Alfonso Gálvez 
Ecclesiastical Winter [EPUB ebook] 

Ecclesiastical Winter is a collection of articles written in 2011 with the sole desire and concern of interpreting a unique event in the History of the Church; namely, the hoped-for fruits that were supposed to be harvested from the Second Vatican Council, and the sad, tragic, and painful reality of what actually did come after. How does one explain the tragedy of the statistics numbers -vocations, consecrated life, Mass attendance, abandonment of the Catholic Faith, and a very long etc.- when so much hope was placed in the fruits of the Council, this Ecclesiastical Springtime? The title of this book says it all: A Springtime was expected; but what came was an icy Winter. 

The author states in his Introduction, that the purpose of this book is to try to ‘warn about the causes and effects of the crisis that the Church is suffering since the death of Pius XII; to this end, I found myself with the need to describe, with some harshness at times, some of the evils that are so acrimoniously afflicting the Institution founded by Jesus Christ.’ 

As opposed to the widely proclaimed official version of the Ecclesiastical Springtime, spoken about to such great lengths at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, in this book the reader will find a profound and realistic description of the tragedy unleashed by the Modernist heresy. Though condemned during the time of Pope St. Pius X, this heresy survived, remained dormant under the disguise of the Nouvelle Théologie prior to the opening of the Council, and took hold over a great part of the Church during and after the Council with a view establish what some have called a new Church. The entire content of this most important book by A. Gálvez consists in the unmasking of the desolation caused at every level (in the field of Theology as well as in that of the very Life of the Catholic Church) by the Modernist virus, the synthesis of all heresies, ‘which is now relevant in the Boat of Peter; a boat which has also been invaded by a multitude of false christs and prophets…’ 

In this context, the author proceeds to develop a detailed analysis of the current state of the Church, from the first chapter (‘The Great Apostasy’) to the second-to-last (‘Don Quixote and the ‘Promotion’ of the Priesthood’), elaborating a near exhaustive list of the terrible evils begotten by Modernism. Such important chapters as ‘The Youth with The Pope’, ‘True Femininity or Wily Feminism’, ‘The Devil prays Matins’, and ‘Winter Spring’, as well as those dedicated to Benedict XVI’s pontificate (‘De Gloria Olivae’) and the establishment of the New Mass (‘The ‘New Age’ and Easier Life’), all do their part in unveiling the damage caused by Modernism. 

In the face of this catastrophe, the author offers in his turn the only path remaining for the follower of Christ: that of fidelity to the Sound Doctrine within the Catholic Church, a subject which is amply treated in his most crucial chapter ‘Three Positions Facing the Crisis’. Taking all this into account, the book rounds itself off with that charming topic of the ‘Disputationes’ About Divine-Human Love.