SS. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission

P.O. Box 7352, York, PA, 17404

717-792-2789

SaintsPeterandPaulRCM.com

SaintsPeterandPaulRCM@comcast.net

To Restore and Defend Our Ecclesiastical Traditions of the Latin Rite to the Diocese of Harrisburg

SS. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Chapel

129 South Beaver Street, York PA 17401

..... this missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may freely and lawfully be used ..... Nor are superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass otherwise than as enjoined by Us. ..... Accordingly, no one whatsoever is permitted to infringe or rashly contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, direction, will, decree and prohibition. Should any person venture to do so, let him understand he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.

Pope St. Pius V, Papal Bull, QUO PRIMUM,

Tridentine Codification of the “received and approved” traditional Roman Rite of the Mass.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Confessor & Doctor of the Church

St. Praxedes, Virgin

July 21, 2024

Today’s liturgy lays stress on the terrible punishments which will one day be inflicted on those who have denied Christ. They will all perish and not one of them will enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who have been faithful to Him through all the adversities of this life, will also one day, be saved from the hands of their enemies and will follow Him into heaven, wither He went at his Ascension. These thoughts about God’s justice are suggested in the Breviary reading from the prophet Elias.

After Solomon’s death the twelve tribes were divided into two kingdoms, Israel and Juda. The second of these consisted in the tribes of Juda and Benjamin, with Jerusalem as the capital, while the first was composed of the remaining ten tribes, having for its capital Sichem, then in Samaria.

To this latter kingdom belonged the prophet Elias, who dwelt in the desert of Galaad in Samaria. A man of great virtue and austere life he wore a tunic woven of camel’s hair and a leathern girdle. “With zeal; Zealous for the Lord God of Hosts,” he left the desert three times to convey the divine warnings to Achab, the seventh king of Israel and the queen, Jezebel, who seduced the people into idolatry; to secure the death of the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal whom he had put to confusion on Mount Carmel; and to foretell to the king who had taken Naboth’s vineyard for himself, that he would die bathed in his own blood, and to the queen, who had been Achab’s evil genius, that her blood would flow on the spot where Naboth’s flowed, while dogs should devour her flesh.

For these reasons Elias was persecuted by the Israelites and by Achab and Jezebel, and was obliged to flee to Mount Horeb to escape death. Later on, when Ochozias Achab’s son had become king, Elias advised him not to consult Beelzebub the god of Accaron as he intended but rather the God of Israel.

Upon this Ochozias sent him a captain of fifty soldiers to summon him to come down from the mountain and to account for his words, but Elias answered: “If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume thee, and thy fifty.” And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and the fifty that were with him (Breviary).

Still later, Elias set out towards the Jordan with Eliseus, and when they had crossed the river, a fiery chariot and horses separated them from each other, while Elias went up by a whirlwind into heaven, then Eliseus took up Elias’s mantle that had fallen from him, and received a double portion of his spirit, while all Elias’ disciples exclaimed: “The spirit of Elias hath rested upon Eliseus.”

On one occasion, when Elias was on his way up to Bethel he was mocked by some small boys, crying: “Go up, thou bald head. Go up, thou bald head.” And Elias cursed them in the name of God whom they had offended, “and there came forth two bears out of the forest and tore them two and forty boys.”

All his life, Elias, with his words of fire, championed the rights of almighty God. Much later John the Baptist “came forward in the spirit and power of Elias,” clad like him, and like him dwelling in the desert; defending, with the same impassioned voice, the same rights of God, and foretelling the separation which Christ, who was at hand, would make between the chaff and the wheat. “He will gather the wheat into His barns, but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” “Elias,” says St. Augustine, “was a type of our Redeemer and Lord. Elias suffered persecution from the Jews; our Lord, the true Elias, was despised, and rejected by this same people. Elias left his own country; Christ forsook the synagogue and made welcome the Gentiles (2^nd Nocturn).

Continuing the comparison, we may say the God rescued Elias from his enemies by raising him into the sky; and in the same way he took Christ from among His enemies, by making Him go up to heaven on Ascension Day. “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God, and defend me from them that rise up against me” (Alleluia).

Elias, carried away in a chariot of fire, was in the language of the Fathers, the type of Jesus ascending to heaven. The Gradual uses the same verse of the eight psalm which the liturgy employs on Ascension Day. “Lord, our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth. Thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens.” The Introit adds: “Behold God is my helper and the Lord is the protector of my soul. Save me, O God, by Thy name and deliver me by Thy strength.” This triumph of Christ over those who hated Him, typified by that of Elias over his despisers, will be ours also, if we do not “tempt Christ,” that is, if we avoid idolatry, impurity, and murmuring (Epistle), remaining faithful to grace. For if our Lord continues to be offered up on our altars to “make His work to avail on our behalf” (Secret), and if “eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood, we abide in Him and He in us” (Communion), it is in order that “united” to Him (Postcommunion) we may faithfully keep His judgments which are “sweeter than honey” (Offertory).

St. Paul indeed, tells us: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it” (Epistle). Let us, therefore, beseech the Lord that His merciful ears “may be open to the prayers” of His suppliants and, in order that to those who seek He may surely give that for which they ask, He may make us to ask only for those things which are well-pleasing to Him (Collect).

But divine justice is not content with protecting the just against their enemies and with rewarding them for their fidelity; it punishes also those who do evil. Elias threatened the faithless kingdom of Israel and made fire from heaven to fall on his enemies (Breviary). The Israelites who tempted Christ by their murmurings perished by firey serpents (Epistle), and Jerusalem, over which our Lord wept and whose punishment He foretold for its rejection of Himself, was destroyed by war and fire (Gospel). Three and twenty thousand of the children of Israel, we read, perished in one day through fornication and many were destroyed because of their murmuring. “Now,” St Paul tells us, “all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction’ (Epistle).

More than a million Jews perished at the destruction of Jerusalem because they had rejected the Messias, and in the Gospel our Lord always compared this tragic ending to the catastrophes which will mark the end of all time when God will come to judge the world by fire.

At that moment, the divine judge will accomplish the separation of the good from the evil, rewarding the first and banishing from the kingdom of God all who have denied Him by their unbelief or their sin, just as He drove from the Temple, the type of the Church on earth and in heaven, the traffickers who had transformed that house of God into a den of thieves (Gospel). “Turn back the evils upon my enemies, and cut them off in Thy truth, O Lord my protector” (Introit). For then the time of mercy will have passed, and that of justice only will remain. “Wherefore,” says the apostle, “he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (Epistle).

INTROIT:

Ps. 53. Behold, God is my helper, and the Lord is the protector of my soul. Turn back the evils upon mine enemies, and cut them off in Thy truth, O Lord, my protector.

Ps. Save me, O God, by Thy name, and deliver me in Thy strength. Glory, etc. Behold, God, etc.

COLLECT:

Let Thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy suppliant people: and that Thou mayest grant them their desires, make them to ask such things as please Thee. Through our Lord, etc.

O God, who didst give blessed Lawrence, to be to Thy people a minister of eternal salvation, grant, we pray, that we who have had him for a teacher of life here on earth, may also deserve, now that he is in heaven, to have him for an advocate. Through our Lord, etc.

Hear us, O god our Saviour, that as we are gladdened by the festival of blessed Praxedes, thy Virgin, so we may learn from it piety and devotion. Through our Lord, etc.

EPISTLE: 1 Cor. 10, 6-13 .

Brethren, Let us not covet evil things, as they also coveted. Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them: as it is written “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human: and God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.

Can we sin by thought and desire?

Yes, if we desire evil and forbidden things, or voluntarily think of them with pleasure, for God prohibits not only evil deeds, but evil thoughts and desires in regard to our neighbor’s wife or goods. (Ex. 20, 17). Christ says, (Matt. 5, 28) that he who looks upon a woman with evil desire, has already committed adultery. But wicked thoughts and imagination are sinful only when a person consents to, or entertains them deliberately. They become, however, an occasion of gaining merit, if we earnestly strive against them. For this reason God sometimes permits even the just to be tempted by them.

What is meant by tempting God?

Demanding presumptuously a mark or sign of divine omnipotence, goodness or justice. This sin is committed when without cause we desire that articles of faith should be demonstrated and confirmed by a new miracle; when we throw ourselves needlessly into danger of body or soul expecting God to deliver us; when in dangerous illness the ordinary and, natural remedies are rejected, and God’s immediate assistance expected.

Is it a great sin to murmur against God?

That it is such may be learned from the punishment which God inflicted on the murmuring Israelites; for besides Kore, Dathan, and Abiron whom the earth devoured, many thousands of them were consumed by fire; and yet these had not murmured against God directly, but only against Moses and Aaron whom God had placed over them as their leaders. From this it is seen that God looks upon murmuring against spiritual and civil authority, instituted by Him, as murmuring against Himself. Hence Moses said to the Israelites: Your murmuring is not against us, but against the Lord (Ex. 16, 8).

ASPIRATION Purify my heart, I beseech. Thee; O Lord, from all evil thoughts and desires. Let it never enter my mind to tempt Thee, or to be dissatisfied with Thy fatherly dispensations. Suffer me not to be tempted beyond my strength, but grant me so much fortitude, that I may overcome all temptations, and even derive benefit from them for my soul’s salvation.

GRADUAL:

Ps. 8. O Lord our Lord, how admirable is Thy name in the whole earth. For Thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens. Alleluia, alleluia.

Ps 58. Deliver me from my enemies, O my God: and defend me from them that rise up against me. Alleluia.

GOSPEL: Luke 19, 41-47.

At that time, when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side; and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee; and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation. And entering into the temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought, saying to them: It is written, “My house is a house of prayer. but you have made it a den of thieves.” And He was teaching daily in the temple.

Why did our Saviour weep over the city of Jerusalem?

Because of the ingratitude and obduracy of its inhabitants who would not receive Him as their Redeemer, and who through impenitence were hastening to destruction.

When was the time of visitation?

The period in which God sent them one prophet after another who urged them to penance, and whom they persecuted, stoned, and killed. (Matt. 23, 34). It was especially the time of Christ’s ministry, when He so often announced His salutary doctrine in the temple of Jerusalem, confirmed it by miracles, proving Himself to be the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, but was despised and rejected by this hardened and impenitent city.

Who are prefigured by this hardened and impenitent city?

The hard-hearted, unrepenting sinners who will not recognize the time of God’s visitation, in which He urges them by the mouth of His preachers, confessors, and superiors, and by inward inspiration to reform their lives and seek the salvation of their soul, but who give no ear to these admonitions, and defer conversion to the end of their lives. Their end will be like to that of this impious city; then the enemy, that is, the evil spirit, will surround their soul, tempt, terrify, and drag it into the abyss of ruin. Oh, how foolish it is to squander so lightly, the time of grace, the days of salvation! Oh, how would the damned do penance, could they but return to earth! Oh, how industriously would they employ the time to save their soul! Use, then, my dear Christian, the time of grace which God designs for you, and which, when it is run out or carelessly thrown away, will not be lengthened for a moment.

Will God conceal from the wicked that which serves for their salvation?

No; but while they are running after the pleasures of this life, as St. Gregory says, they see not the misfortunes treading in their footsteps, and as consideration of the future makes them uncomfortable in the midst of their worldly pleasures, they remove the terrible thought far from them, and thus run with eyes blindfolded in the midst of their pleasure into eternal flames. Not God, but they themselves hide the knowledge of all that is for their peace, and thus they perish.

ASPIRATION. I beseech Thee, O Lord, who didst weep over the city of Jerusalem, because it knew not the time of its visitation, to enlighten my heart, that I may know and profit by the season of grace.

OFFERTORY:

Ps. 18. The justices of the Lord are right, rejoicing hearts, and His judgments sweeter than honey and the honeycomb: for Thy servant keepeth them.

SECRET:

Grant us, we pray, O Lord, worthily to frequent these mysteries; because every time this commemorative sacrifice is celebrated, the work of our redemption is enacted. Through our Lord, etc.

May the pious prayer of holy Lawrence, Thy Confessor and illustrious Doctor, be not wanting to us, O Lord, but make our offerings acceptable to Thee and ever win for us Thy mercy. Through our Lord, etc.

May the sacrifice of Thy holy people be acceptable to Thee, O Lord, and honorable to Thy saints, through whose merits we know that we have been helped in trouble. Through the same Lord, etc.

COMMUNION:

John 6. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him, saith the Lord.

POSTCOMMUNION:

May the communion of Thy sacrament, O Lord, we pray, afford us purification and grant us unity. Through our Lord, etc.

May blessed Lawrence, Thy Confessor and illustrious Doctor, intercede for us, O Lord, that this Thy sacrifice may obtain for us salvation. Through our Lord, etc.

Thou hast fed Thy servants, O Lord, with sacred gifts; comfort us ever, we pray, by her intercession whose festival we celebrate. Through our Lord, etc.

…and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.

PROPER OF THE SAINTS FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 21^st:

Date Day Feast Rank Color F/A Mass Time and Intention

21	Sun	9^th Sunday after Pentecost St. Lawrence of Brindisi, CD St. Praxedes, V	sd	G		Mass 9:00 AM & Noon; Members Ss. Peter & Paul; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM; Confessions 8:00 AM
22	Mon	St. Mary Magdalen, Penitent	d	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
23	Tue	St. Apollinaris, BpM St. Liborius, BpC	d	R		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
24	Wed	Vigil of St. James St. Christina, VM		V		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
25	Thu	St. James the Greater, Ap St. Christopher, M	d2cl	R		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
26	Fri	St. Anne, Mother of the BVM	d2cl	W	A	Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
27	Sat	Our Lady's Saturday St. Pantaleon, M BVM, Mother of Mercy	sp	W		Mass 9:00 AM; Confessions & Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM
28	Sun	10^th Sunday after Pentecost St. Nazarius & Comp., Mm	sd	G		Mass 9:00 AM & Noon; Members Ss. Peter & Paul; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM; Confessions 8:00 AM

Remember the former age, for I am God, and there is no God besides…. Who show from the beginning the things that shall be at last, and from ancient times the things that as yet are not done, saying: My counsel shall stand , and my will shall be done.

Isaias 46: 9-10

Humility is like purity: however little it may be contaminated it becomes impure. Purity is corrupted not only by an impure act, but also by an immodest word or thought. And humility is also so fragile that it is easily tainted by the love of praise, by a word or thought of self-esteem, by vainglory or self-love.

Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo, Humility of Heart

But in order to take away all the excuses which are wont to be brought forward by some for not hearing holy Mass, there shall be adduced, in the following chapter, various examples adapted to every sort of person, to show that, if they deprive themselves of so great a good, it is by their own fault, their tepidity, their weariness in well-doing; and that great indeed shall be their remorse on this account at the point of death.

St. Leonard of Port Maurice, The Hidden Treasure of the Holy Mass

"Your divine Providence, O God, takes care of all Your creatures as though they were but one, and it takes care of each one as though all others were contained in it. Oh! If Your Providence were only understood, everyone would forget the things of this world to be united to it."

St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi

By the love of concupiscence we love God, but we love Him chiefly as our good, as the source of our happiness; we love Him for the help and assistance we expect from Him. Charity, on the contrary, makes us capable of loving God for Himself, because He is goodness, beauty, infinite wisdom – in a word, because He is God. Although the love of concupiscence which accompanies hope is very precious, it is still imperfect, because by it we love God not for Himself alone, but for the benefits which we hope to receive from Him. The love of charity, however, is perfect because it is pure love of complacency, of benevolence, that is, love which takes complacence in the infinite good of God, and desires this good, not for any personal advantage, but for God Himself, for His felicity, His glory. …St. Teresa of Avila prayed, “O Lord, be pleased to grant me this love before You take me from this life. It will be a great comfort at the hour of death to realize that I shall be judged by You whom I have loved above all things. Then I shall be able to go to meet You with confidence, even though burdened with my debts, for I shall not be going into a foreign land but into my own country, into the kingdom of Him whom I have loved so much and who likewise has so much loved me.”

Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy, On Charity

God is love, and all his operations proceed from love. Once he wills to manifest that goodness by sharing his love outside himself, then the Incarnation becomes the supreme manifestation of his goodness and love and glory. So, Christ was intended before all other creatures and for his own sake. For him all things were created and to him all things must be subject, and God loves all creatures in and because of Christ. Christ is the first-born of every creature, and the whole of humanity as well as the created world finds its foundation and meaning in him. Moreover, this would have been the case even if Adam had not sinned.

St. Lawrence of Brindisi, O.P., Doctor of the Church

St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Confessor, Doctor of the Church & Militant Catholic

His work in the German Empire did not end with the founding of his houses. The Emperor Rodolf, his mind yet uninfluenced by Court intrigue, had come to recognize the noble character and splendid talents hidden under that coarse Franciscan habit. He had a commission to give where much would depend on the choice he made of his ambassador. The Turks, thirsting to wipe out their defeat at Lepanto (1571), were advancing along the Danube, and had announced their resolve of taking possession of Hungary. Mahomet III was at their head. Germany, rent by feuds and civil war, consequent on the Reformation, seemed unconscious of its danger, and ingle-handed Rodolf could not hope to prove a match for the Ottoman hosts as numberless, seemingly, as an invasion of locusts. Who should be sent to rally the laggards round the imperial standard - to make them feel, Catholic and Protestant alike, that they were only one remove from destruction, when Rudolf was overpowered—and to fill them with courage and the of victory? It was a singular mission for the Capuchin monk; but at Protestant Courts and Catholic his success was complete, and the answer to his appeal so universal and immediate, that, by 1598, the combined army were formed, and put under the command of Matthias, the Emperor’s brother, as generalissimo.

The years slipped by as the struggle continued, with nothing especially memorable on either side, when, as if to show that the army which the Capuchin monk had got together could not be kept together without him, the Commander-in-chief obtained from the Pope an order that Lawrence should join the army which the Capuchin monk had got together could not be kept together without him, the Commander-in-chief obtained from the Pope an order that Lawrence should join the army forthwith, and devote himself’ to the one work of preparing the soldiers by prayer and penance for the victory which he had never ceased to promise them.

The October of 1601 came—that same mouth, thirty years ago exactly, the Turks had their pride broken at Lepanto. Now they had crossed the Danube, and in numbers’, variously estimated between 80,000 and 90,000, they were drawn up a few miles from Albareale. Lawrence, on horseback, in his Capuchin habit and cross in hand, had been haranguing the Christian army, drawn up before him in line of battle. They were less than thirty thousand strong. His burning words went home, to such effect that the o1diers could scarcely be induced the command to charge. His victory was explicit. Meantime, in a council of war, some of the imperial officers were urging violently the madness of risking an engagement. The enemy had all the high ground, and outnumbered them almost as three to one. They must beat a retreat as best they could. Matthias was perplexed. What was he to do? F. Lawrence had better be sent for - part of his commission, in the brief appointing him, was to give advice when advice was needed.

Lawrence came into the council, his heart still burning with the words from which he had been preaching to the soldiers, “Fear ye not and be not dismayed. Tomorrow you shall go out against them, and the Lord will be with you” (2 Paral. xx. 17). He made short work of the waverers; and, indeed, there was something about his certainty of victory different from mere human certainty, and making their halting policy look foolish and out of place.

On the day of battle a monk was again on horseback, cross in hand, in advance of the front rank. No need to say the monk was Father Lawrence. He speaks a few words that he knows so well how to drive straight home to a soldier’s heart, and with a fury that baffles all description they charge upon the infidel. The Turks were not so easily broken, and for hours the battle raged fast and furiously, till at last a final charge from the Christian side broke up the Turkish ranks, and they fled in extreme confusion. The Christian forces got possession of the rising ground —--seized all their large artillery, and by evening had gained a decisive victory. That was October 11th, 1601.

Decisive as the battle was, Mahomet III would not recognize as yet that he had been hopelessly defeated. Three days afterwards he hazarded another battle. It was on this occasion that our Saint in a moment of reverie or prayer, was into the thick of the fray, and before he had time to collect himself, he was surrounded by the enemy. Two colonels, Rosbourg and Altain, rescued him. This was no place for him, they reminded him, and begged him to; go to the rear. “This is my place,” was his answer, “and here I will stay. Soldiers, another charge.” Quick as lightning they charged, and, before long, panic had seized the Turks, and another Christian victory had been won. When Mahomet recrossed the Danube, he had lost thirty thousand f his finest soldiers. “Next to God and Our Lady,” said De Mercurio, second in command to Matthias, “we owe that victory to Father Lawrence.” And on the day of his beatification (1783) the scene painted over the great door of St. Peter’s, was the battle of Albareale. Underneath ran the legend, “When Austria was in sorest straits, Blessed Lawrence of Brindisi, Cross in hand, struck terror into the enemies of Christ and put them to flight.” …….

He assisted at the General Chapter, and gave his account of the foundation of their new houses in Bohemia and Austria. What was his dismay when, as the election of the General came on, every vote fell on the young priest who had come among them fresh from founding three new provinces and leading the Christian hosts to victory! It was then it may be still – a unique position for a monk not forty-three years of age to find himself duly elected General of the Capuchins.

Life of St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, by Fr. William Lloyd

My people have been a lost flock, their shepherds have caused them to go astray, and have made them wander in the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.

Jer. 50:6

“We wish to have this law of the ancients held in reverence and that law is, ‘Let nothing new be introduced but only what has been handed down.’ This must be an inviolable law in matters of Faith.”

Pope Benedict XV

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITY AND TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM

Has our divine Savior’s prophecy concerning, the city of Jerusalem been fulfilled?

Yes, and in the most terrible manner. The Jews, oppressed by the Romans their cruel masters, revolted, killed many of their enemies, and drove them out of Jerusalem. Knowing well that this would not be permitted to pass unavenged, the Jews armed themselves for a desperate resistance. The Emperor Nero sent a powerful army under the command of Vespasian against the city of Jerusalem, which first captured the smaller fortresses of Judea, and then laid siege to the city. The want and misery of the inhabitants had already reached the highest pitch; for within the city ambitious men had caused conflicts; factions had been formed, daily fighting each other, and reddening the streets with blood, while the angry Romans stormed outside. Then a short time of respite was granted to the unfortunate Jews. The Emperor Nero was murdered at Rome in the year of our Lord 68; his successor Galba soon died, and the soldiers placed their beloved commander Vespasian upon the imperial throne. He then left Jerusalem with his army, but in the year he sent his son Titus with a new army to Judea, with orders to capture the city at any price, and to punish its inhabitants.

It was the time of Easter, and a multitude of Jews had assembled from all provinces of the land, when Titus appeared with his army before the gates of Jerusalem, and surrounded the city. The supply of food was soon exhausted, famine and pestilence came upon the city and raged terribly. The leader of the savage revolutionists, John of Gischala, caused the houses to be searched, and the remaining food to be torn from the starving, or to be forced from them by terrible tortures: To save themselves from this outrageous tyrant, the Jews took the leader of a band of robbers, named Simon, with his whole gang into the city. John and Simon with their followers now sought to annihilate each other. John took possession of the temple. Simon besieged him; blood was streaming in the temple and in the streets. Only when the battle-din of the Romans was heard from without, did the hostile factions unite, go to meet the enemy, and resist his attack. As the famine increased, many Jews secretly left the city to seek for herbs. But Titus captured them with his cavalry, and crucified those who were armed. Nearly five hundred men, and sometimes more, were every day crucified in sight of the city, so that there could not be found enough of crosses and places of execution; but even this terrible sight did not move the Jews to submission. Incited by their leaders to frenzy, they obstinately resisted, and Titus finding it impossible to take the city by storm, concluded to surround it by walls in order to starve the inhabitants. In three days his soldiers built a wall of about ten miles in circumference, and thus the Saviour’s prediction was fulfilled: Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and straiten thee on every side.

The famine in this unfortunate city now reached its most terrific height; the wretched inhabitants searched the very gutters for food, and ate the most disgusting things. A woman, ravenous from hunger, strangled her own child, roasted it, and ate half of it; the leaders smelling the horrible meal, forced a way into the house, and by terrible threats compelled the woman to show them what she had eaten; she handed them the remaining part of the roasted child, saying.: “Eat it, it is my child; I presume you are not more dainty than a woman, or more tender than a mother.” Stricken with horror they rushed from the house. Death now carried away thousands daily, the streets and the houses were full of corpses: From the fourteenth of April when the siege commenced. to the first of July, there were counted one hundred and fifty-eight thousand dead bodies; six hundred thousand others were thrown over the walls into the trenches to save the city from infection. All who could flee, fled; some reached the camp of the Romans in safety; Titus spared the helpless, but all who fell into his hands armed, were crucified. Flight offered no better security. The Roman soldiers had learned that many Jews had swallowed, gold to secure it from the avarice of the robbers, and therefore the stomachs of many were cut open. Two thousand such corpses were found one morning in the camp of the Romans. The attempts of Titus to prevent this cruelty were unavailing. Finally, when misery had reached its height, Titus succeeded in carrying the fort, Antonia, and with his army forced a passage as far as the temple which had been held by John of Gischala with his infamous band. Desirous of saving the temple, Titus offered the revolutionists free passage from it, but his proposition was rejected, and the most violent contest then raged; the Romans trying to enter the temple, and being continually repulsed, at last, one of the soldiers seized a firebrand, and threw it into one of the rooms attached to the temple. The flames in an instant caught the whole of the inner temple, and totally consumed it, so that this prediction of our Lord was also fulfilled. The Romans butchered all the inhabitants whom they met, and Titus having razed the ruins of the temple and city, ploughed it over, to indicate that this city was never to be rebuilt. During the siege one million one hundred thousand Jews lost their lives; ninety-seven thousand were sold as slaves, and the rest of the people dispersed over the whole earth.

Thus God punished the impenitent city and nation, over whose wretchedness the Saviour wept so bitterly, and thus was fulfilled the prediction made by Him long before.

What do we learn from this?

That as this prediction so also all other threats and promises of the Saviour will be fulfilled. The destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, the dispersion of the Jews, are historical facts which cannot be denied, and testify through all centuries to the truth of our Lord’s word: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away (Matt. 24, 35).

Do not err, my brethren;… if a man by false teaching corrupt the faith of God, for the sake of which Jesus Christ was crucified, such a one shall go in his foulness to the unquenchable fire, as also shall he who listens to him.

St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians

USEFUL LESSONS CONCERNING DEATH-BED REPENTANCE

Can a sinner rely upon his being converted at the end of his life?

By no means, for this would be a sin against the mercy of God which is much the same as the sin against the Holy Ghost. “God,” says St. Augustine, “generally so punishes such negligent sinners, that in the end they forget themselves, as in health they forgot Him.” He says: They have turned their back to me, and not their face: and in the time of their affliction they will say: Arise, and deliver us! Where are the gods whom thou hast made thee? Let them arise and deliver thee in the time of thy affliction. (Jer. 2, 27-28). And although we have a consoling example in the case of the penitent thief, yet this, as St. Augustine says, is only one, that the sinner may not despair: and it is only one, so that the sinner may have no excuse for his temerity in putting off his repentance unto the end.

What may we hope of those who are converted at the close of life?

Everything that is good if they be truly converted, but this is a very rare thing, as St. Augustine says: “It cannot be asserted with any security, that he who repents at the end has forgiveness;” and St. Jerome writes: “Scarcely one out of thousands whose life was impious, will truly repent at death and obtain forgiveness of sin;” and St. Vincent Ferrer says, “For a man who has lived an impious life to die a good death is a greater miracle than the raising of the dead to life.” We need not be surprised at this, for repentance at the end of life is extorted by the fear of death and the coming judgment. St. Augustine says, that it is not he who abandons sin, but sin abandons him, for he would not cease to offend God, if life were granted him. What can we expect from such a conversion?

When should we repent?

While we are in health, in possession of our senses and strength, for according to the words of St. Augustine, the repentance of the sick is a sickly repentance. As experience proves, man while ill is so tormented and bewildered by the pains of sickness and the fear of death, by remorse of conscience, and the temptations of the devil as well as by anxiety for those whom he leaves, that he can scarcely collect his thoughts, much less fit himself for true repentance. Since it is so hard for many to do penance while they are in health, and have nothing to prevent them from elevating their mind to God, how much more difficult will it be for them, when the body is weakened and tortured by the pains of sickness. It has been made known by many persons when convalescent, that they retained not the slightest recollection of anything which occurred during their illness, and although they confessed and received the last Sacraments, they did not remember it. If then you have committed a grievous sin, do not delay to be reconciled as soon as possible by contrition and a sacramental confession. Do not put off repentance from day to day, for thereby conversion becomes more difficult, so much so that without extraordinary grace from God, you cannot repent God does not give His grace to the presumptuous scoffer.

And what is most certain of all, the Pope is not the “rule of faith”!

It is not the magisterium (churchmen teaching by virtue of their grace of state) as such that is the rule of faith, but the definitions of the magisterium (churchmen teaching by virtue of the Church’s attribute of infallibility) that are the rule.

Fr. Chad Ripperger, The Binding Force of Tradition

CORRESPONDENCE WITH GRACE NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE OF GOD ‑ O Lord, grant that Your grace in me may not be void.

MEDITATION:

I. Today the liturgy invites us to consider the grave problem of our correspondence with grace. It does this by showing us the sad picture of the sufferings of Israel, the chosen people, upon whom God had showered His benefits, whom He had surrounded with graces, protected with jealous care, and who, in spite of all this, were lost through their own infidelity. In the Epistle (I Cor 10, 6‑13), St. Paul, after mentioning certain points about Israel’s unfaithfulness, concludes: “Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction .... Wherefore, he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall.” This is a strong call to vigilance and humility. If God has gone before us with His graces, if He has called us to a more intense interior life and to closer intimacy with Himself, all this, far from making us presumptuous, should deepen our humility of heart. God’s gifts are preserved beneath the ashes of humble mistrust of self. Woe to us if we consider ourselves henceforth free from the weaknesses which we meet and, perhaps, condemn in others! Rather let us humbly say: “Lord, help me, or I shall do worse.”

At the same time that he exhorts us to be humble, St. Paul also urges us to have confidence, because “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able : but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.” The Apostle is telling us that the knowledge of our weakness should not discourage us, because God is always ready to sustain us with His grace. God knows our weaknesses, the struggles we have to undergo, and the temptations that assail us; and for each of them He gives us the measure of grace we need in order to triumph over them. It is very true that when the storm is raging we can feel only the impact of the struggle, and the grace that God is giving to help us remains completely hidden; nevertheless, this grace is there and we should be certain of it, because “God is faithful.” “God has always helped me ....” St. Therese of the Child Jesus said, “I count on His aid. My sufferings may reach even greater heights, but I am sure He will not abandon me.”

2. The Gospel (Lk. 19: 41‑47) continues the same subject of the Epistle and shows us Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. The Creator, the Lord, the Redeemer weeps over the ruin of His creatures, the people whom He has loved with predilection, even choosing them as the companions of His earthly life, and whom He had desired to save at any price.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I have gathered together thy children as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not!” (Mt 23, 37) This was the constant attitude of Jesus toward the holy city, but it always remained blind to every light, deaf to every invitation, and the Savior, shortly before going to His Passion, broke forth into His last sorrowful admonition: “If thou also hadst known and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace!” But again the city resists, and Jesus, after having loved it so much, and after having wept over it as a mother weeps over her son who has gone astray, predicts its ruin: “Thy enemies . . . shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation.”

Do you know how to recognize the moments in which Our Lord visits your soul? A word read or heard, perhaps even by chance, an edifying example, an interior inspiration, a new light which makes you see your faults more clearly and opens new horizons of virtue and of good‑all are visits from Jesus. And you, how do you correspond? Is your soul sensitive to these lights, to these admonitions? Do you not sometimes turn your gaze away, fearing that the light you have glimpsed may ask you for sacrifices which are too painful for your self‑love?

Oh! if you had always recognized the moment in which the Lord visited you! If you had always been open to His action! Try then to begin again today, resolve to commence anew each time that you happen to give in to nature. “The things that are to your peace,” your good, your sanctification are precisely here, in this continual adherence to the impulses of grace.

COLLOQUY:

“As I have already confessed to You, O glory of my life, O Lord God, strength of my salvation, I have sometimes placed my hopes in my own virtue, which was no virtue, and when I attempted to run, thinking I was very strong, I fell very quickly and went backward instead of forward. What I expected to reach, disappeared, and thus, O Lord, in various ways You have tested my powers. With light from You, I now see that I could not accomplish by myself the things that I wanted to do most. I said to myself:

‘I shall do this, I shall finish that,’ and I did not do either the one or the other. The will was there but not the power, and if the power was there, my will was not; this because I had trusted in my own strength. Sustain me then, O Lord, for alone I can do nothing. However, when You are my stability, then it is true stability; but when I am my own stability, then it is weakness’’

(St. Augustine).

“O Lord, teach me to be always docile to Your grace, to say ‘yes’ to You always. To say ‘yes’ to Your will as expressed in the commandments, to say ‘yes’ to the intimate inspirations by which You invite me to a more intense union, to more generous self‑denial and more complete detachment. Grant that I may always be ready to open the door of my will to You, or rather, to keep it open always, so that You can enter there, and thus I shall not miss a single one of Your visits, a single one of Your delicate touches; not one of Your requests will escape me.

“Make me understand well that true peace does not consist in being exempt from difficulties or in following my own wishes, but in total adherence to Your will, and in docility to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Sr. Carmela of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D.).

I will not mistrust the Lord, Meg, though I feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. Rather, I shall remember how St. Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Our Lord for help. And then I trust He shall place His holy hand upon me, and in the storming seas hold me up from drowning.

St. Thomas More

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

However ignorant you may be, you have the true faith if you believe, without exception, all the holy Catholic Church believes and teaches; on the other hand, however learned you may be, you lose the gift and the virtue of faith if you reject any doctrine which she teaches; for her faith is your rule. “As there is but one faith,” says St. Paul, “to wish to divide it, is to destroy it.” Heretics not only differ from the Church in faith, but they also differ amongst themselves, a proof that they have not the true faith, which is one. The holy Catholic Church never has suffered, and never will suffer, a difference of faith in regard to any article. Her faith is the same in all times, in all places, and in all her true children. Thus her faith is one and the only true faith. You should be most desirous to preserve the faith in all its purity, since without it, it is impossible to do anything which merits Heaven. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Those who do not possess it may practice all the moral virtues, justice, sobriety, chastity, alms-deeds, prayers, mortification; and not only is this the case with heretics, but it is a truth which should be borne in mind, that these good actions, unless they have faith for their principle, will never merit Heaven for them. The law of Moses, all holy as it was, could save only those who observed it through faith. 
When, therefore, you observe that those who believe not in the Church, practice some good works, offer many prayers, and lead an austere life, do not believe that they are on this account in the way of salvation, unless they have true faith; you commit an enormous sin if you believe that they can be saved outside of the Church; that they can have faith without believing in her, or that they can be saved without faith.

St. John Eudes, Man’s Contract with God in Baptism

And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that He sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment; and standing behind at His feet, she began to wash His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment (Luke 7, 37-38).

Mary has chosen the better part, which shall not be taken from her (Luke 10, 42).

Go to My brethren, and say to them: I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God (John 20, 17).

St. Mary Magdalen, Penitnet

The Finding of the Relics of St. Mary Magdalen

THE holy penitent, Saint Mary Magdalen, whose praise is in the Gospel, has ever been regarded as the particular protectress of the children of Saint Dominic, and especially of his Third Order. Our Lord Himself assigned her as mistress and patroness to Saint Catharine of Siena…. When, at the beginning of the eighth century, the Saracens began their ravages in Provence, which continued some three hundred years, the Cassianite monks, who had charge of the sacred relics, carefully concealed the crypt beneath a mound of earth, and it was not discovered until A.D. 1279. According to a Dominican tradition, in that year the Prince of Salerno, who was a nephew of Saint Louis of France, and afterwards became Charles II, King of Sicily and Count of Provence, was taken prisoner by the king of Aragon and closely confined in the fortress of Barcelona. By the advice of his confessor, who was a Friar Preacher, he commended himself earnestly to Saint Mary Magdalen, the patron Saint of Provence. That night, which was the eve of her feast, the Prince was suddenly awakened from sleep and found the Saint standing beside him. She bade him rise and follow her, together with his suite. She led them safely out of the fortress, and, after they had walked for some little time in silence, she turned and asked them if they knew where they were. They replied that they believed themselves to be close to the walls of Barcelona. "Not so," answered the Saint; " you are already six miles beyond the Spanish frontier, and only one league from Narbonne." Charles threw himself at her feet, saying, " What can I do in gratitude for this night's deliverance? " Then she bade him search for her relics, telling him that he would find them in the Church of Saint Maximin. "You will know my body," she said, "by this token; the forehead is still preserved with the flesh and skin entire on that part which touched our Lord's risen body. You will also find two vessels, one full of the hair with which I wiped His sacred feet, and another with the bloodstained earth I gathered at the foot of the Cross. I desire that these precious relics be now given to the care of my Brethren, the Friars Preachers, who are indeed my brethren, because, like them, I was a preacher and an apostle." With these words she disappeared; and when day dawned, the prince found that he was indeed close to Narbonne.

He lost no time in repairing to Saint Maximin, where he discovered the sacred relics in a box, bearing an inscription to the effect that they had been removed thither in the year 710, for fear of the sacrileges of the Saracens. Charles then founded a Convent of the Order on the spot and entrusted the precious treasures to the keeping of the Friars. Not content with this testimony of his gratitude to his heavenly deliverer, the prince, when he succeeded to his hereditary dominions, founded no less than twelve Convents of the Order, and in all of them it was ordained that a daily commemoration should be made of Saint Mary Magdalen in the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin.

The Friars Preachers continued to be the faithful guardians of the relics at Saint Maximin and of the sanctuary erected at La Sainte-Baume down to the time of the French Revolution. After the restoration of the French Province of the Order by the celebrated Father Lacordaire, the care of these holy places was once more entrusted to the sons of Saint Dominic, A.D. 1859. Even in our own day they are much-frequented places of pilgrimage.

Prayer

Grant to us, O most clement Father, that, as the Blessed Mary Magdalen, loving our Lord Jesus Christ above all things, obtained the pardon of her sins, so she may obtain for us from Thy mercy eternal happiness. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Rev. John Procter, O.P., The Dominican Tertiary’s Daily Manual

You have wearied the Lord with your words, and you said: Wherein have we wearied him? In that you say: Every one that doth evil, is good in the sight of the Lord, and such please him: or surely where is the God of judgment?

Malachias 2:1

“Because she hath loved much…” Luke 7:47

“And behold a woman that was in the city, a sinner, when she knew that He sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment. And, standing behind at His feet, she began to wash His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment.”

She came before Him unbidden. The invitation: “Come to Me all you that labour,” had not yet been given. She had not heard that “they that are well need not the physician, but they that are sick”; that He had “not come to call the just, but sinners”; that there is “joy before the Angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.” Would it not be rashness no less than irreverence to thrust herself upon His notice? Her presence might be as offensive to Him as it was sure to be to His host and the guests. Should she not wait a fitter opportunity, seek first an intercessor to plead her cause, secure at least His approval for such an intrusion?

No, she could not wait; she could not reason. Reckless of results, she hurried to her salvation as she had hurried to her ruin. Her need drove her to Him. Her need was her counselor and her defense. She had seen Him, and seeing Him had seen herself. Careless and curious, she had penetrated one day the crowd that followed Him. She had met His eye. She had cowered before it. The consciousness of her sin had been burnt into her by that glance. She had become intolerable to herself: what must she be to Him! And yet, how was it that that look had not repelled her? Her instinct was, not to hide away out of His sight, but to fly to Him the All-Holy, and trust herself to Him. No misgivings deterred her; no humiliation affrighted her; she had seen Him; His eye had rested on her—what was all the world to her now?

And He said to her: “Thy sins are forgiven thee. Thy faith hath made thee safe. Go in peace.”

How complete was Magdalen’s faith in Him! She made her plans without a thought of interference or repulse. She took her costly ointment and went straight to His feet, and washed, and kissed, and anointed them. Who among His chosen friends, the privileged, the innocent, would have dared what she dared that day!

O happy penitent, so sure of acceptance and of mercy that thou needest not to plead in words, but only with those tears that were at once sorrow, and reparation, and love!

Truly, O Lord, she is an Apostle. She has preached Thee throughout the world with a persuasiveness that is all her own. She has brought Thee more converts than the most intrepid, the most zealous of missioners. For she has revealed to all ages the far-reaching mercy of Thy Human Heart. Only when the secrets of all hearts are disclosed will be known the multitudes that, but for Mary Magdalen, had been lost to Thee forever. But with her they crept to Thy feet; with her they washed them with their tears. And for them also were the blessed words: “Thy sins are forgiven thee. Go in peace.”

Mother Mary Loyola, The Welcome of a Sinner

We read in the epistle of St. James 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.” Religion holds the first place among the moral virtues. … It holds the first rank among the moral virtues, because it approaches nearer to God than the others, in so far acts 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.

Rev. Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

New Order Catholics: “Muslims adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men.”

Vatican II, Nostra Aetate

Faithful Catholics: “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 and Reparation to the Sacred Heart before Vatican II

When the Spirit of God is at work, there is no need to go about looking for ways of inducing humility and confusion; for the Lord Himself reveals these to us in a very different manner from any which we can find by means of our puny reflections, which are nothing by comparison with a true humility proceeding from the light given us in this way by the Lord. The bestowal upon us of this knowledge by God so that we may learn that we of ourselves have nothing good is a well-known experience, and the greater are the favors we receive from Him, the better we learn it.

St. Teresa of Jesus

St. James, Patron of Spain, forget not the grand nation which owes to thee both its heavenly nobility and its earthly prosperity; preserve it from ever diminishing those truths which made it, in its bright days, the salt of the earth; keep it in mind of the terrible warning that “if the salt lose its savior, it is food for nothing any more but to be cast out and to be trodden on by men.

Dom Gueranger, Liturgical Year, Feast of St. James

St. Ann Anne, Patroness of Christian Mothers

"To St. Anne, God has given the power to aid in every necessity, because Jesus, her Divine Grandchild according to the flesh, will refuse her no petition, and Mary, her glorious daughter, supports her every request. Those who venerate good St. Anne shall want for nothing, either in this life or the next. Believe me, if you love and venerate this Saint, you will experience how highly God esteems her. He grants all she asks! It would be impossible to enumerate the many graces she obtains daily for her servants."

Abbot John Trithemius

"Anne is the glorious tree from which bloomed a twig under Divine influence. She is the sublime heaven from whose heights the Star of the Sea neared its rising. She is the blessed barren woman, happy mother among mothers, from whose pure womb came forth the shining temple of God, the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, the Mother of God."

St. Jerome

"Blessed, thrice blessed art thou, O Saint Anne, who didst receive from God and brought forth the blessed child from whom proceeded Christ, the Flower of life! We congratulate thee, O blessed Anne, on the dignity of being the mother of Mary, for thou hast brought forth our common hope, the germ of Promise! All pious lips bless thee in thy daughter, all languages glorify thy child! Worthy art thou above all praise, worthy of the praise of all who are redeemed, for thou hast given life to her who brought forth our Savior, Jesus Christ."

St. John Damascene

"From her very childhood, she possessed the fullness of every virtue. She was continually engaged in devout meditation. Her unceasing prayer was that the Redeemer might come soon."

St. Mary of Agreda

"In desperate cases of need, I always invoke the holy mother Anne."

Blessed Anna Catherine Emmerich

"We do not doubt that the more love we show to the mother of Mary, the more we merit the intercession and aid of the holy Virgin who brought forth the only-begotten Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ."

Pope Gregory XV

"We know and are convinced that our good mother St. Anne helps in all needs, dangers and tribulations, for Our Lord wishes to show us that He will do also in Heaven what she asks of Him for us."

St. Teresa of Avila

Novena Prayer to Saint Anne

Feast of St. Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, July 26th

O GLORIOUS St. Anne, filled with compassion for those who invoke thee and with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of my troubles, I cast myself at thy feet and humbly beg of thee to take under thy special protection the present affair which I commend to thee.

[State your petition]

Be pleased to commend it to thy daughter, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and lay it before the throne of Jesus, so that He may bring it to a happy outcome. Cease not to intercede for me until my request is granted. Above all, obtain for me the grace of one day beholding my God face to face, and, with thee and Mary and all the Saints, of praising and blessing Him for all eternity. Amen.

      Good St. Anne, mother of her who is our life, our sweetness and our hope, pray to her for us and obtain our request. [Three times.] Good St. Anne, pray for us Jesus, Mary, Anne.

Death of a Catholic Recusant

“In the year of our Lord 1589, Nicholas Tychborne, gentleman of rank, died in the gaol of Winchester. This gentleman, after having suffered multiplied and grievous injuries, together with the spoliation of all his goods, was at length captured by the fraud of his enemies, brought to Winchester and cast into prison. Where, having been detained therein for the profession of the Catholic religion during the space of nine years, he fell ill, seized with a grievous malady, and he sent for a priest who might administer the rites of the Church to him, now approaching the end of his existence.

“The priest did the duties of his office, after which the only wish of the sick man was, that, as he must pay the debt of nature, he might be permitted to survive until the festival of St. James (July 25), for he ardently desired to depart this life on the feast of that saint, under whose guardianship and protection he had lived seventy years. Nor was the wish in vain; for beyond all hope and expectation of both the physicians and his friends, he was preserved for the space of fifteen days—that is, until the feast of St. James, in which, towards night, in the presence of many of his Catholic fellow prisoners, he began more ardently to implore the saint’s assistance. He then commended himself to God, to the Virgin Mother of God, and to all the other princes of heaven, addressing them in the most moving language; and having crossed his hands, with his eyes devoutly lifted up to heaven, he laid in that posture about two hours, sometimes breaking forth into the praises of his Maker, but for the most part quietly meditating within himself, till at length, without any agony or symptom of pain, he most sweetly expired.

“After his death no small contention arose between Cooper, the superintendent of Winchester (i.e., the Protestant bishop) and the Catholics and his other friends, for he would not grant them a place of interment in any church or cemetery; declaring that his conscience would not permit him to allow a Papist to be buried in any of his churches or cemeteries. To this the Catholics answered that the churches had been built, not by them [the Protestants] but by men of their [the Catholic] religion, and by these the cemeteries were consecrated, and that therefore it was very unjust to deny them the right of sepulture in those places which Catholics had formerly erected at their own expense for this very purpose. But this argument, though indeed most powerful, availed nothing with him. They therefore, knowing his power and authority, which was very great in the city, and struck, at the same time, with the novelty of the affair, continued for a long time in painful suspense, uncertain how to proceed.

“At length an old man came forth and said the following: ‘The affair is, indeed, one of the very greatest difficulty, but if you follow my advice, we shall do what seems easier than was first intended to be done, and of which the Protestants have not the slightest suspicion. You know that upon a hill, about a mile distant from this city, is a place on which there was formerly a chapel dedicated to St. James, the vestiges of which still remain, and from which the hill itself has borrowed its name. I remember as a boy seeing several persons there buried; even there let us take this good man, especially as in the very agony of his death we beheld him particularly recommending himself to that saint as to his holy patron, to whom also, during his whole life, he was singularly devout, and actually died on his festival day, all of which seems to demand this for him as of right, and necessity itself compels.’

“The advice of the old man was adopted and put into execution, and the bones of the good gentleman now rest on the summit of that high and most beautiful hill, in the very place where formerly existed a celebrated chapel dedicated to St. James, but which, not many years ago, the heretics, as is their custom, pulled down and completely demolished.”

I need only add that from that date, 1589, to the present, the Catholics have always retained possession of the ancient cemetery of St. James. It is the Catholic cemetery of Winchester, and in its holy ground repose the bodies of many confessors for the Faith in that neighbourhood.

Mr. F. J. Baigent, recounted by Cardinal Francis Aidan Gasquet, The Last Abbot of Glastonbury, and Other Essays (1908)

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

In Public Calamities

We ought to conform to God’s will in all public calamities such as war, famine and pestilence, and reverence and adore His judgments with deep humility in the firm belief that, however severe they may seem, the God of infinite goodness would not send such disasters unless some great good were to result from them.

Consider how many souls may be saved through tribulation which would otherwise be lost, how many persons through affliction are converted to God and die with sincere repentance for their sins. What may appear a scourge and punishment is often a sign of great grace and mercy.

As far as we are personally concerned, let us meditate well on this truth of our faith that the very hairs of our head are numbered, and not one of them will fall except by the will of God. In other words we cannot suffer the least harm unless He wills and orders it. Relying on this truth we can easily understand that we have nothing more or less to fear in times of public calamity than at any other time. God can just as easily protect us in the midst of general ruin and despair as He can deliver us from evil while all around is peace and content. The only thing we need to be concerned about is to gain His favor, and this is the inevitable effect of conforming our will to His. Let us therefore hasten to accept from His hand all that He sends us, and as a result of our trustful surrender He will either cause us to gain the greatest advantages from our misfortunes or else spare us them altogether.

St. Claude de la Colombiere, S.J., Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence

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

The worst and deepest pits of hell are reserved for Judas and Catholics who follow after him:
From Mystical City of God, by Sister Mary of Agreda
537. Seeing him (Judas) thus beside himself Lucifer inspired him with the thought of hunting up the priests, returning to them the money and confessing his sin. This Judas hastened to do, and he loudly shouted at them those words: "I have sinned, betraying innocent blood!" (Mat. 27, 4). But they, not less hardened, answered that he should have seen to that before. The intention of the demon was to hinder the death of Christ if possible, for reasons already given and yet to be given (No. 419). This repulse of the priests, so full of impious cruelty, took away all hope from Judas and he persuaded himself that it was impossible to hinder the death of his Master. So thought also the demon, although later on he made more efforts to forestall it through Pilate. But as Judas could be of no more use to him for his purpose, he augmented his distress and despair, persuading him that in order to avoid severer punishments he must end his life. Judas yielded to this terrible deceit, and rushing forth from the city, hung himself on a dried-out fig tree (Mat. 27, 5). Thus he that was the murderer of his Creator, became also his own murderer. This happened on Friday at twelve o'clock, three hours before our Savior died. It was not becoming that his death and the consummation of our Redemption should coincide too closely with the execrable end of the traitorous disciple, who hated him with fiercest malice.
538. The demons at once took possession of the soul of Judas and brought it down to hell. His entrails burst from the body hanging upon the tree (Acts 1, 18). All that saw this stupendous punishment of the perfidious and malicious disciple for his treason, were filled with astonishment and dread. The body remained hanging by the neck for three days, exposed to the view of the public. During that time the Jews attempted to take it down from the tree and to bury it in secret, for it was a sight apt to cause great confusion to the Pharisees and priests, who could not refute such a testimony of his wickedness. But no efforts of theirs sufficed to drag or separate the body from its position on the tree until three days had passed, when, according to the dispensation of divine justice, the demons themselves snatched the body from the tree and brought it to his soul, in order that both might suffer eternal punishment in the profoundest abyss of hell. Since what I have been made to know of the pains and chastisements of Judas, is worthy of fear-inspiring attention, I will according to command reveal what has been shown me concerning it. Among the obscure caverns of the infernal prisons was a very large one, arranged for more horrible chastisements than the others, and which was still unoccupied; for the demons had been unable to cast any soul into it, although their cruelty had induced them to attempt it many times from the time of Cain unto that day. All hell had remained astonished at the failure of these attempts, being entirely ignorant of the mystery, until the arrival of the soul of Judas, which they readily succeeded in hurling and burying in this prison never before occupied by any of the damned. The secret of it was, that this cavern of greater torments and fiercer fires of hell, from the creation of the world, had been destined for those, who, after having received Baptism, would damn themselves by the neglect of the Sacraments, the doctrines, the Passion and Death of the Savior, and the intercession of his most holy Mother. As Judas had been the first one who had so signally participated in these blessings, and as he had so fearfully misused them, he was also the first to suffer the torments of this place, prepared for him and his imitators and followers.
539. This mystery I was commanded to reveal more particularly for a dreadful warning to all Christians, and especially to the priests, prelates and religious, who are accustomed to treat with more familiarity the body and blood of Christ our Lord, and who, by their office and state are his closer friends. In order to avoid blame I would like to find words and expressions sufficiently strong to make an impression on our unfeeling obduracy, so that we all may take a salutary warning and be filled with the fear of the punishments awaiting all bad Christians according to the station each one of us occupies. The demons torment Judas with inexpressible cruelty, because he persisted in the betrayal of his Master, by whose Passion and Death they were vanquished and despoiled of the possession of the world. The wrath which they had conceived against the Savior and his blessed Mother, they wreck, as far as is allowed them, on all those who imitate the traitorous disciple and who follow him in his contempt of the evangelical law, of the Sacraments and of the fruits of the Redemption. And in this the demons are but executing just punishment on those members of the mystical body of Christ, who have severed their connection with its head Christ, and who have voluntarily drifted away and delivered themselves over to the accursed hate and implacable fury of his enemies. As the instruments of divine justice they chastise the redeemed for their ingratitude toward their Redeemer. Let the children of the Church consider well this truth, for it cannot fail to move their hearts and induce them to evade such a lamentable fate.

Charity is a virtue. This means that it is a power to act. Now the act of charity is love. To be charitable is to love. The love of charity is more than good will. To love is to achieve a union of affection. When two people are in love they have a unity of affection. They love one another, they love what each loves. The love of charity in act attains God immediately and other things as God loves them. When a man loves God, he loves God first and then the things that God loves. He loves God completely. He loves all that God is and all that God loves. In addition he loves God as much as he can. In the love of God when it is perfect, there are no reservations. Man loves God to the fullest extent of his capacity…. The interior effects of charity are joy, peace and mercy in the individual. The exterior effects are beneficence, almsgiving and fraternal correction. … The corporal works of mercy are: to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked to harbor the harbourless, to visit the sick, to ransom the captive, to bury the dead. The spiritual works of mercy are: to instruct the ignorant, to counsel the doubtful, to comfort the sorrowful, to reprove the sinner, to forgive injuries, to bear with those who are in trouble and annoy us, and to pray for all.

Fr. Walter Farrell and Fr. Martin Healy, My Way of Life, Pocket Edition of St. Thomas

Catholic Feasts in Thanksgiving for Deliverance from our Enemies

On July 22, 1496, the Christian forces under the command of the great Hungarian John Hunyadi crushed the Turkish Moslem forces of Sultan Mehmet II at the Battle of Belgrade. The news of this great victory reached Rome on August 6th and in gratitude, Pope Callistus III elevated the ancient Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord to the universal Church. The feast of the Holy Name of Mary on September 12 commemorates the victory of the Christian forces at the Battle of Vienna. September 12 is also the anniversary of the Battle of Muret where Simon de Montfort assisted by St. Dominic with a force of 870 Crusaders crushed the 40,000 man Albigensian army of Raymond VI. The Feast of the Holy Rosary, October 7th, commemorates the Catholic victory at the battle of Lepanto.

“...the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. [...] Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.”

St. Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910

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 Laetita (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" were "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

SOON TO BE THE EXCLUSIVE HOME FOR THE EVER FLUID BUGNINI TRANSITION MISSAL OF 1962

Maybe the common ground is “does not care for doctrine”?

“A pope (Francis) who does not care for doctrine, who looks at the people, and who has known us in Argentina. And he appreciated our work in Argentina. And that's why he sees us with a good disposition while in the same time he is against conservatism. This is like a contradiction. But I have been able to verify several times that he really does things personally for us.”

Bishop Bernard Fellay, SSPX, 2017

A Personal Prelature for SSPX: comment from 2017

Bishop Fellay then commented on a project of Personal Prelature which had been offered to the SSPX in the summer of 2015. As he already said on January 26, 2016, such a canonical structure fits the needs and the actual apostolate and presence of the Society all over the world. He revealed that the written proposal given to the SSPX foresees that prelate should be a bishop. How would the prelate be designated? The Pope would choose amongst the three names presented by the SSPX through its own elections. It is also foreseen, said Bishop Fellay, that other auxiliary bishops would be given to the Society.

Everything that exists now will be recognized all over the world. And the faithful also! They will be in this Prelature with the right to receive the sacraments and teachings from the Society’s priests. It will be also possible to receive religious congregations, as it is in a diocese: Capuchins, Benedictines, Carmelites, and others. This prelature is a Catholic structure which is not under the [authority of the local] bishops. It is autonomous.”

The Angelus, SSPX publication for United States District, 2017

“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 (sic) Paul VI and Saint (sic) John Paul II, 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.

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium Smears Faithful Catholics as “Neo-pelagians”:

Catholics faithful in keeping God’s moral law and believing His revealed truth are “self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism [who] observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style [characterized by a] narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [which is a] manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.”

94. This worldliness can be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

While in the same document he has this to say about the possibility of salvation for “Non-Christinas”:

254. Non-Christians, by God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can live “justified by the grace of God”, and thus be “associated to the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ”.

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, this teaching of Pope Franics references the teaching of the International Theological Commission.

“By God’s gracious initiative” is pure invention. God has never revealed this fable. This is Pelagianism by definition. This is what a Pelagian heretic affirms that salvation is possible through being “faithful to their own consciences.” Catholic dogmas, formal objects of divine and Catholic faith, affirm that supernatural faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church, and subjection to the Roman Pontiff are necessary as necessities of means to obtain eternal salvation. Pope Francis is a Pelagian heretic. So where is his source material for this error? He cites as his authority the International Theological Commission which teaches:

10. Exclusivist ecclesiocentrism—the fruit of a specific theological system or of a mistaken understanding of the phrase extra ecclesiam nulla salus—is no longer defended by Catholic theologians after the clear statements of Pius XII (sic) and Vatican II the possibility of salvation for those who do not belong visibly to the Church (cf, e.g., Vatican II, LG 16; GS 22).

Christocentrism accepts that salvation may occur in religions, but it denies them any autonomy in salvation on account of the uniqueness and universality of the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ. This position is undoubtedly the one most commonly held by Catholic theologians, even though there are differences among them.

International Theological Commission, Christianity and the World Religions, 1997

This is the fundamental doctrine of Neo-Modernism that holds that Dogmas need not be taken in a literal sense because they are always undergoing evolutionary development in an effort to achieve a closer approximation of truth. Catholics believe, as St. Pope Pius X said, dogmas are “truths fallen from heaven.” Pope Pius XII never denied the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Those who claim he did are simply liars. Vatican II on the other hand did, and Vatican II cites as its authority for the denial of the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, the heretical 1949 Holy Office Letter that teaches that the one and only thing necessary for salvation is the ‘desire to do the will of a god who rewards and punishes’. This can be known by natural philosophy and is simply a necessary presupposition to receiving the Gospel message. The 1949 Holy Office Letter and Vatican II are teaching Pelagianism. The very error that Pope Francis attributes to faithful Catholics who believe the revealed truths of our faith and keep our immemorial traditions. Is it any wonder that Pope Francis who denies the necessity of faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church, and submission to the Roman Pontiff as necessary for salvation as necessities of means would then thoroughly corrupt the definition of “genuine evangelization”?

Catholics who “observe certain rules (like keeping the Ten Commandments or believing Catholic dogma) or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style (the “received and approved rites customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments” Trent)” are guilty of “self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism... narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [that is a] manifestation of an anthropocentric immanentism... [whereby, it is] impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.”

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium

What is “Genuine evangelization”? Pope Francis said: “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. ..... I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope” (Interview with Italian journalist and atheist Eugenio Scalfari). He also said in answer to a question from a Lutheran girl, “It is not licit that you convince them of your faith; proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path.” On another occasion he said, “Proselytism among Christians, therefore, in itself, is a grave sin.”

How is this possible? Proselytism means to seek converts. A “proselyte” is a convert. It was the Great Commission given by Jesus Christ to His Church: “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16) The goal of “preaching” is to bring other to “believe” the revealed truth and become members of the Church through “baptism” so that they may become a “proselyte,” like one of the first deacons of the Church, Nicolas in Acts 6:5, and be “saved.”

“Genuine evangelization” is the act of proselytism and the fruit of evangelization is proselytes. “By their fruit you shall know them.” In South America alone there have been more than 40 million Catholics lost to the faith since Vatican II. This is the fruit of the “new evangelization” of Pope Francis which does not seek converts at all because he sees no reason to convert.

So who in end is “self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagian”? Prometheus was eternally punished for his hubris of defying the gods while Pope Francis does the same thing by “intransigently” overturning God’s revealed truth. His heresy is the fruit of his own “narcissistic and authoritarian elitism” to believe that he is better than God. He proposes an “adulterated form of Christianity” which explains why he promotes Catholic divorce. Heretics always permit divorce because marriage is the metaphor used by God to describe His relationship to His Church and to each of His faithful. The heretic cannot stand the integrity of the metaphor and always permits divorce. This is the unmistakable sign that Pope Francis is a heretic.

"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 should be taken in literal sense unless there is clearly manifest that the metaphorical sense is intended. 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 which covers 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 claim is the fortress Antonia was located on a five acre area 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 support staff) which we know from the writings of Flavius Josephus that the fortress 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.

Also, 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 of the present-day temple mount. There he 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.

This Gihon spring was essential for the sacrificial offerings of the Temple. There is no water source on the temple mount. The water for the Antonia fortress was provided by large cisterns located just north of the Antonia fortress that are still present today.

There is a Catholic tradition the there was the Church of the Judgment over the Rock that is now inside the Al-Aqsa mosque covering the Dome of the Rock. The Rock 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. According to St. Mary Agreda the decree of condemnation by Pilate 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".

The Papacy is an office established by Jesus Christ. No pope can change the essential nature of the office, he can only accept it and address the duties the office imposes. If Pope Benedict XVI did not resign the office of the papacy in its entirety, he did not resign the papacy at all. If Pope Francis was not elected to the papacy in its entirety, he was not elected at all.

Following his resignation as pope in 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope to step down from office since the resignation of Gregory XII in 1415. But unlike his predecessors who resigned, he continued to live in the Vatican and to be adorned with the clothing and regalia of a pope.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the private secretary of Pope Benedict XVI, said after his resignation that Benedict would continue to fulfill the spiritual duties of the papacy. Journalist Edward Pentin reported in July 8, 2017 (National Catholic Register) that Gänswein said that Francis and Benedict are not two popes "in competition" with one another, but represent one "expanded" Petrine Office with an "active" member and a "contemplative" one. He said that Benedict had not abandoned the papacy like Pope Celestine V in the 13th century but rather sought to continue his papacy in a more appropriate way given his frailty and that "Therefore, from 11 February 2013, the papal ministry is not the same as before. It is and remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and yet it is a foundation that Benedict XVI has profoundly and lastingly transformed by his exceptional pontificate." This division of the papacy is impossible.

In light of his decision to resign, Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, the designer of the Benedict's papal coat of arms, suggested the need to create a new coat of arms for the former pope. According to the cardinal, the coat of arms of the retired pope should retain all the symbolic elements found on the shield, but all the external elements, such as the two crossed keys and the mitre, should be removed or modified as they represent an office he no longer holds.

Cordero presented a hypothetical design shown above of how he believed the new coat of arms of the pope emeritus should look, replacing the bishop's mitre with a white galero with 15 tassels, removing the two crossed keys, and placing the pope's episcopal motto "Cooperatores Veritatis" below the shield. The new coat of arms was offered to but never adopted by Benedict. He continued to use his papal coat of arms for the rest of his life and it is the papal coat of arms which was also displayed by his catafalque during his funeral at St. Peter's.

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IN SANGUINE TUO

Homily on the external Solemnity of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Redemisti nos, Domine, in sanguine tuo, ex omni tribu, et lingua, et populo, et natione: et fecisti nos Deo nostro regnum.

Rev 5:9-10

Dear brothers and sisters,

First of all, allow me to share with you my serenity of mind in facing this trial. I experienced the same inner peace when, a few years ago, I rediscovered the Traditional Mass, which since then I have never stopped celebrating exclusively and which has brought me back to the beating heart of our holy Religion, to understand that being united to Christ the Priest in the offering to the eternal Father must necessarily be translated into the mystical immolation of oneself on the model of Christ the Victim, in restoring the divine order in which Charity consumes us with love for God and neighbor, and shows us how incomprehensible – as well as unacceptable – it is to modify anything of this perfect order that the Holy Church anticipates on earth precisely by placing the Cross at the center of everything. Stat Crux dumvolvitur orbis.

For sixty years, however, along with the world, volvitur et ecclesia. The ecclesial body has also lost its point of stability: yesterday, in the mad attempt to adapt to the world by softening its doctrine; today, in the deliberate desire to erase the Cross, a sign of contradiction, in order to please the Prince of this world. And in a world hostile to the Cross of Christ, it is not possible to preach Christ, and Christ crucified, because this is “divisive” for a “human brotherhood” from which the fatherhood of God is excluded. It is not surprising, therefore, that those who proclaim the Gospel without adaptations are considered enemies. Christians of all ages, and among them the Pastors in the first place, have always been opposed and fought and killed precisely because of the incompatibility between the Civitas Dei and the civitas Diaboli. The Lord taught us: “If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also; if they have kept my word, they will also keep yours” (Jn 15:20).

A few days ago, a church enslaved to the world put me on trial for schism and condemned me with excommunication for having openly professed the Faith that the Lord by my Episcopal Consecration ordered me to preach; the same Faith for which the Martyrs were killed, the Confessors persecuted, priests and Bishops imprisoned or exiled. But how can we even think that it is the true Church that strikes its children and its Ministers, and at the same time welcomes its enemies and makes their errors its own? This Church, which calls itself “conciliar and synodal,” is a counterfeit, a counter-church, for which everything begins and ends in this life, and which does not want to accept anything eternal precisely because the immutability of the Truth of God is intrinsically alien to the permanent revolution that it has welcomed and promotes.

If we were not persecuted by those who are hostile to the Cross, we would have to question our fidelity to Christ, who from that Throne of pain and blood struck a mortal blow against the Enemy of the human race. If our Ministry could be “tolerated” in some way, it would mean that it is ineffective and compromised, if only because of the implicit acceptance of an impossible coexistence between opposites, of a hermeneutic of continuity in which there is room for truth and error, light and darkness, God and Belial. That is why I consider this sentence of the Roman Sanhedrin as causing clarity: a Catholic cannot but be in a state of schism with those who refuse the Profession of Faith in Charity. There can be no communion with the one who first broke the supernatural bond with Christ and with His Mystical Body. Nor can there be obedience and submission to an adulterated version of the Papacy in which authority has deliberately withdrawn from Christ, the first principle of that authority, to be transformed into tyranny.

Thus, just as in the morally necessary choice to return to the Apostolic Mass I rediscovered the true meaning of my priesthood, so too in the decision to denounce the apostasy of the modernist and globalist hierarchy I rediscovered the meaning of my Episcopate, of being a Successor of the Apostles, a witness of Christ and a Pastor in His Church.

Timidity, human respect, opportunistic evaluations, thirst for power, or corruption have led many of my Brothers to make the simplest choice: to leave the Lord by Himself in His Passion and mingle with the crowd of His executioners, or even just to stand by for fear of going against the high priests and scribes of the people. Some of them, like Peter, repeat the “I do not know Him” so as not to be brought before the same Sanhedrin. Others stay closed in their cenacle, content not to be tried and condemned. But is this what the Lord wants of us? Is this what He has called us to in choosing us as His Ministers and as proclaimers of His Gospel?

Dear brothers, bless these times of tribulation with me, because it is only in infirmitate that we have the certainty of fulfilling God’s Will and sanctifying ourselves with His Grace. As Saint Paul says: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Our being docile instruments in the Lord’s hands is the indispensable premise for ensuring that His work is truly divine.

We are asked only to follow him: Veni, et sequere me (Mt 10:21); to follow Him leaving everything else, which is to make a radical choice. We are asked to preach His Gospel, to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to keep faithfully all the precepts that the Lord has commanded us to observe (Mt 28:19-20). We are asked to pass on intact what we have received – tradidi quod et accepi – without additions, without changes, without omissions. And to preach the Word opportune, importune, enduring everything: in omni patientia et doctrina (2 Tim 4:2). We are asked to take up our cross every day, to deny ourselves, to be ready to climb Calvary and be crucified with Christ to rise with Him, to share in His victory and triumph in the blessed eternity of Heaven. We are asked to complete in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions, for the good of his Body which is the Church (Col 1:24). Pastors need to return to belonging to Christ, shaking off the oppressive yoke of a servitude to the world that makes them accomplices in the ruin of the Church.

From the Most Sacred Heart, pierced by a spear, flows the infinite Grace of the Sacraments and especially of the Catholic Priesthood. It ensures the perpetuation of Christ’s redemptive action throughout History, so that the perfect Sacrifice of the divine Victim – who entered the Sanctuary once and for all through his own blood (Heb 9:12) – may continue to be offered under the sacramental species to the Eternal Father. In the same way, when the Church appears defeated and is given up for dead, a spear in Her side renews the flow of blood and water, laying the foundation for a future restoration and guaranteeing the preservation of the Priesthood, the Mass, and the Sacraments: of Tradition. It will be that blood and water that will irrigate this land parched and split by drought, thirsty for the True and the Good, so that the semen Christianorum may sprout and bear fruit.

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the form of sheep, but who inwardly are ravenous wolves (Mt 7:15). With these words, significantly proposed by the Liturgy of this Seventh Sunday after Pentecost and which we will read in the last Gospel, the Lord warns us against those who usurp the gift of prophecy in order to contradict the Faith that he revealed and taught the Apostles so that it might be faithfully handed down the centuries. The Lord does not say: Beware of those who sow error, but of false prophets. Who are these false prophets, these pseudochrists of whom Sacred Scripture speaks? For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great portents and miracles, so as to mislead even the elect if possible. Behold, I have foretold it to you (Mt 24:24-25). These are the hirelings, the false shepherds, those whom we can recognize ex fructibus eorum, by their fruits, by what they do (Mt 7:16-20). We know the fruits and we have them before our eyes: the planned destruction of the Lord’s Vineyard by His own vinedressers.

What is imputed to me as a crime in order to declare me schismatic and condemn me to excommunication has been put on the record of a trial that condemns not me, but my accusers, the enemies of the Cross of Christ. When the eclipse that darkens the Church ends and Our Lord returns to be at the center of the lives of his ministers, those who are ostracized today will find justice, and those who have abused their power to disperse the Lord’s flock will have to answer to His tribunal and to that of History. We will continue to do what all Catholic Bishops have done, often being persecuted by them.

And we will continue in our work even if it is hindered by those who usurp the power of the Holy Keys against the Church Herself. The authority of the Pastors – and that of the Supreme Pontiff – is in the hands of false pastors, who as such count precisely on our respect for the Hierarchy and on our habitual obedience to make us accept the betrayal of Christ and the ruin of souls. But authority comes only from Christ, who wants all to be saved and to reach eternal blessedness through the one Ark of Salvation. If the vicarious authority on earth preaches salvation from false religions and the uselessness of Christ’s Sacrifice, it breaks the umbilical cord that binds it to Him, thereby delegitimizing itself. We do not separate ourselves from Holy Mother Church, but rather from the mercenaries who infest her. We do not refuse obedience and submission to the Pontiff, but rather to those who humiliate and tamper with the Papacy against the Will of Christ. Let us not impugn the revealed Truth – quod Deus avertat! – but rather the errors that all the Popes have always condemned and that today are imposed by those who want to make the Holy Church the servant of her enemies (Lam 1:1), by those who delude themselves that they can keep the ecclesial body alive by separating it from its Head who is Christ.

We do not have a Pontiff who can judge and excommunicate us. If there were a Pope I would not even have been put on trial, nor excommunicated or declared schismatic, because we would both profess the same Faith and would receive Communion at the same altar. If today Bergoglio is putting me on trial to condemn and excommunicate me, it is precisely because he makes a public profession that he belongs to another religion and that he presides over another church – his church, the synodal church – from which I am “expelled” because I am a Catholic and, indeed, a stranger to it.

Pray, dear brothers. Pray first of all for the faithful and the ministers who live the contradiction of moral belonging to the true Church of Christ and at the same time belonging to the false church of the usurper Bergoglio, so that they may shake themselves from their torpor and line up underneath the Cross, bearing witness to the Truth. Pray for those Bishops and priests who humbly, and despite their infirmities, serve the Lord. Let us not nullify the Most Precious Blood that he shed for us, and indeed let us make sure that we can repeat with Saint Paul: Gratia Dei in me vacua non fuit (1 Cor 15:10). This Blood will descend today on our altar, and it will continue to descend there as long as the Church has Bishops who can perpetuate the Priesthood and priests who celebrate the Holy Sacrifice, according to the rite handed down to us by Sacred Tradition. For this reason, let us act with a serene heart and in the conviction that what I am doing is in conformity with God’s will. And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

July 7, 2024
Dominica VII post Pentecosten

COMMENT: The latest encyclical of Pope Francis is entitled, Bishop of Rome. In this document prepared for the ongoing Synod on Synodality Francis/Bergoglio offers an understanding of the papacy that is conformable to that professed by the schismatic Orthodox bishops who hold that the pope is only the first among equals and that he does not exercise universal jurisdiction over the Church founded by Jesus Christ. This conception is antithetical to the dogma declared at Vatican I. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is rejecting the papal claims of Francis/Bergoglio primarily on the grounds that the office that Francis/Bergoglio accepted is not the office of the papacy but something altogether different. He could not and cannot have accepted an office that he, in fact, publically denies that exists.

Is this true? I do not know. There is no way to judge the matter authoritatively. There is plenty of evidence that the bishops can judge a pope who has become an open and manifest heretic as Francis/Bergoglio is but where are the bishops holding ordinary jurisdiction that themselves who are free from heresy? Our duty is to keep the faith and refuse any obedience to any exercise of authority that directly or indirectly undermines that faith in its profession and/or in its practice.

It is unfortunate that the Vatican was able to institute an illegal and immoral administrative "extra-judical" process against Archbishop Viganò without at least the Archbishop's open declaration that such a process is a direct violation of canon law. He should demand his full canonical rights to a public contentious hearing with all accusations of crimes and his own defense in written format for all the faithful.

Remember in your charity:

Remember the welfare of our expectant mother: Claudia Gergely,

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,

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 & their 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,

Lamonte White, requests our prayers for his spiritual and temporal welfare,

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,

Louise McCarthy, who has suffered a stroke,

For the health and welfare of Katherine Wedel,

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,

The health of Joseph Cox,

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,

Mufide Rende requests our prayers for the spiritual and physical welfare of the Rende Family,

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,

Conversion of Anton Schwartzmueller, is the paryer request of his children,

Stacy Fernandez requests are prayers for the heath of Terry Patterson, Steven Becerra, and Roberto Valez,

Christine Kozin, for her health and spiritual welfare,

Teresa Gonyea, for her conversion and health, is the petition of her grandmother, Patricia McLaughlin,

Nolan Moran, a three year old diagnosed with brain tumor, and his family,

For the health of Sonya Kolinsky,

Jackie Dougherty asks our prayers for her brother who is gravely ill, John Lee,

Rose Bradley asks our prayers for the health and spiritual welfare of her granddaughter, Meg 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,

Thomas A. Nelson, long time faithful traditional Catholic the founder and former owner of TAN Books & Publishing, suffered a recent stroke,

The Joseph Cox Family, their spiritual welfare,

The Thomas Dube Family, for their conversion and 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,

The health and spiritual welfare of Tom Grow, Amanda Gardner, and Alex Estrada,

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:

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,

Chris Foley, the brother of Mary Lou Loftus, died February 1,

Louis Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew, died January 30,

Monica Bandlow asks prayers for Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara, SSPX, who died December 20,

Monica Bandlow requests our prayers for Fr. James Louis Albert Campbell, a faithful priest who died December 18 at 91 years of age,

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 brother, Richard Bandlow, died August 22, Fr. Christopher Darby, SSPX, who died March 17, Robert Byrne, Michelle Donofrio McDowell, her cousin, died March 5, and Patricia Fabyanic, the Prefect of Our Lady’s Sodality, March 8, 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,

Fr. Anthony Cekada, a traditional Catholic priest, died September 11,

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,

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,and Rev. Hector Bolduc, who died September 10,

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,

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

The Parable of the Net and the Fishes

Augustine says: ‘Every sinner is permitted to live either that he may be converted or that the just man may be exercised through him” in all virtues. If sinners were not tolerated in the Church of Jesus Christ there would be little chance to practise patience, forbearance, clemency, charity, forgiveness of injuries, zeal, love, etc. In fact, if “the just man falleth seven times,” and if a “man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred,” there would not be many left in the Church of Christ on earth, if every sinner was excluded. The Church on earth is the Church militant, not triumphant; and as long as the final victory is not gained over all the enemies of salvation, and the measure of the elect not completed, there will always be those who fight nobly and those who are cowards, who sometimes give up the combat for a time, are wounded, even deadly, but restored again to health and vigor by the grace of the holy sacraments and other means which the Church employs to re-establish in the grace of God the poor sinners who still remain within her communion – within the net.

Only when the net shall be filled, and the number of the elect preordained to enjoy eternal happiness shall be complete, then will it be drawn out: “And sitting by the shore they chose out the good into vessels, but the bad they cast forth.” Our Saviour Himself explains this text: “So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go out to separate the wicked from among the just.” Remark here that the commencement will be made with the good and bad fishes in the net that is to say, those who have been not only good men, but also good, practical Christians in the true Church of Christ, shall be chosen into vessels of divine election, whilst the bad Christians, those members of the true Church who were unfaithful to their holy calling and committed sin like the heathen and publican, shall be cast forth as those who never entered the Church of the living God, but lived and died in the sea of sin and unbelief. “Their portion shall be with the unbelievers.” Yes, they “shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Were this parable only meant for those in the net, whether they be good or bad fishes, our explanation would not be condemned; but it also points out too clearly the unfortunate lot of those who refuse to be caught in the net, in other words, all those who refuse to believe “the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth,” out of which there is no salvation. This apparently severe doctrine of the Catholic Church is loudly censured by those whose disadvantage is concerned. But let them remember that it is not the Church but her Divine Founder who has said: “He that believeth not shall be condemned.” She does not invent or shape her dogmas according to human fancy, but proposes them as she received them from Jesus Christ Himself, as times and circumstances may require. She cannot betray the trust confided to her, nor listen to the advice of those who speak as the revolting Jews of old: “Who say to the seers: See not: and to them that behold: Behold not for us those things. . . . Speak unto us pleasant things, see errors for us.” For “thus saith the Lord God: Woe to them that sew cushions under every elbow, and make pillows for the heads of person of every age, to catch souls. Why lull to sleep troubled consciences on cushions and pillows of new fangled systems and theories that are founded on error, and deliver those who rest on them to eternal death? The Lord God has said: “Behold I declare against your cushions, wherewith you catch flying souls, . . . and I will tear your pillows.’

If mankind could be saved outside of the Church just as well as in it, why was the Church of Jesus Christ established? If there are good fishes outside of the net that are to be chosen into the vessels of divine election as well as those that have been good within it, for what purpose was the net cast into the sea? And if heaven can be attained on easier terms outside of the Church than within it, then the work of Jesus Christ and of his Apostles was altogether unnecessary, and the promises of Him whose word “shall not pass away” false and worthless. From this it is evident that they who condemn this doctrine of the Church condemn the doctrine of Christ; and to do this is to deny alike His holiness, His veracity, and His divinity. Hence, is it not an infinitely great act of charity to arouse souls that are asleep on such cushions and pillows, by warning in time of the danger to which they are exposed if remain voluntarily outside the pale of salvation?

Fr. Joseph Parchensky, S.J., The Church of the Parables and True Spouse of the Suffering Saviour

For Every Faithful Catholic: The Principle of Unity is Faith, the Bond of Unity is Charity!

The Novus Ordo has broken the Principle of Unity with Tradition because they first broke the Bond of Unity of Faith and thus, the unity with God.

But love must not be wrought in our imagination but must be proved by works... Oh Jesus, what will a soul inflamed with Your love not do? Those who really love You, love all good, seek all good, help forward all good, praise all good, and invariably join forces with good men and help and defend them. They love only truth and things worthy of love. It is not possible that one who really and truly loves You can love the vanities of earth; his only desire is to please You. He is dying with longing for You to love him, and so would give his life to learn how he may please You better. O Lord, be please to grant me this love before You take me from this life. It will be a great comfort at the hour of death to realize that I shall be judged by You whom I have loved above all things. Then I shall be able to go to meet You with confidence, even though burdened with my debts, for I shall not be going into a foreign land but into my own country, into the kingdom of Him whom I have loved so much and who likewise has so much loved me.

St. Teresa of Jesus

“Taking this plurality of forms seriously avoids hegemonic tendencies and mitigates the risk of reducing the message of salvation to a single understanding of ecclesial life and its liturgical, pastoral, or moral expression. The web of relations within a synodal Church, made visible in the exchange of gifts between the Churches and guaranteed by the unity of the College of bishops headed by the bishop of Rome, is a dynamic guardian of a unity that can never become uniformity.”

Instrumentum Laboris for Second Session of Synod on Synodality, October 2024

COMMENT: The Church of Synodality, under the Francis/Bergoglio the "bishop of Rome", is open to a variety of messages regarding salvation, a variety of human forms of worship, and a variety of opinions as to what constitutes the moral law because the Church of Synodality IS NOT the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ. It is open to everything except the Catholic faith and "received and approved" immemorial worship of God which it abhors. Truth is One; error is always a plurality. By their fruit they are known.

“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

OLDER BULLETIN POSTINGS THAT REMAIN TIMELY CONTINIUE BELOW:

Comments from those who have read the Third Secret of Fatima:

Ø “I cannot say anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope. The other, logically – although I must say nothing – would have to be the continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.” [3] [emphasis added] – Joseph Schweigel, S.J., d. 1964 (interrogated Sister Lucia about the Third Secret on behalf of Pope Pius XII on Sept. 2, 1952)[4]

Ø “In the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they? If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’ … it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost altogether. Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.” [5] [emphasis added] – Fr. Joaquin Alonso, C.M.F., d. 1981 (Cleratian priest and official Fatima archivist for over sixteen years; had unparalleled access to Sister Lucia)

Ø “The Secret of Fatima speaks neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads, nor Pershing missiles, nor SS-20’s. Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.” [6] [emphasis added] – Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, d. 2005 (former bishop of Fatima-Leiria; remarks made in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 10, 1984)

Ø “It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Silvio Oddi, d. 2001 (Vatican diplomat and personal friend of Pope John XXIII, from whom he knew certain details concerning the Third Secret) [7]

Ø “In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996 (personal theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]

Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth about Fatima, [2], Volume 3.

Posted by OnePeterFive

Vatican-backed interfaith opened 2-16-23 - Esteemed by all excepting God and His friends!

LifeSiteNews | June 17, 2021

“The ‘Abrahamic Family House,’ a juxtaposition of three places of worship on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi – one Muslim, one Jewish and one Christian – will open in 2022, according to a release from Higher Committee of Human Fraternity echoed by the Abu Dhabi Government Media Office and by Vatican News, the Vatican’s own media service run by the Dicastery for Communication.

The ‘Abrahamic Family House’ is an architectural complex in which the three so-called ‘Abrahamic’ religions, or (abusively), the ‘religions of the Book’ born of God’s promise to Abraham, are presented side by side in places of worship of equal proportions, set in a triangle around a ‘common ground,’ a garden where believers can meet and enter into ‘dialogue’ with each other.

The projected interfaith complex presents itself as an embodiment of the Abu Dhabi Document on Human Fraternity signed by Pope Francis and Imam Al-Tayeb of the Sunni Al-Azhar University of Cairo, and the ‘Higher Committee for Human Fraternity’ to which the joint declaration gave birth, and has been ‘endorsed’ and is being ‘closely followed’ both by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam.

Together with photos of the construction site, which show the foundations of the three religious buildings while one of them appears to be nearing completion, the release revealed the names officially chosen for the three religious buildings.”

"Pope Francis won't ever speak ex cathedra."

Cardinal Fernandez, during press conference introducing Dignitas Infinita

COMMENT: God has revealed that He will never permit His Church to bind doctrinal or moral error on His faithful. This promise has been invariably kept throughout the history of the Church including the time of Vatican II and its aftermath. Vatican II was a pastoral council of churchmen teaching by their grace of state by virtue of their personal magisterium. The pope and the council never engaged the Magisterium of the Church to teach without the possibility of error. Consequently, the errors of Vatican II reflect only on the heresy and weakness of individual churchmen.

The fact that Pope Francis "won't ever speak ex cathedra" could mean anything. It could mean that he is not the pope but only the "bishop of Rome" and therefore cannot engage the Magisterium even if he wanted to. It could mean that he does not recognize the Magisterium of the Church and will not engage what he does not believe in. This would imply that he does not believe in the office of the papacy with its universal jurisdiction, and therefore, the office which he assumed is not the papacy but something of his own imaginary construction. Pope Francis may be just another Pontius Pilate and does not know or care what truth is. Maybe he is just another habitual liar. Maybe he is the pope and knows that if he puts his ass into the chair of Peter and tries to bind the Catholic conscience to his doctrinal error and moral corruption it will be the last thing he ever tries to do. Time will tell.

REVENGE OF THE HOMOLOBBY

Vatican says Archbishop Viganò ‘guilty’ of schism and excommunicated

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Pope Francis' Vatican announced it had found former Nuncio to the U.S. Archbishop Viganò 'guilty of the reserved delict of schism' on July 4, and that consequently he is automatically excommunicated.

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LifeSiteNews | Vatican City | Michael Haynes | Jul 5, 2024 — The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) announced July 5 that it had declared former U.S Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò to be guilty of “schism” and automatically excommunicated.

In a statement issued without warning to the Holy See press corps, the DDF stated that its Congress met on July 4 to decide against Viganò. The statement read:

On 4 July 2024, the Congress of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith met to conclude the extrajudicial penal process referred to in canon 1720 CIC against the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò, titular Archbishop of Ulpiana, accused of the reserved delict of schism (canons 751 and 1364 CIC; art. 2 SST).

His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known. 

At the conclusion of the penal process, the Most Reverend Carlo Maria Viganò was found guilty of the reserved delict of schism. 

The Dicastery declared the latae sententiae excommunication in accordance with canon 1364 § 1 CIC. The lifting of the censure in these cases is reserved to the Apostolic See. This decision was communicated to the Most Reverend Viganò on 5 July 2024.

Under the terms of the latest edition of Canon Law, one who is excommunicated is prohibited from offering the sacraments. 

On June 20, Viganò revealed that the DDF had, by way of a letter dated June 11, begun an “extrajudicial penal trial” against him, accusing the prelate of “the crime of schism.”

Issued by Monsignor John Kennedy, who leads the DDF’S Disciplinary Section, the Vatican’s letter alerted him to “the crime of schism of which he has been accused (public statements which result in a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church; denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis; a rupture of communion with him; and rejection of the Second Vatican Council).”

Rebuffing the accusation, Viganò stated at the time that “I claim, as Successor of the Apostles, to be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, with the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs, and with the uninterrupted doctrinal, moral, and liturgical Tradition which they have faithfully preserved.”

He further added that “I repudiate, reject, and condemn the scandals, errors, and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who manifests an absolutely tyrannical management of power, exercised against the purpose that legitimizes authority in the Church: an authority that is vicarious of that of Christ, and as such must obey Him alone.”

In an expansive statement issued June 28, the former U.S. nuncio issued a blistering response to the DDF’s charge of schism, attesting that “[a] schismatic sect accuses me of schism: this should be enough to demonstrate the subversion taking place.”

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Continuing, the archbishop stated: 

… in order to separate myself from ecclesial communion with Jorge Mario Bergoglio, I would have to have first been in communion with him, which is not possible since Bergoglio himself cannot be considered a member of the Church, due to his multiple heresies and his manifest alienness and incompatibility with the role he invalidly and illicitly holds.

Turning the Vatican’s charges against them, Viganò then accused Pope Francis of schism, writing:

I accuse Jorge Mario Bergoglio of heresy and schism, and I ask that he be judged as a heretic and schismatic and removed from the throne which he has unworthily occupied for over 11 years. This in no way contradicts the adage Prima Sedes a nemine judicatur, because it is evident that, since a heretic is unable to assume the Papacy, he is not above the Prelates who judge him.

Archbishop Viganò has been contacted for comment in response to the Vatican’s ruling, and this report will be updated accordingly.

COMMENT: Luther, the heretical and eventual schismatic Augustinian priest, was granted a canonical trial before any judicial determination of heresy was concluded. Why was Luther granted his canonical rights while Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was not? Why was Luther given a formal canonical trial while Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was given the immoral and illegal application of an administrative “extrajudicial” process? It is because the former case was to determine TRUTH while the latter case was to conceal and destroy it. Archbishop Viganò was given the semblance of canonical due process for public consumption while denying its substance. The declaration that Archbishop Viganò as “excommunicated” is a change of his juridic standing in the Church. No administrative process, which is what an extrajudicial process is, can be used against any Catholic accused of a crime without his consent when it involves a change of his juridic standing in the Church. This shame, this farce, only condemns those who have perpetuated it.

Homosexual priests charged with pederasty against Catholic adolescents are afforded full canonical due process The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by then Cardinal Ratzinger from 1981 until 2004 assumed jurisdiction over these cases because, as Ratzinger said the faith itself was an aggrieved party in the scandal. After he became pope, Benedict removed the most egregious offenders. In the last two years of his pontificate before his resignation (2011 and 2012) three hundred and eighty-four offending priests were laicized. Everyone of these homosexual predators were given canonical due process. None were administratively laicized by an extrajudicial process without their consent. As reported in the New York Times, “By 2006, the Church had spent $2.6 billion settling sexual-abuse cases, as Berry wrote in the 2010 edition of Vows of Silence.”

Now the down-graded Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) still has the primary duty of defending the faith. The primary and essential cause and sign of the unity of the One Church is the FAITH. The DDF publically ignores the charges of heresy against Pope Francis and Vatican II Council leveled by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò as if the faith itself is no longer an “aggrieved party” deserving of a canonical hearing and canonical defense! Without the faith it is impossible to please God. The DDF does not possess the faith it is obligated to defend. The entire presupposition of the DDF is that the pope is the proximate rule of faith and any divergence from his will is the definition of schism and heresy. This is not only not Catholic it is idolatry. Dogma is the proximate rule of faith to which the pope himself is subject as well as the DDF.

How does this differ from the excommunication of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre by Pope John Paul II? JPII excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre was a mere public expression of his canonical opinion that the act of consecrating bishops without a papal mandate is an ipso facto excommunicable offense. Therefore, in his opinion, Archbishop Lefebvre was excommunicated. This did not even reach the level of an administrative extrajudicial process. The ignorant simply took the opinion of the pope as the law of the Church!

The consecration of bishops is not necessarily an excommunicable offense. Bishops were often consecrated without a papal mandate in the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact countries and communist China on many occasions in our own times. The point is that the law is hierarchical. The salvation of souls is the highest law to which all others laws are subjected. There was a context for the consecration of bishops in communist controlled countries and there was a context for the consecration of bishops by Archbishop Lefebvre. The context was never addressed which canonical due process would insure.

Archbishop Lefebvre was denied his canonical rights by JPII for the same reason that Francis and his DDF are denying Archbishop Viganò his canonical rights. The Novus Ordo Church cannot defend its doctrinal, moral, and liturgical corruptions because they are indefensible so it must necessarily destroy the accuser. JPII's excommunication of Archbishop Lefebvre only made an impression on those who believe that the opinions expressed by the pope are above the law and the pope has the power and authority to act unjustly against God and His Church. Church history records a number of these abuses of authority as well as a number of subsequent corrections. St. Philip Neri and St. Catherine de Ricci rejoiced at the determination by a papal ad hoc committee that Savonarola was innocent of the crimes for which the corrupt Borgia pope had accused, tried and executed him. When God sets things aright, as He most assuredly will do, everyone will know why Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is in heaven and Francis and his DDF minions, unless there is serious repentance, are not.

The abrogation of Summorum Pontificum got the Neo-Traditionalists all stirred up. They have professed their ‘faith’ in the inerrancy of Vatican II and their understanding that the Novus Ordo and the traditional Roman rite are one and the same liturgy in two divergent forms. In return for this corruption of truth they were granted an Indult, which became a grant of legal privilege, which has now again has become an indult, to worship according to the immemorial traditions of the Church, which they hold as simple accidents of the faith subject to the arbitrary will of the legislator. These crumbs that have fallen from the table of Benedict/Ratzinger have been swept away by Francis because, it is a fact of law, that what is accepted as a privilege can no longer be claimed as a right.

For several decades now, we have lived in the “Tyranny of the Present.” Tradition is forgotten and, precisely because it is forgotten, our responsibilities for the future are also dismissed. The liturgical experimentation that led to the Novus Ordo was the epitome of Vatican II: it has given the Catholic hierarchy the liturgical-theological basis for their current promotion of the “here and now” as the supreme aim of the Church.

With Summorum Pontificum, the most consequential pontifical legislative act since 1969, Benedict XVI upended this new materialistic logic: by opening the gates of the past, he once again placed the Church on the path of eternity and immortality (sic).
Summorum Pontificum is now under threat, with the survey being conducted whose consequences are uncertain. There was a Church before the present reality, there will be a Church forever: and the Sacred Liturgy she celebrates here, with true Traditional and Apostolic imprint, has always been and should always be, not a reflection of the banality of the moment, but a prefiguration of her immortality as Bride of Christ and her Paschal Feast with the Lord for all Eternity, outside the limitations of our present existence.

Rorate Caeli

All law proceeds from the reason and will of the lawgiver; the Divine and natural laws from the reasonable will of God; the human law from the will of man, regulated by reason. Now just as human reason and will, in practical matters, may be made manifest by speech, so may they be made known by deeds: since seemingly a man chooses as good that which he carries into execution. But it is evident that by human speech, law can be both changed and expounded, in so far as it manifests the interior movement and thought of human reason. Wherefore by actions also, especially if they be repeated, so as to make a custom, law can be changed and expounded; and also something can be established which obtains force of law, in so far as by repeated external actions, the inward movement of the will, and concepts of reason are most effectually declared; for when a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a deliberate judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of a law, abolishes law, and is the interpreter of law.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Just insider confirmation to what is common knowledge: Pope Francis, the CEO of the HomoLobby

Francis is the first ever pope to use the word “gay.” He has LGBTQ friends, and he has appointed many LGBTQ friendly and supportive cardinals, archbishops and bishops.... Catholics who reject LGBTQ are “homophobic.”

Fr. James Martin, S.J., Homosexual Jesuit priest sermon at a LGBTQ Novus Ordo celebration

The United States Empire is no different!

The imperial city (Rome) endeavours to communicate her language (religion, philosophy, law, government and general cultural values) to all the lands she has subdued to procure a fuller society and a greater abundance of interpreters on both sides. It is true, but how many lives has this cost! And suppose that done, the worst is not past, for… the wider extension of her empire produced still greater wars… Wherefore he that does but consider with compassion all these extremes of sorrow and bloodshed must needs say that this is a mystery. But he that endures them without a sorrowful emotion or thought thereof, is far more wretched to imagine he has the bliss of a god when he has lost the natural feelings of a man.

St. Cyprian, Epistle to Donatus

Getting What We Deserve

THE MOST EVIDENT MARK of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics’ who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
Instead of nourishing those committed to their care, they rend and devour them brutally. Instead of leading their people to God, they drag Christian souls into hell in their train. Instead of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, they are its innocuous poison and its murky darkness.
St. Gregory the Great says that priests and pastors will stand condemned before God as the murderers of any souls lost through neglect or silence. Tot occidimus, quot ad mortem ire tepidi et tacentes videmus. Elsewhere St. Gregory asserts that nothing more angers God than to see those whom He set aside for the correction of others, give bad example by a wicked and depraved life.
Instead of preventing offenses against His Majesty, such priests become themselves the first to persecute Him, they lose their zeal for the salvation of souls and think only of following their own inclinations. Their affections go no farther than earthly things, they eagerly bask in the empty praises of men, using their sacred ministry to serve their ambitions, they abandon the things of God to devote themselves to the things of the world, and in their saintly calling of holiness, they spend their time in profane and worldly pursuits.
When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people, and is visiting His most dreadful anger upon them. That is why He cries unceasingly to Christians, “Return, O ye revolting children . . . and I will give you pastors according to my own heart” (Jer. 3, 14-15). Thus, irregularities in the lives of priests constitute a scourge visited upon the people in consequence of sin.
St. John Eudes, The Priest: His Dignity and Obligations

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SSPX Two-Cent Opinion:

The Vatican Activates Extrajudicial Proceedings Against Archbishop Viganò

FSSPX News | June 24, 2024

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò published on the internet the letter from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). It notified him of his summons to appear at the DDF Palace on June 20, after the opening of an “extrajudicial” criminal trial against him. 

A Little Explanation

What is an extrajudicial criminal trial? According to the DDF Vademecum published on June 5, 2022, the extrajudicial criminal trial, sometimes called an “administrative trial,” is a form of criminal trial which reduces the formalities provided for in the judicial trial in order to accelerate the course of justice. It does not eliminate the procedural guarantees required for a fair judgment.

For offenses reserved to the DDF, it is up to the DDF alone, on a case-by-case basis, ex officio or at the request of the Ordinary, to decide whether to proceed this way. Just like a judicial trial, an extrajudicial criminal trial can take place at the DDF – which is the case for Viganò – or be entrusted to a lower authority.

The Accusations Made by the DDF

The decree of summons mentions the charge Viganò will face during the trial. The crime of schism is put forward, because of certain public affirmations negating the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church: denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis; rupture of communion with him; and rejection of the Second Vatican Council.

Following this summons, Viganò published a communiqué, available online, to respond to these accusations. He defends himself in various ways, invoking the doctrinal wanderings of the current pontificate; rejecting neo-modernist errors; and asserting his case compares to that of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, also summoned in his time to the Palace of the former Holy Office .

There is, however, one point which significantly differentiates him from the founder of the Society of Saint Pius X: Archbishop Viganò makes a clear declaration of sedevacantism in his text. In other words, according to him, Pope Francis is not pope.

How does he explain this? Because of a “defect of consent” from Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio when accepting the papacy. That is, according to Viganò, Cardinal Bergoglio considered the papacy as something other than what it really is. He accepted the pontifical office without fully consenting, and this error resulted in the nullity of his acceptance. His pontificate would therefore be that of a place-holder.

Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society he founded have not ventured down that perilous road. 

COMMENT: The SSPX has already been regularized by Rome. This is easily proved. Although they have been regularized informally sub rosa this is not generally known by all their members and it is purposely concealed from those who attend their chapels. This criticism of Archbishop Viganò is offered to distance themselves from his accusation that Pope Francis is a heretic and schismatic. The leadership of the SSPX has taken the 1989 Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity to Pope Francis in which they vow unconditional obedience to his "authentic magisterium" and promise to abstain from any public criticism of the Pope that has not been approved by Rome.

There are several problems with this publication. Their "little explanation" regarding extrajudicial proceedings is incorrect. An "extrajudicial criminal trial" is an administrative process that cannot be used against any Catholic defendant without his consent who is accused of a crime if their conviction would change their juridic standing in the Church. The crime of heresy and schism changes the juridic standing of the accused in the Church. Instituting an extrajudicial process in a criminal accusation is just an attempt to deny the accused his canonic rights of due process. Archbishop Viganò is canonically entitled to demand a contentious canonical judicial process. He can also demand that the arguments be in a written format rather than oral, and he is free to publish Rome's accusations and arguments as well as his replies. Rome not only must objectively prove the criminal charges of schism and heresy, they must establish subjective imputability of the crime.

Pope Francis is not just guilty of "doctrinal wanderings", but of objective heresy which is defined as the denial of Catholic dogma. The "pastoral council", Vatican II, committed many "doctrinal wanderings" that directly corrupted Catholic dogma and there are multiple examples of this. The reason the "SSPX has not ventured down that perilous road" of declaring Pope Francis and Vatican II as heretical is because the SSPX does not hold dogma as the proximate rule of faith. The definition of heresy IS the denial of dogma and if you do not believe in dogma, you cannot call anyone a heretic. The SSPX has been in constant "dialogue" with Rome for more than 25 years. Dialogue is the exchange of opinions. Dogma is the affirmation of divine Truth. If the SSPX had appealed to dogma against the modernists in Rome the dialogue would have ended in a few hours.

Archbishop Viganò has not declared that he is a sedevacantist. Sedevacantists believe that the crime of heresy and schism automatically removes a pope from the office of the papacy. Most of them believe that there has not been a pope since Pius XII. It is calumny to publish this accusation. Archbishop Viganò has offered the opinion that there are irregularities regarding the election of Pope Francis in that his conception of the papacy is in fact heretical and that therefore the office he accepted and ascended to does not exist. This has been offered as an opinion. The SSPX and other conservatives are afraid of being to close to the truth and thus their criticism of Archbishop Viganò will only get worse. The coward always accuses the brave of being 'imprudent'!

Pope Francis the Amazed - It all depends on what "spirit" you are listening to!

“The problematic is primarily ecclesiological. I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council — though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume not to do so — and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium, a document that expresses the reality of the Liturgy intimately joined to the vision of Church so admirably described in Lumen gentium.” ……

"Let us abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Let us safeguard our communion. Let us continue to be astonished at the beauty of the (Novus Ordo) Liturgy. The Paschal Mystery has been given to us. Let us allow ourselves to be embraced by the desire that the Lord continues to have to eat His Passover with us. All this under the gaze of Mary, Mother of the Church."

Pope Francis the Low and Vicious, Desiderio Desideravi, his apostolic letter on liturgical formation

COMMENT: Nice to see Pope Francis getting to the meat of the matter: How can “one recognizes the validity of the Council…. and not accept the liturgical reform.” So let’s “amaze” the deaf and dumb and repeat again, the Vatican II Council was merely a pastoral council that has proven to be a pastoral failure by every objective criterion that measures pastoral success or failure. The Pope can babble all he wants about “Time is greater than space,” but after 60 years that psychological lollipop can only pacify the brain dead. Nothing, absolutely nothing, from Vatican II binds the conscience of the Catholic faithful regarding any matter of doctrine, morals or worship when that teaching contradicts or contravenes directly or indirectly the Catholic faith, morals or immemorial traditions. The Council is the work of churchmen teaching by their grace of state and has nothing to do with the Magisterium of the Church teaching by virtue of the Church’s attributes of Infallibility and Authority. If this were not the case, then God would have failed in His divine promise to preserve His Church from formal error, for as everyone knows but does not like to say, the Vatican II Council is clearly heretical in many of its direct pronouncements and their implications. The most important error of the Council was declared by the Novus Ordo Saint John XXIII in his opening address where he stated that the purpose of the Council was to reformulate Catholic truth with new words and new images. This is the heresy of Neo-modernism which postulates the heretical opinion that there exists a disjunction between the truth of dogma and the words to express that truth. The very purpose of Vatican II was heretical and its fruit has abundantly revealed this ugly fact. Pope Francis in his direct endorsement of sexual perversion by his active associations with homosexuals and abortion by his public praising of the likes of Nancy Pelosi, is evidence of this fact. He hates the immemorial Roman rite of Mass because he hates God and everything that pertains to His acceptable worship. The immemorial Roman rite of Mass is the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross. The Novus Ordo is a memorial meal, the offering of Cain, ‘the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands’.

Vatican charges Archbishop Viganò with schism for ‘denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis’

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The Vatican's doctrinal office summoned Archbishop Viganò to appear before an 'extrajudicial penal trial' on June 20 over accusations of 'schism' owing to a 'denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis, rupture of communion with Him, and rejection of the Second Vatican Council.'

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LifeSiteNews | Jun 20, 2024— The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has instigated an “extrajudicial penal trial” against Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, accusing the prelate of “the crime of schism.”

In an email signed by Monsignor John Kennedy of the dicastery’s Disciplinary Section and sent to the Italian archbishop, who served as papal nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016, the dicastery summoned Viganò to the Vatican on June 20 that he “may take notice of the accusations and evidence concerning the crime of schism.” Namely, the dicastery notified the archbishop that he stands accused of making “public statements which result in a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church; denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis, rupture of communion with Him, and rejection of the Second Vatican Council.”

In response, Viganò defended himself stating:

In the face of the Dicastery’s accusations, I claim, as Successor of the Apostles, to be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, with the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs, and with the uninterrupted doctrinal, moral, and liturgical Tradition which they have faithfully preserved.

Regarding the accusations against him “as an honor,” Viganò stressed his desire to “repudiate, reject, and condemn the scandals, errors, and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who manifests an absolutely tyrannical management of power, exercised against the purpose that legitimizes authority in the Church: an authority that is vicarious of that of Christ, and as such must obey Him alone.”

After arguing that “[no] Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion with this ‘Bergoglian church,’ because it acts in clear discontinuity and rupture with all the popes of history and with the Church of Christ,” Viganò asked Catholics to “pray that the Lord will come to the aid of His Church and give courage to those who are persecuted for their Faith.”

Attendite a falsis prophetis

Announcement regarding the start of the extrajudicial criminal trial for schism (Art. 2 SST; can. 1364 CIC)

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has informed me, with a simple email, of the initiation of an extrajudicial penal trial against me, with the accusation of having committed the crime of schism and charging me of having denied the legitimacy of “Pope Francis” of having broken communion “with Him” and of having rejected the Second Vatican Council. I have been summoned to the Palace of the Holy Office on June 20, in person or represented by a canon lawyer. I assume that the sentence has already been prepared, given that it is an extrajudicial process.

I regard the accusations against me as an honor. I believe that the very wording of the charges confirms the theses that I have repeatedly defended in my various addresses. It is no coincidence that the accusation against me concerns the questioning of the legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the rejection of Vatican II: the Council represents the ideological, theological, moral, and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian “synodal church” is the necessary metastasis.

It is necessary for the Episcopate, the Clergy and the People of God to seriously ask themselves whether it is consistent with the profession of

the Catholic Faith to passively witness the systematic destruction of the Church by its leaders, just as other subversives are destroying civil society. Globalism calls for ethnic substitution: Bergoglio promotes uncontrolled immigration and calls for the integration of cultures and religions. Globalism supports LGBTQ+ ideology: Bergoglio authorizes the blessing of same-sex couples and imposes on the faithful the acceptance of homosexualism, while covering up the scandals of his protégés and promoting them to the highest positions of responsibility. Globalism imposes the green agenda: Bergoglio worships the idol of the Pachamama, writes delirious encyclicals about the environment, supports the Agenda 2030, and attacks those who question the theory of man-made global warming. He goes beyond his role in matters that strictly pertain to science, but always and only in one direction: a direction that is diametrically opposed to what the Church has always taught. He has mandated the use of experimental gene serums, which caused very serious damage, death and sterility, calling them “an act of love,” in exchange for funding from pharmaceutical companies and philanthropic foundations. His total alignment with the Davos religion is scandalous. Wherever governments at the service of the World Economic Forum have introduced or extended abortion, promoted vice, legitimized homosexual unions or gender transition, encouraged euthanasia, and tolerated the persecution of Catholics, not a word has been spent in defense of the Faith or Morals that are threatened, or in support of the civil battles of so many Catholics who have been abandoned by the Vatican and the Bishops. Not a word for the persecuted Catholics in China, with the complicity of the Holy See, which considers Beijing’s billions more important than the lives and freedom of thousands of Chinese who are faithful to the Roman Church. In the “synodal church” presided over by Bergoglio, no schism is recognized among the German Episcopate, or among the government-appointed Bishops who have been consecrated in China without the mandate of Rome. Because their action is consistent with the destruction of the Church, and therefore must be concealed, minimized, tolerated, and finally encouraged. In these eleven years of “pontificate” the Catholic Church has been humiliated and discredited above all because of the scandals and corruption of the leaders of the Hierarchy, which have been totally ignored even as the most ruthless Vatican authoritarianism raged against faithful priests and religious, small communities of traditional nuns, and communities tied to the Latin Mass.

This one-sided zeal is reminiscent of Cromwell’s fanaticism, typical of those who defy Providence in the presumption of knowing that they are finally at the top of the hierarchical pyramid, free to do and undo as they please without anyone objecting to anything. And this work of destruction, this willingness to renounce the salvation of souls in the name of a human peace that denies God is not an invention of Bergoglio, but the main (and unmentionable) purpose of those who used a Council to contradict the Catholic Magisterium and to begin to demolish the Church from within, in small steps, but always in a single direction, always with the indulgent tolerance or culpable inaction – if not the explicit approval – of the Roman authorities. The Catholic Church has been slowly but surely taken over, and Bergoglio has been given the task of making it a philanthropic agency, the “church of humanity, of inclusion, of the environment” at the service of the New World Order. But this is not the Catholic Church: it is her counterfeit.

The resignation of Benedict XVI and the appointment by the St. Gallen Mafia of a successor in line with the diktats of the Agenda 2030 was intended to allow – and has succeeded in allowing – the global coup to take place with the complicity and authoritative support of the Church of Rome. Bergoglio is to the Church what other world leaders are to their nations: traitors, subversives, and final liquidators of traditional society who are certain of impunity. Bergoglio’s defect of consent (vitium consensus) in accepting his election is based precisely on the evident alienity of his action of government and magisterium with respect to what any Catholic of any age expects from the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles. Everything that Bergoglio does constitutes an offense and a provocation to the entire Catholic Church, to her Saints of all times, to the Martyrs who were killed in odium Fidei, and to the Popes of all times until the Second Vatican Council.

This is also and principally an offense against the Divine Head of the Church, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose sacred authority Bergoglio claims to exercise for the detriment of the Mystical Body, with an action that is too systematic and coherent to appear to be the fruit of mere incapacity. In the work of Bergoglio and his circle, the Lord’s warning is put into practice: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the guise of lambs, but who are ravenous wolves at heart (Mt 7:15). I am honored not to have – and indeed I do not want – any ecclesial communion with them: theirs is a lobby, which conceals its complicity with the masters of the world in order to deceive many souls and prevent any resistance against the establishment of the Kingdom of the Antichrist.

In the face of the Dicastery’s accusations, I claim, as Successor of the Apostles, to be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, with the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiffs, and with the uninterrupted doctrinal, moral, and liturgical Tradition which they have faithfully preserved.

I repudiate the neomodernist errors inherent in the Second Vatican Council and in the so-called “post-conciliar magisterium,” in particular in matters of collegiality, ecumenism, religious freedom, the secularity of the State, and the liturgy.

I repudiate, reject, and condemn the scandals, errors, and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who manifests an absolutely tyrannical management of power, exercised against the purpose that legitimizes Authority in the Church: an authority that is vicarious of that of Christ, and as such must obey Him alone. This separation of the Papacy from its legitimizing principle, which is Christ the High Priest, transforms the ministerium into a self-referential tyranny.

No Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion with this “Bergoglian church,” because it acts in clear discontinuity and rupture with all the Popes of history and with the Church of Christ.

Fifty years ago, in that same Palace of the Holy Office, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was summoned and accused of schism for rejecting Vatican II. His defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine – arguments before which the Roman authorities could not condemn him for heresy, having to wait instead for him to consecrate bishops so as to have the pretext of declaring him schismatic and then revoking his excommunication when he was already dead. The scheme is repeated even after half a century has demonstrated Archbishop Lefebvre’s prophetic choice.

In these times of apostasy, Catholics will find in Pastors faithful to the mandate received from Our Lord an example and an encouragement to abide in the Truth of Christ.

Depositum custodi, according to the Apostle’s exhortation: as the time approaches when I will have to give an account to the Son of God of all my actions, I intend to persevere in the bonum certamen and not to fail in the witness of faith which is required of each one who, as Bishop, has been endowed with the fullness of the priesthood and constituted Successor of the Apostles.

I invite all Catholics to pray that the Lord will come to the aid of His Church and give courage to those who are persecuted for their Faith.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

June 20, 2024
S.cti Silverii Papæ et Martyris
B.ti Dermitii O’Hurley, Episcopi et Martyris

COMMENT: An "extrajudicial" process is intended to deny Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò his canonical rights of due process while still giving the external appearance of a legitimate legal process. This same immoral and illegal process was done with our pastor, Fr. Samuel Waters. Canon law forbids any administrative process that permanently effects the juridic standing of any Catholic or for the removal of any cleric from office. A priest cannot be administratively laicized without his consent. There are several published letters on our web page from Fr. Waters to the archdiocese of Philadelphia specifically declaring Fr. Waters' intent to remain a Catholic priest and demanding canonical due process, Archbishop Charles Chaput, the ordinary of Philadelphia at that time, in open conspiracy with the Vatican Dicastery for the Clergy, issued an administrative laicization. They then published the administrative order at the same time with the laicization of another priest who was convicted of child pornography and laicized only after a ten-year canonical process that was respective of all his legal rights. This act of Chaput to smear the name of Fr. Waters was both illegal and grossly immoral, but since when does legality or morality of the matter been an obstacle to the outlaw and degenerate? Forgiveness of sin requires all three elements of penance: contrition, confession and satisfaction Archbishop Chaput committed a sin for which making satisfaction is impossible.

Rome is attempting to do the same thing to Archbishop Viganò. Schism is a canonical crime. The Church's contentious canonical judicial process is required for the crime of schism because schism permanently changes the juridic standing of the defendant in the Church. The judicial process requires those making a criminal charge to clarify and prove the existence of a delict and assess the imputability of the delict to the defendant. It can be done orally or in writing. Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission has been demanding a contentions canonical due process for the alleged crimes of heresy and schism that were made by the diocese of Harrisburg. Our demands have been ignored for more than twenty years. Why? They cannot prove their charges.

A extrajudicial canonical process is a contradiction in terms because when it is imposed against the defendant's will an extrajudicial process CANNOT be canonical! Recommendation: Now that the charge of schism has been publically made for calling into question the canonical legitimacy of Pope Francis' papacy and the Vatican II Council, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò should demand canonical due process and then demand written arguments be presented by all parties. He should refuse any cooperation with "extrajudical" processes that are intended to deny canonical rights and expose it for the fraud that it is. The Vatican II Novus Ordo Church likes to talk about the dignity of the human person unless he gets in their way and then "dignity be damned"!

The Novus Ordo is a new order lex orandi to make a new order lex credendi!

In every liturgical year the whole revelation of faith returns, mystery by mystery, dogma by dogma, precept by precept, upon our intelligences and upon our hearts. The lex credendi is the lex orandi, and the worship of the Church preaches to the world without, and to the faithful within the sanctuary. To those that are without, it is a visible and audible witness for the kingdom of God: to those that are within, it is a foresight and a foretaste of the beauty and the sweetness of the worship of eternity. If preachers will follow the Church as it moves year by year in the cycle of eternal truths, and will explain pastorally in simple and manly words the epistles and gospels by which the Church, or rather the Holy Ghost, teaches us the meaning of the feast and fast as they come and go, they will year by year declare to their flocks the whole counsel of God.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, 1897

Pope Francis approves new document elevating ecumenism and synodality above papal primacy

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The new ‘study document’ from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity emphasizes an intimate link between papal primacy and synodality, advocating for decentralization, granting more authority at regional levels while enhancing ecumenism.

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LifeSiteNews | Michael Haynes | Jun 13, 2024

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has unveiled a pivotal document on the papacy, which contains numerous calls to fundamentally alter the understanding of the practice of papal primacy and authority in order to aid ecumenism and synodality.

Billed as “the first document to summarize the entire ecumenical debate on the service of primacy in the Church since the Second Vatican Council,” the document is the fruit of almost four years of “truly ecumenical and synodal work.” The text presents the results of a process initiated by the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity (DPCU) in 2020, which saw the 25th anniversary of Ut Unum Sint.

The document, drawn up under the guidance of the DPCU, has received input from “Orthodox and Protestant theologians,” as well as the Roman Curia and the Synod of Bishops. As such, the text is a “study document”: not presenting a new line which the Vatican is set to adhere to – at least not yet – but giving a strong indication of probably future direction on the papacy which may soon emerge, partially from the Synod on Synodality.

As with many elements of the Catholic Church today, ecumenism is at the fore. The dicastery summarized that following Vatican II the “ecumenical dimension” of the papacy “has been an essential aspect of this ministry.”

Writing his preface to the 150-page document, DPCU prefect Cardinal Kurt Koch noted that:

It is our hope that it will promote not only the reception of the dialogues on this important topic [the papacy], but also stimulate further theological investigation and practical suggestions, ‘together, of course,’ for an exercise of the ministry of unity of the Bishop of Rome ‘recognized by all concerned’ (UUS 95).

Indeed, The Bishop of Rome appears to present the blueprint for a new understanding of the papacy and papal primacy in the 21st century, an era marked by a focus on ecumenism and “synodality.” As noted in the document itself:

The following pages offer a schematic presentation of (1) the responses to Ut unum sint and documents of the theological dialogues devoted to the question of primacy; (2) the main theological questions traditionally challenging papal primacy, and some significant advances in contemporary ecumenical reflection; (3) some perspectives for a ministry of unity in a reunited Church; and (4) practical suggestions or requests addressed to the Catholic Church. This synthesis is based both on the responses to Ut unum sint and on the results of the official and unofficial dialogues concerning the ministry of unity at the universal level. It uses the terminology adopted by these documents, with its advantages and limitations.

Windswept House? Primacy or committees?

The document’s theological arguments and essays are followed by a summary along with “practical suggestions or requests addressed to the Catholic Church” regarding the future exercise of the office of the papacy. As with other elements of current ecclesial life, the text bears a peculiar resemblance to Malachi Martin’s Windswept House, in which the globalist and Masonic-aligned cardinals are attempting to force the “Slavic Pope” to resign by arguing that for him to do so would help the damaged unity of the Church, and improve relations between the (heterodox) bishops and the pope.

Though not aimed at forcing Pope Francis to resign – since he has approved of The Bishop of Rome and ordered its promulgation, the DCPU’s text appears aimed at changing the papacy generally, not at any pope in particular. The “principles for the exercise of primacy in the 21st century” present a change in understanding of the papacy which would be at the service of ecumenism and synodality, the text outlines.

Papal primacy, the DCPU’s text states, should be intimately linked with synodality – reflecting the current wave of thought sweeping through the Church at the instigation of Pope Francis. “A first general agreement is the mutual interdependency of primacy and synodality at each level of the Church, and the consequent requirement for a synodal exercise of primacy,” the DCPU’s text reads.

Another point agreed on by the numerous ecumenical bodies involved in writing the text is that the papacy should be understood in a new sense by opening the door to decentralization of power. In this light, a call is made for synodality to be effected by granting more power to the “regional” levels of the Catholic Church, and “a continuing ‘decentralization’ inspired by the model of the ancient patriarchal Churches.”

Moving on, the text then presents the “practical suggestions” from all the ecumenical dialogues and bodies involved, before adding a further couple of suggestions from the DCPU in particular.

Even before the concrete and “practical suggestions” are presented – giving the DCPU’s ecumenical assessment on how to increase ecumenical unity and synodality by changes to the papacy – the subtext is remarkably clear: in the modern “enlightened” age in which the Church now exists, and given the self-understanding of “synodality” which is now endemic, papal primacy should be quietly faded out.

First change: Primacy a historical fad?

First on the DCPU’s list of “practical suggestions” is a call for a “re-interpretation” of the teachings of Vatican I – the council which issued the dogmatic constitution Pastor Aeternus which outlines the primacy and infallibility of the pope, two ecumenical stumbling blocks. Pastor Aeternus reads:

We teach and declare that, according to the Gospel evidence, a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church of God was immediately and directly promised to the blessed apostle Peter and conferred on him by Christ the lord… Therefore whoever succeeds to the chair of Peter obtains by the institution of Christ Himself, the primacy of Peter over the whole Church.

These teachings appear to be in the crosshairs of the DCPU via The Bishop of Rome. They call for “a Catholic ‘re-reception,’ ‘re-interpretation,’ ‘official interpretation,’ ‘updated commentary’ or even ‘rewording’ of the teachings of Vatican I.” The document states that some of the contributors to its compilation have argued that Vatican I’s “teachings were deeply conditioned by their historical context, and suggest that the Catholic Church should look for new expressions and vocabulary faithful to the original intention but integrated into a communio ecclesiology and adapted to the current cultural and ecumenical context.”

“Deeply conditioned by the historical context,” should be interpreted as “no longer acceptable for the brave, modern world in which we now live.”

Second change: Stick to the diocese of Rome to ‘renew’ the papacy

Continuing the Windswept House theme, the DCPU presents its second suggestion for how to alter the papacy. Just as the scheming cardinals in Windswept House presented a forced papal resignation as a good thing for ecclesial unity, so also the DCPU presents a stripping of papal power as a means to “renew the image of the papacy.”

The DCPU issues a request for “a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome,” which would, it argues, aid his “ministry of unity.” This call includes the desire for how “other Western Churches might relate to the Bishop of Rome as primate while having a certain autonomy themselves” – arguably translated as “will the Pope please consider himself just the bishop of an important diocese, and allow other ‘primates’ to enjoy some equitable power like he does?”

Indeed, the DCPU goes so far as to make this very argument, removing the need for the customary interpretation of Vatican-style linguistics. “A greater accent on the exercise of the ministry of the Pope in his own particular Church, the diocese of Rome, would highlight the episcopal ministry he shares with his brother bishops, and renew the image of the papacy,” the DCPU recommends.

Third change: Ecumenism demands more synodality, including for the papacy

If it was not already clear that the two watchwords of the modern church are “ecumenism” and “synodality,” the DCPU makes such crystal clear in its third suggestion on how to reassess the papacy. The DCPU wrote that the theological dialogues involved in compiling the document had identified how “a growing synodality is required within the Catholic Church,” which would be evidenced by increasing the authority of bishops’ conferences. The text reads:

Putting an emphasis on the reciprocal relation between the Catholic Church’s synodal shaping ad intra and the credibility of her ecumenical commitment ad extra, they identified areas in which a growing synodality is required within the Catholic Church. They suggest in particular further reflection on the authority of national and regional Catholic bishops’ conferences, their relationship with the Synod of Bishops and with the Roman Curia.

At the universal level, they stress the need for a better involvement of the whole People of God in the synodal processes. In a spirit of the ‘exchange of gifts,’ procedures and institutions already existing in other Christian communions could serve as a source of inspiration.

Fourth change: More ecumenical meetings

Pope Francis has continued to champion the cause of ecumenical meetings between religious leaders throughout his papacy, increasingly linking it to the current Synod on Synodality. These encounters appear set to continue under the spirit of The Bishop of Rome, since the DCPU highlights them as its fourth recommended change.

“A last proposal is the promotion of ‘conciliar fellowship’ through regular meetings among Church leaders at a worldwide level in order to make visible and deepen the communion they already share,” the text reads. “In the same spirit, many dialogues have proposed different initiatives to promote synodality between Churches, especially at the level of bishops and primates, through regular consultations and common action and witness.”

Commentators have long expressed concerns about the effect of such ecumenical meetings (like holding joint Catholic-Anglican vespers in the Basilica of St. Paul’s outside the Walls in Rome) since they create the impression that the Catholic Church and the Pope are on an equal footing with all the multitude of religions customarily represented at such events.

Speaking to this correspondent in Rome last year, Bishop Athanasius Schneider attested that modern ecumenism “undermines the truth that there is only one Church of God and this is the Catholic Church, the Church of Peter, united with the Holy See, the chair of Peter – the popes.”

While the Vatican heavily promotes interreligious actions, Schneider stated that “such gestures, or inter-religious meetings, are undermining these truths, and therefore these actions have to change.”

He added that Catholics must ensure that charity is always practiced with non-Catholics, but they must also inform non-Catholics “that they are unfortunately in an objective error, and that they are called by God to join the Holy Mother Church which is the Catholic Church, which is the will of God.”

Goodbye to the ‘universal Church’

Amongst the specific aims of the DCPU’s own direct recommendations, which conclude the text, is a peculiarly convoluted argument against understanding the Catholic Church as “universal.” “It seems particularly necessary to clarify the meaning of the expression ‘universal Church,’” the DCPU writes, employing another standard phrase, “clarify the meaning,” which is more correctly interpreted as “reject.”

The DCPU declared that “since the 19 century, the catholicity of the Church has often been understood as its worldwide dimension, in a ‘universalistic’ way.” This understanding, Cdl. Koch’s dicastery argues, “does not take sufficient account of the distinction between the Ecclesia universalis (the ‘universal Church’ in the geographical sense) and the Ecclesia universa (the ‘whole Church,’ the ‘entire Church’), the latter being the more traditional expression in the Catholic magisterium.”

By having “a merely geographical notion of the catholicity of the Church,” the DCPU wrote that a risk exists of “giving rise to a secular conception of a ‘universal primacy’ in a ‘universal Church,’ and consequently to a secular understanding of the extension and constraints of such a primacy.”

Instead, the DCPU urged a shift in the understanding of the universal Church and the power necessary to govern such a universal body. “Roman primacy should be understood not so much as a universal power in a universal Church (Ecclesia universalis), but as an authority in service to the communion between the Churches (communio Ecclesiarum), that is to the whole Church (Ecclesia universa).” That is to say, once the language is stripped away, the papacy should not seek to exercise its divine authority – the authority outlined in Pastor Aeternus – and instead work on using a restrained practice of power to foster ecumenical unity.

Conclusion

Tying all its many pages together, The Bishop of Rome concludes by urging the acceptance of the suggestions and recommendations made, in order to make a renewal – an unqualified renewal – of the “exercise of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome” and to further aid ecumenical unity.

“Building on the above principles and recommendations, which are fruits of common ecumenical reflection, it may be possible for the Catholic Church to renew the exercise of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and to propose a model of communion based on ‘a service of love recognised by all concerned’ (UUS 95),” the text opines.

As is already widely documented, modern ecumenism has as its aim simple unity, not unity as outlined in the traditional teaching of the Church. For the papacy to become directly subordinated to the modern form of ecumenism would appear to be the next stage in a long process of ecumenical “walking together” – together, but away from truth.

COMMENT: In the Creed, faithful Catholics profess their belief in "One, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." The Church is "One" in its faith, its worship, its sacraments and its governance. The essential presupposition of ecumenism is that the Church is NOT One and therefore unity is a goal the Church must pursue. The purpose of ecumenism is to obtain unity that the Church does not possess. Therefore, ecumenism begins with heresy in its denial that the Church is One possessing perfect unity as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Whatever follows from this heresy in ecumenical acts always leads to greater error. For example, the ecumenical act of Novus Ordo worship that was created with Protestant help to foster unity between Protestants and Catholics was formally defined:

“The Sunday Supper, or Mass, is the sacred meeting or congregation of the people of God assembled, the priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.”

[“Cena dominica, sive Missa, est sacra synaxis, seu congregatio populi Dei in unum convenientis, sacerdotale praeside, ad memoriale Domini celebrationem ...”]

Istitutio Generalis Missalis Romani, Article 7

This is an accurate descriptive definition of the Novus Ordo and it is also a fitting descriptive definition of a Protestant communion service. In their denial that the Church founded by Jesus Christ possess unity, the Novus Ordo committed a greater error in corrupting divine worship.

Now Pope Francis is simply compounding heresy with greater heresy. The principle cause and sign of unity in the Church is the faith. The pope is only secondarily and accidently a sign and cause of unity of the Church therefore, the pope is just as much subject to the faith as every other baptized Catholic.

Pastor aeternus is the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church of Christ, issued by the First Vatican Council, July 18, 1870. The document defines four doctrines (i.e.: a defined doctrine is called a dogma) of the Catholic faith: 1) the apostolic primacy conferred on Peter, 2) the perpetuity of the Petrine Primacy in the Roman pontiffs, 3) the meaning and power of papal primacy, and 4) Papal Infallibility - infallible teaching authority (Magisterium) of the Pope.

Pastor aeternus says that the Magisterium of the Church, that is, the teaching authority of the Church grounded upon the Church's attributes of Authority and Infallibility that only the pope stands in potentia to, is derived from the universal jurisdiction conferred by Jesus Christ on St. Peter as a reward for his profession of faith and passed on to all his successors in the papal office until the consummation of the world. Heretical Protestants deny that the Magisterium is part of the content of God's divine revelation. The Schismatic Orthodox deny that the Magisterium is part of the God's act of revelation when they deny the jurisdiction of the pope, and thus deny his teaching authority that is derived from his jurisdiction, to make God's revelation known.

The immediate problem for Francis is that, while heresy does not necessarily remove the pope from the office, the heresy of denying the jurisdiction of the papal office is to deny the office itself and is a deeply schismatic act. This heresy and schism may constitute an indirect form of personal abdication of the office. Thus the title of the document, "The Bishop of Rome." The question now, Is it possible to possess an office that you deny exists?

Not only do we know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ; we only know life and death through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ we cannot know the meaning of our life or our death, of God or of ourselves. Thus without Scripture, whose only object is Christ, we know nothing, and can see nothing but obscurity and confusion in the nature of God and in nature itself.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées

In light of the synodal process leading to the rejection of Catholic DOGMA of Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, reprint from last year:

Vatican releases Synod document calling for discussion of women, LGBT Catholics, church authority and more

AMERICA, the Jesuit Review | Gerald O'Connell | June 20, 2023

The secretariat for the synod has published the working document, known by its Latin title instrumentum laboris, for the first session of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality that will be held in the Vatican, Oct. 4 to Oct. 29. The second session will be held in October 2024.

“A synodal church is founded on the recognition of a common dignity deriving from baptism, which makes all who receive it sons and daughters of God, members of the family of God, and therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, inhabited by the one Spirit and sent to fulfil a common mission,” said the document.

However, it said, many Catholics around the world report that too many baptized persons—particularly L.G.B.T. Catholics, the divorced and civilly remarried, the poor, women and people with disabilities—are excluded from active participation in the life of the church and, particularly, from its decision-making structures.

The 50-page text was presented at a press conference in the Vatican on June 20 by Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean Claude Hollerich S.J., secretary general and relator general of the upcoming synod, respectively, and Father Giacomo Costa, S.J., the consultor of the synod’s secretary general.

Cardinal Grech described the working document as “the fruit of a synodal process” that started on Oct. 10, 2021, and “involved the whole church” in an exercise of listening to the people of God.

Cardinal Grech described the working document as “the fruit of a synodal process” that started on Oct. 10, 2021, and “involved the whole church” in an exercise of listening to the people of God. The first phase was articulated in three stages: at the local churches with consultation of the people of God (clergy and laity); at the bishops’ conferences, which engaged in a discernment process about the input from the local churches; and at the continental levels, where input from around the world was synthesized.

“Where the bishops started and accompanied the consultation, the contribution has been very alive and profound,” the cardinal said, and the bishops were enriched with “a fruitful ministry.”

The document brings together “the fruits” of the synodal journey since October 2021. Unlike the working documents for past synods, which were intended to be amended, improved and voted upon, this document is designed as “a practical aid for the conduct” of the October assembly at which there will be more than 350 participants (including laymen and around 45 women, both lay and consecrated), not a text to be amended.

The document states that it “is not a document of the Church’s Magisterium, nor is it the report of a sociological survey; it does not offer the formulation of operational indications, goals and objectives, nor a full elaboration of a theological vision.” It is “part of an unfinished process.” It draws on but also goes beyond the insights of the first phase and articulates “some of the priorities that emerged from listening to the People of God, but avoids presenting them as assertions or stances. Instead, it expresses them as questions addressed to the synodal assembly,” which “will have the task of discerning the concrete steps which enable the continued growth of a synodal church, steps that it will then submit to the Holy Father.”

Significantly, the working document does not offer a theoretical understanding of synodality but rather presents “a dynamic vision of the ways in which synodality has been experienced” in different church communities and cultures worldwide during the almost two-year synodal journey. It articulates “the insights and tensions that resonated most strongly with the experience of the church on each continent” and identifies “the priorities to be addressed in the first session of the synod.”

According to the working document, the synodal journey so far “has made it possible to identify and share the particular situations experienced by the church in different regions of the world.” These experiences include “too many wars,” “the threat represented by climate change,” “an economic system that produces exploitation, inequality and a throwaway culture” and “cultural colonialism that crushes minorities.”

It points to “situations of persecution to the point of martyrdom” and “emigration that progressively hollow out communities.” It mentions the situation of “Christian communities that represent scattered minorities within the countries in which they live” and “the aggressive secularization that seems to consider religious experience irrelevant, but where there remains a thirst for the Good News of the Gospel.”

In many regions, it says, “the churches are deeply affected by the crisis caused by various forms of abuse, including sexual abuse and the abuse of power, conscience and money.” It describes these as “open wounds, the consequences of which have yet to be fully addressed” and says the church must be “penitent” and intensify its commitment “to conversion and reform.”

It says the October synod takes place in a context that is “diverse but with common global features,” and participants will be asked “to listen deeply to the situations in which the church lives and carries out its mission.”

It says the synodal journey so far has revealed the existence of “shared questions” and “part of the challenge of synodality is to discern the level at which it is most appropriate to address each question.” That same journey also showed there are shared tensions in the church, but, the document says, “we should not be frightened of them, nor attempt at any cost to resolve them, but rather engage in ongoing synodal discernment” so that these tensions can “become sources of energy and not lapse into destructive polarizations.”

At the press conference, Cardinal Grech said “one of the discoveries” on the synodal journey that started on Oct. 10, 2021, was the method of “conversation in the Spirit,” which will now be used in the October synod.

Father Costa described this method as “shared prayer in view of a common discernment, by which participants prepare themselves through personal reflection and prayer” before the discussion. He said this method “opens ‘spaces’ in which to face together controversial subjects, around which in both society and in the church there are often clashes and confrontation, in person or through social media.”

The consultation phase has shown how this method offers “a practical alternative to polarization in the church,” Father Costa said.

To enable this method to be used at the October 2023 synod, where there will be hundreds of participants, Father Costa revealed that the assembly will be held in the Paul VI Audience Hall of the Vatican and its members will be divided into small groups of 12 people. They will work in these groups, then gather in plenary sessions and share their input.

Part A of the working document, called “For a synodal church, An Integral Experience,” highlights “the characteristic signs” of a synodal church and emphasizes that “conversation in the Spirit” is the way forward for this kind of church.

Cardinal Hollerich said the working document “leads us to a matter of discernment, a discernment about the concretization of communion, mission and participation,” which Part B of the document lists as the three priority issues for the synodal church.

Cardinal Hollerich explained that “each of these three priorities is linked to five worksheets. These [are] five approaches [that] take into consideration the diversity of persons as well as the diversity of the different social, cultural and religious contexts we have experienced during the synodal process.”

Each of the worksheets contains many questions for discernment that cannot all be listed here, but reveal the wide-ranging and even radical nature of what it means to be a synodal church, a church that includes and is not judgmental. The many questions raised around the world that are recognized in the document relate to the role of women in the church (including the women’s diaconate), the ways of exercising authority in the church at all levels including the papacy, ecumenical and interreligious relations, the need for a new language in church communication, the need for renewal of the formation in the seminary, the question of the ordination of mature married men in some regions, the approach to the divorced and remarried Catholics and to L.G.B.T. people, the preferential option for the poor, the preferential option for young people, the care of our common home and much more.

As the two cardinals and Father Costa made clear at the press conference, the synod on synodality cannot be reduced to single issues; its mandate is much broader than any one issue. Indeed, to reduce it to one or other issue would be to radically distort what the synod is really about. As the working document states clearly, the synod has three main priorities—communion, participation and mission—and these require bringing about a profound conversion and cultural change in the way of being church in the 21st century. It is not about making another church but a different church, as Pope Francis, quoting Yves Congar O.P., one of the great theologians of the Second Vatican Council, said in his speech to the synod in October 2021.

Below are the five main questions for discernment linked to each of the three priorities. The full list of questions can be found here.

Communion

1. How does the service of charity and commitment to justice and care for our common home nourish communion in a synodal Church?

2. How can a synodal Church make credible the promise that “love and truth will meet” (Ps 85:11)?

3. How can a dynamic relationship of gift exchange between the Churches grow?

4. How can a synodal Church fulfill its mission through a renewed ecumenical commitment?

5. How can we recognise and gather the richness of cultures and develop dialogue amongst religions in the light of the Gospel?

Mission

1. How can we walk together towards a shared awareness of the meaning and content of mission?

2. What should be done so a synodal Church is also an ‘all ministerial’ missionary Church?

3. How can the Church of our time better fulfill its mission through greater recognition and promotion of the baptismal dignity of women?

4. How can we properly value ordained Ministry in its relationship with baptismal Ministries in a missionary perspective?

5. How can we renew and promote the Bishop’s ministry from a missionary synodal perspective?

Participation

1. How can we renew the service of authority and the exercise of responsibility in a missionary synodal Church?

2. How can we develop discernment practices and decision-making processes in an authentically synodal manner that respects the protagonism of the Spirit?

3. What structures can be developed to strengthen a missionary synodal Church?

4. How can we give structure to instances of synodality and collegiality that involve groupings of local Churches?

5. How can the institution of the Synod be strengthened so that it is an expression of episcopal collegiality within an all-synodal Church?

COMMENT:

It's all in how you frame the question that directs the group to the "correct answer" the Synodal Church is looking. For example, "Communion" question #2 refers to Psalm 85:11. In a Catholic bible it is 84:11 and the actual verse is: "Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed." The Synodal Church, using a Protestant reference, changes the tense from past perfect to the future tense and translates the word justice as love. For what end can we guess this perversion is intended? And what do these questions about "missionary" church possible mean when proselytism is rejected as the proper end for which Jesus Christ instituted His Church? The use of the Encounter Group is entirely foreign to the Catholic spirit because it attacks the freedom of the human will. The American Psychological Association says:

"Encounter Group: a group of people who meet, usually with a trained leader, to increase self-awareness and social sensitivity, and to change behavior through interpersonal confrontation, self-disclosure, and strong emotional expression." It is a group of individuals in which constructive insight, sensitivity to others, and personal growth are promoted through direct interactions on an emotional and social level. The leader functions as a catalyst and facilitator rather than as a therapist and focuses on here-and-now feelings and interaction rather than on theory or individual motivation."

The entire Synod on Synodality is nothing but more employing the experimental psychological techniques of encounter developed by Jewish psychologists on the modern Church of the New Advent. It was these same methods that were used on the Catholic religious orders in the 1960s that brought about their destruction. Carl Rogers used these same psychological methods on the Jesuits order at the time Pope Francis/Bergoglio began his novitiate. They are now being employed by Francis the Destroyer to corrupt what is left of the Catholic Church and form it in his own image. He claims to head a "listening church" while he cannot keep his own mouth shut. That is because Francis only wants to listen to himself. That last thing he wants to listen to is the voice of anyone who contradicts his ideology, especially the voice of the dead, that is, the voice of tradition that constitutes, with sacred Scripture, the Remote Rule of Faith for all Catholics. It is Francis that is a committed anti-Catholic Ideologue and every faithful Catholic must recognize this fact. The proximate Rule of Faith is Dogma. If every faithful Catholic keeps this Truth as the guide of their faith and actions nothing Francis can do can bring them any personal harm.

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Early recognition of the psychological weaponization of Encounter Groups

An assessment of the danger of the Encounter Group published in the New York Times in 1974!

Encounter Movement, a Fad Last Decade Finds New Shape

New York Times | Jan 13, 1974 | Robert Reinhold

BERKELEY, CA—The encounter group movement, which became something of a national fad in the nineteen‐sixties, has evolved into a new, more mature and gentler form:

Having largely discarded its more extreme and coercive aspects, along with extravagant assertions of instant personal redemption, the encounter concept has quietly found an accepted place in such established institutions as schools, churches, industry and even the military and sports.

Meanwhile, persistent doubts about the effectiveness as well as possible hazards of encounter groups are being sorted out in the first rigorous appraisals of the groups and their consequences.

These studies, performed here in Berkeley and at Stanford University, are finding that, while many people benefit enormously from the openness and baring of emotions fostered by encounter, there are dangers to be guarded against.

Tried by Millions

By now millions of Americans have touched, walked and talked their way through some type of .encounter session. Encounter is loose term for a variety of group techniques, such as T‐groups, sensitivity training, sensory awareness, Synanon psychodrama, gestalt therapy and others, that are used as means of personal growth for ostensibly healthy persons

The encounter; or “human potential techniques are so routine today that the pioneers at the Eselen Institute and elsewhere have already departed for new psychological frontiers. Amid the dazzling succulents and eucalyptus trees on the broken California coast at Big Sur, the Esalen leaders are moving into the spiritual orbit of ‘transpersonal’ psychology—oriental meditation, mysticism, “psychosynthesis"’ and other techniques of achieving new heights of self‐awareness.

Others have been experimenting with such methods as “rolfing,” “feldenkrais,” “bioenergetics,” in which massage and physicals are used to increase awareness.

A Variety of Method

Encounter methods vary widely, but a group typically consists of eight to 18 persons led by a “facilitator.” The members are urged to express their emotions toward one another openly, both physically and verbally. Mutual trust, openness, honesty and naturalness, are the watchwords, and the assumption is that this stripping away of psychological defenses is healthy and will enhance both interpersonal relationships and self‐awareness.

“A lot of mistakes were made during the youthful period,” says John Levy, executive officer of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, the San Francisco‐based organization to which many of the practitioners of encounter belong.

“The movement suffered from excess enthusiasm—it made promises that could not hold up. There are still plenty of encounter groups, but you don't hear about them anymore. They are not the cutting edge."

Encounter may be passé in the compulsive California and New York milieus that nurtured it, says William C. Schutz of Esalen, author of “Joy” and other popular works on encounter, but in Athens, GA and Rock Island, IL, and for the overwhelming majority of Americans, encounter is just beginning.

Searing Experience

Whether or not its assumptions are valid, encounter evidently filled a real need in a depersonalized technological world. Millions flocked to “growth centers,” like oases in a psychological desert, Where they could go through the searing but often uplifting experience of spilling out their doubts and fears.

But as in most fads, the phonies, fast‐huck artists, incompetents and predators soon moved in. illequipped and sometimes sadistic leaders started groups, the idea was exploited in the movies, and on stage. The Concord Hotel offered “encounter singles weekends,” and a “group therapy” restaurant was opened in New York.

Still, the potential value of encounter has attracted a growing number of conventionally trained psychologists and psychiatrists. Carl Rogers, the psychologist who is often called the father of the movement, has termed encounter “the most rapidly spreading social invention of the century, and probably the most potent.”

‘A Psychic Whorehouse’

Even such a harsh critic of encounter as Prof. Sigmund Koch of Boston University agrees that the movement is “the most visible manifestation of psychology on the American scene:” He has denounced it as providing “a convenient psychic whorehouse for the purchase of a gamut of well‐advertised existential ‘goodies’: authenticity, freedom, wholeness, flexibility, community, love, joy. One enters for such liberating consummations but settles for psychic strip tease.”

Such complaints notwithstanding, encounter has had a profound impact upon many facets of American life. In Louisville, for example, educators credit it with helping rescue the school system. Faced with, the second‐highest dropout rate in the country (after Philadelphia), a demoralized staff, and bitter racial division, the schools obtained a three‐year Federal grant ‘in 1969 to re-staff 14 schools with 1,000 teachers trained in encounter.

Called Project Transition, the program involved not only the teachers but also students, parents and community leaders. Robert Myers, a co‐director, says it was a “terrific impetus for change in a school system that was sinking.”

Reports of Suicide

Countless individuals, meanwhile, report that their lives have been improved by group experiences. But there have also been disturbing reports of breakdowns, divorces and even suicides precipitated by encounter groups.

What has been lacking until recently were objective, tightly controlled studies to determine if groups really change behavior. What do groups do? What are the dangers? What skills are needed for leaders? Are the effects lasting? Is it worth it?

Some preliminary answers to these questions are beginning to emerge from ‘a massive study here supported by $1.25‐million from the National Institute of Mental Health. Directed by Dr. Jim Bebout of the Wright Institute in Berkeley, the study is evaluating 1,500 persons who participated in 150 groups over a three‐year period at the University’s Young Men's Christian Association in Berkeley.

The groups, mostly low‐keyed sessions led by non‐professionals, were observed and analyzed, and each member was asked to evaluate his attitudes and feeling before, during and after the experience. The results are still undergoing computer analysis, but some preliminary findings:

Ø Encounter groups do work in that they consistently improve self‐satisfaction, self-reliance and comfort with sexuality, and lessen loneliness, alienation and social inhibition.

Ø Groups do little to improve productivity in work or school.

Ø Professional therapists do not usually do well as leaders. “They could not drop their professional bag,” Dr. Bebout said.

Two Casualties Found

Of the 1,500 members, Dr. Bebout said, only two could be considered casualties: an obese woman who was rejected by the rest of the group and young man who fell in love with the leader, who rejected him.

Dr. Bebout offers the following advice to those considering joining a group:

“Pick a leader willing to share your experience with you and not work on you without telling you what he is doing. Make sure some proportion of your group is on your side. If the first two meetings are full of silences, attacks, tensions and obscure methods and general non-sharing, then pack up and go home.”

A smaller, different kind of study performed at Stanford University produced somewhat more ‘'negative” results. Unlike the Berkeley study, the Stanford study used well‐known professional group leaders who led 210 students in 18 groups designed to represent a broad range of techniques, including T‐groups, gestalt, transactional analysis, marathon, basic encounter and others.

Higher Casualty Rate

The results of the study, performed by Dr. Morton A. Lieberman, Dr. Irvin D. Yalom and Matthew. B. Miles, were recently published by Basic Books under the title “Encounter Groups: First Facts.” The study found that one‐third of the participants benefited from their experiences, while the rest either dropped out or had negative experiences. This proportion did not compare unfavorably with conventional psychotherapy.

The study turned up an alarming 10 per cent casualty rate, with a casualty defined as a person who was more psychologically distressed or maladapted eight months after the group than before. One girl, for example, dropped out and sought emergency psychiatric aid after the third meeting, at which she was called “a fat Italian mama with a big Shiny nose.”

Verdict Is Mixed

All in all, the Stanford study returned a mixed verdict. “When one strips away the excesses and the frills, the ability of such groups to provide a meaningful emotional setting in which individuals can overtly consider previously prohibited issues cannot be ruled out as an important means for facilitating human progress,” the study said. But it added, “Encounter groups present a clear and evident danger if they are used for radical surgery in which the product will be a new man.”

Those who improved, Dr. Yalom said in an interview, were those who got something intellectual out of the experience.

Partisans of the encounter concept have faulted the Stanford study on various grounds, saying that some distress is a prerequisite to enduring change, and that the attack oriented techniques used in some of the Stanford groups are no longer in vogue.

More Care Needed

Even so, many of the more responsible leaders agree that more care needs to be taken to screen out persons with histories of mental instability, and to train leaders better. Dr. Julian Silverman, a psychologist who heads Esalen's program at Big Sur, agrees that much damage has been done in groups and says, “We are very concerned about getting better training of leaders.”

Dr. Bernard Rappaport, a psychiatrist at Esalen who has written two survey papers on the movement for the National Institute of Mental Health, argues that “the benefits far out shadow the casualties,” but he agrees that reservations and cautions are good. ‘We need an ethic of responsibility,” he says.

“Now the approach is much gentler,” said Mr. Levy of the Association for Humanistic Psychology. “There is less encouragement of coercive approaches. Big wild breakthroughs are exciting to watch for a while, but not all that productive. People are respecting the dignity of others.”

"That meaning of sacred dogmas... must always be maintained which Holy Mother Church declared once and for all, nor should one ever depart from that meaning under the guise of or in the name of a more advanced understanding."

First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius

Doctrinal Development leads to Dogma; Dogma leads to other necessary truths

“Certainly there is to be development and on the largest scale. Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another. The understanding, knowledge and wisdom of one and all, of individuals as well as of the whole Church, ought then to make great and vigorous progress with the passing of the ages and the centuries, but only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning and the same import.”

St. Vincent of Lèrins

COMMENT: Change can be either accidental (a “development” according to St. Vincent) or substantial (an “alteration” according to St. Vincent). A boy growing to manhood constitutes a series of accidental changes. A boy changing into a dog constitutes a substantial change and this only happens in Hollywood fantasy. A sinner becoming a saint is an accidental change and this is an accidental change that the Neo-modernist heretics refuse to make. They instead want the Church to substantially change into an institution that will accommodate their love and complacency in sin. Pope Francis, for example, says that the morality of capital punishment has evolved to the point that it is now known to be intrinsically evil in that it is ‘opposed to the dignity of man and contrary to the spirit of the gospel.’ Capital punishment changing from a morally permissible to intrinsically evil act constitutes a substantial change and therefore impossible as a legitimate development. There are many reasons why Neo-modernists, like Pope Francis and his conciliarists predecessors, deny the reality of substance but this is an important one. Trying to enroll St. Vincent of Lèrins in their defense is not a misunderstanding but just another lie.

COMMENT: There are now over 400 Jewish organizations that profess that abortion is necessary in the practice of their religion. This means that with the imposition of abortion mandates, the Jewish religion was imposed as a national state religion in the U.S.A.

Jewish groups blast the end of Roe as a violation of their religious beliefs

NPR | Joe Hernandez

While some have celebrated justices' decision striking down Roe v. Wade as a win for religious freedom, some religious Jews say prohibitions on abortion violate their religious beliefs.

Interpretations vary across Judaism, but some religious Jews believe that a fetus is part of the parent's body and that a baby is only considered a person once it takes its first breath.

According to the Women's Rabbinic Network, some of the religion's most sacred texts view a fetus as a soul only once it's born.

"Therefore, forcing someone to carry a pregnancy that they do not want or that endangers their life is a violation of Jewish law because it prioritizes a fetus over the living adult who is pregnant," the group said in a statement.

"This must be understood as a violation of the United States Constitution which guarantees our freedom to practice our religion and also our freedom from the dictates of other religions," it added.

A number of Jewish organizations blasted the opinion, arguing that it would lead to religious violations against Jews.

"Jewish tradition prioritizes the safety of women carrying a child," the American Jewish Committee said in a statement. "Overturning abortion access, as numerous states already have, denies individuals health care options consistent with their religious beliefs, including many in the Jewish community, thereby presenting issues of religious freedom and privacy." [....]

Baptism alone unites the individual Faithful to Christ

The death of Christ is the universal cause of man’s salvation: but a universal cause has to be applied to particular effects. Thus it was found necessary for certain remedies to be administered to men by way of bringing Christ’s death into proximate connection with them. Such remedies are the Sacraments of the Church. And these remedies had to be administered with certain visible signs: -- first, because God provides for man, as for other beings, according to his condition; and it is the condition of man’s nature to be led through sensible things to things spiritual and intelligible: secondly, because instruments must be proportioned to the prime cause; and the prime and universal cause of man’s salvation is the Word Incarnate: it was convenient therefore that the remedies, through which that universal cause reaches men, should resemble the cause in this, that divine power works invisibly through visible signs.

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, Book IV, Chap. 56.

How Far Modern Judaism is identified with Freemasonry

Although the Jewish role in Freemasonry is for many reasons difficult to deal with, some acquaintance with that aspect of the subject is essential for an intelligent grasp of the whole. It is a common belief among Catholics and others that Freemasonry is somehow or other closely associated with modern Judaism. Our present purpose is to discuss how far such a belief is well-founded, and what is the nature of the relations between the two. We may say at once that the available evidence points at least to the following general conclusions: 1) That much of the external trappings of Freemasonry, such as its ritual, its terminology, its legends, etc., are of Jewish origin; 2) that the philosophy or religion of esoteric Freemasonry (that is of the inner circles and controlling power) is practically identical with the doctrines of the Jewish Cabala, which is the religion of philosophy of a certain section of the Jews; 3) that a certain group, probably very few in number, but of immense influence and power, are leading Freemasons; and 4) that a somewhat larger group of very influential Jews pursue the same ends as Freemasons, and use similar means, and are at least in close alliance with them.

Rev. E. Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the anti-Christian Movement, 1930.

“Naturalism is more than a heresy: it is pure undiluted anti-christianism. Heresy denies one or more dogmas; Naturalism denies that there are any dogmas or that there can be any. Heresy alters more or less what God has revealed; Naturalism denies the very existence of revelation. It follows that the inevitable law and the obstinate passion of Naturalism is to dethrone Our Lord Jesus Christ and to drive Him from the world. This will be the task of Antichrist and it is Satan's supreme ambition.... The great obstacle to the salvation of the men of our day, as the Vatican I Council points out in the first Constitution of Doctrine, what hurls more people into hell nowadays than at any other epoch, is Rationalism or Naturalism... Naturalism strives with all its might to exclude Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our One Master and Saviour, from the minds of men as well as from the daily lives and habits of peoples, in order to set up the reign of reason or of nature. Now, wherever the breath of Naturalism has passed, the very source of Christian life is dried up. Naturalism means complete sterility in regard to salvation and eternal life.”

Cardinal Pie of Poitiers (1850-1880), considered as principle theologian of the social Kingship of Jesus Christ, his writing were on the night stand of St. Pius X.

COMMENT: Politics is concerned with the organization of life within a community. Liberalism is Naturalism in politics. It begins by denying Original Sin and presupposes natural goodness. It is then faced with the reality of fallen human nature and objective sin for which it is at a loss to comprehend. It consequently is constantly theorizing alternative causes for sin such as racism, sexism, feminism, etc. and proposing legal and social solutions such as communism which necessarily lead to ruin. Yet never to be dismayed, the Liberal always blames the failure of his programs on others who did not follow their plan of action with enough purity, with enough rigor, for sufficient time. Current articles from the Jesuit magazine, America, posted on their web site include: The Devastating Effect of Conversion Therapy on LGBT Catholics; Should Catholic Schools Teach Critical Race Theory?; Father James Martin (homosexual advocate) reviews a new little show called 'Friends.'; What Catholics can do to fight Islamophobia; Is it safe to bring my unvaccinated, unmasked 10-month-old to Mass? The Jesuits, who are responsible for the spiritual formation of Pope Francis, are Catholic apostates who have embraced Naturalism. Baptism should be considered an absolute impediment to joining the Order.

Novus Ordo Church: The Lesser and Disordered Good

"A good proportionate to the common condition of human nature is found in many..., but the good that is above the common condition of nature is a small number... And since eternal bliss, consisting in the vision of God, surpasses the common condition of nature, there are but a few who are saved. And this shows the mercy of God that raises some to that salvation that the majority of men do not attain." St. Thomas Aquinas

COMMENT: All that God has created is good coming from that hand of God. All creation is hierarchically directed to the glory of the greatest good which is God Himself. Man is created in the image of God which consists in the spiritualization of a soul with the powers of reason and will. The reason of man is directed to know truth and the will of man is created to choose good. Man fails to obtain salvation when he lives on lies and thus the good he chooses is not good enough. It is not a good enough because it is a good that has a disordered reference to God and a disordered reference to God's creation. It is a disordered lie. Every saint commenting on the number saved says that very few men are saved. Jesus Christ said that the way of salvation is straight and the gate narrow while the way to damnation is broad and the gate wide. We are to strive to enter by the narrow gate with the few and turn away from the many. The narrow gate demands that the reason adheres to truth and the will to the greatest good which is God. The Novus Ordo Church uniformly is complacent and satisfied with lies and "a good proportionate to the common condition of human nature found in many." There is no possibility for salvation for anyone who is satisfied with lies and a lesser disordered "good proportionate to the common condition of human nature."

BEAKING NEWS:

Archbishop Viganò accuses Pope Francis of ‘the same abuses’ as Cardinal McCarrick

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has taken to social media to accuse Pope Francis of 'committing the same abuses' as the notorious Cardinal McCarrick, an allegation he says was 'personally confided' to him by a 'former novice' of Francis.

LifeSiteNews | Wed May 29, 2024 — In a social media post on Wednesday, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò accused Pope Francis, who he refers to by his surname Bergoglio, of committing “the same abuses” as the notorious, now-laicized Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. 

On 23 June 2013 when I met Bergoglio at the Domus Sanctæ Marthæ – as already extensively reported in my Memorial of August 22, 2018 – he asked me ex abrupto: «What is Cardinal McCarrick like?»

“I replied to him: ‘Holy Father, I don’t know if you know Cardinal McCarrick, but if you ask the Congregation for Bishops, there is a dossier this big. He corrupted generations of seminarians…,'” the former U.S. apostolic nuncio continued, adding that “Bergoglio remained impassive and completely changed the subject.”

“His reaction is not surprising,” Archbishop Viganò wrote. “Bergoglio himself committed the same abuses when he was Master of Novices of the Society of Jesus in Argentina, as personally confided to me by one of his former novices.”

Concluding, the archbishop stated: 

Bergoglio does not want to oust homosexual seminarians and priests: he rather wants to complete the work of infiltration and corruption of the clergy through homosexuality and pedophilia, so that by declassifying the serious sinfulness of sodomy and corruption of minors the door opens on the civil front to decriminalization of these crimes. On the other hand, the same scurrilous terminology typical of the environments that the Argentine Jesuit deplores in words, betrays his familiarity with corrupt people accustomed to speaking to him in this way.

The protection and promotions granted to countless corrupt and perverted cardinals, bishops and priests; the buses of transvestites invited on several occasions to the Vatican; private hearings for transsexual and homosexual couples in concubinage; the scandalous LGBTQ+ media spotlight granted to James Martin, S.J.; the shameful promotion of Tucho Fernandez to Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; the recent appointments of two Canons of Santa Maria Maggiore who are known throughout the city of Rome as homosexuals, all confirm Bergoglio’s membership of the lobby to which he owes his nomination (and I am deliberately not calling it his ‘election’).

LifeSiteNews has reached out to Archbishop Viganò to determine what specifically he is accusing Francis of doing but has yet to receive a reply. 

As for McCarrick, he was once one of the most influential prelates in the United States. Ordained by New York’s Cardinal Francis Spellman in 1958, he was eventually named archbishop of Washington in 2000 and a cardinal in 2001. After retiring, the then-cardinal maintained his influence as a globe-trotting fundraiser.

His ecclesiastical career came to a definitive end only in 2017, after a credible allegation that he had sexually molested a teenage boy was received by the Archdiocese of New York. It was then discovered by the public that rumors of his predatory behavior had swirled around Church circles for decades and that settlements had been made to victims.

McCarrick was laicized in 2019 after a Vatican investigation concluded that he had sexually abused both children and adults, including young priests and seminarians.

COMMENT: This IS NOT really "breaking news" but rather authoritative confirmation of what has been common knowledge for years! Just this past month (May 2024), Pope Francis held his first ever last "World Day for Children" which featured a trans-sexual male drag dancer to entertain thousands of children. I would not even let Pope Francis the Pervert pet my dog. Jesus Christ began and ended His public life by cleansing the temple. That this will happen again is certain. Pray God that it be soon.

LOCAL NEWS Harrisburg Diocese:

Lebanon Parish Celebrates Vocation of Sister Margaret Bender, the Last Religious Sister in the Community

The Catholic Witness | Vasandra Chesser | May 31, 2024

Sister Margaret Bender is currently the last religious Sister in Lebanon County, one of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, who have served in the Diocese of Harrisburg for over 100 years. With Sister Margaret’s retirement at the end of May, her longstanding presence in the Lebanon community is being celebrated, along with the fruits of her ministry. [.....]

The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, which included Sister Margaret’s own aunt among the congregation, serve in a variety of ministries, including in schools, hospitals and orphanages. The orphanages, located in New Jersey and Massachusetts, were of special meaning for Sister Margaret specifically, as that is where her aunt served. As those children grew up, they still remembered her aunt and kept in touch, sending her cards and letters as they moved throughout their lives. It was a clear sign of how much of a positive impact she had on those children, just as Sister Margaret has had a positive impact on the Lebanon community. [.....]

“One could say it’s a sad day for the city of Lebanon. Sister Margaret represents the last religious Sister in the entire county. When Sister came here, back in the 1970s, there were other communities of Sisters, and we’re grateful for them,” Father Laicha said, adding, “When we think about it, so many Sisters resided here in the community of Lebanon, and we are better for them. And so it is sad to see our dear Sister leave us. We should take pause hearing this. I believe it’s an important opportunity for all of us to pray for vocations for our Diocese, and yes, my friends, for the whole Church. Nothing would make me prouder to see, once again, a young girl in our parish enter religious life.”

Father Laicha said that Sister Margaret’s simple life, dedicated to the Church, was one to emulate. He concluded, “This parish is indeed very proud of you, and yes, all that you have accomplished and represent as a religious Sister of St. Francis. St. Cecilia’s is going to be very different, Sister Margaret, without your presence.”

COMMENT: "The last religious Sister in Lebanon County" receiving 'communion-in-the-hand' in her farewell Novus Ordo celebrating the death of all religious nuns in Lebanon has yet to see the connection between what she is doing in this picture and the dissolution of all religious nuns in Lebanon County, Diocese of Harrisburg. The priest Fr. Michael Laicha of St. Cecilia Parish is equally stupid. This is the fruit of Vatican II and those that dismiss this destruction with such slogans as "time is greater than space" richly deserve the punishment that awaits them. Jesus Christ warned His faithful saying, "By their fruit you shall known them." Well, we know them. We see clearly their blinded minds, their corrupted wills and their wooden hearts. They have made a career of destoying the immemorial traditions of the Catholic faith alone by which the faith can be known and communicated to others. They are reaping what they have sown.

Understanding Impact of Trauma and Supporting Survivors is Focus of Annual Clergy Day

The Catholic Witness | Jen Reed | May 31, 2024

Father Kenneth Schmidt, director of the Trauma Recovery Program from the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan, was the guest presenter for Clergy Day. He spoke to the Diocesan priests about the impact of childhood trauma and why its effects are so long-lasting.

Consciously or unconsciously, survivors of trauma seek safe places to reveal their pain and seek healing. When priests are trained to effectively receive and respond, survivors can find the help they need and desire.

That’s the message Father Kenneth Schmidt, Director of the Trauma Recovery Program, told priests of the Diocese of Harrisburg during a recent presentation on ministering to survivors of trauma.

The Trauma Recovery Program, sponsored by the Diocese of Kalamazoo, was established in 2002 as an initial response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis and the subsequent Charter for the Protection of Children and Young people, which set forth procedures and guidelines for prevention of abuse and healing for survivors.

Before long, the 10-week program of small-group sessions for survivors of abuse by clergy attracted many others who were suffering with other types of trauma from childhood events, and so the program expanded to help restore the lives of those individuals as well. [.....]

COMMENT: "Trauma Recovery Program" established in response to the sexual abuse of minors by clerics and administered by those who did the trauma, those who covered the trauma up, those who refuse to identify the true cause of the trauma as homosexual clerics committing the sin of pederasty, and those who still refuse to remove homosexuals from clerical state and prohibit their admission into seminaries. This is a cheap public relations gimmick. There can be no cure without an accurate diagnosis. Question: Is this part of the reorganization plan that moved the Diocese of Harrisburg out of bankruptcy? Is this the part of the restructuring that is supposed to assure the court and the public that the problems that caused the moral corruption in the Diocese and its subsequent insolvency from legal claims are adequately and effectively being addressed?

Modernists and Neo-Modernists are willfully blind to Essence, that is, they are in the end the most heatless of all!

Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince

Pope Francis says ‘conservative’ bishops have ‘suicidal attitude’ & ‘Deniers of climate change’ are ‘foolish’ during 60 Minutes interview

In a recent CBS interview: Certain of the U.S. episcopate have been notable in defending elements of Catholic teaching, often in seeming juxtaposition to Francis’ own stance – including such men as Bishop Joseph Strickland and Cardinal Raymond Burke. 

Pope Francis, labeled skeptics of the climate change narrative as ‘foolish’ for not believing ‘research.’

LifeSiteNews | VATICAN CITY | Michael Haynes | May 17, 2024 — Pope Francis has described “conservative” bishops as having a “suicidal attitude” due to being closed “inside a dogmatic box.”

“A Conservative is one who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that,” Francis said in response to a question about “conservative bishops in the United States” the CBS “60 Minutes” interviewer described as opposing Francis’ “efforts to revisit teachings and traditions.” 

“It is a suicidal attitude because one thing is to take Tradition into account and to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box,” continued Francis.

His comments were part of an hour-long interview with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell. Conducted in late April, a small segment of the interview was released at the time, with the full hour to be aired on CBS this Sunday and Monday. 

In a previous clip from the interview, Francis denigrated critics of climate change argument as “foolish.”

“There are people who are foolish, and foolish even if you show them research; they don’t believe it,” Francis declared. “Why? Because they don’t understand the situation or because of their interest, but climate change exists.”

In contrast, Dr. John Clauser – Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 2022 alongside two other scientists, for his work in the field of quantum mechanics – has argued that “misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience.” 

“In turn,” he added, “the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”

Responding to the latest clip, a former U.S. Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, supported Francis’ statement. “For once Bergoglio is absolutely right: conservatism wants to ‘preserve’ the outward appearances of Tradition without the doctrinal substance that makes it alive,” he said. 

Conservatism is the attitude of those who criticize the excesses of the synodical church but are careful not to question its causes, which are to be found in Vatican II. Conservatism is really a “suicidal behavior” because it creates an artificial “dogmatic box,” made of Novus Ordo ad orientem with Roman chasubles and Gregorian chants and also of Vetus Ordo; made of selected quotations of some conciliar documents, accidentally not contrasting with the Catholic Magisterium of all time; made of the apotheosis of John Paul II and the regret of Benedict XVI, whom we all loved.

Continuing, Viganò differed with Francis with regard to Tradition, saying that “Tradition is not conservatism; Tradition is not a ‘dogmatic box’ because it draws from the clear and pure water of the divine source, drawing from Grace and fidelity to the Gospel and the Depositum Fidei the lifeblood that makes it capable of looking to the future without denying the past.”

COMMENT: Pope Francis is boring. Now that his ideology and modus operandi have been sufficiently exposed there is no depth to the man or his mind. He is an intellectual fraud. His goofy stupid style has long been played out. The only reason for giving him media coverage is for the enemies of Jesus Christ to mock the Catholic Church. A comment is in order regarding Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's response.

There is a confusion of terminology that needs to be clarified. Francis is attacking "conservative" Catholics, not Catholics faithful to tradition which is a necessary attribute of any Catholic who hopes to obtain salvation. It is true that Traditional Catholics are in fact locked in a "dogmatic box". Dogma is divine revelation that has been formally defined by the God Himself through the Magisterium of His Church. It is a divine truth with the added attribute of precision and clarity of definition directed to all the faithful. Dogma is formulated for the mind of man as the most intelligible truth knowable from which other truths may confidently be deduced. Dogma is the formal object of divine and Catholic faith and constitutes the proximate rule of faith for all the faithful. Heresy is defined as the denial of dogma.

It would be absurd to criticize a mathematician as being "closed in a dogmatic box" because he held to the truth that 2+3=5. It is absurd because conforming the mind to reality is NOT mentally restrictive but, on the contrary, expansive and opens the possibility of true intellectual development. The certainty of dogmatic truth is more certain than the mathematical truth that 2+3=5 because dogma is directly revealed by God and not indirectly deduced from God's natural law. For Francis dogmatic truth is a "box" because He holds the revelation of God in contempt and regards it as of no greater authority than another dated ideology.

The trouble with conservative Catholics is that they do NOT cling to dogma as a definitive truth revealed by God but, on the contrary, they are infected with the Neo-modernist heresy that believes that there exists perennial truths and human accretions in dogma that must be developed and refined over time. Francis is incorrect in making that accusation that conservative Catholics are bound to dogmatic truth.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò agrees with Francis that conservative are in a "dogmatic box" because conservative Catholics only want the trappings of tradition without the doctrinal substance. He characterizes the mindless clinging to Vatican II teachings as a "dogmatic box". The problem is is that is not what Francis means by "dogmatic box" and it only confuses the matter by using the term "dogma" equivocally.

Archbishop Viganò is absolutely correct in saying that conservative Catholics only want the trapping of tradition and deny its doctrinal substance.

The Authority of the Pope, as it is with every one of the faithful, is subject to the Faith and not vice versa as the Neo-Modernists would have it!

v “Peter is called a rock, and the foundations of the Church are planted in his faith.” St. Gregory of Nazianzen

v “Faith is the groundwork of the Church, because of the faith, and not of the person of Peter, it was said, that the gates of death should never prevail against it.” St. Ambrose

v “He (Christ) called him Peter, that is, the rock, and praised the foundations of the Church which was built on the Apostle’s faith. St. Augustine

v “Peter was made for us a living rock, on which, as on a foundation, the faith of the Lord rests, and on which the Church is erected.” St. Epiphanius

v “He (Christ) did not say Petrus, but Petra, because He did not build His Church upon the man, but upon the faith of Peter.” St. John Chrysostom

v “Peter so pleased the Lord by the sublimity of his faith, that, after being admitted to the fruition of bliss, he received the solidity of an immovable rock, on which the Church was so firmly built, as to bid defiance to the gates of hell and the laws of death. St. Leo the Great

v “On this rock, namely, on the unshaken faith, to which thou owest thy name, I will built my Church.” Caesarius the Cistercian

Quotations taken from Fr. F. X. Weninger, D.D., On the Apostolical and Infallible Authority of the Pope when teaching the faithful and on his relation to a General Council

God cannot be offered anything less than everything!

God is Sufficient to Himself and Does Not Need Any Creature:

Let us consider that the first reason why we are useless servants arises from the greatness, sufficiency and plenitude of God, Who calls Himself Sadai, that is, “sufficient to Himself,” because He is so sufficient to Himself and replete with good, that He has no need of us nor of any creature of heaven or earth. Even the God-Man, Jesus Christ our Lord, says: “I have said to the Lord: Thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods” (Ps 15, 2).

The fact that God has no need of our goods is an infallible mark of His divinity. That is why, when we offer or give anything to God, we sacrifice it to Him, that is, annihilate it before Him, to testify thereby that He has no need of anything. If anyone presented a valuable horse to a governor and were to kill the animal when offering it, the governor would not be pleased because the gift would be useless to him. But the greatest service we can render to God is to sacrifice and annihilate our offerings, to testify thereby that He has no need of them. This why Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself on the Cross. Now, if Jesus Christ is not necessary to God, and if all the angels and saints and the Blessed Virgin can say: “We are unprofitable servants,” with how much greater truth can we say it?

Let us rejoice that God is so replete with every conceivable good; let us be glad to be useless because He is quite sufficient to Himself.

St. John Eudes, Meditations on Various Subjects: 8th Meditation on Humility

External Profession of Faith

Both God and the Church command the external profession of faith.

The DIVINE PRECEPT to profess one’s faith externally is easily gathered from the words of St. Paul: “The heart has only to believe, we are to be justified; the lips have only to make confession, if we are to be saved” (Rom. x, 9-10), and it follows from the very nature man himself who must worship God not only with his mind but also with his body. This precept is both affirmative and negative in character. Its negative aspect forbids man to deny his faith externally, which he may do either directly—by formal infidelity—or indirectly, by some action which externally gives a clear indication of denial of faith even though the agent himself has no intention of denying his faith. Thus, for example, a person indirectly denies his faith by partaking of the Protestant communion even though in his own mind he does not believe that Christ is present in that communion. It is never permissible to deny one’s faith either directly or indirectly, because every denial of faith is a grave insult to God since it undermines the authority of God and the reverence due to Him. Hence Christ’s threat: “Whoever disowns me before men, before my Father in heaven I too will disown him” (Matt. X, 32). But although it is never lawful to deny one’s faith, occasions do arise when it is permissible to conceal or dissemble one’s faith, as will be explained later.

According to St. Thomas the divine precept obliges man to make an external profession of his faith when failure to do so would detract from the honour due to God or cause injury to the spiritual welfare of one’s neighbour.

1. The honour due to God demands an external profession of faith: a) when a man is questioned by public authority (not by private persons) about his faith; b) when a person is provoked even by private individuals through hatred of religion to a denial of his faith in word or deed.

2. The spiritual welfare of our neighbour requires an external profession of faith when grave scandal would ensue from its omission (v.g., Libellatici amongst the early Christians).

Dominic Prummer, Handbook Moral Theology

NOTE: Our immemorial ecclesiastical traditions are necessary attributes of the Faith because, without them, there can be no “external profession of the faith.”

“If any one saith, that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, wont to be used in the solemn administration of the sacraments, may be contemned, or without sin be omitted at pleasure by the ministers, or be changed, by every pastor of the churches, into other new ones; let him be anathema.”

Council of Trent, Canon XIII, On the Sacraments

“The favorite comeback of progressives is that ‘the liturgy kept developing over time, so you can’t say that Catholics ‘always’ worshiped this or that way.’ But that is a superficial response. The deeper truth is that Catholics have always worshiped according to the liturgy they have received, and any development occurred within this fundamental assumption of the continuity of the rituals, chants, and texts. The work of the Consilium of the 1960s rejected (N.B. actually, rejected by Rev. Annibale Bugnini in 1948) this assumption in altering almost every aspect of the liturgy, adding and deleting material according to their own theories. Therefore what they produced is not and can never be an expression of Catholic tradition; it will always remain a foreign body.”

Peter Kwasniewski, Ph.D.

“With them that hated peace I was peaceable: when I spake unto them, they fought against me without cause.” (Ps. cxix) “Forty years long was I nigh unto that generation, and said: They do always err in their heart; and they have not known My ways to whom I swore in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest.” (Ps. xciv)

“In the later editions of the Talmud the allusions to Christianity are few and cautious compared with the earlier or unexpurgated copies. The last of these was published at Amsterdam in 1645. In them our Lord and Saviour is ‘that One,’ ‘such a One,’ ‘a fool,’ ‘the leper,’ ‘the deceiver or Israel,’ &c.; efforts are made to prove that He is the son of Joseph Pandira before his marriage with Mary. His miracles are attributed to sorcery, the secret of which He brought in a slit in his flesh out of Egypt. His teacher is said to have been Joshua, the son of Perachlah. This Joshua is said to have afterwards excommunicated Him to the sound of 800 rams’ horns, although he must have lived seventy years before His time. Forty days before the death of Jesus a witness was summoned by public proclamation to attest his innocence, but none appeared. He is said to have been first stoned and then hanged on the eve of the Passover. His disciples are called heretics, and opprobrious names. They are accused of immoral practices; and the New Testament is called a sinful book. The references to these subjects manifest the most bitter aversion and hate.”

Dr. Joseph Barclay, LL.D, Rector of Stapleford, Hertfordshire, London, The Talmud, 1878, from Introduction, p. 30

You 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), Nobel-Prize winning novelist, historian and victim of Jewish Bolshevism

“Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat. We are very far from having any moral qualms as far as our national war goes. We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world: ‘Ye shall blot them out to the last man.’”

Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Prime Minister 1986-1992, 1943 Quote taken from “Document: Shamir on Terrorism (1943)” Middle East Report 152

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St. John Eudes: “That there is a special contract made between God and man in Baptism.”

THE name of contract is given to any agreement entered into by two or more persons, in which the parties contracting incur mutual obligations. This clearly shows that a contract. has been entered into by the most Blessed Trinity and you in Baptism; since you have incurred many obligations towards the Blessed Trinity, and the Blessed Trinity has also obliged itself in regard to you. What is the nature of this contract? It is a reciprocal contract of gifts, the highest and most entire that can “enter into the heart of man to conceive;” for in making it you are obliged to give yourself entirely and forever to God; you have renounced all things to be united to Him, and for Him, and God on his part has given Himself entirely to you. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, come to you and take up their abode in your soul, in order to confer honors and benefits on you. They enrich you ‘with spiritual treasures to render you worthy of their three divine Persons.

It is a contract of adoption, since God the Father has taken you for his child, and has conferred on you the right of his inheritance with his only Son, and you have taken God for your Father, and have promised to entertain for him all the love and respect which a child owes to a so good a parent. “Consider,” writes St. John the Evangelist, “what love the Father has testified to you in wishing that you should be called, and that you should, really, be his children.”

Behold the admirable effect of the contract which you have made with God in Baptism, from being the child of wrath and an heir of hell, you have become the child of God and an heir to heaven! What you should not do to acknowledge the infinite goodness of God in your regard?

It is a contract of alliance with the Son of God, since in receiving Baptism you have united yourself to him as to your head, your master, and your sovereign, and since the Son has taken you for His servant and one of the members of his body, which is his Church. How great is the goodness of God, says St. Paul to the newly converted Christians of Corinth; “By whom you arc called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

What were you before Baptism but the unhappy slave of Satan, and subject like him to eternal punishment? But by Baptism you have been delivered from this unhappy subjection, through the divine alliance which you have contracted with Jesus Christ, which procures you the enjoyment of eternal happiness, if you observe all its conditions.

Finally, it is a contract of alliance with the Person of the Holy Ghost; for faith teaches us, that the Holy Ghost takes the Christian soul as his spouse, and that the Christian reciprocally takes the Holy Ghost for his spouse. In consequence of this sacred alliance, the Holy Ghost calls you “his sister and his spouse,” and as, of yourself, you are poor indeed, he adorns your soul with all the gifts necessary to render it worthy of him, and he comes to take up his abode in it, and to consecrate it as his temple and his sanctuary. […..]

When you had been presented to the church to receive Baptism, you were treated as a person in the possession of the devil, for the priest pronounced over you the exorcism of the church, commanding the wicked spirit to depart from you, and to give place to the Holy Ghost.

This ceremony teaches you that by original sin you were really in possession of the devil, and that he abided in you, but that, through Baptism, he has been cast out of you; that your soul has been purified from the horrible stain which disfigured it, and that the Holy Ghost, having sanctified and ornamented it with his grace, comes to take up his abode in it. […..]

That 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’s therefore, 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. […..]

The Priest introduced you into the Church, by saying, “Enter into the house of God, that you may have eternal life.” This ceremony teaches you that Baptism enables you to enter into the Society of Jesus Christ, and of all the faithful who compose the house or family of God. By this entry, you begin to partake of all the good works of the faithful and you acquire a right to the sacraments, to the prayers, and to all the other good works which are done in the Church. Moreover, in entering into the Church, you have become her child, and have been made a child of God, the heir of God, and co-heir of Jesus Christ; you entered into society and communion with the angels and all the blessed who are in Heaven. By this ceremony you are likewise taught that, in order to be united to Jesus Christ, and to have eternal life, it is necessary to be a member of the Church, and to persevere therein to the end, believing all she teaches, obeying all she commands.

St. John Eudes, excerpt from Man’s Contract with God in Baptism

COMMENT: St. John Eudes makes clear what every faithful Catholic should already know, that is, it is by virtue of the sacrament of Baptism received with Faith that makes a person a Child of God. The Neo-modernist popes since Vatican II heretically teach that everyone is a child of God by virtue of the Incarnation of the Logos, the Word becoming flesh, where the second Person of the Trinity, by personally uniting Himself with our human nature, thereby elevated all humanity to being children of God by virtue of this shared humanity. For them, Baptism is only an outward sign signifying what has already taken place. It reduces Baptism from a performative sign that is necessity of means for salvation to a simple necessity of precept which obligates only those who feel some inner compulsion to obey. It is this fundamental corruption of revealed truth that makes modern ecumenism with such events as the blasphemous “Prayer Meeting at Assisi” possible. For them the “spiritual character” imprinted on the soul at Baptism is meaningless. The “spiritual character” is both the sign of and cause of the adoption as Sons of God. The character is like a receptacle that makes the reception of the sacramental grace of adoption possible. Those who have the character of the sacrament without the sanctifying grace of adoption will suffer the greatest torments of all in hell.

It is an unfortunate fact that the many traditional Catholics and conservative Catholics believe this tripe and profess that any “good-willed” Protestant, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., etc. can be a child of God, a member of the Church, a temple of the Holy Ghost and an heir to heaven by virtue of being a “good” Protestant, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, etc., etc. This error is derived essentially from the more fundamental error of denying Dogma as Dogma, by overturning Dogma in its very nature. For these Neo-modernists, Dogma is not the revealed truth of God but only a human axiom open to unending refinement and new interpretations.

But the truth is that Dogma is divine revelation formally and infallibly defined by the Magisterium of the Church. It is irreformable in both the truth it declares and the words that it uses to define. It constitutes the formal object of divine and Catholic faith and is the proximate rule of faith for every faithful child of God. Not until every traditional Catholic recognizes and defends this truth will any effective resistance to Neo-modernist error be effectively mounted.

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Pope Francis calls for ‘global financial charter’ at Vatican climate change conference

Pope Francis called for a 'new global financial charter' by 2025 that would be centered on climate change and 'ecological debt' in a keynote address at the Vatican-organized 'Climate Crisis to Climate Resilience' conference.

LifeSiteNews | VATICAN CITY | Michael Haynes May 16, 2024 – Addressing a Vatican-hosted climate change conference, Pope Francis called for a “new global financial charter” by 2025 that would be centered on climate change and “ecological debt.”

“There is a need to develop a new financial architecture capable of responding to the demands of the Global South and of the island states that have been seriously affected by climate catastrophes,” Pope Francis said on Thursday, May 16.

Outlining a three-fold action plan to respond to the “planetary crisis,” Francis told the participants that any such action must be centered around financial action. 

“The restructuring and reduction of debt, together with the development of a new global financial charter by 2025, acknowledging a sort of ecological debt – we must work on this term: ecological debt – can be of great assistance in mitigating climate changes,” he said, appearing to allude to an already existing but as yet unpublished charter.

The Pope’s three-fold plan also highlighted his call for “policy changes” based on climate adherence and the reduction of warming, fossil fuel reliance, and carbon dioxide: 

First, a universal approach and swift and decisive action is needed, capable of producing policy changes and decisions. Second, we need to reverse the curve of warming, seeking to halve the rate of warming in the short space of a quarter of a century. At the same time, we need to aim for global de-carbonization, eliminating the dependence on fossil fuels. 

Third, large quantities of carbon dioxide must be removed from the atmosphere through environmental management spanning several generations.

Francis’ call for finance-related policies to implement climate change goals will have been met especially warmly by certain attendees of the Vatican’s conference. Among the numerous participants and speakers at the three-day event were ardent pro-climate change advocates California Gov. Gavin Newsom, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Massachusetts lesbian Gov. Maura Healey, along with academics and politicians from South America, Africa, Italy, and Taiwan.

Newsom and Khan – both of whom have implemented sweeping and highly controversial measures in the name of climate change – spoke respectively on “The Gold Standard – Climate Leadership in the Golden State” and “Governance in the Age of Climate Change.” Khan also wrote in the U.K.’s The Tablet that he joins his voice to that of Francis “to support climate resilience efforts and advocate for climate justice.”

Green finance for the future

While no further details were given about the charter Pope Francis referred to, in recent years increased attention has been paid to coordinating climate policies with finance, performing “debt for nature swaps” in line with the World Economic Forum’s policies, and addressing “ecological debt” itself, which is a term itself employed regularly by Francis. 

Last October 4, Francis published a second part to his 2015 environmental encyclical letter Laudato Si’ in the form of the Apostolic Exhortation Laudate Deum, in which he issued stark calls for “obligatory” measures across the globe to address the issue of “climate change.”

COMMENT: Warnings of the New Ice Age where the common party line in the 1960s. Then the Climate Ideology Central Command directed everyone to drop Global Freezing and switch to Global Warming because the data did not support global freezing. After years of Global Warming hysteria the Climate Ideology Central Command directed everyone to drop Global Warming because of insufficient date to support the claim and switch to Climate Change which is a much more nebulous term that anything can be attributed to and, best of all, requires no data at all. Around 2018 the Climate Ideology Central Command instituted a new slogan: "System Change NOT Climate Change" which is nothing but an open admission that the real purpose of Climate Ideology was always political, financial and monetary control on a global scale which many have been saying from the beginning.

All of Francis' "System Change NOT Climate Change" friends are militant endorsers of abortion and euthanasia who call for a world population of 500 million. Or to express it conversely, they want to see 7.5 billion people eliminated. His friends are part of what Fr. Dennis Fahey politely called "organized naturalism" that has revealed itself to be purely demonic pagan earth worship. There is no possibility of even a system of commutative and distributive justice based upon natural law. Francis has made common cause with the enemies of Jesus Christ the King.

[American Jewish Committee’s interfaith affairs director Rabbi David] Rosen said. “Those who said Benedict was the last pope who would be a pope that lived through the Shoah, or that said there would not be another pope who had a personal connection to the Jewish people, they were wrong,” Rosen said.... Israel Singer, the former head of the World Jewish Congress, said he spent time working with Bergoglio when the two were distributing aid to the poor in Buenos Aires in the early 2000s, part of a joint Jewish-Catholic program called Tzedaka.... Bergoglio also wrote the foreward of a book by Rabbi Sergio Bergman, a Buenos Aires legislator, and referred to him as “one of my teachers.”.... Bergoglio attended Rosh Hashanah services at the Benei Tikva Slijot synagogue in September 2007.... Last November, Bergoglio hosted a Kristallnacht memorial event at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral with Rabbi Alejandro Avruj from the NCI-Emanuel World Masorti congregation. He also has worked with the Latin American Jewish Congress and held meetings with Jewish youth who participate in its New Generations program.... In his visit to the Buenos Aires synagogue, according to the Catholic Zenit news agency, Bergoglio told the congregation that he was there to examine his heart “like a pilgrim, together with you, my elder brothers.”....

Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 13, 2015

Only Those in the State of Grace Can Be “Numbered Among the Children of God.”

Saying within themselves, repenting, and groaning for anguish of spirit: These are they, whom we had some time in derision, and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints. Therefore we have erred from the way of truth, and the light of justice hath not shined unto us, and the sun of understanding hath not risen upon us. We wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways, but the way of the Lord we have not known. What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and like a post that runneth on, And as a ship that passeth through the waves: whereof when it is gone by, the trace cannot be found, nor the path of its keel in the waters: Or as when a bird flieth through the air, of the passage of which no mark can be found, but only the sound of the wings beating the light air, and parting it by the force of her flight; she moved her wings, and hath flown through, and there is no mark found afterwards of her way: Or as when an arrow is shot at a mark, the divided air presently cometh together again, so that the passage thereof is not known: So we also being born, forthwith ceased to be: and have been able to shew no mark of virtue: but are consumed in our wickedness. Such things as these the sinners said in hell: For the hope of the wicked is as dust, which is blown away with the wind, and as a thin froth which is dispersed by the storm: and a smoke that is scattered abroad by the wind: and as the remembrance of a guest of one day that passeth by.

Wisdom 5:3-15

Iconoclasm Revisited: The Great Neo-Modernist Heresy – The belief that there exists a merely accidental relationship between the “revealed truths” and the dogmatic “manner of stating those truths and theological doctrines.”

Students must learn to distinguish between on the one hand revealed truths, which all require the same assent of faith, and on the other hand the manner of stating those truths and theological doctrines. As far as the formulation of revealed truths is concerned, account will be taken of what is said by, among others, the declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Mysterium Ecclesiae, n. 5: “The truths which the Church intends actually to teach through its dogmatic formularies are, without doubt, distinct from the changing conceptions proper to a given age and can be expressed without them, but it can nonetheless happen that they will be expressed by the magisterium, in terms that bear traces of those conceptions. Account having been taken of these considerations, it must also be said that from the beginning the dogmatic formularies of the magisterium have always been appropriate for communicating revealed truth and that, remaining unchanged, they will always communicate it to those who interpret them properly”. Students should therefore learn to make the distinction between the “deposit of faith itself or the truths which are contained in our venerable doctrine”, and the way in which these truths are formulated; between the truths to be proclaimed and the various ways of perceiving them and shedding light upon them; between the apostolic Tradition and strictly ecclesiastical traditions, and at the same time they should learn to recognize and respect the permanent value of dogmatic formulations. From the time of their philosophical formation, students should be prepared to appreciate the legitimate diversity in theology which derives from the different methods and language theologians use in penetrating the divine mysteries. From which it follows that different theological formulations are often more complementary than contradictory.

The Ecumenical Directory

NOTE: The full title of the “Ecumenical Directory” is Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism. It was approved by Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1993 and published on June 8 by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity as a general executive decree of the Catholic Church. It supplanted the Directory for the Application of the Decisions of the Second Vatican Council Concerning Ecumenical Matters, issued during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI.

From Adam to this day, divine worship that is acceptable to God has always been, without exception, the creation of God.

Christ chose the Cenacle In which to celebrate the Passover, because there lived, died, and were buried Melchisedech, David, Solomon and all the kings of David’s family till the Babylonian Captivity.

Melchisedech comes into history under this name in the account of the four Mesopotamian kings, who went into Palestine, captured Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and started for home. Abraham roused his servants, fell on them at night, rescued Lot, took their spoils, and returning passed by Salem, as Jerusalem then was named.

“But Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was a priest of the most high God, blessed him and said: ‘Blessed be the most high God by whose protection thy enemies are in thy band.’ And be gave him tithes of all.”

Here for the first time in Holy Writ we find a priest “of the most high God” offering the “bread and wine” of the Passover and Mass. Eight centuries of silence pass, and 1,100 years before Christ, David wrote of Christ’s priesthood: “Thou are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech.” Then this great pontiff-king appears no more, in Holy Writ, till St. Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews mentions him eight times as a type of Christ. [.....]

But here for the first time in history, comes forth another order of priests, this mysterious Melchisedech offering bread and wine of the Last Supper and Mass. To him Abraham offered tithes—the tenth part of the fruits of his victory. Therefore Melchisedech’s priesthood was higher than that of Abraham; it was to be eternal; it pointed to Christ’s priesthood of the Last Supper and of the Catholic Church. The whole prophetic scene in that vale beside the sacred city was emblematic of the future.

[.....] Who was Melchisedech? St. Paul says: “Without father, without mother without genealogy, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest forever.”

Fr. James L. Meagher, D.D., How Christ Said the First Mass

To live together as brother and sister? Of course I have high respect for those who are doing this. But it’s a heroic act, and heroism is not for the average Christian. I would say that people must do what is possible in their situation. We cannot as human beings always do the ideal, the best. We must do the best possible in a given situation. Cardinal Kasper, Commonweal, May 7, 2016

If a divorced and remarried person is truly sorry that he or she failed in the first marriage, if the commitments from the first marriage are clarified and a return is definitively out of the question, if he or she cannot undo the commitments that were assumed in the second civil marriage without new guilt, if he or she strives to the best of his or her abilities to live out the second civil marriage on the basis of faith and to raise their children in the faith, if he or she longs for the sacraments as a source of strength in his or her situation, do we then have to refuse or can we refuse him or her the sacrament of penance and communion, after a period of reorientation? [.....]

Cardinal Walter Kasper, The Gospel of the Family

Pope Francis makes the error of Kasper his own!

49. In such difficult situations of need, the Church must be particularly concerned to offer understanding, comfort and acceptance, rather than imposing straightaway a set of rules that only lead people to feel judged and abandoned by the very Mother called to show them God’s mercy. Rather than offering the healing power of grace and the light of the Gospel message, some would “indoctrinate” that message, turning it into “dead stones to be hurled at others.”

122. We should not however confuse different levels: there is no need to lay upon two limited persons the tremendous burden of having to reproduce perfectly the union existing between Christ and his Church, for marriage as a sign entails “a dynamic process…, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God.”

Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia

Rene Descartes, the Catholic, and Immanuel Kant, the Protestant, the twin pillars of modern philosophical atheism!

“I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flip of His thumb; after that he had no more use for God.”

Blaise Pascal, Pensees

“The Jews are enemies of God and foes of our holy religion.”

St. Pio of Pietrelicina

Calvary of Padre Pio by Joseph Pagnossin, 1978 Padua, Italy, page 91

Did one of the main Vatican II documents distort the Words of Our Lord in the Gospel?

Those who wish to apply a ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ to Vatican II, or who deny that there can be any opposition or rupture between the documents of that council and Catholic tradition, or who claim that the assertion that the authentic teachings of Vatican II formally contradict the tradition of the Church is false, might consider the following passage from the council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes:

Gaudium et Spes 24: ‘Quapropter dilectio Dei et proximi primum et maximum mandatum est.’

For non-Latinists, this claim (it is a complete sentence in the conciliar document) can be translated as follows: ‘For love of God and of neighbour is the first and greatest commandment’. No Latin is needed to realize that this is a flat contradiction of the teaching of Christ. There is a deliberate allusion in Gaudium et Spes 24 to the wording of the divine teaching it is contradicting, as can be seen from looking at the Vulgate text of that teaching:

Matthew 22:35-39: “Et interrogavit eum unus ex eis legis doctor, temptans eum; ‘Magister, quod est mandatum magnum in lege? Ait illi Iesus: ‘diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et in tota anima tua, et in tota mente tua. Hoc est maximum et primum mandatum. Secundum autem simile est huic: diliges proximum tuum, sicut teipsum.’”

This text from Gaudium et Spes suffices to prove that the teachings of the Second Vatican Council are not without error, and that fidelity to Christ’s teaching requires that parts of it be rejected. It is also a fruitful starting point for reflection and investigation into the ideology and motivations of the progressive leadership of that council, and into the degree to which the Council Fathers as a whole accepted their responsibility for preserving the divine deposit of faith. (This text was pointed out to me by a Catholic professor of theology who must remain anonymous.)

Dr. John Lamont, posted by Rorate Caeli

Jewish neo-con foreign policy which seeks to rule the world has produced one disaster after another for its "friend" the United States and nothing but death and destruction for everyone else. 165 of 195 nations of the world, including India and China with 35% of the world’s population, have refused to join in sanctioning Russia, leaving the U.S., not Russia, relatively isolated and friendless. Millions have died in Serbia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine and now Gaza costing trillions of dollars without any geopolitical benefit whatsoever to those paying for it including their indebted children, their indebted children's children, their indebted children's children's children, etc. etc.

“We endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global power.”

Wolfowitz Doctrine, articulated in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense, which became the guiding principle for Neo-con foreign policy strategy for world domination in a “unipolar” world. This is what is meant by Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, celebrating “the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” 

The Yankee rules of engagement for prosecuting war has a long and unvarying history!

“We make war only upon armed men, and we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all those whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies, and offending against God to whom vengeance belongs.”

General Robert E. Lee, to the Army of Northern Virginia, after U.S. Generals Sherman and Sheridan subjected civilian populations in the South to rape, looting, burning their homes and slaughtering livestock, leaving women and children unprotected from winter and starvation. 

Traditional Carmelite Nun Starts New Discalced Community in Florida

CatholicFamilyNews | Brian Mershon | April 29, 2024

SAVANNAH, Georgia — Sister Loretta-Maria of the Blessed Trinity and the Rosary, a Carmelite nun for six years, is founding a new, autonomous lay association for women that will be under the rule of St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582). She was among a handful or religious sisters formerly living in the Carmelite monastery in Savannah, Georgia that was suppressed and closed by the Carmelites in late 2022 under the instruction Cor Orans issued in April 2018 by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The original story was published by LifeSiteNews.

Sister Loretta-Maria said she hopes to found a community of women religious who consecrate their lives to the religious service of contemplation under private vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, while living their lives on 10 acres of land near of High Springs, Florida, where a new monastery is being built.

“We are not affiliated or associated with a diocese or with the Cor Orans Federated Carmelite Order. We consider ourselves a de facto association of women religious and founded our monastic-styled community as an autonomous, private institution. We intend to build our own monastery on our own land. In Christ, Bishop Athanasius Schneider has given us his blessing to serve the Holy Roman Catholic Church as an autonomous monastic community and has blessed our monastic building fund project for this purpose,” Sister Loretta-Maria said.

Sister Loretta-Maria is the founding Sister and is serving as president of the 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation for the building fund. She said that a superior will be determined later. They plan to live out their lives in accord with Canon 215 of the Code of Canon Law. A detailed explanation of Canon 215 (and Canon 310):

Two Canons that pertain to individuals seeking to establish a new Religious community are Canons 215 and 310:

Can. 215 The Christian faithful are at liberty freely to found and direct associations for purposes of charity or piety or for the promotion of the Christian vocation in the world and to hold meetings for the common pursuit of these purposes.

Can. 310 A private association which has not been established as a juridic person cannot, as such, be a subject of obligations and rights. Nevertheless, the members of the Christian faithful associated together in it can jointly contract obligations and can acquire and possess rights and goods as co-owners and co-possessors; they are able to exercise these rights and obligations through an agent or a proxy.

The community will be privately regulated. The future Traditional Carmelite Monastery will be called Our Lady Co-Redemptrix Carmelite Monastery and will have a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, where Sister Loretta-Maria hopes to have the Traditional Latin Mass and sacraments celebrated daily.

“All we want is to live a quiet, simple and private life of prayer and solitude, to participate in the Mass of the Ages, raise a few chickens and plant some vegetables,” Sister Loretta-Maria said. “We will follow the Discalced Carmelite Constitutions written by Holy Mother Saint Teresa of Avila, the Rule of Carmel written by Saint Albert of Jerusalem, as well as various Carmelite ceremonials and spiritual manuals that have governed the Traditional Discalced Carmelite Order since its founding.”

“We discerned in prayer that building our new autonomous Monastery is the only way in this day and age to protect ourselves from having a repeat of what was witnessed at Savannah Carmel and to protect our vocations from the oppression of liberal theologians, Sister said. “Our 501c3 nonprofit, Habit Forming Sisters Corporation, is for the express and exempt purpose of building this religious monastery and supporting the lives of the Carmelite Community we have established. All of this was another insurance to legally protect our community from the forcible seizure of all the property and assets that was witnessed previously.”

COMMENT: The doctrine of the TWO SWORDS addresses the duties within the Church established by Jesus Christ, Sovereign King and High Priest. The Church membership includes all who have been baptized into Jesus Christ and profess the Catholic faith. The Church includes both religious and lay members. The spiritual sword of authority of the Church is wielded by the clerical members of the Church headed by the Pope who exercises universal spiritual jurisdiction. The temporal sword of authority is wielded by lay members of the Church, (formerly members of the nobility), who are called upon to establish the Kingship of Jesus Christ in the temporal realm. In the Pater Noster, after we worship the name of God we pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It is through the lay wielding of the temporal sword that the 'will of God' may be done in the Christian regulation of social and political life under the Kingship of Jesus Christ. The spiritual authority is to provide the doctrinal foundation and the moral prudential guidance as well as the sacramental life of grace to accomplish this end as far as fallen human nature allows. Many of the great ecumenical councils of the Church were called by lay authority including the council that ended the Western Schism when there were three papal claimants.

There is no separation of Church and State historically and this includes Christendom. Lay leadership has historically exercised some authority in the appointments of clerics as well as examples of clerical excommunication of lay leaders who have betrayed the faith. There has always been tension between the boundaries of these respective authorities and the practical exercise has been fluid over specific historical and cultural circumstances but the existence of the two swords and their distinct powers have never been denied by any Catholic.

Through the exercise of the spiritual sword, the Vatican control of religious societies has become of weapon of suppression and destruction of Catholic religious life. What these Carmelite sisters are doing is exercising their vocation be removing themselves from the Vatican control of their community by their canonical right as "lay" Catholics to practice their faith. They are doing exactly what the lay members of Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission have done since our foundation in 2002. The temporal sword may very well be an important means by which God reestablished His Church until a holy pontiff is again wielding the spiritual sword.

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When arguing with a Neo-Modernist Novus Ordite Remember -

Modern Mind, Modern Thought: Don't be surprised when you at last discover that the Modern Mind is Mindless and Modern Thought is Thoughtless!

Modem Thought shirks definition. In all truth it is a giant’s task to extract a clear-cut and intelligible statement of what it exactly means by the terms it uses. For a definition requires thought; it requires a close examination and analysis of the nature of the thing to be defined, an accurate discrimination between its essentials and accidentals, and a painstaking comparison of that thing with similar things in order to discern what it has in common with them, and then to pick out just that specific note which makes it the thing that it is and different from everything else. All that, I say, calls for accurate and connected reasoning, and Modern Thought is quite unequal to the task. For it moves in a twilight of half-intelligence where it sees vague shapes and transforms them into monsters. Make the experiment of this for yourselves; if you will, take up the print of Modern Thought, some of which I shall presently indicate, and see what travesties it can make of the ideas of “dogma,”“faith,”“theology,”“metaphysics,”“God,”“morality,” etc., as well as of “civilization,”“culture,”“science” and “progress.” To whatever other tortures it may subject these words, or with whatever welter of brilliant sentences it may mix them—define them it does not.

All this is the same as saying that Modern Thought is flippant, cynical, skeptical, irrational and thoughtless—no one of which is the mark of thought truly so-called. In the face of searching questions, Modern Thought is as irresponsible as Boccacio’s “Cymon,” who:

Shunned the Church and used not much to pray,

He trudged along, unknowing what he sought,

And whistled as he went for want of thought.

It is difficult to speak of a flippant thing without oneself seeming to indulge in flippancy. Yet, were I to take Modern Thought very seriously and to define its most serious aspect, I could do no more than say that it is an attitude of mind which prefers to interpret life and judge the world not in the light of principles, tradition and authority, but according to a mood prompted by the moment and by the expediency of immediate environment—or the gravitation of man’s lower nature.

In justice to Modern Thought let it be said that at is not consistent with itself, for, while it spurns authority, it will nevertheless place the blindest reliance on any “authority” that serves its mood and temper, and this mood can, with the greatest ease, swing from the namby-pambiest optimism to the murkiest pessimism. And, if besides being observant persons you are moderately well read in history, it will soon break upon your realization that, after all, there is nothing modern about this mental affliction. It is as ancient as the day when Adam and Eve maimed their souls and bodies in Paradise in a fit of independence; it is as ancient as Heracitus, Epicurus, and the classic pagans. Its mood and their mood are essentially the same, the setting alone is different, the chief difference being that to-day the printing-press, the cinema and the radio (the T.V. and the Internet) offer the neo-paganism so many more facilities to waft itself abroad and spread the contagion of its mood.

Rev. Demetrius Zema, S.J., The Thoughtlessness of Modern Thought, Conference at Fordham University, 1933

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“The Devil is fighting a decisive battle”
Sr. Lucy also told me:

“Father, the Devil is fighting a decisive battle against the Virgin and, as you know, what most offends God and what will gain him the greatest number of souls in the shortest time is to gain the souls consecrated to God. For this also leaves unprotected the field of the laity and the Devil can more easily seize them.
“Also, Father, tell them that my cousins Francisco and Jacinta made sacrifices because they always saw the Blessed Virgin was very sad in all her apparitions. She never smiled at us. This anguish that we saw in her, caused by offenses to God and the chastisements that threaten sinners, penetrated our souls. And being children, we did not know what measures to devise except to pray and make sacrifices. …”
Referring to the vision of Hell that Our Lady showed her and Jacinta and Francisco, she said:
“For this reason, Father, it is my mission not just to tell about the material punishments that will certainly come over the earth if the world does not pray and do penance. No, my mission is to tell everyone the imminent danger we are in of losing our souls for all eternity if we remain fixed in sin.
“Father, we should not wait for a call to the world from Rome on the part of the Holy Father to do penance. Nor should we wait for a call for penance to come from the Bishops in our Dioceses, nor from our Religious Congregations. No, Our Lord has often used these means, and the world has not paid heed. So, now each one of us must begin to reform himself spiritually. Each one has to save not only his own soul, but also all the souls that God has placed on his pathway.
“Father, the Blessed Virgin did not tell me that we are in the last times of the world, but I understood this for three reasons:
“The first is because she told me that the Devil is engaging in a battle with the Virgin, a decisive battle. It is a final battle where one party will be victorious and the other will suffer defeat. So, from now on, we are either with God or we are with the Devil; there is no middle ground.
“The second reason is because she told me, as well as my cousins, that God is giving two last remedies to the world: the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. And, being the last remedies, that is to say, they are the final ones, means that there will be no others.

“And the third, because in the plans of the Divine Providence, when God is going to chastise the world He always first exhausts all other remedies. When He sees that the world pays no attention whatsoever, then, as we say in our imperfect way of talking, with a certain fear He presents us the last means of salvation, His Blessed Mother.
 If we despise and reject this last means, Heaven will no longer pardon us, because we will have committed a sin that the Gospel calls a sin against the Holy Spirit. This sin consists in openly rejecting – with full knowledge and will – the salvation that is put in our hands.
 ”Also, since Our Lord is a very good Son, He will not permit that we offend and despise His Blessed Mother. We have as obvious testimony the history of different centuries where Our Lord has shown us with terrible examples how He has always defended the honor of His Blessed Mother.
 ”Prayer and sacrifice are the two means to save the world. As for the Holy Rosary, Father, in these last times in which we are living, the Blessed Virgin has given a new efficacy to the praying of the Holy Rosary. This in such a way that there is no problem that cannot be resolved by praying the Rosary, no matter how difficult it is - be it temporal or above all spiritual - in the spiritual life of each of us or the lives of our families, be they our families in the world or Religious Communities, or even in the lives of peoples and nations.
 ”I repeat, there is no problem, as difficult as it may be, that we cannot resolve at this time by praying the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls.
 ”Then, there is devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, holding her as the seat of mercy, goodness and pardon and the sure door to enter Heaven. This is the first part of the Message referring to Our Lady of Fatima, and the second part, which is briefer but no less important, refers to the Holy Father.”

Sister Lucy of Fatima to Fr. Augustin Fuentes in 1957

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Israel, with the material and political support of the United States, has in GAZA, which is an open air prison of 17 sq/miles with a population of 2.1 million Palestinians, in last seven months:

· Killed: at least 34,596 people, including more than:

Ø More than 14,500 children killed

Ø 8,400 women killed

· Missing: more than 8,000 who are most likely buried under the rubble and soon will be counted with the dead

· Injured: more than 77,816 people with only 11 of 35 hospitals only partially functioning, unable to care for the injured

· Hundreds of Thousands currently in state of starvation

· More than half of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed or damaged

· 80% of commercial facilities destroyed

· 73% of school buildings destroyed

· 11 out of 35 hospitals are partially functioning

· 83% of groundwater wells not operational

· 267 places of Moslem worship that were used as places of refuge destroyed

Palestinian Ministry of Health in the occupied West Bank report on May 2, 2024

"A day will come when the Jewish Nation will cease to oppose order and will turn in sorrow and repentance to Him Whom they rejected before Pilate. That will be a glorious triumph for the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother. Until that day dawns, however, their naturalistic opposition to the True supernatural Order of the world must be exposed and combated."

Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S. SP., The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation

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Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Catholic Church Teaches:

“That the mystical body of Christ and the Catholic Church in communion with Rome are one and the same thing, is a doctrine based on revealed truth.”

Pius XII, Humani Generis

(Modernism teaches that) “the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.”

Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi, 1907

With truly lamentable results, our age, casting aside all restraint in its search for the ultimate causes of things, frequently pursues novelties so ardently that it rejects the legacy of the human race. Thus it falls into very serious errors, which are even more serious when they concern sacred authority, the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, and the principal mysteries of Faith. The fact that many Catholic writers also go beyond the limits determined by the Fathers and the Church herself is extremely regrettable. In the name of higher knowledge and historical research (they say), they are looking for that progress of dogmas which is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmas.

Pope St. Pius X, Lamentabili Sane, 1907

The Vatiacan II Church Teaches:

“Church of Christ… subsits in the Catholic Church.”

Lumen Gentium, Vatican II

NOTE: The author of this term, “subsist in,” was Pastor Wilhelm Schmidt, a Protestant minister who made the suggestion to Cardinal Augustin Bea, the ecumenist, modernist biblical scholar, patron of Fr. Annibale Bugnini, and confessor to Pope Pius XII, who in turn recruited the support of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger who then convinced Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne to bring the matter to the Council. This story was personally verified by Fr. Franz Schmidberger, First Assistant to the Superior General of the SSPX, by directly contacting Pastor Schmidt.

The problem remains if Lumen Gentium strictly and exclusively identifies the Mystical Body of Christ with the Catholic Church, as did Pius XII in Mystici Corporis. Can we not call it into doubt when we observe that not only is the attribute “Roman” missing, but also that one avoids saying that only Catholics are members of the Mystical Body. Thus they are telling us that the Church of Christ and of the Apostles subsistit in, is found in the Catholic Church. There is consequently no strict identification, that is exclusive, between the Church of Christ and the “Roman” Church. Vatican II admits, fundamentally, that non-Catholic Christians are members of the Mystical Body and not merely ordered to it.

Yves Cardinal Congar

Church of Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in Roman Catholicism but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities. (Bold face in original).

Avery Cardinal Dulles, a member of the International Theological Commission

It is difficult to say that the Catholic Church is still one, Catholic, apostolic, when one says that the others (other Christian communities) are equally one, Catholic and apostolic, albeit to a lesser degree. ---- at Vatican Council II, the Roman Catholic Church officially abandoned its monopoly over the Christian religion.

Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx

Concretely and actually the Church of Christ may be realized less, equally, or even more in a Church separated from Rome than in a Church in communion with Rome. This conclusion is inescapable on the basis of the understanding of Church that emerges from the teaching of Vatican Council II.

Fr. Gregory Baum

And we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio) the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Offers Clarification (?):
QUESTION: What is the meaning of the affirmation that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church?
RESPONSE:
Christ “established here on earth” only one Church and instituted it as a “visible and spiritual community”, that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist, and in which alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted. “This one Church of Christ, which we confess in the Creed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic […]. This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him”.
In number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium ‘subsistence’ means this perduring, historical continuity and the permanence of all the elements instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church, in which the Church of Christ is concretely found on this earth.

REPLY:

Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, and many other Protestant groups recite the Nicene Creed professing a belief in the “one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church.” They clearly do not define the word “catholic” in the same sense as Roman Catholics do. Is the CDF giving a Catholic or Protestant meaning to the word “catholic” when it explains the words “subsist in”? Is the comment of Cardinal Congar explaining the significance of the failure to use the word “Roman” important to our understanding of the CDF’s response? Is this a cleaver corruption of dogmatic truth through dissembling corruption of language? Should we be grateful to Cardinal Congar for his open and honest comments? Since the “ecumenism of return” is rejected then, do Protestants that do not have to “return” to the Roman Catholic Church already belong to the “Church of Christ”? Is there salvation in the “Church of Christ” separated from the Roman Catholic Church? It is a Dogma, an article of divine and Catholic faith, that there is one universal Church of the faithful outside of which there is no salvation.

Modernism and Neo-Modernism, built upon linguistic Deconstructionism which denies the intentionality of language, “fabricates a fictitious reality.” The Novus Ordo Church can only offer just another “pseudo-reality” to modern man and not the Absolute Truth of God's revelation. The worst thing of all is that most Novus Ordo Catholics are “satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language.” No wonder Pope Francis hates the “Absolute Truth” and declared it to be “idolatrous” and “godless”!

Plato's literary activity extended over fifty years, and time and again he asked himself anew: What is it that makes the sophists so dangerous? Toward the end he wrote one more dialogue, the Sophist, in which he added a new element to his answer: “The sophists,” he says, “fabricate a fictitious reality.” That the existential realm of man could be taken over by pseudo-realities whose fictitious nature threatens to become indiscernible is truly a depressing thought. And yet this Platonic nightmare, I hold, possesses an alarming contemporary relevance. For the general public is being reduced to a state where people not only are unable to find out about the truth but also become unable even to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious reality created by design through the abuse of language. This, says Plato, is the worst thing that the sophists are capable of wreaking upon mankind by their corruption of the word.

Josef Pieper, Abuse of Language - Abuse of Power

St. Thomas (II-II:11:1) defines heresy: "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas". The right Christian faith consists in giving one's voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching. There are, therefore, two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity, common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ's doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics. The subject-matter of both faith and heresy is, therefore, the deposit of the faith, that is, the sum total of truths revealed in Scripture and Tradition as proposed to our belief by the Church.

Catholic Encyclopedia, 1907

“Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (I John 4:1)

“But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil.” (Matt 5:37)

The Spirit of Intended Ambiguity that animated Vatican II

It would be most inconvenient for the articles of our Constitution to be rejected by the Central Commission or by the Council itself. That is why we must tread carefully and discreetly. Carefully, so that proposals be … formulated in such a way that much is said  without seeming to say anything: let many things be said in embryo and in this way let the door remain open to legitimate and possible postconciliar deductions and applications: let nothing be said that suggests excessive novelty and might invalidate all the rest.

Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, L’Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965

Even Paul VI proclaimed the necessity of PROSELYTISM! He was progressive but apparently not progressive enough for Francis the Apostate!

“Through this wordless witness these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live: Why are they like this? Why do they live in this way? What or who is it that inspires them? Why are they in our midst? Such a witness is already a silent proclamation of the Good News and a very powerful and effective one. […..] Nevertheless this always remains insufficient, because even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run if it is not explained, justified – what Peter called always having ‘your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have’ – and made explicit by a clear and unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus. The Good News proclaimed by the witness of life sooner or later has to be proclaimed by the word of life. There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, are not proclaimed.”

Pope Paul VI, Evangelii nuntiandi

“I’ve said it many times: proselytism is not Christian. Today I felt a certain bitterness when a woman approached me with a young man and a young woman, and said to me: ‘Your Holiness, I am from South Africa. This boy was a Hindu and converted to Catholicism. This girl was Anglican and converted to Catholicism.’ She told me in a triumphant way, as though she was showing off a hunting trophy. I felt uncomfortable and said to her, ‘Madam, evangelization yes, proselytism no’.”

Pope Francis the Apostate, to Jesuit community in Mozambique, September 2019

COMMENT: In about twenty years we will be celebrating the 500^th anniversary of the beginnings of Jesuit missionary work throughout the world. These missionaries provided regular detailed journal submissions to their superiors regarding the work of proselytism which included exactly to whom they preached the Gospel with their successes and failures in gaining Catholic converts, the very purpose of their work. Many of these documents are available on line. A brief review of them is enough to see what a vulgar reprobate they would consider Francis/Bergoglio. He actively works to obstruct the grace of God in the work of salvation of souls.

Cardinal Fernández’s Dignitas Infinita condemns abortion, gender theory but is silent on homosexuality

In the newly released text Cardinal Victor Fernández criticizes abortion and the rejection of gender differentiation as attacks on human dignity, while neglecting to discuss homosexuality.

LifeSiteNews | Vatican City | Michael Haynes | Mon Apr 8, 2024 — Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández has released his long-anticipated document on human dignity, written in line with Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tutti and modern teaching on dignity, which condemns abortion and surrogacy while notably remaining silent on homosexuality.

Released via press conference April 8 – the transferred feast of the Annunciation – the new text, Dignitas infinita, aims to highlight a line from Fratelli Tutti – namely, that “dignity exists ‘beyond all circumstances.’” 

“The Declaration strives to show that this is a universal truth that we are all called to recognize as a fundamental condition for our societies to be truly just, peaceful, healthy, and authentically human,” wrote Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and from whose office the document emerged. 

As summarized by Andrea Tornielli (editorial manager for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication) the document aims to address issues outside of the bioethical sphere:

The new text thus contributes to overcoming the dichotomy that exists between those who focus exclusively on defending nascent or dying life while forgetting so many other attacks against human dignity and, conversely, those who focus only on defending the poor and migrants while forgetting that life must be defended from conception to its natural conclusion.

Summarizing his lengthy text, Fernández wrote that “the Church, with the present Declaration, ardently urges that respect for the dignity of the human person beyond all circumstances be placed at the center of the commitment to the common good and at the center of every legal system.”

He had earlier decried how a modern misconception of dignity is “occasionally misused to justify an arbitrary proliferation of new rights, many of which are at odds with those originally defined and often are set in opposition to the fundamental right to life.”

While mentioning the Church’s condemnation of abortion and euthanasia, the text only mentions “sin” on two occasions – both of which occurred in the same sentence in section 22. The treatment of gender theory was critical, but only critical, whilst Pope Francis – under whose authority the document was written – has been much more condemnatory in his remarks.

Key also is the absence of any mention, much less condemnation, of homosexuality. In a text given to denoting teaching on human dignity, and the ways in which is is gravely violated, such an omission appears striking.

COMMENT: While it is good to see the condemnations of abortion, euthanasia, IVF and transgenderism from the Vatican, it is unfortunate that it is done for the wrong reasons. There is no reference to divine law and only passing reference to natural law. The grounds for opposition to these perversions in overwhelmingly argued from human dignity. In this respect this current document is analogous to Paul VI's condemnation of artificial birth control in Humanae vitae when Paul VI based his opposition against artificial contraception upon humanist arguments rather than arguments grounded upon natural law, divine law, the constant tradition and previous Magisterial teaching of the Church.

The entire argument of Dignitas Infinita is, as the title indicated, based upon the “infinite (sic) dignity” of the human person. This theory of the “infinite dignity” of the human person is derived from a false modernist philosophy of personalism and the theology of Vatican II.

He Who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15),(21) is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as He assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, Church in the Modern World

From this presupposition, the document Dignitatis Humanae (On Religious Freedom) was developed which taught:

A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty. The demand is likewise made that constitutional limits should be set to the powers of government, in order that there may be no encroachment on the rightful freedom of the person and of associations. This demand for freedom in human society chiefly regards the quest for the values proper to the human spirit. It regards, in the first place, the free exercise of religion in society. This Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. To this end, it searches into the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church-the treasury out of which the Church continually brings forth new things that are in harmony with the things that are old. [.....] This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, Religious freedom

This teaching of Vatican II forms the ground for this current document, Dignitas Infinita, by the downgraded Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document references for its authority Vatican II nine times, JPII nineteen times, Benedict XVI twelve times, Paul VI six times, Pius XII once, Pius XI once, and Pope Francis an amazing seventy-five times! It is clearly a Neo-Modernist product developed from a humanist ideology. Jesus Christ is referenced only eight times and these references are always ideologically driven, such as, in repeating Gaudium et spes, it says again: “By uniting himself with every human being through his Incarnation, Jesus Christ confirmed that each person possesses an immeasurable (sic) dignity simply by belonging to the human community; moreover, he affirmed that this dignity can never be lost.”

The problem with this Vatican II teaching is that it is not true which is easily apparent in the used of the words “infinite” and “immeasurable,” attributes of God and God alone, to describe the dignity of man. In the Incarnation, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity DID NOT unite Himself with all humanity. He united Himself with a single human nature when the Holy Ghost overshadowed the Immaculate Virgin Mary and she became the Mother of Jesus Christ, both God and Man. The human flesh of the Man-God became the material cause of the redemptive grace for all mankind when he suffered and died on the cross and rose again from the dead on the third day. Through faith those who believe in His name, received the sacraments of Baptism (born again of water and the Holy Ghost) and the Holy Eucharist, every individual man can then become united with Jesus Christ and by this union be raised to the dignity of being a Son of God by grace. All humanity stand in potentia to this dignity but only those who are members of the Catholic Church and in the state of grace possess this dignity in actu. This dignity can be lost by mortal sin and yet by recovered by sacramental penance. Without the dignity of being a son of God there is no hope whatsoever of salvation. St. Paul makes this teaching clear in his letter to the Romans that the true dignity of man is found only in his participation in the glory of God:

· “For all have sinned, and do need the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23

· “By whom (Jesus Christ) also we have access through faith into this grace, wherein we stand, and glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of God.” Rom. 5:2

· “For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life.” Rom. 6:4

· “Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” Rom. 8:21

· “I have therefore glory in Christ Jesus towards God.” Rom. 15:17

Vatican II teaches something altogether different. The Neo-modernists believe that by virtue of the Word becoming flesh, human nature itself was “infinitely” dignified to the exalted level that no person was anymore obligated to believe in God's revealed truth, obey His commandments, or worship God according to his “received and approved” immemorial rites. This is such an absurd abuse of the first principles of the understanding that it is evident that it is impossible to reason anyone out of this opinion because it is impossible that they could have ever reasoned themselves into it in the first place! All rights are derived from duties is Catholic truth. They have inverted this claiming that rights determine duties and the duty to worship God, believe His revelation and keep His commandments cannot impose any obligation on any creature who possesses the exalted human dignity to do whatever he pleases!

Vladimir Soloviev, the Catholic Russian philosopher and defender of the Kingship of Jesus Christ, who died in 1900 at the age of 47 in extreme poverty, said that justice is the practical application of truth. Dignitatis Humanae from Vatican II affirms that aspirations of modern man to Religious freedom are “greatly in accord with truth and justice.” They are not. If man possessed a right to worship idols than God would be unjust for punishing idolaters and the Vatican II teaching on “infinite dignity” is just another form of idolatry that has led to generalized human degradation. The Vatican II teaching of human dignity is just one big lie and the practical application of lies is called injustice. Francis claims that he discovered the moral truth that none of his predecessors could discover that all capital punishment for whatever reason is intrinsically evil because of the “infinite dignity” of the human person. Now a murderer has a greater right to life than the his victim. Or in the case of abortion, the mother's convenience has a greater standing that the life of her child. Now Francis might argue against this claim but his argument has no greater validity than the mother who wants the abortion. After all, in the conflict of rights between two “infinite dignities” than what is to stop mightier from being right?

Francis the Solipsist, the longer he lives the more self-referential his theological productions. Unfortunately for Francis, unless he repents, he will learn that in hell the only evidence for “infinite... immeasurable human dignity” that “can never be lost,” will be that the punishment is eternal.

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Criminal Courts now indicting faithful Catholic priests for criticism of Homosexual pederast clergy!

Catholic priest in Switzerland faces ‘hate crime’ trial over article criticizing homosexual clergy

The trial against Fr. Manfred Hauke for publishing an article by Polish priest, Fr. Draiusz Oko, critical of predatory, homosexual clergy began on Monday in Bellinzona, Switzerland.

LifeSiteNews | Andreas Wailzer | April 10, 2024 — Catholic priest and theology professor Fr. Manfred Hauke has to stand trial at a criminal court in Switzerland for publishing an article critical of homosexual clergy.

Katholisch.de reports that the trial against Hauke started on Monday at the criminal court in Bellinzona, Switzerland. The court case was triggered after the German priest appealed a fine that he received in December 2022.

Hauke, who teaches theology at the University of Lugano, Switzerland, is accused of violating a ban against “discrimination” and “inciting hatred” against homosexuals for publishing an article as the publisher of the magazine Theologisches in 2021.

The article was authored by Polish priest Fr. Draiusz Oko and highlighted cases of abuse by homosexual priests and bishops and detailed mechanisms used by “homoclans” or a “homomafia” of predatory clerics to avoid accountability.

Oko described such groups as “a colony of parasites” that “cares first of all for itself, and not for the hosts at whose expense it lives” and as a “homosexual plague” or a “cancer that is even ready to kill its host,” among other things. He stressed that “the existence of such powerful clans” attested to by both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI “is an obvious logical, ethical, and dogmatic contradiction to the very essence of the Church and her teaching.”

In May 2022, Oko and 91-year-old Fr. Johannes Stöhr, the editor responsible for publishing the article in the journal, were sentenced to fines of € 3,150 and € 4,000, respectively, by a German court.

Fr. Wolfgang Rothe, a dissident, scandal-plagued priest with the Archdiocese of Munich, confirmed that he was the one who reported Oko, Stöhr, and Hauke to German authorities.

Rothe, who is openly homosexual, is one of the most aggressively outspoken promoters of the LGBT agenda in the Catholic Church in Germany.

In 2004, Rothe was involved in a major Church scandal when he had to step down as vice-rector of a seminary in St. Pölten, Austria, after child pornography and photographs depicting homosexual activity involving seminarians and staff emerged. Photos also showed Rothe kissing a man. The seminary was eventually shut down by the Vatican’s special investigator, Bishop Klaus Küng.

DOGMA, the proximate rule of faith for the faithful:

According to Fr. Joseph Fenton, editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review:

· Dogmas are “truths,” not precepts.

· Dogmas are “teachings we are obliged to believe with the assent of divine and Catholic faith.”

· Dogmas are defined “truths” which the “apostles of Jesus Christ preached to His Church.”

· Dogmas are “truths” that have been “supernaturally communicated or revealed by God Himself.”

· Dogmas “constitute the central or primary object of the Church’s infallible teaching activity.”

A dogma is by definition immutable and unchangeable. The denial of any dogma makes one a heretic by definition.

· Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of deeper understanding.  Therefore... let the understanding... be solely in its own genus, namely the same dogma, with the same sense and the same understanding.

Vatican I, Dei Filius

· Let nothing of the truths that have been defined ( i.e.: dogmas) be lessened, nothing altered, nothing added; but let them be preserved intact, in word and meaning. 

Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos

· [Dogma must be understood] by the very sense by which it is defined and must be held to be by itself a sufficient demonstration, very sure and adapter to all the faithful. 

Ven. Pope Pius IX, Inter Gravissimas, 1870

· If anyone shall have said that it is possible that to the dogmas declared by the Church a meaning must sometimes be attributed according to the progress of knowledge, different from what the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema. 

Vatican I, Dei Filius

· [Regarding dogma] nothing else is to be believed other than the words; and I hold that this absolute and unchangeable truth, which was preached by the Apostles from the earliest times, is to be understood in no other way than by the words. 

Oath Against Modernism

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