As Saint Thomas Aquinas says, when the errors of our prelates are public and grave and constitute an imminent danger to the Church, we are obliged to break deferential silence and publicly correct them.
For that reason, I will take this occasion to publicly call upon fellow Catholics to ask Cardinal Brandmüller a simple question: Have you ever read Canon 332 §2?
I understand, that the general public might consider such a question proposed in public on a blog to be unseemly and insulting, and so let me explain why asking that question is germane for the Cardinal and for every other Cardinal in the Church.
In that article, the Cardinal discusses principally whether Papal resignations can be done and under what conditions. The article is a fine piece of scholarship, and I do not contest any other point of it, here. Rather, I wish to draw the reader’s attention to 3 glaring omissions in the text, which cause me to ask the Cardinal a public question.
The Cardinal cites Canon 332 §2 no less than 4 times in his Historico-Canonical Study, on pages 6, 7, 10 and 11. In the first case, in reference to a papal resignation being an extraordinary event; in the second, in reference to the conditions for a valid resignation,; in the third, that a papal resignation is morally licit; and in the fourth, again the conditions for a valid resignation.
In both cases, on page 7 and 11, the Cardinal declares that the only conditions for a valid resignation are, libere fiat et rite manifestetur, citing the Latin of the main clause of that canon, which Latin means: “be done freely and manifested according to the norm of law“.
Its not that he does not mention the introductory clause of both Canon 221 in the Code of Canon Law of 1917, and contextual affirms that the same introduction is had in Canon 332 §2. Nay, its rather that he misses the striking difference in the Canon of the New Code in comparison with the canon of the old code. Namely, that in the New Code, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, during the time (1983) with the future Pope Benedict XVi was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Legislator (Pope John Paul II) added words which is not found in the old canon: suo muneri.
How, anyone can read a Canon speaking about when a papal resignation occurs and is valid, and miss the key word of the introductory and fundamental conditional clause, is beyond me. But it seems that if a man so learned as this Cardinal can do it, perhaps all the other Cardinals have also done it. Maybe even Cardinal Burke, too?
And this is why my request that Catholics ask Cardinal Brandmuller a question is not disrespectful nor impertinent. Because has has been demonstrated by many others, and myself, the word munus takes on the condition of a sine non qua, that is, of a requirement for validity which cannot be obviated under any condition. Thus its manifestly wrong to speak of only 2 conditions for a papal resignation, since in the New Code, papal resignations only occur when the Pope resigns the Petrine Munus.
This is important, because in regard to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the Latin text renounced only the or a ministerium received, NOT the papal munus. This is important, because if Pope Benedict never resigned his office, the conclave of 2013 was uncanonical and Bergoglio is an Anti-Pope in every canonical sense of the word.
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For those who want to understand the correct canonical argument, why Pope Benedict XVI is the Pope and why Bergoglio was never pope, supported by Canon Law and all the evidence, and put in simple terms, see “How and Why Pope Benedict’s Resignation is invalid by the law itself.” For a scholastic argument demonstrating that the text of the resignation does not effect a resignation of office, see my disputed question, here at From Rome, linked under the words “many others” just above here.
For the text of the resignation, translations, other articles, etc., see the same link under the words, “many others”, where I recite the history of the controversy.
PHOTO Credits: The New York Times, retrieved via Google Images.
This week, Catholic Family News, the traditional private Catholic Newspaper founded by the late John Vennari, publishes an article entitled, “Socci’s Thesis Falls Short: Review of the Secret of Benedict XVI“, an English translation of an article which was published on Jan 8, 2019 online at Cooperatores Veritatis. The translator is a Giuseppe Pelligrino. (Socci’s book details facts and canonical arguments why Pope Benedict XVI is still the Pope, and Bergoglio an Anti-Pope, that is uncanonically elected). I will comment on the English version of the article.
The author, Dr. Roberto de Mattei, I have long admired, and have had the occasion to meet in person. His foundation, the Lepanto Foundation does much good work, and thus I bear him no animus. Nay, if the author of that article was someone unknown or not influential at Rome, I would probably have paid it no attention at all.
Moreover, the purpose of this present article is not to defend Socci’s book. Rather it is to address the grave errors contained in De Mattei’s article, which on account of his personal reputation are magnified in the minds of many, and thus represent a danger to souls.
Here, then, I will discuss the errors briefly in the order they appear in that English translation by Signor Pellegrino.
The first error of which is that De Mattei sustains that the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI is valid, because there has been a peaceful and universal acceptance of the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.
I will put aside the fact that several recent polls (not scientific) have shown that as much as 70% of Catholics reject Bergoglio as pope, because there is a more serious error to address, than disputing whether there is in fact a peaceful and universal acceptance of Bergoglio’s election.
Signor De Mattei is learned enough to own a copy of the Code of Canon Law. So I humbly suggest he read Canon 359 and consider publicly withdrawing his assertion that a peaceful and universal acceptance of an apparent papal election establishes it to be held as valid by Catholics. For, that canon reads in Latin:
Can. 359 — Sede Apostolica vacante, Cardinalium Collegium ea tantum in Ecclesia gaudet potestate, quae in peculiari lege eidem tribuitur.
When translated into English — here I give my own translation — that canon says:
Canon 359 — When the Apostolic See is vacant, the College of Cardinals only enjoys that power in the Church, which is granted to it in particular law.
This is the reference to the power of the College to elect the Pope. So, according to Canon 359, when there is no pope, the Cardinals have the authority to elect a pope.
Now, if the resignation of a pope is in doubt, then obviously, there is a doubt whether the Apostolic See is vacant, and therefore the Cardinals have doubtful authority. And when a resignation of a pope has not taken place, or a pope is not dead, the Apostolic See is not vacant, and therefore the Cardinals have NO power to elect another.
So, it should be obvious then, that “the peaceful and universal acceptance of the election of a pope by a College of Cardinals” which HAS NO POWER to elect a pope, because the See is NOT vacant, DOES NOT MAKE THE ELECTION VALID.
Second, De Mattei claims this principal regarding the acceptance of the election of a pope on the basis of commonly held opinion. But if he has studied Canon Law, he should know that Canon 17 does not permit common theological or canonical opinions to be interpretative guides to reading any canon, when the text of the canon expressly forbids an act to take place by denying the body which acts the power to act. For in such a case the mind of the Legislator takes precedence.
Third, what is worse, De Mattei then cites the Vatican translation of Canon 332 §2, where he admits that it denies that a papal resignation is valid on the grounds that anyone accepts it (in its final condition)! How that squares with the theory of peaceful and universal acceptance is impossible to imagine, since it undermines the validity of its application to the case of a disputed resignation. It does so, because obviously a Conclave called during the life of a pope who has not resigned, is called either because that College knows he has not and does intend to elect an Anti-Pope, and then it does not matter who accepts him, his election is invalid; or in the case the College opines that a resignation is valid, and they proceed to act as if there is no pope. But as canon 332 §2 declares, that they think it is valid, does not make it valid. Therefore, even if they think it is valid, when it is not valid, they cannot appeal to Canon 332 §2 to claim the authority in Canon 359 to lawfully elect another. Rather, they must follow Canon 17 and apply it. And so, whether the subsequent election be accepted or not, in the case of elections which follow papal resignations, the principal cited by De Mattei is improperly cited at best because it pertains to another case.
Finally, De Mattei is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest, when he says that Violi’s canonical study of Pope Benedict’s act of Feb 11, 2013 contributes to the confusion. Because that study, which is cited in the preface of the Disputed Question, published here in November, is a very scholarly well thought out and precise study without any animus or polemic, which gives great clarity to the canonical signification of that papal act. To say that it causes confusion therefore is not based on Violi’s work, but rather seemingly on a desire to advance his own opinion by insulting a scholar who shows greater knowledge of Canon Law than himself.
As for Archbishop Ganswein’s discourse at the Gregorian University, at first glance it does seem to be confusing. But when you research, as Ann Barnhardt has done, what opinions regarding the mutability of the Papacy were being discussed at Tubingen, when Fr. Joseph Ratzinger was a professor of Theology there, then you would rather say its revealing, not confusing at all.
For those who want to understand the correct canonical argument, why Pope Benedict XVI is the Pope and why Bergoglio was never pope, supported by Canon Law and all the evidence, and put in simple terms, see “How and Why Pope Benedict’s Resignation is invalid by the law itself.”
It is often said that pride is the sin of our age.
So often said, that perhaps we have never meditated on what that means or surveyed how true that saying is.
The word, “pride” can signify a sin, a vice, or the esteem for a thing, as in “I take pride in my Alma Mater.”
Of the sin, it is true that pride was the first sin of the first created person: Lucifer. “I shall not serve” (Jerimiah 2:20), is the scriptural phrase oft quoted by the Fathers and Doctors and Saints and attributed, by accommodation, to Lucifer’s sign of rebellion.
Saint Bonaventure gives a wonderful meditation on this, in his tract on demonology. Therein, he says that it was in the insistence not to serve God, that Lucifer consummated his sin of pride. This is because pride is the vice which first moves the spirit to go out of its proper place and seek a higher place. Since the Angels were created to serve God, there could be no rebellion or pride in an Angel except he refuse to serve God.
The first effect, therefore, of the vice of pride, is to omit the divine service or worship of God.
This is because, the proper and just relationship of every creature to the Creator is one of a just recognition of the dependence of the creature upon the Creator in all things, a generous expression and manifestation of gratitude to the Creator and a diligent and exact worship of God in mind and heart and action, and thus the zealous service or obsequium of God.
Contrariwise, the effects of the vice and sin of pride are first to consider that the creature is NOT dependent upon God, and thus to omit the just recognition of that dependence, to omit a generous expression and manifestation of gratitude as a dependent and subject creature to the Creator, and thus to omit a diligent and exact worship of God in mind and heart and action, and consequently to omit the zealous service of God.
The self-evident characteristics of pride, when recognized, are a powerful measure by which one can recognize pride in one’s self and in our present age.
Let us take these characteristics and use them to measure what has happened in the Church in the last 60 years, and let us follow these considerations to their most impolitical but true conclusions.
Pride is the cause of its own downfall
For his sin of pride, Lucifer was cast out of Heaven, and all those angels who followed him in that sin, with him.
This casting out was formally an act of the Divine Justice: God did actually order and command and expel them from Heaven.
But for mankind, after his fall, pride is the cause of his own downfall, even without the intervention of God — though God does intervene and punish it — because it leads of itself to the ruinous disorder of man in his own mind, in his own heart, in his own person and body and relation to human society and with God.
The effect of Pride in the Church
Thus, even in the Church, the sin of pride has its own effect, even though God spiritually and temporally and eternally punishes this sin, which is mortal ex genere suo and secundum se.
It is mortal from its own very genus (ex genere suo), because it directly opposes the Divine Will which orders all things wisely and puts all in their proper place. Its mortal according to itself (secundum se), because it of necessity destroys the spiritual life.
Now the truth of the Church, obviously, like all things which pride corrupts, must be directly attacked by the pride of Catholics. The truth of the Church, however, is that She was founded by Jesus Christ as the ark of salvation and the only true religion for mankind.
When pride is introduced into the very life of the Church Militant, it must, humanly speaking, undo the truth of the Church. And the worst sin of pride which could be introduced into the Church is the pride which would attack Her most directly and intimately.
Vatican II as the consummate sin of Pride
Now the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, as Pope Pius XII taught, the Holy Spirit, Her quasi-soul. As is seen in the history of the Church, in moments of crisis, the Holy Spirit has raised up holy Saints and Doctors and Popes who have called councils to condemn errors and restore disciplines.
Now a general principle of ever creature is that it depends upon God not only for its creation, or existence, but also for its essence, nature and form; and not only for these its first being (esse primum), but also for its second being (esse secundum), that is, its actions. This does not mean that creatures are puppets who act when God commands, but that creatures on the natural level cannot do anything unless God either permits or commands; and in the supernatural world, creatures cannot do anything meritorious of eternal life unless God permits AND commands.
For this reason, if God wills that a Council be called, He gives the grace; if it is accepted and is called, He will see that it accomplishes His will, though men must cooperate. However, contrariwise, if God does NOT call a council, NO matter how many men collaborate, whether as saints or sinners, that Council cannot produce good fruit supernaturally speaking.
After 60 years, anyone with a sense of honesty must admit that something is wrong with Vatican II and its implementation. That leads to the obvious conclusion that pride has entered into the mix somewhere.
As a matter of historic fact, however, it can be confirmed that pride had everything to do with Vatican II.
First, because a council to reunite all Christians was first promoted at the international Convention of Masonic Lodges in Istanbul, when Archbishop Roncalli was the Apostolic Nuncio in Greece. At that conference, the Greek Patriarch was persuaded to accept the suggestion. He visited with Roncalli and suggested it to him. And afterwards Roncalli admitted this to his private secretary. Years later when Roncalli was elected Pope and took the name John XXIII he called Vatican II for precisely this reason.
So the inspiration for Vatican II came from the Masonic Lodges, whose three-headed God, is a devil. Hence, the inspiration for Vatican II does not come from God, but from a demon of pride. Hence the true spirit of Vatican II must be a demon of pride, not the Holy Spirit, because God does not baptize the work of demons.
Pride visible in the act by John XXIII to call Vatican II
That pride was visible at Vatican II is obvious to all who honestly look at the history of the Council.
First, John XXIII called the Council without any reason to do so.
Second, he called a Council which he personally knew was suggested to him by the Freemasons.
Third, he called a Council to change things which the Holy Spirit had already ratified in previous councils and through Sacred and Ecclesiastical tradition and the abundant fruitfulness of the Church living and promoting these things.
In this way, the pride of John XXIII offended the entire Holy Trinity. Because God the Father is the author of order and reason, not of whims and chance; God the Son is the Head of the Church, not the Freemasons; God the Holy Spirit is the Lord and vivifier of the Church, not the Pope.
A pope cannot just will something to happen supernaturally and it happens. He is not God. And to act in this way is a sin of consummate pride, because it presupposes that one is God, when one is not God.
Pride visible at the Council
That pride was visible at the Council can be seen in this: that for the Bishops of the world to convene for a council when there was no reason and to consider changing what had no need to be changed, and to presume to do this without any sign of God, relying only on the whim of a pope who is not God, is consummate pride.
To abandon carefully prepared schemata for the Council on a whim vote, is consummate pride, because certainly the best theologians working for 2-4 years are more able to prepare texts than a mix of good and bad theologians working hastily for a compromise.
To insult learned and holy Cardinals during the Council by denying them the microphone and cheering their removal from the podium, is consummate pride, because it attacks the better and exalts the mediocre.
To vote on documents which are dozens of pages long in Latin, when one has little knowledge of Latin, and to do so in a few weeks before having accurate translations, is consummate intellectual pride and wilfulness.
To call such a council “ecumenical”, “dogmatic”, “sacred”, “sacrosanct”, “infallible” or “pastoral” is also consummate pride, because it is a lie to call such a gathering any of these things.
To approve such documents and insist they then become the very norm of ecclesial renewal, is consummate pride, because it exalts the whims and haste of clergymen over the Headship of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the Church.
Pride visible in the Conciliar Texts
Consummate pride is also visible in the very texts of the Council.
It is a work of pride to change discipline before defining doctrine. But this is what Sacrosanctum concilium, the document on the liturgy did.
It is a work of pride to exalt Divine Revelation, all the while asserting one’s authority to change everything in the Church which was founded in fidelity to Divine Revelation. But this is what Dei Verbum did.
It is a work of pride to praise the pursuit of the perfection of Divine Charity, all the while setting up roadblocks and instituting processes for the breakdown and dissolution of the very communities dedicated by vow to pursue this: religious communities. But this is what Perfectae Charitatis did.
It is a work of pride to assert anyone can be saved apart from Christ and apart from His Church. But this is what Nostra Aetate did.
And one could go on and on about nearly all the Vatican II documents.
Pride visible in the Aggiornamento
Consummate pride is clearly visible in every aspect of the Aggiornamento.
First, it is visible in the very name of the renewal and application of the Council: “aggiornamento”, which is Italian for “updating”, as if the Church whose very quasi soul is the Lord and Vivifier, the Creator Holy Spirit, could be in need of updating, that is could be old or decrepit; or could be in need of being up to date with the world, though She is the immaculate Bride of God!
Second, consummate pride is visible in documents of the Aggiornamento, which cite only the Council or Scripture in the “light of the council”, as if the Catholic religion now consisted in living by the conciliar texts, just as the Church before Council lived by Sacred Scripture.
Third, consummate pride is visible in the very history and course of the Aggiornamento, in which though despite 70 years of statistical and moral proof of failure and sterility, the Sacred Hierarchy pursues loyalty to the Council even to the destruction of all souls and institutions.
Fourth, consummate pride is the very spirit of the Aggiornamento, because all addicted to it refuse to repent, to recognize their spirit as prideful, and to admit any change of course is now a moral obligation.
In short, Vatican II allowed to enter into the Church the spirit of luciferian pride and the Aggiornamento and the Sacred Hierarchy have made this diabolic spirit the official religion of the Catholic Church.
Some examples of Pride in the daily life of the Church
It is consummate pride to offer the Divine Sacrifice while turning your back to God (versus populum).
It is consummate pride to obstruct, prevent and forbid that a priest offering sacrifice to God face God (ad orientem).
It is consummate pride to put any temporal need or activity before the worship of God, by not opening Churches as early as possible, having mass in the morning, or opening them in the evening to end the day thanking God.
It is consummate pride for priests and religious to spend more time watching TV or eating than praying to God.
It is consummate pride to assert and insist that the laity receive the Most Blessed Sacrament in the hand, or in the Latin Rite, while standing.
It is consummate pride to move the Tablernacle which contains God, off the central axis of the Church and/or to hide it away from the faithful.
It is consummate pride to use secular or worldly music or instruments during Divine Worship.
It is consummate pride to use translations or liturgical texts which are ideologically manipulated in a sense incoherent and or opposed to Scripture, Tradition or the working of holiness in the Church as it has been for 1965 years prior to the close of Vatican II.
It is consummate pride to alter the Sacraments and to alter the rituals of the Mass.
It is consummate pride to alter marriage vows and the rules of religious orders founded by Saints and fruitful with numerous saints.
One could go one, endlessly, I think, but you get the idea.
What are you going to do about it?
Well, obviously, only to lament these problems, would be an act of pride, because as Catholics and God’s creatures we are obliged in justice to oppose pride and undo the works of pride.
But it would also be a work of pride to leave the Church.
It is a work of pride too to want only to manage the problem, or milk the problem, without seeking to cure the problem, as many groups and “Catholic” publications do without realizing it, perhaps.
It is also a work of pride to think or attempt to negotiate with a devil or compromise with pride and the works of pride.
The humble thing to do is 1: to completely reject what has come forth and been conceived in pride and to live one’s Catholic life as good Catholics lived before the Council, and 2: to strive to convince all other Catholics to do the same.
Rome, July 8, 2016 A.D.: His Eminence, Cardinal Sarah, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, has called upon all priests of the Roman Rite to return to praying the Mass ad orientem.
Ad orientem, is the Latin for “facing the East”. In matters liturgical, it means facing the Tabernacle placed at the center of the narthex of the Sanctuary, that is the point on the central axis between the High Altar and the back of the Church. Though, technically, in Major Basilicas, the doors of which open to the East, it means facing the main doors, as the Pope does at the Basilica of St. Peter and St. John Lateran, at Rome.
Ad orientem, means, thus, that the priest when he offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, would be facing away from the congregation, in most churches, and showing them his back.
Here are some sound reasons, to heed the Cardinal’s invitation:
He is the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, hence it must be presumed he has the Pope’s permission to issue this invitation, therefore, not to, would signify disrespect at the least, for proper ecclesiastical authority.
He is the most eminent member of the College of Cardinals from Africa, so not to heed his invitation might make some thing that one is a racist, like Cardinal Kasper.
Catholics and even all the Orthodox, have faced ad orientem, during Mass for 1965 years. The practice only was attacked after Vatican II, by the bad example of Paul VI, who tolerated and practiced this.
Ad orientem, has always been the liturgical law in the Roman Rite, even the rubrics presuppose this, but priests have been constrained by political forces in the Church, and often threaten gravely with spiritual, legal and physical violence if they kept this tradition.
This practice is more biblical, because when Our Lord Ascended into Heaven, He ascended into the East, and the Apostles and Disciples gazed for a long time to the East to see if Our Lord would immediately come back.
This practice is more eschatological, for when the Mass is offered in this direction, the whole congregation of the faithful show that they are awaiting the imminent return of the Lord, at the end of time.
This practice is more theological, because the Priest faces the Son and the Father, in the Holy Spirit, and the congregation worships the Triune God with the Priest.
This practice is more mystical, because the priest, and the congregation with him, turns to God, face to face, as Moses did on Mt. Horeb, when the living God revealed Himself for the first time, face to face to a human being.
This practice is more prayerful, since by facing in this way, there are less distractions, and the dialogue of prayer, which should be directed solely to God, is directed solely to God.
This practice is more priestly, because the priest has the intimacy of praying to God without distractions and with his own face veiled to the people, as it were, since they cannot see him face on; while the faithful join him in the same attitude of prayer, sharing in it in their own way.
This practice is more ecclesiological, because priest and faithful pray in the same direction in unity.
This practice is more pastoral, because it manifests evidently to all the faithful that the Mass is a prayer to God.
This practice will promote vocations, because men and altar boys will recognize more clearly that the role of the priest is not to be an actor before men, but a priest before God, and that the Mass is a solemn act of sacrifice and worship, not a stage for entertainment.
This practice will promote reverence, because facing God in this way removes all need for showing off to the congregation, and obstructs it.
This practice will promote mass attendance, because the faithful, wearied throughout the week by their mundane duties, will at last have the most important moment of their week, the prayer of the Canon of the Mass to themselves as a prayer time with God, their Lord, Savior and Redeemer, without distractions.
This practice will promote the restoration of the Ancient Liturgies of the Church, because the silly language and non reverential rubrics promoted by the Aggiornamento will be more easily seen for the discordant realities that they are.
But most importantly of all, Catholics always have prayed the Mass in this way, and if that or all these reasons are not enough, there is something gravely lacking in the faith of the local church and her pastors.
Archibishop Georg Gänswein of the Pontifical Household, former private secretary to Pope Benedict XVI
Rome, May 24, 2016: The recent revelations by Archbishop Georg Gänswein point to a stunning possibility, that during the Conclave of 2005, which elected Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio and his supporters consented to his rival’s election, on the condition that after a fixed number of years, he would resign, and the next conclave elect himself Pope.
This theoretical postulate is based on the following reasoned speculations:
There is precedent in the history of Conclaves for deals among rival factions: As we noted in the article, “Team Bergoglio” and the legacy of Cardinal Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, during the Conclave which elected Saint Pius X, there was the curious consequence that Rampolla’s supporters were consecrated Bishops by Pius X following his election, and Pius X’s supporters, bishops, by Cardinal Rampolla.
Archbishop Gänswein confirms the existence of the St. Gallen group, a self-named “mafia” organization in the Church which worked actively to promote the election of Cardinal Bergoglio in 2005. This confirmed what Vaticanist Paul Baade admitted last year.
Pope Benedict XVI explained his reason to retire for reasons which do not seem credible: namely for poor health, even though he has not lost the capacity to speak, think, walk or make decisions.
Pope Benedict XVI planned his retirement well in advance: according to Cardinal Bertone, as much as 7 months in advance; according to publish reports, the former Cardinal of Palermo knew more than 2 years before, a fact which he revealed during a dinner in a restaurant in China.
Pope Benedict XVI has not issued one word of criticism of Pope Francis’ outrageous statements and scandalous actions.
The supporters of Pope Benedict XVI have not personally criticized Pope Francis in public for any of his heretical, erroneous or scandalous words or actions during the latters’ pontificate.
There is constant emphasis, by Pope Benedict XVI and now Archbishop Gänswein that in some way both Benedict and Francis share the Petrine ministry.
None of this seems possible to From Rome without there having been a formal agreement among the Cardinals in the conclave of 2005 to share the Papacy among the 2 rival candidates.
Finally, if such a pact were made, it is not clear whether it would violate UDG 81 or canon law. But seeing that there is yet no firm evidence of the existence of such a pact, we will omit speculating as to its effect in law on the basis of UDG 81 (read more about this in the series of articles published here).
However, if this pact to elect Bergoglio did in fact happen, it would be more than sufficient explanation why none of the Cardinals have made any objection or heard any petitions regarding the Team Bergoglio scandal, in which it appears that up to 20+ Cardinals canvassed for votes for Bergoglio, most likely with his consent, in the 2013 Conclave, in violation of UDG 81, the violation of which is an excommuncate-able offense. For, if the College made an pact regarding votes in 2005, they might very well have been excommunicated, in virtue of the Papal Law, since that time. This might explain the utter breakdown of public virtue and faith which is spreading like a wild fire among the Sacred College, as a spiritual punishment for that most occult crime.
Saturday afternoon. Preparations are in place for the whirlwind of weekend pastoral activities… leaving certain responsibilities on hold…when suddenly I start receiving so many cell messages that I will never have time to answer… “Father, did you see the latest?” “Father, now concubines can receive Communion!”, “Father, is there no such thing as mortal sin any more in the Church?”, “Father – is it a sin to live as brother and sister now?”, and so on.
I end up opting to put the device on airplane mode, to get a moment to write a few lines about the new Bergoglian encyclopedia “Amoris Laetitia”: The “joy of love”. It is an encyclopedia that attempts to be a Gospel, the “Gospel of the Family” … of the Bergoglian family, that is. The word-count of the four Gospels of Christ, inspired by the Holy Spirit, comes to a total of approximately 76,000 words, in the Jerusalem version. The new “Bergoglian Gospel” (which we can consider an authentic 21st century apocryphal gospel), is over 60,000 words long, much longer than the three Synoptic Gospels all together. It’s confused verbosity – that, above all, causes confusion – has left all commentators, including the writer of these lines, in doubt as to whether or not it was worthwhile reading the whole thing, or to write anything about it…
To use the term “gospel” with respect to the recent document was not my idea, but rather what the author himself called it: “the Gospel of the Family” (AL 60, 63, 76, 200, 201). And we qualify it as “apocryphal”, since this is the term used for texts containing that mix realities and true doctrines with errors, lies and outright heresies. In the first centuries, they were normally the conceited writings of the Gnostics or Nicolaitans; for which reason their authors would attempt to ‘hide’ their identity in anonymity, as well maintain secrecy about their writings – hence the use of the Greek term ‘hidden’ to identify these writings: apókryphos (all hidden). But the Church has always witnessed the existence of apocryphal texts – full of verboseness, like certain dishes in which one notes nutritious and tasty ingredients buoying together with venomous elements in the same nauseating stew.
(Read the rest at the URL above: Many thanks to the priest from Rome, for this handy summary and refutation of Amoris Laetitia)
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Nota Bene: While it is good to critique the errors and deceits of this document, ‘Amoris Laetitia’, it remains morally necessary that these errors be condemned and the Document be recinded, its authors called to repentance and the Bishops of the world urged to these things.
And now there is a means to urge this: the #AL Conference in Rome, on June 25th, see Veri Catholici for more info.
The False Shepherd, a detail of the illumination from the mss. Douce 266 in the Bodleian Library
Rome, May 12, 2016 A.D: There is no greater and more radical challenge for the Christian believer than to take another as his Master.
Indeed, Christians are recognized by the fact that they regard Jesus Christ, and Him alone, as their Master, in accord with the scripture verse, in which Christ condemned the religious leaders of ancient Israel, Matthew 23:10 ff:
10 Neither be ye called masters; for one is you master, Christ. 11 He that is the greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
Indeed, its very tempting, in today’s world in which truth is up for grabs and violent political clashes are being waged on all sides, for the Christian to take an “I’m ok, you’re ok” view, that is, a “get along with everyone” kind of attitude, in which truth does not matter, only co-existence.
The Loadstone of Hope
The only problem is, that there is a vast difference between the man who thinks Christ is a religious teacher and the man who is loyal to Christ no matter what. First first regards Him as one might regard a philosopher: taking the man’s teachings here and there, according to his personal tastes and likes, but not as a rule of life.
The second regards Him as the Incarnate Son of God, apart from Whose teaching No man on Earth can escape eternal and perpetual damnation in the fires of Hell.
As St. Augustine said, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
Indeed, what distinguishes the Christian from all other men is Hope.
Hope is that theological virtue least spoke of today, because in modern times a proper understanding and appreciation of it has been so attacked in the minds of men, that nearly nobody appears to have it or cultivate it or use it.
Hope is that theological virtue which puts full faith and confidence in the promises of God for those who keep them. Its the most essential and key Christian virtue, given to us in Baptism, but cultivated only with good works. If you do not really hope that God will reward you for fidelity to Christ, then obviously you will not be faithful to Him. Likewise, if you think that you can manage for yourself the rules by which you will get into Heaven, there is no need for you to have hope in God’s promises, you can presume for yourself — a presumption which is both your ultimate self-deceit and the absolute guarantee of your own damnation.
All of this has an ecclesiological impact, that is, all of this effects the Church, what She is and your place in or outside of Her, who alone is the ark of Salvation, the Pillar of the truth, apart from AND outside of which no man woman or child can be saved.
The Temptation of Bergoglio
The great temptation presented by the election and presence of Bergoglio on the Apostolic Throne, then, is precisely this: the offer of a Church, of a Christianity, in which Christ is no longer The master, but merely a guide post from which one can wander here or there and remain a “christian” without fidelity and without the need to practice hope.
This temptation is offered the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests, the religious and the laity, is offered thus to the whole Church, because in Bergoglio they have, without any shadow of a doubt, a man who does not believe in Christ as his Sole Master, who does not love or tolerate the Church as Christ founded it or gave it, does not suffer the rules the Apostles, the Faithful Disciples of the Lord handed down to us, and is filled with compassion and love for the traitor who sold Christ for 30 shekels of silver.
To have a public manifest heretic on the throne of the Apostle Peter, and tolerate him, presents for every true Christian, the opportunity of pretense, to keep the name “Christian” or “Catholic” without any more obligation to Christ. Its the ultimate game-plan of Lucifer.
Either Bergoglio must Change or the Church has changed
Finally, if one were to accept this situation and the principles which erroneously lead to it, as have been briefly described here, it would be enough to end this article with the usual lament. Because with faith it is possible to lament these things, but with hope it is not possible to tolerate them. Nearly every author on the Internet today, and as far as we know, all the Cardinals and Bishops of the Catholic Church since April 8, 2016, the date on which “Amoris Laetitia” what released, do not have or are not acting faithfully to Christian Hope.
For the man with Christian hope, would declare and manifestly insist and demand that Bergoglio be canonically reprimanded, and if refusing 3x, be declared to be in open schism with Christ and His Church, and self-deposed by reason of his malice and heresy against Him and His Bride, the Church, whose first duty is to keep herself immaculate and worthy of Him.
Either Bergoglio must change or the Church has in fact changed, because if he repents, the Church is saved in Her fidelity to Christ, and Christ is glorified above all human whim, even the human whims of the Roman Pontiff. But if Bergoglio does not change AND the Church tolerates him, it is the Church which has changed, She has committed adultery with Bergoglio, accepting him rather than Jesus Christ as Her spouse, the God above all other gods…
Fue el Papa Pío XI quien afirmó que “el comunismo es intrínsecamente perverso, y no se puede admitir que colaboren con el comunismo, en terreno alguno, los que quieren salvar de la ruina la civilización cristiana” (Encíclica Divini Redemptoris n.º 60).
Y fue el mismo Papa el que condenó también el nazismo en otra de sus grandes encíclicas, la Mit brennender Sorge (1937).
A la perversión moral en la que estamos hoy, no se llegó de la noche a la mañana.
Pensadores como Voltaire (1694-1778), Rousseau (1712-1778), Diderot (1713-1784), y los enciclopedistas gestaron la Revolución Francesa, algunos de los cuales negaban la existencia de Dios, o si la admitían, sostenían que Dios no tenía nada que ver con este mundo, “que Él le había dado cuerda como a un reloj, y lo había abandonado hasta que esa cuerda se acabe”. Lo que equivaldría por así decirlo, a que estamos solos, y concluyeron glorificando al hombre y el razonamiento humano con la ideología de la “autonomía de la razón”, su filosofía moral el deísmo, y denominaron a sus tiempos “el siglo de las luces”.
Los revolucionarios franceses, como seguidores del racionalismo llevaron sus enseñanzas a su lógica conclusión: asesinaron a sacerdotes y monjas, saquearon y profanaron iglesias, destruyeron imágenes, y hasta llegaron a entronizar a la actriz mademoiselle Aubryan, en la Catedral de Notre Dame, denominándola “la diosa razón”, una expresión idolátrica en su forma más beligerante.
Durante el reinado del terror de la Revolución Francesa, se utilizaron las iglesias como establos para demostrar el desprecio de los revolucionarios a la Religión Verdadera, el hombre sin fe rechazó a Dios y su Ley, y parecía haber ganado temporalmente.
La Revolución Francesa “fue una consecuencia de la negación y de las rupturas del siglo XVI, del enfriamiento de la fe durante el siglo XVII, de la exaltación de la razón en el siglo XVIII, y de la explotación de la rebelión por el poder de la francmasonería fundada en 1717 (…) Desde el siglo XVI sale el drama de la rebelión” (P. José de Sainte Marie). Aquí vemos prefigurado el materialismo del comunismo ateo.
El deísmo del siglo XVIII engendró el racionalismo del siglo XIX y éste produjo el humanismo secular del siglo XX en los Estados Unidos y el comunismo ateo en Rusia, donde Stalin en su búsqueda “de usurpar la autoridad de Dios por medio de la exaltación del hombre”, conllevó terribles sufrimientos y destrucción para el mismo hombre.
Piotr Kropotkin, “considerado como uno de los principales teóricos del movimiento anarquista, dentro del cual fue uno de los fundadores de la escuela del anarcocomunismo, y desarrolló la teoría del apoyo mutuo”, dijo que la Revolución Francesa fue “la fuente y el origen de todas las concepciones actuales comunistas, anarquistas y socialistas”.
El gran Papa León XIII, el Papa de la Doctrina Social de la Iglesia, condenaba así: “…aquella secta de hombres que, bajo diversos y casi bárbaros nombres de socialistas, comunistas o nihilistas, esparcidos por todo el orbe, y estrechamente coaligados entre sí por inicua federación, ya no buscan su defensa en las tinieblas de sus ocultas reuniones, sino que, saliendo a pública luz, confiados y a cara descubierta, se empeñan en llevar a cabo el plan, que tiempo ha concibieron, de trastornar los fundamentos de toda sociedad civil. Estos son ciertamente los que, según atestiguan las divinas páginas, ´mancillan la carne, desprecian la dominación y blasfeman de la majestad´ (Jdt. epist. v. 8)”.
En efecto, toda ideología, toda concepción política, todo gobierno que prescinda de Dios y del orden moral objetivo son “intrínsecamente perversos”, ya que afirman en la doctrina y en la práctica la autonomía soberana de la libertad.
Siguiendo la doctrina del Papa Pío XI en la encíclica “Divini Redemptoris”, quien condenó “los errores presentados bajo un falso sentido místico”, y del Concilio Vaticano II que advirtió “de esta especie de falseada redención de los más humildes” (GS 20-21), el Nuevo Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica (Nº 676), pone de aviso sobre los “mesianismos secularizados”: “esta impostura del Anticristo aparece esbozada ya en el mundo cada vez que se pretende llevar a cabo la esperanza mesiánica en la historia, lo cual no puede alcanzarse sino más allá del tiempo histórico a través del juicio escatológico: incluso en su forma mitigada, la Iglesia ha rechazado esta falsificación del Reino futuro con el nombre de milenarismo (cf. DS 3839), sobre todo bajo la forma política de un mesianismo secularizado, “intrínsecamente perverso”.
El cristiano no puede adherir a aquellos “sistemas ideológicos que se oponen radicalmente o en los puntos sustanciales a su fe y a su concepción del hombre: ni a la ideología marxista, a su materialismo ateo (…) ni a la ideología liberal” (Juan Pablo II, Carta apostólica en el 80º aniversario de la Rerum Novarum, Nº 26), estas corrientes buscan apoderarse de la religión, instrumentalizando a las iglesias para servirse de ellas con el fin de la destrucción de la religión y de la creencia en Dios (cf. Miguel Poradowski, el Marxismo en la Teología).
¿Será eso que Francisco, el actual Obispo de Roma quiso decir cuando exclamó: Pecadores sí, Señor, lo somos todos, ¡pero corruptos jamás!”?
(*) Director Nacional Pioneros de Abstinencia Total
___________
(Article reprinted with author’s permission, from the text at La Patria, Martes, 10 de mayo de 2016, Bolivia – Nacional).
Veri Catholici presents, here, its own English translation of the original Italian text – – – The paradox of contradicting interpretations of «Amoris laetitia» The recently published Apostolic Exhortation « Amoris Laetitia » (hereafter abbreviated AL), which contains a great … Continue reading →
Rome, April 9, 2016 A.D: The universal scandal given by and contained in the new Papal Post-Synodal Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia, cannot be tolerated in silence. It must be denounced. Numerous commentators throughout the world and Church have pointed out how it is fundamentally and diametrically opposed to the teaching of Christ, the Apostles and Apostolic Tradition on the matter of the discipline of the Sacraments and the nature and discernment of the gravity of sin.
What many have not noticed is that the entire argument advanced in Amoris Laetitia presupposes that Ecclesiastical Tradition is merely a human hand-me-down, left over from a darker more puritanical age, and that it does not come from Christ nor was it faithful to the Apostolic Preaching.
For this reason, one must say with many others that this document is in toto, heretical. That is represents, from even a brief study of the history of the Pontificate of Cardinal Bergoglio, a manifest and pertinacious attack upon the Church and denial of revealed truths.
It is exceedingly pertinacious, since the Pope received the corrections of numbers of theologians formally and informally, yet still published it.
On account of the universal scandal given by it, on account of its universal reception by the press as signifying the abandonment of Scripture and Tradition as the remote Rule of Faith in the Church; inasmuch as it is recognized by all and the author itself to contain novel doctrines, which contradict the past ones and past pastoral practice, every Catholic is obliged to REJECT and CONDEMN it AND DISREGARD the authority the author pretends to exercise in it.
Furthermore, the document Amoris Laetitia in itself is sufficient canonical evidence for the Cardinals of the Roman Church, the clergy of Rome and the bishops of the Catholic Church to now issue the first public rebuke to Francis, pointing out that unless he rescind or repudiate the document, that he has ipso facto lost his office on account of formal manifest pertinacious heresy.
If he does not, they must warn him 2x more, and if he still does not change, they must convene a Synod and declare him self-deposed.
Finally, it is obvious on account of the gravest moral obligation of charity for the whole Church, that these three groups are obliged to act, and that if they do not act, each of them individually merits ETERNAL DAMNATION for having loved themselves more than Christ and His Church.
In the coming day and weeks, we shall see which of these cleaves to Christ and which deny him by an effeminate silence.
Rome, August 17, 2015 A. D.: If we wanted to succinctly summarize the nature of the church of the Modernists and compare it to the nature of the Catholic Church which Christ founded, we could do no better than to call it a Zombie church. For just as a zombie is a dead corpse moved by an evil, unnatural principle, so the church of the Modernists is dead to Christ in virtue of having rejected Him as God and Master, and is moved in pursuit of evil, the exaltation of man unto the contempt of God and all which is from God.
Thus we arrive at a more correct and true understanding of the spiritual and ecclesial battle which is being waged within the visible structures of the Catholic Church today, when we say simply that this war is between the Zombie church and the true Church which Christ founded.
This Zombie church which broke forth into existence at the Second Vatican Council has all the characteristics of a dead corpse: loss of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, loss of practice of the faith among the laity; ability to parody the words and actions of the True Church before the Council, but always with a sickening and perverse bent which reveals that the principle of life which Christ gave His Church, namely, the Holy Spirit, is no longer present, and a new sinister motivation is at work: Modernism, under the non-negotiable dictkat of aggiornamento.
Thus, the Zombie church goes through the motions, but its unending, continual, unyeilding purpose and motion is ever downward morally, ever more destructive ecclesiologically, ever more accommodating with the malign trinity of principles which is at work in the world: sin, vice, death.
While the true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church lives on among the faithful, the little folk, who reject the errors of the Aggiornamento, it is more and more killed off among those who remain in subjection and obedience to the promoters of death and division. This is effected by the substitution of the notion of faithful obedience to Christ Jesus and the infallible Magisterium of the Church, with a notion of unyielding, self-destructive obedience to the Aggiornamento and the pastoral fallible magisterium of those men who, while holding the public positions of authority in the Church, commit themselves to the agenda of the Modernists, either openly or by silence acquiescence.
The way to victory over the Zombie church is clear as it has always been and it takes only a small group of Catholics with the fortitude of their forefathers to initiate it. Name the beast, renounce the beast, convoke the faithful together and publicly denounce the errors of modernism and excommunicate the adherents of the Zombie church.
To do this requires that the Catholics who remain faithful to Christ and who reject all which the Zombie Church promotes gather together and publicly act.
Opposed to this are all who demand and insist on continued obedience to the church of the Zombies, to the principles of their unnatural organization and to the continued existence and toleration of them among the faithful, as well as to collaboration with them in anything at all.
The Zombie church will call this “schism”, but separation from the dead is not schism, since spiritually and morally speaking they are not of Christ in anything but appearances. Nay, rather, those who refuse to separate from the Zombie church are those who are dead to Christ, intent on schism with Him.
I, as a disciple of Christ Jesus, hold and believe that the U.S. Supreme Court has no authority to impose Sodom upon America in name of the U.S. Constitution; and that such a judgement would be null and void. For the institution of marriage, which originates with the Creator of Man, falls under His Authority alone, and it can no more be changed by a government of men, than the nature of man could be changed by a government of men.
Therefore, no State or Federal officer, representative, or official could justly — either according to the Divine, moral, or natural law — enforce such a Court decision. Nor would anyone be obliged to obey them if they were to command that such laws or
decisions be observed.
For these reasons, all men and women of good will have the right and liberty to refuse compliance to such a court decision and to insist upon the liberty of nature itself against the tyranny implied in the same: the tyranny of a new and perverse gnosticism which asserts that human liberty can be in defense of the perversion of nature, or that human dignity can be founded upon ignominy.
I further hold that against such a court order, all men and women have the natural right to self-defense against its imposition, observance, recognition or toleration.
For I hold that a government, even elected by the people, which seeks to observe and/or impose or even to acquiesce to such a court order, looses its legitimacy in the sight of Nature and Nature’s God, since in doing so, it would not so much be a government of men, as the absence of government: a chaotic mass of tyrannical authority at war with Nature itself.
Finally, I hold and protest against such a government, that all men, who seek to restore the Natural order, have, in the face of the persecution of themselves and their fellows — when all peaceful forms of resistance, petition and reform are obstructed — the right to take up arms to protect and ensure their own liberty, so that they might live in harmony with Nature and the Author and Creator of Nature. For this right, is not only the right of the Christian, but is inherent in Nature itself, since it is nothing more than the right to self-defense: of Nature, on behalf of the Author of Nature.
For, indeed, it is the birth-right of every Christian to defend himself, his family, his possessions and his society, from that indignity and offense of the Divine Majesty which is inherent in every and any denial of that order of the human family, which is constituted by natural marriage: in which there are mutually pledged one man and one woman in a sacred bond of fidelity for the procreation and upbringing of a new generation of children. For the violation of this institution by the perversion of Sodom, without a doubt, cries out to God for vengeance: a vengeance which not only those, who promote such sins, justly merit from Him, but also those who tolerate such; a vengeance which they all must endure from Nature herself, when she avenges the enemies of her God, Creator and Author, by the calamity and turmoil of special and tremendous dispensations.
Let all men, therefore, know and heed, this manifesto of Christian conscience and hearken to the truths and rights which it declares, for the honor and glory of God and the defense of the United States of America. And let them not so much trouble themselves and tremble before the men who profess it, but fear and cower beneath the Majesty and Authority of God the Creator, the Judge of the living and the dead, Which it acknowledges.
St Nicholas of Myra slapping Arius at the Council of Nicaea. Icon at Soumela Monastery, Maçka/Trabzon, Turkey.
Editorial, May 25, 2015: All Christians know that Christ Jesus is their Lord and Master. By “master”, we mean “teacher”, “instructor”, the One who shows us the way to Heaven and the way to get to Heaven.
Consequently, the teachings of Jesus Christ are the very essence of Christianity, and Christianity is in its essence a religion defined by Christ’s teachings.
Now, just as the christian church which is true to Christ in all His teachings, both doctrinal and moral, is the true Church of Christ — and this is the Catholic Church — so is Christian faith, hope and charity defined by the affirmation of Christ’s teachings, and not just some of them (for even a pagan can admire some of them), but all of them. And not just professing with one’s lips that they are true, but living and obeying them in one’s own person and life. This is, infact, what it means to be a true Christian, a true Catholic.
It follows then, that saying what is NOT the teaching of Christ and what transgresses His teaching is absolutely necessary. For just as it is necessary to every property owner, who wishes to retain his property, that he know the boundaries of that property and defend them and his title to them, so in matters of being a Christian, the fidelity which leads one to accept and put into practice the teachings of Our Lord and Master, requires that we know precisely where those boundaries are, so that we might not be fooled into thinking that something is nor is not part of Christ’s teaching.
The ancient word, which Christians use for this, comes from the Greek word, αἵρεσις (haeresis), which means “choice”. The first Christians used this word to signify a teaching which differed from Christ’s teaching, because they understood simply and truly that the litmus test for being a disciple of Christ was that the disciple accepted everything Christ taught and chose to believe nothing which was disharmonious with it.
So, the choice to believe other masters was called a αἵρεσις, and thus that false doctrine was called also a heresy.
For this reason, we can say that without the word, “heresy”, a Christian could not distinguish a true disciple from a false one. For many are the antichrists which have gone out from us, says the Apostle St. John in 1 Jn 2:18 ff..:
18Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us. 20 But you have the unction from the Holy One, and know all things. 21 I have not written to you as to them that know not the truth, but as to them that know it: and that no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is a liar, but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father, and the Son. 23 Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son, hath the Father also. 24 As for you, let that which you have heard from the beginning, abide in you. If that abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning, you also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father.
Hence, the Christian who refuses to use the word, “heresy”, in regard to false teaching, is in truth the Christian who no longer wishes to follow Jesus Christ. He has chosen instead to live and get along and not rock the boat. And thus he no longer has either right faith, nor true hope in the salvation Christ’s promised; and most of all, he has not the charity which binds the disciple to His Master and holds his fellow Christian as dear as himself, wishing to guard him from the danger of damnation by warning him, with the word, “Beware, what that man is saying is heresy!”
by Antonio Socci, unofficial English translation by the From Rome blog.
That Ireland, ancient fortress of Catholicism, has gone over to the people of “gay” marriage (“and who am I to judge”, as the Bishop of Rome is want to say), is a historical event. If this sounds like the profound rumble of an avalanche, as in the collapse of a mountain falling down, it is just to ask, “Is this an Bergoglio effect?”
Besides, in South America, the Church has already been crumbling for years (the statistics are horrible); now in Europe, the heart of Christendom.
That which renders secularism dominant — as Cardinal De Lubac used to say — is the propulsion and instrumentalization of “a Christianity ever more in the minority, reduced to a vague and impotent theism.”
Barack and his Puppets
Today, only such a theism is permitted. Instead, the Catholic Church as She has been known upto now is threatened even as regards Her existence.
There is only place for a ridiculous laicized parody of Herself, as the humanitarian “courtesan” (as Andrea Emo would have it), as an “agency for religion” which on the great life issues submits herself to the dictates of Obama-like ideology, which renounces proselytism and the “Catholic God” (as Bergoglio says, “There exists no Catholic God”), which dissolves herself into an ecumenical freemasonry of so many religions, which busies herself with the climate and the recycling of garbage, teaching good manners (Good Morning! Good Evening! Thank you! and Pardon me!) and goofy-pleas for the help of the poor. But for the true Catholic Church, there is no longer any seat at the table, as the drama of the last great pope, Benedict XVI shows, “fired”, self-incarcerated and silenced.
The True Church
The Church has illumined and conquered the darkness of the world of the gods and has rehabilitated the history of a pagan and anti-human age: the Church of the Word of God made Flesh, who has the presumptuousness to announce the Truth, the Church of the great Saints, of the Martyrs, of the Missionaries, the Church of the Divine Liturgy and of the masterpieces of Art, the Church of Mother Teresa, of great ideas, of great popes, of Padre Pio, with Her outbursts of the supernatural, the Church which has held Herself firm head-to-head with the ferocity of the Mohammedan and the great genocidal totalitarianisms of the 20th Century: this Church, today, no longer has the rights of citizenship.
Yesterday, Msgr. Galantino (Secretary of the Italian Bishops’ Conference) — according to a tweet from Alberto Mingardi — seems to have said at a conference: “When the Church was Catholic and the Mass was in Latin …”.
A Freudian slip which is explosive and revealing. In fact, today, we are in the midst of the last act of the “liquidation of the Catholic Church,” as Giuseppe Prezzolini foretold, a layman but concerned with the abyss to which the Catholic world was running, anxious as it was to be “modernized” and to surrender to all the ideological fashions of the moment.
But, to liquidate the Church, it is not the persecutions, nor the hatred of the secularist, but — as Paul VI said — it’s the “self-demolition” from within which is the cause.
The way to the abyss was undertaken not with the Council — as certain lefebrvians think — but at its end, exactly 50 years ago, with the “post-Conciliar” age.
In the days following, in the newspapers, one was reminded of the 5oth anniversary of the first Mass in Italian, and another layman like Elémire Zolla, in those days, came to underline the event in apocalyptic tones: “The 7th of March, the Mass dies, Gregorian chant dies. Heard for the last time. Now, as a dry branch, the Church shall be burnt.”
In reality, the problem was not only the use of the vulgar language in the liturgy (a thing, which I think is positive), but the successive “liturgical reform” of 1969 and above all the de facto, but illegal, banning of the Mass of the preceding millennia of Catholic liturgy.
Joseph Ratzinger made us understand, many years afterwards, the enormous error, even theological, which was committed at that time. Which would have colossal consequences, even in the tragic loss of faith.
To Save the Cathedral
But, curiously, in those days, the ones to raise the alarm, in a dramatic manner, for this Church which in an instant has refused its own bimillenarian rite (that around which our Cathedrals were constructed), were above all the laymen-intellectuals.
Who protested with the same consternation with which we contemplate, today, the tragic devastation wrought by Isis in the ancient Middle-East.
On September 5, 1966, there was issued the first appeal to Paul VI to safe-guard the Latin-Gregorian liturgy (a few months before the devastating flood which struck the ancient, Catholic beauty of Florence).
That manifesto/appeal was signed by some 40 great intellectuals and it is impressive, today, to read some of their names: Jorge Luis Borges, Salvatore Quasimodo, Eugenio Montale, Giorgio De Chirico, Robert Bresson, Jacques Maritain, François Mauriac, Gabriel Marcel, Maria Zambrano, Cristina Campo, Elena Croce, Wystan Hugh Auden, Jorge Guillen, Elémire Zolla, Philip Toynbee, Evelyn Waugh, Salvador De Madariaga, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Julien Green, Elsa Respighi, Francesco Gabrieli, José Bergamin, Fedele D’Amico, Luigi Dallapiccola, Victoria Ocampo, Wally Toscanini, Gertrud von Le Fort, Augusto Del Noce, Lanza Del Vasto.
The appeal made a great impression, even in the Vatican, but di not succeed in stopping the landslide. Thus, in 1971, another was made, and the number of intellectuals who added their names was even more.
I remember some of their names: Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Harold Acton, Mario Luzi, Andrés Segovia, William Rees-Mogg (the director of the Times), Joan Sutherland, Guido Piovene, Giorgio Bassani, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Ettore Paratore, Gianfranco Contini, Giacomo Devoto, Giovanni Macchia, Massimo Pallottino, Rivers Scott, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Colin Davis, Robert Graves, Yehudi Menuhin, Kenneth Clark, Malcolm Muggeridge.
Self-Demolition
It was for the most part, useless, but little by little the same Paul VI became aware of the tragedy which was in course: the collapse of religious practice, the thousands of priests and religious who abandoned the habit, the catholic intellectuals who submitted to marxism, the great part of the youth seduced by the myths of the revolution (by Fidel Castro, by Mao, by the Vietcong, by Che Guevara, and last by Stalin), the spread of the Theology of liberation and of the modernist theologies which demolished Catholic Doctrine.
Paul VI, in his last years, spoke in ever increasing dramatic tones: “We believed that after the Council there would have come a day of sunshine in the history of the Church. There came, instead, a day of clouds and storms, and of darkness”, “from somewhere the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God”, “the opening to the world was a true invasion of worldly thought in the Church … We we have been, perhaps, too weak and imprudent.”
Paul VI denounced “those who try to knock the Church down from within” and he began to cite the books of Louis Bouyer, “The Decomposition of Catholicism” and “Religieux et Clercs contre Dieu.”
To his friend Jean Guitton, he confided: “There is a great turmoil in this moment in the world and in the Church, and what is in question is the faith. I find myself, now, repeating the obscure phrase of Jesus in the Gospel of Saint Luke: “When the Son of man returns, shall He still find faith upon earth?” What strikes me when I consider the catholic world,” the Pope continued, “is that inside Catholicism there seems to sometimes prevail a mentality of the non-catholic type, and it might happen that this non-catholic thought within Catholicism becomes stronger tomorrow. But it shall never represent the thought of the Church.”
Then, thanks be to God, there arrived John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger. The Barque of Peter was tirelessly repaired, the compass of the Faith found its way and a generation of young people experienced anew the beauty of Christianity.
But this was the spring which was bitten by some sort of powerful and obscure frost, which for the first time in the history of the Church, placed before us the drama of a “Pope emeritus” self-imprisoned in the Vatican and of a “bishop dressed in white” which was acclaimed by all the eternal enemies of the Catholic Faith, who has brought the Church into a submission with the worldly ideologies of the 70’s (having even re-exhumed the theology of liberation and its founder Gutierrez, which now pontificates from the Vatican).
We seem to have reached the final abyss. Unless God….
(Published in the Libero, May 24, 2015: this English translation is currently unapproved, but if the author gives us some corrections, it will be amended in the next few days. — The translator, while not agreeing with all of the authors judgements, nevertheless believes that the article poses significant contributions to Catholic thought for the present hour).
Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Catholic University in Argentina, gestures while leaving the concluding session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the family at the Vatican in this Oct. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) See SYNOD-METAPHORS Oct. 8, 2014.
Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, the theologian widely acknowledged to have been the lead ghostwriter of Pope Francis’s much-praised apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, recently gave an interview that is remarkable for the crudity of its categories, the tendentiousness of its contentions, and, above all, what it portends for the silent lambs. The Archbishop’s way of talking about the Church is so far from what one would expect from a serious theologian and vir Ecclesiae, it’s difficult, for me at least, not to despair at the significance of this man’s being one of the advisors on whom the Holy Father is reputed to rely the most.
The interview is here, and those who care about how we should love the Bride of Christ should be scandalized by the mentality it bespeaks and the future it all but promises. Keep in mind that its all-but-named target at one point is the recent and utterly unprecedented suggestion (here) by Cardinal Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that a new role for the CDF would be to provide a “theological framework” for this pontificate. As readers will recall, Cardinal Muller was one of Pope Benedict’s last senior appointments in the Roman Curia.
In 1962, a young woman, taken with a divine love for the Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, forsook everything and joined a strict convent, so that every day she might have many and frequent sacrifices to offer God, her Love, as a chaste spouse to a much beloved husband. And all the other catholic nuns in the convent did the same.
Then came a Bishop, who, being in admiration for the art of statuary and the aesthetics of the Renaissance, donated to all the convents in his diocese, a copy of the Statue of St. David, King of Israel, as crafted by Michelangelo.
At first, the Mother Superior of the Convent objected, saying to the Bishop: that kind of art is not appropriate in a convent of consecrated virgins. But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “If you want my favor and blessing, you will not spurn my gifts!” And so the Mother Superior relented, and took the statue.
When the Bishop came the next year to visit the Convent, he asked, “Where is the statue I donated?” The Mother Superior said, “I did not have the money for a pedestal which would properly display the statue, so it is being stored temporarily in the lumbar room (i.e. the storage room).” But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “If you want my favor and blessing, you will not spurn my gifts!” And so the Mother Superior relented, and bought a pedestal and set the statue up.
In the third year, the bishop came to visit the Convent, again, and asked, “Where is the statue I donated?” The Mother Superior said, “I could not think of where such a statue might be placed, worthy of its full artistic effect. So it is for the time being set up in an unused chapel, at the back of the Convent.” But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “If you want my favor and blessing, you will not spurn my gifts!” And so the Mother Superior relented, and moved the Statue to the courtyard.
At this, the nuns of the Convent all objected, saying, that such artwork was not appropriate for the courtyard of a Convent. But the Mother Superior said, “Don’t be puritanical, after all, it is only a statue of St. David!” And so all the nuns relented, and ceased their complaints. Except one faithful virgin, who out of meekness guarded her eyes, and never looked upon the statue again.
In the fourth year, the bishop came to visit the Convent, again, and asked, “Where is the statue I donated? Why have you dishonored it?” The Mother Superior said, “Your Excellency, I have placed it in the most visible part of the Convent, so that all the nuns can see it daily.” But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “If you want my favor and blessing, you will not spurn My gifts!” And so the Mother Superior relented, and moved the Statue to the main Chapel of the Convent.
At this, the nuns of the Convent, though they were fewer in number, all objected, saying, that such artwork was not appropriate for the main chapel of the Convent. But the Mother Superior said, “Don’t be puritanical, after all, it is only a statue of St. David!” And so all the nuns relented, and ceased their complaints. Except one faithful virgin, who out of meekness guarded her eyes, and never walked on that side of the Chapel again.
In the fifth year, the bishop came to visit the Convent, again, and asked, “Where is the statue I donated? Why have you dishonored it?” The Mother Superior said, “Your Excellency, I have placed it in the most visible side-niche of the Chapel, so that all the nuns can see it daily during Mass and Office.” But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “If you want My favor and blessing, you will not spurn My gifts!” And so the Mother Superior relented, and moved the Statue to the main altar of the Chapel.
At this, the nuns of the Convent, though they were much fewer in number, all objected, saying, that such artwork was not appropriate for the main altar of the Chapel Convent. But the Mother Superior said, “Don’t be puritanical, after all, it is only a statue of St. David!” And so all the nuns relented, and ceased their complaints. Except one faithful virgin, who out of meekness guarded her eyes, and never looked up at the main altar again, taking her seat in the last pew furthest from it.
In the sixth year, the bishop came to visit the Convent, again, and asked, “Where is the statue which I donated? Why have you dishonored It?” The Mother Superior said, “Your Excellency, I have placed it above the main altar so that the nuns of our Convent cannot but see it daily during Mass and Office.” But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “If you want My favor and blessing, you will not spurn My gifts!” And so the Mother Superior relented, and required that each nun renew her vows of chastity, while kneeling before it.
At this, the nuns of the Convent, who were now only a few, all objected, saying that such a statue should never be the object of their vow of chastity. But the Mother Superior said, “Don’t be puritanical, after all, it is only a statue of St. David, from whom came Christ Our Lord”. And so all the nuns relented, and remade their vows before it. Except one faithful virgin, who out of meekness guarded her eyes, and made her vows with her back to it.
At this the Mother Superior said, “That will not do, Sister! Either make your vows facing the statue or get out of my Convent!” And so, at that, the one and only faithful nun was kicked out of the Convent.
In the seventh year, the bishop came to visit the Convent, again, and asked, “Where is the Statue which I donated? Why have you dishonored It?” The Mother Superior said, “Your Excellency, I renew my vows monthly at the feet of your statue.” But the Bishop demurred, and replied, “Where have all the nuns of this Convent gone?” And, the Mother Superior replied, “I do not know, they all got the idea in their head that it would be more pleasing to God for them to marry, and so they left the Convent and married men from the village.” “All of them? exclaimed the Bishop in dismay. “Yes, all of them”, said the Mother Superior, “All, that is, except one rigorist, antiquarian, neo-pelagian, who thought looking at the statue of a nude man was against her vow of chastity and virginity! Imagine that”. To which the Bishop said, “Incredible!”
* * *
And Our Lord’s disciples, hearing this, asked Him to explain this parable, and He said, “Just as a consecrated virgin is to My Sacred Heart, so are the Catholic Faithful who eschew error and falsehood, especially in regards to all which I taught them. For I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And all who come to Me shall find Life. But all who deny Me by their words, deeds or omissions, I too shall deny before the Throne of My Father in Heaven. Let this be a warning to each of you! Let him who has ears to hear, hear!”
* * *
Editor’s Note: This parable is, of course, a fiction, but I would bet that if such a Bishop ever existed, if he would ever encounter such a nun in the street, still wearing her habit, he would demand that she sign an act of reconciliation before that Statue as a prerequisite for being readmitted to full communion.
N.B.: For those who don’t understand what the Statue represents, simply read the documents of Vatican II from beginning to end.
Rome, March 16, 2015: In the war against Freemasonry and Modernism, Catholics who in the present hour come to the grace to realize that they are in the midst of battle are necessarily greatly disadvantaged in the material things necessary for the fight.
This is especially true since Freemasonry has been working since 1717 A. D. to overthrow the Church, and thus has laid a deep foundation and organized a great number of institutions and persons against the Church for a long time, and not only outside of the Church but within Her. And not only these, but also a plethora of errors which have, by now, seeped into many a book, mind, and institution of formation.
For this reason, in the fight against the Kasper Agenda, which is actively and formally being promoted by Pope Francis with the maximum artistic effect to conceal this very thing, it is of the utmost importance that Catholics join in collaborative efforts to fight back.
Consider for a moment, that Pope Francis is using the entire structure of the Church, Her hierarchical constitution, by which She rules all the Cardinals, Bishops, Priests and Deacons, all the institutes of Religious life, all the parishes and chapels.
Thus, inasmuch as he promotes Kasper’s agenda of false mercy, especially now through the Synod on the Family and the Year of Mercy, every artifice and method of coercion can be brought upon millions of souls by the simple dictate of “Team Bergoglio” players and members.
For this reason unless Catholics band together in a world-wide network, we can easily be overcome, despite all our good wishes, desires, resolutions, or works, written or active.
As an anthroplogist (I hold a B. A. from the University of Florida, Gainesville), I note how silly the world has become, even in matters of the greatest importance. For example, if there arises a case of a man who walks to work, it is sufficient that it come to be known in 1 news report, and suddenly there is a crowd-funding campaign and $200,000 is donated to the man to buy a car to go to work in. (I imagine that he does not need a Lamborghini, but what car costs so much?). On the other hand, let there be 100 reports on the wickedness and danger of the Kasper agenda, and other than talk about it, Catholics do nothing.
For the “Year of True Conversion” (Y4Tc) initiative, there is the need of a network of several thousand of bloggers, websites, Catholic organizations on every continent, to promote the true reception of God’s Mercy. One blogger cannot organize that, EVERYONE must participate in making it known, on their blog, their website, their twitter page (pin it to the top), their facebook page, their pages on Tumblr or Pininterest or any other social media. Clergy too need to preach about it and NOT be shy about its true intention.
In the fight against the Kapser Agenda, there is the association Veri Catholici, which now comprises some 400 members.
Other than these, there are no organization devoted to such specific purposes, but they need not be. All organizations and institutions can oppose the Kasper Agenda in their own way, but they must oppose it, if they are to act as Catholics. To be quiet now, is to tacitly succumb. If you don’t declare your side publicly now, it will be too late to recruit an army when the battle starts.
Indeed, the fundamental problem today in the Church arises from the cowardice of too many clergy to speak out and take initiatives to oppose the errors. Part of the problem is that all the courageous men have been weeded out of seminary and expelled long ago, and what is left is mostly the excessively prudent, the habitually timid and those so self-interested in not being persecuted or criticized, that they are more like dumb watch dogs, than those ambassadors of the Most High who realize that the best way to return to His Court, is covered with the wounds and trophies of battle.
Catholics also have to resolve to work together. This is especially true of those organizations which have built up their own networks for a specific purpose and would normally not involve themselves in other interests. The Catholic Faith is attacked in Her very essence and structure by the Kasper agenda. It will not be rare to find a Cardinal or Bishop or Priest, for example, who will speak well against some aspect of the agenda, but be too scared to speak against the whole. If such a behavior predominates, the Church will fall and disappear in most nations.
On this matter, I will speak with the utmost sincerity and clarity: Where the Kasper agenda is opposed in its entirety, the Catholic Faith and Church will endure, where it is opposed only partly, it will fall.
This is because, the entire structure of the Church will be used against the opponents of the Kasper agenda; and if you only oppose it in something, all the other aspects of it will be used to drag you away with it into perdition.
Thus, Catholics need most of all to recruit Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Religious and writers and leaders to openly oppose the entire agenda and to do so with courage and boldness.
No 1 organization can do this, because 1 organization will be easily and quickly attacked, blacklisted and marked out for disapproval. No, EVERYONE needs to participate in fighting back.
This is especially true of the older organizations, which will, according to the tendencies of fallen human nature, be apt to hold back participating in this fight, because they are piqued by the thought of collaborating with new comers-on-the-block, or because they prefer to grow their own organizations rather than risk disapproval or obstacles to their own smaller interests.
Thus, to oppose the Kasper agenda requires among those who fight it, a true Conversion and true Catholic charity, which works together with all fellow Catholics, for the good of the Church, unto the supreme self-sacrifice.
And let’s not be shy or ignorant about what Christ wills for us: the conversion or expulsion of the Modernists from the Church. The proponents of the Kasper agenda, either need to repent of it totally, or get out of the Church; and if they do not do 1 or the other, the Catholic Bishops need to excommunicate them and separate from them.
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