Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice. And I know them, and they follow me.”

When you read the words of Sacred Scripture, especially the words of Jesus in the Gospels, do you recognize TRUTH? All of Sacred Scripture is Christ speaking to us. To recognize the truthfulness of Scripture is to recognize the voice of Christ.

But the same is true for the teachings of the Magisterium. When you read the words of a magisterial document, especially those that teach definitively, do you recognize TRUTH? Jesus Christ speaks to us through Sacred Tradition, through Sacred Scripture, and through the Magisterium. To recognize the truthfulness of magisterial teaching is to recognize the voice of Christ.

The Pope can teach infallibly by his own authority under Papal Infallibility. An Ecumenical Council can also teach infallibly. (An Ecumenical Council is the body of Bishops gathered with the Pope as their head.) But, as the First Vatican Council taught, there is a third way that the Magisterium teaches infallibly:

First Vatican Council: “Therefore, by divine and catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the Word of God as found in Scripture and Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal magisterium.” [First Vatican Council, Chapter 3, On Faith.]

These are the three ways that the Church teaches infallibly:
1. Papal Infallibility [solemn judgment]
2. Conciliar Infallibility [solemn judgment]
3. ordinary and universal Magisterium

This infallibility of the Magisterium offers the advantage to us of knowing, with certitude, that certain teachings on faith and morals are true and free from all error. The certitude is based on knowing that a teaching is of Papal Infallibility, or of Conciliar Infallibility, or of the ordinary and universal Magisterium. We don’t judge the content of the teaching, and then, only if we agree, say that it is infallible. To do so is to put oneself above the Church as She teaches in Christ’s name by the Holy Spirit.

But that is exactly what those who reject the Second Vatican Council have done. They have judged, without authority and unjustly, an Ecumenical Council; they have condemned the Second Vatican Council. They have judged, without authority and unjustly, each and every Pope from John XXIII to the present day (Pope Francis); they have condemned all these Popes. For when they hear the teachings of the Second Vatican Council and of the recent Popes, they DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE VOICE OF CHRIST.

For He who said: “My sheep hear my voice. And I know them, and they follow me.” Also said: “I speak to you, and you do not believe,” and, “you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep.”

Rejection of Vatican II is rejection of Christ. Contempt for the teachings of Vatican II is contempt for Christ. Denigration of the words of Vatican II is denigration of the words of Christ. If you read the documents of the Second Vatican Council and YOU DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE VOICE OF CHRIST, then you are NOT of His sheep. You are not following Him. And you do not love Him.

Some who call themselves Catholic, utterly reject Vatican II. They say: “Vatican II taught heresy.” Rejection of the authority of any Ecumenical Council, regardless of the content of its teachings, regardless of whether or not the Council taught infallibly, is the mortal sin of schism, and carries the penalty of automatic excommunication.

Some who call themselves Catholics, reject Vatican II with cleverness. They say: “Vatican II did not teach infallibly.”

Well, in my theological opinion, the teaching of Lumen Gentium on Papal Infallibility and on Conciliar Infallibility and on the infallibility of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, falls under Conciliar Infallibility. And so do some of the other Conciliar teachings, such as those on Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium in Dei Verbum.

But even if we begin with the shaky premise that nothing in the entire set of 16 lengthy documents from that Council is infallible under Conciliar Infallibility, there is a third mode of infallibility. The First Vatican Council taught that the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium is also infallible. Now consider that many of the teachings of Vatican II continue to be taught by the body of Bishops dispersed through the world and by successive Popes. Even if none of these teachings fell under Conciliar Infallibility, they now fall under the infallibility of the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

Whoever rejects any infallible teaching of the Magisterium is guilty of the mortal sin of heresy, which carries the penalty of automatic excommunication. Whoever rejects the teaching of the Second Vatican Council rejects Christ and His Church, is guilty of mortal sin, and is automatically excommunicated.

Whoever rejects Vatican II, presents himself as if he were judge over the Church and over Christ. How arrogant does a person have to be to judge and condemn an Ecumenical Council and every successive Popes, all because their magisterial teachings do not agree with his or her own thinking? Such persons are not worshiping Jesus Christ, but only themselves. For they treat every idea about religion in their own mind as if it were infallible, while they reject the infallible teachings of the Second Vatican Council and the teaching authority of each successive Pope.

The teachings of Jesus were sometimes liberal, sometimes moderate, sometimes conservative. If you accept only liberal, or only moderate, or only conservative teachings, then you are NOT following Christ. You are following your own ideas. You are NOT worshipping Christ. You are only worshipping yourself. For you reject every idea that contradicts your own thinking, even when it is a teaching of the Holy Spirit through the Church.

You cannot be both a conservative and a Catholic. You must always choose Catholicism over conservatism, or you are not a true sheep of Jesus Christ.

What will happen next? What will you say when the next Ecumenical Council approves of Vatican II and renews its teaching? What will you say when Pope Francis (or a subsequent Pope) teaches that Jews, Muslims, persons of other religions, agnostics and even atheists can possibly be saved without converting? What will you do when a future Pope approves of the ordination of women deacons? How will you react when the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is restructured to accommodate the return of the Protestant Churches to unity with the Catholic Church?

How well did Christ prophesy about the ultra-conservative heretics and schismatics of this generation, when He said:

[Matthew]
{23:13} So then: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you close the kingdom of heaven before men. For you yourselves do not enter, and those who are entering, you would not permit to enter.
{23:14} Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you consume the houses of widows, praying long prayers. Because of this, you shall receive the greater judgment.
{23:15} Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you travel around by sea and by land, in order to make one convert. And when he has been converted, you make him twice the son of Hell that you are yourselves.
{23:16} Woe to you, blind guides, who say: ‘Whoever will have sworn by the temple, it is nothing. But whoever will have sworn by the gold of the temple is obligated.’
{23:17} You are foolish and blind! For which is greater: the gold, or the temple that sanctifies the gold?
{23:18} And you say: ‘Whoever will have sworn by the altar, it is nothing. But whoever will have sworn by the gift that is on the altar is obligated.’
{23:19} How blind you are! For which is greater: the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift?
{23:20} Therefore, whoever swears by the altar, swears by it, and by all that is on it.
{23:21} And whoever will have sworn by the temple, swears by it, and by him who dwells in it.
{23:22} And whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God, and by him who sits upon it.
{23:23} Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you collect tithes on mint and dill and cumin, but you have abandoned the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, while not omitting the others.
{23:24} You blind guides, straining out a gnat, while swallowing a camel!
{23:25} Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you clean what is outside the cup and the dish, but on the inside you are full of avarice and impurity.
{23:26} You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the dish, and then what is outside becomes clean.
{23:27} Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed sepulchers, which outwardly appear brilliant to men, yet truly, inside, they are filled with the bones of the dead and with all filth.
{23:28} So also, you certainly appear to men outwardly to be just. But inwardly you are filled with hypocrisy and iniquity.
{23:29} Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, who build the sepulchers of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the just.
{23:30} And then you say, ‘If we had been there in the days of our fathers, we would not have joined with them in the blood of the prophets.’
{23:31} And so you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of those who killed the prophets.
{23:32} Complete, then, the measure of your fathers.
{23:33} You serpents, you brood of vipers! How will you escape from the judgment of Hell?

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.