Wednesday, October 04, 2006
EMAIL FROM LEE PENN
[who views Dr. Thomas Drolesky's review of Randy Engel's book a bit differently than I do. Also, you will have to excuse the computer hieroglyphics that I haven't tried to correct. Apparently AOL is not compatible with SBC. - ct]
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A few of my harder-line associates have highly praised Randy Engel's new book about the sex abuse scandal in the RCC.
FYI, the book's web site is this:
The Rite of Sodomy
http://www.riteofsodomy.com/
It seems that the book contains a great deal of documentation about the Lavender Mafia in the RCC. Hoever, there is also a lot of weird conspiracy and far-right stuff mixed in, if the following review is any indication:
UnderstandingaCesspoolofCorruption
http://www.rcf.org/docs/droleskeyriteofsodomy.htm
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Some quotes from Droleskey's review, to illustrate the problem areas (bold added by me):
- Engel's direct quotes (as provided by the review) are in red
- Droleskey's comments are in black
- A few comments of my own (interspersed) are in blue
Droleskey begins:
"Mrs. Engel's section on Americanism must be read by every serious traditional Catholic. There are far too many traditional Catholics, priests and laity alike, who have convinced themselves that the false foundations of the United States of America are not harmful to the life of the Church and thus not injurious to the salvation of souls. Although my own Christ in the Voting Booth has a chapter that reviews briefly the history of opposition to authentic Catholicism on the part of many American bishops, Mrs. Engel's two chapters on the subject are detailed and riveting.
No one can read these chapters and contend thereafter that the framework of the American constitutional regime, to which Baltimore Archbishop John Carroll, the first bishop and archbishop of the United States of America, sought to accommodate the Catholic Church. No one can read these chapters and not be convinced of the fact that, as Pope Leo XIII noted clearly in Testem Benevolentiae, January 22, 1899, that the American ethos of religious indifferentism and cultural pluralism helped to teach Catholics to view the events of the world and of the Church naturalistically, coming to believe that the Faith had no relationship at all to the conduct of national life. In other words, Catholics were prepared in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries to accept the Protestant/Judeo-Masonic notion of the separation of Church and State as natural, normal, and virtuous, indeed, a necessity for the right ordering of the State and for the protection of the Church. No one can read these chapters and not see how the Americanist paradigm that is so praised by Benedict XVI is responsible in large measure for the latter's oxymoronic support of "healthy secularism."
Droleskey quotes the following, directly from Engel (bold added by me):
"Since the Roman Catholic Church is, for better or worse, a hierarchical church, its structure was well suited for John Carroll’s vision of a new American Church (AmChurch) of which he was to be a prime architect - a Church made in the likeness of the New Republic – unfettered by Roman chains. His first salvo against the Roman Church was launched at his consecration when he deleted the ritual oath to “extirpate heretics� so as not to offend Protestants. . . .
On March 12, 1788, the priests of the Baltimore area sent a request to the Holy Father asking for permission to elect their own bishop from their number so as to render “as free as possible from suspicion and odium, to their countrymen.�
On May 12, 1788, after implicitly rejecting the concept of a democratically elected bishop, Pope Pius VI gave the Baltimore group a one-time only dispensation to elect their ordinary. Father John Lewis was their first choice for Bishop of Baltimore, but he was too advanced in years, so the honor fell to Father Carroll. He was selected on May 1789 and his appointment was promptly approved by the Holy See.
According to Catholic historian Hugh J. Nolan, “Politically, he (Carroll) was most acceptable to the Founding Fathers.� He also had the imprimatur of Freemason occultist Benjamin Franklin who had connections to all the Masonic Lodges in England and Europe and with whom Carroll maintained a warm relationship,� confirms [Solange] Hertz [in her Star Spangled Heresy].
According to Hertz, Carroll never concealed his unbridled enthusiasm for the American principles of “the separation of Church and state, sovereignty of the people, freedom of conscience, universal equality…� and for the application of those same democratic principles to ecclesiastical administration including the popular election of bishops by diocesan priests rather than by the Holy See.
Archbishop Carroll envisioned the American Church as a “private corporation,� not as an “institution-in-law� which was the European view. “In a sense, the whole history of the Church in the United States has been the gracious accepting of that change, a constant adaptation to that life in a new and secular environment,� wrote Carroll.
“Adaptation� to the dominant Protestant secular culture meant the end of an unsightly and unwashed ghetto Catholicism in favor of a more refined gentile homogenized and secularized population despite the fact that non-assimilation was the Catholic immigrant’s strongest guarantee of the continuance of his strong faith.
Carroll held great stock in the virtue of religious tolerance. Unfortunately, religious tolerance is not a Catholic virtue. There are the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity and the cardinal virtues fortitude, justice, prudence, and temperance, but tolerance as a virtue is not to be found among them."
More quotes from Randy Engel, as provided by Droleskey:
"Unfortunately, wishful thinking never changes reality, and the unpalatable reality for the opponents of the Syllabus was that the papal bull was a universally promulgated document binding on all Catholics throughout the world, bishops included, and that the separation of Church from State and State from Church was explicitly condemned without exception by Pius IX in proposition 55 of the Syllabus. Indeed the Syllabus was exactly what the Church’s enemies said it was - a blanket condemnation and anathematization of religious liberty, civil supremacy, and modern culture."
and he comments:
"Mrs. Engel, therefore, does Catholics a great service by providing the factual evidence concerning Americanism's anticipation of the errors that have infected so many Catholics, including so many traditional Catholics, as a result of the ethos of conciliarism in the past forty years."
"Mrs. Engel rounds "third base," so to speak, when writing of the "Twentieth Century Harbingers" in Chapter 18. She pulls no punches as she assesses quite accurately the revolutionary nature of some of the changes that began to take hold--and the key players in the Revolution who were put in power--during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII and quickened during the reign of Angelo Roncalli and Giovanni Montini:
"Both advocates and critics of the Revolution of he Second Vatican Council agree that the role of Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Cardinal Pacelli, who ascended the Chair of Peter on March 12, 1939, as Pope Pius XII, was instrumental in securing the revolutionaries a foothold on the papacy. As [Mary Ball] Martinez solidly documents, and as inveterate collaborators of NewChurch like Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, C.M., reaffirm, Pius XII opened the Church to "Progressivism" both politically and theologically.
Under his 19-year pontificate, the foundation and stepping-stones for the futuristic NewChurch were laid. (pp. 1094-1095)"
Engel also accuses John XXIII of being a Freemason:
"After discussing Archbishop Angelo Roncalli's Modernist leanings, Mrs. Engel noted the following about the time Roncalli spend as the Papal Nuncio to France:
After his posting to Paris, members of the Presidential Garde Republicaine reported that Roncalli regularly attended the Thursday evening meetings of the Grand Orient Masonic Lodge.
Years after the death of Pope John XIII, favorable obituaries were issued by high level Freemasons who applauded Roncalli as a brother who imparted "his benediction, his understanding, and his protection" to the Craft. (p. 1132)"
and in this quote, she carries the accusation forward, adding the charge that he was a Communist dupe. In addition, Engel favorable cites the Pinay book, "The Plot Against the Church" - a horrible anti-Semitic screed:
"The Plot Against the Church by Maurice Pinay, printed originally in Italian, was distributed in the fall of 1962 during the opening days of the Council. The book was one indication that not everyone was clueless concerning the political and theological intrigue generated by the framers of the Council.
However, the early warning signs that grave mischief was afoot, were easily dismissed by the majority of the Church Fathers in the euphoric atmosphere and hyper media glitz that greeted the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Nevertheless, the fact that the enemies of the Church, including the Liberal Establishment, Communists, Freemasons and Zionists universally hailed the event as a monumental step forward for humanity, should have given the Church Fathers cause for concern.
Today, it is freely acknowledged by both opponents and advocates of the Revolution that swept through the Catholic Church, that Cardinal Montini controlled the direction and agenda of the early days of the Council from behind the scenes in Milan. After the Council opened, Montini moved the center of his operation to his suite of rooms at the Vatican, rooms traditionally reserved for resident cardinals.
On January 26, 1959, only one day after Pope John XXIII had publicly announced the convening of a General Council for the Universal Church, Archbishop Montini addressed a Messagio to the faithful of Milan. His musings on the upcoming Council suggests he either had a crystal ball or he was in on the ground floor of the elite shakers and movers of the Council.
According to Amerio [the author of Iota Unum], on the eve of the Council, L'Osservatore Romano carried portions of the text of a book written by Cardinal Montini on the future Council that was published by the University of Milan. Montini stated that the Council's mission was to rearrange the Faith so as to minimize its supernatural elements, in order to render it more acceptable to the modern world and modern man.
In a similar vein, Martinez reports that four days before Pope John's "flash of lightning" experience that allegedly inspired the Council, [Hans] Kung told an astonished lecture hall audience in the Hofkirche (Abbey Court Church) in Luzern, Switzerland, not only there would be a General Council, but he also outlined its direction and agenda.
With the publication of The Council, Reform and Reunion one year before the opening of the Council, Kung demonstrated that he knew more about the upcoming Council than did Pope John. (pp. 1134-1135)
Mrs. Engel notes that Montini, who was sympathetic to Marxism-Leninism, if not one himself, participated in a betrayal of Catholic truth prior to the beginning of the Second Vatican Council:
In preparation for the Council, Catholic bishops around the world were polled by mail by the Office of the Secretariat to learn their opinions on topics to be considered at the Council. Communism topped the list.
However, as documented in the previous chapter, at the instigation of Cardinal Montini, two months before the opening of the Council, Pope John XXIII approved the signing of the Metz Accord with Moscow officials, whereby the Soviets would permit two representatives from the Russian State Church to attend the Council in exchange for absolute and total silence at the Council on the subject of Communism/Marxism.
With the exceptions of Cardinal Montini, who instructed Pope John to enter into negotiations with the Soviets, Cardinal Eugene Tisserant, who signed the Accord, and Bishop Jan Willebrands, who made the final contacts with the representatives of the Russian State Church, the Church Fathers at the Council were ignorant of the existence and nature of the Metz Agreement and the horrendous betrayal that it represented. (pp. 1135-1136)"
"Pages 1151 to 1557 in The Rite of Sodomy deal with the subject of Paul VI's homosexuality. Mrs. Engel discusses first of all the claims made openly in 1976 by a French novelist by the name of Roger Peyrefitte, an "avowed homosexual:"
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Such is Engel's book - a mix of investigative reporting and extreme-right ideology, it seems. It makes Likouodis' Amchurch Comes Out appear to be a model of restraint and understatement by comparison.
A few basic questions arise:
1. Without freedom of the press, could the American scandal have been uncovered?
2. If there were a confessional State in power, what would have happened to the journalists who dared to write about the Scandal? Or to clerical whistleblowers who publicized the misdeeds of their colleagues and superiors?
Engel's book is evidence that it is possible to be excessive in conservatism/traditionalism.
Lee
