Jimmy Akin has a masterpiece of a post on the famous “smoke of Satan” homily from Pope Paul VI. This is one of the terms that has been twisted and bandied about by just about anyone who really wants to make a point about what happened during and after the Second Vatican Council. Jimmy’s unfolding of the original homily just plain makes sense, which is usually a good thing. Even better, it douses the smoldering flames of conspiracy with a good bucket of water. A snip of one part:
The Second Vatican Council did its work to renew the Church and to bring a new day of light. However, the Council’s work has been frustrated by an attack by the devil by means of broader sociological currents that were present in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as secular social experts and social movements and scientists who lack faith and political and cultural revolutionaries. These sociological currents (“the smoke of Satan”) have infected the Catholic community and caused many to doubt and trust the Church and turn away from the eternal answers it has to offer and folow after passing modern ideas that are hostile to Christian thought. In this way the devil has thwarted the work of the Council in bringing in the day of joy and renewal that should have followed the Council.
As is said in blogville: Go. Read.
