For all the gods of the
Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. Ps. 95, 5
Wanting to reconcile the Faith with the modern spirit leads not only to
a weakening of the Faith, but also to its total ruin.
Pope St. Pius X
THE
LORD WILL NOT DELAY
SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
PRESENCE
OF GOD ‑
I place myself in the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, to receive
His two‑fold invitation to confidence and
repentance, contained in today's liturgy.
MEDITATION:
I. After we have considered the sublime program
of sanctification which we should follow, it is very consoling to consider the
magnificent texts of today's liturgy. They invite us to have complete trust in
God's help. "Thy salvation cometh quickly: why art thou wasted with
sorrow?... I will save thee and deliver thee, fear not .... As a mother comforteth her sons, so will I comfort thee, saith the Lord" (RB). God does not want anxiety or
discouragement. If He proposes to us an exalted way of sanctity, He does not
leave us alone, but comes to help and sustain us.
Today's Mass shows clearly how Jesus comes
not only for the people of Israel, for a small number of the elect, but also
for the Gentiles, for all men. "Behold the Lord shall come to save the
nations" (Introit), therefore, let us have confidence and rejoice, as St.
Paul exhorts us: "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace
in believing that you may abound in hope" (Ep:
Rom 15, 4‑13). And in order to stimulate our hope in Christ, the Gospel
(Mt 11, 2‑10) presents His wonderful works: "The blind see, the lame
walk, lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the
gospel preached to them."
There is no physical or moral misery which
Jesus cannot cure. He asks only that we go to Him with a heart dilated by
faith, and with complete trust in His all‑powerful, merciful love.
2.
In today's Gospel Jesus directs our attention to the strong, austere figure of
John the Baptist. "What went you out to see? A reed shaken by the wind?...
A man clothed in soft garments? "
If we want to prepare our hearts for Jesus'
coming, we, like St. John the Baptist, must detach ourselves from all the goods
of earth. John had left everything and gone into the desert to lead a life of
penance. His example invites us to retire into the interior desert of our heart,
far from creatures, to await the coming of Jesus in deep recollection, silence,
and solitude, insofar as the duties of our state in life permit. We must
persevere in this waiting, in spite of aridity and discouragement. "The
Lord shall appear and shall not deceive us: if He make any delay, wait for Him,
for He will come and will not tarry" (RB).
To our interior recollection, let us add a
greater spirit of penance and mortification. Let us examine our generosity in
practicing the penances and mortifications prescribed by our Rule, and those
which we have imposed upon ourselves with the approval of our confessor or
superior. If we discover that we are lax in this regard, it would be well to
resolve to do something more: some mortification at meals, in our rest, or in
our clothing, some work that is hard or painful to nature.
If we wish to taste the sweet joys of
Christmas, we should know how to prepare ourselves with these dispositions
which the Church invites us to pray for today: "We beseech You, O Lord, to
teach us. . . to despise the things of earth and to love those of heaven"
(RM).
COLLOQUY:
O my Savior, Word of God, how can I doubt
that are coming upon earth to save and sanctify me? Why I do not go to You with
complete, loving confidence, when You have spared nothing to show me Your
infinitely merciful love? Your Incarnation, Your infant tears, Your humble
hidden life, Your apostolate, Your miracles, Your sorrow Passion and death, all
Your precious Blood poured out, shall they not be enough to make me believe in
Your love, open my heart in the most complete confidence?
"I repeat with all confidence the
humble prayer of the publican. Most of all do I imitate the behavior of Magdalen, for her amazing ‑ rather I should say her
loving ‑ audacity, which delighted Your heart .... I am certain that even
if I had on my conscience every imaginable crime, I should lose nothing of my
confidence, but would throw myself, my heart broken with sorrow, into Your
arms, for I remember Your love for the prodigal son who returns to You"
(T.C.J. St. 12).
With this confidence, O my Jesus, I will
resume my way and begin again my poor efforts.
During this Advent You invite me to greater
recollection, to greater interior and exterior silence, so that I may be able
to hear Your voice and prepare for Your coming. Help me, then, to quiet my
continual chatter about useless things, the discordant voices of nature, self‑love,
sensitiveness, the distracting prattle of my fantasies, imaginations, thoughts
and useless preoccupations.
I acknowledge that often my mind and heart
are like a raging sea in which the waves thunder continually; and yet, if You
wish, a sign from You will be enough to make calm return and all be silent.
Yes, You teach me that interior silence
exacts detachment from self and from creatures, exacts interior and exterior
mortification. For love of You I will mortify my curiosity, the curiosity of my
eyes, ears, thoughts, and imagination. I also want to silence my passions and,
therefore, I resolve to be more generous in the practice of corporal
mortification.
O eternal Word, my Savior, draw all my
powers to Yourself; fasten my interior gaze upon Yourself, so that I shall no
longer seek or hear anything or anyone but You alone, eternal Word of my
eternal God!
In the Church, I
perceive two kinds of persecutions: the first in its beginnings, under the
Roman Empire, in which violence inexorably prevailed; the second at the end of
time, when seduction will reign.
Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet
"The more joyfully souls do His will, the greater is their
perfection."
St. Therese of the Child Jesus
Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary By
St. Louis de Montfort
O Eternal and incarnate Wisdom! O sweetest
and most adorable Jesus! True God and true man, only Son of the Eternal Father,
and of Mary, always virgin! I adore Thee profoundly in the bosom and splendors
of Thy Father during eternity; and I adore Thee also in the virginal bosom of
Mary, Thy most worthy Mother, in the time of Thine
incarnation.
I give Thee thanks for that Thou hast
annihilated Thyself, taking the form of a slave in order to rescue me from the
cruel slavery of the devil. I praise and glorify Thee for that Thou hast been
pleased to submit Thyself to Mary, Thy holy Mother, in all things, in order to
make me Thy faithful slave through her. But, alas! Ungrateful and faithless as
I have been, I have not kept the promises which I made so solemnly to Thee in
my Baptism; I have not fulfilled my obligations; I do not deserve to be called
Thy child, nor yet Thy slave; and as there is nothing in me which does not
merit Thine anger and Thy repulse, I dare not come by
myself before Thy most holy and august Majesty. It is on this account that I
have recourse to the intercession of Thy most holy Mother, whom Thou hast given
me for a mediatrix with Thee. It is through her that
I hope to obtain of Thee contrition, the pardon of my sins, and the acquisition
and preservation of wisdom.
Hail, then, O immaculate Mary, living
tabernacle of the Divinity, where the Eternal Wisdom willed to be hidden and to
be adored by angels and by men! Hail, O Queen of Heaven and earth, to whose
empire everything is subject which is under God. Hail, O sure refuge of sinners,
whose mercy fails no one. Hear the desires which I have of the Divine Wisdom;
and for that end receive the vows and offerings which in my lowliness I present
to thee.
I, N______ a faithless sinner, renew
and ratify today in thy hands the vows of my Baptism; I renounce forever Satan,
his pomps and works; and I give myself entirely to
Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, to carry my cross after Him all the days of
my life, and to be more faithful to Him than I have ever been before. In the
presence of all the heavenly court I choose thee this day for my Mother and
Mistress. I deliver and consecrate to thee, as thy slave, my body and soul, my
goods, both interior and exterior, and even the value of all my good actions,
past, present and future; leaving to thee the entire and full right of
disposing of me, and all that belongs to me, without exception, according to
thy good pleasure, for the greater glory of God in time and in eternity.
Receive, O benignant Virgin, this
little offering of my slavery, in honor of, and in union with, that subjection
which the Eternal Wisdom deigned to have to thy maternity; in homage to the
power which both of you have over this poor sinner, and in thanksgiving for the
privileges with which the Holy Trinity has favored thee. I declare that I wish
henceforth, as thy true slave, to seek thy honor and to obey thee in all
things.
O admirable Mother, present me to thy
dear Son as His eternal slave, so that as He has redeemed me by thee, by thee
He may receive me! O Mother of mercy, grant me the grace to obtain the true
Wisdom of God; and for that end receive me among those whom thou lovest and teachest, whom thou leadest, nourishest and protectest as thy children and thy slaves.
O faithful Virgin, make me in all
things so perfect a disciple, imitator and slave of the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus
Christ thy Son, that I may attain, by thine
intercession and by thine example, to the fullness of
His age on earth and of His glory in Heaven. Amen.
Many indeed have never known Thee; many too, despising Thy precepts,
have rejected Thee. Have mercy on them
all, most merciful Jesus, and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart…. Be Thou King of
all those who are still involved in the darkness of idolatry or of Islamism,
and refuse not to draw them all into the light and Kingdom of God.
Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Raccolta
Some say they are not
bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter [Mystici
Corporis] of a few years ago, and based
on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of
Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.
Pius XII, Humani Generis
Catholic doctrine ought
thus to be proposed and set forth totally and in its entirety: one ought not
to pass over in silence or cover with ambiguous words what Catholic truth
teaches on the true nature and means of justification, on the
constitution of the Church, on the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman
pontiff, on the only true union which is achieved by the return of
dissidents to the one true Church of Christ. It is taught that they, by
returning to the Church, do not lose any part of the good that, by the grace of
God, has up to now been born in them, but that with their return this good is
rather completed and perfected. There is no need to discuss this subject
as though these people should believe that by their return to the Church they
should bring it some essential element that they have lacked up to now.
Pius XII, Instruction of
the Holy Office on Ecumenism, Dec. 20, 1949
I am worried by
the Blessed Virgin's messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about
the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of
altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … I hear all
around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the
universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse
for Her historical past.
A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church
will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become
God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God
awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask,
“Where have they taken Him?”
Pope Pius XII, Roche, Devant L'Historie, p.
52-5
St. Damasus
was one of the most illustrious defenders of the great mystery of the
Incarnation. He defends the faith of the
universal Church in the divinity of the Word, by condemning, as his predecessor
Liberius had done, the acts and the authors of the
celebrated Council of Rimini. With his
sovereign authority, he bore witness to the teaching of the Church regarding
the Humanity of Jesus Christ, and condemned the heretic Apollinaris,
who taught the Jesus Christ had assumed only the flesh and not the soul of
man. He commissioned St. Jerome to make
a new translation of the New Testament from the Greek, for the use of the
Church of Rome; here, again, giving further proof of the faith and love which
he bore to the Incarnate Word. Let us
honor this Pontiff, whom the Council of Chalcedon calls, ‘the ornament and
support of Rome by his piety.’ St.
Jerome called him ‘a man of the greatest worth; a man whose equal could not be
found, well versed in the holy Scriptures, and a virgin doctor of the virgin
Church.’
Dom Gueranger,
The Liturgical Year, Feast of St. Damasus
Listen and let it
penetrate your heart my dear little son.
Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety
or pain. Am I not here who am your
Mother? Are you not under my shadow and
protection? Am I not your fountain of
life? Are you not in the folds of my
mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is
there anything else you need?
Blessed Virgin Mary to
St. Juan Diego
Odilia
was born blind. Her father insisted on
her being removed from the house, for her presence would have been a continual
humiliation to him. It seems as though
this affliction was permitted by Providence, in order that the action and power
of divine grace might be the more clearly manifested in her regard. The little exile was taken from her mother,
and placed in a monastery. God, who
designed to show the virtue of the holy Sacrament of regeneration, permitted
that her Baptism should be deferred until she had reached her thirteenth
year. The time at length came for Odilia to be made a child of God. No sooner was she taken from the baptismal font,
than she received her eyesight, which was but a feeble figure of the light
which had lit up in her soul.
Dom Gueranger,
The Liturgical Year, Feast of St. Odilia
Some among you, inflated like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive
by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the
sense of the heavenly pages . . .to the philosophical teaching of the rationals, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a
show of science . . . these, seduced by strange and eccentric doctrines, make
the head of the tail and force the queen to serve the servant.
Pope Gregory IX regarding the 13th century Modernists of his day
St. Lucy, pray for us,
that our eye may be purified, and may see, in the Child who is to be born at
Bethlehem, the new Man, the second Adam, the model on which the life of our
regeneration must be formed.
Dom Gueranger,
The Liturgical Year, St. Lucy
If Jesus came to
sanctify all, if it is God’s will that “all should be saints,” then sanctity
cannot consist in extraordinary gifts of nature and grace, which depend solely
upon God’s liberality. Sanctity,
therefore, must consist in something that all souls of good will, even the
simplest and most humble, can attain, sustained by the divine assistance. Sanctity is the perfection of the Christian
life. It is the full development in us
of the supernatural life, whose beginnings are sanctifying grace, the infused
virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost…
When the influence of grace extends effectively to all our actions,
directing them solely to God’s glory and uniting us wholly to Him be means of
charity, then we have reached the fullness of Christian life, sanctity.
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary
Magdalen, O.C. D., Divine Intimacy
“Religion
holds the first place among the moral virtues”
The supernatural virtue of
Religion is, in the first place, an abiding, persevering disposition inclining
us to render unto God the worship due Him. Ease and readiness in the
performance of supernatural acts of religion is the fruit of faithful exercise
and is obtainable by our own exertions assisted by divine grace. Charity and
all the infused moral virtues are inseparably united with sanctifying grace,
whilst the two theological virtues of faith and hope (habitus
fidei et spei) can still
exist even after sanctifying grace has been lost…. Religion holds the first
place among the moral virtues. Although, like all other moral virtues, the
virtue of religion is inferior in merit and dignity to the divine virtues of
faith, hope and charity, it is, nevertheless, most intimately connected with
them, for it regulates the conduct of man toward God. It holds the first rank
among the moral virtues, because it approaches nearer to God than the others,
in so far as it produces and has for its primary object those acts which refer
directly and immediately to the honor of God — that is, whatever acts pertain
to the divine service…. We read in the epistle of St. James (i. 27) these words: “Religion (religio)
clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the fatherless
and widows in their tribulation and to keep one’s self unspotted from the
world.” The meaning of the above is — that if we would honor God the Father in
a sincere and proper manner, we must be assiduously intent upon assisting the
poor, the abandoned and the distressed, upon consoling and comforting them,
and, at the same time, endeavor, amid the universal corruption of the world, to
serve God alone and to please Him by purity of heart and the righteousness of
our ways. Thus the virtue of religion will produce abundant fruits “that in all
things and above all things God may be glorified” (ut
in omnibus glorificetur Deus).
Rev. Nicholas Gihr
Act of
Abandonment to the Divine Will
O my God, I know not what
must come to me today; but I am certain that nothing can happen to me which
Thou hast not foreseen and ordained from all eternity: that is sufficient for
me. I adore Thy impenetrable and eternal
designs, to which I submit with all my heart; I desire, I accept them all, and
I unite my sacrifice to that of Jesus Christ, my divine Saviour;
I ask in His name, and through His infinite merits, patience in my trials, and
perfect submission to all that comes to me by Thy good pleasure. Amen
St. Joseph Pignatelli, S. J., who lived his life as a Jesuit during
the 40 years of their unjust suppression dying three years before their
official restoration by Pope Pius VII in 1814.
He is considered the “restorer of the Society of Jesus.”
The
Trial of St. Thomas Becket
Whatever credit may be due to reports originating with men, whose great
object it was to bring the religious orders into disrepute, and to terrify them
into the surrender of their property, there is one proceeding, which, on
account of its singularity and absurdity, deserves the attention of the reader.
It had been suggested that, as long as the name of St. Thomas of Canterbury
should remain in the (liturgical) calendar, men would be stimulated by his
example to brave the ecclesiastical authority of their sovereign. The kings’s attorney was therefore instructed to exhibit an
information against him and “Thomas Becket, some time archbishop of
Canterbury,” was formally cited to appear in court, and answer to the charge.
The interval of thirty days allowed by the canon law was suffered to elapse:
still the saint neglected to quit the tomb in which he had reposed for two
centuries and a half; and judgment would have been given against him for
default, had not the king of his special grace assigned him a counsel. The
court sat at Westminster: the attorney general and the advocate of the accused
were heard; and sentence was finally pronounced; that Thomas, some time
archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of rebellion, contumacy, and treason;
that his bones should be publicly burnt, to admonish the living of their duty
by the punishment of the dead; and that the offerings which had been made at
his shrine, the personal property of the reputed saint, should be forfeited to
the crown. A commission was accordingly
issued; the sentence was executed in due form; and the gold, silver, and
jewels, the spoils obtained by the demolition of the shrine, were conveyed in
two ponderous coffers to the royal treasury. Soon afterwards a proclamation was
published, stating that, forasmuch as it now clearly appeared, that Thomas
Becket had been killed in a riot excited by his own obstinacy and intemperate
language and had been afterwards canonized by the bishop of Rome as the
champion of his usurped authority, the king’s majesty thought it expedient to
declare to his loving subjects, that he was no saint, but rather a rebel and
traitor to his prince, and therefore strictly charged and commanded that he
should not be esteemed or called a saint, that all images and pictures of him
should be destroyed, the festivals in his honour be
abolished, and his name and remembrance be erased out of all books, under pain
of his majesty's indignation and imprisonment at his grace's pleasure.
Archbishop John Milner, D.D., History
of England
“An Unjust Law is Not a Law”
When Pope Nicholas II ordered the
suppression of the Ambrosian Rite, he was opposed by
the Catholics of Milan who refused his order.
This order was subsequently overturned by Pope Alexander II who declared
it to have been most manifestly “unjust.”
Human law, even the highest form of human law imposed by the pope, has
all the limitations of every human law. That is, it must be a promulgation of
reason, by the proper authority, promoting the common good, and not in any way
opposed to Divine or natural law. As St. Thomas has said, “an unjust law is not
a law.” The pope had no authority to bind an unjust law and therefore the
Catholics of Milan were completely within their rights to refuse the order of
Pope Nicholas II in his attempt to suppress their immemorial traditions.
Traditional Catholics are, like them, within their rights to refuse any
liturgical innovations to their immemorial customs.
The highest perfection consists
not in interior favors, or in great raptures,
or in visions, or in the spirit of prophesy, but in the bringing of our wills
so closely into conformity with the will of God that, as soon as we realize He
wills anything, we desire it ourselves with all our might, and take the bitter
with the sweet.
St. Teresa of Avila
At this moment, O Lord, I
freely consecrate my will to You without reserve… Grant that Your will may
always be fulfilled in me, in the way which is most pleasing to You. If You wish me to do this by means of trails,
give me strength and let them come. If
by means of persecution and sickness and dishonor and need, here I am, my
father, I shall not turn my face away.
St. Teresa of Avila, Way of Perfection
The mother of St. Lucy for
four years suffered from an issue of blood, and the help of men failed. Mother
and daughter went from Syracuse to Catania, and sought help from God. St. Lucy
reminded her mother that a woman in the Gospel had been healed of the same
disorder. 'St. Agatha,' she said, 'stands ever in the sight of Him for whom she
died. Only touch her sepulchre with faith, and you
will be healed.' They spent the night praying by the tomb, till, overcome by
weariness, both fell asleep. St. Agatha appeared in vision to St. Lucy, and
calling her sister, foretold her
mother's recovery and her own martyrdom. That instant the cure was effected;
and in her gratitude the mother allowed her daughter to distribute her wealth
among the poor, and consecrate her virginity to Christ. A young man, to whom she had been promised in
marriage, accused her as a Christian to the heathen; but for this pure soul, on
fire with the love of Christ, martyrdom was easy. 'I have sacrificed,' she said
to Christ, 'all that I had: now I offer the one sacrifice which remains -
myself.' Our Lord, by a special miracle, saved from outrage this virgin whom He
had chosen for His own. The fire kindled around her did her no hurt. Then the
sword was plunged into her heart, and the promise made at the tomb of St. Agatha
was fulfilled.
Rev. Henry Sebastian
Bowden, Lives of the Saints
An
Example of the “Universal and Ordinary” engagement of the Magisterium
of the Church to teach Infallibly; “universal” because it is “based on the
sources of revelation” and “ordinary” because it is the subject matter of a
papal encyclical!
Some say they are not
bound by the doctrine, explained in Our Encyclical Letter [Mystici
Corporis] of a few years ago, and based
on the sources of revelation, which teaches that the Mystical Body of
Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing.
Pius XII, Humani Generis
Jesus Christ
Received the Throne of David from St. Joseph
It may be yet further asked,
why S. Matthew unfolded the genealogy of Joseph rather than of Mary, since
Christ was born of her alone, being a Virgin? I answer : First, because among
the Jews, and other nations, genealogy is customarily reckoned through fathers
and husbands, not through mothers and wives. Second, because Joseph was the
true and lawful father of Christ, after the manner which I shall explain
presently. And Christ was the heir of David’s throne and sceptre,
not through Mary, but through Joseph, according to Gods promise to David, 2
Sam. vii. 12; Ps. lxxxix. and cxxxii.
The sceptre, therefore, of Judah devolved upon Jesus
Christ, not only by the promise and gift of God, but by the right of hereditary
succession. For if, by common right, sons succeed to their fathers’
inheritance, when they are only accounted their sons by common repute, how much
more was Christ Joseph’s, his father’s, heir, since He was the Son of his wife,
by the power and the gift of the Holy Ghost? Wherefore as Joseph had a parent’s
right over Christ, indeed, all rights which parents have over sons, so on the
other hand, Christ had, with reference to Joseph, all the rights which sons
have in respect to their parents. He had therefore a right to the kingdom of
Israel after Joseph’s death. Hence the question of the Magi (ii. 2), “Where is
he that is born King of the Jews?” This was what S. Matthew wished to
demonstrate, who, as S. Augustine says, insists, most of all the Evangelists,
upon the kingship of Christ. And this explains why he gives the genealogy of
Joseph, rather than of Mary. For she could not be the heiress of the kingdom,
so long as heirs male, like Joseph and others, survived. Whence also it must be
said, as a consequence, that the father and other ancestors of Joseph were
first-born, or at least eldest surviving sons of their fathers, so that the
right of reigning devolved upon them.
This is what is meant in the
first chapter of S. Luke by the words, “And the Lord God will give unto him the
throne of his father David.” So likewise in Gen. xlix. to, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from
between his feet, until Shiloh come,” that is, Christ, who was to restore to
Judah the sceptre, iniquitously taken away by Herod;
yea, who was to raise their kingdom to a far higher grandeur, by making it
spiritual instead of corporeal, heavenly instead of earthly, and, instead of
temporal, eternal.
Rev. Cornelius a Lapide, Commentary on St. Matthew
This moreover is true if you
consider the mass of mankind. For by far the greater portion of men are
Infidels, Turks, Saracens, or heretics. S. Augustine (lib. 4 contr. crescent.
c. 53) compares the Church to a threshing-floor in which there is far more
chaff than grains of wheat, more bad than good, more who will be damned than
will be saved. Yet others, with greater mildness, think it probable that the
greater portion of professing Christians will be saved, because most of them
receive the Holy Sacraments before they die. And they justify sinners, not only
those who have contrition, but who have attrition. But this seems to be true of
those who have not lived in constant and habitual sins, such as fornication,
usury, hatred. For such, when they are sick, conceive with difficulty any
serious and efficacious purpose of amendment, or if they do conceive it, God in
just punishment of their past sins suffers the demon of their bygone lusts to
tempt them, and he furbishes and sharpens their memory, and so the sick man in
consequence of his habits easily yields, and consents in his heart to sin, and
thus he falls and is damned. Of this there are many examples.
Rev. Cornelius a Lapide, Commentary on St. Matthew
Novena Prayer to the Infant of Prague
O Dearest Jesus,
tenderly loving us, Thy greatest joy is to dwell among men and to bestow Thy
blessings upon us! Though I am not worthy that Thou should behold me with love,
I feel myself drawn to Thee, O dear Infant Jesus, because Thou gladly pardon me
and exercise Thy almighty power over me.
So many who turned with confidence to Thee and
have received graces and had their petitions granted. Look upon me as I kneel
in spirit before Thy miraculous image on Thine altar
in Prague and lay open my heart to Thee, with its prayers, petitions and hopes.
Especially the affair of... I enclose in Thy loving Heart. Govern me and do
with me and mine according to Thy holy will, for I know that in Thy Divine
wisdom and love Thou will ordain everything for the best. Almighty, gracious
Infant Jesus, do not withdraw Thy hand from us, but protect and bless us
forever. Amen
Home
School? - an added benefit, Education!
"(The
results show a) picture of educational stagnation.... We must invest in early
education, raise academic standards, make college affordable, and do more to
recruit and retain top-notch educators."
Arne Duncan, Education Secretary, commenting on the U.S.A. results from
the three-yearly Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries
around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for
reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics. U.S. averages $10,599.00 for a 15 year old's education.
"Whosoever
therefore is not united with the Body is no member thereof, neither is he in
communion with Christ its Head."
Pius XI, Mortalium Animos
If you love
Me, keep My commandments… If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My
love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments, and do abide in His
love.
John 14, 15;
15, 10
Modern “theologians” ignorant of scholasticism and thus,
any sense of true theology, should know, the Summa was intended for
“beginners.”
Because the Master of Catholic Truth ought not only to teach the
proficient, but also to instruct beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto
little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat. 1 Cor. 3, 1-2), we
propose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian Religion, in
such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners. We shall try, by God’s help, to set forth
whatever is included in this Sacred Science as briefly and clearly as the
matter itself may allow.
St. Thomas Aquinas, prologue to the Summa
Indulgences for the Blue
Scapular, (the Scapular of the Immaculate Conception)
As for me, I would take all scapulars."
But above all you must know that the scapular of the Immaculate Conception,
which is blessed by the Theatine Fathers, besides all
its partial indulgences, has all the indulgences granted to whatever religious
order, whatever devotion, whatever person there can be. And particularly that
by reciting six times Pater, Ave, and Gloria, in honor of the
Most Holy Trinity and Mary Immaculate, can be gained each time all the
indulgences of Rome, of Portiuncula, of Jerusalem,
and of Galicia, which amounts to 533 plenary indulgences, without speaking of
partial indulgences, which are innumerable.
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Glories of Mary. These indulgences have been
confirmed by Gregory XVI. in a decree dated July 12, 1845
The silkworm starts to spin its silk and to build the house in which it
is to die…. On then, my daughters, let us hasten to perform this task and spin
this cocoon. Let us renounce our
self-love and self-will, and our attachment to earthly things. Let us practice penance, prayer,
mortification, obedience, and all the other good works that you know of…. Let
the silkworm die – let it die, as in fact it does when it has completed the
work which it was created to do. Then we
shall see God and shall ourselves be as completely hidden in his greatness as
is this little worm in its cocoon… And let us see what becomes of this
silkworm, for all that I have been saying about it is leading up to this. When it is in this state of prayer, and quite
dead to the world, it comes out a little white butterfly. Oh, greatness of God, that a soul should come
out like this, after being with him for so short a time.
St. Theresa of Avila
Father
of Modernism: Cardinal John Henry Newman?
"...an English Catholicism, of which Newman is
the highest type. It is the old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone
transplanted into the Church... In one word, it is a worldly Catholicism, and
it will have the worldly on its side, and will deceive many." Cardinal
Manning to Msgr. Talbot
It has always been
incomprehensible to me why Manning’s hostility to Newman should be imputed to
him as a sin, while Newman’s hostility to Manning is held to be a virtue.
[.....] Yet at the present hour, when the Modernists have claimed Newman as
their precursor, supporting their contention with many a passage from his
writings, it would seem that Manning, as the exponent of orthodox doctrine, was
justified in his appreciation of Newman’s teaching. [....] Manning had
everything to lose by becoming a Catholic, Newman had everything to gain.
[....]This is shown by the willingness with which (Manning) threw aside
ambition, comfort, and prosperity, when as the high road to the foremost and
pleasantest preferments in the Church of England, to
enter upon the tedious life of a Roman Catholic mission priest. His new durance
called forth from him no moaning such as Newman poured out when he was sent to
work in Ireland. [.... ] Manning’s religion was free from all pious
affectation. Yet in close contact with him one felt that he was always living
in the presence of an unseen Power, not as a pompous agent, but as its simple
and humble messenger. It has been my lot to witness some of the most imposing
religious ceremonies of modern Christendom; but nothing so impressive, so
faith-inspiring has ever met my eyes as the sight of the noble old Englishman
in his threadbare cassock kneeling alone before the altar of his bare chapel.”
[......] “I became a Catholic off my own bat” (Manning) exclaimed to
indicate the lack of conviction in the Oxford converts. Afterwards the
conversation moved to theological ground, and Manning’s tone changed. “From an
observation you made”, he said, “I gather that you are under the impression
that Doctor Newman is a good Catholic.” I replied that such was my vague
belief. He retorted: “Either you are ignorant of the Catholic doctrine, or of
the works of Doctor Newman” - he always said ‘Doctor Newman’ in Oxford fashion,
and never gave him the title of Cardinal. After asking me which of Newman’s
books I had read, he proceeded to tick off on his tapering fingers, in his
usual way, ten distinct heresies to be found in the most widely-read works of
Dr. Newman.” [.....] To Msgr. Talbot Manning wrote, “. . . an English
Catholicism, of which Newman is the highest type. It is the old Anglican,
patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the Church... In one word,
it is a worldly Catholicism, and it will have the worldly on its side, and will
deceive many. [....] He is the most dangerous man in England.”
Richard Sartino, Another Look at Cardinal Newman, quoting J. E. C. Bodley, a Protestant and Mason, on Cardinal Newman and
Cardinal Manning
Whoever dwells
in the protection of the Almighty, may say to God: “You are my refuge and my
castle, Lord, whom I trust”.
Psalm 90: 1-2 Invocation of St. Clement Maria Hofbauer,
taught to him by his mother
"Pray, they are ringing the Angelus."
St. Clement Maria Hofbauer’s last words
St.
Ignatius on Penance
Neither mortification of the body nor that of the passions should be
deferred to old age, old age is uncertain, and does not allow of severity being
used towards it. [....]Penance is divided into that which is interior and
exterior. Interior penance consists in sorrow for one’s sins, accompanied by a
firm resolution not to fall again into the same sins nor into any other.
Exterior penance is a fruit of the former, and consists in punishing oneself
for one’s past faults; which may be practised chiefly
in three ways. First, with regard to food. As to which it must be remembered
that cutting off what is superfluous is not penance but temperance. That only
is penance when we deprive ourselves of something which we might properly take;
and, in this sense, the more we succeed in cutting off, the greater and more
praiseworthy is the penance, provided it does not go so far as to destroy our
strength and to injure our health notably. Secondly, with regard to sleep. As
to the manner of taking it, it should be remarked that it is not penance to cut
off what only tends to gratify our delicacy and our sensuality. There is
penance only in depriving ourselves of part of the things which we might
properly use; and, in this sense, the more we succeed in cutting off, the better
we shall do, provided we do not greatly injure health and no notable weakness
ensues. As to the time to be given to sleep, nothing should generally be cut
off from what is expedient unless with the view of correcting
the evil habit of sleeping too much and arriving at a right measure. Thirdly,
with regard to the body. It consists in causing it to suffer sensible pain by
wearing haircloth, cords, or iron chains on the flesh ; by taking the
discipline. What appears to be most suitable and least dangerous on this point
is, that the pain should only he felt by the flesh, and not penetrate to the
bone so that the penance should cause pain and not infirmity.
Exterior penances are used
chiefly for three purposes: first, as a satisfaction for past sins; secondly, in
order to overcome oneself, that is to say, in order that sensuality may be
obedient to reason, and all the inferior parts of the soul be more subjected to
the superior; thirdly, in order to seek and find some grace or gift which a
person wishes for and desires: as, for example, if he desires to have an
interior sorrow for his sins, or to weep much for them, or for the pains and
sufferings which Christ our Lord endured in His Passion, or in order to obtain
the solution of some doubt he is in.
Fr. Xavier De Franciosi, S.J., Spirit of St. Ignatius
Seek more immediately our Divine Master Himself, I mean His most holy
gifts, embrace them, and be closely united to them. This is the happiest and
most blessed path, that which leads to, and is concerned with, eternal life. By
these gifts I mean such as it is not in our power to have when we desire them,
but which are simply bestowed on us by the Giver of all good, to Whose almighty
power no blessing is too great: such are, for example, with regard to the Divine
Majesty, intensity of faith, hope, and charity, spiritual joy and rest, tears,
deep consolations, elevation of mind, Divine impressions and illuminations, and
all other spiritual tastes and sentiments relating to such gifts, such as
humility, and profound respect for the holy Church our Mother, for those who
govern it, and for its teachers. Every one of these holy gifts should be
preferred to all bodily acts, which are only good in so far as they aim at
acquiring these gifts, or at least part of them. I do not mean by this that we
ought to seek them solely for the pleasure which we find in them: certainly
not. But recognizing that without these gifts, all our thoughts, words, and
deeds are confused, cold and troubled, we should desire these gifts in order that
by means of them they may become ardent, clear, and just, for the greater
service of God. From this it follows that we ought to wish for these precious
gifts wholly or in part, and these spiritual graces, so far as with their help
we may promote God’s greater glory. As when the body is in danger, in
consequence of excessive labours, the best thing to
do is to seek for these gifts by acts of the understanding and by moderate
exercises : so, not only will the soul be healthy, but, as a healthy mind
animates a body which is so also, the whole will become more healthy, and more
ft to serve God.
To St. Francis Borgia's regarding his "excessive austerities from
St. Ignatius."
Fr. Xavier De Franciosi, S.J., Spirit
St. of Ignatius
Unto
the Angel of the Church of Ephesus write: …
But I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first charity
(Apocalypse 2:4).
St. Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus for more than 40 years, showed himself to
be somewhat lax in preaching of the word of God to the Ephesians in the work
for their conversion. The reason for this was that he had to face the
pertinacity of both the Jews and adorers of Diana against his apostolate.
Hence, moved in part by pusillanimity and moderation and in part by human
prudence, he considered it more convenient to become softer so as not to
disturb the life of Religion by an excessive zeal or to provoke the fury of the
Gentiles against him and his flock, as happened with St. Paul, who had to face
the mob shouting against him: ‘Hail the great Diana of Ephesus’ (Acts 19: 34).
So, the first ardor of St. Timothy in preaching the Gospel grew weaker, and
this was his sin, not mortal but venial.
This also happens with persons who have authority. They sin more often by
tepidity disguised as prudence, than by imprudence under the appearance of
zeal.
The counsel of Christ given through St. John to St. Timothy corrected his
fault, and he returned to his first fervor. Actually he reproved the adorers of
Diana so ardently that he received martyrdom by their hands in the year 109 of
the Lord, on the 24th day of January, whose memory is registered in the sacred
annals of the Church.
Rev. Cornelius a Lapide, Commentarii in Sacram Scripturam
Fly then to arms; let a holy
rage animate you in the fight, and let the Christian world resound with these
words of the prophet, “Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood!”
If the Lord calls you to the defense of His heritage think not that His hand
has lost its power. Could He not send twelve legions of angels or breathe one
word and all His enemies would crumble away into dust? But God has considered
the sons of men, to open for them the road to His mercy. His goodness has
caused to dawn for you a day of safety by calling on you to avenge His glory
and His name.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, preaching the 2nd Crusade
“God's word is brief. Believe me, I speak from long experience; the
more you say, the less people will remember, and the less you say, the more
they will profit. Those who load their hearers' memory destroy it, just as you
extinguish a lamp by filling it too full or kill plants by unmeasured watering.
When a discourse is too long, the end makes one forget the middle and the
middle puts out the beginning. Indifferent preachers are bearable if they are
brief, but even good preachers become intolerable when they are lengthy. Depend
upon it, there is no more detestable quality a preacher can possess than
tediousness.”
St. Francis de Sales
It is most just that the soul, which was the first to fall, should be
the first to rise. Let us therefore defer caring for the body, until the day
when Jesus Christ will come and reform it by the Resurrection; for, in the
first coming, the Precursor says to us: “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” Observe, he says not
the maladies of the body, nor the miseries of the flesh; he says sins, which
are the malady of the soul, and the corruption of the spirit. Take heed, then,
thou my body, and wait for thy turn and time. Thou canst hinder the salvation
of the soul, and thine own safety is not within thy
reach. Let the soul labour for herself, and strive
thou too to help her, for if thou sharest in her
sufferings thou wilt share in her glory. Retard her perfection, and thou retardest thine own. Thou wilt
not be regenerated until God sees His own image restored in the soul.
St. Bernard
“A lamentable spectacle is that
presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of
novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle, it seeks to know beyond what
it is meant to know, and when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find
the truth outside the Catholic Church wherein truth is found without the
slightest shadow of error.”
St. Pius X, Pascendi
St. Anselm, in his work, “Cur
Deus Homo?” says, “As the right order requires that we should first believe the
deep things of the Christian faith before we presume to discuss them by
reason,” so it seems to me to be negligence if, after we are confirmed in the
faith, we do not study to understand what we believe. …. A knowledge and belief
of the existence of God has never been extinguished in the reason of mankind.
The polytheisms and idolatries which surrounded it were corruptions of a
central and dominant truth, which, although obscured, was never lost. And the
tradition of this truth was identified with the higher and purer operations of
the natural reason, which have been called the intellectual system of the world.
The mass of mankind, howsoever debased, were always theists. Atheists were
anomalies and exceptions, as the blind among men. The theism of the primeval
revelation formed the intellectual system of the heathen world. The theism of
the patriarchal revelation formed the intellectual system of the Hebrew race.
The theism revealed in the incarnation of God has formed the intellectual
system of the Christian world. “Sapientia aedificavit sibi domum.” The science or
knowledge of God has built for itself a tabernacle in the intellect of mankind,
inhabits it, and abides in it. The intellectual science of the world finds its
perfection in the scientific expression of the theology of faith. But from
first to last the reason of man is the disciple, not the critic, of the
revelation of God: and the highest science of the human intellect is that
which, taking its preamble from the light of nature begins in faith; and
receiving its axioms from faith, expands by the procession of truth from truth.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning,
1890
DOGMA AS THE PROXIMATE RULE OF
FAITH
"We teach and
define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when,
1. in the exercise
of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians,
2. in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority,
3. he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals
to be held by the whole church,
he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed
Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine
concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman
pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable."
VATICAN I COUNCIL
"Charity…
unites man with God so that he no longer lives for himself but for
God."
St.
Thomas Aquinas
“No sin has
greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always
detested by all those who lived according to God's law. ... Such passion for
untenable practices borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect,
unbalances an elevated and generous state of soul, drags lofty thoughts down to
base ones, makes men pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything. Furthermore, the
will, agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason
but rather the tumult of the passions. ... One who lives practicing the vice of
sodomy will suffer more pain in Hell than anyone else, because this, the worst
sin that exists.”
St. Bernardine of Siena, on the sin of Sodomy
The
Death of the Blessed Margaret Pole, the Mother of Cardinal Reginald Pole who
was the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, by order of the founder of the Anglican
Church, a womanizing serial killer.
The part which the Cardinal Reginald Pole (who was a grandnephew of
King Edward IV and Kind Richard III) had taken in the negotiation (between Pope
Paul III, Emperor Charles V, and King Francis I of France) inflamed the hatred
of Henry. Judgment of treason was pronounced against him; foreign princes were
solicited to deliver him up; and he was constantly beset with spies, and, as he
believed, with ruffians hired to take his life. At home, to wound him in the most
tender part, Henry ordered his mother, the venerable countess of Salisbury, to
be arrested and examined by the earl of Southampton, and the bishop of Ely: but
she behaved with such firmness of character, such apparent consciousness of
innocence, as completely disconcerted her accusers. Unable to extract from her
admissions sufficient matter for a criminal prosecution, Cromwell consulted the
judges, whether a person accused of treason, might not be attainted (i.e.:
convicted by a bill of attainder) without a previous trial or confession. They
replied that it would form a dangerous precedent: that no inferior tribunal
would venture on so illegal a proceeding; but that the court of parliament was
supreme, and an attainder by parliament would be good in law. This was
sufficient for the king, who sought not justice but revenge; and in a bill of
attainder, containing the names of several individuals who had been condemned
in the lower courts, were introduced those of Pole’s mother the countess, of
his nephew the son of lord Montague, and of Gertrude, relict of the marquess of Exeter, though none of them had confessed any
crime, nor been heard in their own defence. With the
fate of the young man we are not acquainted: the marchioness obtained a pardon
at the expiration of six months; and it was hoped that the king would extend
the same mercy to the countess. She was more than seventy years of age, the
nearest to King Henry in blood of all his relations, and the last in a direct
line of the Plantagenets, a family which had swayed
the English sceptre through so many generations.
Henry kept her in the Tower, probably as a hostage for the behaviour
of her son, or her friends, but at the end of two years, on account of some
provocation in which she could have had no share, ordered her to be put to
death. In the prison and on the scaffold she maintained the dignity of her rank
and descent; and when she was told to lay her head on the block, “No,” she
replied, “My head never committed treason: if you will have it you must take it
as you can.” She was held down by force and while the executioner performed his
office, exclaimed, “Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness’
sake.” Her death, or rather murder which seemed to have no rational object,
proclaimed to the world that the heart of the king was not less steeled to the
feelings of relationship and humanity, than it was inaccessible to
considerations of justice and honour; and proved an
awful admonition to his subjects, that nothing short of unlimited obedience
could shield them from the vengeance of their sovereign.
Rev. John Lingard, D.D., History of England
The ‘Remote
Rule of Faith’ is Scripture & Tradition constitute; The ‘Proximate Rule of
Faith’ is Dogma!
The definitions of the church have something of the character of
criminal jurisprudence. They are not a part of the revelation,—are not
necessary to her positive enunciation of the word, or essential to its life and
operation; but they are required to vindicate it from error, as criminal courts
pass sentences to vindicate the law which has been violated. Nobody who
comprehends any thing of the matter restricts the
word to the definitions of the church, or supposes that the definitions either
make the faith or cover the whole of the revealed word. It is not to be
supposed that nothing is believed, or to be believed that is not formally
defined by the church, for her definitions touch only so much of the faith as
has been controverted or denied. But all theological questions, however unsound
they may be, that have not been condemned or declared to be contrary to the
faith,
may be held without incurring the note of heresy, and be freely discussed, pro and con. according to the judgment or
prejudices of theologians.
Orestes Brownson,
Faith and Theology
COMMENT: Heresy has both a legal and moral definitions. A legal heretic is a
baptized Catholic who denies a revealed doctrine of faith that has been
formally defined (i.e.: a Dogma). Few of the revealed truths of the Catholic
Faith have been dogmatically defined. The dogmatic definition of Jesus Christ's
divinity was made at the Council of Nicaea in 312. Therefore, the arch heretic
Arius was a legal and moral heretic after the dogmatic declaration at the
Council. Before the Council Arius was a moral heretic. Could an Arian be saved
before the Council of Nicaea while denying the divinity of Jesus Christ? No,
but all determinations of moral culpability are in the hands of God and known
to Him alone. On the other hand, a legal heretic is guilty of manifest sin
because the imputability of guilt has been revealed
to all by God in the dogma itself. “And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in
the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will
not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican” (Matt
18:16-17).
"Sanctity
properly consists only in conformity to God’s will, expressed in a constant and
exact fulfillment of the duties of our state in life."
Pope Benedict
XV
“I also warn and exhort the same brothers that, in the preaching they
do, their words be fire-tried and pure for the utility and edification of the
people, announcing to them vices and virtues, punishment and glory, with
brevity of speech because the Lord made His words short while He was upon this
earth.”
St. Francis of Assisi
All the
“daughters” of “Sodom” and the “daughters” of “Samaria” will suffer the same
punishment!
“However, I will restore the fortunes of Sodom (homosexuality) and her
daughters, and of Samaria (religious syncretism) and her daughters, and your
fortunes (Phariseeism) along with them, so that you
may bear your disgrace and be ashamed of all you have done in giving them
[Sodom and Samaria] comfort. And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and
Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and
your daughters will return to what you were before. You would not even mention
your sister Sodom in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was
uncovered.” Ezekiel 16:54-57
On the other hand, it is certain that the Jewish Cabalistic tradition
was one of the principal mediums through which Eastern occultism (which has so
many times come to the surface in European history) has been transmitted to
modern Europe; and that many, if not all, of the recognized founders of the
eighteenth century Illuminism (including Weishaupt, Pasqualis, and
Cagliostro) were initiated into its secrets by Jewish Cabalists or drew their
inspiration and their methods from the Jewish esoteric writings. The Jewish
apologist, Bernard Lazare, states that “there were
Cabalistic Jews around the cradle of Freemasonry, as certain rites still in
existence conclusively show.”
Rev. Edward J. Cahill, S.J., The Truth About Freemasonry
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity – Even
JPII did not deny this dogma!
Pope Francis Teaches:
We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with
God has never been revoked, for “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable”
(Rom.11:29). The Church, which shares with Jews an important part of the Sacred
Scriptures, looks upon the people of the covenant and their faith as one of the
sacred roots of her own Christian identity (cf. Rom. 11:16-18). As Christians,
we cannot consider Judaism as a foreign religion; nor do we include the Jews
among those called to turn from idols and to serve the true God (cf. 1 Thes. 1:9). With them, we believe in the one God who acts
in history, and with them we accept his revealed word. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
The Church officially recognizes that the People of Israel continue to
be the Chosen People. Nowhere does it say: “You lost the game, now it is our
turn.” It is a recognition of the People of Israel. Pope Francis, On Heaven and Earth
The
Catholic Church Teaches:
Hebrews 7:18: “On the one
hand, a former commandment is annulled because of its weakness and
uselessness…”;
Hebrews 10:9: “Then he says,
‘Behold, I come to do your will.’ He takes away the first [covenant] to
establish the second [covenant]…”;
2 Corinthians 3:14: “For to
this day when they [the Jews] read the Old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away”;
Hebrews 8:7: “For if there
had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been
sought for another”;
Colossians 2:14: “Having
canceled the written code, with its decrees, that was against us and stood
opposed to us; He took it away nailing it to the cross”;
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, para. 29: “…the New Testament took the place of the Old
Law which had been abolished…but on the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the
Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the
Cross”;
The Catechism of the Council
of Trent: “…the people, aware of the abrogation of the Mosaic Law…”;
Council of Florence: [This
council] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to
the law of the Old Testament, of the Mosiac law,
which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments,
because they were established to signify something in the future, although they
were suited to the divine worship at that time, after our Lord’s coming had
been signified by them, ceased, and the sacraments of the New Testament began;
and that whoever, even after the passion, placed hope in these matters of the
law and submitted himself to them as necessary for salvation, as if faith in
Christ could not save without them, sinned mortally. Yet it does not deny that
after the passion of Christ up to the promulgation of the Gospel they could
have been observed until they were believed to be in no way necessary for
salvation; but after the promulgation of the Gospel it asserts that they cannot
be observed without the loss of eternal salvation. All, therefore, who after
that time observe circumcision and the Sabbath and the other requirements of
the law, it declares alien to the Christian faith and not in the least fit to
participate in eternal salvation, unless someday they recover from these
errors. Pope Eugene IV, Council of
Florence, Cantate Domino
Council of Trent: “but not
even the Jews by the very letter of the law of Moses were able to be liberated
or to rise therefrom”;
Cardinal Ratzinger:
“Thus the Sinai [Mosaic] Covenant is indeed superseded” (Many Religions –
One Covenant, p. 70).
St. John Chrysostom: “Yet
surely Paul’s object everywhere is to annul this Law….And with much reason; for
it was through a fear and a horror of this that the Jews obstinately opposed
grace” (Homily on Romans, 6:12); “And so while no one annuls a man’s covenant,
the covenant of God after four hundred and thirty years is annulled; for if not
that covenant but another instead of it bestows what is promised, then is it
set aside, which is most unreasonable” (Homily on Galatians, Ch 3);
St. Augustine: “Instead of
the grace of the law which has passed away, we have received the grace of the
gospel which is abiding; and instead of the shadows and types of the old
dispensation, the truth has come by Jesus Christ. Jeremiah also prophesied thus
in God’s name: ‘Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah…’ Observe what
the prophet says, not to Gentiles, who had not been partakers in any former
covenant, but to the Jewish nation. He who has given them the law by Moses,
promises in place of it the New Covenant of the gospel, that they might no
longer live in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit”
(Letters, 74, 4);
Justin Martyr: “Now, law
placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which
comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal
and final law – namely, Christ – has been given to us, and the covenant is
trustworthy…Have you not read…by Jeremiah, concerning this same new covenant,
He thus speaks: ‘Behold, the days come,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…’” (Dialogue
with Trypho, Ch 11).
John Paul II: “Christ fulfills the divine promise and supersedes
the old law.” (Redemptoris Mater)
Taken from
Robert Sungenis, The
Old Covenent: Revoked or Not Revoked?
Remember in your charity:
Remember the welfare of our expectant mother: Cecilia Zepeda, Victoria Dimmel, Vanessa LoStrocco, and
Elizabeth Allen,
Mary Lou Loftus' aunt, Susan Hendricks, who is gravely ill after emergency surgery,
Rev.
Nicholas DeProspero, a faithful Ruthenian Eastern rite Catholic priest recently
hospitalized, for his welfare,
Fred Holder,
for his
spiritual and physical welfare,
Thomas Soul,
a nursing
home patient who has suffered a stroke,
Donna Kallal, a dear friend of the Schiltz
family who is dying,
Philip Thees requests our
prayers for the heath of Mary Glatz and Lenny
and Agnus Messineo,
For the welfare of Aaron, a York resident in need of conversion,
For the spiritual welfare of Margaret Connelly is the petition of Camilla Meiser,
Linda Boyd, for her health,
Pete Schiffbauer, a cousin of Monic Bandlow who is gravely ill,
Joan R.
Barr,
the widow of F. Donald Barr who died March 7, they were married 70 years
Cole
Schneider, prayers for his welfare are requested by Camilla Meiser,
JoAnn Niekrewicz, for her recovery from a recent fall and shoulder
injury,
The Drews ask prayers for
the spiritual and physical welfare of Robert
Carballo,
Conversion of Jack
Gentry, the nephew of Camilla Meiser,
For Sr.
Maria Junipera, who took her final vows as a
nun with the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Richmond, New Hampshire
April 8,
Stephen
Bryan,
the brother of a devout Catholic religious, for his spiritual welfare,
Marie
Kolinsky,
for her health and spiritual welfare is the petition of her family,
Gene Peters requests our prayers for the conversion
of Shirley Young and Carl Loy who are dying, and the
conversion of Dawn Keithley,
Rev. Leo Carley, an eighty-nine year old priest faithful to Catholic tradition, who is
seriously ill,
For the recovery of Hayden Yanchek, the grandson of
Francis Yanchek, injured in a farming accident,
Maureen Nies, for the recovery of her health is the petition of Camilla
Meiser,
Daniel Vargs, for his health is the petition of his parents,
Art Noel, for the restoration of his
health,
For the welfare of Peg Berry and her husband, Bill,
Marianne Connelly asks prayers for Chris Foley, who is gravely ill,
and the welfare of his wife, Mary
Beth,
The spiritual welfare of the Sal & Maria Messineo family is
the petition of the Drew’s,
Liz Agosta, who is seriously ill, for her spiritual and temporal
welfare,
Warren
Hoffman, a
long time member of our Mission who is in failing health,
Patrick
Boyle,
for the recovery of his health and his spiritual welfare,
For the spiritual welfare of the Drew children,
Monica Bandlow request our
prayers for the welfare of Ray who
is recovering from a MVA, and his daughter, Sonya, and Tera Jean Kopczynski, who is in failing health, and for a
good death for Mr. Howald, Kathy
Simons, Regina Quinn, James Mulgrew, Ruth Beaucheane, John Kopczynski,
Roger & Mandy Owen
The health and spiritual welfare of Nate Schaeffer is the petition
of Gene Peters,
Peg Berry requests our prayers for her brother, William Habekost,
For the recently widowed, Maike Hickson, and her children,
For the spiritual welfare of the Carmelite nuns in Fairfield, PA,
Geralyn Zagorski, recovery of her health and
spiritual welfare and the conversion of Randal Pace is the
petition of Philip Thees,
For the grandson of
Joe & Liz Agusta,
Fr. Waters requests our
prayers for the health and spiritual welfare of Elvira Donaghy,
For the health and
conversion of Stephen Henderson,
Fr. Paul DaDamio requests our prayers for the welfare of Rob
Ward, and his sister, Debra Wagaman,
For the health and
spiritual welfare of Peggy Cummings, the neice
of Camila Meiser, who is
gravely ill,
Kaitlyn McDonald, for the recovery of her
health and spiritual welfare,
Roco Sbardella, for his health and spiritual welfare,
The Vargas’ request our prayers for the spiritual
welfare of their son, Nicholas,
Family, for the welfare of Lazarus Handley, his mother, Julia, and his brother, Raphael, with Down’s Syndrome,
Fr. Waters requests prayers for the spiritual and
physical welfare of Frank McKee,
Nancy
Bennett, for the recovery of her
health,
For the spiritual welfare of Mark Roberts, a Catholic faithful to tradition,
Joe Sentmanet request prayers
for Scott Nettles (who is in
need of conversion), who is gravely ill,
Michael Brigg requests our prayers for the health of John Romeo,
The health and welfare of Gene Peters and his sons,
Conversion of Anton
Schwartzmueller, is the paryer
request of his children,
Christine Kozin, for her health and spiritual welfare,
Teresa Gonyea, for her conversion and health, is the petition of
her grandmother, Patricia McLaughlin,
For the health of Sonya Kolinsky,
Jackie Dougherty asks our prayers for her brother, John Lee, who is gravely ill,
For the health and spiritual welfare, Meg Bradley, the granddaughter
of Rose Bradley,
Timothy
& Crisara, a couple from Maryland have requested our
prayers for their spiritual welfare,
Celine Pilegaard, the seven year old daughter of Cynthia Pilegaard, for her recovery from burn injuries,
Rafaela de Saravia, for her health and welfare,
Mary Mufide, requests our
prayers for her family,
Abbe Damien Dutertre, traditional Catholic priest arrested by Montreal
police while offering Mass,
Francis
(Frank) X. McLaughlin, for the recovery of his
health,
Nicholas
Pell,
for his health and spiritual welfare is the petition of Camilla Meizer,
Mary Kaye Petr, her health and welfare is petitioned by Camilla Meizer,
The welfare of Excellency Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,
The welfare of Rev.
Fr. Martin Skierka, who produces the
traditional Ordo in the U.S.,
For the health and welfare of Katie Wess, John Gentry, Vincent Bands,
Todd Chairs, Susan Healy and James O’Gentry is
the petition of Camilia,
Marieann Reuter, recovery
of her health, Kathy Kepner, for her health, Shane Cox, for his health, requests of Philip Thees,
The Joseph
Cox Family, their spiritual welfare,
Luis Rafael Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew, spiritual welfare,
For the health of Kim Cochran, the daughter-in-law of Joseph and Brenda
Cochran, the wife of their son Joshua,
Louie Verrecchio, Catholic apologist, who has a health problem,
John Minidis, Jr. family, for help in their spiritual
trial,
Joann DeMarco, for her health and spiritual
welfare,
Regina (Manidis) Miller, her spiritual welfare and health,
Melissa
Elena Levitt, her conversion, and welfare of her children,
For the grace of a holy death, Nancy Marie Claycomb,
Conversion of Annette
Murowski,
and her son Jimmy,
Brent Keith from Indiana has petitioned our prayers
for the Keith Family,
The welfare of the Schmedes Family, and the Mike and Mariana Donohue Family,
The spiritual welfare Robert Holmes Family,
For the spiritual and temporal welfare of Irwin Kwiat,
Fr. Waters asks our prayers for Elvira Donaghy,
Kimberly Ann, the daughter of John and
Joann DeMarco, for her health and spiritual welfare,
Mufide Rende, a traditional Catholic from India has asked our
prayers for her welfare and he family members, living and deceased,
Mary Glatz, her health and the welfare of her family,
Barbara
Harmon,
who is ill, and still cares for her
ailing parents,
Jason Green, a father of ten children,
recovery of his health,
For the health and welfare of Sorace family,
Fr. Waters asks our prayers for the health and
spiritual welfare of Brian Abramowitz,
Thomas Schiltz family, in grateful appreciation for their contribution to
the beauty of our chapel,
Welfare of Bishop
Richard Williamson, for strength and courage in the greater battles to
come,
John Rhoad, for his health and spiritual welfare,
Kathy Boyle, requests our prayers for
her welfare,
Joyce Laughman and Robert Twist, for their conversions,
Michael J.
Brigg & his family, who have helped with the needs of the Mission,
Nancy Deegan, her welfare and conversion to the Catholic Church,
Francis Paul
Diaz,
who was baptized at Ss. Peter & Paul, asks our prayers for his spiritual
welfare,
The conversion of Rene McFarland, Lori Kerr, Cary Shipman
and family, David Bash, Crystal and family, Larry Reinhart, Costanzo
Family, Kathy Scullen, Marilyn Bryant, Vicki Trahern and Time Roe are the petitions of
Gene Peters,
For the conversion of Ben & Tina Boettcher family, Karin Fraessdorf,
Eckhard Ebert, and Fahnauer
family,
Fr. Waters requests our prayers for Br. Rene, SSPX who has been ill,
and for Fr. Thomas Blute,
For the health and conversion of Kathryn Lederhos, the aunt of
David Drew,
For the welfare of Fr. Paul DaDamio and Fr. William T. Welsh,
The Drew’s ask our prayers for the welfare of Joe & Tracey Sentmanat
family, Keith & Robert Drew, Christy Koziol &
her children, Fred Nesbit and Michael Nesbit families, and Gene Peters Family, the John Manidis
Family, the Sal Messinio Family, Michael Proctor Family,
Ryan Boyle grandmother, Jane Boyle, who is failing health,
Mel Gibson
and his family, please remember in our prayers,
Rev. Timothy A. Hopkins requested our prayers for the
welfare of his Fr Jean-Luc Lafitte,
Ebert’s request our prayers for the Andreas & Jenna Ortner
Family,
Joyce Paglia has asked
prayers for George Richard Moore Sr.
& his children, and her brother, George Panell,
Philip Thees asks our
prayers for his family, for McLaughlin
Family, the welfare of Dan
& Polly Weand, the conversion of Sophia Herman, Tony Rosky,
the welfare Nancy Erdeck,
the wife of the late Deacon Erdeck, John
Calasanctis, Tony
Rosky, James Parvenski,
Kathleen Gorry,
health of mind and body of Cathy
Farrar.
Pray for the
Repose of the Souls:
Monica Bandlow petitions
our prayers for her friend, Patricia Messineo, died November 28,
Thomas Soul,
died
November 8 after receiving the last rites of the Church,
Etta Van Der Werken, a dear friend of Barbara Taffe, died 10-21-2025,
Gary Potter, Catholic writer and
apologist and great long time defender of Catholic doctrine and tradition, died
9-9-2025,
Elizabeth Gorska, who died September 9, a relative of Lidia Gjec,
Camilia Meiser
request our prayers for the souls of Peggy
Cummings and Elizabeth Genter,
Thomas A.
Nelson, founder of TAN Books and
Publishers, died August 16,
Juan D.
Gonzalez,
our former sacristan, choir director, and dear friend, died July 23,
Sal Messineo, a faithful traditional Catholic, died Augsut 14,
Patricia
Askew, a
friend of Camilla Meiser, died July 3,
Joseph Kerney, a young man whose family provided the statues of the
Sacred Heart, Mary and Joseph in our sanctuary, died May 30,
Louis
Richard Ajlouny, the father of Randa Sharpe, died May 15,
Rene Guidicessi, died April 25, an old friend of the Drews,
F. Donald
Barr, died
March 7 at 94 years of age, co-founder of Robert Francis Religious Goods, in
Philadelphia,
Dr. David
Allen White, a well known defender of the Catholic faith, died February 11,
Bishop
Richard Williamson, a renowned defender of the Catholic faith and most charitable gentleman,
died January 29,
Rodolfo
Alberto Lacayo, a cousin of Claudia Drew,
died January 4,
Genieve Wallace, died Christmas day,
Ruth Marion Beaucheane, died December 8, is the petition
of Monica Bandlow,
Ana Maria Salcedo, the sister of Mario Fiol,
died November 26,
Fr. Johin
Cardaro, a traditional Catholic priest who was found
dead in his home November 2,
Robert Carballo
asks that we remember his parents, Roberto & Aida Carballo,
and his friend, David Duclos, who died April 15,
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais who may have
been responsible for preventing the SSPX's public reconciliation with Rome in
2012, died October 8,
Lorna
Edwards, our
dear friend and loyal supporter of this Mission, died August 10,
Lois Petti, died July 28 two hours after receiving the Last
Sacraments from Fr. Waters,
Wolfgang
Smith, a
renowned Catholic scholar, mathematician, scientist, philosopher, who helped
the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, died July 19,
Willaim Glatz, a good and faithful Catholic, died July 17,
Alicio Gonzalez, a Catholic who asked for the
sacrament of Extreme Unction, unfortunately did not receive, died July 9,
John Zavodny, a faithful
Catholic who died wearing the scapular of Mt Carmel on the first Saturday of
May, requested by Phyllis Virgil,
Catherine
Martel, a lapsed Catholic, received
the last sacraments in a good disposition from Fr. Waters on March 25 and died
on April 4,
Father Basilio Méramo, a faithful priest, died
March 5, removed from the SSPX for opposing their accommodation with Rome,
Julia
McDonald,
the mother of Kyle McDonald, died March 1,
Agnus Melnick, died February 28, a long time faithful Catholic and
mother of eight children, including a traditional priest,
Kathryn
(Drew) Lederhos, of Wellesley, MA, died
February 3, 2024,
Chris Foley, the
brother of Mary Lou Loftus, died February 1,
Louis Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew, died January 30,
Fr. James
Louis Albert Campbell, a faithful priest who died December 18 at 91 years of age, and her
mother and father, Teresa and Thomas
Maher,
Charles
Harmon,
the father of Tracey Sentmanet, died October 1, after
receiving the rites of the Church,
Fr. Waters requests prayers for Elvira Donaghy, his friend and
former secretary a for Bishop Gerado Zendejas, died September 9,
Robert Hickson, a faithful Catholic apologist who died Septembber 2,
Monica Bandlow requests
prayers for her parents, Thomas &
Teresa Maher, her husband, William
Bandlow, her brother-in-law, Richard Bandlow,
her sister, Mary Maher, Fr. Christopher Darby, SSPX, who died March 17, Robert Byrne, Michelle Donofrio McDowell,
her cousin, Patricia Fabyanic, the Prefect of Our Lady’s Sodality, March
8, for John Pfeiffer who died
August 20, Theresa Hanley, died
July 23, Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara, SSPX, who died December 20, John Kinney, died December 21, Willaim Price, Jr., and Robert Arch Ward,
died January 10, and Myra,
killed in a MVA June 6,
John Sharpe,
Sr.,
died July 20,
Maria
Paulette Salazar, died June 6,
Dale Kinsey requests prayers for his wife, Katherine Kinsey, died May 17,
Richard
Giles,
who died April 29, the father of Traci Sentmanat who
converted to the Catholic faith last All Saints' Day,
Joseph
Sparks,
a devout and faithful Catholic to tradition died February 25,
Joyce Paglia, died January 21, and Anthony Paglia,
died January 28, who were responsible for the beautiful statuary in our chapel,
Joe Sentmanet request
prayers for Richard Giles and
Claude Harmon who converted
to the Catholic faith shortly before their deaths,
Rodolfo Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew,
died January 9,
Elizabeth Agosta petitions
our prayers for Joseph Napolitano,
her brother, who died January 2,
Michael Dulisse, died on December 26,
Michael
Proctor, a close friend of the Drews, died November 9,
Richard
Anthony Giles, the father-in-law of Joe Sentmanat converted
to the Catholic faith on All Saints Day, died November 5,
Robert
Kolinsky,
the husband of Sonja, died September 18,
Gabriel Schiltz, the daughter of Thomas & Gay Schiltz, died August 21,
Mary Dimmel, the mother –in-law of
Victoria Drew Dimmel, died July 18,
Michael
Nesbit,
the brother-in-law and dear friend of the Drew's, died July 14,
Thomas Thees, the brother of Philip, died
June 19,
Carmen Ragonese,
died June 22,
Juanita Mohler, a friend of Camella Meiser, died June 14,
Kathleen
Elias, died February 14,
Hernan Ortiz, the
brother of Fr. Juan Carlos Ortiz, died February 3,
Mary Ann
Boyle,
the mother of a second order Dominican nun, a first order Dominican priest, and
a SSPX priest, died January 24,
John DeMarco, who attended this Mission in
the past, died January23,
Charles
O’Brien, the father of Marlene Cox,
died December 30,
Mufide Rende
requests our prayers for the repose of the souls of her parents, Mehmet & Nedime,
Kathleen Donelly, died December 29 at 91 years of age, ran the CorMariae website,
Matthew
O'Hare,
most faithful Catholic, died at age 40 on November 30,
Rev. Patrick
J. Perez, a Catholic priest faithful to
tradition, pastor Our Lady Help of Christians, Garden Grove, CA, November 19,
Elizabeth Benedek, died December 14, requested by her niece, Agnes Vollkommer,
Dolores
Smith and Richard Costello, faithful Catholics, died
November,
Frank D’Agustino, a friend of Philp Thees, died November 8,
Fr.
Dominique Bourmaud, of the SSPX, Prior of St.
Vincent in Kansas City, died September 4,
Pablo Daniel
Silva, the brother of Elizabeth
Vargas, died August 18,
Rose Bradley, a member
of Ss. Peter & Paul, died July 14,
Patricia Ellias, died June 1, recently
returned to the Church died with the sacraments and wearing the brown scapular,
Joan Devlin, the sister-in-law of Rose
Bradley, died May 18,
William Muligan, died April 29, two days after
receiving the last sacraments,
Robert Petti, died March 19, the day after
receiving the last sacraments,
Mark
McDonald, the father of Kyle, who died
December 26,
Perla Otero, died December 2020, Leyla Otero, January 2021, cousins of
Claudia Drew,
Mehmet Rende, died December 12, who was the
father of Mary Mufide,
Joseph Gravish, died November 26, 100 year
old WWII veteran and daily communicant,
Jerome
McAdams,
the father of, died November 30,
Rev. James
O’Hara, died November 8, requested by
Alex Estrada,
Elizabeth Batko, the sacristan at St. John the
Baptist in Pottstown for over 40 years, died on First Saturday November 7
wearing the brown scapular,
William Cox, the
father of Joseph Cox, who died September 3,
James Larson, Catholic
apologists, author of War Against Being
publication, died July 6, 2020,
Hutton
Gibson, died May 12,
Sr. Regina Cordis, Immaculate Heart of Mary religious for sixty-five
years, died May 12,
Leslie Joan Matatics, devoted Catholic wife and
mother of nine children, died March 24,
Victoria Zelaya, the sister-in-law of Claudia
Drew, died March 20,
Ricardo DeSilva, died November 16, our prayers requested by his
brother, Henry DeSilva,
Rev. Fr.
Joseph F. Collins, died April 27, 2019 to whom we are indebted for establishing our
traditional pre-Bugnini Holy Week in all its beauty,
Roland H.
Allard,
a friend of the Drew’s, died September 28,
Stephen Cagorski and John Bogda, who both died wearing the brown scapular,
Cecilia LeBow, a most faithful Catholic,
Rose Cuono, died Oct 23,
Patrick Rowen, died March 25, and his brother, Daniel Rowen,
died May 15,
Sandra
Peters, the
wife of Gene Peters, who died June 10 receiving the sacraments and wearing our
Lady’s scapular,
Rev. Francis
Slupski, a priest who kept the Catholic faith and its
immemorial traditions, died May 14,
Martha Mochan, the sister of Philip Thees,
died April 8,
George
Kirsch,
our good friend and supporter of this Mission, died February 15,
For Fr.
Paul J. Theisz, died October 17, is the
petition of Fr. Waters,
Fr. Mecurio Fregapane, died Jan 12, was not a
traditional priest but always charitable,
Fr. Casimir Peterson, a priest who often offered the Mass in our
chapel and provided us with sound advice, died December 4,
Fr.
Constantine Bellasarius, a
faithful and always charitable Eastern Rite Catholic Melkite
priest, who left the Roman rite, died November 27,
Christian
Villegas,
a motor vehicle accident, his brother, Michael, requests our prayers,
John Vennari, the former editor of Catholic Family News, and for
his family’s welfare, April 4,
Mary Butler, the aunt of Fr. Samuel
Waters, died October 17,
Joseph DeMarco, the nephew of John DeMarco,
died October 3,
John Fergale, died September 25 after receiving the traditional sacramental rites of
the Church wearing the brown scapular,
John Gabor, the brother of Donna Marbach, died September 9,
Fr. Eugene
Dougherty,
a faithful priest, fittingly died on the Nativity of the BVM after receiving
the traditional Catholic sacraments,
Phyllis Schlafly, died September 5,
Helen Mackewicz, died August 14,
Mark A. Wonderlin, who died August 2,
Fr. Carl Cebollero, a faithful priest to tradition who was a friend of
Fr. Waters and Fr. DeMaio,
Jessica
Cortes,
a young mother of ten who died June 12,
Frances Toriello, a life-long Catholic faithful to tradition, died
June3, the feast of the Sacred Heart, and her husband Dan, died in 1985,
John
McLaughlin, a friend of the Drew’s, died May 22,
Angela
Montesano,
who died April 30, and her husband, Salvatore,
who died in July 3, 2013,
Charles Schultz, died
April 5, left behind nine children and many grandchildren, all traditional
Catholics,
Esperanza Lopez de Callejas,
the aunt of Claudia Drew, died March 15,
Fr. Edgardo Suelo, a faithful priest
defending our traditions who was working with Fr. Francois Chazal
in the Philippines, died February 19,
Conde McGinley, a
long time laborer for the traditional faith, died February 12, at 96 years,
The Drew family requests
your prayers for Ida Fernandez and Rita Kelley,
parishioners at St. Jude,
Fr. Stephen
Somerville,
a traditional priest who repented from his work with the Novus Ordo English translation, died December 12,
Fr. Arturo DeMaio, a priest that helped this Mission with the
sacraments and his invaluable advice, died December 2,
J. Paul Carswell, died October 15, 2015,
Solange Hertz, a great defender of our
Catholic faith, died October 3, the First Saturday of the month,
Paula P. Haigh, died October 22, a great defender of our Catholic
faith in philosophy and natural science,
Gabriella Whalin, the mother of Gabriella Schiltz,
who died August 25,
Mary
Catherine Sick, 14 year old from a large traditional Catholic family, died August 25,
Fr. Paul Trinchard, a traditional Catholic priest, died August 25,
Stephen J. Melnick, Jr., died on August 21, a long-time faithful
traditional Catholic husband and father, from Philadelphia,
Patricia
Estrada,
died July 29, her son Alex petitions our prayers for her soul,
Fr. Nicholas
Gruner, a devoted priest & faithful defender of Blessed
Virgin Mary and her Fatima message, died April 29,
Sarah E. Shindle, the grandmother of Richard Shindle,
died April 26,
Madeline Vennari, the mother of John Vennari,
died December 19,
Salvador
Baca Callejas, the uncle of Claudia Drew, died December 13,
Robert Gomez, who died in a motor vehicle
accident November 29,
Catherine
Dunn,
died September 15,
Anthony
Fraser,
the son of Hamish Fraser, died August 28,
Jeannette Rhoad, the grandmother of Devin Rhoad,
who died August 24,
John Thees, the uncle of Philip Thees,
died August 9,
Sarah
Harkins, 32 year-old mother of four
children, died July 28,
Msgr. Donald
Adams, who
offered the Indult Mass, died April 1996,
Anita Lopez, the aunt of Claudia Drew,
Fr. Kenneth
Walker,
a young traditional priest of the FSSP who was murdered in Phoenix June 11,
Fr. Waters petitions our prayers for Gilberte Violette,
the mother of Fr. Violette, who died May 6,
Pete Hays petitions our prayers for his brothers, Michael, died May 9, and James, died October 20, his
sister, Rebecca, died March17, and his mother, Lorraine Hayes who died May 4,
Philip Marbach, the father of Paul Marbach
who was the coordinator at St. Jude in Philadelphia, died April 21,
Richard Slaughtery, the elderly sacristan for the SSPX chapel in Kansas
City, died April 13,
Bernedette Marie Evans
nee Toriello, the daughter of Daniel Toriello
, died March 31, a faithful Catholic who suffered many years with MS,
Natalie Cagorski, died march 23,
Anita Lopez
de Lacayo, the aunt of Claudia Drew, who died March 21,
Mario Palmaro, Catholic lawyer, bioethicist and professor,
apologist, died March 9, welfare of his widow and children,
Daniel Boyle, the
uncle of Ryan Boyle, died March 4,
Jeanne DeRuyscher, who died on January 25,
Arthur
Harmon,
died January 18,
Fr. Waters petitions our prayers for the soul of Jeanne DeRuyscher,
who died January 17,
Joseph
Proctor,
died January 10,
Susan Scott, a devote traditional
Catholic who made the vestments for our Infant of Prague statue, died January
8,
Brother
Leonard Mary, M.I.C.M., (Fred Farrell), an early supporter and friend of Fr. Leonard
Feeney, died November 23,
John Fergale, requests our prayers for his sister Connie, who
died December 19,
Jim Capaldi, died December 15,
Brinton Creager, the son of Elizabeth Carpenter, died December
10,
Christopher Lussos, age 27, the father of one child with an expecting
wife, died November 15,
Jarett Ebeyer, 16 year old who died in his sleep, November 17, at
the request of the Kolinsky’s,
Catherine Nienaber, the mother of nine children, the youngest three
years of age, killed in MVA after Mass, 10-29,
Nancy Aldera, the sister of Frances Toriello,
died October 11, 2013 at 105 years of age,
Mary Rita Schiltz, the mother of Thomas Schiltz,
who died August 27,
William H.
(Teddy) Kennedy, Catholic author of Lucifer’s Lodge, died August 14, age 49, cause of
death unknown,
Alfred
Mercier,
the father of David Mercier, who died August 12,
The Robert Kolinsky asks our prayers for his friend, George Curilla,
who died August 23,
John Cuono, who had attended Mass at our Mission in the past,
died August 11,
Raymond
Peterson,
died July 28, and Paul Peterson,
died February 19, the brothers of Fr. Casimir
Peterson,
Margaret Brillhart, who died July 20,
Msgr. Joseph
J. McDonnell, a priest from the diocese of Des Moines, who died June 8,
Patrick
Henry Omlor, who wrote Questioning The Validity of the Masses using
the New, All English Canon, and for a series of newsletters which were published
as The Robber Church, died May 2, the feast of St Athanasius,
Bishop
Joseph McFadden, died unexpectedly May 2,
Timothy
Foley,
the brother-in-law of Michelle Marbach Folley, who died in April,
William
Sanders,
the uncle of Don Rhoad, who died April 2,
Gene Peters ask our prayers for the repose of the
soul of Mark Polaschek,
who died March 22,
Eduardo
Gomez Lopez, the uncle of Claudia Drew, February 28,
Cecelia Thees, died February 24,
Elizabeth
Marie
Gerads, a
nineteen year old, the oldest of twelve children, who died February 6,
Michael
Schwartz,
the co-author with Fr. Enrique Rueda of “Gays, Aids,
and You,” died February 3,
Stanley W.
Moore,
passed away in December 16, and Gerard (Jerry) R. Pitman, who died January 19,
who attended this Mission in the past,
Louis Fragale, who died December 25,
Fr. Luigi
Villa, Th.D. author of Vatican II About
Face! detailing the heresies of Vatican II, died November 18 at the age of 95,
Rev. Michael
Jarecki, a faithful traditional Catholic priest who died
October 22,
Jennie Salaneck, died September 19 at 95
years of age, a devout and faithful Catholic all her life,
Dorothy Sabo, who died September 26,
Cynthia
(Cindy) Montesano Reinhert, the mother of nine
children, four who are still at home, died August 19,
Stanley Spahalski, who died October 20, and his wife, Regina Spahalski,
who died June 24, and for the soul of Francis
Lester, her son,
Julia
Atkinson,
who died April 30,
Antonio P.
Garcia,
who died January 6, 2012 and the welfare of his teenage children, Andriana and Quentin,
Helen Crane, the aunt of David Drew who
died February 27,
Fr. Timothy
A. Hopkins,
of the National Shrine of St. Philomena, in Miami, November 2,
Frank Smith, who died February 7, and
the welfare of his wife, Delores,
Eduardo Cepeda, who died January 26,
Larry Young, the 47 year old father of
twelve who died December 10 and the welfare of his wife Katherine and their
family,
Sister Mary
Bernadette, M.I.C.M., a founding member of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, died
December 16,
Joeseph Elias, who died on September 28,
William, the brother of Fr. Waters,
who died September 7,
Donald Tonelli, died August 1,
Rev. Fr.
Gregory Hesse, of Austria, a great defender of Catholic
Truth, died January 25, 2006,
Emma Colasanti, who died May 29,
Mary Dullesse, who died April 12, a Catholic convert who died
wearing our Lady’s scapular,
Ruth Jantsch, the grandmother of Andre Ebert, who died April 7,
Derrick and Denise Palengat, his godparents,
Philip D.
Barr,
died March 5, and the welfare of his family,
Judith Irene
Kenealy, the mother of Joyce Paglia,
who died February 23, and her son, George Richard Moore, who died May 14,
For Joe Sobran who died September 30,
Fr. Hector
Bolduc,
a great and faithful priest, died, September 10, 2012,
James &
Jean Rowan
and their sons, Patrick & Daniel,
John Vennari asks our
prayers for Dr. Raphael Waters
who died August 26,
Stanley Bodalsky, the father of Mary Ann Boyle who died June 25,
Mary Isabel Kilfoyle Humphreys, a former York resident and friend of the
Drew’s, who died June 6,
Rev. John
Campion,
who offered the traditional Mass for us every first Friday until forbidden to
do so by Bishop Dattilo, died May 1,
Joseph Montagne, who died May 5,
For Margaret
Vagedes, the aunt of Charles Zepeda, who died
January 6,
Fr. Michael
Shear, a
Byzantine rite Catholic priest, died August 17, 2006,
Fr. James
Francis Wathen, died November 7, 2006, author of The Great Sacrilege and Who Shall Ascend?, a great defender of
dogma and liturgical purity,
Fr. Enrique Rueda, who died December 14, 2009, to whom our Mission is
indebted,
Fr. Peterson asks to remember, Leonard Edward Peterson, his cousin, Wanda, Angelica Franquelli, and the six
priests ordained with him.
Philip Thees petitions our
prayers for Beverly Romanick, Deacon Michael Erdeck,
Henry J. Phillips, Grace Prestano, Connie DiMaggio,
Elizabeth Thorhas, Elizabeth Thees,
Theresa Feraker, Hellen Pestrock, and James & Rose Gomata,
and Kathleen Heinbach,
Fr. Didier Bonneterre, the author of The Liturgical Movement, and Fr. John
Peek, both were traditional priests,
Brother
Francis, MICM, the superior of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in
Richmond, NH, who died September 5,
Rodolfo Zelaya Montealegre, the father of Claudia Drew,
who died May 24,
Rev. Francis
Clifford,
a devout and humble traditional priest, who died on March 7,
Benjamin Sorace, the uncle of Sonja Kolinsky.
And, lastly, to sum all up in a word. As the Incarnation is God’s Book
of Life, the knowledge of his Sacred Heart is the interpretation and the
unfolding of that Book. The whole mystery of God and of man, and the relations
of God and man in grace and in glory, are all written in the Sacred Heart. They
that know the Sacred Heart know God; they that love the Sacred Heart love God;
and they that are made like to the Sacred Heart are made like to God. It is the
compendium of the whole science of God, of the whole way of salvation, of the
whole gospel of eternal life.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The
Sacred Heart, God's Way of Love
Novus
Ordo Popes and their “subtle” sins against the
Catholic Faith
Many men sin against Faith in
an even more subtle way through the sins against the Holy Ghost, namely, the
sins of despair, presumption, impenitence, obstinacy, resisting the known truth
and envy of someone else's spiritual good.
The sins against the Holy Ghost are not sins of weakness or ignorance. They are sins of certain malice. By despair a man rejects God's goodness and
mercy. By presumption he rejects God's
justice. By impenitence he refuses to
turn from sin to God. By obstinacy a man
hardens his will in sin. A man sins in
resisting the known truth because he does so in order to sin more freely. Lastly a man sins by envying someone else's
spiritual good because he hates the increase of God's grace in the world. In all these sins there is great danger for
man because these sins mean that man is deliberately refusing to consider those
truths and motives which would keep him from sin and enable him to turn to
God. It is for this reason that the sins
against the Holy Ghost are said to be unforgivable. It is not that God is unwilling to forgive
any sins. It is rather that in these
sins a man shows that he does not wish forgiveness.
Fr. Walter Farrell, O.P.,
S.T.M., My Way of Life, Pocket edition of St. Thomas
Pope Leo:
Don’t let tension between tradition, novelty become ‘harmful polarizations’
EWTN | Victoria Cardiel | October 27, 2025
Pope Leo XIV said at a Mass on Sunday that
no one in the Church “should impose his or her own ideas” and asked that
tensions between tradition and novelty not become “ideological contrapositions
and harmful polarizations.”
“The supreme rule in the Church is love. No one is called to dominate;
all are called to serve,” Leo said in St. Peter’s Basilica on Oct. 26.
“No one should impose his or her own ideas; we must all listen to
one another,” he continued. “No one is excluded; we are all called to
participate. No one possesses the whole truth; we must all humbly seek it and
seek it together.” [.....]
COMMENT: The problem is this: the love of novelty is an
ideology, Tradition along with sacred Scripture is divine revelation. The
Church always and everywhere has condemned novelty until Vatican II and the
Novus Ordo Church of Novelty embraced it. The conflict between novelty and
tradition is the conflict between God's revelation and demonic lies; the
conflict between the Church and the World. Those who are faithful to tradition
do not "impose their own ideas" but defend God's revealed truth
against the novelty of the world. The Novus Ordo Novelty Church is "seeking
truth"; the Church of Jesus Christ possesses it. Pope Leo like his
predecessor likes to characterize tradition as rigid and dead and the novelty
of modernism as mature and hopeful. This was once an intensely debated matter
but, at this time, after all the wreckage of the last 50 years all tradition
has to do is to point at the fruit of Vatican II novelty. Both Leo and his
predecessor Francis worked in South America. The total population of South and
Central America is about 600 million. Since Vatican II about 300 million have
apostatized from the Catholic Church. These last two popes have personally
presided over the greatest apostasy over the shortest period of time in the
history of the Catholic Church. Anything Leo has to say, as long as he is not
sitting in the Chair of Peter, must be examined in light of this record.
Fruit
of Vatican II - Apostasy
In Honduras, the country of the once most powerful man in the Roman
Curia under Francis/Bergoglio, Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, a personally
corrupt and immoral man who had been a bishop in the capital since 1978, first as auxiliary then
as Archbishop for 30 years, the hierarchy led by him managed the amazing feat of transforming that country
in the first Catholic-minority nation in Central America, a vertiginous fall
from 94% to 46% in the same period - and the same happened in
Uruguay, across the Rio de la Plata from (Bergoglio's home) Buenos Aires.
Rorate Caeli
Data Collapse of Catholic Faith in Latin America from 2014 presided
over by Pope Leo/Provost and his predecessor Francis/Begoglio
The
“received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used
in the solemn administration of the sacraments”:
…..Because, as we will see, Catholics must celebrate only the “received and approved rites” of the Church as a matter of Divine Law.
God revealed this truth in Scripture through St. Paul. Before St. Paul
teaches the Corinthians liturgical and theological details concerning the Holy
Mass (consecration formula, Real Presence), he prefaces his teaching by
affirming: “For I have received
of the Lord that which I also delivered
unto you…” (I Cor 11:23). St. Paul says again: “For I delivered
unto you first of all, which I also received” (1Cor 15:3). In these and other
verses, St. Paul emphasizes that we must believe and practice only what we have
“received” from Christ and the apostles which has been “delivered” unto us, and
which includes the liturgical rites of the Church. This is a divinely revealed
truth and a matter of Faith.
The Church has taught this divine truth throughout her history. For
example, in the Papal Oath of Coronation, which originates at least as far back
as Pope St. Agatho in 678 A.D. (and which was set aside by Paul VI), every Pope
swore to change nothing of the “received tradition.” Pope
Pius IV’s Tridentine Profession of Faith, which is binding on the souls of all
Catholics, likewise expresses this principle by requiring adherence to the “received and approved rites of the
Catholic Church used in the solemn administration of the sacraments.” The “received and approved rites of the Church”
originate from the Spirit of Christ and the traditions of the apostles which
have been handed down to us through the ages.
Because the “received and approved rites” are part of the Church’s infallible
expression of the unchanging Deposit of Faith, as inspired and nurtured by the
Holy Ghost, they cannot be set aside or changed into new rites. This is why the
Ecumenical Council of Trent (1545-1563) infallibly declared:
“If anyone says that the received and approved rites
of the Catholic Church, accustomed to be used in the administration of the
sacraments, may be despised or omitted by the ministers without sin and at
their pleasure, or may be changed
by any pastor of the churches to other new ones, let him be anathema.”
Because the Council declares anathema (that is, condemned, or severed
from the Body of Christ) anyone who would set aside or change into new rites
the already “received and approved
rites” of the Church, proves that adherence to the “received and approved rites” is a matter of Divine Law. The
absolute necessity to preserve the substance of the Church’s ancient liturgical
rites is a requirement of the Faith because the rites preserve and express that
Faith. To hold that the Church’s rites can change implies a belief that the
Church’s doctrines can change, because the rites preserve and express the
doctrines. Hence, those who do not preserve the Church’s rites (by omitting or changing
them) are objectively anathema
because they sin against the Faith itself.
In light of the foregoing
condemnation, the Holy Council of Trent directed that the Roman Missal be
restored so that the faithful would know once and for all what is the “received and approved rite” of Mass.
To that end, Pope St. Pius V issued his papal bull Quo Primum Tempore to legally codify “the decrees of the Holy Council of Trent”
and render a definitive application of the Divine Law dogmatized by the
Council. This judgment mandated a single usage of the Roman rite for the Latin
Church, with some minor exceptions for usages greater than 200 years old, “in order that what has been handed down by
the most holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the rest of the churches
may be accepted and observed by all everywhere.” Hence, the sainted Pope
declared the oft-called “Tridentine
Mass” to be the “received and
approved rite” of the Church, and which precluded the creation of any “new
rite” of Mass in the future. Further, because Quo Primum is an infallible application of
Divine Law (that is, we must use only the “received
and approved rites”), St. Pius V rightly declared the decree to be
irreformable and valid forever.
This brings us to the inevitable and
troubling question: Is the
Novus Ordo a “new rite” of Mass that comes under the anathema of the Council of
Trent, as definitively interpreted by St. Pius V in Quo Primum? The name of the
rite itself (Novus Ordo
which means “new order” or “new ordinary” of the Mass) certainly suggests the
same. More importantly, so do the words of Pope Paul VI. In his November 19,
1969 General Audience address, Paul VI refers to the Novus Ordo as a “new rite” of
Mass several times, for example: “We wish to draw your attention to an event
about to occur in the Latin Catholic Church: the introduction of the liturgy of
the new rite of the Mass.”
He also says, “In the new rite you will find the relationship between the
Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist...”
We also consider the statements of
the members of Paul VI’s liturgical commission that created the New Mass, such
as the secretary and head of the commission, Fr. Annibale Bugnini, who said:
“It is not simply a question of restoring a valuable masterpiece, in some cases
it will be necessary to provide new
structures for entire rites…it will truly be a new creation.” Bugnini’s
assistant, Fr. Carlos Braga, also stated that the New Mass has “an entirely new foundation of
Eucharistic theology” and whose “ecumenical requirements” are “in harmony with
the Church’s new positions.”
Fr. Joseph Gelineau, one of the most influential members of the commission,
also said: “To tell you the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This
needs to be said without ambiguity: the
Roman rite as we knew it no
longer exists.” Therefore, both Paul VI and his appointed
authors of the Novus Ordo admitted that the New Mass is not the rite “received”
from tradition, but rather a rite created by innovation – an entirely
unprecedented act in the history of the Church.
But we should not rely on these
statements alone. While they may reveal the intent of the innovators, it is
still necessary to look at the substance of the Novus Ordo rite itself. As we have seen, the
Council of Trent and St. Pius V intended to preserve the substantial identity
of the Roman rite forever. If the New Mass does not preserve this identity,
then it cannot be considered the “received
and approved rite” of the Catholic Church no matter what anyone says. Even
the Second Vatican Council, which did not (and could not) mandate the creation
of a new rite of Mass, recognized this truth by directing that the rites “be revised carefully in the light of sound
tradition” with “due care being
taken to preserve their
substance.”
The Council of Trent’s condemnation of omitting or changing the “received and approved rites” into “new rites” is best understood by
referring to one of the oldest maxims of the Church’s sacred theology: “legem
credendi statuit lex orandi.” This is a Latin phrase which means
“the rule of prayer determines the rule of faith” (often referred to as “lex orandi, lex credendi”). In
other words, the way we pray determines what we believe. If a liturgical
tradition which expresses a doctrine of the Faith is altered or removed
altogether, the underlying doctrine will necessarily be compromised. This is
why the “received and approved rites”
must be faithfully preserved and never transformed into “other new ones” as declared by Trent.
…… However, the Novus
Ordo Missae deviates from the Roman Missal of St. Pius V to such an
extent that it no longer retains the substantial identity of the Roman rite.
Even before the introduction of such abuses as audible canons, vernacular and versus populum (toward the
people) celebrations, lay ministers, Communion under both species, Communion in
the hand to standing communicants and the like, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci
advised Paul VI that “the Novus Ordo represents, both as
a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of
the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.”
Consequently, Cardinal Ottaviani (who, as head of the Holy Office, was
responsible for safeguarding the doctrine of the Faith), in his famous
intervention, concluded that the Novus Ordo was indeed a different rite of
Mass.
For example, Ottaviani says: “To abandon a liturgical tradition which
for four centuries stood as a sign and pledge of unity in worship, and to replace
it with another liturgy which, due to the countless liberties it
implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division – a liturgy which
teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the
Catholic Faith – is, we feel bound in conscience to proclaim, an
incalculable error.” He also says,
“It is obvious that the New
Order of Mass has no intention of presenting the Faith taught by the
Council of Trent. But it is to this Faith that the Catholic
conscience is bound forever.” Accordingly, Ottaviani appealed to Paul VI “not to deprive us of the possibility of
continuing to have recourse to the integral
and fruitful Missal of St. Pius V, so highly praised by Your
Holiness, and so deeply venerated by the whole Catholic world.” Therefore,
both the critics and the
creators of the New Mass, including Paul VI himself, agree that the
Novus Ordo differs
in substance from
the Tridentine Missal and, hence, constitutes a “new rite” of Mass.
John
Salza, J.D., The Novus Ordo Mass and Divine
Law, excerpt from Catholic Family News
He
failed on two occasions, 1942 & 1952, to consecrate Russia to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary as our Lady requested!
He contributed his share in liturgical destruction by establishing the
liturgical commission under Bugnini in 1948 and having Bea, his personal
confessor, undertake a new Latin translation of the Psalms.
“I am concerned about the messages of the Virgin to the little Lucia of
Fatima. This persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens
the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the
Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent. I hear
around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the
universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her
remorseful for her historical past.”
Pope Pius XII, 1933
And
now, addressing the “false prophets that exploit fear and hopelessness to sell
magical formulas of hate and cruelty,” Pope Francis again insults the Catholic
Faith as known and practiced by all our forefathers!
COMMENT: Pope Francis often referenced St. Vincent of Lérins as if his
understanding of Tradition is in accord with that of the great Church
Father. It most certainly was not which
is evident to anyone familiar with his writings. This corruption can only be
attributed to malice. Francis the
Lutheran and St. Vincent the Catholic did not profess the same Faith and only
one of them is the Faith without which it is impossible to please God. Francis characterized faithfulness to the
revelation of God as “rigidity” which was itself attributed to deeper
psychological and moral failings of traditional Catholics. “Love is not rigid,”
claimed Francis while he counseled the overthrow of God’s commandments, but St.
John the Apostle of Love and devotee of the Sacred Heart reports a very
different Gospel of Jesus Christ:
· If you love me, keep my commandments. John 14:15
· If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; as I also have
kept my Father’ s commandments, and do abide in his love. John 15:10
· He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth
me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him,
and will manifest myself to him. John 14:21
· Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my
word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our
abode with him. John 14:23
· In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and
keep his commandments. 1 John 5:2
· And by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his
commandments. 1 John 2:3
Love is never lax or slothful in its pious attention to duty. The laxism and sloth of Pope Francis was
because without Faith, he had no true love of God.
In Pascendi, St. Pius X’s
condemnation of the heresy of Modernism, the word novelty occurs twelve times always in a severely critical sense.
After the 50th anniversary of the Modernist Novus Ordo Missa, Paul
VI was right in that “This
novelty is no small thing.”
“We must prepare for this many-sided
inconvenience. It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits. We
shall notice that pious
persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way
of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and
obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this
respect. So what is to be done on this special and historical occasion? First
of all, we must prepare ourselves. This novelty is no small thing.”
Pope Paul VI, Changes in Mass for Greater
Apostolate, General Audience, November 26, 1969
“One must
resist the Pope who openly destroys the Church.”
St. Cajetan
“When a foulness
invades the whole Church, we must return to the Church of the past.”
St. Vincent of
Lerins
“Just as it is
licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so it is licit to resist him
who attacks souls, or who disturbs the civil order, or, above all, him who
tries to destroy the Church. It is licit
to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his
will.”
St. Robert
Bellarmine
“They (the
keys of authority given Jesus Christ to St. Peter) will never cease to be durable,
they will last forever and they will never break.”
God the Father
to St. Catherine of Siena
“We have had
enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry
out with a hundred thousand tongues. I
see that the world is rotten because of silence.”
St. Catherine
of Siena
“The devil is
always discovering something novel against the truth.”
Pope Leo the
Great
Leo
the Homosexual following in the way of Francis the Homosexual.
Pictured
below is Leo and Francis both greeting homosexual "married" couples
for public photo-ops. The other pictures are Francis and Leo both slumming around
with the pervert James Martin.
The
Vatican is in the hands of the Homosexual Lobby. We must pray to God to purge
His Church of this gross perversion.
Preaching
to the DEAF!
You gather here today, present-day
apostles, as the Church and, therefore, the world stand perched on the edge of
a cliff. And yet you who are entrusted with the keeping of souls choose to
speak not a word of the spiritual danger which abounds. Today we stand on the cusp of all
that has been prophesied about the Church and the abominations which would come
forth in these times, a time when all of hell attacks the Church of Jesus
Christ, and a time when the fallen angels of hell no longer seek entry into her
sacred halls but instead stand inside, peeking out of her windows and unlocking
doors to welcome in more diabolical destruction.
Do you not know that Our Lord will send forth His
avenging angels to heap coals of fire upon the heads of those who were called
to be His apostles and who have not guarded what He has given unto them?
And yet almost all of you, my brothers, stood by
silently watching as the Synod on Synodality took place, an
abomination constructed not to guard the Deposit of Faith, but to dismantle it,
and yet few were the cries heard from you – men who should be willing to die
for Christ and His Church.
The Synod’s final document has been released,
yet with the sleight of hand which is so characteristic of the
Francis-controlled Vatican. By drawing attention to the issues which
worried many, they have slipped in what was always their real goal without
anyone even noticing. What they were after in the first place was the
dismantling of Christ’s Church by replacing the structure of the Church as
Our Lord instituted it with a diabolically-inspired new structure of
“synodality” which in actuality is a new church that is in no way Catholic.
Bishop
Joseph Strickland, former bishop of Tyler, TX who was removed from his office
by Pope Francis the Diabolical for preaching Catholic truth, addressing the
U.S. bishops gathered at their annual meeting
Latae sententiae
crimes in the external forum require a determination of guilt!
“A
sentence declaratory of the offence is always necessary in the forum externum,
since in this tribunal no one is presumed to be excommunicated unless convicted
of a crime that entail such a penalty.”
Pope
Benedict XIV, De syndod, X, I, 5
COMMENT: Recently a group of young men and women
missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were
doing their required missionary work in central city York. A friendly
theological discussion took place on the steps of our Mission chapel. The friendly
exchanged ended and the climate cooled when the question about the exact number
of Joseph Smith's and Brigham Young's wives was brought up. Mormons believe
that Jesus Christ founded one Church. They believe that that Church became
corrupted and God abandoned it. God then, centuries later, reconstituted His
Church when the angel Moroni lead the illiterate Joseph Smith to a hidden book
and provided him with mystical spectacles permitting him to read it. When you
ask a Mormon how is it that Jesus Christ promised to be with His Church until
the end of time and taught that marriage is between one man and one woman until
death, why is it that they believe Joseph Smith or Brigham Young and not
believe Jesus Christ? They answer by walking away. Jesus Christ uses the
metaphor of marriage to describe His relationship with His Church and with each
of the faithful individually. Every man-made heretical and schismatic sect
eventually repudiates marriage because they cannot abide the metaphor. Luther
permitted bigamy. The Orthodox permit divorce and remarriage three times.
Joseph Smith had "up to forty wives" and Brigham Young had "fifty-six
wives, twenty-one had never been married before; seventeen were widows; six
were divorced; six had living husbands; and the marital status of six others is
unknown. Nine of his wives had previously been plural wives of Joseph Smith,
and Young was sealed to them as a proxy for Smith" (WIKI). The
first clue to the Mormons that they were
being lead into a spiritual desert was polygamy but some like the desert.
Mormons claim that Brigham Young saw the light and abandoned the practice for
the Latter Day Saints but this occurred only after the U.S. government told
they to give it up or get out. Although Mormons are no longer polygamists, they
permit divorce and "temple" remarriage which is just serial polygamy.
These "missionaries" now know that Jesus Christ did not abandon His
Church and will not do so no matter how corrupt churchmen become. The Catholic
Church alone offers the possibility of salvation.
It’s Official: Mormon Founder Had Up to 40 Wives...
Mormon leaders have acknowledged for the first time that the church’s
founder and prophet, Joseph Smith, portrayed in church materials as a loyal partner
to his loving spouse Emma, took as many as 40 wives, some already married and
one only 14 years old.... The biggest
bombshell for some in the essays is that Smith married women who were already
married, some to men who were Smith’s friends and followers.
Religious
Liberty from Vatican II has its root in the Americanist Heresy
On every side the dread phantom of war holds
sway: there is scarce room for another thought in the minds of men. The combatants
are the greatest and wealthiest nations of the earth; what wonder, then, if,
well provided with the most awful weapons modern military science has devised,
they strive to destroy one another with refinements of horror. There is no
limit to the measure of ruin and of slaughter; day by day the earth is drenched
with newly-shed blood, and is covered with the bodies of the wounded and of the
slain. Who would imagine as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another,
that they are all of one common stock, all of the same nature, all members of
the same human society? ....We implore those in whose hands are placed the
fortunes of nations to hearken to Our voice. Surely there are other ways and
means whereby violated rights can be rectified. Let them be tried honestly and
with good will, and let arms meanwhile be laid aside.
Benedict XV, Ad beatissimi apostolorum, November 1, 1914
“We consider the establishment of our
country’s independence, the shaping of its liberties and laws, as a work of
special Providence, its framers ‘building better than they knew,’ the
Almighty’s hand guiding them. We believe that our country’s heroes were the
instruments of the God of nations in establishing this home of freedom; to both
the Almighty and to His instruments in the work we look with grateful
reverence. And to maintain the inheritance of freedom which they have left us,
should it ever–which God forbid—be imperiled, our Catholic citizens will be
found to stand forward as one man, ready to pledge anew ‘their lives, their
fortunes, and their sacred honor.’”
Archbishop (soon to be Cardinal) James
Gibbons, addressing the American bishops at the Third Plenary Council of
Baltimore, 1884 attended by 14 archbishops and 61 bishops.
Moved to the very depths of our hearts by the
stirring appeal of the President of the United States, and by the action of our
national Congress, we accept whole-heartedly and unreservedly the decree of
that legislative authority proclaiming this country to be in a state of war.
Inspired neither by hate nor fear, but by the holy sentiments of truest
patriotic fervor and zeal, we stand ready, we and all the flock committed to
our keeping, to cooperate in every way possible with our President and our
national government, to the end that the great and holy cause of liberty may
triumph and that our beloved country may emerge from this hour of test stronger
and nobler than ever. Our people, as ever, will rise as one man to serve the
nation.
Pledge of U.S. Catholic Archbishops, April
18, 1917; sent to President Woodrow Wilson by Cardinal James Gibbons,
Archbishop of Baltimore, the leading Catholic prelate in the United States.
“The primary duty of a citizen is loyalty to
country. It is exhibited by an absolute and unreserved obedience to his
country’s call.”
Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of
Baltimore (1877-1921), April 1917 in support of the U.S. declaration of war
against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Balfour Declaration agreement
committed the British to deliver Palestine into Jewish hands in return for the
Jews bringing the United States into WWI in support of the British. Cardinal
James Gibbons was the chief propagator of the heresy of Americanism which
became settled Novus Ordo doctrine after Vatican II (religious liberty)
primarily by the work of Fr. John Courtney Murray who greatly admired Cardinal
Gibbons. Gibbons did his best to align American Catholics with Jewish interests
to bring the United States into the Great War. In doing so Gibbons worked
directly to undermine the peace plans of Pope Benedict XV. Pope Benedict
devised a generous peace plan and contacted Cardinal Gibbons to do what he
could to influence the United States government to back his offer of a
negotiated peace. Gibbons did nothing of the sort. While giving lip service to
the Pope's peace plan six months too late, he in fact never contacted President
Wilson or any official of the government to even mention Pope Benedict's peace
plan. Gibbons was too busy building the National Catholic War Council (NCWC)
and supporting the call of universal military service. The purpose of the NCWC
as Gibbons said in a letter to all American bishops was to form “the mental and
moral preparation of our people for the war.”
To
Congar's credit, he at least told the truth about what he helped destroy!
“It cannot be denied that the
Declaration on Religious Liberty does say materially something else than the
Syllabus of 1864; it even says just about the opposite of Propositions 15 and 77 to 79 of this
document..... I collaborated on the final paragraphs which left me less
satisfied. It involved demonstrating
that the theme of religious liberty was already contained in Scripture. Now, it
isn't there.”
Cardinal Yves Marie Joseph Congar, O.P., forbidden to teach by
the Church and whose books were suppressed in the early 1950s, made a peritus
at Vatican II by Novus Ordo St. John XXIII, and is considered by many to have
been the most influential of all the periti. He was raised to the cardinalate
by Novus Ordo St. John Paul II. He rejected the dogmatic teaching of Trent
which his teacher and mentor, Fr. Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., derisively called “Baroque
theology”.
Excerpts
from the Diary of Msgr. Joseph Fenton:
·
“He [Cardinal
Ottaviani] remarked that we were on the eve of the Council, and that no one
knew who the Council’s theologians were to be.” (Sept. 28, 1962)
·
“It is a
crime that we did not take the Anti-Modernist Oath. Poor O[ttaviani] must have
failed to have our own profession passed by the central commission. It
contained his condemnation of [Fr. John Courtney] Murray [the Americanist
heretic who structured the Council teaching on Religious Liberty].” (Oct. 9,
1962)
·
“I had
always thought that this council was dangerous. It was started for no
sufficient reason. There was too much talk about what it was supposed to
accomplish. Now I am afraid that real trouble is on the way.” (Oct. 13,
1962)
·
“I
started to read the material on the Liturgy, and I was shocked at the bad
theology. They actually have been stupid enough [to say] that the Church
is ‘simul humanam et divininam, visibilem et invisibilem’ [at the same
time human and divine, visible and invisible]. And they speak of the Church
working ‘quousque unum ovile fiat et unus pastor’ [until there be one fold
and one shepherd], as if that condition were not already achieved.” (Oct. 19,
1962)
·
“I do not
think that any little work on our part is going to bring good to the Church. We
should, I believe, face the facts. Since the death of [Pope] St. Pius X the
Church has been directed by weak and liberal popes, who have flooded the
hierarchy with unworthy and stupid men. This present conciliar set-up makes
this all the more apparent. [Fr.] Ed Hanahoe, the only intelligent and
faithful member of [Cardinal] Bea’s secretariat has been left off the list of
the periti. Such idiots as [Mgr. John
S.] Quinn and the sneak [Fr. Frederick] McManus have been put on. [Fr. George]
Tavard is there as an American, God help us. From surface appearance it
would seem that the Lord Christ is abandoning His Church. The thoughts of many
are being revealed. As one priest used to say, to excuse his own
liberalism, which, in the bottom of his heart he knew was wrong, ‘for the
last few decades the tendency in Rome has been to favor the
liberals.’ That is the policy now. We can only do what we can to
overt an ever more complete disloyalty to Christ.” (Oct. 19, 1962)
·
“[Fr.] Ed
Hanahoe gave me two books on Modernism. In one of them I found evidence that
the teaching in the first chapter of the new schema on the Church [that became
the Vatican II dogmatic constitution Lumen
Gentium] and the language are those of [the excommunicated Modernist Fr.
George Tyrrell [who died outside the Catholic Church and was denied
ecclesiastical burial]. May God preserve His Church from that chapter. If it
passes, it will be a great evil. I must pray and act.” (Sept. 24, 1963)
Paul
VI declared Novus Ordo Saint. So just what is a “Novus Ordo Saint”?
A Novus Ordo Saint is a man-made saint. Contrasted with Catholic saints
who are God-made saints. In virtue of their union with God they are sanctified,
and therefore, Catholic Saints exhibit heroic virtue in their lives. God
confirms their sanctity by working miracles through their intercession and
thus, a cult of veneration (dulia) develops and spreads throughout the Church.
The Church recognizes God's evidence that they are saints and declares this
fact to the universal Church. Contrary to this, Novus Ordo Saints are man-made
saints and their elevation to the title of sainthood is for the purpose of
promoting the human ideology exemplified in their lives. There is no real cult
of veneration (dulia) among the faithful to Novus Ordo Saints. Since God does
not work true miracles through the intercession of man-made saints, only
man-made miracles are required for the beatification of man-made Novus Ordo
Saints. Finally, the Novus Ordo beatification process does have a promotor
fidei, the so-called “devil’s advocate,” although his role has been change
as the promotor ideologiae. The greatest difference between Catholic Saints and
Novus Ordo Saints is that the former are in heaven and the latter, very well
may not be.
COMMENT
ON THE MODERN MIND DEVOID OF GOD’S GRACE
“But
instead of a mind, universal literacy has given [the common man] a rubber
stamp, a rubber stamp inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with
published scientific data, with the trivialities of tabloids and the
profundities of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man's
rubber stamp is the twin of millions of others, so that when these millions are
exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. [...] The amazing
readiness with which large masses accept this process is probably accounted for
by the fact that no attempt is made to convince them that black is white.
Instead, their preconceived hazy ideas that a certain gray is almost black or
almost white are brought into sharper focus. Their prejudices, notions, and
convictions are used as a starting point, with the result that they are drawn
by a thread into passionate adherence to a given mental picture.”
Edward
Bernays, from his book, The Minority
Rules, 1927. Bernays was a Jewish double nephew of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer
in public relations and propaganda. He was called "the father of public
relations" in his obituary. Bernays was named one of the 100 most
influential Americans of the 20th century by Life Magazine. He was the subject
of a full-length biography called The Father of Spin (1999) and later an
award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC called The Century of the Self. (Wiki)
"Pray for
the conversion of Russia." Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima
Your must understand. The leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were
not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic
hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of
human remorse. The October Revolution was not what you call in America the
"Russian Revolution." It was an invasion and conquest over the
Russian people. More of my countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their
bloodstained hands than any people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of
human history. It cannot be understated. Bolshevism was the greatest human
slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant of this
reality is proof that the global media itself is in the hands of the
perpetrators. We cannot state that all Jews are Bolsheviks. But: without Jews
there would have been no Bolshevism. For a Jew nothing is more insulting than
the truth. The blood maddened Jewish terrorists murdered sixty-six million in
Russia from 1918 to 1957.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), Noble Prize winning novelist,
historian and victim of Jewish Bolshevism
American
Catholic Apostasy: PEW POLE 2025
29% of U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass weekly.
59% of Catholics say abortion should be legal.
76% U.S. Catholics say society should be accepting of
homosexuality.
61% U.S. Catholics support legal homosexual
"marriage."
80% of Catholics view Pope Francis favorably.
84% of U.S. Catholics say
they have a favorable view of Leo although 67% say they know little about Leo,
and 25% know nothing at all.
Pope Leo XIV commemorates
Nostra Aetate anniversary with interfaith celebrations
Catholic
NewsAgency | Vatican City |Kridina Millare
| Oct 29, 2025
Pope
Leo XIV joined faith leaders on Tuesday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of
Nostra Aetate, the Church’s declaration on building relationships with non-Christian
religions.
Approximately
300 representatives of world religions and cultures joined the Holy Father for
an evening ecumenical prayer service for peace organized by the Community of
Sant’Egidio and held at the Colosseum in Rome.
“Peace
is a constant journey of reconciliation,” the Holy Father said at the Oct. 28
event.
Thanking
religious leaders for coming together in Rome, he said their interfaith meeting
expressed their shared “conviction that prayer is a powerful force for
reconciliation.”
“This is our witness: offering
the immense treasures of ancient spiritualities to contemporary humanity,” he
said.
“We
need a true and sound era of reconciliation that puts an end to the abuse of
power, displays of force, and indifference to the rule of law,” he added.
“Enough of war, with all the pain it causes through death, destruction, and
exile!”
In his remarks, the pope urged
people not to be indifferent to the “cry of the poor and the cry of the earth”
in their pursuits for peace in countries scarred by ongoing conflict and
injustice.
“In
the power of prayer, with hands raised to heaven and open to others, we must
ensure that this period of history, marked by war and the arrogance of power,
soon comes to an end, giving rise to a new era,” he said.
“We cannot allow this period to continue. It
shapes the minds of people who grow accustomed to war as a normal part of human
history,” he continued.
Pope
Leo and other religious leaders lit candles to symbolize their shared prayer
and renewed commitment to engage in interfaith dialogue.
Several
people waved small blue banners with the word “peace” in different languages
while Pope Leo and the other religious leaders lit candles to symbolize their
shared prayer and renewed commitment to engage in interfaith dialogue.
After the prayer gathering at Rome’s iconic landmark, the Holy Father
returned to the Vatican to join colorful celebrations jointly organized by the
Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue and the Dicastery for Promoting Christian
Unity.
To mark the 60th anniversary of Nostra
Aetate, several
multicultural music and dance performances were held inside the Vatican’s Paul
VI Audience Hall as well as a presentation highlighting papal initiatives to
promote the Church’s dialogue with other religions since the pontificate of
Pope Paul VI.
Pope
Leo’s appearance and special address toward the end of the two-hour gathering
highlighted the Church’s reverence for all people and its desire to collaborate
with others for the common good.
“We belong to one human family,
one in origin, and one also in our final goal,” he said. “Religions everywhere
try to respond to the restlessness of the human heart.”
“Each in its own way offers
teachings, ways of life, and sacred rites that help guide their followers to
peace and meaning,” he said.
Emphasizing the common mission
shared among people of different religions to “reawaken” the sense of the
sacred in the world today, the Holy Father encouraged people to “keep love
alive.”
“We
have come together in this place bearing the great responsibility as religious
leaders to bring hope to a humanity that is often tempted by despair,” Leo
said.
“Let
us remember that prayer has the power to transform our hearts, our words, our
actions, and our world,” he said.
COMMENT: Now for the third time in his short pontificate Leo/Provost
quotes Leonard Boff's Cry of the Earth,
Cry of the Poor. Boff is a former Franciscan priest who was censored by the
liberal Cardinal Ratzinger when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith under the liberal JPII for his extreme Marxist liberation theology.
Boff is famous for his development of an integrated theology of Marxism, Gaia
cult earth worship and "social justice." He was admired by
Francis/Bergoglio and he is admired thrice as much by Leo/Provost. The picture
with its Satanic imagery was reportedly published by the Vatican. Leo/Provost,
like Francis/Bergoglio, wants to restore native American culture and religious
traditions. It should be remembered that Christopher Columbus encountered
cannibalism on his second voyage of exploration and ritual murder was
widespread not only among the Aztecs and Incas but in smaller tribes across
both North and South America as reported by Jesuit missionaries. In the
interfaith celebrations at the Vatican a young native American boy half dressed
paraded an image of a snake into the assembly before Leo/Provost. Is this the
native American tradition that the Vatican wants to recover?
Doctrinal Note on Marian
titles: Mother of the faithful, not Co-redemptrix
The document of the
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, approved by Pope Leo XIV, offers
clarifications on titles applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and calls for
special attention to the use of the expression, “Mediatrix of all graces.”
Vatican News
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
on Tuesday, 4 November 2025, published Mater populi fidelis (“The Mother of the
Faithful People”), a Doctrinal Note “On Some Marian Titles Regarding Mary’s
Cooperation in the Work of Salvation.” Signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Víctor
Manuel Fernández, and the Secretary for the Dicastery’s Doctrinal Section,
Monsignor Armando Matteo, the Note was approved by the Pope on 7 October.
Mater
populi fidelis (MPF) is the fruit of a long and complex collegial effort. It is
a doctrinal document on Marian devotion, centred on the figure of Mary, who is
associated with the work of Christ as Mother of believers. The Note provides a
significant biblical foundation for devotion to Mary, as well as marshalling
various contributions from the Fathers, the Doctors of the Church, elements of
Eastern tradition, and the thought of recent Popes.
In
this positive framework, the doctrinal text analyses a number of Marian titles,
encouraging the adoption of some of those appellations and warning against the
use of others. Titles such as “Mother of Believers,” “Spiritual Mother,”
“Mother of the Faithful” are noticed with approval in the Note. Conversely, the title of “Co-redemptrix”
is deemed inappropriate and problematic. The title of “Mediatrix” is considered
unacceptable when it takes on a meaning that excludes Jesus Christ; however, it
can used appropriately so long as it expresses an inclusive and participatory
mediation that glorifies the power of Christ. The titles “Mother of Grace” and
“Mediatrix of All Graces” are considered acceptable when used in a very precise
sense, but the document also warns of particularly broad explanations of the
meaning of the terms.
Essentially,
the Note reaffirms Catholic doctrine, which has always emphasised that
everything in Mary is directed towards the centrality of Christ and His
salvific work. For this reason, even if some Marian titles admit of an orthodox
interpretation through correct exegesis, Mater populi fidelis says it is
preferable to avoid them.
In
his presentation of the Doctrinal Note, Cardinal Fernández expresses
appreciation for popular devotion but warns against groups and publications
that propose a certain dogmatic development and raise doubts among the
faithful, including through social media. The main problem in interpreting
these titles applied to Our Lady, he says concerns the way of understanding
Mary's association with Christ's work of redemption (paragraph 3).
Co-redemptrix
Regarding
the title “Co-redemptrix,” the Note recalls that “some Popes have used the
title “without elaborating much on its meaning.” Generally, it continues, “they
have presented the title in two specific ways: in reference to Mary’s divine
motherhood (insofar as she, as Mother, made possible the Redemption that Christ
accomplished) or in reference to her union with Christ at the redemptive Cross.
The Second Vatican Council refrained from using the title for dogmatic,
pastoral, and ecumenical reasons. Saint John Paul II referred to Mary as
‘Co-redemptrix’ on at least seven occasions, particularly relating this title
to the salvific value of our sufferings when they are offered together with the
sufferings of Christ, to whom Mary is united especially at the Cross” (18).
The
document cites an internal discussion within the then-Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, which in February 1996 had discussed the request to
proclaim a new dogma on Mary as “Co-redemptrix or Mediatrix of all graces.”
Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was opposed to such a definition, arguing, “the
precise meaning of these titles is not clear, and the doctrine contained in
them is not mature. […] It is not clear how the doctrine expressed in these
titles is present in Scripture and the apostolic tradition.”
Later,
in 2002, the future Benedict XVI expressed himself publicly in the same way:
“The formula ‘Co-redemptrix’ departs to too great an extent from the language
of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings…
Everything comes from Him [Christ], as the Letter to the Ephesians and the
Letter to the Colossians, in particular, tell us; Mary, too, is everything that
she is through Him. The word ‘Co-redemptrix’ would obscure this origin.”
The
note clarifies that Cardinal Ratzinger did not deny the good intentions behind
the proposal, nor the valuable aspects reflected in it, but nonetheless
maintained that they were “being expressed in the wrong way” (19).
Pope
Francis also expressed his clear opposition to the use of the title
Co-Redemptrix on at least three occasions.
Tuesday’s
Doctrinal Note concludes: “It is always inappropriate to use the title
‘Co-redemptrix’ to define Mary’s cooperation. This title risks obscuring
Christ’s unique salvific mediation and can therefore create confusion and an
imbalance in the harmony of the truths of the Christian faith. […] When an
expression requires many, repeated explanations to prevent it from straying
from a correct meaning, it does not serve the faith of the People of God and
becomes unhelpful” (22).
Mediatrix
The
Note emphasises that “the biblical statement about Christ’s exclusive mediation
is conclusive. Christ is the only Mediator” (24).
At
the same time, MPF recognises “the fact that the word ‘mediation’ is commonly
used in many areas of everyday life, where it is understood simply as
cooperation, assistance, or intercession. As a result, it is inevitable that
the term would be applied to Mary in a subordinate sense. Used in this way, it
does not intend to add any efficacy or power to the unique mediation of Jesus
Christ, true God and true man” (25).
Further,
“it is clear that Mary has a real mediatory role in enabling the Incarnation of
the Son of God in our humanity” (26).
Mother of believers and
Mediatrix of all graces
Mary’s
maternal role “in no way obscures or diminishes” the unique mediation of
Christ, “but rather shows its power […] Understood in this way, Mary’s motherhood
does not seek to weaken the unique adoration due to Christ alone but, rather,
seeks to enkindle it.”
Therefore, the Note states, “one
must avoid titles and expressions that present Mary as a kind of ‘lightning
rod’ before the Lord’s justice, as if she were a necessary alternative before
the insufficiency of God’s mercy” (37b).
Thus,
the title “Mother of Believers” “enables us to speak of Mary’s role in our
relation to our life of grace”. However, MPF goes on to urge caution concerning
the use of expressions that may convey “less acceptable notions” (45).
“Cardinal Ratzinger already
affirmed” for example, “that the title ‘Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces’ was not
clearly grounded in Revelation.” So, the Note continues, “in line with this
conviction, we can recognize the difficulties this title poses, both in terms
of theological reflection and spirituality” (45). In fact, “no human person —
not even the Apostles or the Blessed Virgin — can act as a universal dispenser
of grace. Only God can bestow grace, and he does so through the humanity of
Christ” (53).
“Some titles, such as ‘Mediatrix
of All Graces,’ have limits that do not favour a correct understanding of
Mary’s unique place,” MPF explains, adding, “In fact, she, the first redeemed,
could not have been the mediatrix of the grace that she herself received”
(67).
Nonetheless,
the Doctrinal Note acknowledges that “the term ‘graces,’ when seen in reference
to Mary’s maternal help at various moments in our lives, can have an acceptable
meaning. The plural form expresses all the aids — even material — that the Lord
may grant us when He heeds His Mother’s intercession” (68).
COMMENT: Amazing
to hear these apostates chirping about the lack of "precise meaning"
of theological terms while obscurity in definition is, and has been since
Vatican II, the calling card of the Novus Ordo theologian and prelates. They
like to muddle what is clear. Let's start with the title, "Mother of
Believers" and "Mother of the Faithful." These are, in fact,
worthy titles of the Mother of God and frequently occur in St. Mary of Agreda's
City of God, yet the Novus Ordo clerics would never be found offering a precise
definition and meaning for the term "faithful" and then identify
exactly who the "faithful" are.
The
term "faithful" has a precise Catholic definition. It refers to those
who have been baptized into the Catholic Church and profess the one, holy,
catholic and apostolic faith. By virtue of this incorporation by baptism they
have become "children of God." They faithfully believe all the truths
that God has revealed on the authority of God the Revealer. Only those who have
become thus members of the Mystical Body of Christ share by participation in
His divine nature and become brothers and sister of Jesus Christ and therefore,
sons of His Mother. This definition excludes all heretics, schismatics, Jews,
pagans, and any other form of idolaters. Novus Ordo clerics heretically teach
that everyone is a child of God by virtue of the Incarnation. Everyone by
nature is a creature of God created in His image and likeness with the
spiritual soul with the powers of reason and free will, but every creature is
born in original sin and cut off from the friendship of God. He is only a
"child of God" in potentia.
Without the sacrament of Baptism and the Catholic faith they can never become
"children of God." This obscurity of definition as to who is a child
of God and thus a child of the Blessed Virgin Mary ultimately obscures what is
necessary as a necessity of means to obtain salvation.
The
title Mediatrix of all grace is long established and of sound and precise
theological understanding. Those that pretend otherwise are ignorant, proud,
and deceitful. They have no excuse. 'The law of prayer determines the law of
belief' is, as affirmed by St. Pius X in Pascendi,
a canon of faith from the time of Celestine I, that is, a dogma of the Catholic
Church. The immemorial Roman rite has a Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, Mediatrix of all grace celebrated on May 31 established by Pope Benedict
XV. Regarding this feast, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B. of the Abby of St. Andrew
teaches:
"The
will of God is that we should have everything through Mary," says St.
Bernard. The Father has sent us His Son, but His will was to make His coming
depend upon the Fiat of the Virgin, which He commanded to the angel Gabriel to
solicit on the day of the Annunciation.
The
Father and the Son send us the Holy Ghost, but it is through Mary that He comes
down to men. On the day of Pentecost, according to an ancient Tradition, the
heavenly fire which descended on the Cenacle first rested on Mary, and then on
the apostles. This is a figure of what happens every day in the Church where
the Holy Ghost is sent invisibly into our souls. "All the gifts of the
Holy Ghost are distributed by Mary to those whom she chooses, whenever she
wishes and as much as she wishes," says St. Bernardine of Siena.
The
graces which the Holy Ghost pours down on us are due to the merits of Christ on
Calvary; but in order that God may bestow them on the world, it is necessary
that Mary should intervene. Having cooperated by her divine maternity and by
her sufferings at the foot of the Cross in the Incarnation and Redemption, she
has deserved to co-operate when they are continually applied to creatures by the
most High. "By the communion of sorrows and of will between Christ and
Mary," says St. Pius X, "she has deserved to become the dispenser of
all the blessings which Jesus acquired for us by His blood" (Encyclical
2-2-1904). Such is His will, but it is essential that she should constantly
intercede for each one of us. This she does, relying on the blood of Christ by
whom she was herself saved, and who alone saves us. This actual intervention of
Mary plays a preponderating part in the salvation of the world. It is important
that we should realize this, and it is the object of the feast of Mary
Mediatrix of all Graces. A clear idea of the fact may be obtained by simple
reading the texts of the Mass and Vespers.
"Through
the Virgin," says St. Bernardine of Siena, "life-giving graces flow
from Christ, who is the head, into His mystical body." "Through
her," adds St. Antoninus, "come from heaven all the graces granted to
the world." "What all the saints united to thee may obtain for us by
their intercession," writes St. Anselm, "thy pleading alone may
obtain without the help of their prayers." The maternal solicitude of Mary
for the whole human race is therefore continual, and it is because of this that
unceasingly, through the Mass, the sacraments, the hierarchy and other channels
of grace, the merits of Calvary are applied to our souls. "We may
affirm," declared Pope Leo XIII, "that by the will of God, nothing is
given to us without Mary's mediation, in such a way that just as no one can approach the almighty Father
but through His Son, so no one, so to speak, can approach Christ but through
His Mother" (Encyclical, 9-22-1891).
Let
us therefore not consider as of small importance the efforts made to establish
this point of doctrine of Mary's mediation, since this doctrine enables us to
understand the divine plan, and clearly manifests the mediation of the Son of
God of which it is a corollary.
St. Mary of Agreda at
the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, writes that Jesus
Christ addressed the entire heavenly assembly of angels and saints saying:
"My Father and
eternal God, this is the Woman, that gave Me my human form in her virginal
womb, that nourished Me at her breast and sustained labors for Me, that shared
in my hardships and co-operated with Me in the works of Redemption. This is
She, who was always most faithful and fulfilled our will according to our
entire pleasure; She, pure and immaculate as my Mother, through her own works,
has reached the summit of sanctity according to the measure of the gifts We
have communicated to Her; and when She had merited her reward and could have
enjoyed it forever, She deprived Herself of it for Our glory and returned to
attend to the establishment, the government, and instruction of the Church
militant; and We, in order that She might live in it for the succor of the
faithful, deferred her eternal rest, which She has merited over and over again.
In the highest bounty and equity of our Providence it is just, that my Mother
should be remunerated for her works of love beyond all other creatures; and
toward Her the common law of the other mortals should not apply. If I have
merited for all infinite merits and boundless graces, it is proper that my
Mother should partake of them above all the others who are so inferior; for She in her conduct
corresponds to our liberality and puts no hindrance or obstacle to our infinite
power of communicating our treasures and participating them as the Queen and
Mistress of all that is created."
Sanctifying grace is
the created participation in the divine nature. The Blessed Virgin is the
"Queen and Mistress of all that is created." In this Mass the Church
prays:
" O Lord Jesus
Christ, our Mediator with the Father, who hast appointed the most blessed
Virgin, Thy mother, to be our mother also and our mediatrix before Thee: Grant
that whosoever draweth nigh to Thee to beseech any benefit, may receive all
things through her and rejoice.
Rev. Gregory
Alastruey's theological work titled, The
Blessed Virgin Mary, says that, "There are five principle titles and offices due Mary, the Mother
of God, by reason of her cooperation in redemption: Mediatrix, Co-redemptrix,
Mother of Christians, Patroness or Advocate, and Queen and Mistress of the
universe. I would recommend those who deny this proper honor to the
Mother of God obtain a copy of the book and have their stupidity erased. I do
not say, ignorance erased because willful ignorance is stupidity. Fr. Alastruey affirms that
"Mary is truly mediatrix of the human race and this doctrine pertains to
the deposit of faith." He then draws from Scripture, the Fathers,
and theologians in support of this truth. He proves from the Church Fathers
that the word "mediatrix" was explicitly used by St. Ephrem, St.
Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil of Seleucia, St. Andrew of Crete, St
Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Damascene, St Theodore, St. Antoninus and
Denis the Carthusian. He draws richly from the divine liturgy from both Eastern
and Roman traditions. The errors of the Protestant heretics are addressed and
exposed which are curiously the same as expressed by the Novus Ordo popes.
Lastly, it is worth
asking Why do the Novus Ordo popes hate these proper titles of the Mother of
God? The answer is simple. The Blessed Virgin asked the three children at
Fatima on June 13, 1917, "Are
you willing to offer yourselves to God to bear all the sufferings He wills to
send you, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and of
supplication for the conversion of sinners?" To which question all
answered, "Yes, we are willing." The Mother of God said on July 13
after the children had seen a vision of Hell, "Sacrifice yourselves for
sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus,
it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the
sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary." On August 19 (the
apparition did not occur on the August 13 because the children were in prison)
the Mother of God continued saying, "Pray, pray very much, and make
sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to
sacrifice themselves and to pray for them." The Blessed Virgin is asking
the children to be co-redemptors and co-mediators of grace with her in union
with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the conversion and salvation of
sinners. If the title of Co-Redemtrix and Mediatrix of all Grace can be taken
away from the Mother of God then no one is responsible to do penance for their
own sins or the sins of others. This falls back to the Protestant heresy on the
dogma of justification and the very nature of our incorporation into the divine
nature in the Mystical Body of Christ. Leo/Provost, like his predecessor
Francis/Bergoglio, believes that proselytism is "solemn nonsense."
They attack the titles to excuse their own faithless sloth. They are working to
obscure the very means of salvation. As Jesus Christ said: "But woe to you
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the kingdom of heaven
against men, for you yourselves do not enter in; and those that are going in,
you suffer not to enter" (Matt 23:13).
Pope Leo is just
another heretic who denies the Blessed Virgin Mary her just titles of Mediatrix
of all Grace and Co-Redemtrix. Only a few days ago, he celebrated with
heretics, schismatics, Jews, Moslems, and a variety of idolaters a shared
communion praying to their common god a united petition for peace in the world.
He continues to ignore the peace plan offered by the Blessed Virgin Mary,
Mediatrix of all Grace, at Fatima. Pope Leo will soon learn that those who
insult the Mother have made an enemy of the Son.
This demonstrats the fruit of the “New Evangelization” -
which is shameless apostasy!
Brazil: Catholic Church on the decline
Catholic Church loses followers to Evangelicals
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Brazilians describing themselves
as Catholics has dropped by 12.2%. This record fall brings the proportion of
Catholics down to 65% – the lowest share since religious affiliations was first
surveyed in 1872. In 2000, 74% of the population had classified themselves as
Catholics.
Brazilian census: Catholic
population falls to 57%
Catholic News Agency | Nathália
Queiroz | Sao Paulo,
Brazil, Jun 9, 2025
The percentage of
Brazilians who identify as Catholic fell to 56.75% in 2022, a reduction of 8.4%
compared with 2010, according to data from the 2022 demographic census released
by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. [....]
“Only take heed to yourself and guard your soul diligently.” Deut 4:9
"It is a sin to believe there is salvation outside the Catholic
Church!"
Blessed Pope Pius IX
“The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for
defending ourselves on the field of battle.”
… The decadence which exists in the world is without any doubt the
consequence of the lack of the spirit of prayer. Foreseeing this
disorientation, the Blessed Virgin recommended recitation of the Rosary with
such insistence. And since the Rosary is, after the holy Eucharistic liturgy,
the prayer most apt for preserving faith in souls, the devil has unchained his
struggles against it. Unfortunately, we see the disasters he has caused.
… We must defend souls against the errors which can make them stray
from the good road. … We cannot and we must not stop ourselves, nor allow, as
Our Lord says, the children of Darkness to be wiser than the children of Light
… The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field
of battle.
Sr. Lucy of Fatima, Letter to Dom Umberto Pasquale
“Necessity
Knows No Law”
In 1976, the head of the UGCC, Cardinal Josef Slipyj, living in exile
in Rome after 18 years in the Soviet gulag, feared for the future of the UGCC.
Would it have bishops to lead it, given that Slipyj himself was now over 80? So
he ordained three bishops clandestinely, without the permission of the Holy
Father, Blessed (sic) Paul VI. At the time, the Holy See followed a policy of
non-assertiveness regarding the communist bloc; Paul VI would not give
permission for the new bishops for fear of upsetting the Soviets. The
consecration of bishops without a papal mandate is a very grave canonical
crime, for which the penalty is excommunication. Blessed (sic) Paul VI—who
likely knew, unofficially, what Slipyj had done—did not administer any
penalties.
Fr. Raymond J. DeSouza
John
Henry Newman: A Novus Ordo Saint and, fittingly, a Doctor of the Novus Ordo
Church
"I see much danger of an English
Catholicism of which Newman (Cardinal John Henry Newman) is the highest type.
It is the old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the
Church. It takes the line of deprecating exaggerations, foreign devotions,
Ultramontanism, anti-national sympathies. In one word, it is worldly Catholicism."
Cardinal Manning, Primate of England, Letter
to Monsignor Talbot, written in 1866, the second year of his reign as
archbishop
Salvation by
“Implicit” Faith?
But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to
God, must believe that he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him. Heb. 1,
6
Of course charity itself is
impossible without faith and hope. Could
anyone love a man if he did not believe it was possible to be or become his
friend? Or if he despaired of ever
gaining his friendship? So it is with
man in relation to God as He is in Himself.
Man must believe it is possible to attain a perfect friendship with God
in Heaven and he must hope to attain this friendship through God’s power before
he can love God as his supernatural destiny.
Fr. Walter Farrell, O. P. and
Fr. Marin Healy, My Way of Life – The
Summa Simplified for Everyone
Looming ahead is the
Great Apostasy predicted by St. Paul to the Thessalonians when the Antichrist,
“the man of sin” (2 Thess. 2: 3), will engage mankind in wholesale flight from
God and reality. From him can be
expected perfect acquiescence to the three temptations by which the devil
failed to seduce Christ in the desert.
Turning stones into bread by substituting false teaching for true
doctrine, he will confirm the satanic religion by false miracles, (that is
“lying wonders”), as it were casting himself down from the pinnacle of the
temple to be borne up by spiritual hands.
Given “all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory” (Matt. 4: 8-9)
in return for falling down and adoring Satan, Antichrist the King will
establish a universal empire in the fallen angel’s name. Aping as closely as possible Christ’s
consummation of the law and the prophets, he will capitulate in his person the
whole of the world’s apostatic tradition.
Solange Strong Hertz, Apostasy
in America
The Reason the
Message of LaSalette is Rejected or Unknown? They Are NOT 'Her People'!
It was 1846
and France was suffering social and political upheaval. Catholic churches had
been abandoned and the Sacraments neglected… On the eve of the Feast of Our
Lady of Sorrows, eleven-year-old Maxim Giraud and fourteen-year-old Melanie
Mathieu beheld a luminous sphere, radiating like the sun, curiously unfolding before
their eyes. Gradually they made out a woman seated with her face in her hands,
weeping. She slowly arose and crossed her arms on her breast, her head some
what inclined.
The children
were drawn immediately to the lady's tears that adorned her face like perfectly
cut diamonds glimmering the in the sun's rays. Her dynamic features were framed
delicately in a white-satin headdress, on which rested a crown of roses, a
bouquet in all shades of reds and pinks. A crucifix with pincers on one end and
a hammer on the opposite end hung over her satin shawl, which was lined with
more roses. The Madonna wore a long ivory dress embroidered in precious pearls
and a yellow apron tied neatly to her waist. Wearing pearl slippers that peeked
out from underneath her satin robe, she sheltered herself atop a bouquet of
roses.
"Come to
me, my children," she tenderly addressed the two who stood afar,
motionless. "Be not afraid. I am here to tell you something of the
greatest importance."
As soon as
they were in touching distance of her, she began to speak with the urgency of
an ending world:
"If my
people will not obey, I shall be compelled to loose my Son's arm. It is so
heavy, so pressing that I can no longer restrain it."
She told the children that her Son was especially
concerned that people were not keeping holy Sunday, and that religion had lost
its place in their country…. "You will make this known to all my people;
you will make this known to all my people," she repeated to them. Solange
Hertz, Our Lady of LaSalette
"It is a sin to believe there is salvation outside the
Catholic Church!"
Blessed Pope Pius IX
The Church is One, Holy, Catholic Apostolic,
and Roman : unique, the Chair founded on Peter. Outside her fold is to be
found nether the true faith nor eternal salvation, for it is impossible to have
God for a Father if one does not have the Church for a Mother.
Blessed Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quidem
The Great Error of Vatican
II –
The “pastoral” blunder that
there exists a disjunction between Divine Revelation and Dogma
The greatest concern of the
Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine
should be guarded and taught more efficaciously….. the authentic doctrine…
should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the
literary forms of modern thought. The
substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the
way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must
be taken into great consideration with patience if necessary, everything being
measured in the forms and proportions of a Magisterium which is predominantly
pastoral in character. Pope John XXIII,
Opening Speech for Vatican II
Peace Plan of Our Lady of
Fatima
1.
WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA REQUEST?
At Fatima Our Lady said that God wished to
establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady said
that many souls would be saved from Hell and the annihilation of nations
averted if, in time, devotion to Her Immaculate Heart were established
principally by these two means:
A. the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary by the Pope together with the world's bishops in a solemn public
ceremony, and
B. the practice or receiving Holy Communion (and
other specific devotions of about 1/2 hour in duration) in reparation for the
sins committed against the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the first Saturdays of five
consecutive months--a practice known to Catholics as "the First Saturday"
devotion.
2.
HAVE THESE REQUESTS OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA BEEN HONORED?
No, not entirely. A
number of the Faithful practice the "First Saturday" devotion, but
Russia has yet to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in a solemn
public ceremony conducted by the Pope together with the world's Catholic
bishops.
In 1982 the last
Fatima seer, Lucia, when a cloistered nun living in Coimbra, Portugal, was
asked if an attempted consecration by Pope John Paul II had sufficed. She
replied that it did not suffice, because Russia was not mentioned and the
world's bishops had not participated. Another attempted consecration in 1984
likewise did not mention Russia or involve the participation of many of the
world's bishops, and Sister Lucia stated immediately afterwards that this
consecration, too, had failed to meet Our Lady's requirements.
3. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA WARN?
It warns that if the
requests of Our Lady of Fatima for the Consecration of Russia and the First
Saturday devotion are not honored, the Church will be persecuted, there will be
other major wars, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations
will be annihilated. Many nations will be enslaved by Russian militant
atheists. Most important, many souls will be lost.
4.
WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA PROMISE?
The Message of
Fatima promises that if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima are carried out
"My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will Consecrate Russia
to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to
mankind."
The
United States is, as much as Israel, guilty for the Genocide of the Palestinian
People.
“I love Israel. I’m with you all the way...... Thanks to
the bravery and incredible skill of the Israeli Defense Forces and Operation Rising
Lion, the forces of chaos, terror, and ruin now stand weakened, isolated, and
totally defeated.”
“The story of fierce Israeli
resolve and triumph since October 7 should be proof to the entire world that
those who seek to destroy this nation are doomed to bitter failure.”
President Donald Trump, addressing the Israeli Knesset with Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“Donald Trump is the greatest friend that the State of Israel
has ever had in the White House. No American president has ever done more for
Israel, and, as I said in Washington, it ain’t even close. It’s really not a
match.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Israeli
Knesset with President Trump
"It is sentiments like these (from President Trump) – backed by a long list of pro-Israel actions
over two terms, including moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing
Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, recognizing Jewish claims in Judea
and Samaria for a 'Greater Israel', brokering the Abraham Accords, striking Iran
alongside Israel, decapitation strikes against Iranian and Hamas peace
negotiators, and directly supporting the Israeli genocide of Gaza with over $30
billion direct aid, billions more in indirect air with military, intelligence,
logistical and political support both in the United States and at the United
Nations including censorship in mainstream media and suppression of free speech
at college campuses."
Catholic political commentary
“For the Jews, ‘Anti-Semitism’ is anything that is in
opposition to the naturalistic Messianic domination of their nation over all
the others.”
Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., B.A., D.Ph., D.D.
On the Charge of
Anti-Semitism in Our Time
“…Two reasons can be assigned to the fact
that Our Lord’s faithful members will often be betrayed by those who should be
on the side of Christ the King. Firstly, many Catholic writers speak of Papal
condemnations of Anti-Semitism without explaining the meaning of the term, and
never even allude to the documents which insist on the Rights of Our Divine
Lord, Head of the Mystical Body, Priest and King. Thus, very many are
completely ignorant of the duty incumbent on all Catholics of standing
positively for Our Lord’s Reign in society in opposition to Jewish Naturalism.
The result is that numbers of Catholics are so ignorant of Catholic doctrine
that they hurl the accusation of Anti-Semitism against those who are battling
for the Rights of Christ the King, thus effectively aiding the enemies of Our
Divine Lord. Secondly, many Catholic writers copy unquestioningly what they
read in the naturalistic or anti-Supernatural Press and do not distinguish
between Anti-Semitism in the correct Catholic sense, as explained above, and
‘Anti-Semitism’ as the Jews understand it. …”
Fr. Fahey’s Preface in Grand Orient
Freemasonry Unmasked: As the Secret Power Behind Communism by Monsignor George
F. Dillon, D.D.
Jews have
hated & persecuted the Catholic Church from the time of Jesus Christ to
this very day!
[The Jews are] a people who,
having imbrued their hands in a most heinous outrage [Jesus’ crucifixion], have
thus polluted their souls and are deservedly blind. . . . Therefore we have
nothing in common with that most hostile of people the Jews. We have received
from the Savior another way . . . our
holy religion. . . . On what subject
will that detestable association be competent to from a correct judgment, who
after that murder of their Lord . . .
are led… by. . . their innate fury?
Council of Nicaea, 325 AD
Jewish
Power is inversely proportional to the spiritual health of the Catholic Church
“Jews should not be placed in
public offices, since it is most absurd that a blasphemer of Christ should
exercise power over Christians.”
Fourth Lateran Council
Good Night, Sweet Princeton! By Fr. Leonard Feeney, 1952
Maritainism is a system of thought which
allows Catholics to be both Catholic and acceptable in the drawing rooms of
Protestant and Jewish philosophers. Maritainism is not a seeking and a finding
of the Word made flesh. It is a perpetual seeking for un-fleshed truth in an
abstract scheme called Christianity. Maritainism is the scrapping of the
Incarnation in favor of a God Whose overtures to us never get more personal or
loving than the five rational proofs for His existence. This plot to encourage
only pre-Bethlehem interest in God takes its name from its perpetrator, that
highly respected religious opportunist, Jacques Maritain.
The slightest acquaintance with Maritain’s
history is sufficient to indicate how awry he must be in his Catholicism. He is
a former Huguenot who married a Jewish girl named Raïssa. During their student
days in Paris, both Jacques and Raïssa felt a double pull in the general
direction of belief. Intellectually they were attracted to the religious
self-sufficiency of a Jewish intuitionist named Henri Bergson. Sociologically
they were attracted to the spurious Catholicism of Leon Bloy, a French
exhibitionist who made a liturgy of his own crudeness and uncleaness and tried
to attach it to the liturgy of the Church. At some point in their association
with an unbaptized Bergson and an unwashed Bloy, the Maritains figured out that
there was a promising future ahead of them in Catholicism.
Jacques Maritain is noted for his
solemn-high, holier-than-thou appearance. For this reason, more than one priest
reports that by the time a Maritain lecture is over, any priest who is present
has been made to feel that the Roman collar is around the wrong neck and that
perhaps he, the priest, ought to put on a necktie and kneel for Maritain’s
blessing.
One explanation of Maritain’s distant
expression is that he fancies himself to be the Drew Pearson of the Christian
social order. Judging by Maritain’s passion for the abstract, the fulfillment
of all his prophecies will come in an era when mothers can sing such songs as
“Rock-a-bye Baby, on the Dendrological Zenith,” and children recite such
bedtime prayers as “The Hail Mariology.”
Jacques Maritain prefers Thomism to Saint
Thomas Aquinas and, similarly, he much prefers the notion of the papacy to the
person of the Pope. He could not, however, turn down the prestige of an
appointment as French ambassador to the Vatican. Maritain went to Rome, but he
protected himself against over exposure to Italian faith by visits to Dr.
George Santayana. In Maritain, Santayana recognized a brother, the kind of
European intellectual cast-off that is annually being grabbed-up by American
Universities.
That Jacques Maritain should now be found
preaching at Princeton University is not so strange. It did not require too
much insight on Princeton’s part to see that a Catholic who hates Franco,
speaks at Jewish seminaries, and favors “theocentricity” in place of Jesus,
would be a bizarre, but harmless, addition to anybody’s faculty club.
Perhaps Princeton realized also that a
Catholic’s admirers are a good measure of his militancy. Among Maritain’s more
prominent sympathizers are John Wild, Charles Malik and Mortimer Adler (N.B.
Adler was converted and received into the Catholic Church in 1999 only 18
months before he died at 98 years of age), who are, respectively, an Anglican,
a Greek schismatic, and a Jew. Naturally Maritain could not insult
intellectuals like these by telling them that although they are outside the
Church they can get into Heaven because of their “invincible ignorance.” It was
necessary that Maritain concoct a new way of getting around the dogma, “No
Salvation Outside the Catholic Church.”
After a lot of abstract deliberation,
Maritain decided that a man could be “invisibly, and by a motion of his heart,
a member of the Church, and partake of her life, which is eternal life.”
According to Maritain’s new covenant, the important salvation-actions in our
world are no longer a head bowed to the waters of Baptism, a hand raised in
Absolution, a tongue outstretched to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. “A
motion of his heart,” says Maritain, is all that is required before a man may
partake of eternal life.
The Sacred Heart might have saved Himself a
lot of inconvenience had He only known this, one Friday afternoon on Calvary.
COMMENT: Jacques Maritain was Paul VI’s favorite philosopher. Maritain's reputation as a great philosopher is based on his supposed integration of the Scholastic principles of St. Thomas with the modern world. He had a world-wide reputation and following that extending beyond his
native France to hold visiting professorships
at Princeton and the University of Chicago, as well as a visiting lecturer at Notre Dame, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Toronto. Pope Paul VI publicly confessed his
profound respect and influence by
Maritain’s thought on his Credo of the People of God (1968). At
the close of the Second Vatican Council on December 8, 1965, the pope’s “Address
to Men of Thought and Science” was dedicated to his “dear friend and mentor, Jacques Maritain.” Pope Paul offered Maritain a cardinal’s hat, but the philosopher declined
it. Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom—Dignitatis Humanae—which teaches that the dignity of man is so exalted
that he possesses the inalienable right to neither conform his mind to God’s
revealed truth nor obey God’s commandments, drew as its inspiration Maritain’s book Man and the State (1951) which is an
articulation of the language
of “rights” that Dignitatis
Humanae employs.
“By
their fruit you shall know them!”; & by their fruit you had better well
know them!
For such false
apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of
Christ. And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of
light. Therefore it is no
great thing if his (Satan's) ministers be transformed as the ministers of
justice, whose end shall be according to their works.
II Corinthians
11:13-15
The order of divine justice exacts that
whosoever consents to another's evil suggestion, shall be subjected to him in his punishment; according to II Peter
2:19: "By whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave."
St. Thomas Aquinas
The proper literal understanding of this dogma from the
Council of Trent:
Canon 4 on the sacraments in
general: If anyone says that the
sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous,
and that without them or without the desire of them men obtain from God
through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary
for each one, let him be anathema.
The Dogma defines two revealed doctrinal truths:
1.
If anyone says: that the sacraments of the
New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, let him be
anathema.
2.
If anyone says: that without the
sacraments or (if anyone says) without the desire of the sacraments
men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, let him be
anathema.
Both the Sacrament of Baptism and the will to
receive the Sacrament are necessary for salvation!
“But
God desired that his confession should avail for his salvation, since he preserved him in this life until the
time of his holy regeneration.” St. Fulgentius
“If anyone is not baptized, not only in
ignorance, but even knowingly, he can in no way be saved. For his path to salvation was through the confession,
and salvation itself was in baptism.
At his age, not only was confession
without baptism of no avail: Baptism
itself would be of no avail for salvation if he neither believed nor
confessed.” St. Fulgentius
Notice,
both the CONFESSION AND THE BAPTISM are necessary for salvation, harkening back
to Trent’s teaching that both the laver AND the “votum” are required for
justification, and harkening back to Our Lord’s teaching that we must be born
again of water AND the Holy Spirit.
In fact, you see the language of St. Fulgentius reflected in the Council of
Trent. Trent describes the votum (so-called “desire”) as the PATH
TO SALVATION, the disposition to Baptism, and then says that “JUSTIFICATION
ITSELF” (St. Fulgentius says “SALVATION ITSELF”) follows the dispositions in
the Sacrament of Baptism.
Yet another solid argument for why Trent is teaching that BOTH the votum
AND the Sacrament are required for justification.
“Hold
most firmly and never doubt in the least that not only all pagans but also all
Jews and all heretics and schismatics who end this present life outside the
Catholic Church are about to go into the eternal fire that was prepared for the
Devil and his angels.” St. Fulgentius
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes,
professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church,
not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share
in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was
prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino
Ladislaus, CathInfo
We will see
the same from Pope Leo!
The
end of dialogue is to produce opinion. The purpose of logical argument is to
appeal to the intellect to arrive at truth.
Rhetoric appeals to the will and poetry to the imagination. The emphasis
of the Novus Ordo Church since Vatican II on dialogue is therefore a repudiation
of any claim to truth offering in its place only the opinions of churchmen. It
is the debasement of Jesus Christ’s gospel from Truth to just another opinion,
from historical fact to mythology. It is only incidental that Novus Ordo
Church, having turned its back against the truth, has also turned away from
rhetoric and poetry which explains why it is both effeminate and ugly.
“The Church will have to opt for dialogue as her style and method,
fostering an awareness of the existence of bonds and connections in a complex
reality. . . . No vocation, especially within the Church, can be placed outside
this outgoing dynamism of dialogue . . . . [emphasis added].”
Pope Francis’ Instrumentum
Laboris, XV ORDINARY GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF SYNOD OF BISHOPS: YOUNG PEOPLE,
THE FAITH AND VOCATIONAL DISCERNMENT
And
thus, the 'spirit of Vatican II' - dialogue so that everyone can reach an
accomodation of error and the repudiation of logical argument appealing to
truth!
“Don’t proselytize; respect others’ beliefs. We can inspire others
through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst
thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyzes: ‘I am talking with you
in order to persuade you,’ No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her
own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytizing.”
Pope Francis
Explicit
Supernatural Faith in God’s Revealed Truth is Necessary as a Necessity of Means
for Salvation.
If you do not
believe this, you do not possess Supernatural Faith!
Responses of the Holy Office under Pope Clement XI, 1703:
Q. Whether a minister
is bound, before baptism is conferred on an adult, to explain to him all the
mysteries of our faith, especially if he is at the point of death, because this
might disturb his mind. Or, whether it is sufficient, if the one at the point
of death will promise that when he recovers from the illness, he will take care
to be instructed, so that he may put into practice what has been commanded him.
Resp. A promise is not
sufficient, but a missionary is bound to explain to an adult, even a dying one
who is not entirely incapacitated, the mysteries of faith which are necessary by a necessity of means, as
are especially the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Q. Whether it is
possible for a crude and uneducated adult, as it might be with a barbarian, to
be baptized, if there were given to him only an understanding of God and some
of His attributes, especially His justice in rewarding and in
punishing, according to this passage of the Apostle "He that
cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder' [Heb . 11:23],
from which it is inferred that a barbarian adult, in a certain case of urgent
necessity, can be baptized although he does not believe explicitly in Jesus
Christ.
Resp. A missionary should not baptize
one who does not believe explicitly in the Lord Jesus Christ, but is bound to
instruct him about all those matters which are necessary, by a necessity of
means, according to the capacity of the one to be baptized.”
COMMENT: The infamous 1949 Holy Office Letter, sent privately to
Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston for the purpose of censoring Fr. Lenard
Feeney for his belief in the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the
Catholic Church, affirmed the novel doctrine of 'salvation by implicit desire'.
The "implicit desire" was to be a "member of the Church"
and the evidence of this "implicit desire" was an explicit belief in
a 'god who rewards and punishes'. The Letter teaches that the only requirement
for salvation is found in St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 11:13. No longer
were the belief in any revealed truth, the reception of any sacrament, or being
a subject of the Roman Pontiff necessary as necessities of means for salvation.
This Letter teaches that any "good-willed" Jew as a Jew, Hindu as a
Hindu, Mohammedan as a Mohammedan, Protestant as a Protestant, etc., etc. can
be members of the Church and can obtain salvation because they believe in a
'god who rewards and punishes'. The Holy Office response of 1703 makes it clear
that the belief in a God who rewards and punishes is only the natural
philosophical prerequisite for receiving the gospel good-news of salvation and
of itself is insufficient grounds for receiving the sacrament of Baptism.
After
40 Years of Dialogue, Rabbi identifies papal “conundrum.”
The real conundrum that faces Benedict XVI on his visit to Israel… is
should he be loyal to the Gospels which claim that only acceptance of Christ
can bring the messianic age, or should he endorse Vatican II which acknowledges
that Jews… can find the kingdom of God via a different route? Should he look inwards, backwards or
forwards?
Rabbi Jonathan Romain, The Pope’s Jewish Dilemma, The Guardian
There is yet a time of stillness and indifference. Liberalism is a
twilight state in which all errors are softened, in which no persecution for
religion will be countenanced. It is the stillness before the storm. There is a
time coming when nothing will be persecuted but truth, and if you possess the
truth, you will share the trial.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster
Pope Leo calls for unity in climate action on 10-year anniversary of
Laudato si’
Pope Leo XIV appealed to all of humanity to unite, overcome
differences, and work together to respond to climate change and ecological
destruction
The Tablet | Aili Winstanley Channer | 02
October 2025
He was speaking to climate activists and
religious leaders commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the encyclical Laudato si’ at Castel Gandolfo
yesterday.
It was the opening of the three-day
“Raising Hope for Climate Justice” conference organised by the Laudato si’
Movement in collaboration with ecclesial and institutional partners. Pope Leo reiterated Pope
Francis’ concern about “those who deride climate change” in the 2023
Apostolic Exhortation Laudate
Deum, and asserted, “there
is no room for indifference”.
He asked, “What must be done now to ensure that caring for our common
home and listening to the cry of the earth and the poor do not appear as mere
passing trends or, worse still, that they be seen and felt as divisive
issues?”
Attendees at the conference include
Christine Allen of Cafod. Bishop John Arnold, the lead bishop for the
environment for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said, “Pope Leo reminded us that Pope
Francis had emphasised that ‘the most effective solutions will not come from
individual efforts alone, but above all from major political decisions on the
national and international levels’. More than ever, we need to work together,
to think of future generations, and take urgent action if we are to truly
respond to the scale of this climate crisis: a crisis which affects those who
are poorest and most vulnerable and have done least to cause it.”
This view reflects Pope Leo’s call for ecological conversion at all
levels of society, including by strengthening democracy: “Citizens need to take
an active role in political decision-making at national, regional and local
levels. Only then will it be possible to mitigate the damage done to the
environment.”
Pope Leo was joined by Marina Silva,
Brazil’s minister of the environment and climate change and the head of the
United Nations Global Ethical Stocktake, an initiative to foster societal
reflection on ethical responsibility for climate change ahead of the 2025 UN
Conference of Parties (COP30), which will be held in Belem, Brazil, in
November. Pope Leo expressed his hope that COP30 and other upcoming
international summits “will
listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor, families, indigenous
peoples, involuntary migrants and believers throughout the world”.
But Pope Leo also emphasised that although these challenges are “of a
social and political nature”, they are “first and foremost of a spiritual
nature: they call for conversion”. He reaffirmed the spiritual
importance of caring for the Earth as God’s creation and its inseparability
from our responsibility towards the poor and vulnerable: “We cannot love God, whom we
cannot see, while despising his creatures. Nor can we call ourselves disciples
of Jesus Christ without participating in his outlook on creation and his care
for all that is fragile and wounded.”
The film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, known for his roles in
high-profile action films as well as his climate activism as Governor of
California and head of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, spoke alongside
Pope Leo and called him an “action hero” for his message on the environment.
Pope Leo smiled as he began his address. He affirmed the crucial and diverse
contributions made to mitigating the crisis by every individual at the
conference: “There is
indeed an action hero with us this afternoon: it is all of you, who are working
together to make a difference.”
As he closed, he said: “God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared
for the world that he created, for the benefit of all and for future
generations, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters. What will
be our answer?”
Pope Leo XIV Blesses Huge 20,000-Year-Old Chunk Of Greenland Ice
Forbes | Leslie Katz | Oct 06, 2025
Pope Leo XIV stood on stage at a climate
conference in Rome last week and laid his right hand on a massive chunk of ice,
blessing it.
This wasn’t just any ice. It had broken off
the vast Greenland Ice Sheet, a key regulator of global climate that’s
shrinking quickly as it melts due to climate change. The resulting rise in
global sea levels could flood many tens of millions of homes, scientists warn.
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson
transported the ice to the Raising Hope Conference with the help of Danish
geologist Minik Rosing to serve as a stark symbol of how quickly the world’s
glaciers are disappearing.
“Lord of life, bless this water,” the pope
said after touching the dripping ice. “May it awaken our hearts, cleanse our
indifference, soothe our grief and renew our hope through Christ our lord.”
Eliasson is known for his installation
art using light, water, and air. Eliasson called it “striking” to
witness the pope bless the 20,000-year-old piece of Greenlandic glacial ice.
“We felt the presence of the fragile ice underscored the importance of
recognizing that nature is not separate from humanity,” the artist wrote on
Instagram.
COMMENT: Pope Leo,
celebrating the 10th anniversary of Laudato si', the earth worshiping
encyclical of Pope Francis, blessed a block of Ice to counteract the diabolical
forces of global warming striking a grave and focused posture that was in
marked contrast to the stupidity of the gesture. The act says a lot more about
Leo than it does about climatology. Leo, like Francis, is believer in the pagan
Gaia cult of Mother Earth worship. Leo refers twice in his sermon to the
"Cry of the Earth, the Cry of the Poor." Leo took this phrase from
Francis' Laudato si' and Francis took
the quote without attribution from Leonard Boff's Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. Boff is a former Franciscan
priest who was censored by the liberal Cardinal Ratzinger when he headed the
CDF under the liberal JPII for his extreem Marxist liberation theology. Boff is
famous for his development of an integrated theology of Marxism, Gaia cult
earth worship and "social justice." He was admired by Francis and he
is admired twice as much by Leo.
If the
ice block is 20,000 years old then the Genesis creation account and the global
flood of Noe is reduced to mythology and not divine revelation. The fact is,
ancient mythology ended with the Christian revelation of Jesus Christ but the
modern scientific world is doing its best to resurrect the cult of mythology.
The world likes to talk about the scientific fables of Big Bang, primordial
soups with lightening bubbling forth proteins that congeal into cellular life
with the teleological purpose of producing the DNA of Darwinian man. These
fables are believed and shamelessly pandered by our neo-modernists popes. The
absurdity is that the neo-modernists popes have embraced the myths of
scientology when science itself has discredited their claims. Scientists have
been predicting global flooding of coastal areas for the last fifty years with
no evidence of rising sea levels. Global warming is not science. It is liberal
ideology applied to climatology that always calls for a one-world governance to
enforce its dictatorial and anti-Catholic mandates. The alleged global warming
is always without exception a man made assault on Mother Earth that requires
the ritual murder of 6.5 billion people for a world "sustainable"
population of 500 million for expiation. Never is it considered in their
calculus that the increase of global
temperature would make available millions of more acres of arable land and
lengthen the growing season in millions of additional acres creating a massive increase
in the food supply and areas of habitable land. Scientists have no idea
whatsoever if global warming, if it is in fact happening at all, would have
overall beneficial or harmful effects. While Pope Leo is a resident in Rome he
might ask what became of Rome's ancient Port City of Ostia which was at the
time of Jesus Christ located directly on the sea at the mouth of the Tiber
River. It is today three kilometers from the coast. Citizens of Ostia may have
lost their beach front property but they are not under water.
Exsurge Domine - USA; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
The Association Exsurge Domine is committed to provide assistance, support and material aid for
clerics, religious and consecrated persons who are victims of the Bergoglian
Regime. It is of highest importance to act, to defend the immutable Tradition
of the Catholic Faith, to preserve and promote the Apostolic Mass, and to save
Christendom. In this decisive moment, we must choose to counter evil, or be
swallowed up by its most pestilent breath. Only those who fight as the
Maccabee’s did shall merit victory.
DEFENDE
ECCLESIAM TUAM
In many nations that are no longer
Catholic-such as England, Germany or the Netherlands, for example-you can still
see small chapels carved out of attics and cellars, or home altars hidden in
invisible closets or niches: they were used for the clandestine celebration of
Mass in times of persecution, when it was a crime to be faithful to the Church
of Rome and priests had to hide to avoid imprisonment or the death sentence.
Without going back to Diocletian, even in the 16th and 17th centuries “papists”
were considered a threat, and were barely tolerated as long as they had no
churches, convents, seminaries, or schools.
These
persecutions are recurring today, in perhaps a less bloody form, and the
perpetrators are not Lutherans or the thugs of Olivier Cromwell, but Cardinals,
Bishops and Prelates of the Conciliar sect, infiltrated into the Vatican and
well determined to wipe out all traces of the “old religion” and the “old Mass”
that they have replaced with the religion of ecology, of welcome, of
inclusiveness, of the New World Order.
The
apostasy we are experiencing is not very different from that of the bishops who
swore allegiance to Henry VIII in order not to lose rents and benefits: the
difference is that today the act of obedience is required toward Bergoglio, the
Second Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo, the “synodal church,” Pachamama.
Those
who do not yield, those who remain faithful to the Priesthood or Religious Vows
are ostracized, mocked, vilified, persecuted and above all deprived of
ministry, a dwelling place and means of livelihood. Without mercy, without
charity, without humanity.
Exsurge Domine is the response of those who do not
surrender to this betrayal of the modernist Hierarchy: it joins us to our
brothers of past ages, to the faithful who gave hospitality to the monk wanted
by the soldiers of Elizabeth I, a hot meal to the nun with no convent left in
revolutionary France, a hiding place to the Mexican priest pursued by the
soldiers of the Masonic government. We can help those persecuted priests,
religious men and women who in anonymity, silence, and humble acceptance of
trials show us the suffering face of Christ ascending Golgotha.
Let
us therefore prove that we know how to accompany the Faith we profess with good
works, with prayer, with charity and almsgiving. For these priests, these
friars, these nuns can stop the arm of divine Justice and give hope for the
future in our children.
“Exsurge Domine – USA”
Address: PO Box 121, Rice Lake, WI 54868
Email: info@exsurgedomineusa.org
501(c)3 approved Tax Code: 93-3884604
EXCERPT: The Vatican has been covering-up the crimes of homosexual pederasts
since 1922 but the practice became actively enforced policy since 1962!!!
The total payouts by the
Catholic Church for sex abuse claims in the United States have exceeded $5
billion over the past two decades with almost all of this for homosexual
crimes.
FROM FORGIVENESS, TO
SILENCE... TO BETRAYAL, By Michael Kenny
THE FEAR OF
SCANDAL: A DEEPENING MOTIF
As the Church gained public visibility and institutional structure, the
fear of scandal – that is, anything that could bring shame or doubt upon the
Church – grew proportionally. This concern is not without biblical foundation.
Apparently Christ Himself warned that:
“Scandals must come, but woe to the one through whom they come.”
In a world where the Church was often maligned, the temptation to
protect its reputation – even at the cost of truth – grew strong.
This approach reached its most formal expression in the
20th century.
CRIMEN
SOLICITATIONIS: CODIFYING SECRECY
In 1962, the Vatican issued a secret instruction titled CRIMEN
SOLICITATIONIS. Which laid out procedures for dealing with priests accused
of using the confessional to solicit sexual acts (an update of canon 904 in
1741). While its original focus was on confessional abuse – a particularly
grievous offense – it extended its protocols to cover ALL sexual misconduct by
clergy, including child abuse.
This document mandated
strict secrecy:
“Cases of this nature
are subject to the strictest pontifical secret – under pain of
excommunication.”
This meant the victims, witnesses, and Church authorities were all
bound by silence, ostensibly to protect the sacrament and the dignity of the
Church. But in practice, this secrecy protected the perpetrators and silenced
the victims.
The same theological instinct that once prompted Origen to counsel
forgiveness now found its legal expression in institutional concealment.
The Church fathers were not wrong to value forgiveness. But forgiveness
without justice is not sanctity – it is surrender. And the Church must never
surrender the innocent to the sins of the powerful.
THE COST OF
MISAPPLIED MERCY
What unites the early Christian response to personal violation with the
institutional culture of silence centuries later is a tragic misapplication
mercy – a prioritizing of the Church's image, or of the offender's soul, over
the immediate demands of justice and the protection of the innocent.
In the name of forgiveness, the Church failed to act.
In the name of avoiding scandal, it created a greater one.
In the name of unity, it tolerates wolves among the sheep.
The very teachings of Christ – meant to uphold truth, protect the weak,
and heal the broken – were twisted into realizations for secrecy and inaction.
TOWARD A NEW ETHOS
OF ACCOUNTABILITY
The path forward must involve more than policy reform. It requires
a re-examination of the Church's spiritual instincts – a return to the full
Gospel, where mercy and justice walk hand in hand.
Forgiveness does not mean the abandonment of truth.
Compassion does not mean the protection of the predator.
The Church must rediscover the moral courage to expose evil, even when
it dwells in its own house.
EPILOGUE: A WAR ON
INNOCENCE
There is a deeper layer to this crisis. Darker than secrecy. Worse than
betrayal. It is diabolical.
Satan hates God. This hatred is total, consuming and unrelenting. But
Satan can't hurt God directly – God is beyond his reach. So he strikes where it
hurts most: at what God loves – CHILDREN.
Jesus told us to let the children come to Him. Jesus warned about the
millstone. So, what then is a perfect way for Satan's followers to do his
bidding and please him, and hate God at the same time...
VIOLATE A CHILD,
and do it wearing the robes of Christ
In this perverse inversion of the priesthood, the altar becomes a
hunting ground, and the confessional, a trap. [....]
COMMENT: The problem was magnified in the 1983 Code of Canon Law
protecting homosexual predators. Their hypocrisy is evident when compared to
the treatment given to Fr. Samuel Waters. Homosexual predators are given the
full canonical rights of due process while Fr. Waters was denied canonical due
process for the "crime" of offering the "received and
approved" immemorial Roman rite of Mass.
COMMENT: From the 1917 Code of Canon Law, clerical homosexual predators
and other sex offenders who were found
guilty were laicized and turned over to the state for suffer criminal
penalties. Such a response was necessary to restore justice, protect the faithful,
and begin the hard work of rebuilding. Everything changed in 1922 with a new
canon law which required all bishops of the world to violate mandatory
reporting laws of the state by concealing child abuse and homosexuality by
clerics from criminal state law enforcement. This document, Crimens
Sollicitationis, was included in the 1983 Code of Canon Law and remained
in force until 2001.
Abp. Vigano the former apostolic nuncio to the United States was
required first by Crimens Sollicitationis and then by Sacramentum Sanctitatis Tutela of
2001 and then by Graviora Delicta of 2010 to conceal any knowledge of
sexual crimes by clergy from public disclosure. The “Spotlight” investigation
of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in 2002 revealed that many clerics found
guilty of child sexual abuse were repeatedly returned to Catholic ministry
where they repeated their crimes on new children. Following this investigation,
the United States was the only country that received an exemption from the
Vatican policy to conceal sexual abuse from state criminal law enforcement.
Canon 1341 of the current 1983 Code of Canon Law, requires bishops
whenever possible to ask priests to stop committing crimes, instead of
punishing them for their actions. What is perhaps worse, Canon 1324 in the 1983
Code is used to decrease punishment for pedophiles on the grounds that
pedophiles have less freedom than non-pedophiles to control their perverse
passions. Thus, a diagnosis of pedophilia lessens culpability and imputability
of the crime of pedophilia. As a result, bishops have concluded pedophiles
should receive a lesser punishment for pedophilia than other sex offenders.
The SSPX follows the 1983 Code and has used it cover up sexual offenders
within the SSPX. This includes the former district superios in the United
States for the SSPX, Fr. Arnaud Rostand who was sentenced to a French prison
after conviction of homosexual pederasty in France, Spain and Switzerland
against seven boys on scouting trips between 2002 and 2018. The purpose of this
is not detraction of the SSPX but to point out an ugly fact that every faithful
Catholic should be aware of when receiving their sacraments, attending their
schools or participating in their supervised camps and other summer activities.
They as an organization follow the Vatican policy to cover up any crimes of
sexual abuse of children.
"Only the Prudent man can be brave."
Josef Pieper
Pro-abortion Sen. Durbin
says he’s ‘overwhelmed’ by Pope Leo’s apparent defense of his award
‘It is amazing to me. It’s
quite a moment,’ Durbin said about Pope Leo appearing to support the
pro-abortion and pro-LGBT senator’s ‘lifetime achievement award’ from Cdl.
Blase Cupich.
LifeSiteNews | Emily Mangiaracina | Oct
2, 2025 — Pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin said he is “overwhelmed” by
Pope Leo XIV’s apparent support for his “lifetime achievement award” from
Cardinal Blase Cupich.
Leo
on Tuesday appeared to imply that he was not opposed to Cupich’s decision to
give the award to the radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBT Durbin, when asked
about the matter by a journalist.
“I
think that it is very important to look at the overall work that a senator has
done during … 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” he stated. “I
understand the difficulty and the tensions but I think, as I myself have spoken
to in the past, it is important to look at many issues that are related to what
is the teaching of the Church.”
“Someone
who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not
really pro-life. Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement
with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if
that’s pro-life,” Leo then said. He went on to conclude, “So, they are very
complex issues, I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them.”
On
the same day Leo appeared to defend Sen. Durbin receiving the lifetime award
from Cupich, the pro-abortion politician announced that he will decline the
award from the Archdiocese of Chicago after facing a strong backlash, including
criticism from several U.S. bishops.
Durbin
told NBC News he was surprised by “the level of controversy” over the award,
and that he declined it “because the reaction has been so controversial against
the cardinal who proposed it, and I see no point in going forward with that.”
Commenting
on the pope’s defense of his award, Durbin said, “It is amazing to me. It’s
quite a moment. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know it was gonna happen.”
As
the Lepanto Institute has pointed out on X, Durbin’s award violates the very
laws of Cupich’s archdiocese. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield has
affirmed, “The U.S. bishops have clearly taught that support for abortion
disqualifies individuals from receiving honors from Catholic institutions.”
Durbin’s
award, and Leo’s failure to denounce his award, is even more shocking
considering that since his election to the U.S. Senate in 1997, Durbin has
supported every possible brutal method of abortion, as well as even post-abortion
infanticide: He voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the
Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors
Protection Act.
He
also supported legislation aimed at codifying and expanding Roe v. Wade – the
“Women’s Health Protection Act” – despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that it
was unconstitutional.
COMMENT: Pope Leo is defending the pro-abortion Sen. Durbin while at the same
time slandering faithful Catholics. His appeal to the 'seamless garment,' subsequently
called the "consistent ethic of life," is grounded on the Vatican II
novelty that the dignity of the human person is so great that he is not
obligated to believe the truths that God has revealed or obey the commandments
God. The novelty was developed by his Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago in
1984 who was a notorious and clever homosexual who did as much damage to the
Church as the notorious Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. To say as Leo has that
Catholics who oppose abortion are not really pro-life if they do not oppose the
death penalty for convicted murderers is to claim that a murderer has a greater
right to life than his victim. As for opposing unjust wars the homosexual crowd
and their liberal Catholic supporters have done precious little over the last
35 years.
Vatican
Council I listing the beneficial Fruits of the Council of Trent which are in
every detail exactly the opposite which we have seen from Vatican Council II
Now this redemptive
providence appears very clearly in unnumbered benefits, but most especially is
it manifested in the advantages which have been secured for the Christian world
by ecumenical councils, among which the council
of Trent requires special mention, celebrated though it was in evil
days.
Thence came:
1. a closer definition and more fruitful
exposition of the holy dogmas of religion and
2. the condemnation and repression of errors;
thence too,
3. the restoration and vigorous strengthening
of ecclesiastical discipline,
4. the advancement of the clergy in zeal for
·
learning and
·
piety,
5. the founding of colleges for the training
of the young for the service of religion; and finally
6. the renewal of the moral life of the
Christian people by
· a more accurate instruction of the faithful, and
· a more frequent reception of the sacraments. What is more, thence also
came
7. a closer union of the members with the
visible head, and an increased vigour in the whole Mystical Body of Christ.
Thence came:
1. the multiplication of religious orders and
other organisations of Christian piety; thence too
2. that determined and constant ardour for the
spreading of Christ’s kingdom abroad in the world, even at the cost of shedding
one’s blood.
While we recall with grateful hearts, as is
only fitting, these and other outstanding gains, which the divine mercy has
bestowed on the church especially by means of the last ecumenical synod, we
cannot subdue the bitter grief that we feel at most serious evils, which have
largely arisen either because
o the authority of the sacred synod was held in contempt by all too many,
or because
o its wise decrees were neglected.
First Vatican Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Faith, listing some of the manifold beneficial fruits from
the Council of Trent!
Regarding the Sin of Schism
and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
There are no manifest acts of schism with one
and only one important exception which will be identified below. This means
there are no acts that are necessarily always and everywhere evidence of a
schismatic motive in the internal forum excepting one. Contrasted, for example,
with abortion and blasphemy which are acts that are manifest sins because they
can never be done with a morally right intention; the act itself reveals the
intent of the internal forum as being vicious. These are always and everywhere
necessarily mortal sins. As St. Paul says, "Some
men's sins are manifest, going before to judgment: and some men they follow after"
(1Tim 5:24). St. Paul gives specific examples of "manifest sins": "Nor
the effeminate, nor liers with mankind (sodomites), nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of
God" (1 Cor 6:10). What exactly is the schismatic motive that a
contentious canonical process must discover for conviction and attribution of
imputability of the crime?
The canonical definition for both heresy and
schism are taken directly almost verbatim from St. Thomas Aquinas: "Schismatics
are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and to hold communion
with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy." Schism is
the repudiation of the universal jurisdiction of Sovereign Pontiff and
communion with those who accept it. It is the burden of the canonical trial to
prove the schismatic intention for all schismatics are disobedient to the
Sovereign Pontiff but not all who are disobedient to the Sovereign Pontiff are
schismatics. St. Thomas' in his examination identifies schism as a specific species of sin. St. Thomas says,
"Hence the sin of schism is, properly speaking, a special sin, for the
reason that the schismatic
intends to sever himself from that unity which is the effect of charity:
because charity unites not only one person to another with the bond of
spiritual love, but also the whole Church in unity of spirit." The genus to which schism belongs is acts
opposed to peace which is the fruit of "that unity which is the effect of charity."
Regarding peace, St. Thomas continues: "Peace implies a twofold union...
The first is the result of one's own appetites being directed to one object;
while the other results from one's own appetite being united with the appetite
of another: and each of these unions is effected by charity." All acts
that disturb the fruit of peace are directed against the cause of peace which
is charity."
Acts of disobedience against properly
constituted authority are only acts of schism when the intention is to overturn
the peace of unity caused by charity. This intention constitutes the species difference of schism from other
acts opposed to peace, as St. Thomas says, the schismatic "intends to separate
himself from the unity that charity makes" (Q.39, a.1.) among the faithful. St.
Thomas is offering an essential
definition of schism which is the best of all definitions because it is the
most intelligible because it identifies the essence.
Schism, just as other acts opposed to peace enumerated by St. Thomas, which
include discord, contention,
war, strife and sedition, requires contextualization. Specifically for the case
of Archbishop Viganò, St. Thomas says that morality of contention, which is the opposition to
another in speech, is determined by the intention: "As to the intention,
we must consider whether he contends against the truth, and then he is to be
blamed, or against falsehood, and then he should be praised." Archbishop
Carlo Maria Viganò's "contention" against Pope Francis is the
contention of truth against falsehood and is therefore praiseworthy and not
schismatic. This is why a canonical trial is called "contentious" for
it is intended to reveal who is contending for truth.
The poles of contention are truth-falsehood
which is the same for dogmas of faith. As St. Jude admonishes: "I was
under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for
the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3). Schism is the
rejection of the divinely revealed truth of papal universal jurisdiction, a
dogma of faith since Vatican I. Schism is manifested by disobedience but all
disobedience is not schism. Obedience to God is unqualified. All other acts of
obedience are morally good only to the degree that they are properly regulated
by the virtue of Religion which is the primary subsidiary virtue under Justice.
Any act of obedience that violates the virtue of Religion is a sin. The virtue
of Religion above all requires that we "give unto God the things that are
God's." This first and necessary act of obedience is to believe all that
God has revealed and to keep his commandments. Without this first necessary
condition, it is impossible to keep the greatest commandment to love God above
all things and it is impossible to have "the unity that charity
makes."
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was
administratively "excommunicated" for "schism" because the
administrative process avoided the canonical requirement to prove that his
intent was to "separate himself from the unity that charity makes"
among the faithful. They denied the right of Archbishop Viganò to defend
himself in a contentions
forum against the charge which would obviously have included discussing the
heretical acts of Pope Francis which are manifest. The ultimate purpose of the
canonical process is to determine truth and bring those who have deviated from
truth back from error. But for many the contention itself irrespective of truth
or falsehood is the manifest evidence of schism. The reason for this will
become clearer after discussing the relationship in the context of faith and
charity, and heresy and schism.
Schismatics "refuse to submit to the
Sovereign Pontiff" because they deny that the pope possesses universal
jurisdiction conferred by God for the
legitimate exercise of the papal office which produces unity and peace.
Universal jurisdiction of the pope is a divinely revealed truth that was
dogmatized at Vatican I Council. St. Thomas says:
"Heresy and schism are distinguished in
respect of those things to which each is opposed essentially and directly. For
heresy is essentially opposed to faith, while schism is essentially opposed to
the unity of ecclesiastical charity. Wherefore just as faith and charity are different virtues, although
whoever lacks faith lacks charity, so too schism and heresy are different
vices, although whoever is a heretic is also a schismatic, but not
conversely."
Since the universal jurisdiction of the pope
has become a dogma at Vatican Council I, a schismatic is now also conversely
always a heretic. Importantly, faith precedes charity. "Without faith, it
is impossible to please God" (Heb 11-6) because "whoever lacks faith lacks charity."
The keys of universal jurisdiction were promised to St. Peter after his
profession of faith which is its proximate material cause. Many Church Fathers,
such as St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, describe an analogical identity
of the rock (petra) with divine faith, with St. Peter, with Jesus Christ the
"cornerstone," and the Church itself. The faith proceeds and is the proximate cause of the
universal jurisdiction conferred by Jesus Christ because faith is indispensible
to the bond of unity which is charity.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning wrote:
“The
interpretation by the Fathers of the words ‘On this rock; etc. is fourfold, but
all four interpretations are not more than four aspects of one and the same
truth, and all are necessary to complete its full meaning. They all implicitly
or explicitly contain the perpetual stability of Peter’s faith...:’
“In
these two promises [i.e. Lk 22:32, Mt 16:18] a divine assistance is pledged to
Peter and to his successors, and that divine assistance is promised to secure
the stability and indefectibiity of the Faith in the supreme Doctor and Head of
the Church, for the general good of the Church itself.”
Cardinal
Henry Edward Manning, “The Vatican Council and Its Definitions: A Pastoral
Letter to the Clergy”, p. 83-84, 1870
All
this is nicely summed up by St. Paul who admonishes "that you walk worthy
of the vocation in which you are called; With all humility and mildness, with
patience, supporting one another in charity. Careful to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one
Spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one
baptism" (Eph. 4:1-5). The primary
and essential cause and sign of the unity in the Church is the faith. The pope
is only secondarily and accidentally the sign and cause of unity in the Church.
If the pope falls from the faith he is to be confronted as St. Paul did to St.
Peter when he "walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel" and
accommodated the Judaizers leading others into "dissimulation" (Gal.
2:11). If the pope is a heretic he "lacks faith (and) lacks charity".
Without charity he breaks the bond of unity in the Church and necessarily becomes
schismatic. Manifest Heresy is the one and only sin that identifies a
schismatic because it manifests a schismatic intent.
Tikkun olam (Hebrew תיקון
עולם, literally, 'repair of the world') is
a concept in Judaism, often interpreted as aspiration to behave and act
constructively and beneficially. Documented use of the term dates back to the
Mishnaic period (ca. 10-220 AD), (that is, the time when the oral traditions of
the Jews were committed to the written form in the Mishna, also called the Oral
Torah). Since medieval times, kabbalistic literature has broadened use of the
term. In the modern era, among the post-Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment,
1770-1880) movements, tikkun olam is the idea that Jews bear responsibility not
only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the
welfare of society at large. For many contemporary pluralistic rabbis, the term
refers to "Jewish social justice" or "the establishment of Godly
qualities throughout the world". Wikipedia
COMMENT: Jews
repeatedly since the time of Jesus Christ are the passionate creators and
principle instigators of ideological movements conceived as necessary for the
moral and material improvement of political and social order. When one after
the other proves to be a political and social failure, it is simply dropped and
they move on to another. They recognize a ‘fall from grace’ because they
recognize the ‘world needs to be repaired.’ Since they have rejected Jesus Christ,
the incarnate Logos, the eternal Wisdom of the Father, they have rejected His
divine plan for the ‘repair of the world’ and in its place offer what Fr. Denis
Fahey, C.S.Sp. described as “Organized Naturalism” in opposition to the
Supernatural Order of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is
that whoever is not working for God is working for the Devil. There is no
middle ground. As Jesus said, “He that is not with me, is against me: and he
that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Matthew 12:30).
Where
Tikkun Olam can lead
OPINION:
Stalin’s Jews
We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were
Jewish
Israel News |
ynetnews | Sever Plocker
Here's
a particularly forlorn historical date: More than 100 years ago, between the
19th and 20th of December 1917, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution and
civil war, Lenin signed a decree calling for the establishment of The
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and
Sabotage, also known as Cheka.
Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest
state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few
years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to
KGB.
We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was
responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at
least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger,
large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at
Gulags.
Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic
minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals,
artists, labor movement activists, "opposition members" who were
defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party
itself.
In his new, highly praised book "The War of the World,"
Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind
devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution.
In his book on the Stalinist purges, Tel Aviv University's Dr. Igal Halfin
writes that Stalinist violence was unique in that it was directed
internally.
Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their
deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined "terror
officials," cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges,
perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western
Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with
a kosher certificate.
All these things are well-known to some extent or another, even though
the former Soviet Union's archives have not yet been fully opened to the
public. But who knows about this? Within Russia itself, very few people have been
brought to justice for their crimes in the NKVD's and KGB's service. The
Russian public discourse today completely ignores the question of "How
could it have happened to us?" As opposed to Eastern European nations, the
Russians did not settle the score with their Stalinist past.
And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever
hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of
the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of
the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is
responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies
established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him
favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman
in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf."
Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In
his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag
Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist
killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young
Jewish women.
Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central
Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the
"first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine,
an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi
horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich.
Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the
Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention
just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the
organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist.
In
1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most
senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They
too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating
lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the
waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy
of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too,
when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers,
among the greatest known by modern history.
The
Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and
abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but
rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we
find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have
to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it
unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when
he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does
amazingly despicable things.
Even
if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who
served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After
all, others will always remind us of their origin.
“Don’t Jews still believe in a Messias to come?” asks
the credulous Christian. “And don’t they believe in the same Biblical Heaven
and Hell that we do?”
The answer to both these
questions is — no. And it is an emphatic “No!” as the subsequent Jewish
testimony will verify.
Concerning the Messias: The Jews of today reject the notion of a
personal redeemer who will be born of them and lead them to the fulfillment of
the Old Testament prophecies. The Jews believe that the whole Jewish race is to
be elevated to a position of prosperity and overlordship and that, when this
happy day arrives (the Messianic Age), they will have achieved all that is
coming to them by way of savior and salvation. In his recent book, The Messianic Idea in Israel, Jewish
theologian Dr. Joseph Klausner explains: “Thus the whole people Israel in the
form of the elect of the nations gradually became the Messiah of the world, the redeemer of
mankind.”
Concerning Heaven and Hell: A succinct summary of Jewish
teaching on “life after death” was given in the May, 1958 issue of B’nai
B’rith’s National Jewish Monthly. Under the caption, “What Can A Modern Jew Believe?” there
appeared: “Judaism insists that ‘heaven’ must be established on this earth. The
reward of the pious is life and happiness in this world, while the punishment
of the wicked is misery on earth and premature death … By hitching its star to
the Messianic future on this earth, Israel became the eternal people.” The
article goes on: “The best Jewish minds have always held that a physical
hereafter is a detraction from mature belief.” And the conclusion: “There is
neither hell nor paradise, God merely sends out the sun in its full strength;
the wicked are consumed by its heat, while the pious find delight and healing
in its rays.”
Fr. Leonard Feeney, MICM, The
Point, October 1958
Mons. Carlo
Maria Viganò: Replies to the claim that obedience is unqualified even when the
faith itself is in question!!
NON SEQUITUR
Further Clarifications in Response to the Reply of
Prof. Daniele Trabucco
I can only agree with almost everything that Professor Trabucco has stated in
response to my comment [1]. As he writes at the Duc in Altum blog [2]:
A saint who obeys
a disciplinary measure that is unjust but not contrary to faith (as in the case
of Padre Pio) performs an act of heroic self-denial, because he recognizes that
even in harshness and iniquity, a command does not break the bond with the
revealed deposit of faith. The situation, however, is different when an
ecclesiastical authority commands something that contradicts faith: in that
case, the order is no longer authentically disciplinary but is transformed into
a deviation that strikes at the very rationale of the authority. Here, refusal
is not rebellion, but fidelity.
Given that this principle is valid – and which I agree with sine glossa
– I find it difficult to accept as valid the exception that Trabucco adds
immediately afterwards:
However […] such
refusal can never translate into schismatic acts, nor into attitudes that cause
public scandal. For if it is true that discipline and faith complement each
other, it is equally true that discipline, as a visible order, also serves to
preserve the unity of the Church. And unity is part of the supernatural common
good of the Mystical Body. Therefore, the truth of faith cannot be defended at
the cost of tearing apart ecclesial communion.
It is true that “discipline, as a visible order, also serves to
safeguard the unity of the Church. And unity is part of the supernatural common
good of the Mystical Body.” But the unity achieved through obedience is the
effect, not the cause, of the profession of the same Faith: the faithful are
united in the Church under the authority of the Roman Pontiff because they
believe the same doctrine, not the other way around. And this is the error that
undermines Professor Trabucco’s argument on obedience. The refusal to obey an
ecclesiastical authority, when that authority commands something that
contradicts the Faith, cannot constitute an attack on unity, because it is the
illegitimate order of the Superior that is schismatic and scandalous in nature,
not the disobedience of the subject who remains faithful to God.
If the refusal to obey an illegitimate authority or order “is not rebellion,
but fidelity”; if the Regula Fidei is the supreme principle that finds its
rationale in the Truth coessential and consubstantial with God [3]; if
obedience itself, as a moral virtue, is ordered toward the good and therefore
toward the Truth – because Faith and discipline, as Professor Trabucco states,
“though different in object, are united in purpose: the glory of God and the
salvation of souls” – how can the Professor affirm: “Therefore, one cannot
defend the truth of faith at the cost of tearing apart ecclesial communion”?
Given an absolute principle, how is it possible to derogate from it with an
exception that makes unity in obedience absolute while the Truth becomes
relative and secondary to obedience?
In fact, just the opposite is true: ecclesial communion cannot be defended at
the cost of tearing apart the Truth of the Faith, because it is obedience that
is ordered to the Faith, and not vice versa [4].
I would add that anyone who contradicts, adulterates, or silences the Faith is
the first to cause scandal, especially if he finds himself in the position of
exercising coercive force as an ecclesiastical Superior over a priest or
religious. It is the duty of every baptized person to defend and proclaim sound
doctrine and to denounce anyone in authority who abuses it, causing grave
scandal to the common people. They are rightly accustomed to
obeying—instinctively, I would almost say—the authority of the Hierarchy and
consider its deviation unthinkable under normal circuмstances. This is
especially true for the priest subject to the jurisdiction of his Superiors and
the sanctions they can impose: dutiful disobedience to an abusive and illicit
order entails canonical sanctions for anyone who dutifully resists, as Trabucco
hopes. This punishment of the disobedient is the scandal – not the act of
denouncing the corruption of ecclesiastical authority. Just as it is a scandal
that heretics, schismatics, corrupt individuals, and notorious fornicators are
not prosecuted but rather encouraged, while anyone who denounces the crisis,
identifies its causes, and identifies those responsible, who have fraudulently
held power for sixty years and can abuse it at will, is declared schismatic and
excommunicated.
The Communion of Saints—which is the archetype and model of ecclesial
communion—is founded in God, who is Truth, not obedience. God is not obedient,
because that would presuppose an authority superior to Him. The obedience of
the Son—factus obœdiens usque ad mortem (Phil 2:8)—is a unity of will (idem
velle) between the Three Divine Persons, without an internal hierarchical
relationship between Them [5]. At the same time, God is the primary recipient
of all obedience, because by obeying the Superiors to whom He has granted
authority, we also obey God. But obedience cannot exist if the Superior who
asks to be obeyed does not in turn recognize God’s authority over himself. Such
obedience would accept the premise, even if only theoretical, of being able to
disobey God in order to obey men, contravening the precept of Saint Peter (Acts
5:29) and making earthly authority self-referential and therefore potentially
tyrannical. In this, the concept of synodality is shown to be absolutely
subversive of the order willed by God, in that it tampers with the monarchical
structure of the Church—on the model of Christ the King and Pontiff who is her
Head—by placing sovereignty in the hands of “the people” (even if in reality,
power, as in civil republics, is in the hands of an elite) and by affirming
“that Christ wanted His Church to be governed in the manner of a republic.” [6]
Only universal submission to a true and good God makes obedience a sure means
of sanctity for those who obey their Superiors. And this is why we have both
reason and the Sensus Fidei: to discern when obedience is a virtuous act and
when instead “it transforms into a deviation that strikes at the very rationale
of authority.”
If Professor Trabucco recognizes the possibility that ecclesiastical superiors
may issue orders contrary to Faith or Morals (a possibility confirmed by daily
abuses of authority against traditional Catholics and the equally daily
tolerance of unprecedented scandals), he must also acknowledge the possibility
that subordinates may reject the illegitimate orders of their superiors. The
Church’s hierarchical ladder allows for appeal to a higher authority when one
finds oneself in conflict with another authority subordinate to it. But if the
highest echelons of the hierarchical ladder—in this case, the Roman Pontiff and
the Roman Dicasteries—are themselves implicated in a general subversion of the
Faith (beginning with Leo’s recent declaration that “we must change attitudes”
before we can change doctrine [7]), it is clear that hierarchical recourse is
impracticable and that no earthly authority can remedy the disobedience of
those who are Superiors.
In a nutshell: amidst the obvious general disobedience of Church Authority to
God’s law at all levels, how can a priest or a simple believer subjected to
this Authority remain obedient to it, if one is still bound to continue to obey
God rather than men?
The true h0Ɩ0cαųst of the will that the mystics speak of is
this: knowing how to be obedient unto death, even death on a cross, in
obedience to God. But never, under any circuмstances, can one even
imagine sycophantically obeying heretical and schismatic Superiors, for fear of
shattering “with acts of a schismatic nature” the apparent unity of their
church. Because the unity they claim is a simulacrum, a fiction, a grotesque
imposture hiding the indifferentism of the synodal pantheon, which includes
both the conservatives of Summorum Pontificuм as well as the LGBTQ+
progressives of James Martin, both Our Lady of Fatima as well as the Pachamama,
the Mass of the ages along with the Novus Ordo. The only inalienable dogma is
that everyone must recognize the Second Vatican Council: its ecclesiology, its
morality, its liturgy, its saints and martyrs, and above all its excommunicated
people and its heretics—that is, the “radical traditionalists” who refuse to be
tamed by the new synodal demands. As for the rest of what we believe, Leo has
explicitly said that one can safely gloss over it in the name of
ecuмenical and synodal unity, including the Filioque of the Creed. But
not Vatican II: it is the founding act of a church born in 1962 which claims
the authority of the True Church, from whose Magisterium, however, it distances
itself and opposes it.
We therefore find ourselves before an Authority—the supreme authority—that is
clearly disobedient to Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body, but which,
usurping Christ’s authority, claims to decide in what respects those subject to
it must obey it, disobeying God’s commands.
Can we even imagine recognizing this authority as legitimate and owing it
obedience, lest we tear apart the “unity” that the Hierarchy has already
shattered with its own disobedience to God? How could we possibly ratify its
abuses, making ourselves accomplices of those who are betraying the Truth?
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop, 23 September 2025
NOTE
1 – Cfr. https://exsurgedomine.it/250917-trabucco-ita/
2 – Cfr. https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2025/09/21/a-proposito-di-obbedienza-note-sulle-osservazioni-di-monsignor-vigano/
3 – Saint Augustine, De Trinitate, VIII, 2: God is truth itself – ipsa veritas
–, and everything that is true comes from Him, because He is the origin of all
truth.
4 – The decree of the Holy Office of 20 December 1949 condemning the
ecuмenical movement also recalls this: This unity cannot be achieved
except in the recognition of Catholic truth.
5 – Saint Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus, 51, 8: Christ’s obedience
is not a diminution of His divinity, but an expression of His perfect union
with the Father, for the will of the Son is one with that of the Father.
6 – Pius VI, Brief Super Soliditate of 28 November 1786 condemning
Febronianism. This doctrine fits into the context of the Enlightenment and the
tensions between the temporal power of states and the authority of the Catholic
Church, promoting a vision that limited the primacy of the Pope and
strengthened the autonomy of national Churches and local bishops. Febronius
(the pseudonym of Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, Bishop of Trier) argued that the
authority of the Pope was not absolute, but derived from the universal Church,
understood as the community of the faithful and bishops. Febronianism also
influenced the Council of Pistoia (1786), in which there appeared heretical
demands that are substantially identical to those that would re-appear in
Vatican II.
7 – Cfr. https://chiesaepostconcilio.blogspot.com/2025/09/papa-leone-parla-con-elise-ann-allen-di.html
8 – Cfr. https://youtube.com/watch?v=IkPJn2L9BBs&si=oGcPhGwR5nxQ6jva
TO KNOW THE
FAITH, YOU MUST KNOW THE RULE
The Rule of Faith was given to the Church in the very act of Revelation
and its promulgation by the Apostles. But for this Rule to have an actual and
permanently efficient character, it must be continually promulgated and
enforced by the living Apostolate, which must exact from all members of the
Church a docile Faith in the truths of Revelation authoritatively proposed, and
thus unite the whole body of the Church, teachers and taught, in perfect unity
of Faith. Hence the original promulgation is the remote Rule of Faith, and the
continuous promulgation by the Teaching Body, (i.e.: DOGMA) is the proximate
Rule.
Rev. Scheeben’s Manual of Catholic Theology
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties
of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. Which some promising, have erred concerning the faith.
Grace be with thee. Amen.” St. Paul, letter to his disciple, Bishop St. Timothy
(1 Timothy 6:20-21)
... We wish to make our own the important words employed by the
Council; those words which define its spirit, and, in a dynamical synthesis,
form the spirit of all those who refer to it, be they within or without the
Church. The word “NOVELTY”, simple, very dear to today’s men, is much
utilized; it is theirs... That word... it was given to us as an order, as a
program... It comes to us directly from the pages of the Holy Scripture: “For,
behold (says the Lord), I create new heavens and a new earth”. St. Paul echoes
these words of the prophet Isaiah (II Corinthians 5, 17); then, the Apocalypse:
“I am making everything new” (II Corinthians 21, 5). And Jesus, our Master, was
not He, himself, an innovator? “You have heard that people were told in the
past ... but now I tell you...” (Matthew 5) – Repeated in the
“Sermon on the Mount”.
It is precisely thus that the
Council has come to us. Two terms characterize it: “RENOVATION” and “REVISION”.
We are particularly keen that this “spirit of renovation” – according to the
expression of the Council – be understood and experienced by everyone. It
responds to the characteristic of our time, wholly engaged in an enormous and
rapid transformation, and generating novelties in every sector of modern life.
In fact, one cannot shy away from this spontaneous reflection: if the whole world
is changing, will not religion change as well? Between the reality of life and
Christianity, Catholicism especially, is not there reciprocal disagreement,
indifference, misunderstanding, and hostility? The former is leaping forward;
the latter would not move. How could they go along? How could Christianity
claim to have, today, any influence upon life?
And it is for this reason that
the Church has undertaken some reforms, especially after the Council. The
Episcopate is about to promote the “renovation” that corresponds to our present
needs; Religious Orders are reforming their Statutes; Catholic laity is
qualified and found its role within the life of the Church; Liturgy is
proceeding with a reform in which anyone knows the extension and importance; Christian
education reviews the methods of its pedagogy; all the canonical legislations
are about to be revised. And how many other consoling and promising novelties
we shall see appearing in the Church! They attest to Her new vitality, which
shows that the Holy Spirit animates Her continually, even in these years so
crucial to religion. The development of ecumenism, guided by Faith and Charity,
itself says what progress, almost unforeseeable, has been achieved during the
course and life of the Church. The Church looks at the future with Her heart
brimming with hope, brimming with fresh expectation in love... We can say... of
the Council: It marks the onset of a new era, of which no one can deny the new
aspects that We have indicated to you.
Pope Paul VI, General Audience
of July 2, 1969
And Then, Only Three Years Later:
Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has
entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety,
confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first
prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement,
and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we
fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has
entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were supposed
to be opened to the light instead....
Even in the Church this state of uncertainty
rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the
history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom,
quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from
the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of filling them.
How has all this come about? We confide to
you our thought: there has been the intervention of a hostile power. His name
is the Devil; this mysterious being who is alluded to even in the letter of St.
Peter. So many times, on the other hand, in the Gospel, on the very lips of
Christ, there recurs the mention of this enemy of man. We believe in something
supernatural (post-correction: “preternatural”!), coming into the world
precisely to disturb, to suffocate anything of the Ecumenical Council, and to
prevent that the Church would explode into the hymn of joy for having regained
full consciousness of Herself (!!).
Pope Paul VI, June 29, 1972
Pope Leo on
LGBTQ: ‘We have to change attitudes before we ever change doctrine’
In this first
extended interview he’s just done with Crux Now, Leo XIV has basically said
that the Church’s teaching on sexual morality could change.
LifeSiteNews
| Sep 18, 2025
Friends, you are not going to
believe this.
In this first extended
interview he’s just done with Crux Now, Leo XIV has basically said
that the Church’s teaching on sexual morality could change. He actually even
went there and implied that he could – in his words – “change the Church’s
teaching” on women’s ordination.
Take a listen to what he said
first on sexual morality. This is what he says after having been talking about
LGBT issues for a while:
People want the Church doctrine to change, want attitudes to change. I
think we have to change attitudes before we ever change doctrine.
That’s right,
he’s strongly implying – well, he’s saying – that Church
teaching could shift, if attitudes change first.
Might that be why we’ve had so
much LGBT stuff in Rome lately, from Fr. James Martin to the LGBT pilgrimage?
Are they trying to get our “attitudes to change”?
And what do you think the
so-called “LGBT Catholics” are hearing when they hear Leo saying such a thing? It’s a very clear
invitation and instruction: work to change attitudes, then we can change the
teaching. Wow.
And rather than stating such
changes were impossible, Leo said he thought it was unlikely that it would
happen soon:
I find it highly unlikely, certainly in the immediate future, that the
Church’s doctrine in terms of what the Church teaches about sexuality, what the
Church teaches about marriage [will change].
Later, instead of stating that
the Church’s teaching could not change, he merely said that
he thought that it would remain the same:
I think that the Church’s teaching will continue as it is, and that’s
what I have to say about that for right now.
You think it’s going
to continue as it is? Aren’t you supposed to be the Pope – the one responsible
for making sure that it continues as it is?
Look friends, this is just
stunning. Catholic teaching on sexual morality – including the sinfulness of
homosexual acts, as well as fornication, adultery and others – aren’t matters
of probabilities or personal conjecture, or contingent and waiting to be
changed.
They’re definitive, grounded in
both the natural law and divine revelation – and so
they’re incapable of being changed.
Reason alone tells us that
sexual activity outside marriage – and thus, obviously, all sexual activity
between two same sex couples – is contrary to the natural law.
This is also and separately
a dogma – divinely revealed in Scripture and proposed by the
universal ordinary magisterium of the Church.
Vatican I taught that such
truths which are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith.
Female ordination
Leo also talked about the
possibility of the ordination of women to the diaconate in similar terms:
What the synod had spoken about specifically was the ordination,
perhaps, of women deacons, which has been a question that’s been studied for
many years now. There’ve been different commissions appointed by different
popes to say, what can we do about this? I think that will continue to be an
issue.
Ok, so in the early Church,
there was indeed an office of “deaconess” – but everyone knows that these women
were not ordained to any sacramental holy order of the diaconate.
But Leo calls even this into
question by equating the female diaconate with that of the permanent diaconate
established after the Second Vatican Council. He gives a long anecdote about
meeting deacons and their wives in Rome before concluding:
[T]here are parts of the world that never really promoted the permanent
deaconate, and that itself became a question: Why would we talk about ordaining
women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood
and properly developed and promoted within the church?
He also expressed his
willingness for study and debate on the matter to continue, saying he was “certainly willing to continue
to listen to people,” and pointing to the study groups in Rome on the
subject. “We’ll walk with
that and see what comes,” he said.
But do you know what’s even
more shocking? Leo said this:
I at the moment don’t have an intention of changing the teaching of the
Church on the topic.
Friends, if you say a thing
like that, it’s clear what you think. You’re saying you do have the
power to “change the teaching of the Church.”
The immutability of dogma
But the teaching of the Church
says that this isn’t possible. Can that be changed too?
Vatican I denied that
the Pope could change the Church’s teaching or introduce new dogmas. It taught:
For the holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that
they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine.
It
goes on to say that the purpose of the papacy is to safeguard and preserve the
deposit of faith. Not to consider whether the time is right to change it.
Oh, some will say, we’re not
talking about changes. This is just a development of dogma.
Come on. That’s what they
always say to justify this stuff. And anyway, Leo was pretty clear: he’s the
one who was talking about changing Church teaching.
And anyway, that defense is
excluded too. There’s a legitimate sense of the development of doctrine, but
changing the meanings of dogmas to something totally different isn’t it.
Such an idea has been condemned
time and again by the Church.
Pope Pius IX condemned, in the Syllabus
of Errors, the idea that divine revelation is “subject to a continual and
indefinite progress.”
Vatican I declared that the “meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to
be maintained” and that “there must never be any abandonment of this sense
under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.”
That same Council anathematized anyone who says dogma can be
assigned “a sense different from that which the Church has understood and
understands.”
Pope St Pius X cited all these teachings in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis against
Modernism.
In his Oath Against Modernism,
he also required clergy to profess that dogma is handed down “in exactly the
same meaning and always in the same purport.”
This oath also states that the idea “that dogmas evolve and change from
one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously”
is a – get this – “heretical misrepresentation.”
Grave implications
“Heretical” is a big word. But
the truth is clear: homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, marriage is
between one man and one woman, and these teachings cannot change.
As I said above, both the
Church’s teaching on sexual morality, and the immutability of dogma are the
sorts of truths we have to believe with divine and Catholic faith.
The censure attached to the
obstinate denial or doubt of such truths is indeed heresy. (Can. 751 of
1983 CIC, Can. 1325 of 1917 CIC)
So, where does that leave us?
The hugely problematic
situation of Leo XIV raising hopes for an impossible change in the future.
And claiming the power to
change Church teaching, which he certainly does not have.
And… publicly doubting (or even
denying) these two sets of truths in a video interview – which, as I said, is
heresy.
You know what St. Paul said
about those who try to introduce new dogmas, doctrines or Gospels:
If I, or an angel from heaven, preach to you a Gospel different to that
which we have preached to you, which you have received: let him be anathema.
COMMENT: The very essence of the
Modernist heresy is the denial of immutability of dogma because they deny that
dogma is divine revelation of an immutabile truth from an immutable God. The
Modernist believe that dogma is not a truth revealed by God but rather a human
expression of the subjective religious sentiment and therefore dogma must
change over time as the human sentiment changes. Leo the Heretic professes that
the "attitudes" of Catholics will change only gradually. therefore,
when there is a sufficient number expressing the new attitude then the dogmas
will change to express the new religious attitude. It is absolutely impossible
to hold this belief and be a faithful Catholic at the same time. Leo is just
another Bergoglian who will bring ruin to himself and others.
Pope Leo is
now the CEO of the same HomoLobby his predecessor chaired! It is impossible to
be a defender of homosexuality and a Catholic at the same time.
Bishop Schneider: Vatican
‘LGBTQ pilgrimage’ an ‘abomination,’ Pope Leo must make ‘public reparation’
Pope Leo must ‘urgently’
make reparation after the Vatican endorsed an LGBT Jubilee ‘pilgrimage’ and
allowed unrepentant homosexuals to pass the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s, Bishop
Schneider said.
LifeSiteNews
| Sept 10, 2025— Bishop Athanasius Schneider expressed “horror” at the
Vatican’s endorsement of the “LGBTQ Jubilee pilgrimage,” rebuking priests who
support homosexuality as “spiritual criminals” and “murderers of souls.”
“My
reaction was a silent cry of horror, indignation, and sorrow,” the auxiliary of
Astana, Kazakhstan, said regarding the Vatican’s approval of an LGBT-themed
“pilgrimage” on its Jubilee website, in an interview with Diane Montagna, a
journalist in Rome.
Montagna
had highlighted the fact that photos captured an array of rainbow paraphernalia
in St. Peter’s Basilica, as well homosexual male couple “brazenly holding hands
there, one with a backpack saying F*** the Rules,” at the conclusion of their
“pilgrimage.”
What
took place there could be described as an “abomination of desolation standing
in the holy place,” in the words of Christ (cf. Mt. 24:15), said Bishop
Schneider.
He
pointed out that the embrace of homosexuality by these “pilgrims” contradicted
one of the very key meanings of the Jubilee Year and the Holy Door: “Leading
man to conversion and penance,” as Pope John Paul II explained in the Bull of
Indiction of the Holy Year 2000.
“There
were no signs of repentance and renunciation of objectively grave homosexual
sins … on the part of the organizers and participants in this pilgrimage,”
noted Schneider. “To pass through the Holy Door and participate in the Jubilee
without repentance, while promoting an ideology that openly rejects God’s Sixth
Commandment, constitutes a kind of desecration of the Holy Door and a mockery
of God and the gift of an indulgence.”
The
bishop had strong words for the Vatican authorities who “collaborated de facto”
in this open rejection of God’s commandment, expressed aptly in the “f*** the
rules” message.
“They
stood by and allowed God to be mocked and His commandments to be scornfully
cast aside,” said Schneider.
When
asked to compare it to the Pachamama scandal, he noted that while direct
transgression of the First Commandment is even more grave, the endorsement of
sodomy – a sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance – “amounts to a form of
indirect idolatry.”
“Both
events must be publicly repaired by the Pope himself. This is urgently needed,
before it is too late, for God will not be mocked,” said the bishop.
Bishop
Francesco Savino, vice president of the Italian Bishops Conference, welcomed
“everyone” to receive Holy Communion at a Mass for the “pilgrims,” Montagna
then pointed out. Schneider affirmed that assent to “all of the Church’s
teaching” is a precondition for receiving Christ in the Eucharist, as was
expressed by St. Paul: “Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body
eats and drinks judgment on himself. (1 Cor. 11:29).
He
added that this has been clearly stated by the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Anyone aware of having
sinned mortally must not receive Communion without having received absolution
in the sacrament of penance” (n.1415).
Furthermore,
it notes, “Sacred Scripture ‘presents homosexual acts as acts of grave
depravity, [and] tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are
intrinsically disordered.… Under no circumstances can they be approved’ (n.
2357).”
Thus,
by granting these LGBT groups passage through the Holy Door and approving their
“pilgrimage,” Vatican authorities in effect rejected “the very doctrine they
are bound to uphold.”
Schneider
said his message for participants in the LGBT “pilgrimage” is one of
compassion, and he called for all Christians to show compassion towards not just
those living homosexual lifestyles, but those who support its legitimization
and “persist in it unrepentant and even proudly.”
“For
when a person consciously rejects God’s explicit commandment prohibiting any
sexual activity outside a valid marriage, he places himself in the gravest
danger – that of losing eternal life and being eternally condemned to Hell,”
said the prelate.
“True
love for such persons consists in calling them, gently yet persistently, to
genuine conversion to God’s revealed will,” he continued, adding that such
people are “ultimately unhappy” even when they have suppressed their
conscience.
“We
must be filled with great zeal to save these souls, to free them from poisonous
deceits. Those priests who confirm them in their homosexual activity or in a
homosexual lifestyle are spiritual criminals, murderers of souls, and God will
demand a strict account from them,” Schneider declared.
To
those who defend Pope Leo XIV amid the Vatican’s approval of the LGBT
scandalous “pilgrimage” because he did not receive a delegation from them or
send them a message, Schneider said that “one cannot reasonably presume naivety
on his part,” because it was “entirely foreseeable” that an LGBT activist group
would take advantage of the Holy Door to promote their sinful lifestyle.
Furthermore,
by meeting with Father James Martin, S.J., a heretical pro-LGBT priest, as well
as pro-homosexual “marriage” Sister Lucia Caram, Pope Leo XIV has expressed
that he is not opposed to their “heterodox and scandalous teaching and behavior
– particularly since the Holy See offered no clarification afterward and did
not correct Fr. James Martin’s triumphant messages circulated on social media,”
noted Schneider.
He pointed out that in doing so, Pope Leo
XIV broke with the precedent of all popes before Francis, who “neither received
officially nor posed for photographs with those who, by word or deed, openly
rejected the doctrinal and moral teaching of the Church.”
“There
is a common saying that goes: ‘Qui tacet consentire videtur’ – ’He who is
silent is taken to agree,’” Schneider added.
The
prelate called upon all Catholics to “make a collective act of reparation for
the outrage committed against the sanctity of God’s house and the holiness of
His commandments,” and implored Pope Leo XIV to follow in the footsteps of Pope
John Paul II, who Montagna noted had denounced the first “World Pride” event in
Rome during the Great Jubilee of 2000.
“Should
Pope Leo XIV make public acts of regret and even reparation, he will lose
nothing; should he fail to do so, he will forfeit something before the eyes of
God – and God alone matters,” said Schneider.
“May
Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV take to heart the following words of Our Lord
which He once spoke through St. Bridget of Sweden to one of his predecessors
(Pope Gregory XI)”:
Uproot, pluck out and destroy
all the vices of your court! Separate yourself from the counsel of
carnal-minded and worldly friends and follow humbly the spiritual counsel of My
friends. Get up like a man and clothe yourself confidently in strength! Start
to reform the Church that I purchased with My Own Blood in order that it may be
reformed and led back spiritually to its pristine state of holiness, for
nowadays more veneration is shown to a brothel than to My Holy Church. My son,
heed My counsel. If you obey Me in what I told you, I will welcome you
mercifully like a loving father. Bravely approach the way of justice and you
shall prosper. Do not despise the One Who loves you. If you obey, I will show
you mercy and bless and dress you and adorn you with the precious pontifical
regalia of a holy pope. I shall clothe you with Myself in such a way that you
will be in Me and I in you, and you shall be glorified in eternity (The Book of
Revelations, Book IV, chap. 149).
Argumentum ex
concessis
Notes in the Margin of an Article by Abbé Claude Barthe
For
if you live according to the flesh, you will die;
but if by the Spirit
you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.
Rom
8: 13
The
essay by Abbé Claude Barthe’s, recently published in an Italian translation at
Aldo Maria Valli’s blog Duc in altum [1], deserves some attention.
What is most interesting in it is not so much his assessment of the newly
elected Leo XIV, nor the pragmatic realism with which he recognizes Prevost’s
continuity with his predecessor or calls for a loosening of restrictions on the
traditional liturgy.
Abbé
Barthe writes:
There
is a paradox, even a risk, for those who invoke freedom for the traditional
liturgy and catechism: that of being granted a sort of “authorization” for
liturgical and doctrinal Catholicism. We have already cited as an example the
paradoxical situation that arose in the 19th-century French political system,
when the most staunch supporters of the monarchical Restoration, enemies in
principle of the modern freedoms introduced by the Revolution, continually
fought to be granted a space for life and expression, freedom of the press, and
freedom of teaching. All things being equal, in the ecclesiastical system of
the 21st century, at least in the immediate future, a relaxation of the
ideological despotism of the Reformation could be beneficial. But while it may
be advantageous in the short and medium term, it could ultimately prove
radically unsatisfactory.
What
I believe should be highlighted is the not-so-veiled warning that Abbé Barthe
addresses to those who resort to the adversary’s arguments to gain legitimacy
in the ecclesial world, applying the argumentum ex concessis [2]. In this
case, “those who invoke freedom for the traditional liturgy and catechism” –
and who condemn Bergoglian synodality – appeal to that same synodality so that
the “Summorum Pontificum communities” may be recognized as one among the
many expressions of the composite ecclesial polyhedron.
Abbé
Barthe’s denunciation reveals not a paradox,
but the paradox, the contradiction that fundamentally undermines any
claim to orthodoxy on the part of self-styled conservatives: the acceptance of
the revolutionary principles of the so-called “synodal church” as the
(incomplete, moreover) counterpart to being tolerated by it. In reality, this
exchange is far from equal. The “synodal church” merely applies to
conservatives the same legitimacy of existence it grants to any other
“movement” or “charisma” present in the multifaceted ecclesial fabric, but it
carefully avoids acknowledging that their demands might go beyond a mere
aesthetic and ceremonial concession. The unwritten contract between
conservatives and the post-Bergoglian Hierarchy stipulates that the “liturgical
preferences” of a group of clerics and faithful can be tolerated if and
only if they refrain from highlighting the heterogeneity, incompatibility,
and alienation between the ecclesiology and the entire doctrinal framework
underlying the Vetus Ordo and those expressed in the reformed Montinian
rite.
Abbé
Barthe does not ignore the critical issues: referring to Leo XIV’s Electors, he
calls them “all of the conciliar menagerie,” demonstrating a certain courage,
especially considering his public role and his dependence
on those Prelates. Nor does he ignore the deception embraced by those
who exploit religious liberty to invoke for themselves a tolerance
that is not denied even to the worshippers of Amazonian idols.
The
deception is twofold: not only because of the paradox that Abbé Barthe has
rightly highlighted; but also and above all because of a much worse trap,
consisting of accepting at least implicitly the forced, unnatural, and
impossible separation between the ceremonial form of the rite and its doctrinal
substance.
This
is an operation of de-signification of the Liturgy, which consists in
being recognized with the right to celebrate in the Tridentine Rite on the
condition that the celebrant does not also accept the doctrinal and moral
implications of that rite. But if that “Summorum priest” accepts this principle,
he must also accept its inverse application. Indeed, the moment one admits that
the Liturgy can be celebrated without regard for the traditional doctrine it
expresses – a doctrine the “synodal church” does not recognize and considers to
be other than itself – one ends up accepting that even the reformed
liturgy can ignore the errors and heresies it insinuates, errors which no
Catholic worthy of the name can absolutely ratify. In doing so, however, one
plays into the hands of the adversary, under the illusion of being more cunning
than the devil. It all comes down to a question of dress and choreography, of
aesthetics and sentiment that satisfies or does not satisfy personal taste, as
Cardinal Burke’s recent words confirmed: “You don’t take something so rich
in beauty and begin to strip away the beautiful elements without having a
negative effect.” [3] Nothing could be more alien to the mindset of the
Roman Liturgy, according to which the beauty of ceremonies is such because it
is a necessary expression of the Truth it teaches and the Good it practices.
The
“synodal church” includes conservatives in its coveted pantheon not
only because it gives them what they want – solemn pontifical liturgies
celebrated by influential prelates, without doctrinal implications – but also
because none of the Holy See’s interlocutors has the slightest intention of
demanding more; and even if someone were to dare ask for more,
the gatekeeper on duty – literally, the ostiarius –would
promptly intervene, calling for “prudence” and “moderation,” more concerned
with preserving his own prestige than with the fate of the Catholic resistance.
This is accompanied by the “Zip it” [4] policy advocated by Trad Inc. [5],
according to which the possible concessions the moderates hope to obtain from
Leo suggest they should not criticize him openly so as not to alienate him.
The
path of being persecuted, ostracized, and excommunicated do not seem to be
among the options for my brothers: it seems they are already resigned to a fate
of tolerance, in which they can neither be truly Catholic nor fully synodal;
neither friends of those who fight the enemy infiltrated into the Church, nor
of those who seek to replace her with a human surrogate of Masonic inspiration.
The Lord will hold these lukewarm priests accountable with greater severity
than He will many poor parish priests who have other, more pressing pastoral
priorities. Let us hope that Abbé Barthe’s warning does not fall on deaf ears,
for the hour of battle approaches, and to be found defenseless and unprepared,
in these circumstances, would be irresponsible.
And
it is precisely in times of persecution that we must rediscover the relevance
and validity of the words of Saint Vincent of Lérins:
In
ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod semper,
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est; hoc est etenim vere proprieque
catholicum. [6]
If
anything does not meet these three criteria – semper, ubique, et ab
omnibus – it must be rejected as heretical. This norm protects us from the
errors spread by false pastors, in the serene certainty of acting in accordance
with Tradition and thus being able to compensate, due to the present state of
emergency, for the absence of ecclesiastical authority.
+
Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
3
September MMXXV
S.cti
Pii X Papæ, Conf.
FOOTNOTES
1
– Abbé Claude
Barthe, Leone, il pompiere nella Chiesa divorata dal fuoco della
divisione. Ma quale unità ricerca?, published at Duc in Altum on
August 9, 2025 – https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2025/08/09/analisi-leone-il-pompiere-nella-chiesa-divorata-dal-fuoco-della-divisione-ma-quale-unita-ricerca/ – English translation: https://www.resnovae.fr/the-pontificate-of-leo-xiv-a-transitional-stage/
2
– Argumentum ex
concessis is a rhetorical and logical technique in which an interlocutor
uses the premises, arguments, or claims accepted by an opponent to construct
their own argument, often to refute them or demonstrate the inconsistency of
their position. This strategy is based on the idea of temporarily accepting the
opponent’s claims (the “concessions”) and using them to draw conclusions that
either challenge them or support their own thesis.
3
– Cfr. https://x.com/mljhaynes/status/1954919906492747838
4
– Cfr. https://www.radiospada.org/2025/09/leone-xiv-lipotesi-zip-e-la-contropartita-per-i-conservatori-una-strategia-gia-tentata-e-che-lascia-perplessi-in-7-punti/
5
– “Trad Inc.” is the
American expression which refers to conservative believers and blogs organized
like companies, which operate according to market logic and are dependent on
their shareholders.
6
– Commonitorium, 2. “In
this same Catholic Church, we must take the greatest care to maintain what has
always been believed, everywhere and by all; this is in fact truly and properly
Catholic.”
COMMENT: It is encouraging for us who have refused the compromises of
faith that conservative Catholics have made in return for their privileged
Indult to have a man of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's stature agree and defend what we have been
doing at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission for the last 25 years. We
hope and pray that he may have a greater influence on other resistance bishops
and priests.
The
proper understanding of this dogma from the Council of Trent:
Canon 4 on the sacraments in general: If anyone says that the
sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous,
and that without them or without the desire of them men obtain from God
through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary
for each one, let him be anathema.
The Dogma
defines two revealed doctrinal truths:
3.
If anyone says: that the sacraments of the
New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, let him be
anathema.
4.
If anyone says: that without the
sacraments or (if anyone says) without the desire of the sacraments
men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, let him be
anathema.
Both
the Sacrament of Baptism and the will to receive the Sacrament
are necessary for salvation!
“But God desired that his
confession should avail for his salvation, since he preserved him in this life until the time of his holy
regeneration.” St. Fulgentius
“If anyone is not baptized, not only in
ignorance, but even knowingly, he can in no way be saved. For his path to salvation was through the confession,
and salvation itself was in baptism.
At his age, not only was confession
without baptism of no avail: Baptism
itself would be of no avail for salvation if he neither believed nor
confessed.” St. Fulgentius
Notice, both the CONFESSION AND
THE BAPTISM are necessary for salvation, harkening back to Trent's teaching
that both the laver AND the “votum” are required for justification, and
harkening back to Our Lord's teaching that we must be born again of water AND
the Holy Spirit.
In fact, you see the language of St. Fulgentius reflected in the Council of
Trent. Trent describes the votum (so-called “desire”) as the PATH
TO SALVATION, the disposition to Baptism, and then says that “JUSTIFICATION
ITSELF” (St. Fulgentius says “SALVATION ITSELF”) follows the dispositions in
the Sacrament of Baptism.
Yet another solid argument for why Trent is teaching that BOTH the votum
AND the Sacrament are required for justification.
“Hold most firmly and never
doubt in the least that not only all pagans but also all Jews and all heretics
and schismatics who end this present life outside the Catholic Church are about
to go into the eternal fire that was prepared for the Devil and his angels.”
St. Fulgentius
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes,
professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church,
not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share
in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was
prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
St. Eugene IV, Cantate Domino
Ladislaus,
CathInfo
John Cardinal Newman,
another Novus Ordo "saint" soon to be declared a "Doctor"
of the Novus Ordo Church, comments following the dogmatic declaration of papal
infallibility.
“But we must hope, for one is obliged to hope
it, that the Pope (Pius IX) will be driven from Rome, and will not continue the
Council (Vatican I), or that there will be another Pope. It is sad he should
force us to such wishes.”
John H. Newman, Letter to his companion, Fr.
Ambrose St. John, 22 August, 1870
“We have come to a climax of tyranny. It is
not good for a Pope to live 20 years. It is anomaly and bears no good fruit; he
becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, and does
cruel things without meaning it.”
John H. Newman, The Letters and Diaries of
John Henry Newman, v. XXVI by Charles Stephen Dessain
"This
(Divine) law, as apprehended in the minds of individual men, is called
"conscience;" and though it may suffer refraction in passing into the
intellectual medium of each, it is not therefore so affected as to lose its
character of being the Divine Law, but still has, as such, the prerogative of
commanding obedience."
John
Henry Cardinal Newman
"It seems, then, that there are extreme cases in which Conscience
may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite
of that word."
John Henry Cardinal Newman
COMMENT: Pope Gregory XVI said, "This shameful font of
indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims
that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone." Conscience is
not the Divine Law. St. Thomas says that, "Conscience is nothing else than
the application of knowledge to some action." He is referring to the
knowledge of the Law of God. The Law of God, whether the eternal law or the
positive revealed law of God, is the objective criteria by which the conscience
is obligated to use as the standard by which any judgment regarding the moral
goodness or evil of any particular act is made.
All men are obligated to obey their conscience because they are
obligated to apprehend the objective Divine Law as the proper criteria. They
are not free to invent their personal subjective criteria in determining what
is the right or the wrong thing to do.
Liberalism claims the exact opposite. It is a fundamental axiom of
liberalism that the conscience is free to establish its own moral criteria.
This has been condemned by popes Gregory XVI, PiusIX and Pius X. John Henry
Cardinal Newman can be identified as the "Spirit of Vatican II."
Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity
The woman saith to him: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our
fathers adored on this mountain, and you say, that at Jerusalem is the place
where men must adore. Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me, that the hour
cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the
Father. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also
seeketh such to adore him. God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore
him in spirit and in truth.
John 4:19-24
Novus Ordo Doctrine: Moslems and Novus Ordo Catholics
Worship the same God!
CCC 841, quoting the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium 16, from Vatican II, declared:
"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the
Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold
the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God,
mankind’s judge on the last day."
CCC 841 also references Vatican II’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church
to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate,
3, that makes the teaching of the Council perhaps even clearer:
"The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the
one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the
Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit
wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the
faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to
God."
Catholic Church Doctrine: Catholics and Moslems DO
NOT worship the same God.
“Now
the Samaritans had a false idea of God in two ways. First of all, because they
thought He was corporeal, so that they believed that He should be adored in
only one definite corporeal place. Further, because they did not believe that
He transcended all things, but was equal to certain creatures, they adored
along with Him certain idols, as if they were equal to Him. Consequently, they
did not know Him, because they did not attain to a true knowledge of Him. So
the Lord says, you adore that which you do not know [John 4:22], that is, you do not adore God
because you do not know Him, but rather your imagination, by which you
apprehend something as God, just as the Gentiles also walk in the foolishness
of their mind (Eph 4:17).” St.
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary On John 4:22
“How
then did the Samaritans know not what they worshipped? Because they thought
that God was local and partial; so at least they served Him, and so they sent
to the Persians, and reported that the God of this place is angry with us [2
Kings 26], in this respect
forming no higher opinion of Him than of their idols. Wherefore they continued
to serve both Him and devils, joining things which ought not to be joined.” St. John Chrysostom, Homily 33 On The Gospel
of John
COMMENT: When
Jesus said to the Samaritan Woman, "You adore that which you know
not," He is not saying that they adore the One True God that they are
ignorant of. He is saying, that in their ignorance they do not know who they
are adoring meaning that they are adoring in ignorance a devil, for "all
the gods of the gentiles are devils" (Psalm 95:5). Jesus then says, that
"true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth..... they that
adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth." To adore in
"spirit" means that to adore God you must be baptized and made sons
of God for as Jesus said: "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born
again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God That
which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is
spirit" (John 3:5-7). And to adore in "truth" means who must
believe what has been revealed by God. Without the true faith it is
"impossible to please God" (Hebrews 11:6). As such, right knowledge
of God is essential to true worship. This is the great sin of Modernism and
Neo-modernism: They make a right knowledge of God impossible!
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
Catholic
Faith:
Physical substances come into being through the union of substantial
form and primary matter. The Soul is the Substantial Form of the Human Body; it
is immortal and will be judged after the death of the person and directed to
Heaven or Hell for all eternity awaiting to be joined again to its Body at the
Resurrection of the Dead for the Last Judgment.
“In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and
all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to
assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not
the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a
heretic.”
Council of Vienne
Neo-Modernists
Ideology: [Ratzinger quotes provided by James Larson, War Against Being]
“The medieval concept of substance has long since become inaccessible
to us.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future
“The proper Christian thing, therefore, is to speak, not of the soul’s
immortality, but of the resurrection of the complete human being [at the Final
Judgment] and of that alone… The idea that to speak of the soul is unbiblical
was accepted to such an extent that even the new Roman Missal (i.e.: the Novus
Ordo) suppressed the term anima in its liturgy for the dead. It also
disappeared from the ritual for burial.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
“‘The soul’ is our term for that
in us which offers a foothold for this relation [with the eternal]. Soul is
nothing other than man’s capacity for relatedness with truth, with love
eternal.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
“The challenge to traditional theology today lies in the negation of an
autonomous, ‘substantial’ soul with a built-in immortality in favor of that
positive view which regards God’s decision and activity as the real foundation
of a continuing human existence.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
And
those who have denied the reality of substantial
being are those who are responsible for the “dictatorship of relativism.”
“Every day new sects are created and what Saint
Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw
those into error (Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed
of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas,
relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind
of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards.
We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise
anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and
one’s own desires.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Homily of the
Dean of the College of Cardinals, 2005
Sacrament of
Baptism: Significance of the Baptismal Character and why it is absolutely
necessary for salvation. Explains why St. Ambrose said regarding catechumens
who die before receiving the sacrament of Baptism, they are “forgiven but not
crowned”.
To be baptized is to become one with the Church, and one with Christ. Thus the ritual can say: “enter
into the temple of God, that you may have part with Christ, unto life
everlasting.” The two ideas are correlative: to be baptized into the
Church and to be baptized into Christ; they are the visible and invisible
aspects of the same real effect. [….]
The effecting this incorporation into Christ, Baptism marks the soul as
permanently His; it stamps upon the soul a spiritual “character”, or, as
antiquity more commonly called it, a “seal”.
For this reason, and putting the cause for the effect, the rite of
Baptism was itself called “the seal”, or “the seal of faith”, or “the seal of
water”, or “the seal of the Trinity” (which last appellation endures still in
the liturgical prayers for the dying, wherein God is asked to remember His
promises to the soul that in its lifetime was “stamped with the seal of the
Most Holy Trinity”).
The word “seal” derives from a group of texts in St. Paul, which
suggest this stamping of the soul at Baptism: “And in Him (Christ), you too,
when you had heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and
believed in it, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise” (Eph. 1:13);
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). However, nowadays we are accustomed to speak rather
of the baptismal “character”, a term that suggests the text wherein Christ is
called “the brightness of His (the Father’s) glory and the image (in Greek,
character) of His substance” (Hebr. 1:3).
Basically, two words give the same meaning: a seal imprints an image,
and a “character”, in the original sense of the word, means image. Baptism,
therefore, stamps the soul with the image of Christ, Who is Himself the image
of the Father. And in the Scripture, this stamping is attributed to the Holy
Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Christ. The fact that we are stamped with such a
character is clearly defined by the Council of Trent:
“If anyone says
that by the three Sacraments, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation and Orders, there
is not imprinted in the soul a Character, that is a certain spiritual and
indelible sign on account of which they cannot be repeated; let him be
anathem.” (Denz. 852).
The Council of Trent teaches that this seal, once stamped on the soul,
is indelible. Just as Baptism irrevocable makes one a member of the Church, so
also it irrevocably makes one a member of Christ. Not the gravest sin, nor even
final impenitence and self-condemnation to eternal separation from Christ in
Hell, can avail to erase this baptismal seal. And the indelibility of the seal
is the immediate reason why Baptism can never be repeated, once it has been
validly received. [….]
The sense in which Baptism stamps us with the image of Christ is
suggested in the rite itself, by the anointing which follows the ablution. It
is done with Sacred Chrism, a mixed unguent of oil and balm, specially
consecrated by the bishop on Holy Thursday. Kings and priests in antiquity (and
even today) were anointed with chrism in token of their royal and priestly
dignity. And the baptism anointing signifies, therefore, that the new Christian
has entered into the “royal priesthood” of the Christian people, and shares in
the royal Priesthood of Christ Himself. He bears the image of Christ, inasmuch
as Christ was the Priest of all humanity, Who offered Himself in sacrifice on
the Cross.
The baptismal seal or character, therefore, endows the Christian with a
priestly function, and a priestly power. It is not that special power and
function given by the Sacrament of Holy Orders to certain selected members of
the Church, who are made her official ministers, and authorized to offer her
sacrifice and dispense her Sacraments. But it is the priestly function and power
which is common to all the members of the Body of Christ. As He was born as
Priest, His whole life orientated toward the Passion and Death which was His
priestly Sacrifice, so too, they are priests from their birth into the
Christian life at Baptism; and their lives are essentially orientated toward
sacrifice, in a double sense.
First of all, they receive a function and a power with respect to the
ritual Sacrifice of the Church, which is the Mass. [….] They are empowered to
assist actively in the offering of the Mass, as members of the Church, in whose
name her specially qualified members, priests and bishops, offer the Mass,
which is the sacrifice of the whole Church through her official ministers. In
union with the Priest, the Christian offers up Christ as a Victim Who belongs
to him and to Whom he belongs. An unbaptized person cannot do this….
Secondly, the baptismal character consecrates the Christian to
sacrifice in a wider sense: it gives him the function, the duty, the power to
lead a life of sacrifice, since He is in the image of Christ whose life was one
long sacrifice – a life of complete obedience to the will of His Father: “I
seek not My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me” (Jn. 3:50).The will of
the Father is the supreme law of the Christian’s life; it is all embracing and
all pervasive; and constant and total obedience to it necessarily gives a
sacrificial quality to the whole of life, since it demands the renunciation of
many ideas, and a steady refusal to be led by one’s own emotions or to seek
one’s own pleasure and profit – in a word, it demands the sacrifice of
selfishness in all its forms. St. Peter, therefore, was thinking of Baptism
when he wrote:
“Lay aside
therefore all malice and all deceit, and pretense, and envy, and all slander….
Be you yourselves as living stones, built thereon (i.e., on Christ) into a
spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God
through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:1,5).
Rev. John J. Fernan, S.J., Theology, Christ Our High Priest, Baptismal
Seal
Pius XII - the man responsible for planting the seed of
liturgical destruction!
Fr. Annibale Bugnini had been making clandestine visits to the Centre
de Pastorale Liturgique (CPL), a progressivist conference centre for liturgical
reform which organized national weeks for priests.
Inaugurated in Paris in 1943 on the private initiative of two Dominican priests
under the presidency of Fr. Lambert Beauduin, it was a magnet for all who
considered themselves in the vanguard of the Liturgical Movement. It would play
host to some of the most famous names who influenced the direction of Vatican
II: Frs. Beauduin, Guardini, Congar, Chenu, Daniélou, Gy, von Balthasar, de
Lubac, Boyer, Gelineau etc.
It could, therefore, be considered as the confluence of all the forces
of Progressivism, which saved and re-established Modernism condemned by Pope
Pius X in Pascendi.
According to its
co-founder and director, Fr. Pie Duployé, OP, Bugnini had requested a
“discreet” invitation to attend a CPL study week held near Chartres in
September 1946.
Much more was
involved here than the issue of secrecy. The person whose heart beat as one
with the interests of the reformers would return to Rome to be placed by an
unsuspecting (?) Pope (Pius XII) in charge of his Commission for the General
Reform of the Liturgy.
But someone in the Roman Curia did know about the CPL – Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the acting
Secretary of State and future Paul VI – who sent a telegram to the CPL dated
January 3, 1947. It purported to come from the Pope with an apostolic blessing.
If, in Bugnini’s estimation, the Roman authorities were to be kept in the dark
about the CPL so as not to compromise its activities, a mystery remains. Was
the telegram issued under false pretences, or did Pius XII really know and
approve of the CPL? [.....]
This agenda (for liturgical reform) was set out as early as 1949 in the
Ephemerides Liturgicae, a leading
Roman review on liturgical studies of which Fr. Annabale Bugnini was Editor
from 1944 to 1965.
First, Bugnini denigrated
the traditional liturgy as a dilapidated building (“un vecchio edificio”),
which should be condemned because it was in danger of falling to pieces
(“sgretolarsi”) and, therefore, beyond repair. Then, he criticized it for its alleged
“deficiencies, incongruities and difficulties,” which rendered it spiritually
“sterile” and would prevent it appealing to modern sensibilities.
It is difficult to understand how, in the same year that he published this
anti-Catholic diatribe, he was made a Professor of Liturgy in Rome’s Propaganda
Fide (Propagation of the Faith) University. His solution was to return to the
simplicity of early Christian liturgies and jettison all subsequent
developments, especially traditional devotions.
These ideas expressed in 1949 would form the foundational principles of Vatican
II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. For all practical purposes, the Roman Rite was
dead in the water many years before it was officially buried by Paul VI.
Dr.
Carol Byrne, How Bugnini Grew Up under
Pius XII
Wisdom
is only possible for those who hold DOGMA as the Rule of Faith!
Besides, every dogma of faith
is to the Catholic cultivated mind not only a new increase of knowledge, but
also an incontrovertible principle from which it is able to draw conclusions
and derive other truths. They present an endless field for investigation so
that the beloved Apostle St. John could write at the end of his Gospel, without
fear of exaggeration: “But there are also many other things which Jesus did:
which if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be
able to contain the books that should be written.”
The Catholic Church, by
enforcing firm belief in her dogmas—which are not her inventions, but were
given by Jesus Christ—places them as a bar before the human mind to prevent it
from going astray and to attach it to the truth; but it does not prevent the
mind from exercising its functions when it has secured the treasure of divine
truth, and a “scribe thus instructed in the kingdom of heaven is truly like a
man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things
and old.” He may bring forth new illustrations, new arguments and proofs; he
may show now applications of the same truths, according to times and circumstances;
he may show new links which connect the mysteries of religion with each other
or with the natural sciences as there can be no discord between the true faith
and true science; God, being the author of both, cannot contradict Himself and
teach something by revelation as true which He teaches by the true light of
reason as false. In all these cases the householder “brings forth from his
treasure new things and old.” They are new inasmuch as they are the result of
new investigations; and old because they are contained in the old articles of
faith and doctrine as legitimate deductions from their old principles.
Fr. Joseph Prachensky, S.J.,
The Church of Parables and True Spouse of the Suffering Saviour, on the Parable
of the Scribe
Baptism imprints
in your soul a spiritual character, which no sin can efface. This character is
a proof that from this time you do not belong to yourself, but that you are the
property of Jesus Christ, who has purchased you by the infinite price of his
blood and of his death. You are not of yourself, but you are of Christ;
wherefore, St. Paul concludes, “that the Christian should no longer live for
himself, but for Him who died and rose again for him;” that is to say, that the
Christian should live a life of grace, and that he should consecrate to his
Redeemer his spirit, his heart, and all his actions. […..]
First, is true penance; for, as the holy Council of Trent teaches,
penance is no less necessary for those who have sinned after Baptism, than
Baptism is necessary for those who have not received it. The Holy Scripture
informs us, that there are two gates by which we are to enter into
heaven—baptismal innocence, and penance. When a Christian has shut against
himself the gate of innocence, in violating the holy promises of Baptism, it is
necessary that he should strive to enter by that of penance; otherwise there is
no salvation for him. On this account, Jesus Christ, speaking of persons who
have lost innocence, says to them: “Unless you do penance, you shall all
perish.”
But in order that penance may prevent us from perishing—it must be true
Penance. Confessors may be deceived by the false appearance of conversion, and
it is too often the case; but God is never deceived. If, therefore, those who
receive absolution are not truly penitent and worthy of pardon, their sins are
not forgiven before God. In order to do true penance, it is not sufficient to
confess all our sins and to fulfill what is enjoined on us by the priest. There
are two other things which are necessary: First; to renounce sin with all your
heart, and for all your life… and second; to fly the occasions of sin, and to
use the means to avoid it.
St. John Eudes, Man’s Contract
with God in Baptism
Again, in the Office
for the feasts of our Lady, the Church applies the words of Sirach to
the Blessed Virgin and thus gives us to understand that in her we find all
hope: In me is all hope of life and of virtue. In Mary is every
grace: In me is all grace of the way and of the truth. In Mary we
shall find life and eternal salvation: Those who serve me shall never
fail. Those who explain me shall have life everlasting (Sir. 24:25,
30, 31--- Vulgate). And in the Book of Proverbs: Those who find me find life
and win favor from the Lord (8:35). Surely such expressions are enough to
prove that we require the intercession of Mary.
St. Alphonsus de
Liguori, The Glories of Mary
THE NOVUS ORDO CHURCH OF SLOTH
AND ENVY
The first effect of
charity is joy in the goodness of God. But this joy can only live through the
union of man’s will with God in charity. And charity demands that man keep all
the commandments. Charity demands a fellowship in good between God and man.
When the effort to live in this fellowship in good begins to appear too
difficult to man he begins to be sorrowful about the infinite goodness of God.
This sorrow weighs down the spirit of man and leads him to neglect good. This
sorrow is the sin of sloth, sorrow about the goodness of God. Sloth is a
capital sin. It leads men into other sins. To avoid the sorrow or weariness of
spirit which is sloth men will turn from God to the sinful pleasures of the
world.
When a man falls victim
to sloth and is sorrowful because of the goodness of God it is only natural
that he will begin to be grieved also at the manifestation of the goodness of
God in other men. He will resent good men simply because they are good. This
resentment is envy, hatred of someone else’s good. Since the love of our
neighbor flows from our love of God, it is natural that when we cease to love
God’s goodness, we will also begin to hate the goodness of men. Envy, like
sloth, is a capital sin. It will lead men to commit other sins to destroy the
goodness of their neighbors.
When a man’s heart is
filled with sloth and envy the interior peace of his soul which was the effect
of charity is destroyed. The loss of the interior peace leads to the
destruction of the peace of society. When a man’s heart is no longer centered
in God, then his life loses all proper direction. When the love of God is gone
he has nothing left but the love of himself. When a man loves himself without
loving God then he can brook no opposition to his own judgment or arbitrary
will. He can tolerate goodness in no one else. He will even, by the sin of
scandal, by his own words and example, lead other men into sin. He must
disagree with all men. He must dispute with them, separate himself from them,
quarrel with them, go to war with them, set the whole of the community at war
with itself.
Wherever the goodness
of God is most manifest, there will the heart of the man who no longer loves
God be most energetic in sowing the seeds of discord, contentiousness, strife
and war. That is why religion and the true Church of God are so viciously
attacked in the world today. Those who do not love God are driven by sloth and
envy to attack God’s tabernacle on earth.
Fr. Walter Farrell and
Fr. Martin Healy, My Way of Life, Pocket
Edition of St. Thomas
Amoris Laetitia was published in 2016. No answer or corrective action to
this "appeal" was ever made. That is because no clarification was
ever needed. Why? That is because the "numerous propositions in Amoris
Laetitia (that) can be construed as heretical upon the natural reading of the
text" is exactly what the author intended! So in 2016 these
"academics and pastors" did "not accusing the pope of
heresy", but what about now?
“Amoris
Laetitia.... scandalous, erroneous in faith, and ambiguous...”
Catholic academics and
pastors appeal to the College of Cardinals over Amoris Laetitia
A
group of Catholic academics and pastors has submitted an appeal to Cardinal
Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome, requesting that the
Cardinals and Eastern Catholic Patriarchs petition His Holiness, Pope Francis,
to repudiate a list of erroneous propositions that can be drawn from a natural
reading of the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia. During the coming weeks this submission will be
sent in various languages to every one of the Cardinals and Patriarchs, of whom
there are 218 living at present.
Describing the exhortation as containing
“a number of statements that can be understood in a sense that is contrary to
Catholic faith and morals,” the signatories submitted, along with their appeal,
a documented list of applicable theological censures specifying “the nature and
degree of the errors that could be attributed to Amoris laetitia.”
Among
the 45 signatories are Catholic prelates, scholars, professors, authors, and
clergy from various pontifical universities, seminaries, colleges, theological
institutes, religious orders, and dioceses around the world. They have asked
the College of Cardinals, in their capacity as the Pope’s official advisers, to
approach the Holy Father with a request that he repudiate “the errors listed in
the document in a definitive and final manner, and to authoritatively state
that Amoris laetitia does not require
any of them to be believed or considered as possibly true.”
“We
are not accusing the pope of heresy,” said a spokesman for the authors, “but we
consider that numerous propositions in Amoris
laetitia can be construed as heretical upon a natural reading of the text.
Additional statements would fall under other established theological censures, such
as scandalous, erroneous in faith, and ambiguous, among others.” [......]
Atheists are really
anti-theists. They oppose the God who is God with an idol of their own making.
No atheist chooses
merely to deny God. For the atheist’s spiritual posture against God is at the
same time his posture in preference for some other Being above God. As he
dismisses the true God he is welcoming his New God. Why must this be so?
Because every personal commitment of man presupposes, deep in the metaphysical
core of his being, a hunger for being as truth and goodness. Man is
intrinsically burdened with an incurable hunger for transcendence. If being
abhors a vacuum, the vacuum it most violently shrinks from is the total absence
of Infinite Being. And history demonstrates that man is inconsolable without
the True God.
Fr. Vincent Miceli,
S.J., The Gods of Atheism
‘When
men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing,
they believe in anything.’
There are men who will
ruin themselves and ruin their civilization if they may ruin also this old
fantastic tale (of the Catholic faith). This is the last and most astounding
fact about this faith; that its enemies will use any weapon against it, the
sword that cuts their own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own
homes. … (The atheist fanatic) sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the
non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to
assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready
to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and
eternal vengeance upon some one who (he affirms) never lived at all.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
“Cultivate a great
desire to be firmly rooted in the sublime virtue of confidence. Do not fear, but be courageous in
serving and loving our Most Adorable and Amiable Jesus, with great perfection
and holiness. Undertake courageously great tasks for His glory, in proportion
to the power and grace He will give you for this end. Even though you can do
nothing of yourself, you can do all things in Him and His help will never fail
you, if you have confidence
in His goodness. Place your entire physical and spiritual welfare in His
hands. Abandon to the paternal solicitude of His Divine Providence every care
for your health, reputation, property and business, for those near to you, for
your past sins, for your soul’s progress in virtue and love of Him, for your
life, death, and especially for your salvation and eternity, in a word, all
your cares. Rest in the
assurance that, in His pure goodness, He will watch with particular
tenderness over all your responsibilities and cares and dispose all things for
the greatest good.”
St. John Eudes, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian
Souls
Cardinal Burke
offers the correction for two mistranslations in the English publication of the
Motu proprio of Pope Francis, “TRADITIONIS CUSTODES”
Art. 1. The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI (sic) and
Saint John Paul II (sic), in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II,
are the unique only expression of
the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.
Art. 4. Priests ordained after the publication of the present Motu
Proprio, who wish to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962, should must submit a formal
request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before
granting this authorization.
"Not a
stone upon a stone" - 9th Sunday after Pentecost
The 'Western Wall' (Wailing Wall) in
Jerusalem is held by Jews as a remnant of Herod's Temple destroyed by the
Romans in 72 A.D. Yet, Jesus prophesized not only that the Temple would be
destroyed but also that there would not remain a "stone upon a
stone." So how is it that there remains a large wall on the western side
at the south end of the 'Temple Mount'? Some Catholics claim the prophecy of
Jesus was referring only to the edifice itself and not the entire foundation
for the Temple. Jesus words must be taken in literally unless there it is
clearly manifest that the metaphorical sense is intended exclusively. Therefore,
the 'Wailing Wall' where the Jews worship is not a remnant of the ancient
Temple, and the 'Temple Mount', on which is currently situated the Al-Aqsa
mosque and the "Dome of the Rock", is not the location of the Temple
destroyed in 72 A.D. The 36 acre 'Temple Mount' is actually the location of the
Roman fortress Antonia built by Herod.
What
is the evidence for this? The current popular claim is the fortress Antonia was
located on a five-acre section on the north-west side of the 'Temple Mount'
while the Temple occupied the remaining 30 acres. Five acres is far too small
to accommodate a Roman legion (6,000 soldiers plus auxiliary staff) which we
know from the writings of Flavius Josephus that the fortress Antonia did in
fact hold. Many Roman fortresses have been examined by archeologists and they
typically are between 45 and 55 acres but some are as small as 36 acres. As far
as the area needed for the Temple of Herod itself, consider this, the ancient
pagan temple complex at Baalek in Lebanon built by the Romans is less than six
acres in total area and encloses the largest temple to Jupiter in the Roman
Empire as well as a smaller temple dedicated to Bacchus and another to Venus.
The Temple built by Herod was a single temple and much smaller in overall dimensions.
Furthermore,
when Solomon was designated by King David to succeed him (3 Kings 1), King
David directed the prophet Nathan and the high priest Sadoc to take Solomon on
the king's mule to be anointed king at the "Gihon spring" with oil
taken from the tabernacle. The Gihon spring is located in the City of David
directly south and adjacent to the present-day 'Temple Mount'. There Solomon
was anointed with oil taken from the Tabernacle, proclaimed king and celebrated
by the populace with great jubilation and the sounding of trumpets that could
be heard outside the city. The Temple built by Solomon was in the same location
as the Tabernacle established by King David on the threshing floor of the land
he purchased Areuna the Jebusite as God had commanded by the mouth of Gad (2
Kings 24 and 2 Paralipomenon 3:1).
The
water from the Gihon spring was essential for the sacrificial offerings of the
Temple. There is no living water source on the 'Temple Mount' which was
required in the washing of the priests and the sacrifices offered. The water
source for the Antonia fortress was provided by large cisterns located just
north of the Antonia fortress and under the 'Temple Mount' that are still
present today.
There
is a Catholic tradition the there was a church called the Church of the
Judgment that was built over and enclosed the Rock that is now enclosed under
the Dome of the Rock built by the Moslems in 692 A.D. The Dome of the Rock is
located directly north of the Al-Aqsa mosque on the 'Temple Mount'. The Church
of the Judgment was destroyed either by the Persians who conquered Jerusalem in
614 A.D. with the help of 26,000 Jewish allies during the Byzantine-Sasanian
War 602-628 A.D. (during which many churches were destroyed including the
Church of the Ascension on Mount Olivet), or the church was destroyed by the
Moslems who conquered Jerusalem in 637 A.D. No living Jew at the time would
have knowledge of the exact location of Herod's Temple because the Jews were
forbidden to enter Jerusalem by the Romans since the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135
A.D. on the pain of death. Two hundred years later, the Catholic emperor
Constantine permitted the Jews to enter Jerusalem once a year on the feast of
Tisha B'Av (the ninth of Av) which is regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish
calendar because it is the anniversary of the destruction of both the Temple of
Solomon and the Temple of Herod! Be that as it may, many of the pillars used in
the construction of the interior of the Dome of the Rock have Christian
markings indicating that they were salvaged from a destroyed Catholic church.
The
Rock itself is regarded (WIKI) as The Foundation Stone (Hebrew אֶבֶן
הַשְּׁתִיָּה, romanized: ʾEḇen
haŠeṯīyyā, lit. 'Foundation Stone'), or the Noble
Rock (Arabic:الصخرة
المشرفة, romanized: al-Saḵrah al-Mušarrafah, lit. 'The
Noble Stone') is the rock enclosed by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It is
also known as the Pierced Stone, because it has a small hole on the
southeastern corner that enters a cavern beneath the rock, known as the Well of
Souls. Traditional Jewish sources mention the stone as the place from
which the creation of the world began. Jewish sources also identify its
location with that of the Holy of Holies. Yet, it is not possible for a
threshing floor to be around a large rock or stone.
Before
the Muslim conquest, the Rock was enclosed in the Catholic church known as the
Church of the Judgment (destroyed by the Persians) because it is believed to
have been the place where the condemned stood to hear the judgment against them
by the Roman authorities. The Rock is held to be where Jesus stood when His
official condemnation was decreed by Pontius Pilate and thus, if it is the
stone where the "creation of the world began," it is the stone from
which the creation of the world began anew. John 19:13 says: "Now when
Pilate had heard these words, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the
judgment seat, in the place that is called Lithostrotos, and in Hebrew
Gabbatha." Lithostrotos in Greek refers to a stone and Gabbatha in Hebrew
an elevated place. According to St. Mary Agreda after Jesus was condemned by
Pilate the decree of condemnation, which she quotes in its entirety, was then
formally read to the Jewish mob assembled outside the north entrance to
Fortress Antonia where Jesus was taken to bear His cross.
Of
the Temple of Herod destroyed in 72 A.D. there does not remain a "stone
upon a stone".
Leo XIV Reinstates Convicted
Child-Porn Priest who was protected by Francis
Carlo Alberto Capella was
Vatican diplomat who was convicted by a Vatican tribunal of possessing and
sharing child pornography. Capella admitted guilt to the charges. He is the
only one who has served a prison sentence in the Vatican jail for this crime or
for any sexually related crime against minors.
Monsignor
Capella was ordained a priest in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Milan. After
studies of canon law he entered the Vatican diplomatic corps. He was
assigned to the papal nunciature in India in 2003 and to the nunciature in Hong
Kong in 2007. In 2008 he was created Chaplain of His Holiness, which entitled him to the title
of Monsignor. In 2011 he was transferred to the Vatican to serve in
the Secretariat of State. In 2016 he was assigned to the papal nunciature to
the United States.
In
2017, Capella was recalled to the Vatican by Pope Francis after United
States officials informed the Vatican that he was under investigation for
possession and sharing of child pornography. The government of Canada has
issued a warrant for his arrest, alleging that during his time in Canada in
December, 2016 he had possessed and shared child pornography. He was returned
to the Vatican which claimed diplomatic immunity for Capella protecting him
from prosecution in the United State or Canada.
In
2018, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, which he served
in the Vatican jail. As of 2021, he was allowed out during the day to work in
an office that sells papal blessings. In 2023, following the end of his prison
sentence, Capella was permitted to return to work in the Vatican Secretariat of
State. Now Pope Leo XIV has reinstated
Msgr. Capella to a senior diplomatic position in the Vatican Secretariat of
State.
COMMENT: Pope Leo is protégé of Francis to whom he owns his promotions
to bishop and cardinal. It was Francis who protected this pervert from criminal
charges in the United States and in Canada and now it is Francis' protégé who
has restored him the a high level position in the Vatican. This does not
portend well for any serious reform of the Novus Ordo Church which has become a
sinecure for homosexuals and others perverts.
From Tradition
In Action:
You don't have
to be a liturgical EXPERT to see that there is no essential difference in the act!
The question
is: Is there any essential difference
in the actors?
Top: St. Patrick Catholic Church, Chatham, New Jersey, August 22, 2021
Bottom:
First Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 6, 2025
PREVIOUS BULLETIN POSTS THAT ARE NOT OUTDATED
HOME
| About Us | Open Letters | Make a Contribution | Directions | Contact Us |
Pearl of York | Mass Schedule | List of Closed Parishes in the Diocese of Harrisburg |
| Announcements |
Why Move to Central Pennsylvania? | Canned Answers to Stale Objections
