To say that the Church’s problems started with the Second Vatican Council would be an oversimplification and factually incorrect. What is true, though, is that Vatican II was the perfect storm where the enemy’s strategies converged in dark near-perfection.
Thousands—nay, millions—of words have been written and spoken, analyzing both the myriad of poisoned streams that became a tsunami of conciliar destruction, as well as the various deadly mechanisms this council implemented and its consequent fruits.
Any half-decent faithful Catholic by now should have at least an elementary understanding of Vatican II and how its documents were, at worst, contrary to Catholicism and, at best, ambiguous, and how their subsequent implementation was disastrous.
Up until quite recently, I was completely unaware of another satanic drama that played out at the council, which I now recklessly want to posit as probably the biggest reason why it was an abominable failure for Catholicism and a resounding success for Lucifer and his modernist minions.
I apologize to the older faithful who read Radical Fidelity and who are aware of this, but I felt that if this struck me as so foundational to this cataclysmic event in salvation history, then surely there must be younger Catholics, converts, reverts, and refugees to Tradition who have never heard what is about to follow and need to.
In short: I am about to dare say that this was the primary reason that the Holy Spirit departed, and the modernists, with their lust for heresy, managed to hijack the Second Vatican Council.
I am, of course, referring to the way the Mother of God was regarded as an embarrassment that would derail the council fathers’ false ecumenism, and how she was relegated to a literal and symbolic watered-down chapter.
The Marian Golden Age
I am a firm believer in tandem vincemus (“in the end we win”), but until Christ comes and reverses this demonic mess, it is safe to say that Vatican II was the most disastrous betrayal of Christ, Catholicism, Catholics, and—lest you forget—Our Blessed Mother.
The two hundred years preceding the council could be seen as an almost golden Marian age. Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854); four years later she herself confirmed it at Lourdes. Leo XIII filled the world with encyclicals on the Rosary. Pius X, hammer of the modernists, called her the Mediatrix through whom every grace flows. Benedict XV and Pius XI spoke of her Queenship and her intercessory power. And Pius XII, with the whole Church watching, proclaimed her Assumption into Heaven (1950), a dogma that crowned centuries of faith.
But it was not only limited to the proclamations of the good human servants of God Almighty. In 1917 Heaven itself spoke loudly in what became probably the most influential Marian apparitions. At Fatima, the Queen of the Rosary appeared to warn the world, to call for reparation, to promise that her Immaculate Heart would triumph. Devotion to her exploded in pilgrimages, sodalities, Marian movements, and consecrations. The faithful knew, as their fathers had always known, that every grace flows from Christ through Mary, and that to honor her is to honor Him.
When John XXIII announced the council, it is hardly surprising that, riding on this Marian sky-blue wave, many—including some council fathers—were anticipating that the council would be the crowning glory of this Marian era. Surely the Church, gathered in solemn assembly, would finally proclaim her universal mediation, her role as Co-Redemptrix beside her Son.
Initially, a schema entirely dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary was prepared, first titled On the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of Men, but it was later revised to Mother of the Church. This separate Marian schema raised the hope of many bishops, priests, and theologians that Our Lady would finally be honored as the Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix, and that this would clarify the Church’s teaching and strengthen the faithful’s devotion. To the hopeful it was clear that the Mother of God was not some ornament in Catholicism but part of its very structure. To exalt her to her rightful place in this way would only have brought more glory to Jesus Christ her Son, since everything she is and does flows directly from her divine Son.
The Enemies of Christ had Other Plans
The hopes of those who harbored great Marian aspirations for the council would soon be dashed, as a conspiracy was being hatched among some of the council periti. This conspiracy was not against any human theologian or movement, but against the Mother of God herself.
The conspirators called themselves “minimalists.” This was nothing but a polite mask for their true modernist identities. They despised Marian devotion precisely because it exposed the falsehood of their new theology.
Many hailed especially from the German-speaking world (some things never change), and this bloc of theologians and bishops viewed the Marian schema as a threat to their nefarious false ecumenism plans, fearing it would harm relations with Protestants and the Orthodox.
Included in this group were men such as Karl Rahner, Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Karl Grillmeier, and Otto Semmelroth. Non-Germans included Yves Congar and René Laurentin. Congar treated devotion to the Blessed Virgin as superstition and embarrassment, while Laurentin deviantly posed as a Mariologist but betrayed her at every corner. It is poignant to note that on the eve of the second session of the dreaded council, he published his book La Question Mariale, which was nothing but a manifesto against the movement he claimed to serve! Marian devotion, he said, had become a “fever,” an “illness,” a pathology in need of cure. The faithful, who clung to their Rosaries and wept before her images, were dismissed as fanatics.
Rahner in particular was vehemently against the schema, warning that it could cause “unimaginable harm from an ecumenical point of view, in relation to both Orientals and Protestants.” It is important for me to pause here and encourage the reader to grasp the full meaning of this sentiment, to understand how this is almost a summary of the treacherous attitudes of the evil men who occupied the council in order to set the dismantling of Catholicism in motion. For Rahner and his despicable cronies, it was never about the glory of the Mother of Christ our Savior, but all about not offending the so-called “separated brethren”—a term that should be rejected anyway, since both Protestants and the Orthodox are schismatics and heretics. But for the modernist mob, it was more important to pander to those outside the Faith than to honor Mother Mary and her Son Jesus Christ. Never forget that. Never forget who these people are who eventually usurped the structures and replaced Catholicism with a fake imitation church (lowercase “c” intended).
There were other criticisms by these enemies of Catholicism. According to them, the stand-alone schema would employ “tactics which objectively are not honorable,” since it professed not to define new dogmas, yet at the same time presented Marian doctrines as if they were already binding on the faithful. They viewed titles such as “Mediatrix of all graces” as “ambiguous,” “imprecise,” and ultimately a dangerous threat to their ecumenical and ultimately one-world religion plans.
They opposed the Marian dimension of the council not on the basis of truth, but on the basis of their uncatholic strategy.
Defenders of Mary
Against this tide of hesitation stood a host of bishops, theologians, and religious who refused to see Our Lady diminished. From Spain and Italy, from Latin America and the great Marian orders, voices were raised in defense of a separate schema and in favor of proclaiming the fullness of Mary’s role in salvation. Among the most prominent was the Servite theologian Father Carolus Balić, president of the Pontifical International Marian Academy, who tirelessly argued that the schema did not invent new doctrine, but clarified truths already present in the Tradition of the Church.
Many council fathers insisted that, far from harming ecumenism, the bold proclamation of Marian truth would strengthen it, for unity can only be built upon truth, never upon silence. Bishop Giocondo Grotti of Brazil gave one of the most memorable interventions, asking:
“Does ecumenism consist in confessing or in hiding the truth? Ought the Council to explain Catholic doctrine, or the doctrine of our separated brethren? … Hiding the truth hurts both us … and those who are separated from us because it makes them appear weak … Let the schemas be separated. Let us profess our faith openly.”
This clarity of vision echoed the faith of countless simple Catholics who had always turned to Mary as Mediatrix and Advocate. For these defenders of Our Lady, to shy away from her titles was not humility but betrayal. Mary’s role, they insisted, does not detract from Christ but magnifies Him. To proclaim her as Mediatrix of all graces is to affirm, in the strongest terms, that every grace comes from Christ the one Mediator, through His Mother who freely and perfectly cooperated with Him.
In their eyes, the Council stood at the threshold of a new Marian flowering, one that would crown the work begun by the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption with the acknowledgment of Mary’s universal mediation. To retreat in the name of ecumenism was, for them, to trade truth for diplomacy, and devotion for hesitation.
Sadly—no, tragically—this was not to be.
The Mother of God Chased from the Council like a Stray Dog
The war came to its climax on October 29, 1963, when the council fathers voted on whether to give Mary her own schema or reduce her to a chapter in the constitution on the Church. The vote was close, almost too close to call: 1,114 to bury her, 1,074 to honor her. By a razor’s edge, the Queen of Heaven was dethroned.
The schema that should have been the heart of the Council was cast aside, and her titles were suffocated within the last chapter of Lumen Gentium, hedged about with disclaimers and hesitation. Yes, the word “Mediatrix” was permitted to appear, but robbed of its force, strangled by qualifications. The title of Co-Redemptrix was banished altogether. Paul VI, trembling before Protestant disapproval, declared it “inopportune” to speak of new Marian dogmas. Thus, in the name of ecumenical diplomacy, the Council silenced the Mother of God.
There was one man who saw clearly what this meant: Abbé Victor-Alain Berto, theologian, disciple of Mary, and faithful peritus to Archbishop Lefebvre. When the schema fell, Berto wept openly. His lament was prophetic. The bishops, he said, had treated the Virgin as an embarrassment, as a hindrance to their project, like unwelcome wash-water at the wedding feast of Cana. And what was the result? Just as Christ would not act at Cana until His Mother interceded, so too at the Council He withheld His hand. “The water remained water,” Berto declared, “not even potable water, but wash-water.” By excluding Mary, the fathers ensured their work would bear no fruit. The Council silenced the Woman, and so the Word withheld His miracle.
The Consequences
Look around at the Church today, and who can deny the justice of Berto’s words? Since the Council, the life of grace has ebbed away. Vocations have collapsed; once-thriving seminaries stand empty. Religious houses have closed by the thousands. Nations that once professed the Catholic faith have fallen into apostasy. Liturgy has been profaned, catechesis destroyed, the faithful scattered, the clergy corrupted. Never in the history of the Church has such devastation followed from a council. The fruits are rotten, because the root was poisoned. The bishops silenced their Mother, and so they were left desolate.
Why such hatred of Mary among the modernists? Because she exposes their lies. To call her Mediatrix of All Graces is to affirm the reality of grace itself—supernatural and necessary—contradicting their dream of a religion reduced to mere human experience. To proclaim her Co-Redemptrix is to confess the Cross as the center of salvation, a sacrifice in which she uniquely participates, contradicting their reduction of redemption to vague “solidarity.” To crown her as Queen of Heaven and Earth is to declare the Catholic Church the one true Bride of Christ, singular and sovereign, contradicting their project of ecumenical leveling. Mary is the death of modernism, and so modernism sought her death.
The result was nothing less than betrayal. Congar, Rahner, and Laurentin conspired against the Mother of God. John XXIII trembled and looked the other way. Paul VI buried her dogmas in the dust. And the majority of the council fathers, dazzled by the promise of Protestant applause and the flattery of the media, chose cowardice over fidelity. The betrayal was deliberate, and its punishment swift. A Church that treats its Mother as an embarrassment will find itself abandoned by her intercession.
And yet the Mother has not abandoned her children. She warned at Fatima that the Holy Father must consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, and that if her requests were ignored, the world would suffer, the Church would be persecuted, and whole nations would be annihilated. Her requests were not fulfilled. The Council preferred dialogue with the world to obedience to Heaven. And so we have lived through chastisement, war, apostasy, scandal, and ruin. But she also promised that in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph.
The way forward is written clearly in her message. The Rosary must be our weapon—not as an optional devotion, but as the very chain that binds the devil. The First Saturday devotion must be restored, acts of reparation for the blasphemies against her Immaculate Heart. Families, nations, priests, and laity must consecrate themselves to her, for only through her will Christ reign again. The Church must confess her titles without shame. She is Mediatrix of All Graces, she is Co-Redemptrix beside the Cross of her Son, she is the Queen of Heaven and Earth. Whether Rome proclaims it today or in some future age, the reality cannot be suppressed.
For Scripture itself shows the truth. The Woman clothed with the sun, crowned with twelve stars, who brings forth the Messiah and does battle with the dragon—this is Mary, and the dragon knows it. That is why the Council silenced her. The modernists were already servants, whether witting or not, of the ancient serpent. But she will crush his head, and those who opposed her will be cast down.
The sterility of Vatican II is no mystery. The bishops told their Mother to be quiet. They told her she was an obstacle, an embarrassment before heretics. And so Christ, her Son, refused to act. The water remained wash-water. The banquet was left without wine. But her hour is coming. When at last the Church humbles herself, when the Pope kneels and consecrates Russia as she asked, when her titles are proclaimed with the clarity they deserve, then she will once more speak the words: “They have no wine.” And Christ will act. The water will become wine. The life of grace will return.
Until then, her children must not be silent. We must defend her honor where the Council betrayed it. We must cry out that she is not a mere “model,” not a theological afterthought, but the very Mediatrix through whom every grace flows, the Co-Redemptrix who stood at the foot of the Cross, the Queen who reigns over all creation. The Council may have betrayed her, but her children will not. We will pray, we will preach, we will suffer, we will fight for her honor. For to betray Mary is to betray Christ, but to defend Mary is to defend the Faith itself. Her triumph is certain. The only question is whether we will be found among her faithful children when her heel crushes the serpent and the wine once more flows in the chalice of the Church.
Christus vincit!
Christus regnat!
Christus imperat!
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And yet people wonder why now Heaven regards the Church with such a weary scowl at best and in terms of all it has to say, that is chastisement. The miracles dry up, the apparitions become a distant memory, a scholarly curio and the healings become less and less. Why? Because Heaven is treated with such contempt by the Church that claims to be its sole representative, it treats our God like a convenience store. When it wants Him to do something, to intercede, the Church is there but when He demands obedience, I ask where is the Church? Off gyrating at rock concerts under drone shows, fluttering its eyelashes and giving seductive looks like the whore it has allowed itself to become to the world. Our Lady is as pure as a flake of snow, why do you think she would associate with such a Church anymore than our Lord would?
Father Rene Laurentin: "Marian devotion had become a “fever,” an “illness,” a pathology in need of cure." And then Medjugorje comes along and Fr. Laurentin was a leading advocate for this alleged apparition which can be described as an “illness,” a pathology in need of cure."