Monsignor Michel Schooyans: Organized group undermining the Catholic Church to its very foundations

As noted here,

Monsignor Michel Schooyans, a top adviser to Pope St. John Paul II who was also close to Pope Benedict XVI, has issued a dire warning about the current trajectory in the Catholic Church. In a paper, published on LifeSiteNews, Professor Schooyans, a member of several Pontifical Academies and Councils, writes that “the Synod on the Family has revealed a profound malaise in the Church.”

The retired professor from Belgium, now 86, speaks of the “crisis” in the Church, saying, “it is futile to close our eyes: the Church is challenged in its very foundations.”


Credited with inspiring Pope John Paul’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae with his own book on abortion, Msgr. Schooyans is warning of what he says is an organized group in the Church that operates with “backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church.”

The Synod on the Family revealed, he says, the determination of, “a group of pastors and theologians” that “do not hesitate to undermine the Church's doctrinal cohesion.” This group, he added, “functions in the manner of a powerful, international, well-heeled, organized and disciplined party.”

The active members of this party have ready access to the media; they frequently appear unmasked. They operate with backing from some of the highest authorities in the Church. The main target of these activists is Christian morality, criticized for having a severity incompatible with the "values" of our time. We must find ways which lead the Church to please, by reconciling its moral teaching with human passions. … Through this network, the neo-casuists will be able to hold sway over the wheels of the Church, influence the choice of candidates for high office, forge alliances which imperil the Church’s very existence.
Professor Schooyans warns specifically against proposals for “decentralization” of the Church. “The actions of casuists today affect not only the Church's moral teaching but also the entirety of dogmatic theology, in particular the question of the Magisterium,” Schooyans warns. “The unity of the Church is in peril where there are suggestions of biased, at times demagogic, proposals for decentralization, largely inspired by Lutheran reform.”

The celebrated philosopher whose books were praised by Popes John Paul and Benedict points to confusions in the Church around “’remarried’ divorced persons, “models” for the family, the role of women, birth control, surrogate motherhood, homosexuality," and euthanasia. The Church “has not been given by the Lord a mission to modify” the truths taught by Christ about all these matters, Schooyans says. “The Church is the guardian of this treasure.”

“The causuist,” he says, referring to a person who uses clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions, “cultivates the art of confusing the faithful. Concern for the truth, revealed and accessible to reason, is now of no interest. … Progressively, the rules of behavior proceeding from the will of the Lord and handed down by the Magisterium of the Church are languishing in decline.”

The moral assessment of an act no longer depends on whether it conforms to the will of God, as made known to us by the Revelation. It depends on the intention of the moral agent and this intention can be modulated and molded by the spiritual adviser who “supports” his followers. In order to please, the spiritual adviser will have to soften the rigor of the doctrine handed down by tradition. The pastor will have to adapt his words to the nature of man, whose passions are naturally led into sin. Hence, the progressive relegation of references to original sin and grace.
“How great is the number of pastors of all ranks who wish to make allegiance to the powerful of this world, albeit easily and without the need to swear publicly fidelity to the new “values" of the world today?” Schooyans writes. “In pushing to facilitate ‘remarriage,’ the neo-casuists are giving their backing to all those political players who are undermining respect for life and the family.”

"Theology in crisis has become a crisis of faith in God. Private judgement has been substituted for Catholic belief. Faith in the divine foundation of the Church, in many places, has vanished.

- Cardinal Ratzinger


Our Lady said to Fr. Gobbi, in a locution, "Beloved sons, today your are calling to mind my second apparition, which took place in the humble cova da Iria in Fatima, on June 13, 1917. Even as of then I foretold to your that which you are living through in these times. I announced to you the great struggle between me, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, and the huge Red Dragon (Marxist atheism) which has brought humanity to live without God. I also foretold to you the subtle and dark work, carried out by Freemasonry with the purpose of separating you from the observance of the Law of God and thus making you victims of sins and of vices. Above all, as Mother, I have wanted to warn you of the grave dangers which threaten the Church today, because of the many and diabolical attacks which are being carried out against it to destroy it.

To attain this end, there comes out of the earth, by way of aid to the Black Beast which arises out of the sea, a beast which has two horns like those of a lamb. The lamb, in Holy Scripture, has always been a symbol of sacrifice. On the night of the exodus, the lamb is sacrificed, and, with its blood, the doorposts of the houses of the Hebrews are sprinkled, in order to remove them from the punishment which on the contrary strikes all the Egyptians. The Hebrew Pasch recalls this fact each year, through the immolation of a lamb, which is sacrificed and consumed.

On Calvary, Jesus Christ sacrifices Himself for the redemption of humanity; He Himself becomes our Pasch and becomes the true Lamb of God who takes away all the sins of the world. The beast has on its head two horns like those of a lamb. To the symbol of the sacrifice, there is intimately connected that of the priesthood; the two horns. The high priest of the Old Testament wore a headpiece with two horns. The bishops of the church wear the mitre with two horns to indicate the fullness of their priesthood.The black beast like a leopard indicates Freemasonry; the beast with the two horns like a lamb indicates Freemasonry infiltrated into the interior of the Church, that is to say, ecclesiastical Masonry, which has spread especially among the members of the hierarchy.

This masonic infiltration, in the interior of the Church, was already foretold to you by me at Fatima, when I announced to you that Satan would enter in even to the summit of the Church. If the task of Masonry is to lead souls to perdition, bringing them to the worship of false divinities, the task of ecclesiastical Masonry on the other hand is that of destroying Christ and His Church, building a new idol, namely a false christ and a false church…".
In an interview with The Latin Mass magazine, Dr. Alice von Hildebrand was asked the following question:
"You realize, of course, Doctor, that as soon as you mention this idea of infiltration [within the Catholic Church], there will be those who roll their eyes in exasperation and remark, 'Not another conspiracy theory!'"
To which Dr. von Hildebrand responded:
"I can only tell you what I know. It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. She told my husband and me that when she was an active party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican 'who were working for us.'
Many a time I have heard Americans say that Europeans "smell conspiracy wherever they go." But from the beginning, the Evil One has 'conspired' against the Church – and has always aimed in particular at destroying the Mass and sapping belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That some people are tempted to blow this undeniable fact out of proportion is no reason for denying its reality. On the other hand, I, European born, am tempted to say that many Americans are naïve; living in a country that has been blessed by peace, and knowing little about history, they are more likely than Europeans (whose history is a tumultuous one) to fall prey to illusions. Rousseau has had an enormous influence in the United States. When Christ said to His apostles at the Last Supper that “one of you will betray Me,” the apostles were stunned. Judas had played his hand so artfully that no one suspected him, for a cunning conspirator knows how to cover his tracks with a show of orthodoxy."