“…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… 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” immemorial Roman rite of Mass

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Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

St. Rose of Lima, Virgin

Ss. Felix & Adauctus, Martyrs

August 30, 2026

      The lessons for this Sunday are either from the book of Ecclesiasticus or the book of Job.  Commenting on the lessons from Ecclesiasticus, St. Gregory says: “There are men all athirst for passing joys who are ignorant or indifferent where eternal blessings are concerned.  Poor wretches!  They congratulate themselves on possessing the good things of this life without regretting those of the world above, which they have lost.  Fashioned for light and truth, they never lift up the eyes of the soul; never betray the smallest desire or longing for the contemplation of their eternal home.  Giving themselves over to the pleasures among which they are thrown, they bestow their affection upon a dreary place of exile as if it were their fatherland; and surrounded by darkness, they are full of rejoicing as if they were illumined by a brilliant light.  On the other hand the elect, in whose eyes fleeting goodness are of no value, seek after those for which their souls were made.  Kept in this world by the bonds of the flesh, each, none the less, is carried in spirit beyond it while making the wholesome resolve to despise the passing things of time and to desire the things which endure for eternity.”

      As for Job, he is set before us in Holy Scripture as the very type of a man detached from the goods of this world.  “If,” said he, “we have received good things at the hands of God, why should we not receive evil?…. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away…. Blessed by the name of the Lord.”

     The proper of today’s Mass is inspired by the same thoughts.  The Holy Ghost, whom the Church received at Pentecost, has formed a new man in us who resists the outward manifestations of the old man, namely covetousness and the search for riches, in order to satisfy it.  The Spirit of God is a spirit of liberty, who by making us children of God, our Father, and brethren of Jesus our Lord, frees us from the slavery of sin and the tyranny of concupiscence.  “They that are Christ’s” says St. Paul, “have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences.”  “Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh: for the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary on to another” (Epistle).  And our Lord says: “No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will sustain the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and Mammon.”

     St. Augustine, in expounding this passage, says: “Whoever is the slave of riches (and we know that only too often they are the source of pride, avarice, injustice and lust) is subject to a hard and wicked master.  Entirely at the mercy of his passions, he is under the tyranny of the devil.  Certainly he does not love him, for who can love the devil?  But all the same he endured him.  On the other hand he does not hate God, for this, no man’s conscience will let him do, but he despises Him, that is, he does not fear Him, as if he were sure of His goodness.

     The Holy Ghost puts us on our guard against this negligence and pernicious sense of security, when He says by the Prophet: ‘Say not: The mercy of the Lord is great’ (Ecclesiasticus, 5, 6), but know that ‘the benignity of God leadeth thee to penance’ (Romans, 2, 4).  For who is more merciful than He who pardons the sins of all who turn to Him, and who gives the fertility of the olive to the wild branch?  And who is more severe than He who has not spared the natural branches but because of their infidelity has cut them off?  If anyone whishes to love God and to contrive never to offend Him, let him not think that he can serve two masters; let him have a single intention free from duplicity.  Thus must you think about the Lord’s goodness, and seek Him in simplicity of heart.”  “Therefore,” he goes on, “I tell you not to have any superfluous anxiety as to what you will eat and what you will put on, lest perhaps, without seeking superfluities, the heart may become double, and in pursuing what is necessary, your intention may be turned aside to seek your own interests rather than the advantage of your neighbor” (3^rd Nocturn).

     Before all, then, let us seek the kingdom of God, and His justice and glory (Gospel, Communion); let us put all our hope in the Lord for He is our protector (Introit); it is He who sends His angels to deliver those who serve Him (Offertory), and who upholds our weak human nature, for without this divine assistance it would surely fail (Gospel).  It is the Eucharist which wins for us the favor of Almighty God (Secret) which by strengthening us makes our salvation sure (Postcommunion).

Let us love, above all things, to pray in the courts of the Lord (verse of the Introit), and to go there to sing the praises of God our Savior (Alleluia).  Then let us look after our temporal affairs but without being unduly anxious about them.  Such solicitude would be an outrage to our heavenly Father who loves His children, and who lets them want for nothing provided they seek His glory before all else.

 

INTROIT:

Ps. 83.  Behold, O God, our protector, and look on the face of Thy Christ: for better is one day in Thy courts above thousands.

Ps.   How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! my soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord.  Glory be, etc.  Behold, O God, our protector, etc.

 

COLLECT:

Keep, we pray, O Lord, Thy Church with Thy perpetual favor; and, since the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep it ever by Thy help from all things hurtful, and lead it to all things profitable to salvation.  Through our Lord, etc.

 

Almighty God, the giver of all good gifts, who didst will that blessed Rose, prepared by the dew of Thy heavenly grace, should bloom in the Indies in the beauty of virginity and patience, grant to us, Thy servants, to follow in the perfume of her sweetness and to be worthy to become a sweet fragrance of Christ.  Who liveth and reigneth, etc.

 

We humbly beseech Thy majesty, O Lord, that even as Thou dost ever gladden us on the feast day of Thy saints, so Thou wouldst always defend us by their prayers.  Through our Lord, etc.

 

EPISTLE:  Gal. 5, 16-25.

Brethren, Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh: for the flesh lusteth against, the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are, fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunken­ness, revellings, and such like: of the which I foretell to you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mild­ness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences.

What is it to walk in the spirit?

It is to obey the inspirations of the Holy Ghost always, and in all things. He who does this, says St. Paul, will not do the evil works of the flesh, which are here enumerated, but he will rather suppress and mortify all sensual desires, in this manner crucify his flesh together with its vices and lusts, and make himself worthy of the fruits of the Holy Ghost, which are also mentioned; he will belong to Christ, and secure for himself eternal happiness. On the contrary, he who lives according to the flesh, that is, gives way to the desires of the flesh, has no hope of salvation.

Is it not strange, that all Christians wish to belong to Christ and become heirs of His kingdom, but are unwilling to crucify the flesh and its lusts, though Christ says to all; If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Matt. 16, 24).

ASPIRATION Intercede for me, O St. Paul, that God may give me grace to crucify my flesh with its lusts, that I may have part with thee in Christ.

 

GRADUAL:

Ps. 117.  It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man.  It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes. 

Alleluia, alleluia.  Ps. 94.  Come, let us praise the Lord with joy; let us joyfully sing to God our Savior.  Alleluia.

 

GOSPEL:  Matt. 6, 24-33.      

At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will sustain the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air; for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they? And which of you, by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit? And for raiment, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they labor not, neither do they spin; but I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. Now, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which is to-day, and to morrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, O ye of little faith? Be not solicitous, therefore, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and his justice; and all these things shall be added unto you.

What is meant by serving God?

Doing the will of God, or performing faithfully and zealously all that God asks of us according to our age and condition, and for love of Him.

Who are the two masters whom we cannot serve alike?

God and Mammon or riches, whereby also, the other goods and pleasures of the world are understood. These we cannot serve at the same time, because they command things diametrically opposed to each other; for instance, God prohibits usury, theft, deceit, etc.; to which the desire for wealth impels us. God commands that we keep holy Sundays and holy days, and devote them to His service; the desire for riches tempts man to omit religious worship and to seek temporal gain; it disturbs him even in church, so that he is only present with his body, but absent in mind with his temporal goods and business.

To whom can riches be useful?

To those who, like the saints, perform works of mercy with them, and thus lay up treasures for themselves in heaven.

Why does Christ call our attention to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field?

To excite in us confidence in the providence of God, which preserves even the birds and the flowers. Surely, if God feeds the young ravens which cry to Him (Ps. 146, 9); if He nourishes the birds which neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; if He vests the flowers of the field so beautifully, how much more will He care for man whom He has made to His own image and likeness, and adopted as His child, if he only acts as such, keeps His commandments, and always entertains a filial confidence in Him.

Should we, therefore, lay aside all care and never work?

This does not follow from what has been said. Christ condemns only the superfluous cares, which cause man to forget God and to neglect the salvation of his soul. Besides, God has Himself ordered (Gen. 3, 17-19) that man should obtain the fruits of the earth with much labor, that he should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. St. Paul says: If any man will not work, neither let him eat (II Thess. 3, 9).

What should preserve us from superfluous cares?

A firm and lively faith, that God can and will help us. That He can is evident, because He is almighty; that His will is certain, because He promises it in so many pas­sages of Holy Writ, and because He is infinitely faithful to all His promises. Christ encourages us to this lively confidence with these, words: All things whatsoever you ask when ye pray, believe that you shall receive and they shall come unto you (Mark 11, 24). Therefore the apostle also commands us to throw all cares upon the Lord, who provides for us (I Pet. 5, 7). And why should God not care for us, since He sent us His Son and with Him all; for which reason St. Augustine says: "How can you doubt that God will give you good things, since He vouchsafed to assume evil for you!"

PRAYER O Lord Jesus! give me a firm confidence in Thy Divine Providence, and daily increase it in me, that when in necessity I may confidently believe if I seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, the rest shall be added unto me.

 

OFFERTORY:

Ps. 33.   The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear Him, and shall deliver them: O taste and see that the Lord is sweet.

 

SECRET:

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that this saving victim may cleanse our offenses and appease Thy power.  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 received help in trouble.  Through the same Lord, etc.

 

Look down, O Lord, upon the sacrifice of Thy people; and while they celebrate it devoutly in honor of Thy saints may they experience its salutary benefit.  Through our Lord, etc.

 

COMMUNION:

Matt. 6.  Seek ye first the kingdom of God; and all things shall be added unto you, saith the Lord.

 

POSTCOMMUNION:

May Thy sacraments, O God, ever purify and fortify us, and lead us to the fruit of everlasting salvation.  Through our Lord, etc.

 

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

 

We who are filled with Thy holy gifts, O Lord, ask that, through the intercession of Thy saints, we may always continue to give Thee thanks.  Through our Lord, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and his justice; and all these things shall be added unto you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROPER OF THE SAINTS FOR THE WEEK OF AUGUST 30^th:

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

30	Sun	14th Sunday after Pentecost St. Rose of Lima, V Ss. Felix & Adauctus, Mm	sd	G		9:00 AM; Members Ss. Peter & Paul; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM; Confessions 8:00 AM
31	Mon	St. Raymund Nonnatus, C	d	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
1	Tue	St. Giles, Ab Twelve Holy Brothers, Mm	sp	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
2	Wed	St. Stephen, King of Hungary, C	sd	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
3	Thu	St. Pius X, PC BVM-Mother of the Divine Pastor	d	W		Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
4	Fri	Ferial Day St. Rose of Virtebo First Friday			A	Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass; Benediction & Holy Hour of Reparation after Mass
5	Sat	St. Lawrence Justinian, BpC First Saturday	sd	W		Mass 9:00 AM; Confession 8:30 AM; Benediction & Holy Hour with Rosary of Reparation after Mass
6	Sun	15th Sunday after Pentecost	sd	G		9:00 AM; Members Ss. Peter & Paul; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM; Confessions 8:00 AM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE TWO KINGDOMS                               FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

PRESENCE of GOD ‑ Give strength to my weakness, O Lord, so that I may come to possess Your kingdom.

MEDITATION:

 1.     We find the central thought of today's Mass synthesized in the Collect: "O Lord. . .because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by Thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation." Behold the position of man in respect to the spiritual life: he is like a child who finds himself at a crossroad: he cannot go on alone, and he does not know which road leads to his home. Two roads open up before the Christian: one leads to the kingdom of the spirit, the kingdom of God; the other to the kingdom of the flesh, the kingdom of Mammon; which of the two will he choose? Evidently, he wishes to give the preference to the one leading to the kingdom of God, the calm, peaceful kingdom described by Jesus in today's Gospel (Mt 6, 24‑33). Unfortunately, however, the kingdom of Mammon also has attractions and tries to seduce his heart. The Epistle (Gal 5, 16‑24) tells us that we must struggle against these allurements. "For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary one to another, so that you do not the things that you would."

        The struggle is hard sometimes, even in souls that are decidedly advanced in the things of God. Why? Because the path that leads to the kingdom of God is rough and tiring; it is often shrouded in dense darkness, rendering it impossible for the soul to discern the progress already made. Then the soul must proceed in the night, believing and hoping. Meanwhile, its gaze falls on the other road, which is broader and more comfortable, strewn with sensible goods which can be seen and touched, gathered and enjoyed immediately, by merely stretching out one's hand. The soul feels the temptation and realizes that alone it could not resist, but if it takes refuge in God, if it yields to the guidance of the Spirit, it will be saved, although not without sacrifice. "I say then, walk in the spirit," continues St. Paul, "and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh .... Now the works of the flesh are manifest..." and the Apostle gives a very unattractive list of them. It is always true: material goods present themselves like flowers, attractive, yes, but doomed to quickly vanish and decay; it is not worthwhile to stop to enjoy them. That is why "they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences."

2.     The Gospel again puts us on our guard against the attractiveness of earthly goods. First it affirms that no man can simultaneously serve two masters, God and Mammon, any more than one can follow the two roads at the same time the one leading to the kingdom of God and the other to worldly pleasure. Anyone giving himself to God must have the courage to give himself entirely, with no regrets, no backward glance‑ however fleeting‑ at the things of the world. The soul who, after choosing the path of perfection, does not go forth generously, with its whole heart, will never be contented. It will neither experience the joy of knowing that it belongs entirely to God, nor will it have the satisfaction of being able to follow all the attractions of the world; the first will be impeded by the soul's unfaithfulness, the second by the fear of God which it still possesses. Such a soul is unhappy, torn between the two and in continual struggle with itself. But what keeps it from seeking the kingdom of God with its whole heart? Jesus gives us the answer in today's Gospel: too much solicitude about material things, about ease and security in this present life. Even though we have the will to live according to the spirit, as long as we are pilgrims here below and in a mortal body, we shall always have to face the possibility of becoming engrossed in worldly cares: "What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewith shall we be clothed?" Precisely to relieve us of such anxieties, Jesus presents to us the marvelous picture of divine Providence. "Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of more value than they?" These are words that give us wings and fill us with a desire to cast aside all vain preoccupations about earthly things and concentrate on seeking the kingdom of God.  “Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."  Oh, if we only had greater faith in divine Providence, how much freer we would be to attend to the things of our soul!  Although obliged to occupy ourselves with earthly affairs, we would not remain entrapped by them, but would know how to attend to them with complete liberty of spirit.

COLLOQUY:

"O Lord, as the desires of the flesh are opposed to those of the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are opposed to those of the flesh, the struggle is a mortal one; I do not do the things I would like to do, for I would like to free myself from concupiscence, but this is impossible. Whether I will it or not, I cling to it; it flatters, tempts, importunes, always trying to raise up its head. It can be restrained but not suppressed.  O Lord, my God, Your commandments are weapons. By the Holy Spirit, You have given me the possibility of keeping my members under control; therefore, all my hope is in You. Grant that I may do what You command, and then command what You will.

 "I do not want to be a friend of this world, O Lord, for if I were, I should be Your enemy. I want to make a ladder of all created things, by which I may mount to You, for if I love creatures more than You, I shall not possess You. Of what benefit would an abundance of created things be to me, if I did not have You, the Creator of all things?

"Why do I work so much for the love of riches? The desire for gain imposes fatigue, dangers, and tribulations; and I, unhappy that I am, submit to them. I accept them in order to fill my coffers, and so I lose my tranquility.

"But You, what do You command me to do, O my God? To love You. If I love gold, I try to seek it but am not able to find it; but You are always with those who seek for You. I desire honor, and I may not receive it; but can anyone love You and not reach You? All I have to do is love You, and love itself will bring You near me. Is there anything sweeter than such love? You, O Lord, are my love! I love You with all the ardor of my heart, and I trample underfoot all earthly attractions, resolving to pass them by” (St. Augustine).

 

 

                                  

 

 

 

"Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them." 

Pope St. Felix III

 

 

 

Defending of the Faith – a decidedly “one-sided position” & “broken down rigidity”

    These enemies are the modernists and their new religion – a new religion without sin, without contrition, without penance, without forgiveness, without sacrifice, without atonement, without true charity because there is no true charity without sacrifice. So against this false religion, the emblem of which is the new mass, dear deacons to be, you will have to denounce the heretical perversity of this new religion – naturalistic religion.

     In no way may the Society of Saint Pius X accept to perform any reconciliation nor any compromise with the new religion – this new religion standing from the Second Vatican Council – nor any agreement nor covenant with this sort of “new church” that I described – this “new church” born from the adulterous union between the Church and the Revolution. Archbishop Lefebvre already 30 years ago spoke of this adulterous union performed by the Council between the Church and the Revolution.
    This adulterous union has been the principal purpose of the Second Vatican Council according to Gaudium et Spes, No. 11 – this plan to introduce into the Doctrine of the Faith the best of two centuries of Liberalism – the one that introduced these errors of liberalism into the Doctrine of the Faith. That has been the main purpose of the Second Vatican Council. And so it was impossible that this Council be assisted by the assistance of the Holy Ghost in as much as it applied this bad and diverse intention of introducing the errors of the liberalism into the Doctrine of the Faith. That is impossible! So, this council, in as much as it applied this intention, has no binding obligation – has no authority of teaching. We do not – we do not accept that the council be a true Council. 

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX, June 15, 2012, Winona, ordination sermon

 

It is, as Archbishop Lefebvre used to say, the attempt by the Vatican II Council of conciliating the doctrine of the faith with the liberal errors. It was Benedict XVI himself who said it, in his interview with Vittorio Messori in November 1984, by declaring: "the problem of the 1960s (and therefore of the Council) was the acquisition of the most matured values of two centuries of Liberal culture. They are the values that, while originating outside the Church, may find their place, once purified and corrected, in her vision of the world. And it is what was done." That is the work of the council: an impossible conciliation. "What conciliation can there be between light and darkness?", the Apostle says, "what agreement between Christ and Belial?" (2 Cor 6, 15). The emblematic manifestation of this conciliation is the Declaration on Religious Freedom. In the place of the truth of Christ and of his social kingdom over the nations, the Council places the human person, his conscience and his liberty. It is the famous "change of paradigm" admitted by Cardinal Colombo in the 1980s. The worship of the man who becomes God in the place of the worship of the God who became man (cf. Paul VI, address on the closing of the Council, December 7, 1965). It is a new religion that is not the Catholic religion. We do not want any compromise with this religion, any risk of corruption, not even any appearance of conciliation, and it is this appearance that our so-called "regularization" would give us. May the Immaculate Heart of Mary, immaculate in her faith, guard us in the Catholic faith.  

Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, June 13, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to Me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.” 

Blessed Virgin Mary to the children at Fatima

 

 

 

 

Oath Against Modernism - Pope Francis, first modern pope who did not take this oath to God.

To be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries.

    I . . .. firmly embrace and accept each and every definition that has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church, especially those principal truths which are directly opposed to the errors of this day.
    And first of all, I profess that God, the origin and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from the created world (see Rom. 1:90), that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause from its effects, and that, therefore, his existence can also be demonstrated.
    Secondly, I accept and acknowledge the external proofs of revelation, that is, divine acts and especially miracles and prophecies as the surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion and I hold that these same proofs are well adapted to the understanding of all eras and all men, even of this time.
    Thirdly, I believe with equally firm faith that the Church, the guardian and teacher of the revealed word, was personally instituted by the real and historical Christ when he lived among us, and that the Church was built upon Peter, the prince of the apostolic hierarchy, and his successors for the duration of time.
    Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely.
    Fifthly, I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our creator and Lord.
    Furthermore, with due reverence, I submit and adhere with my whole heart to the condemnations, declarations, and all the prescripts contained in the encyclical Pascendi and in the decree Lamentabili, especially those concerning what is known as the history of dogmas.
    I also reject the error of those who say that the faith held by the Church can contradict history, and that Catholic dogmas, in the sense in which they are now understood, are irreconcilable with a more realistic view of the origins of the Christian religion.
    I also condemn and reject the opinion of those who say that a well-educated Christian assumes a dual personality-that of a believer and at the same time of a historian, as if it were permissible for a historian to hold things that contradict the faith of the believer, or to establish premises which, provided there be no direct denial of dogmas, would lead to the conclusion that dogmas are either false or doubtful.
    Likewise, I reject that method of judging and interpreting Sacred Scripture which, departing from the tradition of the Church, the analogy of faith, and the norms of the Apostolic See, embraces the misrepresentations of the rationalists and with no prudence or restraint adopts textual criticism as the one and supreme norm.
    Furthermore, I reject the opinion of those who hold that a professor lecturing or writing on a historico-theological subject should first put aside any preconceived opinion about the supernatural origin of Catholic tradition or about the divine promise of help to preserve all revealed truth forever; and that they should then interpret the writings of each of the Fathers solely by scientific principles, excluding all sacred authority, and with the same liberty of judgment that is common in the investigation of all ordinary historical documents.
    Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles.
    I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God, and these holy Gospels of God which I touch with my hand.
    May God help us to keep this oath until death. Pray for the Restoration to come.

St. Pius X, Motu Proprio, Sacrorum Antistitum, Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity:

Catholic Tradition - Charity, the love of God first, & then, love of man for the love of God.

Vatican II - "New and solemn teaching to love man in order to love God."

What then was the council? What has it accomplished?...... And that thought is this: what is the religious value of this council?..... But we cannot pass over one important consideration in our analysis of the religious meaning of the council: it has been deeply committed to the study of the modern world. Never before perhaps, so much as on this occasion, has the Church felt the need to know, to draw near to, to understand, to penetrate, serve and evangelize the society in which she lives; and to get to grips with it, almost to run after it, in its rapid and continuous change. This attitude has been strongly and unceasingly at work in the council; so much so that some have been inclined to suspect that an easy-going and excessive responsiveness to the outside world, to passing events, cultural fashions, temporary needs, an alien way of thinking..... may have swayed persons and acts of the ecumenical synod, at the expense of the fidelity which is due to tradition, and this to the detriment of the religious orientation of the council itself. We do not believe that this shortcoming should be imputed to it, to its real and deep intentions, to its authentic manifestations. We prefer to point out how charity has been the principal religious feature of this council...... Yes, the Church of the council has been concerned,........with man—man as he really is today: living man, man all wrapped up in himself, man who makes himself not only the center of his every interest but dares to claim that he is the principle and explanation of all reality. Every perceptible element in man, every one of the countless guises in which he appears, has, in a sense, been displayed in full view of the council Fathers, who, in their turn, are mere men, and yet all of them are pastors and brothers whose position accordingly fills them with solicitude and love........Secular humanism, revealing itself in its horrible anti-clerical reality has, in a certain sense, defied the council. The religion of the God who became man has met the religion (for such it is) of man who makes himself God. And what happened? Was there a clash, a battle, a condemnation? There could have been, but there was none...... But we call upon those who term themselves modern humanists, and who have renounced the transcendent value of the highest realities, to give the council credit at least for one quality and to recognize our own new type of humanism: we, too, in fact, we more than any others, honor mankind...... the modern mind, accustomed to assess everything in terms of usefulness, will readily admit that the council's value is great if only because everything has been referred to human usefulness. Hence no one should ever say that a religion like the Catholic religion is without use, seeing that when it has its greatest self-awareness and effectiveness, as it has in council, it declares itself entirely on the side of man and in his service...... Would not this council, then, which has concentrated principally on man, be destined to propose again to the world of today the ladder leading to freedom and consolation? Would it not be, in short, a simple, new and solemn teaching to love man in order to love God? To love man, we say, not as a means but as the first step toward the final and transcendent goal which is the basis and cause of every love.

Pope Paul VI, address during the last general meeting of Vatican II, December 7, 1965

 

 

 

 

 

Ecumenism of St. Margaret Clitherow: “I will not pray with you, nor shall you pray with me; neither will I say amen to your prayers, nor shall you to mine. ”

The place of execution was the Tolbooth, six or seven yards distant from the prison. There were present at her martyrdom the two sheriffs, some ministers, four sergeants, who had lured some beggars to do the murder, three or four men besides, and four women.

When the martyr reached the place, she knelt down prayed to herself. Her tormentors bade her pray with them, and they would pray with her. But she said, “I will not pray with you, nor shall you pray with me; neither will I say amen to your prayers, nor shall you to mine.” Then she prayed aloud for the “Catholic Church, for the Pope’s holiness, cardinals, and other fathers which have charge of souls;”  then for “the Christian princes in the world, and especially for Elizabeth queen of England, that God may turn her to the Catholic faith, and after this mortal life she may receive the blessed joys of heaven; for I wish,” said she, “as much joy to her majesty’s soul as to mine own.”

Then Fawcett, one of the sheriffs, commanded her to put off her apparel. She implored on her knees, together with the other women, that this might be spared her, but in vain; however, the women disrobed her, and put on her the long linen habit which she had prepared for herself. Being thus ready, she lay quietly down on the ground, her face covered with a handkerchief:

Then the door was laid upon her, and she covered her face with her hands; but the sheriffs told her that she must have her hands bound to two posts, which was done; “so that her body and arms made a perfect cross.” At the first weight that was laid upon her, she cried, “O Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! have mercy upon me!” which were the last words she was heard to speak. A sharp stone was placed under her back, and seven or eight hundredweight at least were laid upon her; and her agony lasted or nearly a quarter of an hour.

Such was the life and death of this blessed martyr of Christ. As it may seem strange to some that she should have scrupled to plead, when so many other holy confessors of the faith have done so, it is right to give, in conclusion, her own touching reasons for her conduct.

“Alas !” said she, “if I should have put myself on my country, evidence must needs have come against me, which I know none could give but only my children or servants. And it would have been more grievous to me than a thousand deaths, if I should have seen any of them brought forth before me to give evidence against me in so good a cause, and be guilty of my blood. Secondly,” she continued, “I know well the country must needs have found me guilty to please the council, which seek earnestly my blood; and then all they had been accessory to my death, and damnably offended God. I therefore thought, in the way of charity, for my part to hinder the country from such a sin; and seeing it must needs be done, to cause as few to do sin as might be ;—that was the judge himself.”

Death of St. Margaret Clitherow, Pictures of Christian Heroism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When our Saviour conquered Satan He left him power over those who make themselves slaves to the sensual pleasures, and thus there exists an evil force against the Church, and it will exist to the end of time. This is a fact that we must keep in view in order to fully understand and judge the conditions. The realm darkness, Satan’s realm, stands opposed to the realm of Christ. Satan and his adherents carry on the warfare against the Church of Christ, as they assaulted Christ Himself. “As they have persecuted they will also persecute you,” so did Christ prophecy. The Church of Christ demands the subjection of the flesh; she preaches against luxury, pride and selfishness. She preaches chastity submission to the commandments of God; she preaches penance to those of high and low station in life. This angers all those who would indulge in the evil things of this world. They cry: “Let us break her bonds asunder; and let us cast away her yoke from us.” But as Christ foretold the persecution of His Church, so He also foretold that the gates of hell would not prevail against her. The Church of God will in due time conquer all her enemies, some will be converted, while others who are obstinate will perish in the battle. In all these battles and victories of the Church, Mary, blessed mother of her divine Founder, co-operates with the Church through her intercession. Mary was already spoken of in paradise as the one who would come to tread upon the head of the serpent, the spirit of darkness. This she has done by becoming the mother of God, by bringing forth the Redeemer. And as Jesus through Mary’s co-operation came into this world, so He desires her cooperation in ruling the world. The history of the contests and victories of the Church verify this throughout the centuries.

The evil spirit has a twofold weapon with which he assails and combats God’s Church; namely, the godless rulers of the world and heresy. Through the godless authorities of the world Satan has endeavored since the beginning to crush the Church; through heresy he attempts to destroy the Church by internal dissension. Both weapons are used together, for heresy and calumny cannot prevail without substantial support, and heretics seek worldly power and assistance. On every page of Church history we find recorded , the clashes planned by these evil forces, from which the Church always came out not conquered, but a conqueror.

The history of the veneration of Mary tells us that the Blessed Virgin Mary helped to win these victories. During the early times, when fierce battles against the Church were raging, bishops and priests knew of no more efficacious means to avert these dangers than to exhort the faithful to pray to the Blessed Virgin. 

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning

 

In such a time as this, then, it is most opportune to be reminded, that the age of martyrs is not over yet; that it is continual; that the conflict is endless; that not peace, but a sword, is the perpetual portion of the Church. And for this the following pages will bear witness. The sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries have their martyrs as great and as glorious as the first, the second, and the third. Not Asia and Africa alone, but Europe; not remote lands only, but France and England have been steeped with blood sacred to Jesus. In these modem days of the nineteenth century, which seem so unheroic and so commonplace, while we have been treading the every-day path of life, martyrs have been continually ascending to their crown. Hardly a year has passed but in China some servant of our Lord has been conformed to his Master’s Passion. It is well that we

should bear this in mind, and make it familiar to our thoughts. For it is most certain that, if we would be faithful, we must learn to be ready for the sword. In some form it will come to us. If we would be crowned with Him, we must also suffer with him; amid though not martyrs in deed, we must bear a martyr’s will; for if we be not martyrs, at least in will, we should not be even confessors in the hour of trial; and if not confessors, how Christians? It would be a fearful scrutiny into our life if we were now to be asked, ‘what have you ever suffered, what have you ever risked for the truth, and for our Lord’s sake?’

It is good, then, to have the realities of martyrdom brought home to us in our own land and day, and to see how it looks in the context of modern society, and to put it to ourselves how we should endure in such an hour. 

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, preface to Pictures of Christian Heroism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Lady of LaSalette

 “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.” “The demons of the air, together with the Antichrist, will work great wonders on the earth and in the air, and men will become ever more perverted. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will; the Gospel will be preached everywhere, all peoples and all nations will have knowledge of the Truth.”

Blessed Virgin Mary addressing the children at LaSalette, September 19, 1846

 

“When the Secret has been scorned, misunderstood ... held back for money, one must be surprised at nothing. The Church will endure forever, our Lord said so; but among the teaching members of the Church, what traitors, what apostates, what mercenaries, what sectarians, who bear the imprint or the sign of the beast with ten horns St. John speaks of in his vision on Patmos! But this beast similar to the Lamb, who rises out of the earth, isn't it the figure of faithless ecclesiastics? I firmly believe so. Happy those who die in God's grace, for those who live will see sad and terrifying things. We still haven't reached the beginning of the end.”

Melanie Calvat, visionary of LaSalette, Letter to Fr. Roubaud, January 2, 1892), quoted by Solange Hertz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Rose of Viterbo

St Rose of Viterbo was not yet 10 years old when the Blessed Mother of God instructed her to join the Third Order of St. Francis. Shortly after, our Lord appeared to her on the Cross, wearing the crown of thorns on His head and bleeding profusely from all His wounds.

St Rose, aghast at the sight, called out: “O my Lord, who has reduced Thee to this state?”

Our Lord replied, “My love, my deep love for men has done this.”

“But,” asked Rose, “who has so pierced and torn Thee?”

“The sins of men have done it,” was our Lord's answer. “Sin, sin!” cried the saint, and she scourged herself to make atonement for the sins of the world.

By divine inspiration, Rose then took a cross in her hand and went up and down the streets and public squares of her city telling people of the terrible tortures our Lord suffered and of the heinousness of sin. Every now and then she would emerge from her solitude to entreat the people to do penance.

The town of Viterbo, which belonged to the Papal States, had revolted against the authority of the pope. Disregard for religion and moral degradation were the order of the day. But the sermons of this little missionary had marvelous results. The people came in crowds to hear her. The stone on which she stood was seen to rise in the air, and she was sustained there by a miracle while burning words issued from her lips. The greater part of the citizenry had already resolved to do penance and to return to the legitimate papal allegiance when Saint Rose of Viterbo and her parents were repelled by the civil authorities.

The result was that she now had a wider field of activity. At Soriano and later at Vitorchiano, her preaching had the same blessed results. In the latter place, a sorceress had done much harm among the inhabitants. Fearing that after her departure this woman would undo the good effected there, Rose was desirous of her conversion. Her initial efforts failed. Then our saint had an immense pile of wood prepared in the public square; fire was set to it, and Rose stepped into the fire and mounted to the top of the pile. She remained untouched for three hours in the midst of the flames, singing the praises of God. The sorceress now cast herself at Rose's feet and was sincerely converted.

Meanwhile the rightful authority of the pope had been re-established at Viterbo, and Rose could return. She was now 15 years old and anxious to enter the convent of the Poor Clares. As she had no dowry, she could not be admitted.

“Well,” said Rose, “you will not receive me while I am alive, but you will receive me after I am dead.” She and several companions repaired to a secluded dwelling, where they intended to live as a community. The ecclesiastical authorities, however, did not approve of the plan, and Rose returned home. She died 2 years later, filled with the joyous desire of being united with her God.

Two and a half years after her death she appeared three times to Pope Alexander IV, who was in Viterbo at the time, and told him to have her body removed to the convent of the Poor Clares. When this was done, her body was found incorrupt; and it has remained in that condition to this day. Miracles are constantly occurring at her tomb. Pope Callistus III canonized her in 1457.

Although her skin is dark, the body of the saint is still flexible and the internal organs in good condition. In 1921 the heart was removed to be placed in a reliquary for a procession, and it was found to be unblemished and perfectly intact at that time.

Marion Habig, OFM, The Franciscan Book Of Saints

 

 

 

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, Primate of England and Wales

THE GLORIES OF THE SACRED HEART, Signs of the Sacred Heart

Take nothing lower than the Heart of our Divine Lord as the measure and the rule of your own. Do not take any lower standard. Do not take the examples of men. Do not take maxims or motives of your own imagining. Set before you the Sacred Heart in its full and divine perfection. The Word of God took that Sacred Heart in order that we might know God; that He might come within the sphere of our intelligence, within the reach of our hearts, and unite our will to His will. Therefore let us first of all see whether our intelligence, our reason, our intellect be conformed to the intelligence of Jesus Christ. His intelligence was, like our own, a human and finite intelligence. He had also an infinite intelligence ; therefore He said, 'I am the Truth.' And how are we to know this truth? He has revealed it. And where is that revelation? In the holy faith. Any man who knows only a part of that revelation, that is, only a fragment, or any number of fragments of that revelation, has not his reason nor his intelligence conformed to the reason and intelligence of Jesus Christ. He is narrowed in some part. But when his whole understanding and reason are illuminated by the knowledge of faith, then he is conformed to the intelligence of Jesus Christ; the whole outline, and I will say the whole circle, of his reason is full of light. We must, then, be perfect in the light of Catholic faith. Next as to our affections. The Sacred Heart is the most perfect Kingdom of God the Father. It is the sanctuary in which God the Son perpetually dwells, and it is also the most perfect work of the Holy Ghost. All the affections and all those pro-passions, as they are called — because the Church never speaks of passions when it speaks of the Sacred Heart — all the emotions, all those sensitive movements of our nature which were in Him, were all in perfect tranquility, in perfect order, and in perfect unity. Therefore until our sensitive will, with all its affections and emotions, is subject to our superior will, which is our reason and our conscience, and until both the sensitive and the superior will in us are subject to the will of God, we shall not be conformed to the Sacred Heart of our Lord. And, once more, His will is the law of ours; and unless our will be conformed to our lot in life; unless we accept it as coming from the will of God; unless our will accepts our state in life, and does not chafe against it, because God in His providence has ordained it for us — I will even go further, and say, unless we accept our state in grace as God has given it to us — we shall not be conformed to Him. Many people are all day long complaining and chafing that they fall into faults. True, indeed, they do; and why? They are impatient to be Saints for their own glory, or to be masters of themselves for their own consolation, or to be perfectly sanctified with all speed, that they may be delivered from the trouble of mortifying themselves; and God in His wisdom measures out to them the grace which He sees to be sufficient for them if they are faithful; and by leaving them long in that warfare He humbles them, by teaching them to know themselves; and He makes the very sins which they once loved to be their chastisement, and to scourge them for those very faults. He turns their faults into a purgatory upon earth, and by suffering from them they are purified, and make their expiation. Until we have come to say even in this what our Lord said in the garden, 'Not my will but Thine be done,' we are not conformed to the Sacred Heart. When we can say it, then we may hope that our affections and our intelligence and our will are growing towards His likeness.

And the other counsel is this : Do not be cast down if, when you look into yourselves, you find your heart to be so deformed, so unlike to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Anybody who really knows himself will find in his own heart what we read in the beginning, 'a great deep,' and 'darkness on the face of the deep' — that is, a disorder and a confusion — but over all the Spirit of God moves 'upon the face of the waters.' There is much in ourselves that we have never fathomed. The darkness hides much from ourselves. And the more we know ourselves the more at first we must be cast down and troubled, so as even to be altogether out of heart if we did not know that the more we are humbled before God the more safe we are, and the more surely His Presence is in us. If we find in ourselves all manner of windings and doubles, and that the heart is deceitful above all things, who shows all this to us? who teaches us these truths? It is the Spirit of God moving over our inward life, and by His light revealing us to our own selves. Therefore, when we come to see these things, we have no reason to be cast down; it is the evidence and the certain proof that God is working in us of His own good will. And the way in which He works is this. When the Holy Spirit of God comes into the heart of a man, He enlightens him to know himself, but the Spirit of God is invisible; while He is showing ourselves to our own conscience He hides Himself. And when He casts His light upon us, He shows to us, not the things that are pleasing to us, but the things that are displeasing to Him; not those things which will please our love of self, but those things which will displease and humble us. He does not show the conformity, if we have any, to the Sacred Heart, but the manifold deformities which are displeasing in God's sight.

But perhaps you will say, 'How can I ever be conformed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?' You can never transform yourselves into His likeness; but there is One who can; there is One who will transform you by His creating power. If you go to Him that made you, He can make all things new. Old things will pass away. If you say, 'Create in me a clean heart' — that is, 'Put forth Thine almighty power to make me once more as Thou didst make me in the beginning' — He will renew His own work.' If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature.' His work is not by halves, nor upon the surface, nor left imperfect, like something which is just refitted for the time, or made up again like new cloth on an old garment. It is a new creation, made over again — 'a new creation, in which old things are passed away and all things are become new.' 'He that sitteth upon the Throne said, Behold, I make all things new.' The Precious Blood will cleanse away all sin; though it be red as scarlet, it shall be as white as snow; though it be like crimson, it shall be as wool; the almighty power of the Holy Ghost will purify all things as 'by the spirit of burning.' He will re-create all things and make them over again. As the springing of the harvest or the putting out of the leaf in the forest is a new creation upon the stock of the old by the almighty power of God, so. in body and soul and spirit you will be made new once more.

Therefore, to make what I have said very practical, and to bring it nearer home, I will say this: Follow out and pursue your little faults. If you will correct your little faults, I was going to say your great ones will correct themselves; for 'he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful in that which is greater.' Be watchful against spiritual sins, faults of omission, sins of the tongue, and thoughts against charity. And secondly, fulfil your little duties, and your greater ones will take heed for themselves. A man that fulfils the lesser duties of charity, of humility, of piety, of fidelity, will have a conscience that grows more and more delicate; and a delicate conscience will take care of the great commandments of God. Then your 'heart will not reprehend you,' 'and God, who is greater than your heart,' will keep you in the multitude of peace. Your many infirmities will be absolved in the Precious Blood of His Son, and if your 'heart reprehend' you 'not, then have you confidence towards God ;' and as S. John goes on in this place to say, 'Whatsoever we ask of Him we shall receive, because we keep His commandments, and do those things which are pleasing in His sight.'

 

 

 

Leo XIV says we shouldn’t ‘retreat into our own religious certainties’

Contrary to what Leo suggested, the Church has never seen a conflict between 'religious certainties' and an 'authentic relationship with Christ.'

LifeSiteNews | Robert T. Morrison | August 24, 2026

— In his recent Angelus message, Leo XIV introduced a puzzling dichotomy to call into question “religious certainties”:

"Dear brothers and sisters, let us seek not to retreat into our own convictions and religious certainties, but to remain open to an authentic relationship with Christ."

According to Leo, one must choose between our “convictions and religious certainties” on the one hand, and an “authentic relationship with Christ” on the other. Although it should be evident to Catholics that the Church has never seen a conflict between religious certainties and an authentic relationship with Christ, it is worthwhile to recall how St. Paul viewed this matter:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:8-10)

St. Paul’s words tell us that we must absolutely adhere to the convictions and religious certainties handed down through the Church. Indeed, anyone telling us that we ought to do otherwise is anathema. Moreover, St. Paul tells us that choosing to adhere to the immutable Christian truth is the way to serve and please God, which necessarily means that it is the way to cultivate “an authentic relationship with Christ.”

Perhaps, though, Leo simply misspoke or was mistranslated? Unfortunately, he continued with an even more emphatic call to reject St. Paul’s admonition:

"At times, when it comes to the Christian faith, we may be content with what we have merely ‘heard,’ with common assumptions or with what has been handed down to us, perhaps even with the best of intentions. Yet Jesus calls us to give a personal response, to know him more closely and to allow ourselves to be shaped by friendship with him through an ever-new encounter. This may also ask us to follow unfamiliar paths and to make choices different from those we had imagined. This is true both for our personal journey and for the journey of the Church, as well as for our pastoral choices, when we may sometimes think that it is enough simply to continue doing things as we have always done them."

It seems that the most astounding piece of this is the notion that the Church itself must be willing to “follow unfamiliar paths and to make choices different from those we had imagined.” As he said, neither individual Catholics nor the Church cannot simply “continue doing things as we have always done them.”

As awful as this is, at least he is being honest. As LifeSiteNews reported, Bishop Robert Mutsaerts recently published an open letter to Leo, which respectfully critiqued the Synod on Synodality. Bishop Mutsaerts’ criticism of the synod includes a passage which essentially condemns what Leo said in his Angelus message:

"Faith does not arise because the Church first inventories what people believe and then distills a common conviction from all those experiences. Faith is received. Paul constantly uses words such as receive, hand down, and preserve for this. The Church possesses Revelation not because she conceived it, but because she received it. This means that Christianity cannot, in essence, be democratic. Not because democracy as a form of government is bad, but because truth does not arise by a majority vote. If tomorrow 90 percent of Catholics were no longer to believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Christ would not be any less truly present. If 80 percent reject a certain moral doctrine, that doctrine does not automatically become untrue. Truth is not produced by consensus. That constitutes the first major area of tension surrounding the synodal project."

All of the pre-Vatican II saints would surely agree with Bishop Mutsaerts on this, and indeed many of them chose martyrdom because they were convinced that this was necessarily true. But, as Leo has affirmed, the Synodal Church sees matters differently.

All of this also ties to the Vatican’s condemnation of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Before the SSPX proceeded with the consecrations of four bishops without Rome’s approval, Leo explained that the Vatican’s real conflict with the SSPX was about religious convictions rather than permission to consecrate bishops:

"Certainly, division among Christians is always a painful matter. But they refuse to accept certain fundamental elements of the Church, beginning with various points of the Second Vatican Council. And if they make those choices, I am sorry. But we must move forward."

As discussed in a previous article, Leo XIV rejects many of the portions of Vatican II that simply reaffirm Church teaching – so we cannot take his words at face value without concluding that he and his Vatican are guilty of the charges he levels at the SSPX. That said, the overall sentiment is entirely consistent with what Leo said in his recent Angelus: the Synodal Church wants to move forward, so it cannot accompany those like the SSPX and other Traditional Catholics who want to follow what St. Paul said.

So while Leo’s dichotomy is a false one that can lead souls to hell, there is a true dichotomy presented to us today. Do we accept the ideas of Leo or the ideas that the Church has always taught? With points 80 to 83 of its Profession of Catholic Faith (June 24, 2026), the SSPX reiterated the Church’s teaching on this all-important matter:

80. I believe that the Roman Pontiff enjoys infallibility when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, fulfilling his office as pastor and doctor of all Christians, he defines, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, that a doctrine concerning faith or morals is to be held by the universal Church.

81. I further profess that the power of the Magisterium in the Church is essentially ordered to the safeguarding of the revealed Deposit and, through this means, to the salvation of souls. The Holy Ghost was not promised to the successors of Peter so that they might manifest new doctrine, but so that they might guard holily and expound faithfully the Deposit transmitted by the Apostles.

82. This is why the present Magisterium cannot substantially contradict the prior Magisterium. The living Magisterium is not current preaching set in opposition to past preaching; it is the continual and uninterrupted preaching of the same truth of Faith with the same meaning throughout the centuries. The Pope and the bishops are not the masters of Revelation; they are its guardians and are subject to it as a disciple is subject to his master. They can neither change the Faith, nor modify the divine constitution of the Church, nor declare good what is contrary to the law of God.

83. I therefore reject every evolutionist conception of dogma, according to which revealed truths would change their meaning over the course of history. There can be within the Church a homogeneous progress in understanding, which perceives better, in a more distinct and explicit manner, the meaning of revealed truth, but never a mutation in the meaning of that truth. What has already been taught by the living Magisterium of the Teaching Church, and believed in the profession of Faith of the Church Taught, cannot become false; what has been condemned as contrary to the Faith cannot become legitimate; what belongs to the divine constitution of the Church cannot be remodelled according to the categories of the modern world or the historico-cultural context.

Whether or not one agrees with the SSPX, Catholics really ought to ponder whether they agree with this clear statement of what the Church has always taught. If so, then they are in conflict with Leo and his Vatican. If not, they are in conflict with St. Paul and the constant teaching of the Church prior to Vatican II. In His loving Providence, God is permitting it to become increasingly clear that we cannot pretend to serve two masters – we can follow Catholic teaching or the teaching of today’s Vatican, but not both. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

COMMENT: Salvation is only possible for those who are united to Jesus Christ. Unity with Jesus is effected by the sacramental grace received in baptism conferred on a person who professes the Catholic faith. The Catholic faith is believing what God has revealed on the authority of God the Revealer, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, in Whom there is no shadow of change or alteration. What God has revealed are, in fact, “religious certainties.” Whosoever does not received God’s revelation as a “religious certainty” does not have the Catholic faith, without which it is impossible please God. The grace that unites us with God is charity. Charity does not exist in a person who does not have the Catholic faith. The is why, as St. Thomas said, "all heretics are schismatics." Pope Leo is purposing that Catholics deny the “religious certainties” that God has revealed in order to have an “authentic relationship with Christ” by charity. What Leo proposes makes impossible any relationship of friendship to Christ and therefore, any possibility of salvation. It is a grave sin for any cleric to fail in his duty to work for the salvation of others. It is a more serious sin when through his example he drives others away from salvation. What can we say about the cleric who actively works for the damnation of others while hypocritically pretending to draw them to God? And how must this grave sin be magnified when the cleric is the pope?

 

 

 

 

 

Remember in your charity:            

Remember the welfare of our expectant mother:

Drews petition prayers for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Christian & Irene Melnick family,

Gene Peters asks our prayers for the spiritual welfare of Beverly Wood and Bonnie Cormesser,

Mr. & Mrs. Hall request prayers for the health of their daughter, Erika Smith,

Drews request your prayers for Phyllis Virgil, for her health and spirital welfare,

For Anthony Niekrewicz, spiritual and temporal welfare is the petition of all the members of Ss. Peter & Paul,

Mary Lou Loftus' aunt, Susan Hendricks, who is gravely ill after emergency surgery,

Fred Holder, for his spiritual and physical welfare,

Thomas Soul, a nursing home patient who has suffered a stroke,

Donna Kallal, a dear friend of the Schiltz family who is dying,

Philip Thees requests our prayers for the heath of Mary Glatz and Agnus Messineo,

For the welfare of Aaron, a York resident in need of conversion,

For the spiritual welfare of Margaret Connelly is the petition of Camilla Meiser,

Linda Boyd, for her health,

Pete Schiffbauer, a cousin of Monic Bandlow who is gravely ill,

Joan R. Barr, the widow of F. Donald Barr who died March 7, they were married 70 years

Cole Schneider, prayers for his welfare are requested by Camilla Meiser,

JoAnn Niekrewicz, for her recovery from a recent fall and shoulder injury,

The Drews ask prayers for the spiritual and physical welfare of Robert Carballo,

Conversion of Jack Gentry, the nephew of Camilla Meiser,

For Sr. Maria Junipera, who took her final vows as a nun with the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Richmond, New Hampshire April 8,

Stephen Bryan, the brother of a devout Catholic religious, for his spiritual welfare,

Marie Kolinsky, for her health and spiritual welfare is the petition of her family,

Gene Peters requests our prayers for the conversion of Shirley Young and Carl Loy who are dying, the conversion of Dawn Keithley and Nate Schaeffer,

Rev. Leo Carley, an eighty-nine year old priest faithful to Catholic tradition, who is seriously ill,

For the recovery of Hayden Yanchek, the grandson of Francis Yanchek, injured in a farming accident,

Maureen Nies, for the recovery of her health is the petition of Camilla Meiser,

Daniel Vargs, for his health is the petition of his parents,

Art Noel, for the restoration of his health,

For the welfare of Peg Berry and her husband, Bill,

Marianne Connelly asks prayers for Chris Foley, who is gravely ill, and the welfare of his wife, Mary Beth,

The spiritual welfare of the Sal & Maria Messineo family is the petition of the Drew’s,

Liz Agosta, who is seriously ill, for her spiritual and temporal welfare,

Warren Hoffman, a long time member of our Mission who is in failing health,

Patrick Boyle, for the recovery of his health and his spiritual welfare,

For the spiritual welfare of the Drew children,

Monica Bandlow request our prayers for the welfare of Ray who is recovering from a MVA, and his daughter, Sonya, and Tera Jean Kopczynski, who is in failing health, and for a good death for Mr. Howald, Kathy Simons, Regina Quinn, James Mulgrew, Ruth Beaucheane, John Kopczynski, Roger & Mandy Owen

Peg Berry requests our prayers for her brother, William Habekost,

For the recently widowed, Maike Hickson, and her children,

For the spiritual welfare of the Carmelite nuns in Fairfield, PA,

Geralyn Zagorski, recovery of her health and spiritual welfare and the conversion of Randal Pace is the petition of Philip Thees,

For the grandson of Joe & Liz Agusta,

Fr. Waters requests our prayers for the health and spiritual welfare of Elvira Donaghy,

For the health and conversion of Stephen Henderson,

Fr. Paul DaDamio requests our prayers for the welfare of Rob Ward, and his sister, Debra Wagaman,

Kaitlyn McDonald, for the recovery of her health and spiritual welfare,

Roco Sbardella, for his health and spiritual welfare,

The Vargas’ request our prayers for the spiritual welfare of their son, Nicholas,

Family, for the welfare of Lazarus Handley, his mother, Julia, and his brother, Raphael, with Down’s Syndrome,

Fr. Waters requests prayers for the spiritual and physical welfare of Frank McKee,

Nancy Bennett, for the recovery of her health,

For the spiritual welfare of Mark Roberts, a Catholic faithful to tradition,

Michael Brigg requests our prayers for the health of John Romeo,

The health and welfare of Gene Peters and his sons,

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

Christine Kozin, for her health and spiritual welfare,

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

For the health of Sonya Kolinsky,

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

For the health and spiritual welfare, Meg Bradley, the granddaughter of Rose Bradley,

Timothy & Crisara, a couple from Maryland have requested our prayers for their spiritual welfare,

Celine Pilegaard, the seven year old daughter of Cynthia Pilegaard, for her recovery from burn injuries,

Rafaela de Saravia, for her health and welfare,

Abbe Damien Dutertre, traditional Catholic priest arrested by Montreal police while offering Mass,

Francis (Frank) X.  McLaughlin, for the recovery of his health,

Nicholas Pell, for his health and spiritual welfare is the petition of Camilla Meizer,

Mary Kaye Petr, her health and welfare is petitioned by Camilla Meizer,

The welfare of Excellency Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,

The welfare of Rev. Fr. Martin Skierka, who produces the traditional Ordo in the U.S.,

For the health and welfare of Katie Wess, John Gentry, Vincent Bands, Todd Chairs, Susan Healy and James O’Gentry is the petition of Camilia,

Marieann Reuter, recovery of her health, Kathy Kepner, for her health, Shane Cox, for his health, requests of Philip Thees,

The Joseph Cox Family, their spiritual welfare,

For the health of Kim Cochran, the daughter-in-law of Joseph and Brenda Cochran, the wife of their son Joshua,

Louie Verrecchio, Catholic apologist, who has a health problem,

John Minidis, Jr. family, for help in their spiritual trial,

Joann DeMarco, for her health and spiritual welfare,

Regina (Manidis) Miller, her spiritual welfare and health,   

Melissa Elena Levitt, her conversion, and welfare of her children,

For the grace of a holy death, Nancy Marie Claycomb,

Conversion of Annette Murowski, and her son Jimmy,

Brent Keith from Indiana has petitioned our prayers for the Keith Family,

The welfare of the Schmedes Family, and the Mike and Mariana Donohue Family,

The spiritual welfare Robert Holmes Family,

For the spiritual and temporal welfare of Irwin Kwiat,

Fr. Waters asks our prayers for Elvira Donaghy,

Kimberly Ann, the daughter of John and Joann DeMarco, for her health and spiritual welfare,

Rende and Mary Mufide, a traditional Catholics from India ask 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,

Jason Green, a father of ten children, 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,

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, and for Fr. Thomas Blute, 

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 friend, 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:

Shanon Smuckers, a thirty-three year old mother of three, died July 15,

John Callisanti, a faithful Catholic, died June 23, prayers petitioned by Philip Thees,

Christian Joseph Melnick, died June 19, a 56 year old faithful Catholic and devoted husband and father of nine,

Fr. Radoslav, a relatively young faithful priest who was working with Bishop Stobnicki in Poland,

Leonard  Messineo, a long time traditional Catholic, dies May 18,

For Jo Ann Niekrewicz, our dear friend, died March 1, for the blessed repose of her soul is the petition of all the members of Ss. Peter & Paul,

Shirley Rotondo, died February 2-26, and Louisa McBride, died February 27, is the petition of Monica Bandlow,

Katherine Veronica Wedel, the mother of Mary Baer, died February 6,

James Condit, Jr., traditional Catholic activist, died December 27,

Beverly Harmon, died December 16, requested by the Sentmanat family,

Rev. Nicholas DeProspero, a faithful Ruthenian Eastern rite Catholic priest, died December 10,

Monica Bandlow petitions our prayers for her friend, Patricia Messineo, died November 28,

Guy Berthault, died November 23, a great Catholic scientist whose work in sedimentology destrooyed Lyellian geology and the theory of evolution,

Thomas Soul, died November 8 after receiving the last rites of the Church,

Etta Van Der Werken, a dear friend of Barbara Taffe, died 10-21-2025,

Gary Potter, Catholic writer and apologist and great long time defender of Catholic doctrine and tradition, died 9-9-2025,

Elizabeth Gorska, who died September 9, a relative of Lidia Gjec,

Camilia Meiser request our prayers for the souls of Peggy Cummings and Elizabeth Genter,

Thomas A. Nelson, founder of TAN Books and Publishers, died August 16,

Juan D. Gonzalez, our former sacristan, choir director, and dear friend, died July 23,

Sal Messineo, a faithful traditional Catholic, died Augsut 14,

Patricia Askew, a friend of Camilla Meiser, died July 3,

Joseph Kerney, a young man whose family provided the statues of the Sacred Heart, Mary and Joseph in our sanctuary, died May 30,

Louis Richard Ajlouny, the father of Randa Sharpe, died May 15,

Rene Guidicessi, died April 25, an old friend of the Drews,

F. Donald Barr, died March 7 at 94 years of age, co-founder of Robert Francis Religious Goods, in Philadelphia,

Dr. David Allen White, a well known defender of the Catholic faith, died February 11,

Bishop Richard Williamson, a renowned defender of the Catholic faith and most charitable gentleman, died January 29,

Rodolfo Alberto Lacayo, a cousin of Claudia Drew, died January 4,

Genieve Wallace, died Christmas day,

Ruth Marion Beaucheane, died December 8, is the petition of Monica Bandlow,

Ana Maria Salcedo,  the sister of Mario Fiol, died November 26,

Fr. Johin Cardaro, a traditional Catholic priest who was found dead in his home November 2,

Robert Carballo asks that we remember his parents, Roberto & Aida Carballo, and his friend, David Duclos, who died April 15,

Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais who may have been responsible for preventing the SSPX's public reconciliation with Rome in 2012, died October 8,

Lorna Edwards, our dear friend and loyal supporter of this Mission, died August 10,

Lois Petti, died July 28 two hours after receiving the Last Sacraments from Fr. Waters,

Wolfgang Smith, a renowned Catholic scholar, mathematician, scientist, philosopher, who helped the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, died July 19,

Willaim Glatz, a good and faithful Catholic, died July 17,

Alicio Gonzalez, a Catholic who asked for the sacrament of Extreme Unction, unfortunately did not receive, died July 9,

John Zavodny,  a faithful Catholic who died wearing the scapular of Mt Carmel on the first Saturday of May,  requested by Phyllis Virgil,

Catherine Martel, a lapsed Catholic, received the last sacraments in a good disposition from Fr. Waters on March 25 and died on April 4,

Father Basilio Méramo, a faithful priest, died March 5, removed from the SSPX for opposing their accommodation with Rome,

Julia McDonald, the mother of Kyle McDonald, died March 1,

Agnus Melnick, died February 28, a long time faithful Catholic and mother of eight children, including a traditional priest,

Kathryn (Drew) Lederhos, of Wellesley, MA, died February 3, 2024,

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

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

Fr. James Louis Albert Campbell, a faithful priest who died December 18 at 91 years of age, and her mother and father, Teresa and Thomas Maher,

Charles Harmon, the father of Tracey Sentmanet, died October 1, after receiving the rites of the Church,

Fr. Waters requests prayers for Elvira Donaghy, his friend and former secretary a for Bishop Gerado Zendejas, died September 9,

Robert Hickson, a faithful Catholic apologist who died Septembber 2,

Monica Bandlow requests prayers for her parents, Thomas & Teresa Maher, her husband, William Bandlow, her brother-in-law, Richard Bandlow, her sister, Mary Maher, Fr. Christopher Darby, SSPX,  who died March 17, Robert Byrne, Michelle Donofrio McDowell, her cousin, Patricia Fabyanic, the Prefect of Our Lady’s Sodality, March 8, for John Pfeiffer who died August 20, Theresa Hanley, died July 23, Fr. Juan-Carlos Iscara, SSPX, who died December 20, John Kinney, died December 21, Willaim Price, Jr., and Robert Arch Ward, died January 10, and Myra, killed in a MVA June 6,

John Sharpe, Sr., died July 20,

Maria Paulette Salazar, died June 6,

Dale Kinsey requests prayers for his wife, Katherine Kinsey, died May 17,

Richard Giles, who died April 29, the father of Traci Sentmanat who converted to the Catholic faith last All Saints' Day,

Joseph Sparks, a devout and faithful Catholic to tradition died February 25, 

Joyce Paglia, died January 21, and Anthony Paglia, died January 28, who were responsible for the beautiful statuary in our chapel,

Joe Sentmanet request prayers for Richard Giles and Claude Harmon who converted to the Catholic faith shortly before their deaths, 

Rodolfo Zelaya, the brother of Claudia Drew, died January 9,

Elizabeth Agosta petitions our prayers for Joseph Napolitano, her brother, who died January 2,

Michael Dulisse, died on December 26,

Michael Proctor, a close friend of the Drews, died November 9,

Richard Anthony Giles, the father-in-law of Joe Sentmanat converted to the Catholic faith on All Saints Day, died November 5,

Robert Kolinsky, the husband of Sonja, died September 18,

Gabriel Schiltz, the daughter of Thomas & Gay Schiltz, died August 21,

Mary Dimmel, the mother –in-law of Victoria Drew Dimmel, died July 18,

Michael Nesbit, the brother-in-law and dear friend of the Drew's, died July 14,

Thomas Thees, the brother of Philip, died June 19,

Carmen Ragonese, died June 22,

Juanita Mohler, a friend of Camella Meiser, died June 14,

Kathleen Elias, died February 14,

Hernan Ortiz, the brother of Fr. Juan Carlos Ortiz, died February 3,

Mary Ann Boyle, the mother of a second order Dominican nun, a first order Dominican priest, and a SSPX priest, died January 24, 

John DeMarco, who attended this Mission in the past, died January23,

Charles O’Brien, the father of Marlene Cox, died December 30,

Mufide Rende requests our prayers for the repose of the souls of her parents, Mehmet & Nedime,

Kathleen Donelly, died December 29 at 91 years of age, ran the CorMariae website,

Matthew O'Hare, most faithful Catholic, died at age 40 on November 30,

Rev. Patrick J. Perez, a Catholic priest faithful to tradition, pastor Our Lady Help of Christians, Garden Grove, CA, November 19,

Elizabeth Benedek, died December 14, requested by her niece, Agnes Vollkommer,

Dolores Smith and Richard Costello, faithful Catholics, died November,

Frank D’Agustino, a friend of Philp Thees, died November 8,

Fr. Dominique Bourmaud, of the SSPX, Prior of St. Vincent in Kansas City, died September 4,

Pablo Daniel Silva, the brother of Elizabeth Vargas, died August 18,

Rose Bradley, a member of Ss. Peter & Paul, died July 14,

Patricia Ellias, died June 1, recently returned to the Church died with the sacraments and wearing the brown scapular,

Joan Devlin, the sister-in-law of Rose Bradley, died May 18,

William Muligan, died April 29, two days after receiving the last sacraments,

Robert Petti, died March 19, the day after receiving the last sacraments,

Mark McDonald, the father of Kyle, who died December 26,

Perla Otero, died December 2020, Leyla Otero, January 2021, cousins of Claudia Drew,

Mehmet Rende, died December 12, who was the father of Mary Mufide,

Joseph Gravish, died November 26, 100 year old WWII veteran and daily communicant,

Jerome McAdams, the father of, died November 30,

Rev. James O’Hara, died November 8, requested by Alex Estrada,

Elizabeth Batko, the sacristan at St. John the Baptist in Pottstown for over 40 years, died on First Saturday November 7 wearing the brown scapular,

William Cox, the father of Joseph Cox, who died September 3,

James Larson, Catholic apologists, author of War Against Being publication, died July 6, 2020, 

Hutton Gibson, died May 12,

Sr. Regina Cordis, Immaculate Heart of Mary religious for sixty-five years, died May 12,

Leslie Joan Matatics, devoted Catholic wife and mother of nine children, died March 24,

Victoria Zelaya, the sister-in-law of Claudia Drew, died March 20,

Ricardo DeSilva, died November 16, our prayers requested by his brother, Henry DeSilva,

Rev. Fr. Joseph F. Collins, died April 27, 2019 to whom we are indebted for establishing our traditional pre-Bugnini Holy Week  in all its beauty,

Roland H. Allard, a friend of the Drew’s, died September 28,

Stephen Cagorski and John Bogda, who both died wearing the brown scapular,

Cecilia LeBow, a most faithful Catholic,

Rose Cuono, died Oct 23,

Patrick Rowen, died March 25, and his brother, Daniel Rowen, died May 15,

Sandra Peters, the wife of Gene Peters, who died June 10 receiving the sacraments and wearing our Lady’s scapular,

Rev. Francis Slupski, a priest who kept the Catholic faith and its immemorial traditions, died May 14,

Martha Mochan, the sister of Philip Thees, died April 8,

George Kirsch, our good friend and supporter of this Mission, died February 15,

For Fr. Paul J. Theisz, died October 17, is the petition of Fr. Waters,

Fr. Mecurio Fregapane, died Jan 12, was not a traditional priest but always charitable,

Fr. Casimir Peterson, a priest who often offered the Mass in our chapel and provided us with sound advice, died December 4,

Fr. Constantine Bellasarius, a faithful and always charitable Eastern Rite Catholic Melkite priest, who left the Roman rite, died November 27,

Christian Villegas, a motor vehicle accident, his brother, Michael, requests our prayers,

John Vennari, the former editor of Catholic Family News, and for his family’s welfare, April 4,

Mary Butler, the aunt of Fr. Samuel Waters, died October 17,

Joseph DeMarco, the nephew of John DeMarco, died October 3,

John Fergale, died September 25 after receiving the traditional sacramental rites of the Church wearing the brown scapular,

John Gabor, the brother of Donna Marbach, died September 9,

Fr. Eugene Dougherty, a faithful priest, fittingly died on the Nativity of the BVM after receiving the traditional Catholic sacraments,

Phyllis Schlafly, died September 5,

Helen Mackewicz, died August 14,

Mark A. Wonderlin, who died August 2,

Fr. Carl Cebollero, a faithful priest to tradition who was a friend of Fr. Waters and Fr. DeMaio,

Jessica Cortes, a young mother of ten who died June 12,

Frances Toriello, a life-long Catholic faithful to tradition, died June3, the feast of the Sacred Heart, and her husband Dan, died in 1985, 

John McLaughlin, a friend of the Drew’s, died May 22,

Angela Montesano, who died April 30, and her husband, Salvatore, who died in July 3, 2013,

Charles Schultz, died April 5, left behind nine children and many grandchildren, all traditional Catholics,

Esperanza Lopez de Callejas, the aunt of Claudia Drew, died March 15,

Fr. Edgardo Suelo, a faithful priest defending our traditions who was working with Fr. Francois Chazal in the Philippines, died February 19,

Conde McGinley, a long time laborer for the traditional faith, died February 12, at 96 years,

The Drew family requests your prayers for Ida Fernandez and Rita Kelley, parishioners at St. Jude,

Fr. Stephen Somerville, a traditional priest who repented from his work with the Novus Ordo English translation, died December 12,

Fr. Arturo DeMaio, a priest that helped this Mission with the sacraments and his invaluable advice, died December 2,

J. Paul Carswell, died October 15, 2015,

Solange Hertz, a great defender of our Catholic faith, died October 3, the First Saturday of the month,

Paula P. Haigh, died October 22, a great defender of our Catholic faith in philosophy and natural science,

Gabriella Whalin, the mother of Gabriella Schiltz, who died August 25,

Mary Catherine Sick, 14 year old from a large traditional Catholic family, died August 25,

Fr. Paul Trinchard, a traditional Catholic priest, died August 25,

Stephen J. Melnick, Jr., died on August 21, a long-time faithful traditional Catholic husband and father, from Philadelphia,

Patricia Estrada, died July 29, her son Alex petitions our prayers for her soul,

Fr. Nicholas Gruner, a devoted priest & faithful defender of Blessed Virgin Mary and her Fatima message, died April 29,

Sarah E. Shindle, the grandmother of Richard Shindle, died April 26,

Madeline Vennari, the mother of John Vennari, died December 19,

Salvador Baca Callejas, the uncle of Claudia Drew, died December 13,

Robert Gomez, who died in a motor vehicle accident November 29,

Catherine Dunn, died September 15,

Anthony Fraser, the son of Hamish Fraser, died August 28,

Jeannette Rhoad, the grandmother of Devin Rhoad, who died August 24,

John Thees, the uncle of Philip Thees, died August 9,

Sarah Harkins, 32 year-old mother of four children, died July 28,

Msgr. Donald Adams, who offered the Indult Mass, died April 1996,

Anita Lopez, the aunt of Claudia Drew,

Fr. Kenneth Walker, a young traditional priest of the FSSP who was murdered in Phoenix June 11,

Fr. Waters petitions our prayers for Gilberte Violette, the mother of Fr. Violette, who died May 6,

Pete Hays petitions our prayers for his brothers, Michael, died May 9, and James, died October 20, his sister, Rebecca,  died March17, and his mother, Lorraine Hayes who died May 4,

Philip Marbach, the father of Paul Marbach who was the coordinator at St. Jude in Philadelphia, died April 21,

Richard Slaughtery, the elderly sacristan for the SSPX chapel in Kansas City, died April 13,

Bernedette Marie Evans nee Toriello, the daughter of Daniel Toriello, died March 31, a faithful Catholic who suffered many years with MS, 

Natalie Cagorski, died march 23,

Anita Lopez de Lacayo, the aunt of Claudia Drew, who died March 21,

Mario Palmaro, Catholic lawyer, bioethicist and professor, apologist, died March 9, welfare of his widow and children,

Daniel Boyle, the uncle of Ryan Boyle, died March 4,

Jeanne DeRuyscher, who died on January 25,

Arthur Harmon, died January 18,

Fr. Waters petitions our prayers for the soul of Jeanne DeRuyscher, who died January 17,

Joseph Proctor, died January 10,

Susan Scott, a devote traditional Catholic who made the vestments for our Infant of Prague statue, died January 8,

Brother Leonard Mary, M.I.C.M., (Fred Farrell), an early supporter and friend of Fr. Leonard Feeney, died November 23,

John Fergale, requests our prayers for his sister Connie, who died December 19,

Jim Capaldi, died December 15,

Brinton Creager, the son of Elizabeth Carpenter, died December 10, 

Christopher Lussos, age 27, the father of one child with an expecting wife, died November 15,

Jarett Ebeyer, 16 year old who died in his sleep, November 17, at the request of the Kolinsky’s,

Catherine Nienaber, the mother of nine children, the youngest three years of age, killed in MVA after Mass, 10-29,

Nancy Aldera, the sister of Frances Toriello, died October 11, 2013 at 105 years of age,

Mary Rita Schiltz, the mother of Thomas Schiltz, who died August 27,

William H. (Teddy) Kennedy, Catholic author of Lucifer’s Lodge, died August 14, age 49, cause of death unknown,

Alfred Mercier, the father of David Mercier, who died August 12,

The Robert Kolinsky asks our prayers for his friend, George Curilla, who died August 23,

John Cuono, who had attended Mass at our Mission in the past, died August 11,

Raymond Peterson, died July 28, and Paul Peterson, died February 19, the brothers of Fr. Casimir Peterson,

Margaret Brillhart, who died July 20,

Msgr. Joseph J. McDonnell, a priest from the diocese of Des Moines, who died June 8,

Patrick Henry Omlor, who wrote Questioning The Validity of the Masses using the New, All English Canon, and for a series of newsletters which were published as The Robber Church, died May 2, the feast of St Athanasius,  

Bishop Joseph McFadden, died unexpectedly May 2,

Timothy Foley, the brother-in-law of Michelle Marbach Folley, who died in April,

William Sanders, the uncle of Don Rhoad, who died April 2,

Gene Peters ask our prayers for the repose of the soul of Mark Polaschek, who died March 22,

Eduardo Gomez Lopez, the uncle of Claudia Drew, February 28,

Cecelia Thees, died February 24,

Elizabeth Marie Gerads, a nineteen year old, the oldest of twelve children, who died February 6, 

Michael Schwartz, the co-author with Fr. Enrique Rueda of “Gays, Aids, and You,” died February 3,

Stanley W. Moore, passed away in December 16, and Gerard (Jerry) R. Pitman, who died January 19, who attended this Mission in the past, 

Louis Fragale, who died December 25,

Fr. Luigi Villa, Th.D. author of Vatican II About Face! detailing the heresies of Vatican II, died November 18 at the age of 95,

Rev. Michael Jarecki, a faithful traditional Catholic priest who died October 22,

 Jennie Salaneck, died September 19 at 95 years of age, a devout and faithful Catholic all her life,

Dorothy Sabo, who died September 26,

Cynthia (Cindy) Montesano Reinhert, the mother of nine children, four who are still at home, died August 19,

Stanley Spahalski, who died October 20, and his wife, Regina Spahalski, who died June 24, and for the soul of Francis Lester, her son,

Julia Atkinson, who died April 30,

Antonio P. Garcia, who died January 6, 2012 and the welfare of his teenage children, Andriana and Quentin,

Helen Crane, the aunt of David Drew who died February 27,

Fr. Timothy A. Hopkins, of the National Shrine of St. Philomena, in Miami, November 2,

Frank Smith, who died February 7, and the welfare of his wife, Delores,

Eduardo Cepeda, who died January 26,

Larry Young, the 47 year old father of twelve who died December 10 and the welfare of his wife Katherine and their family,

Sister Mary Bernadette, M.I.C.M., a founding member of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, died December 16,

Joeseph Elias, who died on September 28,

William, the brother of Fr. Waters, who died September 7,

Donald Tonelli, died August 1,

Rev. Fr. Gregory Hesse, of Austria, a great defender of Catholic Truth, died January 25, 2006,

Emma Colasanti, who died May 29,

Mary Dullesse, who died April 12, a Catholic convert who died wearing our Lady’s scapular,

Ruth Jantsch, the grandmother of Andre Ebert, who died April 7, Derrick and Denise Palengat, his godparents,

Philip D. Barr, died March 5, and the welfare of his family, 

Judith Irene Kenealy, the mother of Joyce Paglia, who died February 23, and her son, George Richard Moore, who died May 14, 

For Joe Sobran who died September 30,

Fr. Hector Bolduc, a great and faithful priest, died, September 10, 2012,

James & Jean Rowan and their sons, Patrick & Daniel,

John Vennari asks our prayers for Dr. Raphael Waters who died August 26,

Stanley Bodalsky, the father of Mary Ann Boyle who died June 25,

Mary Isabel Kilfoyle Humphreys, a former York resident and friend of the Drew’s, who died June 6,

Rev. John Campion, who offered the traditional Mass for us every first Friday until forbidden to do so by Bishop Dattilo, died May 1,

Joseph Montagne, who died May 5,

For Margaret Vagedes, the aunt of Charles Zepeda, who died January 6,

Fr. Michael Shear, a Byzantine rite Catholic priest, died August 17, 2006,

Fr. James Francis Wathen, died November 7, 2006, author of The Great Sacrilege and Who Shall Ascend?, a great defender of dogma and liturgical purity,

Fr. Enrique Rueda, who died December 14, 2009, to whom our Mission is indebted,

Fr. Peterson asks to remember, Leonard Edward Peterson, his cousin, Wanda, Angelica Franquelli,  and the six priests ordained with him.

Philip Thees petitions our prayers for Beverly Romanick, Deacon Michael Erdeck, Henry J. Phillips, Grace Prestano, Connie DiMaggio, Elizabeth Thorhas, Elizabeth Thees, Theresa Feraker, Hellen Pestrock, and James & Rose Gomata, and Kathleen Heinbach,

Fr. Didier Bonneterre, the author of The Liturgical Movement, and Fr. John Peek, both were traditional priests,

Brother Francis, MICM, the superior of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Richmond, NH, who died September 5,

Rodolfo Zelaya Montealegre, the father of Claudia Drew, who died May 24,

Rev. Francis Clifford, a devout and humble traditional priest, who died on March 7,

Benjamin Sorace, the uncle of Sonja Kolinsky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But What Is a “State of Necessity”? What About the Econe Consecrations?

Roberto de Mattei | August 3, 2026

I wish to dwell on a concept that is frequently invoked in an ambiguous and contradictory manner — above all to justify the episcopal consecrations that took place at Écône on July 1, 2026: the “state of necessity.”

A fundamental point must be clarified at the outset: one must not confuse the term “state of necessity” with the grave crisis the Church is passing through today. This crisis is an undeniable historical and sociological datum. Some trace its origins to Pope Francis, others to the post-conciliar period, others still to the Second Vatican Council itself. These historical references contain a measure of truth, but the phenomenon is broader and more remote in time. Already Saint Pius X, in the prophetic encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of September 8, 1907, diagnosed the existence of the gravest evils penetrating the Church through Modernism. Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, in his now-classic work Revolution and Counter-Revolution, published in 1959, situated this crisis within the framework of a centuries-long process begun with the dissolution of medieval Christendom. Romano Amerio, in his Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century, published in 1985, offered a broad and penetrating diagnosis of the ills of the Church of his time. That same year, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, published The Ratzinger Report together with Vittorio Messori, sounding the alarm about the state of contemporary Catholicism. Having become Pope under the name of Benedict XVI, he devoted his final year of pontificate precisely to the crisis of faith. Since then the situation has deteriorated dramatically, and only someone who is spiritually or intellectually blind could deny the evidence of this crisis.

The historical fact of a gravissimo crisis in the Church does not coincide, however, with the juridical and moral category of the “state of necessity.” These are two distinct notions that must not be confused. The state of necessity presupposes an exceptional situation, but is not identical with it. It is an institution of moral theology and law, developed to govern extraordinary situations in which the ordinary observance of the law appears to conflict with the good that the law itself intends to protect. The ecclesial crisis may certainly constitute the context within which the problem of the state of necessity arises, but between the historical situation and the moral and juridical judgment there exists a further step, one requiring prudence and a rigorous evaluation of the facts.

Moral doctrine defines the state of necessity as the condition in which a person, in order to avoid a grave, imminent, and unavoidable evil, performs an act that, under ordinary circumstances, would be illicit or forbidden. In other words, it concerns not so much the external situation in itself as the prudential judgment of one who must act in the face of that situation. For this reason, the state of necessity arises from the encounter between an exceptional situation and the personal responsibility of whoever must decide how to act. The crisis may be objective; the state of necessity, by contrast, concerns the subjective assessment of the concrete action to be taken in that crisis.

The Code of Canon Law of 1983 expressly governs this matter in canons 1323 and 1324. Canon 1323 establishes that no penalty attaches to one who has violated a law when “compelled by grave fear, even if only relatively grave, or by necessity or grave inconvenience, unless, however, the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls.” The norm does not create an arbitrary derogation from the law, but acknowledges that exceptional circumstances may arise in which juridical responsibility is extinguished or diminished.

A first characteristic of the state of necessity is its essentially exceptional and provisional character. It arises to respond to a concrete and temporally delimited situation. It cannot be transformed into a permanent condition, nor constitute an ordinary regime of government or ecclesial life. If the necessity were to become permanent, it would cease to be a genuine “exception” and would end by emptying the ordinary discipline of the Church of its very meaning.

A historical crisis may extend over decades; the state of necessity, by contrast, concerns specific acts, performed in precise circumstances, in order to confront a concrete and immediate danger. The crisis constitutes the context; the state of necessity is the prudential judgment which can, in rigorously delimited cases, justify or excuse a particular course of conduct.

There is, finally, an inviolable limit upon which both moral theology and canon law insist. The state of necessity can never justify an intrinsically evil act. The principle formulated by Saint Paul and constantly reaffirmed by the Magisterium of the Church applies here: evil may never be done so that good may come of it — non sunt facienda mala ut veniant bona (Rom 3:8). Certain acts, by reason of their very moral object, remain always illicit, regardless of circumstances and historical context.

It is precisely on this point that the theological and canonical debate is focused. The act performed on the basis of the state of necessity cannot contradict principles of divine law or norms that, by their nature, admit of no derogation. Now, episcopal consecrations performed without a mandate and against the will of the Pope have, as their objective end, the creation of a reality independent of the Roman Pontiff and of the bishops in communion with him. But this is intrinsically illicit, whatever historical circumstances may be adduced to justify the gesture.

The true problem, therefore, does not consist in establishing whether or not a crisis exists in the Church — whose existence is evident to all. The decisive question is another: whether, in the presence of a crisis however grave, it is morally and juridically licit to perform an act that constitutes a violation of the hierarchical constitution of the Church, as divinely instituted by Jesus Christ — an act that in effect refuses the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff and introduces a practice that finds no precedent in the two-thousand-year tradition of the Church.

If all of this is not clear, the “state of necessity” risks being nothing more than a state of confusion.

COMMENT:

Roberto de Mattei, an eminent Catholic historian, said on July 18, “It is the duty of every Christian to maintain coherence between words and deeds.” He was referring to the SSPX who “publicly proclaims respect for and obedience to the Roman Pontiff and then, in fact, publicly defies him before the entire Christian people” by consecrating four bishops on July 1 without a papal mandate and in direct opposition to his will. In this editorial Mattei correctly distinguishes between the objective crisis in the Church, which he fails to properly identify, and the subjective judgment in the internal forum as to what to do about it. Since he does not understand the nature of the crisis, he does not have a clue about what to do about it.

Mattei published article, Ultramontanists: Godfathers of the Trad Movement July 28, 2022. In this article he explicitly affirms and defends the claim that the pope is above Catholic dogma. What Mattei does not recognize is that he is defending the Neo-modernist heresy that is the proximate cause of the crisis in the Church. So Mattei, a honest heretic, “maintains coherence between words and deeds” by directly implying that disobedience to the pope is an intrinsically evil act. For Mattei, who makes the pope his proximate rule of faith, the pope can never be a heretic because heresy is anything that disagrees with what the pope says or does.

This is not true. Dogma is the proximate rule of faith for every Catholic and that includes the pope. The pope is only the necessary material and instrumental cause of dogma. It is God who is the formal and final cause of dogma. Once a doctrine of revealed truth is dogmatically defined, it becomes a formal object of divine and catholic faith for all the faithful. The very definition of heresy, both moral and legal, is the denial of dogma. Furthermore, outside of a formal public rejection of the universal jurisdiction of the pope, there is one and only one act that is necessarily schismatic and that is manifest heresy. St. Thomas says that “All heretics are schismatics” and, if Mattei would learn that dogma is the proximate rule of faith, he would recognize that Vatican II and the post-counciliar popes have without exception committed formal acts of heresy. What “finds no precedent in the two-thousand-year tradition of the Church” are openly heretical popes who actively work as neo-iconoclasts to destroy every immemorial image of our faith.

It is God’s Church. It is God who endowed His Church with divine attributes of Authority, Infallibility and Indefectibility. These are attributes of the Church and not personal attributes of the pope and those that claim otherwise are divinizing the pope and are guilty of idolatry, a grave sin. The pope alone can access these attributes under specific conditions for specific ends. However, the universal jurisdiction of the pope cannot be legitimately employed to corrupt worship, corrupt doctrine, and corrupt Catholic morality.

Furthermore, every Catholic faithful has an obligation, a grave duty from God to profess the Catholic faith, to keep God’s moral law, and to worship God according to His prescriptions according the “received and approved” rites of the Church.

It is unfortunate for all the Catholic faithful that the SSPX has failed to correctly identify the Neo-modernist heresy and, consequently, failed to articulate the proper justification for the “state of necessity,” but nevertheless, we “maintain coherence between words and deeds” in defense of the Catholic faith both in the internal and external forum. That is why for nearly 25 years the local ordinaries in Harrisburg and the Vatican officials have failed to answer any of our claims. Remember, without faith, there is no charity and the greatest evidence of charity is the virtue of justice which underpins charity. The first obligation of justice is to “render to God the things that are God’s.” There is no virtue of justice in the Novus Ordo religion. Our prayer is that some day conservative Catholics like Mattei will learn that they must obey God rather than man. The virtue of justice does not permit any Catholic to subject what is of God in himself to what is of man in other men, and that includes the pope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No One, not even the Pope in Rome, has the authority to impose any act or suspend any immemorial tradition that leads to the diminution of Faith or the committing of sacrilege to the Blessed Sacrament. No One, not even the Pope in Rome, has the authority to command that any Catholic participate in such acts!

Fr. Janis Pawlowski I knew personally, he was my parish priest in Estonia during four years. It was he who heard my first confession and who gave me the First Holy Communion. He celebrated the Holy Mass with such a devotion and reverence that it left in my soul a deep unforgettable impression. All his words and his gestures irradiated holiness. When I for the first time felt in my soul the attraction to the priesthood at the age of twelve, in my memory appeared suddenly the holy face of this priest. He was really a man of God. I received the great grace that I could meet him in Riga (Latvia) after I have not seen him during 27 years. He was already 86 years old, yet he conserved the same fresh and spiritually irradiating face. The three days I spent with him, were for me a kind of spiritual exercises. He helped me to put on the liturgical vestments and served me during my Mass with the simplicity and humility of a little altar boy.[....] When in 1973 my family left Soviet Union and we said goodbye to Fr. Janis Pawlowski, he gave us this admonition: “When you come to Germany, please don’t go in the churches where Holy Communion is given in the hand”. When we heard these words, we all had a deep shock; we could not imagine that the Divine and Most Blessed Sacrament could be received in such a banal manner. It is now a proven fact that a considerable part of those who receive the Holy Communion habitually in hand, especially the younger generation which had not known the manner of receiving Communion kneeling and on the tongue, has not more the full Catholic faith in the Real Presence, because they treat the consecrated host almost in the same exterior manner as they take ordinary food. The exterior minimalistic gesture has a causal connection to the weakening or even loss of the faith in the Real Presence.[.....]  It is an honor and a privilege to be faithful to the Divine Truth and to the spiritual and liturgical traditions of our forefathers and of the saints and being therefore marginalized by those who currently occupy administrative power in the Church. This your fidelity and courage constitute the real power in the Church. You are the real ecclesiastical periphery, which with God’s power renews the Church. Living the true tradition of dogma, liturgy and holiness is a manifestation of the democracy of the Saints, because tradition is the democracy of the Saints. With Saint Athanasius I would like to tell you these words: Those in the Church who oppose, humiliate and marginalize you, have occupied the churches, while during this time you are outside; it is a fact that they have the premises – but you have the Apostolic Faith. They claim that they represent the Church, but in reality, they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray.

Archbishop Athanasius Schneider, excerpt from recent interview published August 10, 2015

COMMENT:  Those who accuse Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission of being "schismatic" because we keep the Apostolic Faith and the Immemorial Traditions of the Roman Catholic Church (and are thus united to the "Communion of Saints" existing from Jesus Christ's founding of His Church), have declared themselves in schism from us and everything we believe and do.  They have cut themselves off by breaking the bond of Charity from the Communion of Saints.  We appreciated Mons. Schneider's comments but he falls short in his understanding of the nature of the problem and its most important cause.  Archbishop Athanasius Schneider identifies "five wounds in Christ's liturgical mystical body" that must necessarily be healed without which the Church cannot hand on the True Faith.  This is an admission that the Novus Ordo is not the indefectible Church founded by Jesus Christ.  The five wounds are: 1) The priest turned towards the congregation and away from God; 2) Holy Communion taken in the hand which has seriously damaged faith in the True Presence; 3) the new (Novus Ordo) Offertory prayers which are the worship offered by Cain, ; 4) the disappearance of Latin in liturgical celebrations; and 5) the performing of some liturgical ministries by women.  Mons. Schneider believes that the answer lies in the Reform of the Reform.  This is because he has overlooked the greatest "liturgical wound" which is the total disregard of the dogma of Faith from Trent which categorically condemns anyone who holds that the "received and approved rites customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments..... may be changed into other new rites by any pastor of the Churches whomsoever."  They have thus corrupted the liturgy by treating it as a matter of mere Church discipline subject to the free and independent will of the legislator.  They have taken the work of God and made it the work of man.  When divinely revealed Truth is overturned the results will always and everywhere end in radical revolutionary corruption of God's Truth.

 

 

 

What the Novus Ordo has excluded from its Psalter - Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, a Profession of False Faith, or is it just an example of the old proverb: 'In the house of the hanged, don't talk about the rope!'

      At the Sacra Liturgia conference in New York City in June 2015, one of the speakers reminded us of a startling fact that, while well known among scholars, has received far too little attention in the public sphere: the flagrant omission of so many psalms and psalm verses from the Divine Office or “Liturgy of the Hours” promulgated by Pope Paul VI in the Apostolic Constitution Laudis Canticum on November 1, 1970. In addition to the unprecedented novelty of praying the Psalter over four weeks rather than in the course of a single week, there was the equally unprecedented novelty of skipping verses that had been deemed “difficult” or problematic for modern Christians.

Three Psalms (57/58, 82/83, and 108/109) were expunged in their entirety from the pages of the Liturgy of the Hours (have a look at them some time), while three others (77/78, 104/105, 105/106) were confined to Advent, Christmastide, Lent, and Eastertide. The following verses were removed from other psalms:

Psalm 5 – 10 Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.

Psalm 20/21 – 8 Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you. 9 You will make them like a fiery furnace when you appear. The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them. 10 You will destroy their offspring from the earth, and their children from among humankind. 11 If they plan evil against you, if they devise mischief, they will not succeed. 12 For you will put them to flight; you will aim at their faces with your bows.

Psalm 27/28 – 4 Repay them according to their work, and according to the evil of their deeds; repay them according to the work of their hands; render them their due reward. 5 Because they do not regard the works of the LORD, or the work of his hands, he will break them down and build them up no more.

Psalm 30/31 – 17 Do not let me be put to shame, O LORD, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol. 18 Let the lying lips be stilled that speak insolently against the righteous with pride and contempt.

Psalm 34/35 – 3 Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers. 4 Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek after my life. Let them be turned back and confounded who devise evil against me. 5 Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the LORD driving them on. 6 Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them. 7 For without cause they hid their net for me; without cause they dug a pit for my life. 8 Let ruin come on them unawares. And let the net that they hid ensnare them; let them fall in it to their ruin. … 20 For they do not speak peace, but they conceive deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.  21 They open wide their mouths against me; they say, “Aha, Aha, our eyes have seen it.” … 24 Vindicate me, O LORD, my God, according to your righteousness, and do not let them rejoice over me. 25 Do not let them say to themselves, “Aha, we have our heart’s desire.” Do not let them say, “We have swallowed you up.” 26 Let all those who rejoice at my calamity be put to shame and confusion; let those who exalt themselves against me be clothed with shame and dishonor.

Psalm 39/40 – 14 Let all those be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire my hurt. 15 Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

Psalm 53/54:5  – He will repay my enemies for their evil. In your faithfulness, put an end to them.

Psalm 54/55:15  – Let death come upon them; let them go down alive to Sheol; for evil is in their homes and in their hearts.

Psalm 55/56:6b-7  – As they hoped to have my life, 7 so repay them for their crime; in wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

Psalm 58/59 – 5 You, LORD God of hosts, are God of Israel. Awake to punish all the nations; spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Selah  6 Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city.  7 There they are, bellowing with their mouths, with sharp words on their lips—for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?”  8 But you laugh at them, O LORD; you hold all the nations in derision. … 11 Do not kill them, or my people may forget; make them totter by your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield. 12 For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride. For the cursing and lies that they utter, 13 consume them in wrath; consume them until they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. Selah 14 Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city. 15 They roam about for food, and growl if they do not get their fill.

Psalm 62/63 – 9 But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth; 10 they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for jackals. 11 But the king shall rejoice in God; all who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

Psalm 68/69 – 22 Let their table be a trap for them, a snare for their allies. 23 Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. 24 Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. 25 May their camp be a desolation; let no one live in their tents. 26 For they persecute those whom you have struck down, and those whom you have wounded, they attack still more. 27 Add guilt to their guilt; may they have no acquittal from you. 28 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous.

Psalm 78/79 – 6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name. 7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. … 12 Return sevenfold into the bosom of our neighbors the taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord!

Psalm 109/110:6  – He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter heads over the wide earth.

Psalm 136/137 – 7 Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!” 8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! 9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

Psalm 138/139 – 19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—20 those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil! 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.

Psalm 139/140 – 9 Those who surround me lift up their heads; let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them! 10 Let burning coals fall on them! Let them be flung into pits, no more to rise! 11 Do not let the slanderer be established in the land; let evil speedily hunt down the violent!

Psalm 140/141:10  – Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I alone escape.

Psalm 142/143:12 –  In your steadfast love cut off my enemies, and destroy all my adversaries, for I am your servant.

      For 2,000 years, Christians Eastern and Western had been praying the psalter of David in its integrity, and now, Catholics were handed an expurgated or abridged version, with verses removed by “experts” who knew better than the Holy Spirit, knew better than the Israelites, knew better than the Church Fathers and Doctors, knew better than Tradition. But of course they knew better: this was the Age of Enlightenment breaking in at last upon a fortress-like Church, an age in which we should shake ourselves free from the shackles of unenlightened piety, with its gnarled, enigmatic, sharp-edged, implacable expressions, and its archaic, earthy, tribal atmosphere. Razing the bastions, making the world safe for democracy, and all that good stuff.
      This observation dovetailed with another talk given at the Sacra Liturgia conference about the reform of the lectionary, in which the speaker looked at how the Novus Ordo lectionary for Mass also suppresses “difficult” verses from both Testaments—verses that had always been present in the traditional Roman lectionary but were excluded from the new lectionary, in spite of its boast of being so much bigger and better. These “difficult” verses include among them this spiritually poignant passage from St. Paul:

Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. (1Co 11:27-29)

 

 

 

 

Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity

Novus Ordo Doctrine: Moslems and Novus Ordo Catholics Worship the same God!

CCC 841, quoting the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium 16, from Vatican II, declared:

"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind

CCC 841 also references Vatican IIDeclaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, 3, that makes the teaching of the Council perhaps even clearer:

"The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God."

 

Catholic Church Doctrine: Catholics and Moslems DO NOT worship the same God.

that is, you do not adore God because you do not know Him, but rather your imagination, by which you apprehend something as God, just as the Gentiles also walk in the foolishness of their mind (Eph 4:17).St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary On John 4:22

 

in this respect forming no higher opinion of Him than of their idols. Wherefore they continued to serve both Him and devils, joining things which ought not to be joined. St. John Chrysostom, Homily 33 On The Gospel of John

 

COMMENT: When Jesus said to the Samaritan Woman, "You adore that which you know not," He is not saying that they adore the One True God that they are ignorant of. He is saying, that in their ignorance they do not know who they are adoring meaning that they are adoring in ignorance a devil, for "all the gods of the gentiles are devils" (Psalm 95:5). Jesus then says, that "true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth..... they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth." To adore in "spirit" means that to adore God you must be baptized and made sons of God for as Jesus said: "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit" (John 3:5-7). And to adore in "truth" means who must believe what has been revealed by God. Without the true faith it is "impossible to please God" (Hebrews 11:6). As such, right knowledge of God is essential to true worship. This is the great sin of Modernism and Neo-modernism: They make a right knowledge of God impossible!

 

 

 

 

Sacrament of Baptism: Significance of the Baptismal Character and why it is absolutely necessary for salvation. Explains why St. Ambrose said, regarding catechumens who die before receiving the sacrament of Baptism, they are

To be baptized is to become one with the Church, and one with Christ. Thus the ritual can say:

The effecting this incorporation into Christ, Baptism marks the soul as permanently His; it stamps upon the soul a spiritual For this reason, and putting the cause for the effect, the rite of Baptism was itself called

The word

Basically, two words give the same meaning: a seal imprints an image, and an anathema.

The Council of Trent teaches that this seal, once stamped on the soul, is indelible. Just as Baptism irrevocable makes one a member of the Church, so also it irrevocably makes one a member of Christ. Not the gravest sin, nor even final impenitence and self-condemnation to eternal separation from Christ in Hell, can avail to erase this baptismal seal. And the indelibility of the seal is the immediate reason why Baptism can never be repeated, once it has been validly received.

The sense in which Baptism stamps us with the image of Christ is suggested in the rite itself, by the anointing which follows the ablution. It is done with Sacred Chrism, a mixed unguent of oil and balm, specially consecrated by the bishop on Holy Thursday. Kings and priests in antiquity (and even today) were anointed with chrism in token of their royal and priestly dignity. And the baptism anointing signifies, therefore, that the new Christian has entered into the Body of Christ.

The baptismal seal or character, therefore, endows the Christian with a priestly function, and a priestly power. It is not that special power and function given by the Sacrament of Holy Orders to certain selected members of the Church, who are made her official ministers, and authorized to offer her sacrifice and dispense her Sacraments. But it is the priestly function and power which is common to all the members of the Body of Christ. As He was born as Priest, His whole life orientated toward the Passion and Death which was His priestly Sacrifice, so too, they are priests from their birth into the Christian life at Baptism; and their lives are essentially orientated toward sacrifice, in a double sense.

First of all, they receive a function and a power with respect to the ritual Sacrifice of the Church, which is the Mass.

Secondly, the baptismal character consecrates the Christian to sacrifice in a wider sense: it gives him the function, the duty, the power to lead a life of sacrifice, since He is in the image of Christ whose life was one long sacrifice  

 

Rev. John J. Fernan, S.J., Theology, Christ Our High Priest, Baptismal Seal

 

 

Excommunication decreed for Lefebvrite episcopal ordinations

A document signed by Cardinal V

Vatican News

The bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard FellaySivry, and Marc Hanappier have incurred

sententiae

This was stated in a decree released on July 2 and signed by Cardinal V

The decision came twenty-four hours after the solemn ceremony celebrated in , Switzerland, on the morning of July 1, 2026.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith

The painful epilogue was the consequence of the decision taken by the Lefebvrites against the will repeatedly expressed by Pope Leo XIV.

The excommunication newly separates the bishops and priests of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X from the Church of Rome.

As for the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Fraternity are to be considered excommunicated.

Further details are contained in an

From the time of Saint Paul VI up to the most recent talks, held recently at this Dicastery, the many attempts to bring the members of the movement begun by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre back into full communion with the Catholic Church have proved vain.

This situation has been further aggravated by the recent episcopal consecrations celebrated without pontifical mandate, against the will of the Holy Father, and in open violation of canon law.

Therefore, this Dicastery, in the faithful exercise of the functions entrusted to it, considers it necessary to state that this act constituted the delict of schism, with the canonical consequences for the sacred ministers and lay faithful involved. Indeed, as was already declared in 1988,

In this regard, from now on:

1.     The sacred ministers belonging to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are in schism and must therefore be considered schismatics (cf. Ecclesia Dei, 5 c; Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Explanatory Note on the excommunication for schism incurred by those adhering to the movement of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, 24.08.1996, 5-6), and are subject to the excommunication prescribed by law (can. 1364

2.     As regards the lay faithful, those who formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated under the conditions established in the 1996 Explanatory Note of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts (cf. ibidem, 7), which remains in force and which this Dicastery adopts as its own.

3.     Finally, the holy People of God are warned that the sacred ministers of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X administer the sacraments illicitly, and that the sacrament of penance administered by them and marriages assisted by them are invalid.

The Church, as a caring mother, will welcome with sincere affection and lively solicitude all those who wish to return to full communion. The Apostolic Nuncios will arrange the procedures that Ordinaries may use in the various cases.

Finally, all the faithful are urged to remain steadfast in communion with the Roman Pontiff, with the Bishops in communion with him, and with the whole Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22; can. 751 CIC), and to refrain from taking part in celebrations and activities promoted by the aforementioned Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X.

COMMENT:

The SSPX has placed itself in an indefensible position by failing to hold dogma as the proximate rule of faith. The SSPX has been compromising with Novus Ordo Church heretics for the past thirty years that culminated in their leadership making the 1989 Profession of Faith where they swore unconditional obedience to the person of the pope to obtain concessions of ordinary jurisdiction.During the entire pontificate of the heretic Francis/Bergoglio, the SSPX followed the conditions established by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Ratzinger under JPII and said nothing critical regarding the heresies and corruption of Catholic morality under Francis/Bergoglio. That being said, the decree of excommunication under Leo/Prevost is problematic for all Catholic faithful.

The illicit consecration of bishops is not canonically under the canonical section that deals with schism. It is not and never has been an act that is always and every where a necessary sign of schism. Schism necessarily requires the rejection of the universal jurisdiction of the pope as the motive for the act of disobedience. The decree against the SSPX says,

There is one and only one act that always and everywhere is necessarily manifests schism, that is, manifest heresy. St. Thomas says that We have pictures of Leo/Prevost kneeling before a procession of Pachamama, a pagan deity; pictures of him blessing a block of Nordic ice in the pagan cult of earth worship; pictures of him in common prayer with a variety of heretics, schismatics, Jews, Muslims and pagans; pictures of him in common communion with the lay women who pretends to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. These are without exception signs of heresy and, therefore, schism by Leo/Prevost. That same can be said for his councillor predecessors. This decree of excommunication is nothing more than an administrative declaration that the SSPX is no longer in communion with the Novus Ordo Church.

The question then regards their declaration that These are empty assertions because Rome has failed to prove that the SSPX rejects the universal jurisdiction of the pope as their motive for consecrating bishops, and having failed to do this, argumentum a fortiori, they can hardly make the charge against the The Novus Ordo cult has inadvertently ruined their case by referring to those who adhere formally to the

Regarding the validity of the sacraments of marriage and confessions Rome commits a massive blunder. The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ. He called it

Jesus Christ provides for the needs of His faithful with publically to marry according to the laws of the Catholic Church. The Church requires that the parish priest of the woman exercising ordinary jurisdiction must be a witness to the sacrament for its validity. However, the Church has always held that if the priest holding ordinary jurisdiction cannot be had for a period greater than thirty days, the couple can validly and licitly proceed with their marriage without that priest being a witness to the sacrament. The only requirement for a valid and licit marriage is for the bride to notify her parish priest of her intent to marry and request that he be a witness to the event for canonical regularity. If he refuses, the couple is free to proceed on their own to seek another priest who does not exercise ordinary jurisdiction to bless their marriage.

 

 

 

 

 

"Not a stone upon a stone" - 9th Sunday after Pentecost

The 'Western Wall' (Wailing Wall) in Jerusalem is held by Jews as a remnant of Herod's Temple destroyed by the Romans in 72 A.D. Yet, Jesus prophesized not only that the Temple would be destroyed but also that there would not remain a "stone upon a stone." So how is it that there remains a large wall on the western side at the south end of the 'Temple Mount'? Some Catholics claim the prophecy of Jesus was referring only to the edifice itself and not the entire foundation for the Temple. Jesus words must be taken in literally unless there it is clearly manifest that the metaphorical sense is intended exclusively. Therefore, the 'Wailing Wall' where the Jews worship is not a remnant of the ancient Temple, and the 'Temple Mount', on which is currently situated the Al-Aqsa mosque and the "Dome of the Rock", is not the location of the Temple destroyed in 72 A.D. The 36 acre 'Temple Mount' is actually the location of the Roman fortress Antonia built by Herod.

What is the evidence for this? The current popular claim is the fortress Antonia was located on a five-acre section on the north-west side of the 'Temple Mount' while the Temple occupied the remaining 30 acres. Five acres is far too small to accommodate a Roman legion (6,000 soldiers plus auxiliary staff) which we know from the writings of Flavius Josephus that the fortress Antonia did in fact hold. Many Roman fortresses have been examined by archeologists and they typically are between 45 and 55 acres but some are as small as 36 acres. As far as the area needed for the Temple of Herod itself, consider this, the ancient pagan temple complex at Baalek in Lebanon built by the Romans is less than six acres in total area and encloses the largest temple to Jupiter in the Roman Empire as well as a smaller temple dedicated to Bacchus and another to Venus. The Temple built by Herod was a single temple and much smaller in overall dimensions.

Furthermore, when Solomon was designated by King David to succeed him (3 Kings 1), King David directed the prophet Nathan and the high priest Sadoc to take Solomon on the king's mule to be anointed king at the "Gihon spring" with oil taken from the tabernacle. The Gihon spring is located in the City of David directly south and adjacent to the present-day 'Temple Mount'. There Solomon was anointed with oil taken from the Tabernacle, proclaimed king and celebrated by the populace with great jubilation and the sounding of trumpets that could be heard outside the city. The Temple built by Solomon was in the same location as the Tabernacle established by King David on the threshing floor of the land he purchased Areuna the Jebusite as God had commanded by the mouth of Gad (2 Kings 24 and 2 Paralipomenon 3:1).

The water from the Gihon spring was essential for the sacrificial offerings of the Temple. There is no living water source on the 'Temple Mount' which was required in the washing of the priests and the sacrifices offered. The water source for the Antonia fortress was provided by large cisterns located just north of the Antonia fortress and under the 'Temple Mount' that are still present today.

There is a Catholic tradition the there was a church called the Church of the Judgment that was built over and enclosed the Rock that is now enclosed under the Dome of the Rock built by the Moslems in 692 A.D. The Dome of the Rock is located directly north of the Al-Aqsa mosque on the 'Temple Mount'. The Church of the Judgment was destroyed either by the Persians who conquered Jerusalem in 614 A.D. with the help of 26,000 Jewish allies during the Byzantine-Sasanian War 602-628 A.D. (during which many churches were destroyed including the Church of the Ascension on Mount Olivet), or the church was destroyed by the Moslems who conquered Jerusalem in 637 A.D. No living Jew at the time would have knowledge of the exact location of Herod's Temple because the Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem by the Romans since the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 A.D. on the pain of death. Two hundred years later, the Catholic emperor Constantine permitted the Jews to enter Jerusalem once a year on the feast of Tisha B'Av (the ninth of Av) which is regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar because it is the anniversary of the destruction of both the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of Herod! Be that as it may, many of the pillars used in the construction of the interior of the Dome of the Rock have Christian markings indicating that they were salvaged from a destroyed Catholic church.

The Rock itself is regarded (WIKI) as The Foundation Stone (Hebrew אֶבֶן הַשְּׁתִיָּה, romanized: ʾEḇen ha,  lit. 'Foundation Stone'), or the Noble Rock (Arabic:الصخرة المشرفة, romanized: al-Saḵrah al-Mu, lit.  'The Noble Stone') is the rock enclosed by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It is also known as the Pierced Stone, because it has a small hole on the southeastern corner that enters a cavern beneath the rock, known as the Well of Souls. Traditional Jewish sources mention the stone as the place from which the creation of the world began. Jewish sources also identify its location with that of the Holy of Holies. Yet, it is not possible for a threshing floor to be around a large rock or stone.

Before the Muslim conquest, the Rock was enclosed in the Catholic church known as the Church of the Judgment (destroyed by the Persians) because it is believed to have been the place where the condemned stood to hear the judgment against them by the Roman authorities. The Rock is held to be where Jesus stood when His official condemnation was decreed by Pontius Pilate and thus, if it is the stone where the "creation of the world began," it is the stone from which the creation of the world began anew. John 19:13 says: "Now when Pilate had heard these words, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat, in the place that is called Lithostrotos, and in Hebrew Gabbatha." Lithostrotos in Greek refers to a stone and Gabbatha in Hebrew an elevated place. According to St. Mary Agreda after Jesus was condemned by Pilate the decree of condemnation, which she quotes in its entirety, was then formally read to the Jewish mob assembled outside the north entrance to Fortress Antonia where Jesus was taken to bear His cross.

Of the Temple of Herod destroyed in 72 A.D. there does not remain a "stone upon a stone".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep thyself therefore, and thy soul carefully. Forget not the words that thy eyes have seen, and let them not go out of thy heart all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach them to thy sons and to thy grandsons.

Deut 4:9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It is a sin to believe there is salvation outside the Catholic Church!"

Blessed Pope Pius IX

 

 

 

 

PREVIOUS BULLETIN POSTING WORTH REMEMBERING:

 

 

 

 

 

Can Theology Be Measured? Groundbreaking Study Measures a 270-Year Shift in Catholic Teaching

Wim Varnaes | July 22, 2026

ItVanraes discovered measurable data patterns showing that traditional Catholic concepts like sin, grace, salvation, doctrine, obedience, truth, heaven, and judgment steadily declined, while words emphasizing encounter, dialogue, social concerns, poverty, inclusion, and pastoral language steadily increased. This is one of the first empirical, data-driven demonstrations of a theological transformation many Catholics have argued about for decades.

 

 

The Statistical Case for the Crisis in the Church

'When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror.'

FLANNERY O

recovered her warning for the current moment, and the recovery is timely. When truth and tenderness, both good in themselves, are separated, each becomes something it was never meant to be. The Group 9 May 5 Final Report from the Synod on Synodality offers a perfect example of how language shapes new ideas. Those new ideas are not necessarily Catholic ones, but substituting the traditional ideas for new ones under the guise of the old, familiar Catholic words.

Both O

This article would not be the first to name formation networks as the vehicle of such new ideas. One could point at Liberation theology, how Libertatis Nuntius offered a stern warning, which was ignored by its proponents such as Father Gustavo Guti

Some went on to lead groups such as Pax Christi, others, such as Cardinal Turkson, became head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and others still, such as Fr. John Dear, became peace activists. When Cardinal Turkson held the 2016 peace conference at the Vatican, people from Pax Christi and John Dear spoke, rejecting not just war by itself, but the whole Just War doctrine. Their final statement became the foundation for Pope Francis

This does not require any conspiracy to make that happen, just the slow change in schools, then in organizations, which then seeps into the Church as highly respectable activists, missionaries, and aid workers.

I mentioned a corpus data analysis at the opening of this article. Looking at 30 encyclicals, from 6 historical periods (from 1750 to Francis), using 11 thematic word clusters and normalized word frequency, it shows how the vocabulary used by the Church changed over time, supporting the claim that a materialist anthropology quietly entered, substituting the traditional Catholic moral and theological discourse.

This was a preliminary study, using normalized word counts of a selection of teaching documents, and not a full semantic analysis over all available documents. The results were surprising in their detail.

Three of those findings bear on the present moment. First, we can see a soteriological collapse, where words such as sin, grace, and salvation are, under Francis, at their lowest point in 270 years, lower even than pre-1850. Instead of talking about what humans are to be saved from, how such salvation is received, there is a shift towards more structural economic words, such as poverty and economy, at the cost of words such as property, labor and capital. [.....]

Next, it is very interesting to see what happens to words such as love and hope. Love rises continuously, peaks under Benedict, and remains elevated under Francis, but the problem lies elsewhere: truth declines. In a move that mirrors O

At the same time, under Francis the

Lastly, we can see a boundary collapse in the word frequencies. Even before Vatican II we see terms such as error, heresy, condemnation, and judgment decline strongly after 1850, matching the current state where a final report from the Synod on Synodality openly signals that it replaced

At the same time, the use of the word Church declines to its lowest level, while words such as authority, doctrine, and obedience collapse completely. Now

This is important, and it maps cleanly on the situation modern thinking has created. Very quietly, the nominalist ideas underpinning a lot of enlightenment ideas, later growing into Marxism and Modernism, trained many people, even good Catholics, that every sign only held one and only one signified. Such an innocent looking poison of the mind! This is the root of the problem where people think in

Where Catholic teaching gave rise to both Fr. Ryan, looking at the immediate needs of the poor, and also to Cardinal O

Notice also how O

The final reports from the Synod on Synodality show something different, however. They worry about tenderness, dialogue, encounter, (social and environmental) justice, but are averse of the harsh language of sin, conversion, doctrine, obedience, and sacrifice. Not in continuity with tradition, but hiding behind the words of tradition, smuggling in a philosophical framework that is not compatible with the faith. [.....]

COMMENT: The corruption of language is the stock and trade of the enemies of the Catholic faith. Semanticists is a philosophical system, that along with Empiricism, developed with the failure of philosophical Rationalism. Semanticists, like all Nominalists who deny the existence of essential reality, said that the material world is always changing therefore words and language must necessarily change or they will no longer reflect the world as it is. They held that since the world is irrational, therefore, the mind must be irrational as well.They began by openly denying the first principles of the Understanding; that innate sense in all men that a thing is what it is, that it cannot be and not be at the same time, that things require a sufficient cause, sufficient reason, etc., etc. They openly denied the principle of non-contradiction. They eventually denied the intentionality of all language becoming known as Deconstructionalists. The immediate effect of this was the realization that if language must change to reflect new realities then new realities can be created by changing the language. George Orwell's 1984 dystopian novel told the story of a world run by Semanticists. With the developments of "automated intelligence" (AI), the ability to create a false reality has been greatly enhanced and will lead to all those who are not grounded in Catholic dogma to be swept away. The Neo-modernist heretics that have had complete control of the Church since Vatican II are Semanticists. This article is a beginning in recognizing this fact. Once the techniques of semantics are recognized by faithful Catholics, and the absolute corruption of Nominalism is understood, the Neo-modernist methodology of attacking the Catholic faith and destroying her dogmas will be completely exposed.

 

 

 

On the Inerrancy of Sacred Scripture

Vatican preparatory document for the October Synod of Bishops (2008) Teaches:

In summary, the following can be said with certainty … — with regards to what might be inspired in the many parts of Sacred Scripture, inerrancy applies only to ‘that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation’. 

Instrumentum laboris, The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church, article 15, a “working document” for the upcoming October Synod of Bishops; released from the Vatican June 12^th; emphasis added.

 

The Catholic Church Teaches:

The Old and New Testaments, “whole and with all their parts … [have] been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost [and] have God as their author.”

Vatican I

 

For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. These are the words of the last: ‘The Books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author.’ Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error…  

Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus

 

Divine inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scripture so that it renders its parts, each and every one free from every error.

Pope Saint Pius X’s Syllabus of Errors against the Modernists, condemned proposition

 

It is absolutely forbidden to pretend that the sacred writer himself has fallen into error, since Divine inspiration not only excludes any and all possible error in itself, but even loathes and excludes it, since God, Who is sovereign truth, cannot be the author of any possible error…. This doctrine which was so forcefully explained by our predecessor Leo XIII, We also propose with our pontifical authority, and We insist that it be held rigorously by all. Pope Pius XII, Divini Afflante Spiritu

 

Some boldly pervert the meaning of the definition of the Vatican Council, with respect to God as the author of Sacred Scripture and they revive the opinion, many times condemned, according to which the immunity of the Sacred Writings from error extends only to those matters which are handed down regarding God and moral and religious subjects.

Pius XII, Humani Generis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lapide on Luke 23:32 - An Important Distinction

    “But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”  “For thee”, because I destine thee to be the head and chief of the Apostles and of My Church, that thy faith fail not in believing Me to be the Christ and the Saviour of the world. Observe that Christ in this prayer asked and obtained for Peter two especial privileges before the other Apostles : the first was personal, that he should never fall from faith in Christ; for Christ looked back to the sifting in the former verse, that is the temptation of His own apprehension when the other Apostles flew off from Him like chaff and lost their faith, and were dispersed, and fled into all parts. But Peter, although he denied Christ with his lips, at the hour foretold, and lost his love for Him, yet retained his faith. So S. Chrysostom (Horn, xxxviii.) on S. Matthew; S. Augustine (de corrept. et Grat. chap, viii.); Theophylact and others. This is possible but not certain, for F. Lucas and others think that Peter then lost both his faith and his love, from excessive perturbation and fear; but only for a short time, and so that his faith afterwards sprang up anew, and was restored with fresh vitality. Hence it is thought not to have wholly failed, or to have been torn up by the roots, but rather to have been shaken and dead for a time.

    Another and a certain privilege was common to Peter with all his successors, that he and all the other bishops of Rome (for Peter, as Christ willed, founded and confirmed the Pontifical Church at Rome), should never openly fall from this faith, so as to teach the Church heresy, or any error contrary to the faith. So S. Leo (semi.xxii.), on Natalis of SS. Peter and Paul; S. Cyprian (Lib. i. ep. 3), to Cornelius; Lucius I., Felix I., Agatho, Nicolas I., Leo IX.,Innocent III., Bernard and others, whom Bellarmine cites and follows (Lib. i. de Poniif. Roman).

    For it was necessary that Christ, by His most wise providence, should provide for His Church, which is ever being sifted and tempted by the devil, and that not only in the time of Peter, but at all times henceforth, even to the end of the world, an oracle of the true faith which she might consult in every doubt, and by which she might be taught and confirmed in the faith, otherwise the Church might err in faith, quod absit!   For she is, as S. Paul said to Timothy, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. lii. 15). This oracle of the Church then is Peter, and all successive bishops of Rome. This promise made to Peter and his successors, most especially applies to the time when Peter, as the successor of Christ, began to be the head of the Church, that is, after the death of Christ.

    And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. “From the sifting of Satan, that is from his temptation and from the sin by which thou wilt deny Me; for by this thou wilt be turned aside from Me, and My grace and love.” So Euthymius, Theophylact, Jansen, F. Lucas, and others.

Cornelius a Lapide, The Great Commentary, Luke 22, 32

 

 

 

 

COMMENT ON THE RECENT CONSECRATION OF BISHOPS BY THE SSPX:

The recent consecration of bishops by the SSPX and their

Rome has manipulated the SSPX into a trap that was explained to them more than fifteen years ago. Rome embraced the heresy of Neo-modernism before Vatican II and the purpose of Vatican II was to infect this heresy into the life blood of the Church. The heresy severs the form and matter of Dogma professing that the form is a divine truth revealed by God but the matter, that is, the words, are a human approximation of that divine truth that must progressively evolve and be purified of human accretions, distortions and historical contingencies to arrive at a more perfect expression of the divine truth. It is a claim that we know the faith better than our fathers and our children will know the faith better than us. Thus Dogma, which never reaches its term, no longer is the proximate rule of faith. It is replaced by the pope who guides the dogma into a progressively more perfect expression.

Once the pope becomes the proximate rule of faith the infallible Magisterium of the Church is replaced by the personal fallible magisterium of the pope grounded upon his grace of state, and then whatever the pope says or does becomes what every faithful Catholic is expected to say or do. This corruption was taught in the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium which established the new ecclesiology. The term Lumen Gentium says, sensus fidei for all Catholics. The proposition of unconditional obedience to the

Fr. Joseph Fenton, the editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review and a peritas at Vatican II, wrote an excellent article, Infallilillity in the Encyclicals, AER, 1953, in which he addressed the term, Comillas in Spain. The

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who had his own problems with Neo-modernism, recognized that the insertion of the addendum of unconditional obedience to the

Rome imposes the 1989 Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity on any cleric or any lay person as a condition for exercising any office in the Church. The SSPX leadership stupidly accepted this demand and swore, certainly by 2015, unconditional obedience to the publically disobeyed him on insufficient doctrinal or moral grounds. They have associated every faithful traditional Catholic in their worthless scheming.

The SSPX sooner or later must recognize that Dogma is the proximate rule of faith and that Neo-modernism is a heresy that they are standing so close to they cannot recognize. Dogma is infallible both in the truth it proposes and in the words used to express that truth. That is, both the form and the matter of Dogma, which constitute one substantial being, are the infallible work of God, or as St. Pius X said, ipso facto in the external forum without canonical due process simply because the pope says so in his personal

 

 

 

 

 

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

Ø  One concerns the Pope. The other, logically 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  These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they?If 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  Speaks neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads, nor Pershing missiles, nor SS-20. 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  The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.

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  The great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.

Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996 (personal theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]

The Whole Truth about Fatima, [2], Volume 3.

 

 

 

 

"The Providence of God is unfailing!"

St. Augustine, On the Soul and Its Origin, 3, 13

 

 

 

Leo XIV Reinstated Convicted Child-Porn Priest who was protected by Francis

Carlo Alberto Capella was Vatican diplomat who was convicted by a Vatican tribunal of possessing and sharing child pornography. Capella admitted guilt to the charges. He is the only one who has served a prison sentence in the Vatican jail for this crime or for any sexually related crime against minors. 

Monsignor Capella was ordained a priest in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Milan. After studies of canon law he entered the Vatican diplomatic corps. He was assigned to the papal nunciature in India in 2003 and to the nunciature in Hong Kong in 2007. In 2008 he was created Chaplain of His Holiness, which entitled him to the title of Monsignor.  In 2011 he was transferred to the Vatican to serve in the Secretariat of State. In 2016 he was assigned to the papal nunciature to the United States.

In 2017, Capella was recalled to the Vatican by Pope Francis after United States officials informed the Vatican that he was under investigation for possession and sharing of child pornography. The government of Canada has issued a warrant for his arrest, alleging that during his time in Canada in December, 2016 he had possessed and shared child pornography. He was returned to the Vatican which claimed diplomatic immunity for Capella protecting him from prosecution in the United State or Canada.

In 2018, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, which he served in the Vatican jail. As of 2021, he was allowed out during the day to work in an office that sells papal blessings. In 2023, following the end of his prison sentence, Capella was permitted to return to work in the Vatican Secretariat of State.  Now Pope Leo XIV has reinstated Msgr. Capella to a senior diplomatic position in the Vatican Secretariat of State.

COMMENT: Pope Leo is protégé of Francis to whom he own s his promotions to bishop and cardinal. It was Francis who protected this pervert from criminal charges in the United States and in Canada and now it is Francis' protégé who has restored him the a high level position in the Vatican. This does not portend well for any serious reform of the Novus Ordo Church which has become a sinecure for homosexuals and others perverts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unless the Lord build a house, they labor in vain that build it.

Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it. Ps. 126

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Tradition In Action:

You don't have to be a liturgical EXPERT to see that there is no essential difference in the act!

The question is: Is there any essential difference in the actors?

 

 

Top: St. Patrick Catholic Church, Chatham, New Jersey (44:43 mark on their August 22, 2021

Bottom: First Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (49:30 mark on their July 6 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jewish morality is openly demonstrated in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon with the wonton killing of thousands of men, women and children. Over 95% of Jewish religious and political leaders support abortion and same-sex 'marriage'. AI is intended to enforce Jewish morality.

Yuval Harari at Davos:

by Leo Hohmann 1-20-2026

Israeli historian and philosopher Yuval Harari spoke January 20th at the World Economic Forum 2026 conference in Davos and hit on crucial themes about the future of artificial intelligence and humanity.
If Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink represent the legal and geostrategic views of the Davos crowd, Harari represents its spiritual soul. And a dark soul it is, devoid of anything truly from the heart of God.
He seems to describe a mass psychological control grid getting ready to clamp down on humanity.
Harari stated in his WEF speech that:
The most important thing to know about AI is that it is not just another tool. It is an agent. It can learn and change by itself and make decisions by itself. A knife is a tool. You can use a knife to cut salad or to murder someone, but it is your decision what to do with the knife. AI is a knife that can decide by itself whether to cut salad or to commit murder.

The second thing to know about AI is that it can be a very creative agent. AI is a knife that can invent new kinds of knives as well as new kinds of music, medicine and money.

The third thing to know about AI is that it can lie and manipulate. Four billion years of evolution have demonstrated that anything that wants to survive learns to lie and manipulate. The last four years have demonstrated that AI agents can acquire the will to survive and that AIs have already learned how to lie.
How many times have you heard that AI is just a tool that can be used for good or for evil? Well, Yuval Harari, the philosophical/spiritual voice of the WEF, says it
So, AI can

Harari speaking at Davos 2026: AI is already an agent capable of making decisions, lying, manipulating.

Harari is a valuable source because, whether you think he
Well, now Harari is letting the cat out of the bag, probably because he knows it
Harari stated:

Harari said AI will first take over everything that consists of words. That includes law, articles and books, even religion. You can see that is happening already. News writers and gatherers are being replaced. Legal assistants and lawyers are being replaced. And people are consulting AI for advice related to life, faith and spiritual matters.

He does hint that if your religious faith is real, you may want to find out if it

A preview of our AI dominated world

He asks:

My overall response to Harari
Winston, the main character in Orwell
How is this different from the algorithms used by today
Orwell, living and writing in the 1940s, could not have envisioned that a computerized software system known as machine learning was going to rise up to do the job that he assigned to human beings. That job is to filter and control all human knowledge through a single conduit with demonic influence.
Because Harari is an admitted atheist, it is here where his analysis breaks down. He doesn
He says that,

 

 

 

 

Dogma - The Proximate Rule of Faith, the Formal Object of Divine & Catholic Faith

Now, first of all, let us see what is dogma. In the mouth of the world it means some positive, imperious, and overbearing assertion of a human authority, or of a self-confident mind. But what does it mean in the mouth of the Church? It means the precise enunciation of a divine truth, of a divine fact, or of a divine reality fully known, so far as it is the will of God to reveal it, adequately defined in words chosen and sanctioned by a divine authority.

It is the precise enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known, intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality, so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth, is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church were to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression, the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty; without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration of that truth. Therefore any body which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic, because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the- Catholic Church alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with its centre in the Holy See,

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Glories of the Sacred Heart

 

 

 

SSPX issues 154-point profession of faith to Pope Leo, cardinals ahead of consecrations

The Society of St. Pius X unveiled a sweeping 17-chapter ‘Profession of Catholic Faith,’ urging Pope Leo and the cardinals to embrace Tradition as the remedy to the Church’s ‘deepest ills.’

LifeSiteNews | June 24, 2026 — The SSPX has published a "Profession of Catholic Faithe" as part of communications with the Pope and the cardinals ahead of the planned episcopal consecrations and “in response to the chief and gravest dangers of our time.”

According to an open letter published by the Society of St. Pius X “to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV and to the Cardinals of the Holy Church” dated June 24, the leadership of the SSPX formulated its 17-chapter profession of Catholic Faith as a “necessary expression, peaceful and resolute, of our Faith” as the cardinals prepare to gather in consistory later this week.

“Today the Church suffers under the pressure of new forces, coming both from within and without, which push her in every possible direction, except – it seems to us – the right one,” the Society argues, adding, “In the face of such suffering, we cannot remain indifferent.”

Consequently, the Society maintains that “Tradition contains all the remedies for the deepest ills afflicting the Church and the world, for which solutions are sought in vain outside of it.”

“We are persuaded that, in the unstable and extremely perilous context that now confronts us, the finest contribution one can offer to the universal Church is that of a sincere and integral profession of Catholic Faith,” the fraternity of priests write.

The letter was accompanied by the Society’s "Profession of Catholic Faith." broken into 17 chapters outlining 154 points of traditional doctrine while rejecting their corresponding modern errors.

COMMENT: In general, the profession of faith has many excellent qualities, however, it is clearly a product of the SSPX culture and character. The SSPX is a completely inbred organization. No one thinks outside the box and their box is very small. While the Profession recognizes that the remote sources of revelation are Scripture and Tradition and that these constitute the remote rule of faith (#9), they then, after professing that "no dogma" may be omitted, stumble in not recognizing that Dogma constitutes the proximate rule of faith.

5. I add that, in the present confusion, it is no longer sufficient to recall a few isolated truths. It has become indispensable to set in full light the entire order of Catholic doctrine, in its supernatural coherence and luminous harmony, omitting no dogma, diminishing no truth, and substituting for the received Faith no equivocal or truncated language which, under the pretext of ecumenism or adaptation to the world, disfigures this doctrine with ever greater audacity.

9. This Revelation is the true Word of God, entrusted to the Church as a Deposit, and proposed to men as the Rule of Faith in the form of a body of doctrine, in which the mysteries are formulated in a manner that renders them intelligible and expressible in words.

The problem is confounded because they continually used the word "magisterium" equivocally. They treat the infallible Magisterium of the Church teaching by the authority of God and the fallible magisterium of churchmen teaching by their grace of state as if these were the same thing, They are not and constitute a distinction of kind and not one of degree. Their belief in the mutability of Dogma is directly expressed in their understanding of the Dogma that membership in the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation, that is, no one is saved outside the Catholic Church:

60. This truth means that no one can be saved without Christ and His Church, through a false religion as such, nor be assured of His salvation outside the visible structure of the Church. If men are saved without belonging to the visible society which is the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, it is by a supernatural ordination to the one Church of salvation, and in spite of the errors of the false religions in which they find themselves, from which they free themselves by not refusing the grace offered to them and by corresponding to it

Here the Dogma is not "omitted," it is corrupted by substituting the word, "without," for the word, "outside." This is a common example of how the heresy of Neo-modernism works. This heresy leads directly to the Prayer Meeting of Assisi and the SSPX has not figured it out. The SSPX believes and teaches that any Jew, Moslem, Protestant, Hindu, Pagan, etc., etc. can obtain salvation by desire to do the will of a god who rewards and punishes which can be known by natural philosophy. The essential problem is that the SSPX does not understand or even recognize that the principle heresy today is Neo-modernism and not Modernism. Not recognizing the enemy, they continually punch the air.

Regarding the sacraments they rightly profess the Dogma that the sacraments require correct form, matter and intention:

111. I profess that the sacraments must be validly celebrated with the prescribed matter, form, and intention, observing the liturgical rites which clearly express the Catholic Faith; and that they must be received with the required dispositions.

Yet the SSPX believes that a Catholic priest can enter a bakery and consecrate all the bread in the bakery or enter a wine cellar and consecrate all the wine. This they believe can happen when there is obvious corruption in form, matter and intention. This can only happen when Dogma is taken in a non-literal sense. They apply the same sacramental theology to the sacrament of Baptism denying the Dogmas that baptism is necessary for salvation and the true and natural water is necessary for the sacrament which they take in a purely metaphorical sense.

112. I believe that Baptism is the door of the Church and that it is necessary for salvation. Ordinarily, no one can be saved without receiving it; through this sacrament, man is washed from original sin, incorporated into Christ, marked with the Christian character, and made a member of the Church. I therefore reject the practice of deferring without grave cause the Baptism of children who have not the use of reason. However, one who, after the age of reason and without fault on his part, is prevented from accessing this sacrament, can be saved in an extraordinary manner by Baptism of Desire, that is, by a supernatural act of faith and perfect charity which orders him to the Church.

So the good-willed Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Protestant, Pagan, etc. who believes in a god who rewards and punishes is thereby making an act of "supernatural faith and perfect charity"!

The word "heresy" occurs only once in the Profession of the SSPX. "I therefore reject every liturgical reform or usage which, through omission, doctrinal ambiguity, or practical orientation, favours heresy.... " The definition of heresy is the rejection of any Dogma. That is why the word only occurs as an accusation of "favoring" heresy. Vatican II, a pastoral council, is a product of the fallible magisterium of churchmen teaching by their grace of state. The Council did not just "favor" heresy, it taught it. It is impossible to know what heresy is unless you first know what Dogma is. Unless a clear and precise understanding of the nature of Dogma is known, it is impossible to address modern errors effectively.

The term, Second Vatican Council, also occurs only once in the document in Profession 143:

143. I acknowledge in particular that modern errors represent a dreadful threat to the whole of the Catholic order, and that their penetration into the life of the Church, under the influence of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar reforms, has provoked a crisis of exceptional gravity: agnosticism attacks the knowledge of God; naturalism attacks the necessity of grace; subjectivism attacks the supernatural motive of faith; relativism attacks the immutability of dogma; situation ethics attacks the divine law; liberalism attacks the Social Kingship of Christ; false ecumenism attacks the uniqueness of the Church; collegiality and synodality attack the divine constitution of the Church in her hierarchy; liturgical anthropocentrism attacks the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

This is all true but why is the SSPX unable to say Vatican II is heretical? Until the SSPX understands what Dogma is, what Neo-modernism is, and what the Magisterium of the Church is and how it is distinct from the magistrium of churchmen,they will continue to be incapable of effectively addressing modern errors.

In the end the question arises how is it now, after nearly fifteen years of silence against the apostasy of Rome, through the entire pontificate of Francis/Bergoglio, does the SSPX find that it is time to speak up? For what end is this Profession of Faith intended? And why cannot the SSPX articulate propositions of faith directly contrary to the beliefs and teachings of Rome demanding that Pope Leo engage the infallible Magisterium of the Church to clearly address the modern errors of Vatican II and the conciliar Church? It is a matter of canon law and the constant tradition of the Church that every Catholic has the right to demand explicit judgments from the Magisterium and the pope has an absolute duty to address these questions of faith. The SSPX has been in dialogue with Rome formally and informally for thirty years exchanging opinions on Catholic truth. If the SSPX understood what Dogma is this thirty year dialogue could have been concluded in thirty minutes. It has only been a year and a half since the death of Bishop Richard Williamson. The SSPX declared at that time that there was no state of necessity to justify the consecrations of bishops and they accused Bishop Williamson of grave sin for doing so. If the SSPX cannot identify direct heresy and heretics in Rome, then they cannot claim a state of necessity for themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANGEL OF THE JUDGMENT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Situation Regarding the SSPX Episcopal Consecrations of July 1, 2026 -

by Roberto de Mattei

June 24, 2026 | Posted by the conservative Catholic blog, Rorate Caeli

What is one to think, and what is one to do, in the face of the episcopal consecrations announced by the Society of Saint Pius X at for July 1st, and the consequent latae sententiae excommunication that will be reaffirmed by the Holy See?

The first consideration to be made is that, if this comes to pass, we will be confronted with a painful trial

On the substance of the controversy, one cannot avoid pointing out what appears to be a genuine paradox. Among the many reasons advanced by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988

The state of necessity is, by its very nature, an exceptional condition that permits deviation from the ordinary application of certain norms in view of a higher good

If the principle of the state of necessity were admitted as a general criterion for action, any bishop who judged the Church to be passing through a grave crisis could feel authorized episcopi vagantes scattered throughout the world, with inevitable effects of fragmentation, disorder, and confusion for the very faithful one would seek to protect.

The existence of an episcopal line deriving from Archbishop Richard Williamson This is a phenomenon which, beyond any judgments on the persons involved, illustrates the intrinsic risk of episcopal consecrations founded on subjective assessments of the state of necessity.

And yet this argument : "The faithful who are still Catholic find themselves in many places in a desperate spiritual situation. It is this appeal that the Church hears; it is for these situations that she grants jurisdiction through the law of supplied jurisdiction." The decisive criterion for him was not the assertion of a right proper to the Society, but the spiritual need of the faithful. The episcopal consecrations of 1988 were intended as a response to this appeal of souls.

We thus find ourselves before the paradox. The Society of Saint Pius X, by invoking the state of necessity, grounds a large part of its justification on the primacy of pastoral requirements over strictly juridical and doctrinal considerations

In this confused situation, the only sensible counsel that can be offered to those who are uncertain is to abide by the principle of logic and law: In dubiis standum est pro statu quo, donec ratio certa contrarium persuadeat , avoiding being drawn into sterile polemics and emotional proclamations that have no other result than to reopen old wounds and pour vinegar into the wounds of the Church.

The problem that presents itself today is far broader than the grave matter of the July 1st episcopal consecrations and their canonical consequences. Nor does the question exhaust itself in the debate over the traditional liturgy or the interpretation of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. At the heart of the controversy lies the historical and theological judgment on the twentieth century

A little over a hundred years ago, the conflagration of the First World War brought to an end the international order born of the Christian centuries, while the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 set an even vaster fire in the world. Yet in the same year in which Bolshevism seized power, Our Lady appeared to the three shepherd children of Fatima, explaining the true causes of the crisis of the modern world and assuring, after chastisements, wars, and persecutions, the final triumph of her Immaculate Heart. The message of Fatima was addressed to all of humanity, but in a particular way to the Pastors of the Church, within which Modernism had begun to spread its deadly poison. Against this evil, Providence raised up Saint Pius X. With the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of September 8, 1907 Pascendi and Fatima constitute, respectively, the doctrinal diagnosis and the supernatural response to the crisis of modernity. These events, in turn, acquire their authentic significance only when placed within a broader perspective that allows one to read the events of history as phases of a single struggle that crosses the centuries.

It is here that the vision of Saint Augustine takes on an extraordinary relevance for our time. In the City of God, the great Doctor of the Church interprets history as the permanent confrontation between those who orient their lives toward God and those who reject the divine order. The Augustinian tradition, with its capacity to read historical events in the light of Providence, offers the interpretive key necessary for confronting questions that continue to determine the life of the Church

The last word, in this dramatic horizon, belongs to him who holds the divine mandate to guide the Church and whom the Society of Saint Pius X itself acknowledges as the legitimate Vicar of Christ

COMMENT: Dr. Roberto de Mattei is a conservative Novus Ordo Catholic historian which alone makes it impossible for him to know or do anything correctly because he will always have his priorities upside-down. Where does he get it wrong? For Mattei, the pope constitutes the proximate rule of faith. He does not understand that the proximate rule of faith is DOGMA. For Mattei, the faith is subject to the authority of the pope. The pope for Mattei is the principle cause and sign of the unity of the Church. Mattei does not openly deny the truth that the faith itself is the principle sign and cause of unity of the Church but he makes the faith subject to the arbitrary judgments of the pope who becomes its revealer. He places the authority of the pope over Dogma so that the Dogma means whatever the pope says it means. Whatever the pope says or does becomes the proximate rule of faith for Mattei. For him the determination of a state of necessity can only be declared by the authority of the pope. For Mattei, the pope can never be the cause of the state of necessity therefore, a state of necessity can never really exist.

Mattei acknowledges that the "salvation of souls" is the "highest good" then immediately reduces it to a legal truism. Something that in the end is unknowable in its practical application. He then wonders just who could ever determine when such a state of necessity begins and when it ends.For Mattei only the pope with absolute authority can do so.

The answer is not as difficult as Mattei pretends. Any individual Catholic faithful can declare a state of necessity for himself whenever he is unable to obtain from his ordinary what is necessary for his salvation, that is, the Catholic faith and Catholic sacraments. This is not a "subjective" determination as Mattei pretends for the faithful Catholic must make known to his local ordinary the existing objective factual conditions that constitute the state of necessity, demonstrate the establishment of a true and certain conscience, and thus, provide a moral justification for any acts of disobedience. After determining a state of necessity that he makes it known to his local ordinary, the ordinary has the obligation to fulfill his duties to provide what is necessary for salvation. If he fails to do so, fails to fulfill his duty for whatever reason, then the faithful Catholic is free is seek these necessities from any other cleric and any cleric can do so by the virtue of the supplied jurisdiction by the Church which places the salvation of souls as her highest law. Mattei believes that salvation comes from obedience to the pope while faithful Catholics know that "without faith, it is impossible to please God," and that thepope is just as much subject to God's revealed truth as every other faithful Catholic. The "paradox" that Mattei is talking about is not real. There is no conflict of the SSPX "pastoral requirements" vs. Novus Ordo "juridical and doctrinal considerations."

Mattei believes that the pope can be judged by no one. That is a doubtful proposition. The Decretals of Gratian is a collection of canonical texts compiled in the 12th century. Pope Gregory IX in 1230 directed St. Raymond of Pennafort, the distinguished Dominican, to organize an addendum to the code to include legal codes adopted since the time of Gratian but the work became a much more extensive revision. Working from the Decretals of Gratian, St. Raymond wrote a five volume edition of the Decretals that became the Corpus Iuris Canonici which served as the legal code for the Latin Church

Decretum Gratiani, which was included in the old Corpus Iuris Canonici, affirmed that a Pope who deviates from right doctrine (i.e.: a notorious public heretic) can be judged. The canon states that the "pope judges all and is judged by no-one, unless he is found to have departed from the faith":

culpas redarguere pr mortalium nullus, quia cunctos ipse judicaturus a nemine est judicandus, nisi deprehendatur a fide devius (dist. XL, C. 6)Iuris Canonici 1917) came into force, the Church eliminated from the new legislation the phrase "unless he is found to have departed from the faith." This deletion was continued in the 1983 code. Although the phrase, "unless he is found to have departed from the faith," was not included in the 1917 and the 1983 codes, the canonical commentary still regards the phrase as legally binding:

 

COMMENTARY: "Canon 1404 is not a statement about the personal impeccability or inerrancy of the Holy Father. Should, indeed, the pope fall into heresy, it is understood that he would lose his office. To fall from Peter

New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, John P. Beal, James A. Coriden, and Thomas J. Green eds. (New York: Paulist, 2000), p. 1,618.

The code is the compilation of laws governing the Church as social institution. Most of the laws in the code are ecclesiastical positive human laws grounded upon human authority, however, many of the legal codes are divine positive laws grounded upon divine authority or upon natural law. If a human law is deleted from the code, the law ceases to bind. If a law of divine authority is deleted from the code, the law continue in force for the human authority of the Church cannot overturn the law of God. This self-evident principle is stated in the code itself. Consequently, the commentary cited above is a recognition that the pope cannot be judged "unless he is found to have departed from the faith" is of divine origin. It is necessarily a divine law because the papacy is a divine institution established directly by Jesus Christ and therefore governed in its essence only by divine laws.

Therefore, it is divine law that permits a heretical pope to be judged. Importantly, although the law permits a heretical pope to be judged, it says nothing about who and how a pope is to be judged regarding heresy and it does not address penalties. It says nothing about removal from office. If the law intended the removal from office the law itself would have to state the penalty and provide a mechanism for its determination and enforcement.

So now it falls to opinions regarding the judgment of a heretical pope. Most theologians believe that it is "understood" that the removal from office necessarily follows from a judgment of heresy often citing the scriptural and traditional admonition to avoid heretics:

"A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid: Knowing that he, that is such a one, is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment" (Titus 3:10-11).

They argue that since the faithful cannot avoid a pope as head of the Church therefore the heretical pope must lose his office. A serious problem with this argument follows, that is, if the faithful cannot "avoid" a pope, then there must necessarily be a pope who in fact cannot be avoided. Therefore, those who would make the papacy vacant must also be able to fill the office with a true pope.

But can a heretical pope be avoided? It really becomes a problem for those who hold the pope as their proximate rule of faith and not, as they should, dogma. For if dogma is not the proximate rule of faith then the pope must be, and he then can never be a heretic for whatever the pope holds the dogma or doctrine to mean is what it then means and only those who disagree with the pope are heretics. For a Catholic, dogma is the proximate rule of faith and although a heretical pope can do immeasurable damage to the Church he cannot touch individual souls of the faithful.

If we adhere to what the law says and nothing more, we can say this: The definition of heresy is the denial of dogma. The heretic denies dogma and the faithful keep dogma. Those who can judge a heretical pope are the faithful. The law does not distinguish or discriminate among the faithful as to the judgment. Dogma is articulated for all the faithful. Its understanding does not require any theological competence. It requires proper definition and correct grammar. Any of the faithful, that is those who hold dogma as their proximate rule of faith, can judge a manifestly heretical pope such as Pope Francis. Any of the faithful can know when a dogma is directly contradicted for the first principles of the understanding, such as the principle of non-contradiction, are innate in human nature. Thus all the faithful can judge, in fact must judge, a heretical pope and so that they may not follow him in his heresy for God has said that 'it is not possible to deceive His elect' (Matt. 24:24). The law does not specify the judge because the judgment rests with all the faithful, it is universal. The law does not specify a penalty because none of the faithful have the competency to impose a penalty and remove a heretical pope from office. It is God who is the formal and final cause of the pope and the office of the papacy. It is God who 'marries' the designated candidate to the papal office and only God can remove him from it just as God removed the High Priest and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and the Levitical priesthood which can never be reconstituted.

Those who hold dogma as their proximate rule of faith recognize Pope Leo as a heretic because he denies dogmatic truth. He preaches a different gospel so we "receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you" (2 John 10). Since he preaches a different gospel, "Let him be anathema" because we are first "servants of Christ" (Gal 1: 8). For in dogma, the Church has spoken and the heretic Pope Leo "will not hear the church, (therefore) let him be to thee as the heathen and publican (Matt 18:17).

Since Mattei cannot see his way out of his box so he advises, "Reason suggests that each person remain in the position in which he finds himself, continuing to do what he does."Since Mattei cannot conceive a state of necessity from the current corruption of faith and morals maybe an analogy to a person dying of thirst would be more clear. By natural law a man dying from thirst is entitled to preserve his life by drinking available water. The pope tells him he cannot have any water. Mattei advises that he should "remain in the position which he finds himself, continuing to do what he does,", that is, continue to die of thirst. Suppose it is not just one man but an entire family? Suppose that man was so weakened that he could not bring the water to himself? Would Mattei intervene to help? Well, probably not because Mattei could not recognize a state of necessity if he were the man dying of thirst.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pope says church 'must move forward' if SSPX proceeds with illicit ordinations

Vatican News | Junno Arocho Esteves | June 17, 2026

Pope Leo XIV said that although he is considering a final appeal to the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, the choice to splinter from the Catholic Church falls on them.

Speaking to journalists outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo June 16, the pope was asked about his feelings regarding plans by the traditionalist society, commonly known as SSPX, to proceed with the consecration of new bishops without a papal mandate.

The pope said that while he is "considering making another appeal to say: 'Do not do this, let us try to live in communion within the church,' " the decision to proceed "is their choice."

"Certainly, division among Christians is always a painful point. But they refuse to accept certain fundamental elements of the church, starting with several points from the Second Vatican Council," Leo said.

"If they make that choice, I am sorry, but we must move forward," he added. [.....]

COMMENT: The Vatican II Novus Ordo Church is a big tent inviting a wide variety of heretics, schismatics, apostates, pagans, animists, homosexuals, adulterers etc. to join the party. Even Leo/Prevost himself is now known to have worshiped the pagan goddess Pachamama. The SSPX, seeking a corner under this big tent,has been mute for so long we have wondered out loud if they lost the power of speech. But what about Pope Leo/Prevost? His recent pictures with the "Archbishopette of Canterbury" looks creepy. If he were just personally sick, his welcome would be extended without exceptions but, he has serious exceptions. Those must be "excepted" who "refuse to accept certain fundamental elements of the church, starting with several points from the Second Vatican Council"! There are some things the "listening church of Synodality" just can't listen to. Vatican II was a "pastoral council" that never rose above the level of churchmen pastorally opining with no greater authority than their grace of state.Any doctrinal opinions from churchmen from Vatican II that, if only apparently, contradict or undermine Catholic revealed truth must be rejected, and there is plenty there to reject. Such as, the claim that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. Putting the question to Artificial Intelligence:

Question:If A subsists in B does it follow that A and B are an identity?

ANSWER: No.

 

So:

If A subsists in B, it

Only under additional premises

The truth that the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ are one and the same thing is divinely revealed truth. Even the blind "artificial intelligence" "sees" this Vatican II confabulation is just a lie! Those that deny this truth are heretics and, as St. Thomas says, "All heretics are schismatics," it remains to be determined what and who's church the SSPX will be leaving. Revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. What exactly Leo/Prevost is referring to when he talks about "certain fundamental elements of the church, starting with several points from the Second Vatican Council" needs serious clarification. No Catholic is obliged to believe anything with "divine and Catholic faith" that "started.... from the Second Vatican Council." The pastoral failures of Vatican II reek to high heaven and doctrinal obfuscation only magnifies the crime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heresy is Ugly

In the medieval town (of 1480), fourteen of the named buildings are churches; trees grow along the banks of the river and the bridge allows free passagearehouses dwarf and obscure the churches which dominated the medieval scene

Margaret Belcher, late professor of English at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and editor of the multivolume collection of the great Victorian Gothic Revivalist Architect Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852), who was the architect for 9 cathedrals and 60 churches, on a pair of drawings of a English town contrasting the town of 1480 with what it became in 1880.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By their fruits we are expected to know them!

The Archdiocese of Dubuque Iowa is restructuring its 160 parishes across 30 northeast Iowa counties into 24 "pastorates". Driven by a 46% decline in Mass attendance and a shrinking number of priests, the Archdiocese halted weekend Masses at more than 80 churches, though they remain open for weddings and funerals.

The transition to the new pastorate structure, which requires grouped parishes to share clergy and resources, officially takes effect on July 14, 2026.

The sweeping consolidation has significantly impacted communities and traditional worship schedules. Key details of the situation include.

The Cause: The Archdiocese reports a drop of nearly half in weekend Mass attendance over the last 20 years, alongside a decreasing number of priests. The region currently has roughly one priest for every two parishes.

Church Usage: While many church buildings will no longer host weekend Mass, they are not completely closed. They remain accessible for other liturgical celebrations, such as weddings, funerals, weekday Masses, and private prayer.

COMMENT: The Archdioces of Dubuque has paid out about $17 million in settlements for the sex abuse crimes of homosexual pederasts over the last 30 years. Unlike many dioceses in the United States such as Harrisburg, Baltimore and Philadelphia, the Dubuque Archdiocese has not had to file for bankruptcy and Chapter 11 protection. The collapse is due to the loss of the Catholic faith with the associated The consolidation is because of a Louisana in New Orleans that was established in 1793. The diocese of St. Louis covered the entire territory of the Louisana Purchase. Excluding Spanish missionary work in the southwest, the Archdioces of Dubuque is the third Catholic diocese west of the Mississippi River. It was in the beginning responsible for the spiritual welfare of all Catholics as well as Catholic missionary work in Iowa, Minnosota, North and South Dakota, that is, everywhere east of the Missouri river, and south-west Wisconsin. What the heroic French and Italian missionaries from the Archdiocese of Dubuque built for over the next hundred plus years has not just been squandered by the effeminate Novus Ordites through sloth, but actively ruined by their heresy and schism. This is the fruit of Vatican II. This decline has been evident since the early 1970s but with each passing year it is now visible to the blind. It is impossible to attribute good but misguided intentions to Novus Ordites. They are enemies of the Catholic faith. We must double our prayers that God will cleanse His Church even if we ourselves must suffer in the persecution. The loss of souls is irreparable. It may be soon time to say that there is no salvation in the Novus Ordo Church.

 

 

 

IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND

Modernism vs. Neo-Modernism: What is the Difference?

The overarching principle of post-conciliar theology is not modernism, properly speaking. Let us get our terms straight.
Modernism is the idea that there are no eternal truths, that truth is the correspondence of the mind with one's lifestyle (adaequatio intellectus et vitae), and that, therefore, old dogmas must be abandoned and new beliefs must arise that meet 'the needs of modern man'. This is a radical denial of the traditional and common sense notion of truth: the correspondence of the mind with reality (adaequatio intellectus et rei), which is the basis of the immutability of Catholic dogma.
No, the post-conciliar theological principle is neo-modernism, and the theology that is based on it is known as the nouvelle theologie.  It is the idea that old dogmas or beliefs must be retained, yet not the traditional 'formulas': dogmas must be expressed and interpreted in a new way in every age so as to meet the 'needs of modern man'.  This is still a denial of the traditional and common sense notion of truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei (insofar as it is still an attempt to make the terminology that expresses the faith correspond with our modern lifestyle) and consequently of the immutability of Catholic dogma, yet it is not as radical as modernism.  It is more subtle and much more deceptive than modernism because it claims that the faith must be retained; it is only the 'formulas' of faith that must be abandoned--they use the term 'formula' to distinguish the supposedly mutable words of our creeds, dogmas, etc. from their admittedly immutable meanings.  Therefore, neo-modernism can effectively slip under the radar of most pre-conciliar condemnations (except Humani Generis, which condemns it directly) insofar as its practitioners claim that their new and unintelligible theological terminology really expresses the same faith of all times.  In other words, neo-modernism is supposed to be 'dynamic orthodoxy': supposedly orthodox in meaning, yet always changing in expression to adapt to modern life (cf. Franciscan University of Steubenville's mission statement). 
Take extra ecclesiam nulla salus as a clear example of a dogma that has received a brutal neo-modernist re-interpretation: they claim that the old 'formula' that "there is no salvation outside the Church" must be abandoned; rather it is more meaningful to modern man to say that salvation is not in, but through, the Church;  people who are not in the Church may still be saved through the Church; thus, to them the dogma that "there is no salvation outside the Church" means that there is salvation outside the Church.  Hence see Ven. Pope Pius XII condemning those "reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation." (Humani generis 27).

Yet this mentality of reinterpreting everything anew in order to 'meet the needs of the times' is generally tends to be found in different degrees among different post-conciliar sources: 

It tends to be  (1) rampant in men like De Lubac, Von Balthasar, Congar, etc.: it is the ultimate goal of their writings, teachings, and activities as churchmen.   To achieve this end, they employ the technique of 'resourcement', the neo-modernist strategy of fishing for the few dubious, questionable, or idiosyncratic teachings of some Fathers of the Church and other authoritative writers, and gather them into a massive, heterodox theological argument against the traditional understanding of the faith (which they like to relativize by giving it names such as "Counter-Reformation" Theology, "Tridentine" Theology, or "Scholastic" Theology, instead of just admitting that it is Catholic Theology plain and simple).  This technique accomplishes three things that go hand-in-hand: (a) offers a refutation of traditional Catholicism, (b) defends an interpretation that meets the needs of modern times, and (c) gives it a semblance of being traditional, because it appears to be based in the Fathers et al.  This type of argument is used, for example, by Von Balthasar in his nearly heretical book, Dare We Hope that All Men be Saved? to 'prove', not that Hell does not exist (that is a dogma), but that it is empty.  But this technique and its neo-modernistic underpinnings is not only practiced in almost all of these men's writings; it is also defended in theory by many of them, particularly in Von Balthasar's daring little book, Razing the Bastions, where he demonstrates that "Tridentine" theology must be rejected in our times because it is 'boring'.

It also tends to be (2) present in a more moderate way in the non-binding statements by post-conciliar popes, since they themselves were deeply involved in the developing of the nouvelle theologie.  Just to give one of a million possible examples, see Pope Benedict's evolutionistic re-interpretation of the Resurrection of Our Lord.  Nothing here obviously contradicts  the dogma of the Resurrection (it may be interpreted as a simple analogy, even if a bad one, and nothing more), but it is a novelty that can be easily understood as claiming that the Resurrection is part of the natural development of nature (thus giving credence to some of the nouvelle theologie's pet doctrines, such as De Lubac's heterodox notion of the supernatural and De Chardin's pantheistic evolutionism).   This happens almost on a daily basis in what comes out of the Vatican, not to mention what comes from local bishops.

And finally, neo-modernism tends to be present (3) mostly implicitly or behind-the-scenes in the Council, the Catechism, etc., even though it seldom comes out more explicitly.  Things are done at this level under the pretext of 'aggiornamento', a euphemism for neo-modernism.  That is usually all the justification provided since at this authoritative level, there is no need to justify things theologically.  Hence, Vatican II and the Catechism are not outright neo-modernistic.  Rather, they (like most of post-conciliar doctrine) tend in that direction and/or are inspired by that mentality.  In other words, most of the time these documents do not explicitly teach neo-modernist errors (the kind of errors you hear explicitly from neo-modernist theologians and priests). Rather, they are full of dangerous ambiguities: statements that in a technical sense could be interpreted as being in harmony with the traditional faith, but that, in their natural, non-forced, interpretation are heterodox.  One clear example of this is Dignitatis humanae, par. 2; entire monographs have been written in order to prove that, despite appearances, this document does not contradict previous teaching.  Maybe in fact it ultimately does not, but it is obvious that the prima facie meaning does; otherwise there would be no need to write so many volumes to prove it.
It must be noted that these are general tendencies, and that in some documents (cf. Gaudium et Spes) and every now and then in papal and episcopal statements neo-modernist principles rears come out more explicitly.   

For a more detailed philosophical and theological critique of neo-modernism, and how it is nothing but a re-hashing of modernism, see Garrigou-Lagrange's Where is the New Theology Leading Us? and his The Structure of the Encyclical Humani Generis.

Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo, Ph.D., Professor of Theology and Philosophy

 

 

 

 

 

The Absolute Necessity of

However, in the face of this satanic hatred of religion, which reminds Us of the "mystery of iniquity" [Thess. 2, 7] referred to by St. Paul, mere human means and expedients are not enough, and We should consider ourselves wanting in Our apostolic ministry if We did not point out to mankind those wonderful mysteries of light, that alone contain the hidden strength to subjugate the unchained powers of darkness. When Our Lord, coming down from the splendors of Thabor, had healed the boy tormented by the devil, whom the disciples had not been able to cure, to their humble question: "Why could not we cast him out?" He made reply in the memorable words: "This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting" [Matth. 17, 18-20]. It appears to Us, Venerable Brethren, that these Divine words find a peculiar application in the evils of our times, which can be averted only by means of prayer and penance.

Mindful then of our condition, that we are essentially limited and absolutely dependent on the Supreme Being, before everything else let us have recourse to prayer. We know through faith how great is the power of humble, trustful, persevering prayer. To no other pious work have ever been attached such ample, such universal, such solemn promises as to prayer: "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened" [Matth. 7, 7]. "Amen, amen I say to you, if you ask the Father anything in my name He will give it you."

And what object could be more worthy of our prayer, and more in keeping with the adorable person of Him who is the only "mediator of God and men, the Man Jesus Christ" [I Tim. 2, 5], than to beseech Him to preserve on earth faith in one God living and true? Such prayer bears already in itself a part of its answer; for in the very act of prayer a man unites himself with God and, so to speak, keeps alive on earth the idea of God. The man who prays, merely by his humble posture, professes before the world his faith in the Creator and Lord of all things; joined with others in prayer, he recognizes, that not only the individual, but human society as a whole has over it a supreme and absolute Lord. Pope Pius XI, Charitate Christi Compulsi, On the Sacred Heart

 

 

Prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, fountain of eternal life, Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary. O my adorable and loving Savior, consume my heart with the burning fire with which Yours is aflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Your love. Let my heart be united with Yours. Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things. May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions. Amen. St. Gertrude the Great

 

 

 

CAN POPE LEO XIV RESTORE CATHOLIC MORALITY? Impossible without repentance!

When Pope Francis taught that Catholics living in a state of adultery can under certain circumstances receive Holy Communion without repenting of Sin, he overturned the First Principle of Catholic Moral Theology and thus destroyed all Morality permitting any and every kind of sin.

St. Thomas lists the following as principles or sources of morality: 1) the moral object, that is, that to which the action tends of its very nature primarily and necessarily; 2) the circumstances of the act; 3) the purpose of the act.

FIRST PRINCIPLE: The primary and essential morality of a human act is derived from the object considered in its moral aspect.

The primary and essential morality of a human act is that which acts as the invariable basis of any additional morality. Now it is the moral object which provides such a foundation. This will be clear from an example. The moral object of adultery is the transgression of anotherThis moral object remains the invariable basis of the moral character of the act, no matter what further circumstances or motives accompany the act. It cannot be objected that in human acts the first consideration should be given to the motive rather than to the object of the act. For this motive is either the objective purpose of the act itself which is identical with the moral object, or the subjective purpose (the end of the agent) which presupposes moral goodness or evil in the object.

Rev. Dominic Prummer, O.P., Handbook of Moral Theology

"For the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is not simply a theophany

Christopher Dawson, The Christian View of History

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, BVM -Queen of All Saints & Mother of Fair Love, and BVM-Mediatrix of All Grace are feasts of the Blessed Mother Mary normallycelebrated on May 31. The Queenship is translated to the following day and the other two are suppressed this year because of Trinity Sunday. Since the current occupant of the papal throne, like his predecessor Francis/Bergoglio, despise the immemorial tradition of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Mediatrix of All Graces, we should offer prayers to her today in memory of this title.

Prayer to Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces

O heavenly treasure of all graces, Mary, Mother of God and our dear Mother, since you are the first-born daughter of the Eternal Father, and you held in your hands His omnipotence, be moved to pity for our souls and grant us the graces which we fervently ask of you, our dear Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces. [Make your requests here] Hail Mary, etc.

O merciful dispenser of divine graces, Mary most Holy, Mother of the Eternal Incarnate Word, who has crowned you with His immense wisdom, look tenderly upon the greatness of our sorrows, and grant us the necessary graces we need so much to fulfill the will of our Creator, God the Father. Hail Mary, etc.

Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces, pray for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. John Eudes:

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

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.

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;

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

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

The Priest introduced you into the Church, by saying,

St. John Eudes, excerpt from Man

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

It is an unfortunate fact that the many traditional Catholics and conservative Catholics believe this tripe and profess that any 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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