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publication of Traditional Catholics of America t Francis E.
Volume V, No. 4 t June 1, 1984
J John Kenneth Weiskittel
(PART TWO)
111 The announcement that John Paul II will address the
n PART of this article (The Athanasian, March
notoriously pro-Communist World Council of
1 , 1984), I at the election of John Paul II, at
Churches at its headquarters in Geneva this June.
his slavish commitment to the ambiguous documents
and revolutionary spirit of Vatican II and at the manner
111John il's pledge of support to one-worldlsm in
in which that commitment has been put into action re-
an address made in Vatican City to the Independent
garding two critical issues, sex education and tradition-
al Catholicism. Commission of International Development (headed by
Socialist Willy Brandt, former chancellor of West Ger-
A theme running throughout the article was how John many) and the Independent Commission on Disarma-
Paul II has remained an enigmatic figure who continues ment and Security (headed by the Socialist Prime Min-
to convince both the semi-traditional and nee-modern- ister Olaf Palme of Sweden).
ist wings of the Conciliar "Catholic" Church that he is
"on our side." has been something of a puzzlement • The declaration on Martin Luther, who was called by
as well, I noted, to secular opinion-shapers, who seem Pope X the "child of Satan" and in whose works
not to know quite how to present him but always man- St. Robert Be!larmine found over one thousand errors
'
age to show him in a favorable light despite disagree- the declaration building on Paul ll's praise of
ments they may have with one another. (e.g., CBS' Luther by a call for a commission to reexamine the
made-for-television movie, "Pope John II," an "misunderstandings" leading to his excommunication,
attempt at cinematic hero-worship that, not coincident- with the final object to be the overturning of that ruling.
ly, first is broadcast on Easter evening.)
• Continued efforts to restore relations with Commu-
The events and statements of worldwide implication nist China, where that government buried priests and
proceed from Rome with astonishing rapidity. Hardly a nuns alive during the revolution, while downgrading
week goes by without news of some startling import Taiwan's diplomatic status.
generated by the Conciliar "pope," his curia and the re-
vamped Romano. In the first few Obviously, wheels are turning in Rome-and turning in
months of 1 alone, the New Vatican has subjected a hurry. The rest of this study won't attempt to keep up
us to: with every new development as that would virtually re-
quire a full-time correspondent at the Vatican. Rather, it
• The concordat, signed by Vatican secretary of state, will examine the roots of John ll's thinking and
Agostino Cardinal Casaro!i and Prime Minister Bettino where it is leading millions of mesmerized Catholics.
Craxi of socialist Italy, which denies Rome's status as
the Sacred City and the Roman Catholic Church as the Philosophy Max Scheler
official state religion of Italy. "I am fascinated," Karol Wojtyla once said, years be-
fore he was elected John Paul II, "by Scheler's theory
• John Paul ll's homage to Soviet dictator Yuri of values and of human nature." (Malinski, op. cit., p.
Andropov (who imprisoned, tortured and executed un- 11 In those same years, the early 1950's, the Polish
told Christians while KGB chief and as premier} priest also enthused: "what seems to me most impor-
by sending his condolence to the Communist leaders tant at the moment is to reconcile Thomist philosophy
at their ruler's death with the assurance of "special with that of Scheler." (ibid.) And "in my life I've
thoughts for the illustrious deceased one." (Reports had two great philosophical revelations- Thomism
from the Polish Conciliar hierarchy reveal that John and Scheler." (ibid.)
Paul II had made plans to visit Andropov later this *Readers shouid refer to Part One of this article for the titles of works first quoted there.
year.)
The "Schei er" referred to here is Max Schei er (i87 4- "he is separated from his wife and leaves again the
1928) who is known for his writing as a proponent of Church for another woman." (NEP) His rejection of
the philosophy known as phenomenology. Phenome- Catholicism is this time articulated: "Scheler saw a
nology, as the name suggests, is the study of phenom- threat to the individual in the dogmas of the Church and
ena, of objects in reality as perceived by the senses. renounced natural theology as conceived on the basis
But it is more than that. Roman Catholic journalist Mary of Thomism." (Encyclopedia Americana.) He would
Martinez notes: "Phenomenology in its pure form … in- never again profess the Faith.
volves the contention that the existence of substance is
an illusion-that matter is no more than an indetermin- Not only did he reject Catholicism, but theism in gener-
ate and unknown something underlying phenomena." al. From there he went on "to develop a comprehen-
(op. cit., p. 32) sive anthropology that verged on vitalism and panthe-
ism." (EP) Scheler proclaimed the "death of God" by
In other words, we have here a form of systemized identifying Him with the universe; by calling Him "the
doubt in which our very ability to have any certitude ground of being." His new "faith" was in "religious
about the world we see around us is questioned. This atheism" (NEP), and in that heresy he would live out his
is contrasted with the Catholic position which teaches days.
that (taking into account human limitations and fallibil-
ity) the world is what it appears to be and we can form We have, then, a man so far removed from Church
valid impressions about it. To believe that you can lei- teaching that he has been typified as "anti-Thomistic"
surely stroll in front of a speeding car without harm is in his thought. (EP) By his emphasis on experience he
not only foolish, potentially fatal. Reality is real- is close to the Modernists, of whom our beloved Pope
not an St. Pius X wrote (in Pascend1): "within their boundaries
there is room for nothing but phenomena; God and all
This fundamental fallacy in phenomenology-that we that is divine are utterly excluded," and, by his pan-
cannot be certain, cannot really know anything- theism, to Teilhard's myth of a god who is evolving
is enough to make it unacceptable; yet the life of along with the universe.
Scheler is, if anything, even stranger.
Despite all of this, John Paul II is a disciple of Scheler.
Born in Munich of a Protestant clergyman and his The "pope" frequently emphasizes, in writings and
Jewish wife, Scheler converted to Catholicism as speeches, "experience" at the expense of reason in a
a young man. As suddenly as he entered the Church, most Schelerian way. His book, The Acting Person,
he left it. 1898 he breaks-because of a woman- has drawn the praise of the Modernist George
with the Catholic practice, but his thought continues to Williams, a Unitarian Divinity professor at Harvard, as a
in a Christian direction." (New Encyclopedia of "major phenomenological work." (Martinez, op. cit., p.
NEP.) 32.) Williams is quoted by another Catholic writer, Dr.
Rama Coomaraswamy, as saying that John Paul ll's
Scheler's career was just as convulsive as his personal goal is "to use the methodology of … Scheler as a start-
life. As a university lecturer in a number of German ing point for rebuilding a Christian ethic." (The Destruc-
philosophy departments, he wrote a treatise in 1915 tion of Christian Tradition, p. 104.) Why, we ask with
defending "The Genius of War and the German War." Dr. Coomaraswamy, is it necessary to rebuild it?
This militaristic phase of his thinking was influenced by
Friedrich Nietzsche, who coined the term "God is Yet, "The Possibilities for Building a System of Chris-
dead" and who taught that, by rejecting Christian tian Ethics on the Basis of Max Scheler" was the theme
"slave morality," the human race could go "beyond of Karol Wojtyla's doctoral thesis written when he was
good and evil" and become a race of supermen. The a student "at the Marxist-controlled Jagiellonian Uni-
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (EP) states: "He (Scheler) versity in Poland." (ibid.) To this day, John Paul II has
viewed himself as carrying out the philosophical pro- never retreated from Schelerism. That is why many
grams of Nietzsche … and was firmly convinced that conservatives and semi-traditional Conciliarists can
phenomenology would bring about a basic transforma- hear him speak what sounds like authentic Catholic
tion in the way of viewing ourselves and the world." teaching, but wonder why the wording is "funny."
They are unaware that the "pope" is interjecting
Although he would later repudiate his jingoism, Scheler "wisdom he has gleaned from his great source of "rev-
would ever retain other features of the Nietzsche pro- elation"-the "Catholic Nietzsche," Max Scheler. We
gram. He has been called the "Catholic Nietzsche." Catholics are obligated to show them John Paul ll's
bogus inspiration for what it is since he admits Scheler-
Scheler "reconverted" in 1920 but, four years later, ism gave him a "new way of thinking and observing
The Athanasian 2 June 1, 1984
humanity.'' (Malinski, op. cit. p. 137.) resentative of the language that pontiff used in expos-
ing the wickedness of it.)
Paul and Liberation Theology
When John II visited Marxist Nicaragua last year, Since John Paul II has always condemned the use of
there is one image which stands out and to which con- terrorism, there are those who would shy away from
servative Conciliarists love to point as incontrovertible linking him with so-called "liberation theology." Terror-
,,.,,..,..,,.,.,., of their "pope's" unswerving opposition to ism, however, is not embraced by all "liberationists,"
the government of that country. At Managua Airport, so the matter can't be settled by simply drawing on the
he officials; when he reached the Min- "pope's" statements about lawless violence. What is
ister of Education, Ernesto "Che" held by such people is socialism, socialism with a
Cardenal, the "poet-priest" known for his espousal of capital "S." "Moderates," say, in El Salvador (such as
who knelt before him, John Paul II shook Napoleon Duarte) support the same "land reform" as
as though in stern rebuke. There, the rebels, and differ only in how quickly and by what
friends ask, what more evidence do you methods it should be implemented. Does John Paul II
man from Poland is on our side? What favor socialism?
not know, however, is that the Red priest has
that there was not, nor has there a writer for the Arizona Republic that
any order by Rome for him to de- Laborem Exercens, John ll's 1981 study on eco-
Marxism. At this moment, he and nomics, "suggests that a socialist middle ground is the
priests in Nicaragua's regime hold the best model for economic progress," leaving "little
the downfall of the legitimate doubt as to his meaning and support of socialism," the
conservative Conciliar The Wanderer, rushed
to its leader's defense with an editorial entitled
thugs, who led the revolt in and who "Laborem Exercens: No Endorsement of Socialism." It
of Nicaragua, proclaimed as early as felt it necessary to contrast that document's references
of are a guiding star in the to "socialization" as being somehow different than so-
which the revolutionaries are cialism. (Brazil's "Red Bishop" Helder Camara, an ad-
reasonably educated person knew that, vocate of socialization and a friend and admirer of John
they were the same terror- Paul II, says that the two terms are synonymous-and
were years before; if anything, their tor- he should know. And, too, The Wanderer may have
tures other gross human rights violations after the seen that Laborem Exercens was being touted as pro-
coup should reinforced this truth to the It socialist in many left-wing journals. The New Republic
did not, apparently, for John Paul II. accompanied its article with a drawing showing John
Paul ii crozier, robes and clinched-fist
A news item appeared in the Miami Herald on 3 March, salute!)
i "Pope Receives Nicaraguans." Meeting
of "diplomats" from that country, he The Wanderer's editors may have been well-meaning
support to new junta, saying: "The Church in what they felt to be a clarification of the "pope's"
initiatives in consonance its earthly views, but equally were they wrongheaded. Had they
and the transcendence of mankind, promote read his comments in John Paul II "Pifgrimmage of
of persons and prepare them to freely and Faith," have known the opposite to be the
assume their family and social case. Covering his flight to Latin America in i979, the
"'"''~"n" " He added, reported the article, his hopes book speaks of an impromptu conference held
Nicaraguan people in a future of on the plane, during which time he told reporters that
conforming to their socialism was wrong only if atheistic. or if it viewed the
" which is roughly like world than "Christian morality." Then the
a being held captive in own home by relates: "It is different, he said, if by socialism is
gangsters to "have a nice " This, we must assume, meant a system accepts the dimension of religion
of what he really means when he and offers guarantees of religious freedom. (Like Nica-
ideologies." Any bona fide pope ragua?) He added that talking about such a sys-
post-Sandanista for tem is easy before such a system is established. 'We
it is. (Recall how different are the words of must see what happens afterward in practice,' he
Pope Pius XI on the subject of Communism in his en- said." (To date, five years after the Communist victory
cyclical, Divini Redemptoris: "horrors," in Nicaragua, John Paul II stiil seems to be waiting to
ceits," "inhuman," and "monstrous emanations of the "see what happens.")
flow with satanic logic," are continued on page 7
The Athanasian 3 1, 1984
Fr. Francis E. Fenton
twas in 1968, sixteen years ago, that I gave up my capes me how anyone who is not totally blind to reality
position as pastor of a parish in the city and dio- can contend otherwise.
cese of Bridgeport, Connecticut. My primary reason for
doing so was that I might be able to devote far more of But if this is so very obvious, why is it that there are
my time and effort actively to opposing Communism probably no more truly traditional Roman Catholics in
and exposing, to the best of my ability, the increasingly the entire country today than there were parishioners
alarming inroads it was making into my Church and my in a parish in Connecticut in which I was stationed from
country. I was well aware in the late i 960' s that the 1956 to i 960? Are all the millions of members of the
Roman Catholic Church had long since ceased to op- Conciliar Church (clergy and laity) in error in their affil-
pose Communism and was more and more becoming iation with that Church? My answer is an unqualified
a traveler with it. Knowing all too well the satanic "yes." How can this be? However it can be, such is the
nature of Communism, I simply could not in con- stark, unvarnished, all but incredible reality, the
science go along with, or be a part of, such collabora- exceedingly lamentable consequence of the gradual
, having deeply infused in my mind the absolute infiltration and subversion of the Church by its
truth of the words of Pope Pius XI: "Communism is in- enemies, primarily Freemasonry and Communism.
trinsically and no one who would save Christian Today those enemies are, for all practical purposes, in
civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking total control of the Conciliar Church from the top on
whatsoever." And so it was that I was free and able for down.
a number of years to do my part in the fight against
Communism in various ways, especially through pub- When the traditional movement first began to take
lished articles and hundreds of lectures around the shape some i 5 years ago, I, for one, thought that it
country. To oppose and expose militant atheism would be just a matter of a rather brief time before a
seemed to me to be a very priestly endeavor although significant number of priests and laity would come
only a very few priests in the USA ever appeared to aboard. Especially priests and bishops in their 50's
share that conviction of mine. (Only in recent years, I and 60's, I figured, would see what was happening to
readily admit, have I come to a full awareness that the Church every bit as clearly as I and a few other
Freemasonry is every bit as great an evil as Commu- priests did and would readily take a public stand on the
nism.) side of traditional Catholicism for the preservation of
the Faith. How could they go along and be a part of the
I never offered the Novus Ordo service once I wholesale destruction of the Faith which they were wit-
began to suspect, back in the late i 960's, that it was nessing on all sides? How wrong I was. To this day not
not the true Mass, yet, as I indicated above, it was not a single bishop in the USA has taken an unqualified
because of the "new Mass" that I originally secured a stand for the traditional Roman Catholic Faith and only
leave of absence from parochial duties in the one priest in approximately a thousand has done so.
Church. At that time I am sure that I had no serious The best that can be said for many of them is that they
doubt that what was described as the Roman Catholic are cowards. That there are at least some in their ranks
Church was indeed the Roman Catholic Church. Not who are enemies of the Church of Christ, men com-
until the i 970's did it become more and more ap- mitted to the destruction of the Church, there is no
parent to me that this Church, while it persisted in doubt whatsoever. (As for the religious-nuns and
retaining the name of Roman Catholic, bore ever less brothers-who have stood up for the Faith without
and less resemblance to the one true Church. At what compromise, I would estimate that no more than one
specific point in time the non-Catholic Conciliar Church in four thousand in this country has done so-one of
came into existence, I do not know, but eventually I be- those rare individuals being Sister Rita Lawrence of
came convinced that the one true Church is found and
Our Lady of Victory Chapel in Aurora, Colorado.)
continues to exist in traditional Catholicism-and there
such has been my unassailable conviction
A second major disappointment in the brief history of
for the past ten years or so now. As I have often stated
the traditional movement in this country to date is the
in the pages of this newsletter, whatever the Conciliar
deplorably small number of those who may be correct-
Church is, it is not the one, true and eternal Church
ly classified as traditional Roman Catholics. While, for
founded by the Son of God-and it completely es-
The Athanasian 4 June 1, 1984
reasons, it was never ranks remnant of
would be more than a remnant, I wonder if ever number
that remnant would be so pitifully and
as it is today. well aware no move-
ment or undertaking which takes an uncompromising,
radical stand on principles will ever draw of
I did not that even traditional
Catholicism be much different in this respect-
but it remains difficult for me to this to reconcile
myself to fact that, of millions of members
Church some 20 ago, than one in a thou-
sand ls a traditional Catholic today!
even
ever small
being most noble cause on earth,
in that almost to a man, the most
the most literally Christian
These are the Roman
they love
I now recall, was the trend my thinking
days the traditional movement.
out that way. As passed,
to my amazement and dis-
remnant the Faith was not at
and character i
Athanasian 5 June 1,
Francis E. Fenton
"""''"''""'' available to
cate of John Paul II,
Nor is
6
"Who is John Paul H?" continued from page 3 has grown much larger than was planned. I hope you
By "socialization," John Paul II would, it seems, go so see that the reason for this is that the issue is much
far as to support the legalized theft known as land re- larger. To destroy the tree bearing bad fruit-and such
form, as with the seizure of farms by the government in a tree the Conciliar Church surely is-we have to strike
El Salvador: at its roots. But, just as surely, those roots are the con-
tinuing confidence game that is foisted upon millions of
When he was in Oaxaca (Mexico) he went so far Catholics of good intention, who follow John Paul II as
as to state there must be no hesitation when it mindlessly as the children of Hamlin are said to have
comes to the expropriation of private property, followed the Pied Piper. t
"correctly carried out," provided it is for the com-
mon good. But nowhere does he say who is to (PART ONE of "WHO IS JOHN PA UL II?" appeared in
decide what is for the common good, or what the March 1, issue of The Athanasian. In the sec-
"correctly carried out" means. (Coomaraswamy, ond-to-last paragraph of PART ONE Mr. Weiskittel
op. cit., p. 107.) stated that he would deal with John Paul /l's views on a
number of other subjects in a future article "if reader re-
How stealing can be reconciled with "Christian moral- sponse warrants one." Reader response did warrant
ity" is puzzling, until one considers the Schelerian one and that is the article above. But several subjects
"rebuilding" of ethics. which were to be discussed in relation to John Paul II in
this newsletter issue are not treated, such as, for ex-
n the ample, his views on feminism, the U.N. and world gov-
When I began this article, I went on the assumption that ernment, and disarmament So? So there will be a
I would seek merely to illustrate why semi-traditional PART THREE of "WHO IS JOHN PAUL II?" which will
and conservative Conciliarists' trust in John Paul II as a appear in the next issue of The Athanasian, that of July
defender of the Catholic faith is a misplaced trust, by 15, 1984. Although I have no doubt that Mr. Weiskittel
providing a number of examples of his infidelity on cer- has enough material for at least one or two more
tain issues. Now, with two parts completed and still pieces on the current occupant of the papal throne,
much to say about him, I've reached the conviction that PART THREE should conclude our detailed newsletter
he is not merely important in his relationship to a given treatment of the subject for now. Editor)
issue but, in a real sense, he is the issue.
What I mean here is that the whole credibility of the
Conciliar Church's claim to be the real Roman Catholic
Church stands or falls with him. If he can deserve our
trust as the true successor to St. Peter, then we have
no recourse other than compliance with the whole
Modernist "New Church." That is the position held by
the tradition-leaning element in Conciliarism: "We
don't like what's going on any more than you do, but Inquiries
out of obedience we must do as told and not
questions." Occasionally a new subscriber to our newsletter in-
quires about the meaning of the name, The Athanasian.
Now, we know that isn't the case, but how do we get It refers to Athanasius who lived in the fourth
the message across to potential converts to traditional century was Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt for
Catholicism? The most effective way is to show them 46 years. Banned from his diocese at least five times, he
where John Paul ll's positions (and actions) are at var- spent a total of 17 years in exile. The famous convert to
iance with Catholic thought. Nothing short of that, I'm the Church, John Henry Cardinal Newman, described
convinced, will change their minds. The principal rea- him as a "principal instrument after the Apostles by
son, humanly speaking, why our numbers have re- which the sacred truths of Christianity have been con-
mained small is that he has done a better job of con- veyed and secured to the world." Often referred to as
vincing people of his orthodoxy than we have of dis- the Champion of Orthodoxy, Saint Athanasius was
crediting it? undoubtedly one of the most courageous defenders of
the Faith in the entire history of the Church. If anyone
To get the truth to people it is necessary to give them can be singled out as a saint our times, surely it is
detailed evidence of his heresey; otherwise they will Saint Athanasius. t
accuse us of quoting him out of context. What began
as one brief examination of John Paul ll's credentials
The Athanasian 7 June 1, 1984
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