"Peter has no need of our lies or flattery. Those who blindly and indiscriminately defend
every decision of the supreme Pontiff are the very ones who do most to undermine the
authority of the Holy See – they destroy instead of strengthening its foundations." –

Melchior Cano, Theologian of the Council of Trent.

The Great Façade; by Christopher A. Ferrara & Thomas

E. Woods, Jr.; Remnant Press 2002, Minesota; 423 pp.,

$US21.95 (plus postage).*

Reviewed by Stephen McInerney

Those familiar with Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, or the BBC series of the same name, will recall the hilarious scene when Rex Mottram, keen to please his Catholic fiancé but with no "intellectual curiosity or natural piety" of his own, receives instruction from Father Mowbray of Farm Street . At one point Father Mowbray tries to lead Rex to the realisation that the Protestant view of the Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility is a caricature, and that in fact the infallibility of the Pope is very limited:

"Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said 'It's going to rain', would that be bound to happen?" "Oh, yes, father." "But supposing it didn't?”

[Rex] thought a moment and said, "I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it ...”

In The Great Façade: Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church, Christopher A. Ferrara and Thomas E. Woods, Jr. illustrate that at various times Popes have made pastoral decisions, including ambiguous doctrinal and political postures, which have had dire consequences for the Faith. Further, the Catholic faithful have always had not only a right but also a duty to resist the Pope in such circumstances. That harmful practical decisions of the Pope can be resisted is a view supported by Dietrich von Hildebrand, the man Pius XII described as a twentieth century Doctor of the Church. While Hildebrand said that it was a special cross for loyal Catholics to have to resist the Pope, he maintained that [a loyalty by which] practical decisions of the Pope are accepted in the same way as ex cathedra definitions or encyclicals dealing with questions of faith or morals ...

is really false and unfounded. It places insoluble problems before the faithful in regard to the history of the Church. In the end this false loyalty can only endanger the true Catholic faith.

The Great Façade contrasts those who maintain that "Vatican II and the reforms it engendered [can] not be criticised" with those who perceive "a duty, for the good of the Church, to express loyal opposition to the conciliar and postconciliar novelties, especially the liturgical reforms imposed by Paul VI.”

The authors document that such movements of legitimate opposition have many historical precedents. Among the more famous are: St. Paul ’s rebuke of St Peter at Antioch ("I resisted him to the face"), and the opposition of faithful and clergy to Pope John XXII’s personal meditation on the Particular Judgement (later condemned by the Church). The most famous example, of course, is the opposition of a few faithful and a few bishops (chief among them St.

Athanasius, who was "excommunicated”

by Pope Liberius for his trouble) during the Arian crisis of the fourth century.

In more recent times, there is the case of Cardinal Ottaviani’s intervention which led Paul VI to revise his problematic introduction to the New Missal. Closely related to this was the resistance of Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop Castro de Meyer to the liturgical and ecclesial innovations of the Council and Popes Paul VI and John Paul II.

The Great Façade is a masterful expose of the worst crisis in the Church since the fourth century, as well as being a defence of traditional Catholicism against what the authors describe as "neo- Catholicism". Their claim is that the so called "conservative" Catholics have been responsible for facilitating the crisis by their acceptance and their defence of the novelties heaped upon the Church by the authorities – particularly the neologisms "ecumenism" and "dialogue", and the new liturgy.

But who are these "neo-Catholics” and who are these "traditionalists"? The authors are careful to define their terms.

According to The Great Facade, the neo- Catholic is one who:  

recognises no real qualitative distinction between the Pope’s doctrinal teaching and his legislation, commands, administration or public ecclesiastical policy... In essence, whatever the Pope says or does in the exercise of his office is ipso facto "traditional" and incontestable by the Pope’s subjects... Under this principle, of course, tradition is robbed of all objective content, becoming essentially whatever the Pope says it is.

The authors successfully demonstrate "from the teaching of Church fathers and doctors [that] this attitude of blind obedience to every single act of ecclesiastical authority without exception is not Catholic.”

A traditionalist, on the other hand, is one who defends the important link between the deposit of faith and the accidents in which it has been historically enshrined and transmitted, chief among these are the traditional rites of the Church. These can not be drastically altered – and certainly not drawn up by a committee - without devastating results. A traditionalist also maintains that "no Catholic is obliged to embrace a single one of the novelties imposed upon the Church over the past thirty-five years". This view has been confirmed by Father Pierre Blet, S.J, Professor of Church History at the Gregorian University , who claimed recently that "the Council had not promulgated any binding dogmatic definition. Everyone therefore has the right to examine what he feels able to accept.”

The Great Façade is not without its shortcomings. In addition to the fact that the categories are too neat, the authors give the impression that the neo Catholics are a phenomenon of the Post- Conciliar period without any precedent.

This is clearly short sighted. While the novelties embraced by neo-Catholics are unprecedented in the Church, the attitude that encourages them to be embraced has been with us for centuries, a fact well documented in Geoffrey Hull ’s The Banished Heart. The attitude is ultra-Montanism. This is not to suggest that the doctrine of Papal Infallibility defined at Vatican I is not binding. On the contrary, the traditional teaching – which highlights the limits of Papal infallibility, as Newman pointed out -- triumphed over the ultra-Montanists.

Just as Cardinal Manning questioned the fidelity of Newman, so do neo Catholics question the loyalty of those of us who refuse to accept every practical decision of the Holy Father. What The Great Façade succeeds in demonstrating is that neo Catholics are unable to point to any teaching requiring assent that the traditionalists reject. Neither ecumenism and dialogue, nor the liturgical innovations, amount to dogmatic definitions, and as such may be rejected in good conscience by a Catholic.

Perhaps the most important contribution made by The Great Façade is that it provides a number of historical examples which parallel our own dilemmas. The authors recount that after the Second Council of Constantinople confusion reigned in the Church because the Council alienated and demoralised many faithful Catholics as a result of its compromising statements intended to placate the Monophysites. The council was legitimately convoked, just as Vatican II was, but Pope St. Gregory and his successors "simply ignored it" whenever possible, and "[according to Judith Herrin] consigned its decisions to oblivion." In dealing with those troubled by the Council, and those who had been seemingly separated from Rome as a result, Pope St. Gregory did not require as a condition of regularisation that they accept any of the decisions of the Council, which he knew had complicated rather than clarified the unambiguous decisions of Chalcedon . Is there not in this example a lesson for our own time?

The Great Façade is a must read for all faithful Catholics. It is a source of courage to stand up for the truth – even when this means resisting Papal sanctioned innovations in the practice of the faith. It liberates one from the delusion of Papal inerrancy and encourages one to feel free in being Catholic again, to love our traditions, to love our saints and the faith – and the liturgy – that inspired them. At the same time, in a beautiful peroration, the authors turn with filial devotion to the Holy Father, begging him to hear the cries from the wilderness of traditionalists. This is a well researched work, at times amusing, often heartbreaking – and always brutally honest.

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