The Fall of Lucifer, by Gustave Dore, 1866.

The Sin of our Age

It is often said that pride is the sin of our age.

So often said, that perhaps we have never meditated on what that means or surveyed how true that saying is.

The word, “pride” can signify a sin, a vice, or the esteem for a thing, as in “I take pride in my Alma Mater.”

Of the sin, it is true that pride was the first sin of the first created person: Lucifer.  “I shall not serve” (Jerimiah 2:20), is the scriptural phrase oft quoted by the Fathers and Doctors and Saints and attributed, by accommodation, to Lucifer’s sign of rebellion.

Saint Bonaventure gives a wonderful meditation on this, in his tract on demonology. Therein, he says that it was in the insistence not to serve God, that Lucifer consummated his sin of pride.  This is because pride is the vice which first moves the spirit to go out of its proper place and seek a higher place.  Since the Angels were created to serve God, there could be no rebellion or pride in an Angel except he refuse to serve God.

The first effect, therefore, of the vice of pride, is to omit the divine service or worship of God.

This is because, the proper and just relationship of every creature to the Creator is one of a just recognition of the dependence of the creature upon the Creator in all things, a generous expression and manifestation of gratitude to the Creator and a diligent and exact worship of God in mind and heart and action, and thus the zealous service or obsequium of God.

Contrariwise, the effects of the vice and sin of pride are first to consider that the creature is NOT dependent upon God, and thus to omit the just recognition of that dependence, to omit a generous expression and manifestation of gratitude as a dependent and subject creature to the Creator, and thus to omit a diligent and exact worship of God in mind and heart and action, and consequently to omit the zealous service of God.

The self-evident characteristics of pride, when recognized, are a powerful measure by which one can recognize pride in one’s self and in our present age.

Let us take these characteristics and use them to measure what has happened in the Church in the last 60 years, and let us follow these considerations to their most impolitical but true conclusions.

Pride is the cause of its own downfall

For his sin of pride, Lucifer was cast out of Heaven, and all those angels who followed him in that sin, with him.

This casting out was formally an act of the Divine Justice: God did actually order and command and expel them from Heaven.

But for mankind, after his fall, pride is the cause of his own downfall, even without the intervention of God — though God does intervene and punish it — because it leads of itself to the ruinous disorder of man in his own mind, in his own heart, in his own person and body and relation to human society and with God.

The effect of Pride in the Church

Thus, even in the Church, the sin of pride has its own effect, even though God spiritually and temporally and eternally punishes this sin, which is mortal ex genere suo and secundum se.

It is mortal from its own very genus (ex genere suo), because it directly opposes the Divine Will which orders all things wisely and puts all in their proper place. Its mortal according to itself (secundum se), because it of necessity destroys the spiritual life.

Now the truth of the Church, obviously, like all things which pride corrupts, must be directly attacked by the pride of Catholics.  The truth of the Church, however, is that She was founded by Jesus Christ as the ark of salvation and the only true religion for mankind.

When pride is introduced into the very life of the Church Militant, it must, humanly speaking, undo the truth of the Church. And the worst sin of pride which could be introduced into the Church is the pride which would attack Her most directly and intimately.

Vatican II as the consummate sin of Pride

Now the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, as Pope Pius XII taught, the Holy Spirit, Her quasi-soul.  As is seen in the history of the Church, in moments of crisis, the Holy Spirit has raised up holy Saints and Doctors and Popes who have called councils to condemn errors and restore disciplines.

Now a general principle of ever creature is that it depends upon God not only for its creation, or existence, but also for its essence, nature and form; and not only for these its first being (esse primum), but also for its second being (esse secundum), that is, its actions.  This does not mean that creatures are puppets who act when God commands, but that creatures on the natural level cannot do anything unless God either permits or commands; and in the supernatural world, creatures cannot do anything meritorious of eternal life unless God permits AND commands.

For this reason, if God wills that a Council be called, He gives the grace; if it is accepted and is called, He will see that it accomplishes His will, though men must cooperate.  However, contrariwise, if God does NOT call a council, NO matter how many men collaborate, whether as saints or sinners, that Council cannot produce good fruit supernaturally speaking.

After 60 years, anyone with a sense of honesty must admit that something is wrong with Vatican II and its implementation.  That leads to the obvious conclusion that pride has entered into the mix somewhere.

As a matter of historic fact, however, it can be confirmed that pride had everything to do with Vatican II.

First, because a council to reunite all Christians was first promoted at the international Convention of Masonic Lodges in Istanbul, when Archbishop Roncalli was the Apostolic Nuncio in Greece. At that conference, the Greek Patriarch was persuaded to accept the suggestion. He visited with Roncalli and suggested it to him. And afterwards Roncalli admitted this to his private secretary.  Years later when Roncalli was elected Pope and took the name John XXIII he called Vatican II for precisely this reason.

So the inspiration for Vatican II came from the Masonic Lodges, whose three-headed God, is a devil. Hence, the inspiration for Vatican II does not come from God, but from a demon of pride. Hence the true spirit of Vatican II must be a demon of pride, not the Holy Spirit, because God does not baptize the work of demons.

Pride visible in the act by John XXIII to call Vatican II

That pride was visible at Vatican II is obvious to all who honestly look at the history of the Council.

First, John XXIII called the Council without any reason to do so.

Second, he called a Council which he personally knew was suggested to him by the Freemasons.

Third, he called a Council to change things which the Holy Spirit had already ratified in previous councils and through Sacred and Ecclesiastical tradition and the abundant fruitfulness of the Church living and promoting these things.

In this way, the pride of John XXIII offended the entire Holy Trinity.  Because God the Father is the author of order and reason, not of whims and chance; God the Son is the Head of the Church, not the Freemasons; God the Holy Spirit is the Lord and vivifier of the Church, not the Pope.

A pope cannot just will something to happen supernaturally and it happens. He is not God. And to act in this way is a sin of consummate pride, because it presupposes that one is God, when one is not God.

Pride visible at the Council

That pride was visible at the Council can be seen in this: that for the Bishops of the world to convene for a council when there was no reason and to consider changing what had no need to be changed, and to presume to do this without any sign of God, relying only on the whim of a pope who is not God, is consummate pride.

To abandon carefully prepared schemata for the Council on a whim vote, is consummate pride, because certainly the best theologians working for 2-4 years are more able to prepare texts than a mix of good and bad theologians working hastily for a compromise.

To insult learned and holy Cardinals during the Council by denying them the microphone and cheering their removal from the podium, is consummate pride, because it attacks the better and exalts the mediocre.

To vote on documents which are dozens of pages long in Latin, when one has little knowledge of Latin, and to do so in a few weeks before having accurate translations, is consummate intellectual pride and wilfulness.

To call such a council “ecumenical”, “dogmatic”, “sacred”, “sacrosanct”, “infallible” or “pastoral” is also consummate pride, because it is a lie to call such a gathering any of these things.

To approve such documents and insist they then become the very norm of ecclesial renewal, is consummate pride, because it exalts the whims and haste of clergymen over the Headship of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the Church.

Pride visible in the Conciliar Texts

Consummate pride is also visible in the very texts of the Council.

It is a work of pride to change discipline before defining doctrine.  But this is what Sacrosanctum concilium, the document on the liturgy did.

It is a work of pride to exalt Divine Revelation, all the while asserting one’s authority to change everything in the Church which was founded in fidelity to Divine Revelation.  But this is what Dei Verbum did.

It is a work of pride to praise the pursuit of the perfection of Divine Charity, all the while setting up roadblocks and instituting processes for the breakdown and dissolution of the very communities dedicated by vow to pursue this: religious communities. But this is what Perfectae Charitatis did.

It is a work of pride to assert anyone can be saved apart from Christ and apart from His Church.  But this is what Nostra Aetate did.

And one could go on and on about nearly all the Vatican II documents.

Pride visible in the Aggiornamento

Consummate pride is clearly visible in every aspect of the Aggiornamento.

First, it is visible in the very name of the renewal and application of the Council: “aggiornamento”, which is Italian for “updating”, as if the Church whose very quasi soul is the Lord and Vivifier, the Creator Holy Spirit, could be in need of updating, that is could be old or decrepit; or could be in need of being up to date with the world, though She is the immaculate Bride of God!

Second, consummate pride is visible in documents of the Aggiornamento, which cite only the Council or Scripture in the “light of the council”, as if the Catholic religion now consisted in living by the conciliar texts, just as the Church before Council lived by Sacred Scripture.

Third, consummate pride is visible in the very history and course of the Aggiornamento, in which though despite 70 years of statistical and moral proof of failure and sterility, the Sacred Hierarchy pursues loyalty to the Council even to the destruction of all souls and institutions.

Fourth, consummate pride is the very spirit of the Aggiornamento, because all addicted to it refuse to repent, to recognize their spirit as prideful, and to admit any change of course is now a moral obligation.

In short, Vatican II allowed to enter into the Church the spirit of luciferian pride and the Aggiornamento and the Sacred Hierarchy have made this diabolic spirit the official religion of the Catholic Church.

Some examples of Pride in the daily life of the Church

It is consummate pride to offer the Divine Sacrifice while turning your back to God (versus populum).

It is consummate pride to obstruct, prevent and forbid that a priest offering sacrifice to God face God (ad orientem).

It is consummate pride to put any temporal need or activity before the worship of God, by not opening Churches as early as possible, having mass in the morning, or opening them in the evening to end the day thanking God.

It is consummate pride for priests and religious to spend more time watching TV or eating than praying to God.

It is consummate pride to assert and insist that the laity receive the Most Blessed Sacrament in the hand, or in the Latin Rite, while standing.

It is consummate pride to move the Tablernacle which contains God, off the central axis of the Church and/or to hide it away from the faithful.

It is consummate pride to use secular or worldly music or instruments during Divine Worship.

It is consummate pride to use translations or liturgical texts which are ideologically manipulated in a sense incoherent and or opposed to Scripture, Tradition or the working of holiness in the Church as it has been for 1965 years prior to the close of Vatican II.

It is consummate pride to alter the Sacraments and to alter the rituals of the Mass.

It is consummate pride to alter marriage vows and the rules of religious orders founded by Saints and fruitful with numerous saints.

One could go one, endlessly, I think, but you get the idea.

What are you going to do about it?

Well, obviously, only to lament these problems, would be an act of pride, because as Catholics and God’s creatures we are obliged in justice to oppose pride and undo the works of pride.

But it would also be a work of pride to leave the Church.

It is a work of pride too to want only to manage the problem, or milk the problem, without seeking to cure the problem, as many groups and “Catholic” publications do without realizing it, perhaps.

It is also a work of pride to think or attempt to negotiate with a devil or compromise with pride and the works of pride.

The humble thing to do is 1:  to completely reject what has come forth and been conceived in pride and to live one’s Catholic life as good Catholics lived before the Council, and 2: to strive to convince all other Catholics to do the same.