May 2011
Book Review
PAUL VI BEATIFIED? by Father Luigi Villa, 2010, pp. 328. Available for $25 (plus postage) from The Apostolate of Our Lady of Good Success, 1288 Summit Ave Suite 107 Oconomowoc, WI. 53066 USA. Purchase online at: www.ourladyofgoodsuccess.com Ph. (U.S.): 262-567-0920.
RANDY ENGEL
Some books are difficult to review because of the sheer density of facts and documentation contained therein. Others, because the subject matter evokes deep, visceral distress on the part of the reviewer. Paul VI Beatified? is both fact-filled and disturbing.
More than 30,000 pages of encyclicals, Conciliar documents, General Audience talks, and news stories taken from the pontificate of Paul VI were distilled by Father Villa, editor of the traditional magazine Chiesa Viva, including hundreds of photos which, by themselves, visually tell a story of a pope whose 15-year reign was marked by grave deviations from the Depositum Fidei. Little wonder that Father Villa’s book is credited with bringing the early steps leading up to the beatification, and ultimately to the canonization of Paul VI as a saint, to a sudden halt. For every Catholic who has ever asked himself, “How did the Revolution in the Catholic Church come about?” it is essential reading.
Blueprint for NewChurch
In the second year of his pontificate, on August 6, 1964, just six weeks prior to the opening of the Third Session of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI presented his “blueprint” for NewChurch in his first encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam. Unlike his pre-Conciliar predecessors, the pope was dissatisfied with the Catholic Church established by Christ and decided to create one more to his image and likeness. Thus he invited Holy Mother Church to set a new ecclesiastic course in a Progressive ship quite unlike the traditional Barque of Saint Peter, and to venture into Modernist waters more deadly than the Church has ever known. In hindsight, the reader can only gasp at how blithely and with what utopian fervour the new pope embraced the challenge of the auto-destruction of the Church in the name of “renovation,” “renewal,” “reform,” “the dialogue of salvation,” an “openness to the world,” – an auto-destruction which Father Villa carefully documents by chapter and verse.
The Cult of Man – A Form of Idolatry
In Chapters I and II of Paul VI Beatified? Father Villa examines the pope’s obsession with the Cult of Man and his habituated taste for the naturalistic and the novel at the expense of the supernatural and tradition, thereby turning Christianity into a horizontal, earth-bound rather than a vertical, heaven-bound religion.
If, in our desire to respect a man’s freedom and dignity, his conversion to the true faith is not the immediate object of our dialogue with him, we nevertheless try to help him and to dispose him for a fuller sharing of ideas and convictions. - Ecclesiam Suam: 79.
But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honour mankind; We have the cult of man. - Address of Paul VI, Council’s Last General Meeting, December 7, 1965, Italian Translation.
A New Spirituality for Modern Man
As Father Villa clearly documents, since Paul VI’s NewChurch represents a new religion, it necessarily requires a new Spirituality along with a number of other accessories like a new Gospel, a new Ecclesiology, a new Theology, a new Mass and a new Priesthood.
Chapter II tackles the issue of Paul VI’s love affair with the world, and his admonishment to the Faithful to “love the world,” a directive which finds little support in either Holy Scripture or the Magisterium of the Church or the writings of the Saints and Church Fathers or any of the pre-Conciliar popes:
Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. - John 18:37
Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man Love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. - I John 2:15
Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God. - James 4:5
Father Villa presents Paul VI’s novel interpretation of Man’s new relationship to the world taken from the pope’s NewGospel and delivered at his General Audience of July 3, 1974:
We have certainly intended to talk of the severity of the Saints toward the ills of the world. Many are still familiar with the books of asceticism that contain a globally negative judgment upon earthly corruption. But it is also certain that we do live in a different spiritual climate, having been invited, especially by the recent Council, to bring to the modern world an optimistic look towards its values, its achievements… The celebrated Constitution Gaudium at Spes is in its whole an encouragement toward this new spiritual approach.
In this early chapter, Father Villa introduces one of his book’s major themes – the infiltration of Freemasonry, which has been condemned by pre-Conciliar popes from time immemorial – into the Catholic Church, in general, and the papal office under the pontificate of Paul VI. It is in his writings on Paul VI’s affinity for the tenets of Freemasonry, as well as the pope’s attachment to all ideologies flowing from the Left including Socialism and Communism, that one finds the author’s most interesting and original investigative findings and in-depth insights.
The story behind the infamous “Pecorelli’s List,” which this writer has a copy of, albeit yellowed and crackled with age, makes for fascinating reading.
Investigative journalist and a member of the elite Propaganda Due (P2) Lodge, Carmine “Mino” Pecorelli, Director of L’Osservatorio Politico, a press agency specializing in political scandals and crimes, was murdered on March 20, 1979. Prior to his death he published what became known as “Pecorelli’s List.” It contained the names (code names and card names as well) of alleged Freemasons in high level Vatican offices during the reign of Paul VI. If the list is correct, and there is much collaborating evidence to indicate that the list was valid, Paul VI had surrounded himself with Freemasons. As Father Villa notes, none of these high ranking Church members ever came forward to challenge the list. For centuries the leaders of Freemasonry had awaited “a pope according to our needs” who would help compromise the Catholic Church and usher in an era of a “Masonic Universal Democracy.” They found him in Paul VI.
Paul VI and the Great Betrayals
Chapter VII, titled “Opening to Communism” details Paul VI’s tragic betrayal of anti-Communist prelates József Cardinal Mindszenty, Josyf Ivanovycè Cardinal Slipyi, and Cardinal Stephen Trochta and the millions upon millions of Hungarians, Ukrainians, and Czechoslovakians and other victims of Soviet Communism they represented. It is absolutely heart-wrenching.
However, Father Villa saves his criticism of Paul VI’s greatest betrayal for last – the creation of his NewMass and the banishment of the traditional Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. This one chapter alone should be enough to squelch any talk of Paul VI’s beatification forever.
Speaking of the “fruits” of this particularly grievous betrayal, Father Villa writes:
… the “fruits” derived from Paul VI’s “new Mass” stand as an eloquent proof of that betrayal. I would never come to lay down my pen were I to document the countless lists of scandals and sacrileges, of “black masses,” of obscenities, perpetrated after Vatican II, precisely on account of the “new liturgy.”
The controversial and brave 93-year-old Villa, who himself has been the subject of seven assassination attempts because of his anti-Freemasonry expositions, recognizes that while not all post-Concilar abuses can be laid at the feet of Paul VI, nevertheless NewMass was Paul VI’s doing and it was carried out with his authority and approval. But, as Father Villa points out:
It must be said… that the Traditional Mass of St. Pius V was never legally abrogated, and it remains, to this day, a true rite of the Catholic Church through which the faithful can fulfill their holy precept because Pius V had granted a perpetual indult (which was never abrogated), valid “for all time” to celebrate the Traditional Mass, freely, legally, without any scruples and without incurring a punishment, conviction or censure.
Conclusion
When one finally turns the last page of this book, one is left with a dreadful, gnawing feeling that when the Anti-Christ appears on earth, he will be hard pressed to do more damage to the Church and the Faith than did Paul VI.
It is with this bone-chilling thought, amid pages stained with tears, that I take the reader’s leave.
Paul VI Beatified? Place it in your Catholic library.