THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL

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THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL
Rama Coomaraswamy, M.D.

One of the most frequent arguments in favor of the legitimacy of the post-Conciliar establishment is God's promise that "the gates of hell shall not prevail." Implicit in this brief is that is neither possible nor likely that God has abandoned His own. How is one to respond to such an argument.

Let us start with indisputable facts. Whether we believe it or not, and whether it seems possible to us or not, what is abundantly clear is, that after a scandalous Council lacking both regularity and dignity, the Catholic religion has been changed. In the practical order, it has been replaced by another religion, an evolving religion, a religion greatly influenced by Freemasonry and Marxism and inspired throughout by what Popes Pius IX and X clearly rejected under the designation of "Modernism." Having created a "robber" Council that raised a host of errors such as the denial of the Church's "Unity" and Religious Liberty to the level of an infallible teaching, the post-Conciliar "Church" proceeded to abolish the Oath against Modernism and the Holy Office. What other purpose could such measures have than to deprive the Traditional Church - the Church of All Times - of all her defences? And what followed? The turning of altars into tables, the changing of priests into "presidents," the invalidating of all the sacraments not acceptable to Protestants, the mistranslating of the Scriptures, and above all, the downgrading of Tabernacles and the destruction of the Mass - "humanist" and demagogic changes of the most serious nature. Cardinal Suenens was correct when he described this as "the French Revolution in the Catholic Church."

Consider the principle that "by their fruits you shall know them." Now what are the fruits of the new religion? Priests by the thousands have abandoned their calling - of those remaining over 25% requested and were refused permission to marry. Monks and nuns laicized by the thousands. The seminaries are virtually deserted. The median age for priests in the United States being the late fifties, with an anticipated drop to 40% of the present level by the end of the decade. Far more tragic: despite the wide range of "liturgies" offered - conservative to radical chic - Catholics by the millions have turned away from the Church and for all practical purposes the youth is no longer interested in what she has to offer. Only 15% of the erstwhile faithful still attend Sunday Mass and among these communions are up while confessions are down, suggesting that even sin is dwindling away. Over 80% of married Catholics use birth control and do so in the belief that such violates no divine principle, divorce statistics show no difference between Catholics and others; and in the practical realm complete chaos exists with regard to sexual behavior.

Along with all this is the corruption, nay destruction of doctrine and theology. The acceptance of evolution as a fact in every realm - be it biology, theology, sociology - even the Tielhardian thesis that God Himself evolves! The abrogation of canons 1399 and 2318, the refusal of the Church to condemn out and out heretics and the blatant indulgence extended to those who like Hans Kung - their name is legion - would poison the thinking of the faithful are symptomatic of the wide-spread modernist malignancy. The self proclaimed "desacralization" and "demytholization" of the Church combined with the misrepresentation of everything traditional has resulted in an all-pervasive familiarity and vulgarity. Recent attempts to cover this over by dressing the presidents (clergy) and nuns in traditional garb has in no way changed the situation.

Let those who have ears hear. The writing was on the wall from the very opening of the Council. But who of us wished to listen. It's leitmotiv was Aggiornamento, a concept inimical to any religion based on eternal verities and Revelation. Roncalli, alias John XXIII, then declared his intention "to safeguard the sacred deposit of the faith more effectively." It does not take much imagination to understand what he meant - and he did not hesitate to declare that "...the substance of the ancient doctrine contained in the deposit of the faith is one thing, the manner in which it is expressed in another..." This claim is false and in fact satanic, for it opened the door to all the betrayals and falsifications that followed. The traditional formulations were not superficial luxuries, they were guarantees of the truth and efficacy; they more then adequately expressed what they wished to say - their adequacy was in fact their raison d'etre. Is not the truth inseparable from its expression? Was it not the strength of the Church that the old expressions were always valid? They only displeased those who wished to make modernism, scientism, evolutionism and socialism part of the "deposit of the faith."

One must take a phenomena for what it is. If one sees a tiger in the streets of New York one does not require a news broadcast to know that what one sees is a reality. One can deny its existence only at the risk of one's life.

Despite the obvious, there are those who, desiring to have the "best of both worlds," would exculpate the post-Conciliar Church; and who seek to explain why is it that the "smoke of Satan" has all but obscured "the dome of St. Peter's"? Some claim that it is because the Council and the subsequent innovations were "badly interpreted." But, by whom? Others, loudly proclaiming their loyalty to those usurping the Chair of Peter, claim it is the fault of the bishops and cardinals around him. But who appointed them? Since when has the principle of respondeat superior been abandoned? (Even hell has a hierarchical structure.) Despite the fact that such claims are often motivated by the desire "to cover Noah's drunkenness," they remain a combination of improbabilities and hypocrisy.

Whether we like it or not, this blame must fall primarily upon the post-conciliar "popes." Even though none of us are without an element of culpability, it is they who must bear the burden. It is they who approved the Council and the Reforms, and without their approval neither the Council nor the Reforms would have any meaning or authority. It is they who have misapplied the principles of obedience in order to bring the erstwhile faithful into line. It is they who tolerate every conceivable deviation while condemning out of hand whatever is traditional. They are not individuals who have "fallen into heresy," or who are, as Lefebvre would say, "tainted with modernism." (Can one have a touch of Pregnancy?) They are much worse, for they are heretics who have been elected precisely because they are heretics; men who, by the laws of the traditional Church have long since excommunicated themselves. And this condemnation applies to virtually the entire "electoral body" responsible for the implementation of what can only be described as a modernist conspiracy. It further applies to the sycophant hierarchy which declares itself una cum those in power.

"And Ciaphus was, in his own mind, a benefactor of mankind" (Blake). To speak of a conspiracy is not to deny the sincerity of those involved. But what heretic has ever lacked sincerity? Nor is it to claim that every individual who lent and lends his support is a conscious subversive. (Thou our Lord did said that he who is not with Him was against Him - not to condemn error is to condone it.) The net result is clear. The Council and its aftermath was achieved by a conspiracy of individuals who Pope Saint Pius X clearly condemned, and against whom he desired to protect the Church. He went so far as to state, in his capacity as Pope and hence ex cathedra, that any individual who even defended a single modernist proposition condemned by his Encyclicals and Lamentabili was ipso facto and latae sententiae excommunicated - that is, by that very fact and without any need for any one to publicly so declare (Praestantia Scripturae, Nov. 18, 1907). No father signing the Council documents and no member of the hierarchy accepting and teaching them, can claim to fall outside this condemnation. Everyone who considers himself "in obedience" to the new Church implicitly accepts its modernist principles.^[1]

Consider Religious Liberty - the idea that every man is free to decide for himself what is true and false, what is right and wrong, and that his very human dignity resides in just this licence. Imagine Christ upon the Cross telling us that he came to establish a visible Church - "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic," and to confide to it those truths necessary for our salvation. He continues however to assure us that we have no obligation to listen to Him. - that we are free to choose for ourselves what we shall believe, and that our real human dignity resides, not in conforming to His image, but in making just such choices! Incredible! And now, some two thousand years later, we find Christ's representative whose function it is to teach us what Christ taught us, assuring us that, as a result of Christ's incarnation, all men, even those who reject the very idea of God, are saved, that Christ's Church, through her own fault, has lost her "unity," and that the Crucifixion is but a "witness to man's human dignity" - his ability to determine for himself what is true and false. Madness reigns supreme!

It will be argued that these false popes have said some nice things. Such however is of no importance or interest in the present situation when we must decide whether or not they are truly Christ's representatives on earth. If they are truly "one hierarchical person" with our Lord, we must obey them. But Catholics must understand that the Pope's infallibility is totally dependent upon his being himself in obedience to Christ, and that when he rejects Christ and falsifies Christ's teaching, we must reject his authority. As Peter said, "one must obey God rather than man." A modernist pope is an impossibility. Either he is a modernist and then he isn't a pope, or he is a pope and then he isn't a modernist. All this is not a matter of picking or choosing what we shall believe. It is a matter of being Catholic. To deny this principle is to declare Christ a liar! St. Catherine of Sienna told us that a Pope who falsifies his function will go to hell, and further, that those of us who obey him will go there with him. Let us be done with those who claim that John Paul II is trying to bring the "Church" back to tradition. The lie is easily exposed. All he has to do is reject Vatican II and restore the traditional sacraments. Short of this he is but a wolf in sheep's clothing pulling the wool over our eyes.

Have the "gates of hell" prevailed?. Certainly not. Catholics know that Christ cannot lie. Let us then examine the meaning of this promise. What it proclaims is that the truth will ultimately win out - though not necessarily so in the "short run." That such is "true" is an intellectual certainty, for error can only be defined in terms of the denial of truth. Now the Catholic Church is true, and hence it can no more be totally destroyed than can the truth itself. But this Church resides, not in numbers, not in buildings, and not even of necessity in the hierarchy. The truth functions ex opere operatio. It resides in the faithful (the hierarchy must be "of the faithful," before they can be "of the hierarchy." Or as the theologians put it, members of the "teaching Church" (the Magisterium) must be first of all members of the "learning Church.") Every baptized infant, according to the traditional rite, becomes a "member of the body of Christ." And what is the Church if not the Body of Christ, the presence of Christ in this world? It follows then that, as Catherine Emerick points out, if there were but one person alive who was truly Catholic, the Church would reside in him.

Visibility is a quality of the Church. Does visibility require a hierarchy. The matter is open to debate, but time has not yet run its course. In any event traditional bishops are available, and if but one traditional bishop survives, the hierarchy would reside in him. What has to be remembered however is that the Church does not exist for the sake of the hierarchy, it is the hierarchy that exists for the sake of the Church. And history has shown that Catholics can live and retain the faith for centuries without any hierarchy. God knows his own and will not abandon them. If a bishop is necessary for the visibility of the Church, He will certainly provide one. Ultimately, it is we who abandon God, his truth and his Church, and never the other way around.

One would have thought that the changes were more than enough to induce the faithful to revolt. The great surprise, truly apocalyptic, was that the Catholic people did not do so. That they did not only goes to show what "sincere, pious, fervent and well intentioned" Catholics really valued. One is tempted to feel sorry for them, but as always, even in such a situation "God knows his own." One must insist upon this, for the truly innocent are far less numerous than one is inclined to believe. The argument that it is not possible or likely that God would abandon his own presumes that "his own" did not deserve to be abandoned, when in fact they did deserve it precisely to the degree that they are in fact abandoned.

Why did Catholics not revolt?. Well, first of all, many did, but their stand was undermined by poor leadership. Psychologically dependent upon the hierarchy and the clergy, they looked for guidance that was not provided. The Modernists, working for decades, had prepared the ground, and even those who were not out and out subversives had their faith corrupted and hence weakened. At the Council there were perhaps 70 individuals who - towards the end - began to understand what was happening. No more! And among them not one was willing to take a clear cut stand on solid doctrinal grounds. Even Lefebvre based his opposition on false theological premises, arguing for example that one can disobey a valid pope.^[2] Secondly, for decades the faithful were both inadequately trained in their faith and discouraged from leading active spiritual lives. Educated in secularized colleges, taught by "liberal" priests, they were by in large modernists without knowing it. And finally, both clergy and laity found the modern world seductively attractive. They found the rejection and scorn of the modern world - a world which had repudiated the Church and like the Prodigal son, had walked away from the bosom of the Father - increasingly intolerable. They could not accept the disapproval of this world in which they believed more strongly than in Christ. The Council declared the Church would henceforth not only be "open to the world," but that it would "embrace" it! Its avowed aim and promise was aggiornamento to bring the Church "into the twentieth century" and make it part of, and acceptable to that world. No longer did she proclaim that it was necessary for the Prodigal son to return to the bosom of the Father. Rather, abandoning both her function and her identity, she proclaimed that the Father was obliged to eat the swill fit only for pigs!. Both clergy and laity - exceptions apart - rushed headlong into to the sea to spend their patrimony as if there was no tomorrow. It is this that is at the heart of the conspiracy. It is this that is the crux of the problem. It is this that created the smoke swirling around St. Peter's Basilica. This spark of rebellion, present in the soul of every man, needed only the "winds of change" to create an inferno.

However, as has always been the case throughout the history of the Church, a remnant persisted in retaining the fullness of the faith. The true Church is to be found among those who believe and continue to believe in the manner of their ancestors. It is they who bear witness to the truth of Christ's promise. It is they who provide the proof that "the gates of hell have not prevailed." Not all are profound theologians. Not all are sinless. But they can be recognized by their insistence on true priests, true doctrine, and the true Mass - the Mass of All Times.

Some would accuse traditional Catholics - those that insist on retaining the fullness of the Catholic faith intact and who therefore refuse the new religion of the post-Conciliar Church, of being in "schism." The accusation is a lie. In reality, the schismatic is one who removes himself from the truth, and not one who insists upon it. And if it is necessary to separate oneself from something in order to save the truth, long live Schism! But in reality, it is not the traditional Catholic who is in Schism, but those who are responsible for changing the Catholic faith. But let is be both clear and honest. The new Church is not schismatic. It is heretical. In similar manner traditional Catholics are accused of being Protestants because they disobey the pope. Such accusations are false. Traditional Catholics do not "pick and choose" what they wish to believe; they are adhering with all their hearts to what the Church has always taught and always done. Nor are they disobeying the pope. They believe that the pope, being Christ's vicar on earth and "one hierarchical person" with our Lord, is to be obeyed. They know that when Peter speaks he is infallible because it is Christ who speaks through him. They are the out and out papists and are doing nothing less than refusing to disobey Peter. In such a situation they are obliged to disobey those who falsely speak in Peter's name. To obey modernist and heretical "popes" is to declare that they are "one hierarchical person" with our Lord and hence that Christ teaches falsely - quod absit!

It is an unfortunate fact that too many of the traditionalists do not wish to be labeled "integrists." or "sedevacantists." And why not? Why should they stop mid way? Such only leads to wrangling about the most absurd positions, or to timidity of language combined with conventional and infantile sentimentalities. If the post-Conciliar "popes" are true popes, let us obey them. If not, let us obey Peter and through him Christ. People claim to be "confused" or "troubled." Why? The ancient catechisms are always there and modern innovations are no different in principle than those of a prior era. Sin can change its style, but not its nature. "There is no greater right than that of truth," and despite the teaching of Vatican II, "error has no rights whatsoever."

Traditional Catholics often give scandal by arguing among themselves. The new Church in comparison seems more united. In point of fact it is, for it accepts within its aegis every conceivable deviation. But if traditional Catholics seem divided it is because, in the absence of clear leadership, each individual group seeks to determine just what is truly Catholic for itself. What is required is a deeper study and commitment to what is truly Catholic on the part of all. Paraphrasing Lenin, let us have no enemies on the right - none more orthodox and none more traditional than ourselves. Let us be united in the truth manifested in the constant teaching and practice of the Church throughout the ages. So help us God.

It is extraordinary that modern churchman should claim to be reading "the signs of the times." Christ depicted the "last times" in very sombre colors. Scripture warns of an unparalleled outbreak of evil, called by St. Paul an Apostasy, in the midst of which a terrible Man of Sin and child of perdition, the special singular enemy of Christ, or Antichrist will appear; that this will be when revolutions prevail and the present framework of society breaks to pieces. We are told that they "shall defile the sanctuary of strength and shall take away the continual sacrifice and they shall place there the abomination unto desolation." Does not Jeremias speak in God's Name when he says "My Tabernacle is laid waste, all My cords are broken: My children are gone out from Me, and they are not... Because the pastors have done foolishly, and have not sought the Lord." And are we not told that "many false Christs will arise," that false doctrines will be preached and that even the seeming elect will be deceived? Finally, is not Christ specific when He tells us that at the final coming only a "remnant" will be left - a remnant persecuted by the Antichrist? Despite such warnings the modern Sanhedrin in Rome insist on supporting and fostering the forces of revolution. They proclaim their intention to create a better world, in which the principles of the French Revolution are brought to fruition - where all men will be free, equal, and live in brotherly peace. And with this in view they have committed themselves to the creation of a one world religion in which all men - even atheists - will be gathered together as "the people of God," and salvation will be as Vatican II preaches, "a communitarian process." Fortunately traditional Catholics can also read the signs of the times. They see in all this the fulfillment of the Scriptural prophecies. This is why they insist on being a traditional Remnant. May God give them the gift of perseverance.

^[1] Certain distinctions should be made. These are essentially those between material and formal heresy - the later requiring awareness that one is acting or believing in a manner that goes against the constant teaching of the Church, and that one does this with obstinacy. It is certainly possible that some of the fathers were only material heretics. It is not for us to judge souls, but we are certainly obliged to judge the facts.

^[2] Clearly liturgical matters and the insistance upon obedience to a supposedly valid Council fall within his authority.