Concern and Hope in 2021

“Even if some pope were to take on the appearance of a false messiah, it could only be intermittently, without continuity, with all kinds of hesitation and remorse.... He would never proclaim, for example, as an assured point of the ordinary Magisterium, as an authentic interpretation of twenty centuries of Catholicism, much less as an ex cathedra definition, that the rise of humanity and its earthly success is now the new form of our religion.”

“Only he would be mistaken and mix up two messages which are opposed in their very essence: firstly, the message of Promethean domination of the world, in accordance with the three Temptations and practically without taking into account the sovereignty of God nor the sin of man, and secondly, the message of the Christian faith which announces the Redemption only through the cross of the Lord Jesus.”

“Through the effect of this unnatural entanglement, the scandal would doubtless come close to reaching its ultimate limits; he would be taken to an extraordinarily dangerous point of seduction. He would not be strong enough, however, to lose the elect, nor to abolish the Church.”

“First, because Jesus' promise to Peter will not pass. “I prayed, Peter, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.” (Lk 22:32)

“In addition, we hold it as a certain and universal principle that the order of good and that of evil do not oppose equally and are not symmetrical.”

“Which notably means that the scandal-maker will never be anything but a creature, while the defender against the scandal is the Almighty Lord. The innuendoes, propaganda, pressures, and persecutions of the world, whatever support they receive from the men of the Church, have nothing to compare with the grace of the Lord, either as a force which penetrates freedom, or as a sweetness which draws him to perfect love. Grace is of another order than all the created, infinitely stronger.”

“Finally, the maternal and royal intercession of the Virgin Mary will always victoriously defend the Church against the pitfalls of false messianisms.”

“Even if a pope came to lend a more or less distant assistance to those who have sworn to obtain the humanitarian transformation of the religion of Jesus Christ, this vertiginous complicity of the successor of Peter, would be neutralized in advance, rendered ineffective by the supplication of the Virgin co-redemptrix.

“Her prayer for the conversion of Peter, was it not already rising, silent but irresistible, as she stood at the foot of the cross of her Son with the beloved Disciple and some holy women, while the other apostles had fled shamefully, not excepting Peter?”

These lines are from Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P. They were published in the journal Itinéraires in 1971, under the title “Short Apology for the Church of All Time.” They are still topical, 50 years later.