Book Review: Undermining of the Catholic Church UPDATED

"There are only two books worth reading on the Traddie situation," a correspondent, who knows who he is, wrote me to over a year ago. "Dr. Hull's book and Undermining of the Catholic Church by Mary Ball Martinez."

Traditionalists and all stripes of Catholics have access to volumes upon volumes of material to read, published or online. The best sources are of course Scripture, the liturgical texts of the Church, and the Fathers. These sources tell us not just what to believe, but more importantly how to believe. And there are other useful books, works, and lecture series for understanding theology, liturgy, history, and philosophy. Many of these works have been reviewed on this blog, particularly ones pertaining to liturgy (Dr. Hull's book, Kavanagh's lectures, and Laurence Hemming's works among them). And yet after extensive reading and private research I must agree that, as far as the "Traddie situation" is concerned—the 20th century revolution in the liturgy and the political agenda of the Roman Church—The Banished Heart by Geoffrey Hull and Undermining of the Catholic Church by Mary Ball-Martinez are still the best books to read. Other books touch related material, but only these works address the matters at hand directly.

I have alluded to Martinez's first book, From Rome Urgently, which was a compilation of articles she wrote in the 1970s. Undermining is something of a sequel to From Rome, with greater and clearer rumination on the status of the traditionalist movement and limpid hindsight into the beginnings of the revolution in the late 19th century. 

Undermining, which can be read and downloaded free of cost here, has largely been ignored by all quarters of the Church because its thesis and narrative do not fit anyone's agenda. The liberal crowd may have agreed with its facts and found the result of the revolution positively delightful. The neo-Ultramontanists who we now identify colloquially as the "JP2 generation" would find the criticism of the renewal outright scandalous. And sedevacantists, FSSPX traditionalists, and "indult" traditionalists could not stomach that she exposed Pius XII and the early 20th century Vatican for what they really were. Consequently, her book enjoys a dedicated, narrow following like 1980s "B films."

The Thesis

Martinez's begins on the vigil of Pentecost in Rome in 1971. The Second Vatican Council closed six years earlier. Pope Paul was midway to the end of his tragic reign. Archbishop Lefebvre was not yet ready to declare himself publicly. And Catholics were gathered and praying the rosary by the thousands under the windows of the Apostolic Palace for the return of the old Mass. How did the Church arrive at this odd point? With Mystici Corporis, Martinez says. MC was the first and most vital step in dismantling the legalistic understanding of the Church that dominated the Counter-Reformation and replacing it with a model based on human beings, an opinion shared by Avery Dulles, the Jesuit Cardinal and theologian.  It was the first domino to fall, culminating in the long anticipated Council that would complete a revolution started in 1903.

In 1903, Martinez asserts, Cardinal Rampolla was elected or nearly elected Pope, only to be vetoed by the Polish cardinal under the auspices of an obscure and long forgotten treaty. The cardinals then flocked to the patriarch of Venice, whose first decision as Pope was to rescind all veto privileges. Rampolla, now saddled with the less glamorous position of Secretary of the Holy Office, spent his time training three proteges who would make his humanistic vision for the Church a reality: Giacomo della Chiesa, Pietro Gasparri, and Eugenio Pacelli. Della Chiesa had no sooner been made a cardinal than he was elected Pope Benedict XV and began to undo his predecessor's measures against modernizations, including the dissolution of Pius X's secret informant network. The First World War threw a wrench into the clique's immediate plans. When Benedict XV died prematurely the powers that were found themselves in a debacle. Pacelli was still too young and Gasparri was un-electable. As a solution they elected an aloof academic in Pius XI, hitherto the Vatican Archivist. It was during this papacy that things began to turn.

The Secretariat of State office, run by Gasparri and assisted by Pacelli, promoted policy antipodal to the teachings and desires of the Pope of the time, opposing and undermining Action Francaise and the Catholics in the Spanish Civil War in favor of French secularists at the same time the Pope was talking about the "social reign of Christ the King," a long favorite subject of traditionalists. The most reprehensible betrayal was that of the Christeros, wherein a civilian army fighting against a humanistic and even Masonic (?) president in Calles with no support from the upper clergy achieved absolute victory and were then convinced by Rome to make an un-conditional surrender and subject themselves to slaughter.

During this same period the paradigm shifted within academia and the religious orders, often with tension between the younger and older generations of priests. The Holy See, far from reigning in excesses and deviations from the accepted teachings and outlook, often aided and abetted these digressions. In the case of Teilhard de Chardin the Society of Jesus prohibited him from publishing and obstructed him from going on the speaking circuit. The Secretariat of State however, at the behest of Pius XII, arranged for him to give lectures in occupied France during the rule of the Vichy government. 

During the War Pius XII aided Jewish efforts to escape from the Holocaust and Hitler's death camps, but almost entirely ignored the political difficulties of the Church during this era. His foreign policy consistently stood against authoritarian governments that were either indifferent to Catholicism or in favor of it, but he sided with the humanists and Marxists. He permitted the Vatican to be used an an intermediary point in the War for discussions between the Allies. And he spent copious time during the War smuggling Jews from Italy into British Palestine on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. After the War the early seeds of liberation theology and the Charismatic movement began to sprout above ground with the support of Countess Pacelli, the Pope's sister.

The time after the War was spent consolidating power and loosening discipline. The Biblicum was created in Rome to give a presence in Vatican academia to the progressive movement. The rules around the celebration of Mass and reception of Communion were relaxed to a point envied today, but risible to previous generations. And the promulgation of the dogma of the Assumption and the creation of a commission to reform the liturgy centralized spiritual authority around the Pope. Martinez at one point boldly asserts that the canonization of Pius X was part of a barter with the baroque-minded Vatican establishment to begin introducing the new liturgy, particularly the new rites of Holy Week.

Aware of his age, the Pope sent his protege to Milan, but died before making his successor a cardinal. The affable Angelo Roncalli took the papacy for a few years before Montini could become Pope in 1963. From that point on the narrative becomes familiar. We all know about the Council, the branching and flowers of the roots planted half a century earlier.

The middle section of Undermining is a series of vignettes, short biographies of the Popes from John XXIII until the then-incumbent John Paul II. Paul VI's segment is especially poignant. He was an early revolutionary, encouraging students in the Red Brigade to oppose Mussolini, who, although a bad man, was tolerant to the Church in ways unseen since before the 1840s. Later in life he may have lamented that the Red Brigade had killed his dear friend Aldo Moro, the product of the center-left political party his father had party and Pius XII advanced decades prior. He died a broken, unhappy man. Also interesting, if only for historical reasons, is her honest biography of John Paul II. She summarizes his education and seminary formation in Poland after the Russian invasion and his time at the Belgian college in Rome dispassionately and with concision. This was revolutionary in 1991 because most people were pretending he was an impoverished miner who studied at an underground seminary amid Soviet persecution. 

The last segment of the book contrasts sharply in certain aspects with From Rome Urgently. Previously she was brimming with excitement about Lefebvre, the militancy of the traditionalists, and the devotion of the faithful. She maintains these qualities in Undermining, but with considerable reservation. She wonders if Lefebvre missed his chance to make a difference in 1976 by obeying the Pope's command to bite his French tongue. The grassroots traditionalist movement collapsed and all that was left was the FSSPX and a few independents—something that will be explored in our upcoming series on the early traditionalists.

Short-Comings

Undermining is not a book without short-comings, the three greatest of which are: the lack of citations, the proclivity for conspiracy-theory language, and a lack of historical perspective.

The lack of citations is the most arrant deficiency in this work. Martinez was a journalist, writing for decades as the Vatican correspondent for National Review, the Wanderer, and other periodicals. She was not a professional historian and did not document her work very well. Much of what she learned could be documented with extensive and painful research though. I came to trust Undermining from personal experience. My first major university research project was on the role of the Holy See during the Second World War. What Martinez surmises about the Pope's efforts against the Nazis and Holocaust I corroborated independently years before encountering her book using primary information sources (journals, news articles, and records) as well as some scholarly polemics. That she recorded this information favorable to Pius XII during a time before a cottage industry for defending his War record emerged (Rabbi Dalin, Sr. Marchione etc) and given her un-favorable view of the man impressed me.

The second issue is also significant. She speaks of "the Masons" and like groups as though they are an organized secret government with a dedicated head—as though the cretins who mangled the Church in the 20th century and who are mangling Western governments and economic policy now are capable of such things. She does at points clarify what she means, but often lapses into conspiracy theories again. At one point she wrote that Pius XII, Paul VI, and Benedict XV should not be considered conspirators in the common understanding of the word. These men did not hold round tables discussions on how to undermine the Church deep within the walls of a lodge. These men acted in accordance with their rearing and education, which involved a different outlook on the Church than the one received. She does claim John XXIII and Pius IX (you read that right) were Masons, but does not expound upon the supposed significance of this too deeply.

The last pitfall is her lack of perspective. Mystici Corporis was a departure from the legalistic, cold understanding and corporate structure of the Catholic Church that emerged during the Counter-Reformation. Where she errs is in stating that the teaching was entirely novel. Indeed, it is well rooted in the letters of St. Paul, the sermons and treatises of the Cappadocian Fathers, and in the ecclesiology of Lateran IV. The footnotes and citations in MC easily verify this. Where she was right was in suggesting that the point of MC was to confuse theologians by introducing an understanding of the Church based on human beings and mysticism. Indeed, the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ bound up in the Sacraments is the teaching of the Church Fathers East and West as well as that of the Greek and Latin liturgies. The idea of the mystical Body of Christ was quite novel, and the focal point of this mystical body would be the Roman Pontiff. Martinez, with more familiarity with the deeper traditions of the Church, might have realized that MC was about spiritual centralization and taming precocious revolutionaries, not about introducing unheard of doctrines.

Final Words

Undermining of the Catholic Church by Mary Ball-Martinez is an essential work to study and parse for those who seek to understand the political changes in the Vatican that wrought decades of internal revolution in the Church of Rome. For all its problems, Undermining is the only book that connects the dots which have been hiding in the plain sight of traditionalists for years.

As an aside, if anyone wants to know how to access her first book, From Rome Urgently, email me.

UPDATE: My email address is theradtrad@gmail.com.

Summorum Pontificum & the Rite of Econe

Today much of the Tradosphere celebrates the issuance of then-Pope Benedict XVI's Summorum Pontificum, which largely deregulated use of the 1962 Roman rite. What is really used is not 1962, I do not think anyone uses 1962 by the book, but what I call the "Rite of Econe," the result of tinkering during the formative years of the FSSPX.

Early on, outside of France, most everyone in the traditionalist movement used pre-Pius XII. Even in France St. Nicolas du Chardonnet used pre-Pacelli until 1984 when the priest in charge of that church died. For some reason 1962 caught on in France. Why? Perhaps during the 1960s priests became gradually more agitated and stopped accepting changes at a certain point. Rather than turning back the clock they refused to go forward. This was the case of Fr. Quintin Montgomery-Wright, who then Sarum-ized the Roman liturgy and recovered the Norman liturgical heritage of northern France. It may also have appealed because of its very sparse and simple Divine Office.*

A man who was a postulant with the FSSPX in Econe "back in the day" once told me that they did 1965—essentially 1962 with the popular parts in vernacular and options for lay people to do readings—with some modifications, among them the Ordinary of Mass in Latin and the Confiteor prior to Communion. At some point they switched to 1962 outright at Econe, meaning all Latin, no lay readers, and recovering the hour of prime. They continued to make alterations—such as the epistle in French, bows to the Cross, and no genuflection for the Jews on Good Friday—until arriving at their current praxis. Do any readers, particularly older ones, know additional details about this development? After all the rite of Econe is the Extraordinary Form.

* = for example yesterday would have been Sunday and the Octave day of Ss. Peter & Paul, warranting nine readings at Mattins (including three from the superseded octave day being read as one long ninth lesson), commemorations at Lauds, Mass, and Vespers. This Wednesday would see Vespers of St. Elizabeth of Portugal followed by Vespers of the Dead, as the Officium Defunctorum is prayed on the first free day of the month in addition to the Office of the season/sanctoral cycle. Lent and Advent are especially involved in the old Office, with the Officium Defunctorum and Requiem Masses in additional to the Lent and Advent liturgy on Mondays. In 1962 Sundays usually have three lessons as opposed to the traditional nine. The difference could be up to 30 minutes of time in private recitation during violet seasons.

It Just Won't Go Away

Feeneyism. It is a minority opinion. It always has been and, unless it finally dies out, it always will be. 

Feeneyism, for the uninitiated, is a reading of Extra ecclesiam nulla salus that denies the Roman concepts of Baptism through blood and through desire, and in turn renders a highly legal reading that restricts salvation to those who have undergone the Baptism rite and are in a visible, conscientious union with the Pope of Rome. Fr. Leonard Feeney was a literature professor at Boston College and a priest of the Society of Jesus in the 20th century. When he was not going on about "the Jews" and Msgr. Ronald Knox, he was pushing his reading of "the dogma" in such a fashion that it then-Archbishop, later Cardinal, Cushing, who was at the time ingratiating himself with the ambitious Kennedy family. Cushing arranged for Feeney's excommunication, which was upheld by Pius XII or by someone in his name. Feeney may have been reconciled at his death.

Historically speaking Feeney's opinion is utter rubbish. Of the three Papal documents supporters of Feeney quote, none of them are directly applicable. The first instance of the "thrice defined dogma" (suggesting that the first two were insufficient?), from the Fourth Lateran Council, states "There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation." What they neglect to quote is the preceding text based on the Creed, which teaches that the Church and Christ's priesthood descend from the Godhead. It is a spiritual definition, not a legal canon. The second "definition" is Boniface VIII's Unam Sanctam, one of the most misunderstood bulls in history. The oft-quoted line about the necessity of union with the Roman Pontiff is less a definition than it is a thinly disguised threat of damnation to Frenchmen who paid their taxes to the despicable King Philip IV instead of to the despicable Pope who threw his saintly predecessor into prison. The last one, Cantate Domino, is by far the strongest as a teaching, although it does not necessarily lend itself to the Feeneyite interpretation. I do not know enough about how the document was interpreted at the time, so I will hold my electronic tongue, but I suspect the records of the Council of Florence might illuminate us a bit.

"The dogma," as they call it, is the result of objectifying theology, of making it an object of play, of personal manipulation, an idol to which the facts must conform rather than the other way around. I will grant to the Feeneyites that the concept of Baptism by desire is vapid. At what point is one baptized by desire? How conscious must one be of this desire? The Church cannot judge on this matter because it could only be private and subjective. What is outright mad is the denial of Baptism by martyrdom. I recall once singing Vespers on the feast of the Greek martyr St. Epimakios. Living in New Hampshire, both the priest and I were aware of the Feeneyite community an hour's drive away. One of the stichera on the psalms I sang was "Then you were baptized in your own blood, o Epimakios...." Afterward I mentioned it to the priest, who burst into laughter saying, "Oh yeah, that guy definitely went to hell." There are other examples of the Church upholding as saints those who did not undergo Baptism by water, among them the fortieth of the martyrs of Sebaste, Emerentiana, Alban, and the younger brother of Felicity. 1239 of the old, defunct Code of Canon Law stated those who died in the catechumenate are to be counted among the baptized and given a full Catholic funeral service. When these facts do not conform to "the dogma" such nonsense as angels descending to baptize those about to be martyred creeps into speculation and the journey from reality to myth is complete. Faith as this point is not so much revealed as it is reasoned.

And why is this done? To ensure that as few people enjoy the Beatific Vision as possible? If the Feeneyites were allowed to adjust the Byzantine rite, the Divine Liturgy might begin:

Limited and generally inaccessible is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen

In tremor, let us pray to the Lord. Lord have no mercy!

For fear from on high and the damnation of most souls, let us pray to the Lord. Lord have no mercy!

Oddly, Feeneyism has a broad appeal. The local FSSP church has a Feeneyite or two, although to be fair the congregation and clergy as a totality do not hold the position. One can find a diocesan priest or two in London who hold it. The FSSPX will not touch it with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole.  Some independents hold it. Sedevacantists generally do not, clinging to true pope Pacelli's condemnation of Feeneyite. Some more extreme elements like the Dimond brothers do hold it. A friend of mine was baptized by arch-Feeneyite Fr. James Wathen of Who Shall Ascend fame. Much like Coca-Cola, Feeneyism can be had on any occasion. 

I only bring up this topic because some chap has been polluting Dr. Shaw's LMS Chairman blog with Feeneyism for the past few weeks. The United States is probably the only place where Feeneyism could get an ear, if for no other reason than that Fr. Feeney was a central figure for a while in American Catholicism during its transition from something Old World into something modern and politically palatable in a multi-cultural democracy. The topic is too obscure for much more consideration, but it gives foreign readers something to consider.

For more on Fr. Feeney and his one time meeting Evelyn Waugh, click here.

Understanding American Foreign Policy

A Church in Houston

I was last in Houston for Pascha, visiting my mother and attending the Hajme, Mattins, Lauds, and Divine Liturgy with the nascent Melkite community there. I was back in Houston to see my mother and father for Independence Day and to re-connect in general. On a whim I decided to go to Confession at nearby Christ the Redeemer Church.

Christ the Redeemer reflects much of what I have seen in Dallas: large communities with considerable wealth; bland modern styling; separate chapels for daily Masses and Confession; communitarian arrangements; offices for full-time paid lay staff; and a mixed congregation of second generation Mexicans and third generation Republicans.

As with St. Francis of Assisi in Frisco, Christ the Redeemer has architectural potential that goes unfulfilled, although I think it has less potential than the Romanesque St. Francis. It is an odd blend of Spanish missionary style with a Greek dome. Sharp edges run along un-ornamented walls, which frame some colored glass at the center of this strange structure.

The church was locked, so Confession was held in a room just off a hallways running along the back of the daily Mass chapel. There was a sign on the wall immediately to the right after entering which read something like "We are Catholic Christians who believe that we become one family in Jesus together and we have a great commitment to Social Justice."

The daily Mass chapel was plain, but inoffensive. The statues beside the altar may date to a previous church. At the back of the chapel was a book where one could sign up for a part in a daily Mass. I noticed that a deacon had sign up for the "Bread" for the next several weeks. I photographed a blank page to safeguard the identities of any parishioners.

During Confession I was told to use the Sacrament less often (I wonder if the daily communicants are told the same thing?) and to "let the grace work within you." 

On the whole this parish just felt a bit odd, the sort of place where the finances and demographics uphold the official party line and renewal spirit that is dis-functioning everywhere else in the Roman Church. How long until time catches up to Texas?—or will the influx of immigration from the Spanish speaking Americas and from the rest of the USA give Texas a reprieve?

All most surreal....

Modern Church Architecture (1930s edition)

"I went to have a look at the cathedral—a modern cathedral, and one of the most hideous buildings in the world. It has four crenellated spires exactly the shape of hock bottles ... I think the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up ... though they did hang a red and black banner between its spires" - George Orwell on Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, found in Homage to Catalonia

End of a Very Religious Experience

Today I deigned to make the drive from Dallas to Houston, a pleasant drive that breaks the topographic monotony of northern Texas, offering grassy plains, rolling hills, odd trees, and wild flowers over the course of roads that wind like some quaint English rivers. It is all very rustic and enjoyable. Except at night.

I intended to leave at 5PM and arrive around 9PM, when the last light disappears during Texan summers. Unforeseen circumstances and stops put by departure at 6:30PM and my arrival at 11PM. I had to make the last two hours on back roads and byways with 70 mph speeds and impatient people riding my @$$. The roads have no lighting whatsoever. The state does not seem to maintain these roads very well either, given that the stripping and reflective strips have all but vanished over time. All I could do was try to make out the grooving in the asphalt. Gas stations and stores only pop up every twenty miles. Combine all this with a red warning light on the instrument panel—which happily turned out to be nothing—and one has considerable incentive to start singing litanies and the Jesus prayer over and over and over again.

Happy feast of the Visitation to all!