Pope Saint Pius X
fought Modernism tooth and nail, calling it ‘the synthesis of all heresies’.
Indeed modernism is a great synthesis that makes use of half-truths, ambiguous statements
to propagate falsehood such that it takes deep Catholic sensibility to decipher
this heresy! The robber council, Vatican II, is filled with Modernist verbiage
all dedicated to propagating heresy in a secrete way so that millions of souls
are lost!
Yet, millions claiming
to be Catholic are not able to discover that Modernism have been placed on
their shoulders as they risk their souls towards hell!
You’ve heard it
numerous times: “The Catholic Church has the fullness of truth.” It is a
very popular slogan among the so-called “conservative” Novus Ordo adherents,
and even many misguided Traditional Catholics unwittingly use it.
Yet, this adage, though
not incorrect if interpreted strictly, is actually favorable to heresy,
specifically the heresy of Modernism. This explains why it is an expression
that only began to be used with the advent of the Modernist Novus Ordo/Vatican II religion
and was virtually unknown among Catholics before this religion was established in 1958.
So, what is the
problem? Are we suggesting that the Catholic Church does not have all
the truth? No, of course not.
Rather, the problem
lies in the term “fullness” because it implies that the truth can be found in
other religions as well, albeit only in part, in “elements,” as they love to
say. And this idea of “partial truth” — as opposed to the fullness of
truth — leads to further errors and erroneous implications, as is evidenced by
the teaching and practice of the Modernist Vatican II Sect, which praises false
religions for the truth supposedly contained in them.
The Danger of the
Notion of “Partial Truth”
The very concept of
“partial truth” in other religions as a supposedly good thing totally
leaves out of account the fact that the other parts of that
religion’s teaching are false. Yet this consideration is crucial because a
body of doctrine that contains only some truth is not “partially
true” but in fact completely false.
This is very easy to
demonstrate. If I say that “Christ died on the Cross and did not rise from the
dead,” my statement is false — it is not “partially true” or
“imperfectly true.” Or, using an even clearer example, saying that the Most
Holy Trinity consists of Father, Son, and the Virgin Mary, is false. It is
not “partially true” on the specious grounds that the Father and the Son are part
of the Holy Trinity after all. That’s just not how it works.
A few examples from
daily life may help to illustrate the folly of the “partial truth” idea
further.
Who would eat a cake
from a baker who says that the ingredients he used are only “partially poisoned”?
Should we praise him for the healthy parts? And yet, are not
religious teaching and the health of the soul infinitely more important than
some man-made cake and the health of the body, which must, in any case, wither
away and return to dust (cf. Eccl 12:7; Mt 10:28)?
Likewise, a cocktail
that has been poisoned isn’t “partially healthy.” Rather, the toxic elements
mix inseparably with the healthful elements, thus creating a drink that
is entirely deadly. And so it is also with false religions and their
teachings — all the more so, in fact.
Again, no one in his
right mind would point to sewage as containing “partial drinking water” and
therefore laud its qualities of “partial purity” giving “partial health” — and
then state that this part of the sewage is to be considered as “impelling” to
the full purity of drinking water.
Yet, this is the
nonsense taught by and since Vatican II, that abominable robber synod of the
false Modernist church. In its Dogmatic [!] Constitution on the Church, the
council asserts that “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found
outside of [the] visible structure” of the Catholic Church, and that these
“elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling
toward catholic unity” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, par. 8).
This new ecclesiology, which
essentially holds that there is a little bit of the Catholic Church in every
religion, has been nicknamed “Frankenchurch” by some, and is surely refuted by sound catholic Theology. See the link below:
We see, then, that
partial truth is not truth at all but complete error. What is “partially
true” is entirely false. A religion that teaches the truth only in part is
a false religion, an erroneous religion, not the one true religion established
by Almighty God, who promised to lead us into “all truth” (Jn 16:13). A
religion that is “partially true,” then, is actually completely false.
But just as it is
dangerous, false, and favoring heresy to speak of “partial truth”, so it is
likewise dangerous, false, and favoring heresy to speak of the Catholic Church
as possessing the “fullness of truth” or the “fullness of the means of
sanctification and salvation,” because this implies the legitimacy of the
“partial truth” error, as completeness is necessarily contrasted with
incompleteness.
The True Catholic
Teaching
Exhorting Protestants
and other Non-Catholic Christians to return to the unity of the Faith in the
Catholic Church on the occasion of the First Vatican Council, Pope Pius IX
issued the Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes, in which he insisted
unequivocally that there was no legitimacy to their false religions whatsoever and
that their salvation depened upon their return to the true fold of
Christ, the Catholic Church which alone teaches the true Faith:
'…We cannot refrain
Ourselves, on the occasion of the future Council, from addressing Our Apostolic
and paternal words to all those who, whilst they acknowledge the same
Jesus Christ as the Redeemer, and glory in the name of Christian, yet do not
profess the true faith of Christ, nor hold to and follow the Communion of the
Catholic Church. And We do this to warn, and conjure, and beseech them with all
the warmth of Our zeal, and in all charity, to consider and seriously examine
whether they follow the path marked out for them by Jesus Christ our Lord, and
which leads to Eternal Salvation.
No one can deny or doubt that Jesus Christ
himself, in order to apply the fruits of his redemption to all generations of
men, built his only Church in this world on Peter; that is to say, the Church,
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic; and that he gave to it all necessary power,
that the deposit of Faith might be preserved whole and inviolable, and that the
same Faith might be taught to all peoples, kindreds, and nations, that through
baptism all men might become members of his mystical body, and that the new
life of grace, without which no one can ever merit and attain to life eternal,
might always be preserved and perfected in them; and that this same Church,
which is his mystical body, might always remain in its own nature firm and
immovable to the end of time, that it might flourish, and supply to all its
children all the means of Salvation.
Now, whoever will
carefully examine and reflect upon the condition of the various religious
societies, divided among themselves, and separated from the Catholic Church, …
cannot fail to satisfy himself that neither any one of these societies by
itself, nor all of them together, can in any manner constitute and be that One
Catholic Church which Christ our Lord built, and established, and willed should
continue; and that they cannot in any way be said to be branches or parts
of that Church, since they are visibly cut off from Catholic unity….
Wherefore, let all
those who do not hold to the unity and truth of the Catholic Church avail
themselves of the opportunity of this Council … and let them, in obedience to
the longings of their own hearts, be in haste to rescue themselves from a
state in which they cannot be assured of their own salvation. And let them not
cease to offer most fervent prayers to the God of Mercy, that he may break down
the wall of separation, that he may scatter the mists of error, and that he
may lead them back to the bosom of Holy Mother Church, where their fathers
found the wholesome pastures of life, and in which alone the doctrine of Jesus
Christ is preserved and handed down entire, and the mysteries of heavenly grace
dispensed.
… We therefore address
this Our Letter to all Christians separated from Us, wherein We exhort and
entreat them, again and again, to hasten their return to the One Fold of
Christ; for with Our whole soul We ardently desire their salvation in Jesus
Christ, and We fear lest We may one day have to render an account to the same
Lord, who is Our Judge, if We do not, so far as is in Our power, show them, and
prepare for them the way to attain to this eternal salvation….
And since,
notwithstanding Our unworthiness, We are his Vicar here upon earth, We
therefore wait, with outstretched hands, and with most ardent desire, the
return of Our wandering children to the Catholic Church, that We may most
lovingly welcome them to the home of their Heavenly Father, and enrich them
with his inexhaustible treasures. Upon this longed-for return to the truth
and unity of the Catholic Church depends the salvation not only of individuals,
but also of all Christian society; and never can the whole world enjoy true
peace, unless there shall be one Fold and one Shepherd'.
(Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Iam
Vos Omnes, Sep. 13, 1868; underlining added.)
Did you notice? Utterly
absent from Pope Pius’ exhortation were any references to “imperfect
communion,” “partial truth,” or a lack of the “fullness of truth.”
These are all Modernist concepts disseminated by the Vatican II religion.
Rather, the simple fact is that the Catholic Church alone has the truth, and
non-Catholic sects are false. They do not have the Faith at all, not
merely only “partially.”
That’s why the Holy Father says that these Protestants
and Eastern schismatics “do not profess the true faith of Christ” — he
does not say they profess it only “in part” or “to an extent.”
Rather, they do not profess it at all. This is because the Faith does
not admit of degrees; it can only be embraced in its entirety or rejected in
its entirety.
Pope Benedict XV, in his inaugural encyclical in 1914, emphasized
this very point:
“Such is the nature of Catholicism that it does not admit
of more or less, but must be held as a whole or as a whole rejected” (Encyclical Ad
Beatissimi Apostolorum, par. 24).
“Partial truth,” then,
is not praiseworthy but worthless; it is complete error. Just as a single
pin can pop an entire balloon, so denying or doubting a single dogma
renders one wholly a non-Catholic — not a “partial Catholic” or
“pretty much” a Catholic.
In fact, Pope Leo XIII warned that those heretics who
admit nearly all truths of the Catholic Faith but reject a single one are the
most dangerous of them all:
“There can be nothing more dangerous than
those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one
word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our
Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition”
(Encyclical Satis
Cognitum, par. 9).
Whatever individual
truths heretical communities may teach and whatever valid sacraments they may
even have, they have simply stolen from the Catholic Church. This is the
reality of the matter, and only a fool would seek to admire or commend them for
it.
Having laid all of this
out, let us now proceed to consider some excerpts from Catholic authorities
that amply reinforce what we have just presented.
The first comes from
the great anti-liberal Spanish priest Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, whose 1886
work Liberalism is a Sin was endorsed by the Vatican’s Sacred
Congregation of the Index, that office of the Roman Curia that deals with the
censorship of books (a liberal priest in Spain had submitted Fr. Sarda’s work
to the Congregation of the Index in the hopes of having it condemned, but far
from doing that, the Holy See turned instead to the liberal accuser and started
investigating him, while highly praising Fr. Sarda’s Liberalism is a
Sin):
In the fulsomeness of
their flattery, [Liberals] hope to show that it costs a Catholic nothing to
recognize merit wherever it may be found; they imagine this to be a powerful
means of attracting the enemy. Alas, the folly of the weaklings; they play a
losing game; it is they who are insensibly attracted, not the enemy! They
simply fly at the bait held out by the cunning fisher who satanically guides
the destinies of Liberalism.
…
Heresy under a charming
disguise is a thousand times more dangerous than heresy exposed in the
harsh and arid garb of the scholastic syllogism — through which the death’s
skull grins in unadorned hideousness. Arianism had its poets to propagate its
errors in popular verse. Lutheranism had its humanists, amongst whom the
elegant Erasmus shone as a brilliant writer. Arnauld, Nicole, Pascal threw the
glamour of their belles lettres over the serpentine doublings [tricks,
artifices] of Jansenism. Voltaire’s wretched infidelity won its frightful
popularity from the grace of his style and the flash of his wit. Shall we,
against whom they aimed the keenest and deadliest shafts, contribute to their
name and their renown! Shall we assist them in fascinating and
corrupting youth! Shall we crown these condemners of our faith with
the laurels of our praises and laud them for the very qualities which alone
make them dangerous!And for what purpose?
That we may appear impartial?
No. Impartiality is not permissible when it is distorted to the offense of
truth, whose rights are absolute. A woman of bad life is infamous, be she
ever so beautiful, and the more beautiful, the more dangerous. Shall we praise
Liberal books out of gratitude? No! Follow the liberals themselves in this, who
are far more prudent than we; they do not recommend and praise our books,
whatever they be. They, with the instinct of evil, fully appreciate where the
danger lies.
They either seek to discredit us or to pass us by in silence.
Si quis non amat
Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum, Sit anathema [“If anyone does not love the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema”], says St. Paul. Liberal literature is the
written hatred of Our Lord and His Church. If its blasphemy were open and
direct, no Catholic would tolerate it for an instant; is it any more tolerable
because, like a courtesan, it seeks to disguise its sordid features by the
artifice of paint and powder?
(Fr. Felix Sarda y
Salvany, Liberalism is a Sin, Ch. 18; online text
here or buy paperback copy here; underlining added.)
It is always a joy to
quote the piercing analysis and potent logic of this great
anti-Modernist. There is really not much that can or needs to be added to
what Fr. Sarda has said here. The apparently good qualities of error, the
“partial truths” contained in them, are not good and are not to be praised, for
it is they that make the error appealing and seductive in the first place. It
is precisely in the “elements of truth” found in other religions that their
danger lies, just as a half-truth is more dangerous and more believable than a
blatant lie, and cannot as easily be detected or repudiated.
Fr. Sarda proved
himself quite a prophet by warning of the folly of thinking that recognizing
truth where it may be found would be “a powerful means of attracting the
enemy”, because this is exactly the attitude that prevailed at Vatican II, and
just as he predicted, what happened was not that non-Catholics were attracted
to the Church, but rather, that Catholics lost the Faith — “it is they who are
insensibly attracted, not the enemy!”
Liberalism is a Sin is
a must-read for every Catholic; we cannot recommend the book too highly. (Why
not purchase some copies and pass them out to friends and
family, to co-workers, neighbors and other potential converts, especially those
in the Novus Ordo?)
The next passage to
bolster our contention that this “fullness of truth” business favors heresy
comes from Pope St. Pius X’s landmark encyclical against Modernism:
'Indeed, Modernists do
not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all
religions are true…. In the conflict between different religions, the most that
Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth … and that it
deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more
fully with the origins of Christianity'.
(Pope Pius X, Encyclical Pascendi
Dominici Gregis, par. 14)
Although when read in
context the Modernist error St. Pius is reproving here is not exactly the same
as the “partial truth” error we are discussing at present, nevertheless this
passage can very much be applied to our case as it clearly rejects the idea
that we can legitimately ascribe “more” or “less” truth to individual religions
— as opposed to juxtaposing the One True Religion with all
other, false ones. For the Vatican II Modernists, just as with the
classical Modernists, it’s not a question of true vs. false, but of more truth
(or “full” truth) vs. less truth (or “partial” truth).
It would be interesting
to research just who first came up with this idea of truth as consisting of
elements which a religion can possess either “fully” or only “partially”, but
it was certainly already present, in some form, in the thought of the Modernist
Baron Friedrich von Hügel (1852-1925), who in his writings mentioned ideas
eerily similar to the Vatican II error.
Commenting on the Modernism of von
Hugel, the great American theologian Mgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton (1906-1969)
chided
'…those who state that
the Catholic Church is [merely] more advantageously placed than other religious
bodies in this world. They assert that the Church has the fullness of
God’s revealed message; but, at the same time, they likewise insist that the
other religions are really from God, and that they constitute the plenitude of
God’s teaching for those whom He does not call to the higher position of
Catholicism'.
(Mgr. Joseph C.
Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation [Westminster, MD:
Newman Press, 1958], pp. 141-142; underlining added.)
Fenton then proceeds to
quote von Hugel:
'The Jewish religion was
not false for the thirteen centuries of the pre-Christian operations; it was,
for those times, God’s fullest self-revelation and man’s deepest apprehension
of God; and this same Jewish religion can be, is, still the fullest
religious truth for numerous individuals whom God leaves in their good faith;
in their not directly requiring the fuller, the fullest, light and aid to
Christianity. What is specially true of the Jewish religion is, in a lesser but
still a very real degree, true of Mohammedanism, and even of Hinduism, of
Parseeism, etc'.
(Gwendolen Greene,
ed., Letters from Baron Friedrich von Hugel to a Niece [London: J.M.
Dent & Sons Ltd., 1928], p. 56; underlining added.)
This sounds a lot like
Novus Ordo theology, doesn’t it? Not in its every detail, perhaps, but
nevertheless very much so in its basic characteristics, its overall concepts,
its points of emphasis, and its terminology and manner of expression. One of
the big problems with von Hugel’s teaching is, Fenton says, that he
“depicted
non-Catholic religions as acceptable, even though less perfect than
Catholicism” (p. 142),
and this is exactly what the Vatican II Church has been
teaching, not perhaps in such blunt terms, but nevertheless in plenty of
documents, sometimes worded intentionally ambiguously so as to provide, should
the need arise, a loophole of “plausible deniability”, but always
confirming, by its official and non-official interreligious and ecumenical
undertakings, that the heretical understanding is what is
intended (see, for example, “Pope” Francis’ statement that he hoped Muslims would draw “abundant spiritual
fruit” from their observance of Ramadan).
This is Modernism at
its most cunning, and it is the reason why Pope St. Pius X said that Modernists
have to be identified not only by what they teach but also by “their manner of
speech, and their action” (Encyclical Pascendi,
par. 3); and it is why Pope Pius VI condemned heretics who employ tactics that
allow “for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it” (Bull Auctorem Fidei,
introd.).
Mgr. Fenton’s main
point against von Hugel is that his idea of “partial” and “fuller” or “fullest”
truth implies the heresy that people can very much be saved in any religion,
they are just not in as “perfect” a position as those who are inside the Catholic
Church; that they have the means of salvation, just not the
“fullness” thereof; that they are in a condition in which they can be
saved, just not in a condition as advantageous for salvation as is that of
Catholics.
But this is heresy, for
there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church (see Denz. 714),
and “it is not true to say that a man is saved when he is transferred from a
less perfect to a more perfect condition. He is saved only by being transferred
from a ruinous position into a status wherein he can live as he should”
(Fenton, The Catholic Church and Salvation, p. 142).
Error has Consequences
Of course, false
doctrine is only the beginning. It is from there that numerous practical
ramifications flow, because thought leads to action. It will be good,
therefore, to examine a few of the consequences of the Vatican II Sect’s flawed
“fullness of truth” doctrine.
First, the Modernist
“partial truth” error leads quite naturally to “that false
opinion,” condemned by Pope Pius XI,
“which considers all religions to be
more or less good and praiseworthy…”
(Encyclical Mortalium
Animos, par. 2). After all, truth is admirable and hence deserves praise,
and so it follows that “some” truth deserves “some” adulation. And this is
exactly what we have today in the Vatican II Sect — they shower praises upon
false religions all the time for the “truth” that is in them, that is, inasmuch
as they have some truth, as they never tire to tell us.
Thus, for example, we
find the Second Vatican Council teaching, quite scandalously, the following. Having
praised the pagan religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, the council declares:
Likewise, other
religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart,
each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life,
and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in
these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and
of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects
from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that
Truth which enlightens all men.
(Bogus “Second Vatican
Council”, Declaration Nostra Aetate, sec. 2)
Over the decades since
the council, this asinine error has led to the most blasphemous and pernicious
ideas and undertakings, such as, in particular, Antipope John Paul II’s prayer
meetings with all religions in Assisi in 1986 and again in 2002, later repeated once more by Antipope Benedict XVI in 2011; John
Paul II’s visit to
India (1986) and his praise of Voodooism
in Benin (1993), to mention just a few of a seemingly endless number of
examples that could be given.
There is virtually no
conclusion following from this distorted idea of truth as consisting of
“elements” that can be possessed “fully” or “partially” that these
Neo-Modernists don’t find too disturbing to draw. In fact, one of the Novus
Ordo religion’s most indefatigable full-time crusaders, Dave Armstrong, even
stoops so low as to argue that there is nothing wrong with contributing to the
building fund of a mosque!
He did this in response to a Protestant (!!)
complaining about a Novus Ordo parish in Germany taking up a collection for the
building fund of the local mosque. You can’t make this stuff up! At
this point, Protestants are “more Catholic” than these Novus Ordo
people!
Think about this for a
minute. Armstrong is promoting the idea that financially supporting the
building of a house of false worship to a false god by a religion that is most
odious in God’s sight, is morally good and praiseworthy! He calls it “a gesture
of good will” and “part of charity,” and justifies it by saying that a mosque
is “not pure evil by any stretch of the imagination” (huh??) and — get
this — “there is truth and falsehood in virtually any religion” (source). This is disgusting!
But is it really
surprising? Once you start with the wrong principles, it’s only a matter
of time before you will draw all the conclusions that follow logically. And Mr.
Armstrong, it is abundantly clear, has no idea about Catholic moral theology,
as his argumentation shows. He does not understand Catholic moral principles,
he does not lay them out, and he does not define his terminology. His misuse of
Holy Scripture and distortion of Catholic morality to bolster his position are
as sickening as they are reprehensible.
Though his conclusion — that it’s good
to contribute financially to the building of mosques — is so disturbing that it
should cause nothing but the greatest consternation in every person claiming to
be Catholic, apparently Mr. Armstrong has been steeped in the foulest errors of
Modernism for so long that he cannot detect apostasy when it’s right in front
of him. (The cartoon “The Descent of the Modernists” illustrates the
slippery slope quite well, by the way.)
Don’t think that
Armstrong is a Modernist lone ranger somewhere who’s simply lost it. Oh no —
he’s part of the Novus Ordo “conservative mainstream.” Just recently, no less
of a personality than Mr. Karl
Keating, the well-paid president of so-called Catholic Answers sent
out an appeal to his own supporters to ask them to help Armstrong stay
afloat financially so he can continue his work of “Catholic”
apologetics. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, such people are the New Church’s
finest “conservative” apologists today. With “Catholics” like these, who needs
heretics?
Conclusion
Does the Catholic
Church possess the “fullness” of truth?
We have seen that this
popular adage, though no doubt well-intentioned, is loaded with theological
problems and is very favorable to heresy. No Catholic should use it because it
implies or at least strongly suggests the “partial truth” error of the
Modernists and contradicts the clear Catholic teaching that the Catholic Church
alone possesses the truth, which has been entrusted to her by Christ, and that she
alone is the Ark of Salvation into which all who wish to be saved must enter.
Apart from the True
Faith of the Catholic Church, there can be no faith at all. The Faith she
preaches is entirely true, and the faith preached by other religions
is entirely false; so the Catholic Church alone has the True Faith,
and all the others have nothing. It is for this reason that salvation can
only be found inside the Catholic Church, “the only ark of salvation,” so much
so “that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood” (Pope
Pius IX, Allocution Singulari Quadem; Denz. 1647).
Presented by Malachy Mary Igwilo, feast of St. Catherine (Patron of Philosophers). 25th November 2016
