On The Subject of Schema 13 for the Constitu-
tion
on the Church in the Modern World
SEPTEMBER 9, 1965
At the Fourth Session a deeper study of the schema on The Church in the Modern World led me to the discovery that those who had drawn it up lacked the spirit of the Catholic faith. At least implicitly all the theories of Liberalism and Modernism are to be found in it.
There had been a good deal of opposition to the original text. Yet the very fact that it was possible, unashamedly, to present such a schema to the Fathers clearly demonstrates the progress made by these false ideas in ecclesiastical circles.
As several Fathers have already declared, it appears to me that it can be stated in regard to this pastoral constitution that:
The pastoral doctrine presented therein is not in accord with the doctrine of pastoral theology taught by the Church up to the present.
And this is true: whether it be on the question of man and his condition or that concerning the world and societies to do with the family and secular life, or again on the subject of the Church herself, the doctrine of this Constitution is a new one in the Church, although it has long been familiar to many non-Catholics or Liberal Catholics.
1. In various places certain principles are put forward which flagrantly contradict the traditional doctrine of the Church.
3. On essential points many omissions make the true answers to these questions impossible.
the Church has always taught, and continues to teach, the obligation for all men to obey God and the authorities established by God, in order that they may return to the fundamental order of their calling and thus recover their lost dignity. The schema, on the contrary. says:
Man’s dignity is in his freedom of conscience. in his personal actions guided and moved from within himself, that is, of his own volition and not under the compulsion of some external cause or by constraint (p.15, lines 15ff.; p.22. no.24).
This false notion of liberty1 and of man’s docility leads to the very worst consequences— in particular it leads to the destruction of authority. especially that of the father of the family. It destroys the value of religious life,
merely from the point of view of atheism, without any explicit mention of Communism itself. From this text it can be deduced that Communism is condemned solely on account of its atheism; this is clearly contrary to the doctrine constantly taught by the Church.
It is thus better to have a text, it would seem, which either does not mention Communism at all, even indirectly, or which speaks of it, on the contrary, explicitly, to show its intrinsic evil.
By His Incarnation the Word of God the Father took upon him the whole man, body and soul (this is true, indeed); thereby He sanctified all nature created by God, matter included, in such a way that everything which exists, in its own way, calls for its Redeemer.
True liberty, befitting the true dignity
of the human person, is the faculty that man pos-
sesses, enlightened by grace and encouraged by an
upright civil legislation, to cling to truth, to practice
good, to choose the true religion revealed by God,
and to remain attached to it, Without succumbing to
the obstacle of sin and error. Freedom ftom all ex-
ternal constraint is good if it serves the good, and
bad if it is used in the service of evil. Consequently,
the Conciliar schemas, putting the libertas a coac-