Speaking of AA-1025, that reminds me of Alice von Hildebrand responding to a criticism of that book as fake and paranoid:
A Final Swing
Sandra Miesel does a fine job debunking the fantastic and often absurd conspiratorial inventions that have proliferated in some circles ("Swinging at Windmills: A Close Look at Catholic Conspiracy Theories," December 2002). Many of them have been refuted and proven to be totally baseless. But I have a quarrel with some of the arguments that she offered.
In a few paragraphs in her article, Miesel overshoots her mark and weakens her conclusions. She challenges the authenticity of a book published by a French woman, Marie Carré She was a nurse who received a call to take care of a man mortally wounded in a car accident. The dying man had no identification and no passport. All she found was a manuscript that she decided to publish in 1972 under the title AA-1025: The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle. It relates the story of a young man who, upon discovering that his adoptive parents had "lied" to him, decided to escape to Russia. Animated by a deadly hatred of the Catholics who had raised him, he decided to dedicate his life to the victory of atheism. Trained by the Communists, he was ordered to go back to Poland and play the repentant sinner, enter a seminary as an anti-apostle, and then spend his life working toward the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church.
Miesel writes: "This is supposed to explain the post-Vatican II changes, although Communist control never altered dogma of worship beyond the Iron Curtain."
This is a non sequitur. AA-1025 was working in the West, not in Eastern Europe; moreover, the Communist regime did not need to change dogmas: Atheism was supreme. A careful reading of the book shows that AA-1025 was much too clever to launch a direct attack on dogmas. His plans were much more subtle, much more "professional," to spread doubt, to weaken faith, to undermine tradition, and to ridicule old-fashioned practices that alienate "modern man" for failing to address themselves to his needs.
The next paragraph is still more astonishing: Miesel refers to the book as "a fable." There I part ways with the author. As much as I agree with her that the validity of AA-1025 has not been proven, this fact does not disprove the books truth. Miesel makes the mistake that hundreds of my students have made: If Gods existence is not satisfactorily proven to their taste, they draw the conclusion that it has been disproved. Even if all proofs of His existence were weak and unconvincing, this fact would thereby in no way be disproved. I grant Miesel that one can raise many questions concerning the authenticity of this document. I have raised them myself. But once again, this does not prove without a shadow of a doubt that it is not valid.
AA-1025 may be a literary invention of Marie Carré, but one must admit that she hits the bulls eye from the first page to the last. Some people have extraordinary talents to foresee the future. Carré certainly had an extraordinary perception of how best to harm the Church. How surprising indeed that all her inventions have become reality in the post-conciliar Church.
More serious is the brief reference that Miesel makes to Bella Dodd. It is clear from the content of her article that Miesel never met Dodd personally. I knew her and can call her a friend. After dedicating 21 years of her life to the Enemy, she was so shattered when her eyes opened that she wanted to devote the years left to her to penance and to join the most severe penitential order. She turned for advice and help to Bishop Fulton Sheen. She opened her heart to him, went to confession, and put herself under his guidance. He became her spiritual director and gave her the order to remain in the world and open the eyes of Americans to the deadly poison of Communism, its atheism, its hatred of God and the Church. She lectured extensively. It was at one of her talks that my husband and I made her acquaintance. We immediately perceived that she was an exceptional person: her intelligence, her sincerity, her humility, and her desire to make good for the harm that she had done.
Dodd visited us in New Rochelle, New York. I recall that one day my husbandwho had become increasingly worried about what was dubbed "the spirit of Vatican II"said to her, "Bella, at times I wonder whether the Church has not been infiltrated." I can solemnly testify that she answered, "Dear professor, you fear it; I know it. When I was a fanatic Communist, I was in close contact with four cardinals in the Vatican working for us. They are still very active today." My husband jumped in his seat and said, "My nephew is German ambassador at the Holy See. Who are they?" Bella Dodd refused to answer: Bishop Sheen had not allowed her to reveal their names.
As long as Bella Dodd lived, she remained in close contact with Bishop Sheen. He knew what she was revealing in her numerous lectures and never tried to curb her or to challenge what she was saying, but he did not allow her to reveal names. The Roman Catholic Church rightly fears scandals.
In a talk that Dodd gave in Orange, California, she told a packed auditorium that in the 1920s Stalin ordered his subordinates to try to infiltrate Catholic seminaries. Dodd was appointed to faithfully follow this directive, and given her extraordinary charism to persuade people, she claimed publicly that she alone was responsible for the infiltration of hundreds of Judases in Catholic seminaries: "Young men who had neither faith nor morals" was the way she put it. It seems legitimate at this point to wonder whether some of the horrendous sexual scandals that have rocked the Church in the United States are not to be traced back to Bella Dodds efficiency.
With a sleight of hand, Miesel dismisses the whole thing as being "implausible." End of discussion.
Having taught in a fortress of secularism for some 37 years and as a cradle Catholic, I have learned a few things along the way. It is a well-known fact that teachers learn much from their students, and mine have opened my mind to quite a few facts. One thing that they convinced me of is that most fundamental errors are highly plausible and that many a truth are implausible. All Catholic dogma shocks human reason, since original sin is always tempted by rationalism. Religious, metaphysical, and ethical truths can only be accepted when reason is on its knees in a position of humility.
I have heard Europeans accuse Americans of being "naive." Maybe several paragraphs of Miesels article are a case in point. Many of my students have convinced me that atheism, materialism, evolutionism, relativism, subjectivism, and sexism are highly plausible. How can God exist, be all-powerful and all good, and yet permit the tortures of innocent children?
On the other hand, infiltration is highly plausible. One of the tasks of the KBG, the FBI, and the CIA is to recruit double agents. There is not a single organization that does not aim at infiltration. If they dont, they will inevitably be defeated. Stalin (like every devil) was immensely clever. Being an ex-seminarian, he knew the power that faith exercises upon mans soul; he also knew best the means of weakening and destroying it. He would have been very stupid indeed had he not tried to infiltrate the Vatican.
This very thought, of course, is repugnant to Catholics. Many of them have no fear that an intimate of the Enemy might be within and would undermine the authority of Peter. Almost instinctively they will reject as "fable" and "inventions of scandal mongers" any claim that some cardinal, bishop, or priest might be working for the Enemy.
I am not a prophet. I am far from claiming that we are at the end of time. I do not know. But one thing is certain: Confusion reigns all over. Does it imply that the Holy Catholic Church is no longer without blemish? Far from it: The Holy Catholic Church is indeed holy, and will ever be, but Gods greatness and power are best shown in the fact that, in spite of the treason of some of His children, He will conquer, because, as St. Augustine wrote, His power is best shown by the fact that evil can be used for the triumph of the good.
Alice von Hildebrand
New Rochelle, New York
