Where Is the Assistance of the Holy Ghost
in Today's Crisis in the Church?
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Mr. Guimaraes:
Mr. S.H. sent me your contact information. I read your book In the Murky Waters of Vatican II. Much of it was very disturbing yet highly enlightening to say the least. It has raised many questions in my mind which I am currently unable to answer.
Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong since 1965 in the Roman Catholic Church. I was a child in the late 1950's and early 1960's so I have some personal recollection of how things were prior to Vatican II in the United States. The post-Conciliar Church here bears almost no resemblance to what I remember. It does seem that a completely new and different religion has replaced the one I remember.
My dilemma is as follows: either the RCC was correct prior to 1965 and is incorrect now in areas where Vatican II disagrees with Tradition, or the RCC was wrong for almost two millennia and is correct now. This seems undeniable unless one revokes the law of non-contradiction in the absence of which all logical thought ceases. In the latter case, there would be no reason to believe the Church is correct now since for almost 2000 years the Holy Spirit would effectively have allowed grave errors to be promulgated. In the former case, if the RCC is wrong now in the wake of Vatican II, how is it that the Holy Spirit has allowed such gross errors to stand for almost two generations since 1965 if Christ's promise to be with us always to the end of the world is true? If the entire post-Conciliar regime including the Popes and the Magisterium have promulgated gross error for that long, where is the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be found? If this is the Great Apostasy where are the lying signs and wonders?
These are most difficult questions for me to grapple with. I am very disheartened. It makes one doubt one's own sanity. In fact it makes one doubt the existence of truth at all as the neo-Modernists do. I suppose the very fact that if truth did not exist - it would be impossible to know it - does suggest that the progressivist position is untenable from a logical perspective. Their position seems to demand that ultimately words have no meaning which, if true, would seem to imply that it makes absolutely no difference whether anyone believes in a supreme being of any kind or not - is that not the logical conclusion to their line of reasoning?
I would appreciate hearing from you with anything you might wish to say.
J.H.
The Editor responds:
Mr. J.H.,
Your kind letter was greatly appreciated. I wish I would have had some spare time to answer you before.
When one analyzes your dilemma, he sees that actually it appears to be more a perplexity rather than a dilemma, since you accept that the Holy Ghost was protecting the Church until Vatican II. Thus the problem may well be synthesized in the second part of your presentation: How can the Holy Ghost allow more than 40 years of "gross errors" in His Catholic Church?
I seriously respect your moral concern and pain. I am sure that they may well be an act of reparation before God for the ecclesiastical catastrophe we are witnessing. I am sure that praying to Our Lady will help you to be more encouraged to continue your fight for the good position.
The solution for the problem, however, is not so difficult to understand, even though it is hard to live with.
Our human criteria of judgment rely on time. God’s criteria do not. They rely on the acceptance or rejection of His plans for His Church. We must adjust our parameters to His, and not vice-versa.
From the moment that Liberalism was accepted in the Church, Modernism and Progressivism became practically inevitable. Pius IX and St. Pius X were not able to stop the avalanche that was still at the top of the mountain, or already beginning to move downward. Today we are seeing that avalanche at the bottom of the mountain. Vatican II was not the cause of the process. It was an important landmark that institutionalized those errors and gave them an "official look." Keeping with this metaphor, Vatican II accelerated the avalanche; from then on the snow descended almost without obstacle.
Can anyone stop an avalanche of snow before it reaches the bottom? I don’t think so. The same applies to the rejection of the plan of God for His Church in the last 150 years. Once started, the process should reach its end. So, let’s not blame the Holy Ghost for that.
Is the Holy Ghost still present in His Church? Where is His action during this time? Certainly during these 150 years, He assisted the reaction against this process and saved many souls. Today, it seems to me that He is preparing a new process to take over the Church when Progressivism loses its force of impact, which I believe is happening. He is forming an anti-liberal, anti-modernist and anti-progressivist mentality in those people who should found the next historical period. Nothing can be founded in the future if the same errors continue to be accepted. Ab immundo quid mundabitur - What can be made clean by the unclean? (Eccles 34:4).
Here is my answer to your question. The Holy Ghost is very much present in today’s Church after Vatican II acting against the progressivist establishment. Let us purify ourselves of the liberal-modernist-progressivist mentality and help Him to form more people in the same way.
Cordially,
Atila Guimarães
Posted May 22, 2008
Translated from Catolicismo, September 1971
Related Topics of Interest
Card. Ratzinger: Gaudium et Spes is a Counter-Syllabus
Vatican II, the Broken Idol
The Council: A Mirage that Disappears
The True Colors of Pope Ratzinger
Paul VI Invites Protestants to Write the New Mass
Card. Suenens Rejects the Church as Society
Quo Primum vs Novus Ordo
Yes, There Is a Crisis in the Church
Revolution & Counter-Revolution - Overview
Elias, Prophet of the Continuity
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