the “election” resumed, a number of radical theologians were then appointed to chair the commissions, including Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, de Lubac, Schillebeeckx and others whose writings had been blacklisted under Pius XII. The liberals now occupied nearly 60% of the seats, giving them the needed power to steer the Council in their direction. Thereupon they proceeded to trash the pope’s carefully prepared agenda that had taken nearly three years to formulate.
Through deceitful promises and skillful use of the media, the Council approved their plan for a new Mass on December 7, 1962, known as the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. This in turn became the hub of the liturgical reform that was to set the Church on a new revolutionary path of change. The Constitution was principally the work of the infamous Annibale Bugnini whom the pope had earlier removed from two posts because of sinister activity. The Constitution in fact was the outgrowth of the one schema drafted by Bugnini, which Vatican liberals had spared because of its designs for a new Mass. It is important to note that Monsignor Bugnini, and not the pope, was the author of the New Mass.
What is mind boggling is the dictatorial force wherewith the conciliar elite took the law into their own hands and were able to junk Pope John’s outline for Vatican II without rebuttal. With the procedural rules laid down by the pope, a mere one-third vote was needed to get the schemata passed, which in fact did pass by a 40% vote. But the Rhine fathers stirred up a ruckus and insisted that this minority vote not be honored in favor of the 60% vote against the schemata, even telling the pope, “This is inadmissible!” They abhorred the orthodoxy of the preparatory outline with its strict formulations and resented the idea of having it imposed on them by a pope who “clung to the old absolute traditions.”
The pope, fearing a tumult, backed down and consented to let the Rhine fathers have their way against game rules. Though he had planned things differently, his strength failed him at this point, thus allowing the pirates of innovation to wrest the Council from his hands. Hence the most meticulous and painstaking preparation ever undertaken for any council of Church history was suddenly dumped to the glee of this Council confederacy. Only the liturgical schema remained.
We gather that Cardinal Tisserant, the key draftsman of the 1962 Moscow-Vatican Treaty who presided at the opening session, was at the center of this coup to usurp the Vatican Council. According to Jean Guitton, the famous French academic, Tisserant had showed him a painting of himself and six others, and told him, “This picture is historic, or rather, symbolic. It shows the meeting we had before the opening of the Council when we decided to block the first session by refusing to accept the tyrannical rules laid down by John XXIII.” (Vatican II in the Dock, 2003)
This story of what happened at Vatican II is well documented and has been told in great depth by the most qualified witnesses, including Father Ralph Wiltgen, Monsignor Bandas, Michael Davies, Cardinal Heenan and many others. Archbishop Lefebvre who was on the Central Preparatory Committee for checking and overseeing all the Council documents had this to say:
“From the very first days, the Council was besieged by the progressive forces. We experienced it, felt it…We had the impression that something abnormal was happening and this impression was rapidly confirmed; fifteen days after the opening session not one of the seventy-two schemas remained. All had been sent back, rejected, thrown into the waste- paper basket…The immense work that had been found accomplished was scrapped and the assembly found itself empty- handed, with nothing ready. What chairman of a board meeting, however small the company, would agree to carry on without an agenda and without documents? Yet that is how the Council commenced.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics, 1986)This is how the modern “reform” was born. Pope John’s agenda for Vatican II would never resurrect from that point, but would remain buried to this day. The rebellious “virtual council” would now proceed to put together the Vatican II that we know, including its sixteen documents and its change of liturgy. The documents would contain elements of orthodoxy here and there, but this would only be for cosmetic purposes. Under the pretext of a restoration, the documents would apologize for tradition and would attempt to unite the Catholic Church with other world religions on their terms.
That is to say, the documents themselves, and not any misinterpretation thereof, would generate the problems ahead, since they would be penned by the pope’s enemies, and not his friends. “By their fruits you shall know them.” (Mt. 7:20)
Pope John XXIII’s reluctance in releasing the Third Secret of Fatima in 1960 undoubtedly caused him unspeakable sorrow, for he was now witnessing the tragic fulfillment of the Fatima Secret. We learn that Fr. Ingo Dollinger, a long-time personal friend of Pope Benedict XVI, was told by the future pope in summer 2000 that the Third Secret mentioned “a bad council and a bad Mass” that would come after 1960. www.onepeterfive.com The prophecy was fulfilled with the hijacking of Vatican II, thus fulfilling the prophecy that the Church would be handed to the Gentiles, who would “tread the holy city under foot two and forty months.” (Apocalypse 11:2)
It is said that the pope was struck to the heart, and in great pain, so that the cancer he had earlier contracted was greatly enflamed, leaving him only eight months to live. On his deathbed he cried out: “Stop the Council, Stop the Council,” but his aides made sure this didn’t circulate to the other cardinals. The Council was already too well advanced, the liberals had put too much stock in their revolution, so they weren’t about to give up their revelry at this point.
FISSURE CREATED
Pope John certainly made mistakes, he wasn’t perfect. Perhaps the biggest mistake he made was to convoke the Second Vatican Council, since it provided an opening for the hidden enemy to infiltrate the Church. According to Pope Paul VI, the Council of Vatican II was that “fissure” through which “the smoke of satan entered into the temple of God.” (June 29, 1972) Even the future Pope Paul was alarmed when he learned in January 1959 that Pope John XXIII had announced the forthcoming Council, to which he responded: “This holy old boy doesn’t realize what a hornet’s nest he’s stirring up!”
Yes, the calling of Vatican II wasn’t smart, but was a huge blunder which showed poor judgment and terrible foresight. We might even say the pope was playing Russian roulette with the Church. Were not the representatives of the Soviet Union present at the Council with a plan to get their clenched-fist agenda implemented in a spiritual way? “Human rights” and “empowerment of the laity” are clearly Marxist precepts. Maybe Pope John should have heeded those “prophets of doom” that had forecast disaster. Popes Pius X, XI, and XII had all refrained from calling a council, fearing it would hatch the very problems we have today, but Pope John somehow believed it was time for a Council.
However, we have to remember that saints are not canonized for their smarts, talents, or administrative skills, but for their charity. This, Pope John was loaded with. He was big-hearted and wanted to extend the benevolence of God to all, and somehow was convinced that a united effort at the Vatican Council would avert the impending doom that hung over the world. Unfortunately, his “virtuous fault” of refusing to see the evil in his fellow man blinded him to the reality of the infiltrated Judases at Vatican II, and allowed these enemies to overrun him and his Council.
Pope John has been criticized for quietly lifting the ban on some of these suspect theologians whose activities were formerly restricted by Pius XII, but conservatives have faltered in not recognizing his good intentions. The traditional Monsignor Rudolph Bandas, who was one of the brilliant and outstanding periti at Vatican II, understood clearly that John XXIII was being overrun and abused, and had this to say: “No doubt good Pope John thought that these suspect theologians would rectify their ideas and perform a genuine service to the Church. But exactly the opposite happened. Supported by certain Rhine Council fathers, and often acting in a manner positively boorish, they turned around and exclaimed: ‘Behold, we are named experts, our ideas stand approved.”’
Pope John’s vision of Vatican II was noble and well intending, though he was naive. This excerpt from his opening speech nicely reflects his pastoral spirit: “The great desire, therefore, of the Catholic Church in raising aloft at this Council the torch of truth, is to show herself to the world as the loving mother of all mankind; gentle, patient, and full of tenderness and sympathy for her separated children.”
Unfortunately, this kind of talk made Vatican II progressivists sick. The good pope didn’t realize he was going to get clobbered for this. The fact is that Pope John was viciously stabbed in the back by those he trusted. When they wanted their way with him they would crouch and kiss his ring, and in the next hour they were plotting on how they would take Vatican II away from him.
For instance, Monsignor Bugnini, a notorious Freemason and sweet-talker, assured the pope that he was most committed to fostering a deepened love and appreciation for the liturgy. So the pope blindly entrusted to him the task of heading the new Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy that was established on June 6, 1960, believing that a deepened love for the old Mass would result from this. What he failed to realize is that Bugnini and his cohorts were secretly at work drafting up a new Mass which they were dead-determined to get passed at Vatican II.
And it did pass with flying colors! The Bugnini Schema superseded all the other schemas and became the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy on December 7, 1962. Later called Sacrosanctum Concilium, this was the document that directly led to the implementation of the New Mass in the vernacular. Yet the pope in 1960 had no idea what Bugnini and his men were cooking up for the Council. The conservative Cardinal Heenan of Westminster even says in his autobiography that “Pope John did not suspect what was being planned by the liturgical experts.”
The allegations from the Sedevacantist camp that John XXIII was a Freemason display ignorance and have contributed to his martyrdom. It was the Freemasons that generated the revolt at Vatican II, and their plan then was to hide and shift the blame onto Pope John in order to sell their revolution and smear his reputation.
THE POPE’S OWN WORDS
If nothing else convinces us of Pope John’s innocence, we turn to his own words: “I repeat once more that what matters most in this life is: our blessed Jesus Christ, his holy Church, his Gospel, and in the Gospel above all else the Our Father according to the mind and heart of Jesus, and the truth and goodness of his Gospel, goodness, which must be meek and kind, hardworking and patient, unconquerable and victorious.”
This angelic philosophy echoes what the saints have said concerning our purpose in life. Sanctity means being Christ centered with a burning aspiration to bring all men to the love and knowledge of God. With this very aspiration the pope in his opening speech at Vatican II expressed the intentions of the Council: “Its intention is to give to the world the whole of that doctrine which, notwithstanding every difficulty and contradiction, has become the common heritage of mankind—to transmit it in all its purity, undiluted, undistorted. It is a treasure of incalculable worth, not indeed coveted by all, but available to all men of good will.”
Are these the words of a Freemason, a Judas, a progressivist? Or are these rather the words of a saint? Would that the pope and bishops of today would speak this way! The Church’s mission for 2000 years has been precisely to bring this deposit of Faith to mankind so that, if it were possible, the entire earth would be enkindled with its flame. The Traditional Roman Faith is that sacred legacy which God originally intended as “the common heritage of mankind,” though the Reformation did much to destroy this ecclesial unity, as did its revival at Vatican II.
What is needed today is a true renewal of Catholic tradition, so that the Mystical Body can once again be whole as in former times, with unity and soundness. What is needed is what John XXIII originally prescribed in his opening speech at Vatican II: “…that this doctrine shall be more widely known, more deeply understood, and more penetrating in its effects on men’s moral lives. What is needed is that this certain and immutable doctrine, to which the faithful owe obedience, be studied afresh.”
With John XXIII having been raised to the altars of Holy Mother the Church on April 27, 2014, let us be encouraged to assume a new perspective of holy pontiff, whereby we cease from blaming him for all the problems that have ravaged the Church since Vatican II. He made some mistakes which he had to pay for. May he now be rewarded for the good he proposed and the evil he endured.
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David Martin is Moderator for St Michael’s Radio Program, which is committed to making known the great Marian prophecies of the latter times. David gave up a promising career as a concert pianist in 1980 so that he could commit himself to the propagation of the Faith. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he serves as the LA Organizer for St Michael’s World Apostolate.
Contact: jmj4today@att.net
Thank you soooo much for posting this. As a convert, revert, my eyes are slowing being fully opened. The search for truth sometimes is a very, very long journey for some of us, but the end will be worth it all.
ReplyDeleteGod bless Good Pope St. John, and may he pray for us all and the restoration of the Sacred Liturgy.
God bless you and your family, too.
This is an interesting article. Nevertheless, we must remember that it was Pope John XXIII (1) who wanted the Church to be open to the world in this Council; (2) who wanted to avoid "doom and gloom"--I suspect that he meant the Fatima warnings, and perhaps other Marian apparitions; (3)who claimed that his idea for a Council was an out-of-the-blue inspiration of the Holy Spirit, yet others had heard him talking about wanting a Council at least four years earlier; (4)was the pope about whom the Masons said was "one of ours" who would then accomplish their agenda. (5)was the pope who was supposed to reveal the Third Secret of Fatima in 1960, but declined. He had the Council in mind, and invitations to the Soviets to attend.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, before his death he arranged to have his body embalmed so that it would not decompose. (Don't believe it? Look it up on the Net.) It is hard to fathom the hubris of anyone arranging that for himself, much less a priest and POPE!