05 January 2008

Study Guide for Moralium Animos at Rorate Caeli


In part 2 of its coverage of Pius XI's encyclical on Christian Unity, Mortalium Animos, Rorate Caeli provides a helpful study guide.  An excerpt:

Exactly eighty years ago, on the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord of 1928, Pope Pius XI, of most glorious memory, signed one of his landmark encyclicals:Mortalium Animos, "on fostering true religious unity". A present-day reader of that document is amazed at the intellectual power and mastery of this relatively short letter. All the pitfalls, all the contradictions, all the doctrinal problems, all the practical pitfalls of interreligious dialogue and of the "Ecumenical movement" are presented in a clear and close to irrefutable way.

What else could be be expected from the Pope who had firmly established the devotion to Christ the King and created His Feast (on the last Sunday in October), in
Quas Primas (1925)? From the Pontiff who would, two years later, expose the intellectual fraud of the Anglican decision allowing for the practice of contraception (in Casti Connubii, 1930), the pathetic claims of superiority of race and nation (Mit brennender Sorge, 1937), the intrinsic perversity of Communism (Divini Redemptoris, 1937)?

In a few paragraphs, Pope Ratti dismantled the ignominy of the "pan-Christian" ecumenical mentality - in such a strong way that 
Mortalium Animos has remained firmly unrebuked and its main points have been ignored in the documents of the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath.
__________________
Following this intro is a detailed analysis of the encyclical-- a little long for a blog post, but a must read for anyone raised post-Vatican II.

0 comments: