Notes on the Church of the Council and Astonishing Propagation

ASTONISHING PROPAGATION – “…not having the power nor the faculty of producing children but only of stealing the offspring of others as the partridge does.”

Meaning: “And it is certainly one of the properties of the Church to be fertile.” “Now this fertility and these great nations of the Church come primarily by preaching as St. Paul says I Cor. 4:15: ‘In the Gospel I have begotten you.’ – Fiery preaching is the means of this begetting.

Criticisms:

  1. Your ministers have not converted any province (or country) from paganism. Rather they a) divide Christendom, b) create factions, c) tear in pieces the robe of our Lord. (Def. convert: a turning or returning to God and to the true religion. Paganism: All religions other than the true one.)
  2. They have the letter without the Spirit.
  3. Your preachers have never undertaken the business of converting heathens but only of perverting our own.

THE CHURCH OF THE COUNCIL

  1. Converting pagans: The “…one Church of Christ…subsists1 in the Catholic Church…although many elements of sanctification and truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward Catholic unity.” (Lumen Gentium) “Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside of the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.” (Unitatis Redintegratio) Comments: Makes all pagans who are not members of the Roman Catholic Church (the visible Catholic Church) who possess the “elements of sanctification and truth’ ‘belong’ to the ‘one Church of Christ.’ This makes conversion of all these impossible since no one can turn to what he already possesses. Conversion must therefore be understood not as traditionally defined but rather as acquiring the ‘elements’ whether or not a member of the RCC. Movement from paganism to membership in the RCC (traditional conversion) is now actually movement from partial to complete, imperfect to perfect, or even from lukewarm to on fire. In whatever way one views it the mission of the Church of the Council is to move people along a continuum from irreligion (defined perhaps as in no way possessing – if this be even possible – the ‘elements’) to religion (being within the ‘one Church of Christ’) to membership in the RCC (that incomparable character (a la Ratzinger below) of the true and proper ‘one Church of Christ’). a. There was no Christendom left as St. Francis is speaking of at the time of the Council. b. Factions arose immediately following the Council and as a direct result of its teaching – see the “traditionalist” movement started by Marcel LeFebvre and a thousand others. The Church of the Council by doing nothing to discipline these encourages them. c. The tearing in pieces: Many have left what they either thought or no longer thought was the Church.
  2. Letter without the Spirit: The Council bold-fadedly confronts this criticism (as with so many others with its ‘end-around’ approach, namely its solution to a problem that avoids the problem rather than dealing with it directly) by making the Spirit the life not only of the visible Catholic Church but of the ‘one Church of Christ’ by its fiats noted above in the conciliar documents. Thus just as the work of conversion is avoided so too preaching that gives the fire of the Spirit and converts from idolatry is to the Council not only not necessary but not even a coherent idea.
  3. In the above (1.) it is clear that the ministers of the Church of the Council have never undertaken the business or commission of converting heathens. Perversion Def.: The alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended. Index of Leading Catholic Indicators Chapter 3 demonstrates the change in the beliefs of Catholics in the two generations following the Council.
  1. Cardinal Ratzinger (Interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung): “The concept expressed by “is” (to be) is far broader than that expressed by “to subsist”. “To subsist” is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that the being of the Church as such is a broader entity than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.” ↩︎