We Insist: “An Enemy Hath Done This!”

When we see the rotten fruits of modernist aggiornamento we cannot but insist “an enemy, the most pernicious of the adversaries of the Church, hath done this”!

Prologue: A Crucial Distinction Missed To-day

There is a lesson from the history of heresies that  we can’t fail to notice. It is that, that the gravest theological errors often begin, not with an outright denial of the Faith, but with an incautious expression.

A single letter.

A single word.

A phrase.

A misplaced distinction.

An ambiguous formula.

The Arian crisis revolved around a single letter, an iota. The Protestant revolt redefined words such as faith, grace, and Church. It has been characteristic of  Modernist crisis likewise to advance by changing language before changing doctrine.

Recently, I shared a pictographic thumbnail I found to be picturesque and arresting. It portrays two opposing explanations of the crisis that has engulfed the visible structures of the Catholic Church.

One conclusion, tagged “Lefebrist” simply declared:

“The Church has done this.”

The other, tagged “Sedevacantist”, and reflecting what I unapologetically maintain to be the perennial Catholic principle, echoed the words of Our Lord Himself:

“An enemy hath done this.” (Matt. 13:28).

I accompanied the image was this observation as a tag:

“The enemy, the most pernicious of the adversaries of the Church, has done this! The thesis of auto-self-demolition is contrary to the indefectibility of the Church.”

The responses that followed were revealing.

One commenter objected:

“Sorry, but the Vatican has done this all by itself! The Smoke of Satan is in the Vatican and has been+++!”

Another offered what appeared to be a more careful correction:

“Correction, churchmen, too busy doing ‘God’s work’ to tend the dying in the ditch—their own sheep—have done this. And they still are.”

Both comments deserve serious consideration.

Not because they are unique.

But because they express what many traditional Catholics sincerely believe.

Indeed, almost everyone now agrees that the Church is passing through the greatest crisis in her history.

The disagreement concerns something far deeper.

How are we to explain it?

That question is not merely historical.

Nor is it simply practical.

It is profoundly theological.

Why so? Precisely because the explanation we choose inevitably reveals what we believe about the Church herself.

The decisive question is therefore not whether an explanation appears plausible and appealing.

It is whether it preserves intact what Catholics have always believed concerning the divine constitution of the Church.

In other words:

Is it truly Catholic?

The Principle Must Come Before the Facts

One of the greatest mistakes common these days to begin with extraordinary events instead of immutable principles. The judicious Catholic proceeds in precisely the opposite order.

He first asks:

What has Christ revealed about His Church?

Only then does he ask how present events are to be understood.

The temptation today is to reverse that order.

Many begin with the undeniable collapse of discipline, the spread of doctrinal confusion, the transformation of the liturgy, the multiplication of scandals, and the apparent triumph of Modernism.

From these facts they conclude:

“The Church has done this.”

But Catholic theology does not permit conclusions that contradict revealed principles.

Facts must be interpreted by doctrine.

Doctrine is never rewritten by facts.

No matter how unprecedented the crisis may appear, it cannot overturn what Christ has promised.

Christ’s Promise

Our Lord did not establish merely another religious institution.

He founded His Church upon a divine foundation.

To St. Peter He declared:

“The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. 16:18)

To the Apostles He promised:

“Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (Matt. 28:20)

St. Paul calls the Church:

“The pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Tim. 3:15)

These are not pious exaggerations.

They are divine guarantees.

From them Catholic theology has always deduced the doctrine of indefectibility.

• The Church may be persecuted.
• She may lose countless members.
• She may be eclipsed in the eyes of the world.
• She may suffer treachery from within.

But she cannot cease to be what Christ constituted her to be.

She cannot officially become the teacher of falsehood.

She cannot become the destroyer of the Faith entrusted to her.

She cannot become the enemy of her own children.

Two Explanations: Only One Can Be Catholic

Once these principles are admitted, only two fundamental explanations remain.

• Either the Church herself has become the cause of the present catastrophe.
• Or an enemy has corrupted what belongs to the Church.

The difference between these two explanations is not merely verbal.

It is the difference between two entirely different ecclesiologies.

“The Church Hath Done This”

Let us first examine the slogan that has become increasingly common among certain traditional Catholics:

“The Church has done this.”

Taken in its proper theological sense, the statement necessarily implies that:

• the Church herself is the cause of the crisis;
• the Church has officially corrupted her own doctrine, worship, or discipline;
• the Church has become the source of the poison she was divinely constituted to prevent;
• Christ’s own teaching authority has become an instrument of deception;
• the visible Church has, in practice, defected from her divine mission.

Whether all who repeat the slogan consciously intend these conclusions is beside the point.

Ideas have consequences.

Words have theological content.

And propositions must be judged according to what they signify.

Taken strictly, the proposition attributes the crisis to the Church herself.

That strikes at the very heart of Catholic ecclesiology.

For if the Church herself officially corrupts what Christ entrusted to her, then the promises of Christ have failed.

Indefectibility becomes an empty word.

The pillar of truth becomes a fountain of error.

The Bride becomes the corrupter of her own children.

Such a conception cannot easily be reconciled with the faith professed by the Fathers, the Doctors, the Councils, and the Roman Pontiffs before the Second Vatican Council. Or, can it? 

“An Enemy Hath Done This”

Our Lord Himself proposes another explanation.

When the servants discovered tares growing among the wheat, they naturally wondered how such a thing could have happened.

The Master answered with remarkable simplicity:

“An enemy hath done this.”

Notice carefully what He did not say.

He did not say:

“The field produced the tares.”

He did not say:

“The wheat became cockle.”

He did not say:

“The field has destroyed itself.”

Instead, He identified an external cause acting upon what properly belonged to the master.

The principle is profoundly theological.

The Church remains what Christ founded her to be.

The corruption proceeds from an enemy; not from the Church herself.

• Wicked men may infiltrate.
• False shepherds may betray.
• Heretics may sow confusion.
• Traitors may occupy places of honor.
• Impostors may reign. 

But none of these betrayals become the official action of the indefectible Church.

The distinction appears small.

In reality, it is everything.

• It preserves intact the promises of Christ while fully acknowledging the terrible reality of ecclesiastical corruption.
• It allows Catholics to confess simultaneously that the crisis is real and that the Church remains indefectible.

That is precisely why Our Lord’s explanation remains not merely picturesque but permanently normative.

Before attempting to explain any crisis in the Church, Catholics must first explain it in a manner consistent with the words of Christ Himself:

“An enemy hath done this.”

Part II — The Real Question, the False Principle, and the Forgotten Distinction

Having established the principle laid down by Our Lord, we may now return to the objections.

For they are not merely comments on social media.

They are expressions of a way of thinking that has become widespread among those who identify as traditional Catholics.

The danger lies not so much in the facts they observe, but in the theological conclusions they draw from those facts.

A Telling Objection

One commenter replied:

“Sorry, but the Vatican has done this all by itself! The Smoke of Satan is in the Vatican and has been+++!”

At first glance, the statement appears compelling.

Indeed, countless innovations have proceeded from Rome since the so-called Second Vatican Council.

• The New Mass.
• Ecumenical gatherings.
• Interreligious prayer meetings.
• False Religious liberty.
• Collegiality.
• Synodality.

The list could be extended almost indefinitely.

No serious traditional Catholic denies these facts.

Yet facts alone do not answer theological questions.

The real question is not:

Have destructive novelties emerged from Rome?

The answer is plainly yes. Destructive novelties have emerged from modernist and apostate Rome.

The real question is:

Has the Catholic Church herself become the author of those novelties?

That is an entirely different proposition.

It is the difference between blaming criminals for a robbery and accusing the law itself of becoming criminal.

What the Objection Misses

The comment overlooks one of the most fundamental distinctions in Catholic theology.

It fails to distinguish between:

• the Catholic Church as a divine institution established by Christ;
• men who occupy ecclesiastical offices;
• and the enemies who wage war against the Church from within as well as from without.

Once that distinction is forgotten, an imperceptible transfer takes place.

• The blame passes from sinful men to the Church herself.
• The Bride of Christ becomes the author of her own humiliation.
• The Ark of Salvation becomes the instrument of shipwreck.
• The Mother becomes the poisoner of her own children.

Such language may arise from understandable frustration.

But understandable frustration is not a theological principle. Or is it?

The Difference Between Church and Churchmen

This distinction is not a subtle invention of scholastic theologians.

It is woven into the whole history of the Church.

No Catholic has ever believed that every bishop is holy.

No Catholic has ever believed that every pope is wise.

No Catholic has ever believed that every priest is faithful.

The Church has endured ambitious bishops.

Immoral clergy.

Simoniacs.

Heretics.

Cowards.

Traitors.

She has even endured Judases among the Twelve.

Yet Catholics have never concluded that the sins of churchmen became the official acts of the Church herself.

Judas betrayed Christ.

The Apostolic College did not.

The distinction mattered then.

It matters now.

A More Careful Objection

Another commenter attempted to make precisely this distinction.

He wrote:

“Correction, churchmen, too busy doing ‘God’s work’ to tend the dying in the ditch—their own sheep—have done this. And they still are.”

This is a considerable improvement.

Instead of blaming the Church, he blames churchmen.

In that respect he identifies a genuine human element in the present crisis.

History leaves no doubt that bishops, priests, cardinals, even occupants of the highest ecclesiastical offices; can fail grievously in their sacred duties.

Pastors may neglect the flock.

They may tolerate error.

They may even become promoters of it.

Catholic doctrine has never denied these painful realities.

What Is Correct

The statement rightly recognizes that:

• churchmen are capable of grave failures;
• pastors may neglect the souls entrusted to them;
• ecclesiastical office does not render a man impeccable;
• much of today’s confusion has been propagated by men exercising positions of authority.

These observations are historically undeniable.

The Church has never claimed otherwise.

Indeed, Sacred Scripture itself records the failures of priests, kings, apostles, and bishops.

Catholic theology has always distinguished between the holiness of the Church and the sins of her members.

Yet Something Is Still Missing

Nevertheless, the explanation remains incomplete.

• It identifies the visible instruments.
• It does not identify the first cause.

Churchmen may betray their office.

But why?

Because an enemy has entered the field.

The negligent shepherd is not the first cause.

He is himself one of the tares.

The wolf remains the wolf whether the shepherd sleeps; or deliberately opens the gate.

Thus the explanation “churchmen have done this” is historically true as far as it goes.

But it does not go far enough.

It stops with secondary causes.

Our Lord directs us beyond secondary causes to the principal one.

“An enemy hath done this.”

The Origin of the Auto-Demolition Theory

At this point another question naturally arises.

Where did the expression that the Church is somehow destroying herself originate?

Surprisingly, it did not arise among traditional Catholics.

Its most famous expression came from a modernist papal impostor styled “Paul VI”. 

On 7 December 1968 he lamented what he described as:

”…an hour of anxiety, of self-criticism, one might even say of self-destruction…” (auto-destruzione).

A few years later, on 29 June 1972, he uttered another now-famous phrase:

“Through some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”

These two statements have exercised enormous influence.

Consciously or unconsciously, many have fused them into a single explanation of the post-conciliar crisis:

The Church is demolishing herself because Satan has entered her.

It is a vivid image.

It is emotionally powerful.

But is it Catholic theology?

That is the question.

The Difficulty

Taken literally, the theory of ecclesiastical self-demolition implies that:

• the Church herself is demolishing herself;
• Christ’s Mystical Body has become the efficient cause of her own ruin;
• the visible teaching Church has become the source of universal corruption;
• the Church herself now destroys what she formerly preserved.

This is no longer simply an accusation against bad churchmen.

It becomes an accusation against the Church.

The distinction is decisive.

For the Church is not merely one institution among many.

She is the Mystical Body of Christ.

She is His spotless Bride.

She is the pillar and ground of the truth.

Can such a Church officially become the destroyer of the very deposit she was commissioned to guard?

The perennial Catholic answer has always been no.

Roots In Modernist Manner of Thinking

Here we encounter another theological problem.

One of the defining characteristics of Modernism, condemned by Pope St. Pius X, is its tendency to regard the Church primarily as a historical organism, continually evolving, adapting, reconstructing herself according to the spirit of successive ages.

Within such a framework it becomes conceivable to speak of the Church reinventing herself.

Reforming herself.

Even dismantling herself.

• She becomes simultaneously the patient and the surgeon.
• The victim and the executioner.

Traditional Catholic theology has never spoken this way.

• The Church may suffer persecution.
• She may endure infiltration.
• She may be eclipsed before the eyes of the world.
• She may be betrayed by those who ought to defend her.

But she does not officially corrupt herself.

The poison comes from the serpent.

Not from the vine.

The disease attacks the body.

It is not generated by the body’s own divine constitution.

The tares are sown into the field.

They do not spring from the wheat.

The distinction is not merely poetic.

It is theological.

And it is indispensable.

For once the Church herself becomes the efficient cause of her own corruption, her indefectibility has already been surrendered in principle.

What remains may still be called “the Church,” but it is no longer the Church described by Christ, confessed by the Fathers, or defended by the great theologians of the ages.

The explanation has solved one mystery only by creating a far greater one.

It has attempted to explain the crisis at the expense of the Church’s divine constitution.

That price is too high.

For Catholics are never free to defend the truth by sacrificing another truth.

The crisis must be explained.

But it must be explained Catholically.

Part III — The Catholic Principle and the Divine Constitution of the Church

The foregoing distinction is not a theological novelty.

It is as ancient as the Church herself.

Indeed, it is woven into Sacred Scripture, explained by the Fathers, developed by the great scholastic theologians, and reaffirmed by the Roman Pontiffs.

The more closely one studies the Church’s tradition, the more evident it becomes that Catholics have always distinguished between the indefectible Church and the sinful men who live within her visible society.

To confuse the two is to invite theological confusion.

The Witness of St. Augustine

The Donatists believed that the sins of bishops and clergy destroyed the Church’s holiness.

St. Augustine answered with one of the most enduring images in Catholic theology.

The Church in this world is a field containing both wheat and tares.

The presence of cockle does not transform the wheat into cockle.

The field remains the Master’s field even while enemies continue sowing weeds.

Likewise, the Ark of Noah contained both clean and unclean animals.

Yet the uncleanness of some did not destroy the Ark itself.

So also the Church.

She contains saints and sinners.

Faithful pastors and negligent pastors.

Holy bishops and corrupt bishops.

Yet she never ceases to be the Church of Christ.

The sins of her members belong to them.

They do not alter her divine constitution.

St. Robert Bellarmine and the Visibility of the Church

St. Robert Bellarmine develops this same principle with remarkable clarity.

The Church remains visible because she is a society composed of men.

Within that visible society there may be members who are wicked, ambitious, hypocritical, or scandalous.

There may even be pastors who betray their sacred office.

Yet none of this changes the essence of the Church herself.

St. Bellarmine never concludes that the existence of evil shepherds proves that the Church has become evil.

On the contrary, their wickedness demonstrates only the perennial truth of Christ’s parables.

The tares grow among the wheat until the harvest.

The presence of wolves does not prove that the flock has become wolves.

Pope St. Pius X Identifies the Enemy

St. Pius X described the modern crisis prophetically.

When condemning Modernism in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he did not describe the Church as destroying herself.

He described enemies already operating within her.

His words deserve careful attention:

“The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hidden… in her very bosom and heart.”

Again he warns that these enemies

“lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root.”

Notice the imagery.

There is an axe.

There is a tree.

But the axe is not the tree.

The enemy attacks the root.

The root does not attack itself.

St. Pius X’s analysis perfectly echoes the words of Christ.

The corruption proceeds from enemies working within the Church.

It does not proceed from the Church as Church.

Pope Pius XII and the Mystical Body

Pope Pius XII, in Mystici Corporis Christi, likewise distinguishes the Mystical Body from those who wound it.

The Church is indeed composed of men.

But she is more than the sum of her members.

She possesses a divine life and constitution received from Christ Himself.

Members may become diseased.

They may even separate themselves from the life of the Body.

Yet the Body itself remains what Christ constituted it to be.

To confuse diseased members with the constitution of the Body is to mistake pathology for nature.

A fever does not redefine the human body.

Neither does corruption redefine the Church.

Leo XIII and the Indefectibility of the Church

Pope Leo XIII repeatedly teaches that Christ constituted His Church as the perpetual guardian of revealed truth.

She exists to preserve, defend, and faithfully transmit the deposit entrusted to the Apostles.

If she could officially corrupt that deposit, she would cease to fulfil the very purpose for which Christ founded her.

Such a hypothesis empties Christ’s promises of their objective meaning.

The Church would become a fallible guide requiring correction by private judgment.

Ironically, this would bring Catholics perilously close to the very Protestant principle they reject.

The Fatal Consequence of the Auto-Demolition Theory

Every theological principle has consequences.

If one admits that the Church herself can officially corrupt her doctrine, worship, and discipline, several unavoidable conclusions follow.

• How can the faithful know with certainty when the Church speaks for Christ and when she speaks against Him?
• At what point does obedience become disobedience?
• Who becomes the final judge of what is genuinely Catholic?

Each individual conscience?

Each theologian?

Each traditionalist movement?

The principle ultimately dissolves the Church’s authority into private judgment.

The Church remains visible in name, but her divine authority becomes practically unknowable.

This is precisely why the doctrine of indefectibility is indispensable.

• Christ did not establish an authority that would eventually require rescue from itself.
• He established an authority through which His own truth would endure until the end of time.

Returning to the Master

At this point we return to the parable from which we began.

• The servants discover corruption in the field.
• They are astonished.
• Something has gone terribly wrong.

Their question is immediate:

“Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it cockle?”

Notice that the servants never question the goodness of the seed.

Nor do they accuse the Master of sowing corruption.

Their perplexity arises precisely because they know both the Master and His seed.

The Master’s answer is equally significant.

He does not explain everything.

He explains enough.

“An enemy hath done this.”

That one sentence preserves every revealed truth.

• The seed remains good.
• The field remains the Master’s.
• The corruption is real.
• The enemy is real.
• The servants must endure the trial until the harvest.

Nothing in the parable suggests that the field has become the cause of its own corruption.

Nothing suggests that the wheat has generated the tares.

Nothing suggests that the Master has altered the nature of His own field.

The cause lies elsewhere.

It lies in the work of an enemy.

Summing Up: The Catholic Principle

Throughout history the Church has known Judases.

• She has endured Arians.
• She has suffered worldly popes, negligent bishops, ambitious cardinals, faithless priests, false teachers, persecutors, revolutionaries, schismatics, and heretics.
• She has been betrayed from without.
• She has been betrayed from within.
• She has often appeared weak.
• She has sometimes seemed almost overwhelmed.

But never has Catholic theology taught that the Church herself became the author of her own official corruption.

Never has she taught that the Mystical Body of Christ poisoned herself.

Never has she taught that the pillar and ground of truth became the fountain of falsehood.

• The Church may be wounded.
• She may be obscured.
• She may be betrayed by those who ought to defend her.
• She may suffer grievously in her members.

But she never becomes the executioner of her own divine constitution.

The poison comes from the serpent.

Not from the vine.

The dagger comes from the assassin.

Not from the Bride.

The tares are sown by the enemy.

Not by the Master.

This is not merely the sedevacantist principle.

It is not merely the traditionalist principle.

It is the Catholic principle.

It is the principle taught by Christ Himself.

It safeguards every one of His promises.

It preserves intact the doctrine of the Church’s indefectibility.

It distinguishes between the Church and those who betray her.

It explains the reality of the crisis without sacrificing the divine constitution of the Mystical Body.

And for that reason, amid all the confusion of our age, Catholics should resist every explanation that ultimately makes the Church the cause of her own destruction.

Instead, they should continue to confess, with confidence in the words of the Divine Master:

“An enemy hath done this.”

The reason is obvious: those five words remain the surest theological compass for navigating every crisis the Church will endure until the end of time.

When we see the rotten fruits of modernist aggiornamento, we cannot but insist: 

“The enemy, the most pernicious of the adversaries of the Church, has done this!

Think on it!