The acts of false ecumenism that followed the Second Vatican Council are not isolated events, but the logical and tragic application of the liberal principles that have infiltrated the Church. Such acts represent the victory of "liberal Rome" over the Rome of all time, leading to an apostasy that is winning over entire nations and reaching the highest hierarchy (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 7). Liberalism, in its essence, is the hatred of any order not established by man and the proclamation of the rights of man to the detriment of the rights of God (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 25). Each of the following encounters demonstrates the concretization of this "adulterous union between the Church and the principles of the Revolution" (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 8).
✝️ November 17, 1980: During a visit to Germany, John Paul II went to a Lutheran church and declared: “I come to you on the spiritual heritage of Martin Luther.” He expressed admiration for Luther’s “profound religious spirit.” This gesture is the manifestation of a subjectivism that ignores the objective reality of error. Luther, by introducing "free examination" and setting aside the magisterium, emancipated the subject in relation to the object of faith (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 17). To praise his "religious spirit" is to validate the Protestant rebellion, which was the cause and first propagator of the naturalism that would come to destroy Christendom (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 10). It is an attempt to reconcile truth with error, which is impossible.
🤝 May 25, 1982: In England, John Paul II participated in a religious service at Canterbury Cathedral, side by side with the Anglican archbishop. This act places the apostolic succession and the valid priesthood on the same level as a heresy that denies them. It is a practical application of indifferentism, which holds that the practice of one religion or another is indifferent, an error repeatedly condemned by the Popes (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 23).
⚖️ January 25, 1983: John Paul II promulgated the New Code of Canon Law, in which the sanction of excommunication against Freemasons is visibly omitted and in which permission is given, in certain cases, to allow “Holy Communion” to be administered to schismatics and heretics without their return to the Catholic Church. Freemasonry, as denounced by all popes since Clement XII, is the main propagator of liberal errors and a sworn enemy of the Church, conspiring to destroy the Christian foundations of society (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 14). To omit the excommunication is an act of capitulation, the fruit of the Catholic-liberal mentality that seeks reconciliation with the enemies of Christ. The permission for communion for non-Catholics, in turn, destroys the meaning of the dogma "Outside the Church there is no salvation" and reflects the false notion that men can find the path to salvation in any religion (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 23).
🙏 December 11, 1983: John Paul II, accompanied by several cardinals, preached from the pulpit of a Lutheran church in Rome, participated in a heretical service, and recited a prayer composed by Luther. He had previously stated his opinion that Luther's case should be reopened so that it could be “considered in a more objective way.” Here, Catholic liberalism manifests itself fully. Instead of preaching conversion to the one flock of Christ, one actively participates in error, giving it legitimacy. This is the direct result of the rationalism that subjects the dogmas of the faith to the "sieve of reason" and dialogue, seeking a truth that evolves instead of submitting to the Truth revealed once and for all (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 20).
✡️ April 17, 1984: John Paul II received a delegation from B’nai B’rith and called the public to a “meeting of brothers.” This approach ignores the reality that Freemasonry, in all its forms, works for the secularization of society and the dethronement of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 14-15).
🌏 May 10, 1984: In Thailand, John Paul II visited the supreme Buddhist patriarch Vasna Tara, who received him seated on his throne, and before whom John Paul II bowed deeply. This act of reverence to a representative of a pantheistic and atheistic religion is a scandal to the faith. It demonstrates the loss of the missionary spirit, which is an inevitable consequence of religious liberalism (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 111). Instead of proclaiming Christ as the only King and Savior, homage is paid to an idol, effectively placing Our Lord on the same level as false deities.
🕌 December 11, 1984: John Paul II sent a representative to lay the cornerstone of the largest mosque in Europe, in Rome. This act publicly validates a religion that denies the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the ultimate expression of state secularism transferred to the practice of the Church: an indifferentism that grants equal protection to truth and error, drawing upon itself the same judgment that Cardinal Pie warned Napoleon III about (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 24).
🌳 August 8, 1985: In Togo, Africa, John Paul II went to the “sacred forest,” where he participated in animist rites. He also participated in pagan rites in Kara and Togoville. Participation in pagan rites is a direct violation of the first commandment. It is the ultimate consequence of the religious freedom promoted by Vatican II, which, in the name of human dignity, destroys the rights of God and opens the door to the worship of false gods under the pretext of dialogue and inculturation.
🗣️ August 9, 1985: In Casablanca, Morocco, alongside King Hassan II, “Commander of the Believers,” and before a crowd of 80,000 young Muslims, John Paul II preached “dialogue with Islam” and affirmed “that we all have the same God.” This statement is a grave error. The god of Islam is not the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Liberalism leads to this kind of simplification that empties faith of its supernatural content, reducing it to a subjective feeling that respects all errors (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 5).
🕉️ February 2, 1986: During his visit to India, as could be seen in the media and on television, John Paul II received the sign of the Tilak from the hands of a Hindu priestess. Less publicized was another, positively more serious act; on February 5, in Madras, John Paul II received the imposition of the “sacred ashes” from the hands of a woman. To accept these signs, which are marks of worship to pagan deities, is an act of public apostasy. It is the application of Jacques Maritain's pluralism, which dreams of a society where all beliefs can coexist peacefully, forgetting that truth cannot coexist with error without being corrupted (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 79).
🕎 April 13, 1986: John Paul II went to a Jewish synagogue in Rome, where he was received by Rabbi Elio Toaff to participate in an ecumenical prayer service. There he called the Jews “our elder brothers, our dearest brothers.” Although the Jews are our predecessors in the Old Covenant, this covenant was surpassed and perfected by the New and Eternal Covenant in Christ. This gesture suggests that the Old Covenant is still a valid path to salvation, which contradicts the teaching of the Church and the very mission of Our Lord.
🕊️ October 27, 1986: John Paul II convened the ecumenical “prayer” meeting in Assisi, at which 150 world religions were invited by him to pray to their false gods for world peace. This event was "the most abominable manifestation of Catholic liberalism," the visible proof that the Pope and those who approve of it have a "false notion of the faith, a modernist notion that will shake the entire edifice of the Church" (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 5). By placing all religions side by side, as if all could invoke the true God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and men, is publicly dethroned.
These acts of false ecumenism, which are the practical application of Vatican II's religious liberty, remind us of the words of Pope Pius XI: “…to favor this opinion and to encourage such undertakings is tantamount to abandoning the religion revealed by God” (Pius XI, 1928). It is, in short, the tragedy of a Council that, by attempting to reconcile the Church with liberalism, opened the doors to apostasy (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 7).
📚References
LEFEBVRE, Marcel. Do liberalismo à apostasia: a tragédia conciliar. Rio de Janeiro: Permanência, 1991.
PIUS XI. Encyclical Letter Mortalium Animos: on the promotion of true religious unity. Rome, 1928.
