The Heresies of Ecumenism & the "Branch Heresy"

©Lucio Mascarenhas. April 17, 2004. Revised May 14, 2007.
URL: http:/www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/ecumenism_et_branchheresies.html

Message 13416 on GoanCauses list
From: Lawrence <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Apr 9, 2004 9:52 am
Subject: Good Friday today

To,
The Moderator,
GoanCauses

Sir,

This article is fine but the truth is, it is not only "The Catholic Community in Goa and across the world observes Good Friday" but other denominations of Christian Faith also observe the Maundy Thursday as well as Good Friday. You may not wish to recognize them but the fact is, they exist.

Let us pray on this Easter Day, the day of the Ressurection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, our present day great Pope John Paul II will try and unite us all "Christians" who believe in the same Lord barring a few disagreements between the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church (a breakaway section for personal reasons as the then Pope refused the marriage of the so called King of England to a divorcee when the King was already married and so on..) and other denominations such as the Protestants, the Believers etc.

Wish you all a Happy Easter and may the Risen Christ englighten our minds and unite us all his sheep in near future.


Lawrence Fernandes — Goa
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 3:26 AM
Subject: Good Friday today

Good Friday today
NT Staff Reporter

Panjim April 8: The Catholic community in Goa as across the world observes Good Friday tomorrow to commemorate the passion of Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified on the mount of Calvary over two millennia ago.
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Dear Friends,

When I read Senhor Louren�o's post, I was sickened to the core of my being, with the false, and heretical content of his message. But at the same time, I was troubled with the prospect of opening a fight with a fellow Goan on a Goan nationalist site, and thereby giving the enemy an opening to divide the Goans...

Senhor Agnelo has given a good response to Senhor Louren�o (See below). However, I was also personally obliged to witness to the faith, as being obliged by Catholic Law:
  • The following was condemned by Pope Alexander VII: "Although it is evidently established by you that Peter is a heretic, you are not bound to denounce him . . ." Condemned. (Denzinger 1105.)


  • The Canon Law Commentary of Wernz-Vidal explains: "Finally, one cannot consider as schismatics those who refuse to obey the Roman Pontiff because they would hold his person suspect or because of widespread rumors, doubtfully elected." Wernz-Vidal, Iuris Canonicum, Rome, Gregorian Univ., 1937, Vol. II, p. 398.


  • 1917 Code of Canon Law: "1325.1 Obligation to Profess the Faith—The faithful are bound to profess their faith openly whenever under the circumstances silence, evasion, or their manner of acting would otherwise implicitly amount to a denial of the faith, or would involve contempt of religion, an offense to God, or scandal to the neighbor."


  • Catechism Question: In how many ways may we either cause or share in the guilt of another's sin? Answer: We may either cause or share the guilt of another's sin in nine ways: 1. By counsel; 2. By command; 3. By consent; 4. By provocation; 5. By praise or flattery; 6. By concealment; 7. By being a partner in the sin; 8. By silence; 9. By defending the ill done.
It has been my constant endeavour and mission to awaken Goans to the apostasy and to bring them back to the faith brought to our ancestors by Goencho Sa'ib, Sa� Francisco Xavier and his fellow-missionary collaborators from all over Europe, including the Holy Martyrs of Cuncolim, and which later produced such exemplary Goan saints as Jose Vaz, Custodio Pinho, Agnelo de Sousa, Lily Moraes, etc. — to name but a very small number.

Actually, a proper, calibrated response to Senhor Louren�o's post, a refutation of the Ecumenist and Branch Heresies that he therein reiterates, is a very vast topic. Such a project needs to be handled scholarly, with extensive — and decisive — quotations from infallible, magisterial — and irrevocable — teachings of the Church down the ages — such as the Holy Ecumenical Council of Florence's Decree for the Jacobites, the Encyclical Mortalium Animos, the Syllabus of Errors, etc., utterly demolishing the basic error that is the presumptive principle of Ecumenism — the false notion that the Church did not achieve unity, or lost it as a result of the defection of heretics. Very evidently, this is a very vast task for which I am not well equipped.

Given the vastness of the subject and the delicate matter of not giving the enemy of Goa — India — an opening, I pondered on my response. I also sought to compensate by indirectly contradicting Senhor Louren�o's post, by the matter I myself posted, in my several subsequent posts, reiterating and underlining the fact that Ecumenism — the condemned "Branch Heresy" — is Satanism, a great heresy, and that "the Second John-Paul" is a vicious heretic and apostate — nay, even a Satanist!

Finally, I have decided that ducking the issue is the wrong way; that I need to take the bull by the horn...
Christ founded the Church directly, by conveying His authority to His deliberately chosen Apostles, and to Peter especially above them, and not by a general authorisation of all His followers. Christ emphasised authority and the succession of authority, from the Father to Himself, and from Himself to His Apostles.

Christ prayed for the unity of His Church, John 17:20-21 — "I pray... for them also who through their word shall believe in me, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. As Pope Pius XI comprehensively pointed out, it is impossible to believe that this prayer has not been answered. There is nothing in Sacred Revelation to give the idea that this Unity has not been an accomplished fact in the Church from its very inception. (See Pope Pius XI on this subject in his encyclical, Mortalium Animos)

Nevertheless, we are confronted with the fact that there are many who pretend to be Christian, who disobey and reject the Church, and separating themselves, or being expelled, constitute and constituted themselves into rival "Churches". They have further alleged that the Unity of Christianity is something that is absent and which needs to be arrived at.

Christ instructed His Apostles (Luke 10:16): "He that heareth you heareth me: and he that despiseth you despiseth me: and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." Christ also taught (Matt. 18:15-18): "But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican. Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven." He taught us that those who depart from obedience and faith become "as the heathen" unto the remnant Christians, i.e., effectively, these defectors are to be considered on the par of pagans and infidels. After having effectively withdrawn from the Church, they no longer remained Christian, regardless of any pretensions to that name.

Despite these plain facts, these defectors have been insisting that they remain Christian, and that only when they are included in an arrangement that is satisfactory to all such groups, together with or without the True Church, which they deny is the True Church, but which they equate with their innumerable sects, can the unity desired and prayed for by Christ Jesus be achieved and accomplished.

The True Church has insisted always that this idea is wrong.

Previously, this idea used to be put forth by the Anglican William Palmer as what is called the "Branch Theory" (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branch_theory), and which the Church denounced and condemned as the "Branch Heresy". This is the claim that each and every of the bodies and persons that pretends to be Christian, are branches or members of the one true Church, which they collectively constitute, and whose unity is, at present, invisible, and needs to be made tangible.

In the last hundred years, proponents of the "Branch Heresy" have usurped the term "Ecumenical" to describe themselves. The word "Ecumenical" means "Of the Whole House", and used in the sense of the "Branch Heresy" it is meant to include all those who claim to be Christian.

The Catholic Church, by contrast, has used the word "Ecumenical" to mean the entire Catholic Church, as opposed to the individual local communities. Thus, the adjective Ecumenical has been attached to every of the Holy Councils of the Church, down to the last Council of the Church in 1869-70, the Council of the Vatican.

These Councils are described as "Holy Ecumenical and General Councils" of the Church, as opposed to Provincial and Diocesan Councils.

Proponents of the "Branch Heresy" have, thereafter, modified the word "Ecumenical" to describe their heresy as "Ecumenism"—which is a new name, and a euphemism, for the "Branch Heresy".

This new term, in the sense of the "Branch Heresy", is an innovation, and goes against the basic principle of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church is, by definition, "Universal". Catholic means Universal. Therefore, the Catholic Church is the Universal Church. But, if the Catholic Church admits "Ecumenism" in the sense of a need to bring together various sects together with the Catholic Church, then the Catholic Church admits that it is a fraud, that it is not, in fact, "Catholic" but that it is merely another sect...

The Catholic Church has always taught that it is infallibly guided, as a corporate whole, by the Holy Spirit, as promised by Christ, and that its magisterial teachings are irreformable and cannot be abrogated or nullified, not even by claiming to have arrived at a "higher understanding" of the involved truths.

Authoritative teachings of the Church, as being the expression of the Holy Ghost, who is God, and who can neither deceive nor be deceived, are irreversible.

Modernism is a Godless, Evolutionist, Humanist and Liberalist heresy that came into being among Liberal Protestants in the years before and after the French Revolution. During the turn of the nineteenth century, the Modernist heresy attempted to infiltrate the Catholic Church and met with a harsh response, both from bishops and from Pope Pius X, who made it his special vocation to war against this heresy and to exterminate it.

Modernists deny the finality of any Catholic Doctrine that is not convenient to themselves.

Under Pius X, the Modernists were excommunicated and expelled from the Church, thought the vast majority took cover and pretended to be faithful Catholics, even as they spread the poison of the Modernist heresy in the Church.

Some centuries ago, Pope Paul IV had occasion to fear that a Cardinal (Cardinal Moroni) whom he strongly suspected of being a secret Protestant, would ascend the Chair of Peter, and to forestall this, he promulgated his Apostolic Constitution, Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, which declared that manifest and formal heretics could not be elevated to positions of authority in the Church, and that if they were, their elevations were totally null and void.

In October 1958, Pope Pius XII died. In his place was elected Angelo Roncalli as "John XXIII-II". Roncalli soon began to subvert the Catholic Faith and to promulgate in its stead the Modernist heresy, his efforts culminating in the "Aggiornomento" or "Bringing-Up-To-Date" Movement and the "Vatican II Council" both of which were designed to establish the Modernist heresy as the official ideology.

As a result of this, the Modernists under Roncalli and Montini ceased to be Catholics and constituted themselves as the Roman Modernist sect. The Roman Modernist sect, however, pretends to continue to be Catholic, the better to deceive souls, and the better to misuse the brand name of the Catholic Church in order to propagate all those things that the Catholic Church rejected and rejects.

This sect has usurped the Vatican and its heresiarch pretends clownishly to be the Catholic Pope.

This sect has perverted the Catholic Mass to create a foul and offensive, blasphemous and sacrilegious anti-Catholic parody called the "New Mass".

The Antichurch (Roman Modernism) claims to have "abrogated" the consistent teaching of the Church from its very beginnings, that it cannot accept the validity of any sect as being a part of the Church, of the Christian Community. However, such a reversion is null and void, and impossible in Catholic Law.

As Pope Pius XI states in his encyclical, Mortalium Animos: But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith. Contrast this with the pretensions of the Modernist Apostates — who openly admit to having reversed several doctrines of the Church!

The Apostates themselves admit publicly that there is a grave problem over their sect's sanction for the heresy of Ecumenism — in that no organic development can be demonstrated between the two contrary positions of the Catholic Church upto mid-October 1958, and the Antichurch's Ecumenism!

I have collected below the pertinent documents of the Church on the subject of the Heresy of Ecumenism. However, I know that minds and morals have been dulled by the apostates, who have worked long and patiently to corrupt souls, and therefore, this effort is going to be wasted!


Lucio Mascarenhas

Relevant Magisterial Teachings of the Church

  1. Pope Boniface VIII—Bulla Unam Sanctam (1302): If... the Greeks or others say that they are not committed to Peter and his successors, they necessarily say that they are not of the sheep of Christ, as the Lord says in John that there is one fold and one shepherd (see John 10:16).

    We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.


  2. Council of Florence: Decree for the Jacobites (1442): The Holy Roman Church believes, professes, and preaches that no one remaining outside the Catholic Church, not just pagans, but also Jews or heretics or schismatics, can become partakers of eternal life; but they will go to the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41), unless before the end of life they are joined to the Church. For union with the body of the Church is of such importance that the sacraments of the Church are helpful to salvation only for those remaining in it; and fasts, almsgiving, other works of piety, and the exercise of Christian warfare bear eternal rewards for them alone. And no one can be saved, no matter how much alms he has given, even if he sheds his blood for the name of Christ, unless he remains in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.


  3. Pope Leo XII—Encyclical Ubi Primum (1824): (A certain sect), putting on airs of piety and liberality, professes what they call 'tolerantism' or indifferentism, and extols it not only in matters of politics, about which We are not speaking, but also in matters of religion. It teaches that God has given to every man a great freedom, so that man can embrace and adopt without any danger to his salvation any sect that attracts him according to his own private judgement and opinion. (cf. Rom. 16:17f).


  4. Pope Gregory XVI—Encyclical Mirari Nos Arbitramur (1832): We now come to another important cause of the evils which we regret to see the Church afflicted, namely indifferentism, or that wrong opinion according to which... man can attain the eternal salvation of his soul by any profession of faith, provided his moral conduct conforms to the norms of right and good... From this foulest source of indifferentism there flows the absurd and wrong view, or rather insanity, according to which freedom of conscience must be asserted and vindicated for everybody.


  5. Pope Pius IX—Qui Pluribus (1846): (Among errors against the Catholic Faith) must be included the horrible system, repugnant even to the natural light of reason, according to which there is no difference between religions. These crafty men, doing away with all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honesty and dishonesty, feign that men can attain to eternal salvation by the practice of any religion whatever.


  6. Pope Pius IX—Allocution Singulari Quadam (1854).


  7. Pope Pius IX—Encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863): And here, Beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, it is necessary once more to mention and censure the serious error into which some Catholics have unfortunately fallen. For they are of the opinion that men who live in errors, estranged from the true faith and from Catholic unity, can attain eternal life... Well known is the Catholic dogma that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church, and that those who obstinately oppose the authority and definitions of that Church, and who stubbornly remain separated from the unity of the Church and from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff (to whom the Saviour has entrusted the care of his vineyard), cannot obtain salvation.


  8. Pope Pius IX—Letter to the the Archbishop of Munich (1863). (Denz. 1682-3).


  9. Pope Pius IX—Syllabus of Condemned Errors (1864):

    1. Condemned Proposition # 35: There is nothing to prevent the decree of a general council, or the act of all peoples, from transferring the supreme pontificate from the bishop and city of Rome to another bishop and another city. (Apostolic Letter Ad Apostolicae, Aug. 22, 1851)


    2. Condemned Proposition # 5: Divine Revelation is incomplete and, therefore, is subject to a continual and indefinite development in order to correspond to the progress of human reason. (Allocution Maxima Quidem, June 9, 1862 & Encyclical Qui pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846, etc.)


    3. Condemned Proposition # 18: Protestantism is simply another form of the same true Christian religion, and it is possible to please God just as much in it as in the Catholic Church. (Encyclical Noscitis, Dec. 8, 1849).


    4. Condemned Proposition # 15: Everyone is free to follow and to profess the religion which the light of reason leads him to judge to be the true religion. (Ref. Allocution Maxima Quidem, June 9, 1862; Damnatio Multiplices Inter, June 10, 1851)


    5. Condemned Proposition # 16: Men can find the way to eternal salvation, and they can attain eternal salvation in the practice of any religion whatever. (Encyclical Qui Pluribus, Nov. 9, 1846.)


    6. Condemned Proposition # 17: There is good reason at least to hope for the eternal salvation of all those who are in no way in the true Church of Christ. (Encyclical Quanto Conficiamur, Aug. 10, 1863, etc.)


    7. Condemned Proposition # 21: The Church has no power to define dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion. (Damnatio Multiplices Inter, June 10, 1851.)


    8. Condemned Proposition # 55: The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church. (Allocution Acerbissimum,Sept. 27, 1852.)


    9. Condemned Proposition # 77: In our age it is no longer advisable that the Catholic religion be the only State religion, excluding all other cults. (Allocution Nemo Vestrum, July 26, 1855.)


    10. Condemned Proposition # 78: Therefore it is praiseworthy that in some Catholic regions the law has allowed people immigrating there to exercise publicly their own cult. (Allocution Acerbissimum, Sept. 27, 1852.)


    11. Condemned Proposition # 79: It is false to assert that civil freedom of cult and the full right granted to all to express openly and publicly any opinions and views leads to an easier corruption of morality and of the minds of people and helps to propagate the pest of indifferentism. (Allocution Nunquam Fore, Dec. 15, 1856.)


    12. Condemned Proposition # 80: The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization. (Allocution Jamdudum Cernimus, March 18, 1861.)

  10. Pope Pius IX—Letter of the Holy Office to the Bishops of England (1864): ...The true Church of Jesus Christ is constituted by divine authority and is known by four notes. We lay down these notes as matters of faith in the Creed. And any one of these notes is so joined to the others that it cannot be separated from them. Hence it is that the Church that really is catholic, and is called Catholic, must, at the same time, shine with the prerogatives of unity, sanctity, and apostolic succession. Therefore, the Catholic Church is one by a conspicuous and perfect unity of the whole world and of all peoples, by that unity, indeed, whose principle, root, and never-failing source is the supreme authority and "greater sovereignty" of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and of his successors in the Roman Chair. Nor is any other church catholic except that which has been built upon Peter alone and which rises into one body closely joined and knit together (see Eph. 4:16) in the unity of faith and love...


  11. Pope Pius IX—Iam Vos Omnes (1868): Now anyone who wishes to examine with care and to meditate on the condition of the different religious societies divided among themselves and separated from the Catholic Church, who, since the time of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles has always exercised by her legitimate pastors and still exercises today the divine power which was given to her by the same Lord, will easily be convinced that no one of these societies nor all of them together in any way constitute or are that one Catholic Church which our Lord founded and established and which He willed to create. Nor is it possible, either, to say that these societies are either a member or a part of this same Church, since they are visibly separated from Catholic unity...


  12. Pope Pius IX — Quartus Supra (1873): If, therefore, the sovereign Pontiff is called a stranger by any one of the Churches, that Church will be, in consequence, a stranger to the apostolic See, that is, to the Catholic Church which is one, and which alone was founded on Peter by the Lord's word. Whoever separates the Church from this foundation no longer preserves the divine and Catholic Church, but is striving to make a human church. Now a church like that, united solely by human bonds, bonds that are called national, would not be united by the bond of priests firmly attached to the Chair of Peter; it would not be made firm by the solidity of that same Chair, and would not belong to the universal and perfect unity of the Catholic Church.


  13. Pope Pius IX — The Council of the Vatican, 1869-1870, Pastor AEternus: The reason for this is that the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of St. Peter not that they might make known new doctrine by his revelation, but rather, that with his assistance they might religiously guard and faithfully explain the revelation or deposit of faith that was handed down through the apostles.


  14. Pope Leo XIII—Encyclical Satis Cognitum


  15. Pope Pius X—Decree Lamentabili (1907):

    1. Condemned Proposition: The organic constitution of the Church is not unchangeable; rather, the Christian society is just as subject to perpetual evolution as human society is.


    2. Condemned Proposition: Dogmas, sacraments, hierarchy — both their notion and their reality — are nothing but evolutions and interpretations of Christian thought which caused the tiny seed, hidden in the Gospel, to grow through external accretions and brought it to fruition.

  16. Pope Pius XI—Encyclical Mortalium Animos (1928) Short Form | Full Form


  17. Pope Pius XII—Encyclical Mystici Corporis: Therefore, those who believe that they can accept Christ as the head of the Church, without giving their loyal adherence to his vicar on earth, walk the path of dangerous error. They have taken away the visible head, broken the visible bonds of unity, and they so disfigure the true concept of the mystical body of the Redeemer that it cannot be recognized or found by those who are seeking the haven of eternal salvation.


  18. Pope Pius XII—Letter of the Holy Office to Archbishop Cushing of Boston: No one who knows that the Church has been divinely established by Christ and, nevertheless, refuses to be a subject of the Church or refuses to obey the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth, will be saved.



Message 13422 [goancauses]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri Apr 9, 2004 8:24 pm
Subject: Re: Good Friday today

Dear Lawrence,

I edited the word "Chritian" to "Catholic". Since Goans identify themselves as Roman Catholics, that's what we are. Christians have many denominations gained thru rebel against the Rome Church, as those days our Church at Rome believed strictly in Holy Scriptures that world was created by God, and everything moved around earth.

Rome even sentenced Professor Galileo Gallilei to prison and house arrest for an intelligent reasoning that Earth and other planets move around the Sun.

I believe our Vatican II is still ignorant with Pope John Paul II being the Head represantative of the Christ. Our Goan Uniform Civil Code during Portuguese Regime allowed Goan Catholicism to be mixed with Hinduism, it's written in black and white that only Higher Caste Goans can become Priests and serve Christ at the altar. Different castes congregations had given different color for confrades.

Pope John Paul II is so ignorant and gone old bent down to Earth, that he has failed to recognize that Goan Uniform Civil Code which is against Christ Preachings, as He believed Jews and Gentiles are equal.

In Goa alone our priests during Portuguese era, at the Holy Spirit Church, Margao, priests used those large candles to strike on the heads of our cunbi people, I as Child noticed that our religious heads were guilty of such an offence.

In America alone 11,000 children were molested by Priests and Bishops, and Pope John Paul II was ignorant on this issue.

Recently, Pope John Paul II made a contraversial statement that amounts to committing Blasphemy against Christ teachings, as per my opinion, that all religions should work in Harmony and avoid violence. His statement did make a sense at this 21st Century when Hindus killing Muslims, Jews in Israel killing Jews and vice versa. Violence begets violence. Then, making a compromise with religions that believes in idol worship and myths like Hindusism for example, is certainly against the views of Jesus Christ who died on Cross to save us from sins, and His Disciples moved across Continents to convert people to Christianity. Great converters like St. Sebastian was martyred those days for Christ Cause, makes us believe that modern day priests not doing much for Christianity, besides saying Sunday mass, when so many untouchables Hindus in India massacred by BJP Hindu extremists, could have been led to Christ to listen to their sufferings of hopelessness. Instead, then, the Archbishop of Goa Raul Gondsalves settled less to convert Roman Catholicism to Deshi Christianity which is a mixture of Hindusism, there by demoting Swadeshi St. Francis Xavier, and settling with BJPs.

Roman Catholicism has to be preserved in Vatican, and Catholicism has to be spread all over India and other blind places in the world thru non-violence. Disciples of Jesus Christ when take vows at the altar must know the consequeces of threat they will receive, as they have no families to look behind their full term commitment is to serve Christ in good times and bad times that incudes their death would come soon as martyr for spreading Roman Catholicism.

I'm not a rebel of Vatican II nor John Paul II, but his statement of beholding Jesus Christ in this 21st century of violence, and of moral turpidity commited by priests, fell short, that otherwise what our Lord Jesus Christ would have intended him to state, "go with peace dangers are in your way, but do not fear, I'm with you, your pre-mature death for Me spreading my Gospel will be A Salvation and you will go to Heaven".

Happy Easter.

Agnelo Gomes
For Jesus Christ and spread of Catholicism or Christianity.

©Lucio Mascarenhas. April 17th., 2004.
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

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