A Chapter-by-Chapter Refutation of Dr. Taylor Marshall’s Book, Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within. Part Two

II.                  Chapter 1: The Smoke of Satan or A Whiff of Bushwa.

This post is the second in a series of articles I hope to present as a refutation of the conspiracy claims of Dr. Taylor Marshall which he advances in his book, Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press 2019), in which he contends that in accordance with a plot hatched in the 19^th century Satan has replaced the popes of the Catholic Church with one of his own.  This reviews Chapter 1 of the book, “The Smoke of God and the Smoke of Satan.”

The first piece of evidence we will consider is the central fact around which Chapter 1 is written.  Dr. Marshall offers the reader a quote from Pope St. Paul VI’s  ¹ homily given during a Mass said on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul and in commemoration of the ninth anniversary of being crowned as Bishop of Rome.  Paul VI is supposed to have said:

“We would say that, through some mysterious crack — no, it’s not mysterious; through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the Church of God. There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest, dissatisfaction, confrontation.” 

Dr. Marshall goes on:

This testimony of Paul VI acknowledged not merely that the Catholic Church had experienced secularization but that the smoke of Satan himself had entered the Church through a crack. 

Marshall goes on to ask, :”What is this satanic smoke?” ²  After asking the rhetorical question, he journeys through the Scriptures to prove that the smoke of Satan that Pope St. Paul VI is the same smoke referenced in Revelation:

I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. (Rev. 9:1–3)

The power that Marshall says that passage refers to is a satanic pope set upon the throne of St. Peter in the place of Christ’s vicar.

  

We know what Dr. Marshall wants us to believe is the “smoke of Satan”, but is it the same thing that Pope St. Paul VI meant by the phrase?  As we shall see, they are not.

As noted previously, Marshall does not provide the source of his Pauline quote. Apparently, he does not wish his readers to read the quote in context for themselves.  I would suggest at this juncture, if he had, Marshall’s readers would soon see that Pope St. Paul VI’s “smoke of Satan” is something far different than what Dr. Marshall makes it out to be in his book.

Here is the link to the original text of the homily found on the Vatican website.  Here is the translation of the text provided to us on the website of Jimmy Akin.  The relevant sections are as follows:

Referring to the situation of the Church today, the Holy Father affirms that he has a sense that “from some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”  There is doubt, incertitude, problematic, disquiet, dissatisfaction, confrontation.  There is no longer trust of the Church; they trust the first profane prophet who speaks in some journal or some social movement, and they run after him and ask him if he has the formula of true life.  And we are not alert to the fact that we are already the owners and masters of the formula of true life.  Doubt has entered our consciences, and it entered by windows that should have been open to the light.  Science exists to give us truths that do not separate from God, but make us seek him all the more and celebrate him with greater intensity; instead, science gives us criticism and doubt.  Scientists are those who more thoughtfully and more painfully exert their minds.  But they end up teaching us:  “I don’t know, we don’t know, we cannot know.”  The school becomes the gymnasium of confusion and sometimes of absurd contradictions.  Progress is celebrated, only so that it can then be demolished with revolutions that are more radical and more strange, so as to negate everything that has been achieved, and to come away as primitives after having so exalted the advances of the modern world.

This state of uncertainty even holds sway in the Church.  There was the belief that after the Council there would be a day of sunshine for the history of the Church.  Instead, it is the arrival of a day of clouds, of tempest, of darkness, of research, of uncertainty.  We preach ecumenism but we constantly separate ourselves from others.  We seek to dig abysses instead of filling them in. 

FOR A LIFE-GIVING AND REDEEMING “CREDO”

How has this come about?  The Pope entrusts one of his thoughts to those who are present:  that there has been an intervention of an adverse power.  Its name is the devil, this mysterious being that the Letter of St. Peter also alludes to. So many times, furthermore, in the Gospel, on the lips of Christ himself, the mention of this enemy of men returns.  The Holy Father observes, “We believe in something that is preternatural that has come into the world precisely to disturb, to suffocate the fruits of the Ecumenical Council, and to impede the Church from breaking into the hymn of joy at having renewed in fullness its awareness of itself.  Precisely for this reason, we should wish to be able, in this moment more than ever, to exercise the function God assigned to Peter, to strengthen the Faith of the brothers.  We should wish to communicate to you this charism of certitude that the Lord gives to him who represents him though unworthily on this earth.”  Faith gives us certitude, security, when it is based upon the Word of God accepted and consented to with our very own reason and with our very own human spirit.  Whoever believes with simplicity, with humility, sense that he is on the good road, that he has an interior testimony that strengthens him in the difficult conquest of the truth. 

The Pope concludes:  The Lord shows himself to be light and truth for him who accepts him in his Word, and his Word becomes no longer an obstacle to the truth and the path to well-being, but rather a stair-step upon which we can climb and truly be conquerors in the Lord who reveals himself through the path of faith— this faith that is the anticipation and guarantee of the definitive vision.

Note how much Dr. Marshall left out of his smoky analysis.  From the context of the homily, it is very clear that  Pope St. Paul VI’s “smoke of Satan” is not the plot to put a pope of Satan on the throne of St. Peter as suggested by Dr. Marshall.  Pope Sy. Paul VI is not referring to a plot of the Carbonari, the Freemasons, communists, Soviet spies, or anyone else infiltrating the Church to attack it from within.  He is not talking about anyone infiltrating anything anywhere.  No, the “smoke of Satan” refers to poisonous words of scientists, politicians, social engineers, and critics of the Church like Dr. Marshall himself, who seek to sow uncertainty, doubt, and confusion about the teachings of Vatican II.  The pope warns us about the cacophony of voices in the external world seeking to drown out or distract the faithful from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.     

To emphasize what Pope St. Paul VI stated above:

"We believe in something that is preternatural that has come into the world precisely to disturb, to suffocate the fruits of the Ecumenical Council, and to impede the Church from breaking into the hymn of joy at having renewed in fullness its awareness of itself.”

When one examines the quote in its context without Dr. Marshall’s faux commentary, it becomes obvious why he did not give proper attribution or provide context for the quote to be correctly understood.  Dr, Marshall could not let the facts get in the way of his narrative. Truth takes second place to world view.  That’s not apologetics, but polemics or even propaganda.  Contrarty to the spin that Dr Marshall gives Pope St. Paul VI's words, it is obvious from the text of the homily,that it is books like Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within that is "smoke of Satan" to which he was referring.  That book was written precisely to disturb and suffocate the fruits of Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.   

“Smoke of Satan” or a whiff of bushwa spread by Dr. Marshall?  You decide.  In any event, the first link in the pattern of facts upon which Dr. Marshall builds his conspiracy theory is shattered.

Next Chapter:  The Carbonari Quick-Step.

Endnotes:

1.               Throughout his book, Dr. Marshall refuses to acknowledge that Paul VI is a canonized saint of the Church who was recognized as such on October 14, 2018.   

2.               Marshall, Taylor. Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within . Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition. Location 131-139.