(LifeSiteNews) — In the eyes of many today, the Catholic Church appears to be broken in its human element. Fortunately, the Holy Ghost guided the pre-Vatican II popes to promulgate encyclicals which were the functional equivalent of doctrinal and spiritual instruction manuals for the Catholic Church, which can help us understand and counteract the evils afflicting the Mystical Body of Christ today. Many of us are familiar with some of the most important of the pre-Vatican II encyclicals:
- Mirari Vos, Pope Gregory XVI’s 1832 encyclical on liberalism and religious indifferentism
- Qui Pluribus, Blessed Pius IX’s 1846 encyclical on faith and religion
- Quanta Cura, Blessed Pius IX’s 1864 encyclical condemning modern errors (accompanied by the Syllabus of Errors)
- Libertas Praestantissimum, Pope Leo XIII’s 1888 encyclical on human liberty
- Pascendi Dominici Gregis, St. Pius X’s 1907 encyclical on Modernism
- Mortalium Animos, Pope Pius XI’s 1928 encyclical on religious unity
- Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical on false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine
In each of these, the popes exhorted the bishops to oppose certain errors threatening the Catholic Faith. Every single error we see today from Rome was condemned by these encyclicals: the popes told us that the theological errors we see today would bring the disastrous crisis we see today. So if we want to address the crisis we see today we should turn to the holy Catholic wisdom of the pre-Vatican II popes who tried to prevent it.
In terms of simplicity and relevance, Blessed Pius IX’s Qui Pluribus arguably offers the most valuable and accessible “instruction manual” for what we face in 2024. In it, we can see that the Holy Ghost guided the popes to leave us much of what we need to understand and address the crisis plaguing the Church and world today.
God is the Author of the Catholic Faith
As Pius IX wrote, the Catholic religion was given to us by God rather than men, and cannot be improved upon by human reason:
Our holy religion was not invented by human reason, but was most mercifully revealed by God; therefore, one can quite easily understand that religion itself acquires all its power from the authority of God who made the revelation, and that it can never be arrived at or perfected by human reason. In order not to be deceived and go astray in a matter of such great importance, human reason should indeed carefully investigate the fact of divine revelation. Having done this, one would be definitely convinced that God has spoken and therefore would show Him rational obedience, as the Apostle very wisely teaches. For who can possibly not know that all faith should be given to the words of God and that it is in the fullest agreement with reason itself to accept and strongly support doctrines which it has determined to have been revealed by God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived?
From this, we know that any human effort to perfect or modify the Faith is inherently misguided. Moreover, because God can neither deceive nor be deceived, it is absolutely preposterous to imagine that what was true prior to Vatican II would today be false; or that what was condemned as false before Vatican II would today be true.
Benefits of the Catholic Church
Pius IX wrote of the tremendous benefits that God provides to mankind through the Catholic Church:
This faith, which teaches for life and points towards salvation, which casts out all vices and is the fruitful mother and nurse of the virtues, has been established by the birth, life, death, resurrection, wisdom, wonders and prophecies of Christ Jesus, its divine author and perfector!. . . It made known the saving laws of Christ and, gaining in strength daily even when it was most cruelly persecuted, it made its way over the whole world by land and sea, from the sun’s rising to its setting, under the single standard of the Cross! The deceit of idols was cast down and the mist of errors was scattered. By the defeat of all kinds of enemies, this faith enlightened with divine knowledge all peoples, races and nations, no matter how barbarous and savage, or how different in character, morals, laws and ways of life. It brought them under the sweet yoke of Christ Himself by proclaiming peace and good tidings to all men!
God could have provided these benefits without the use of human instruments, and certainly without the use of an organized religion, but He chose to establish the Church. As Pius IX wrote, God wants to provide the most important things in life through the Church: the path of salvation; instruction in avoiding sin and practicing virtue; the enlightenment of all people with divine knowledge; and peace. Because God gave mankind the Church to provide these benefits, we can be certain that there is no alternative source of goodness for those who spurn the Church’s authentic teaching.
How to protect the Church
For over one hundred years prior to the Council, the popes consistently told the shepherds what they must do to protect the Church. Like the other popes, Pius IX directed his message directly to the bishops:
As bishops, you are the deputies, and thus the imitators of Christ. In your harmonious pursuits you have become a sincere model for your flock, and you enlighten your clergy and faithful people with the splendor of your sanctity. In your compassionate mercy you seek out and overtake with your love the straying and perishing sheep, as the shepherd in the Gospel did. You place them paternally on your shoulders and lead them back to the fold. At no time do you spare either cares or plans or toils in religiously fulfilling your pastoral duties and defending all Our beloved sheep who, redeemed by Christ, have been entrusted to your care from the rage, assault and snares of ravening wolves. You keep them away from poisonous pasture land and drive them on to safe ground, and in all possible ways you lead them by deed, word and example to the harbor of eternal salvation.
So the pope and bishops have the primary duty to safeguard the flock against the ravening wolves. Pius IX also directed the bishops on the way in which they must protect the flock:
We, therefore, placed inscrutably by God upon this Chair of truth, eagerly call forth in the Lord your outstanding piety, venerable brothers. We urge you to strive carefully and zealously to continually warn and exhort the faithful entrusted to your care to hold to these first principles. Urge them never to allow themselves to be deceived and led into error by men who have become abominable in their pursuits. These men attempt to destroy faith on the pretext of human progress, subjecting it in an impious manner to reason and changing the meaning of the words of God. Such men do not shrink from the greatest insults to God Himself, who cares for the good and the salvation of men by means of His heavenly religion.
Bishops must carefully and zealously warn and exhort the faithful to hold to the Faith and avoid error. We may only have a few bishops in the world willing to do this today, but we know their names (often because they have been condemned by the ravening wolves in Rome) and hear their voices.
Risks to the Church
Pius IX identified the risks facing the Church then (and still today):
Each of you has noticed, venerable brothers, that a very bitter and fearsome war against the whole Catholic commonwealth is being stirred up by men bound together in a lawless alliance. These men do not preserve sound doctrine, but turn their hearing from the truth. They eagerly attempt to produce from their darkness all sorts of prodigious beliefs, and then to magnify them with all their strength, and to publish them and spread them among ordinary people. We shudder indeed and suffer bitter pain when We reflect on all their outlandish errors and their many harmful methods, plots and contrivances. These men use these means to spread their hatred for truth and light. They are experienced and skillful in deceit, which they use to set in motion their plans to quench peoples’ zeal for piety, justice and virtue, to corrupt morals, to cast all divine and human laws into confusion, and to weaken and even possibly overthrow the Catholic religion and civil society.
Although Pius IX was warning specifically about “secret sects” (such as the Freemasons), we can see that Satan is ultimately behind all such attacks on the Church. However, while these enemies were generally outside the Church in 1846, they have now infiltrated the Church to such an extent that they appear to have free rein to inflict the same evils Pius IX described above.
Satan and his minions use various tools to achieve their evil objectives — such as Liberalism, Modernism, and now Synodality — but the objectives remain the same: offending God and harming the Church. Indeed, we could easily apply the following words to what we see from Francis and his Synodal collaborators today:
Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial.
The risks to the Church are not that these enemies would actually change Church teaching, for the truths that God provided to His Church cannot be altered in the least by Satan or his minions. As we see now, though, it is quite possible that the Church’s enemies will succeed in deceiving men into thinking that the Church has changed its teaching. This is why Pius IX exhorted the bishops to remain vigilant.
Tragically, far too many bishops abandoned not only their flocks but the Faith. Now we see the filthy results:
As a result of this filthy medley of errors which creeps in from every side, and as the result of the unbridled license to think, speak and write, We see the following: morals deteriorated, Christ’s most holy religion despised, the majesty of divine worship rejected, the power of this Apostolic See plundered, the authority of the Church attacked and reduced to base slavery, the rights of bishops trampled on, the sanctity of marriage infringed, the rule of every government violently shaken and many other losses for both the Christian and the civil commonwealth. Venerable brothers, We are compelled to weep and share in your lament that this is the case.
This is what we see today and, as Pius IX wrote, it is the direct result of errors that have undermined the Faith of those Catholics who ought to be spreading God’s truth and goodness throughout the world.
How to repair the Church
While it is true that only God can “repair the Church” today, He ordinarily makes use of human instruments to help accomplish His will. As Pius IX wrote, God wants Catholics (and bishops in particular) to zealously cooperate with His grace to defend the Catholic Faith in times of crisis:
Therefore, in this great crisis for religion, because We are greatly concerned for the salvation of all the Lord’s flock and in fulfillment of the duty of Our Apostolic ministry, We shall certainly leave no measure untried in Our vigorous effort to secure the good of the whole Christian family. Indeed, We especially call forth in the Lord your own illustrious piety, virtue and prudence, venerable brothers. With these and relying on heavenly aid, you may fearlessly defend the cause of God and His holy Church as befits your station and the office for which you are marked. You must fight energetically, since you know very well what great wounds the undefiled Spouse of Christ Jesus has suffered, and how vigorous is the destructive attack of Her enemies. You must also care for and defend the Catholic faith with episcopal strength and see that the flock entrusted to you stands to the end firm and unmoved in the faith. For unless one preserves the faith entire and uninjured, he will without doubt perish forever.
We must fight with holiness, which can only proceed from adherence to the true Catholic Faith. Pius IX wrote that our salvation depends upon preserving the Faith “entire and uninjured.” To better preserve the Faith from attacks that would distort it in the eyes of the unwary, shepherds must expose the lies of the Church’s enemies:
‘It is an act of great piety to expose the concealments of the impious and to defeat there the devil himself, whose slaves they are.’ Therefore We entreat you to use every means of revealing to your faithful people the many kinds of plot, pretense, error, deceit and contrivance which our enemies use. This will turn them carefully away from infectious books. Also exhort them unceasingly to flee from the sects and societies of the impious as from the presence of a serpent, earnestly avoiding everything which is at variance with the wholeness of faith, religion and morality. Therefore, never stop preaching the Gospel, so that the Christian people may grow in the knowledge of God by being daily better versed in the most holy precepts of the Christian law; as a result, they may turn from evil, do good, and walk in the ways of the Lord.
It is remarkable to consider that Bishop Joseph Strickland was “canceled” by Rome for calmly and charitably doing what Pius IX called an “act of great piety” in exposing the lies threatening the Mystical Body of Christ. Given our current crisis, this should be the only sign other bishops need to be convinced that they too must see that Blessed Pius IX was speaking to them as much as he was speaking to the bishops alive in 1846.
Even when we do all we can to cooperate with God’s grace, we still must trust in God’s Providence lest we become discouraged:
We reflect on the most serious duties of the supreme apostolate especially in a period of great instability, We would simply have fallen into great sadness, did We not place all Our hope in God who is Our Saviour. For He never abandons those who hope in Him. Time and again, so as to demonstrate what His power can accomplish, He employs weak instruments to rule His Church; in this way, all men may increasingly realize that it is God Himself who governs and protects the Church with his wonderful providence.
And, like the other popes, Pius IX told us that we must turn to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most sweet mother of us all:
That the Lord may more readily respond to Us, let us call as intercessor Her who is always with Him, the most holy Virgin Mary, Immaculate Mother of God. She is the most sweet mother of us all; she is our mediatrix, advocate, firmest hope, and greatest source of confidence. Furthermore, her patronage with God is strongest and most efficacious.
Pius IX did not have the benefit of knowing the messages of Our Lady of Fatima, but we can be sure that he would agree with everything Our Lady communicated to the world through the three children of Fatima.
God has not abandoned us in the terrible crisis afflicting the Church, but it seems entirely possible that He expects us to make use of the abundant gifts He has given us. We are in this predicament because our shepherds abandoned the holy guidance that God provided through the pre-Vatican II popes. Each new development from Rome makes it more evident that their words were true, as the evils they tried to stave off become ever more suffocating. This should alert us all to the great need to return to that guidance now if we seek to cooperate with God’s grace to counter the enemies determined to destroy the Church. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!