I have written on this blog before what an old priest told me of his confreres and himself in the seminary in the 1950s. He admitted, and this is a quotation, "We wanted to protestantize the Church."
They went into the seminary wanting to make the Catholic Church look, act and believe in a more protestant fashion, as they honestly saw the waning of Christianity as only stopped by a pan-Christianity. Some of the German bishops still hold this idea, based on the destruction of the Catholic Church in many areas under Communism and Nazism. This is part of the problem with the Synod.
This false ideal of pan-Christianity is the false message of Vassula Ryden, also referred to here on this blog. Pan-Christianity denies the real differences of belief and worship. And, only the Holy Spirit, through the action and decrees of the Church, can bring about unity of any separated brethren, including the SSPX, the Old Catholics and the Orthodox, as well as the eccelsial communities of Protestants.
Again from the Decree:
This Sacred Council exhorts the faithful to refrain from superficiality and imprudent zeal, which can hinder real progress toward unity. Their ecumenical action must be fully and sincerely Catholic, that is to say, faithful to the truth which we have received from the apostles and Fathers of the Church, in harmony with the faith which the Catholic Church has always professed, and at the same time directed toward that fullness to which Our Lord wills His Body to grow in the course of time. It is the urgent wish of this Holy Council that the measures undertaken by the sons of the Catholic Church should develop in conjunction with those of our separated brethren so that no obstacle be put in the ways of divine Providence and no preconceived judgments impair the future inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The Council moreover professes its awareness that human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective - the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ. It is because of this that the Council rests all its hope on the prayer of Christ for the Church, on our Father's love for us, and on the power of the Holy Spirit." And hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us".(42)
