October 2009
How the Modernists have led the local Church into a
treacherous ecumenical labyrinthe, with Vatican blessing.
Archbishop Nichols and the Inter-Church Process
IAIN COLQUHOUN
The headline in the Catholic Herald read “Archbishop Nichols hits the ground running,” in reference to his protests at plans to air condom ads on TV. Given his background and pedigree, however, it might have read: “Archbishop Nichols hits the ground spinning.” All the evidence suggests that he was the protégé of Liverpool’s notorious spinmeister, Archbishop Worlock, a prelate so consumed by ecumenical relations that he was known to sacrifice pro-life action and principles to maintain them.
Heretical unity plan
Appointed General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference in 1984, Archbishop Nichols went on to occupy the post of Moderator of the Steering Committee of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland [CCBI] from 1989 to 1996. A summary history of the CCBI and the Archbishop’s involvement in its creation is at once instructive and disturbing.
While Secretary to the Bishops Conference, Nichols was also Assistant Secretary to the body that organised the Inter-Church Process [ICP]. It is clear that the objective of this process was to secure Catholic participation in the British Council of Churches [BCC] and Scottish Churches Council [SCC].
The turning-point was the 1986 Lenten questionnaire distributed nationwide to “ecumenical discussion groups” - as to what kind of ‘church’ they wanted. On cue, they all voted for more ecumenism along lines proposed by the BCC. The statistical method was not revealed, a crucial point as it opened the BCC to charges that the results were fraudulent. But it was those results published in 1987 which formed the basis for the Church’s participation in new bodies “replacing” the BCC and SCC.
An account of the ICP, “Not Strangers But Pligrims” [NSBP] reveals Vincent Nichols’ role in the plan to enlist the Catholic Church into the Protestant ecumenical organisation following John Paul II’s visit to Britain in 1982. He masterminded the response of the UK hierarchies and their eventual enlistment in this objectively heretical unity plan.
Derek Worlock himself played a significant role in the launch of the BCC Inter-Church Process and in events leading up to it.
Papal blessing
When the Pope’s visit to Britain was arranged in 1982, it was to promote “ecumenism” rather than moral teachings as with his visit to Ireland. However, the visit was threatened by the outbreak of war with Argentina over the Falklands. To persuade the Pope to come regardless, Archbishops Winning and Worlock went to Rome with their trump card - namely, that scrapping the visit would “set back the course of ecumenism for decades.” In reply, the Pope “put himself in their hands” - left the decision up to them. And so he came as planned.
During the visit, BCC leaders urged the Pope to let the Catholic hierarchy in Britain join their organisation. In reply he invited representatives of the BCC along with delegates from the hierarchy to Rome “to continue the discussions” [The Pope in Britain by Peter Jennings and Eamonn McCabe - account of BCC General Secretary].
Subsequently, in May 1983 the Scottish Episcopal ‘Primus’ Alistair Haggart, together with BCC and Catholic leaders, took part in discussions in the Vatican. “From these tentative steps,” states the BCC’s Derek Palmer in his book Strangers no Longer, “came the Inter-Church Process.”
When the Anglican minister who wrote the BCC Lenten course booklet “What on Earth is the Church For?” died in 2005, an obituary notice pointed out that “the BCC was dissolved in order to secure Roman Catholic participation” [Daily Telegraph 4/2/05]. The aim of the whole process was to enlist the Catholic Church. Everything else was window-dressing to secure that prize.
Here is a summary of how developments unfolded to that end.
Treacherous chronology:
- In January 1984, under BCC aegis, representatives of “the main Christian Churches” met with the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales at New Hall, Chelmsford, “where the discussion ranged around the nature of the Church, its authority and sacraments” [BCC publicity material on NSBP].
- In March 1984, the BCC Assembly “resolved to consult the member Churches on their readiness to share in a process of prayer, reflection and debate together, centred on the nature and purpose of the Church in the light of its calling...” [ibid].
- At their Low Week meeting in April 1984, the UK Catholic Bishops then resolved “that the Bishops’ Conference collaborate with the BCC in the preparation of a major Conference in 1987. to consider the nature of the Church in the light of the Lima Document on Baptism. Eucharist and Ministry, etc etc…” [ibid].
- It might be significant that in the weeks prior to this statement, Vincent Nichols was appointed as General Secretary to the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
- Archbishop Worlock headed Catholic delegates at the next BCC arranged Inter-Church Meeting at Lambeth Palace on 4 February 1985, the other members being Bishops Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Alan Clark. Clearly, Worlock was still active in promoting this “ecumenism” and having an alumnus like Nichols in the role of link-man between the hierarchy and the BCC would have facilitated matters.
- The follow-up meeting to the above took place on 7 May 1985, again at Lambeth, and according to Derek Palmer, in his book cited earlier: “... the leaders of 32 churches in the UK met formally and agreed to launch a three year Inter-Church Process of prayer, reflection and debate together on the nature and purpose of the Church in the light of its mission.” A committee structure was set up and Vincent Nichols was appointed as one of the two Assistant Secretaries. He was responsible for collecting statements from participant churches on how they saw themselves: their mission statements. This was published in booklet form as “Reflections,” with a foreword by Nichols. As you would expect, the Church downplayed its view of itself.
- Later, Nichols was Secretary of the Working-Party setting up the Council of Churches of Britain and Ireland and, as stated at the outset, became Moderator of its Steering Committee.
His participation in these events suggest that he was appointed as Secretary to the Bishops to oversee the Church’s entry into the Inter-Church Process and to ensure its place in the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland which replaced the BCC. We may also assume that this has clinched his rise within the hierarchy.
Heresy and scandal
Since the BCC’s original intention in organising the ICP was to win Catholic participation for its organisation, it is surely significant that the Catholic Church as a key participant now submits the major funding to the new ecumenical bodies which replaced the BCC and the Scottish Churches Council. One assumes that these funds originate from Sunday collection money. If so, those who contribute are paying for heresy while presuming to support their clergy!
In a 1984 article in The Remnant, Michael Davies condemned this Inter-Church Process as heretical because, he argued, for the Catholic Church to join Protestant sects in an ecumenical organisation suggested that the Church no longer had that “unity” conferred at its divine institution and had to seek it by federative means with sects outside itself. This was confirmed to me by Cardinal Ratzinger in a private meeting in 1992. Yet four days later when John Paul II met the Scots Bishops, the Holy Father actually commended them for participating in the relevant body in Scotland, Action of Churches Together in Scotland - which was set up by Canon Kenyon Wright, a Russian agent! [See “Kenyon Wright’s Scottish Strategy,” CO, Oct. 1999]
It was bad enough that the “Process” was characterised by the “social gospel” with a concomitant downplaying of doctrine. But it was scandalous in the extreme that the Vatican permitted a body like the BCC to spearhead the plan. It had supported the liberalisation of divorce and abortion in the UK as well as funding a group called Grapevine, set up to popularise the use of contraceptives among schoolchildren.
In addition, the BCC had supported the launch of a branch of Christian Peace Conference in Britain, the Soviet front group to which Kenyon Wright belonged. This places the ICP in the wider context of infiltration and subversion of the Church.
Communist connection
After the Red Army occupied the post-war Eastern European nations, the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church [ROC] went out to persuade their Orthodox counterparts in those countries to accept state control and promote Soviet propaganda. As a result, Stalin soon had not one but a host of churches under his control. By 1958 they joined a ‘front’ called Christian Peace Conference [CPC], which also comprised Protestant clergy in the West sympathetic to Soviet aims. As soon as CPC was formed, the ROC and other Eastern bloc churches all joined the World Council of Churches (1960-61). There they won control of its policies so that the WCC supported the Soviet ‘line’ on things like nuclear disarmament. At the same time, members of CPC held office in the WCC and its subsidiaries, enabling them to direct ecumenical policy, while concealing the link with Moscow.
This process culminated in a member of this Communist front, Kenyon Wright, who was also General Secretary of the Scottish Churches Council, setting up a plan for the Catholic Church to join the Protestant ecumenical movement: namely, the Inter-Church Process described above.
Abomination of desolation?
Apart from the heretical implications, what has been the result of the Church joining the ecumenical umbrella group?
Well, its leaders have come under pressure to allow intercommunion and to accept the Anglican Orders which Pope Leo XIII decreed to be “worthless.” The only way our Bishops could demonstrate their acceptance of these Orders would be by inviting a Protestant minister to join them in a celebration of the Mass, as main celebrant. But when he spoke the words of consecration the bread and wine would remain unchanged, and by being worshipped, these material objects would constitute an idol, set up where Christ should be, on the altar. This would effectively subvert the Mass. With the worship of this idol being enforced, it would effectively provoke a great apostasy.
Clearly, this correlates with the text on “the abomination of desolation set up in the Holy place” [Matt 24:15] - significantly, one of the texts which the present Pope assures us corresponds with the Third Secret of Fatima.
Wages of spin
There is evidence that the main focus of the ICP was Scotland, as it paved the way to the launch of the Scottish parliament. In any event, while agent Wright was busy organising the plan up in Scotland, and also spearheading a campaign for the abolition of the one weapon which deters Russia from attacking - the Trident nuclear submarines based in the Clyde - the man who organised the Catholic Church’s involvement down south was the Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference, then Mgr Vincent Nichols.
So the man responsible for organising the Catholic side of this heretical and Communist-engineered ‘Process’ in England and Wales has now been appointed Archbishop of Westminster, soon to be elevated to the Sacred College and thus made a contender for the papacy. Worlock’s protegé spins onwards and upwards, but Fulton Sheen must be spinning in his grave.