Overview: The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God

Overview of Manuscript: The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God

by Timothy Wallace

Taking as his point of departure Pope Paul VI’s observation that seven years following the close of the Second Vatican Council conditions in the Church were such that it was as if “the Smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God,” the author recounts how it was that the misimplementation of the council’s documents resulted in the emergence of what Henri De Lubac termed “a different Church from that of Jesus Christ,” all under the guide of updating (aggiornamento) and renewal. Pope Paul was of the mind that by 1972 the greatest need in the Church was to be defended against the adversary power of darkness, the Devil. For the Pope the unmistakable signs of the Evil One’s penetration of the Church were a vast undermining of Catholic moral teaching (particularly sexual morality), the ideological seduction of fashionable theological errors (particularly neomodernism) which spawned doctrinal uncertainty, a radical denial of God (recall Time’s “Is God Dead?”) and the watering down of and even rejection of the spirit of the Gospel.

After a review of Church teaching on the little-regarded teaching on the reality of spiritual warfare, Wallace recounts how the postconciliar neomodernist heresy emerged as the dominant influence in theology after Vatican II, dividing the council fathers into the majority “progressive,” neomodernist wing, and the orthodox wing, the latter under the guidance of the Paul VI of the Credo of the People of God, as well as two Vatican II periti, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger and Archbishop Karol Wojtyla.

Subsequent chapters outline the influence and effects of theological error in sexual moral teaching, the Mass, religious life, catechesis and the role of the bishop in the face of this error. Wallace reminds us of the relevance of Jesus’ promise that in its attempt to prevail the gates of hell would ultimately fail, citing numerous examples of how the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI have begun the long road back to implementation of the true teaching of Vatican II. The author analyzes this in light of Jesus’ overcoming of the world and its prince, the Devil, now manifest in the Church of the new millennium, ripe with reasons for hope for the new evangelization. The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God is ideal for Catholics who wish an updated comprehensive analysis of the turmoil in the Catholic Church since the end of Vatican II, and to discover the true teaching of the council from its documents, the realization of which has been the overriding goal of the current Pope and his predecessor.

This book is written primarily for millions of Catholics in the U.S. born and catechized before Vatican II and unaware of the true teaching of the Council. It is forthright in asserting that there are Catholics whose practice of their faith does not differentiate them all that much from those who are not Catholic. Many Catholics of the “baby-boom” generation are alienated from the Church all together because their only exposure has been to a superficial, cultural Catholicism, impotent in the face of an American culture increasingly without faith. Conversely, many others have left hungrier, as they say, for a more “biblically-based spirituality.” These two reactions amount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

In addition, it is meant for young people of the “JP II” generation of Catholics, born long after the council but perhaps not fully aware of the turmoil spawned by dissent in the Church which, though on the wane, is still with us today. These young people, especially those in authentically Catholic colleges (Franciscan, Christendom, Aquinas, Ave Maria, etc.) will be the Church of the 21^st century, and have an interest in this recent history of the Church. It would serve nicely as a background/survey text in theology courses.

About the Author

Timothy Wallace hold an M.A. in History and currently serves as chair of the Social Studies Department at a suburban Catholic High School in the Archdiocese of Detroit, where he has taught American history and government since 1980. He is also a certified catechist in the Archdiocese, and has taught high school religion in 3 area high schools from 1978-2000. Wallace has participated in numerous St. John Bosco Catechetical Institute and Defending the Faith Conferences at Franciscan University. He has also been the recipient of the University of Detroit Mercy Outstanding High School Teacher Award (1998), and the University of Chicago Outstanding High School Teacher Award (2000), and for scholarship in the field of history is a member of Phi Alpha Theta’s National History Honor Society.

Competitive Titles

Standard works on the subject, though devoid of analysis of Paul VI’s reasons for of the crisis and the element of spiritual combat in general, are Msgr. George Kelly’s The Battle for the American Church (1979) and its sequel, The Battle for the American Church Revisited (1995); Dietrich VonHildebrand’s The Trojan Horse in the City of God: the Catholic Crisis Explained (1976), Ralph McInerny’s What Went Wrong With Vatican II? The Catholic Crisis Explained (1998), Philip Trower’s Turmoil and Truth: The Historical Roots of the Modern Crisis in the Catholic Church (1998). Other works with chapters on the subject are George Weigel, The Courage to be Catholic: Crisis, Reform and the Future of the Church (2004), and Fr. Richard Gilsdorf, The Signs of the Times: Understanding the Church since Vatican II (2008).

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Neomodernism's Attack on Religious Life- (continued).

Who’s that on page 180 of that book? This is Sister Mary Benjamin, IHM. Sister Mary Benjamin got involved with us in the summer of ‘66, and became the victim of a lesbian seduction. An older nun in the group, “freeing herself to he more expressive of who she really was internally,” decided that she wanted to make love with Sister Mary Benjamin. Well, Sister Mary Benjamin engaged in this; and then she was stricken with guilt, and wondered, to quote from her book, “Was I doing something wrong, was I doing something terrible? I talked to a priest—” Unfortunately, we had talked to him first. “I talked to a priest,” she says, “who refused to pass judgment on my actions. He said it was up to me to decide if they were right or wrong. He opened a door, and I walked through the door, realizing I was on my own.” This is her liberation? How excited they were, to be delivering someone into God’s hands! Well, instead they delivered her into the hands of nondirective psychology. ...

Satan makes his way to us through the libido!

Let us take a great civilization historically devoid of pornography, and examine what happens once the door is opened a crack, for smoke to enter:

"The Spirit of Vatican II"

My advice to one confronted with doubt sown by those who make reference to “correct interpretations of Vatican II” is to reflect closely upon the words of John Paul II: With the Council, the Church first had an experience of faith, as she abandoned herself to God without reserve, as one who trusts and is certain of being loved. It is precisely this act of abandonment to God which stands out from an objective examination of the Acts. Anyone who wished to approach the Council without considering this interpretive key would be unable to penetrate its depths. Only from a faith perspective can we see the Council event as a gift whose still hidden wealth we must know how to mine . In short, it is this abandonment, this interpretive faith perspective that is woefully lacking in many who would offer to explain what the Council taught in “the spirit of Vatican II.” Watch here to see what abandonment looks like!

From "The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God"

….At the close of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI remarked that Christianity, the religion of God-Incarnate, had encountered the religion of man-made God. He was of the opinion that much of the Council was given over to demonstrating the compatibility of Enlightenment belief with Catholicism. Several years hence, on June 29, 1972, Paul delivered another assessment of the state of the Roman Catholic Church since the close of Vatican II. As Cardinal Silvio Oddi recalled it (in an article first published on March 17, 1990, in Il Sabato magazine in Rome) the Holy Father told a congregation: We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the...

Do Not Be Ashamed

T he demeaning and of Pope Benedict is quickening in combination with the growing exaltation of Pope Francis in the secular world and among the "progressive" dissidents within the Church. Thus I believe a little review of his Pontificate is in order, as the signs of the times required him to shoulder a heavy cross and suffer a quiet type of crucifixion due to his exceptional faith and courageous writings and actions. Pope Benedict took strong, long overdue and very necessary actions against moral corruption within the clergy, the religious orders and within Catholic aid agencies. He appointed many bishops faithful to the true Vatican II, and removed many who were a cause of scandal to the Church. He took actions on the liturgy and other issues that were not popular, but which he saw as essential to preserving Catholicism and Christian culture much as laid down in his The Spirit of the Liturgy. The full story of his papacy remains to be told. “And blessed is he who ...

My Intended Audience

I have written for those Catholics born and perhaps catechized before Vatican II or immediately thereafter who as yet are unaware of the true teaching of the Council. It should not surprise the reader that there are Catholics whose lifestyles do not differentiate them all that much from those who are not Catholic and/or Christian. Moreover, many Catholics of the “baby-boom” generation are alienated from the Church all together because their only exposure has been to a superficial, cultural Catholicism, impotent in the face of an American culture increasingly without faith. Conversely, many others have left the Church – hungrier, as they say, for a more “biblically-based church.” The book is also intended for young people of the “JP II” generation of Catholics, born long after the council but perhaps not fully aware of the turmoil spawned by dissent in the Church which, though on the wane, is still with us today. These young people, especially those in authentically Catholic college...

Popes are not Presidents...

John Allen of the Globe has opined today that there are two key words that capture why many church officials believe it’s so important to avoid what they regard as false expectations of swift change to the church’s ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving communion and the other sacraments: Humanae Vitae, Paul VI's 1968 document reasserting the church’s traditional ban on birth control. It rocked the world, Allen writes, "in part because the reforming energies of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) had led people to suspect change was just around the corner, in part because the pope himself had created a commission to study the issue." The o utcome of the Pope’s evential reassertion of the ban “soured public opinion on Pope Paul, in some ways inflicting a blow from which his papacy never really recovered. ” On matters related to marriage and the family, the Church has always seen the fertility of the husband and wife as a gift from God and the end ( telos...

On Marriage

Marriage comes to us from nature. In Catholic teaching Jesus sanctifies marriage as a sacrament for the baptized, giving it significance beyond its natural reality. Traditionally the state has safeguarded marriage because it is indispensable to family and thus to the common good of society. But neither Church nor State instituted marriage, and neither can change its nature. God created two mutually complementary sexes, able to transmit life through marital union. Consummated sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is ideally based on mutual love and must always be based on mutual consent, if they are genuinely human actions. No matter how strong a friendship or deep a love between persons of the same sex might be, it is physically impossible for two men, or two women, to consummate a marital union. (In civil law, non-consummation of a marriage constitutes grounds for annulment). It is easy to see that sexual intercourse between a man and a w...

On Sole Fide, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura

Haven't been blogging for awhile, as I am still recovering from a bout with my annual attack of bronchitis.... In this day and age of half-truths, spin-meistering, and dis-ingenuousness, I am always heartened by intellectual honesty, hence, I am glad to pass on this article in which a separated brother recounts how relying on Scripture alone for one's life as a disciple is never enough. The debate on the necessary means of salvation (the bible, faith, grace) is not, as it often seems between Protestants and Catholics, an "either-or" matter, but a "both-and...."

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