COLLECT:
O God, who dost manifest Thy
almighty power chiefly by showing pardon and pity, increase and multiply upon
us Thy mercy, that we, running the way toward the attainment of Thy promises,
may be made partakers of Thy heavenly treasures. Through our Lord, etc.
O God, who didst enkindle in
blessed Alphonsus Mary, Thy Confessor and Bishop, a burning zeal for souls, and
through him didst beget a new offspring to Thy Church, we pray, that we may be
enlightened by his wholesome teaching and strengthened by his example, and so
may be able to come happily unto Thee.
Through our Lord, etc.
Being appeased, turn to Thy
flock, eternal Shepherd, and through blessed Stephen Thy Martyr and Supreme
Pontiff, whom Thou didst make the Pastor of the whole Church, guard and protect
it forever. Through our Lord, etc.
EPISTLE: 1 Cor.
12, 2-11.
Brethren, You know that, when you were
heathens, you went to dumb idols, according as you were led. Wherefore I give
you to understand, that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith Anathema
to Jesus; and no man can say: The Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there
are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of
ministries, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but the
same God, who worketh all in all. And the manifestation of the Spirit is given
to every man unto profit. To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of
wisdom; and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to
another the grace of healing in the one Spirit; to another, the working of
miracles; to another, prophecy; to another, the discerning of spirits; to
another, divers kinds of tongues; to another, interpretation of speeches. But
all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one
according as He will.
EXPLANATION The apostle here reminds the Corinthians of
the great grace they received from God in their conversion, and urges them to
be grateful for it; for while heathens, they cursed Jesus, but being now
brought to the knowledge of the Spirit of God, they possess Christ as their Lord
and Redeemer who can be known and professed only by the enlightenment of the
Holy Ghost. The holy Spirit works in different ways, conferring His graces on
whom He wills; to one He gives wisdom to understand the great truths of
Christianity; to another the gift of healing the sick; to another the gift of
miracles and of prophecy; to another the gift of discerning spirits, to know if
one is governed by the Spirit of God, or of the world, Satan and the flesh; to
another the gift of tongues. The extraordinary gifts, namely, those of working
miracles of prophesying and others became rarer as the faith spread, whereas
the gifts which sanctify man will always remain the same.
GRADUAL:
Ps.
16. Keep
me, O Lord, as the apple of Thy eye: protect me under the shadow of Thy
wings. Let Thy judgment on me come forth
from Thy countenance: let Thy eyes behold the things that are equitable.
Alleluia,
alleluia. Ps 64. A hymn, O God,
becometh Thee in Sion: and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem. Alleluia.
GOSPEL: Luke 18,
9-14.
At that time, Jesus spoke this parable
to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others. Two men went up
into the temple to pray; the one was a pharisee, and the other a publican. The
pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself: O God, I give Thee thanks that I
am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers; as also is this
publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. And
the publican standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes towards
heaven, but struck his breast saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner.
I say to you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth
himself shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Why did Christ make
use of this parable of the Pharisee and the Publican?
To teach us never proudly to condemn
or despise a man, even though he should appear impious, for we may be deceived
like the Pharisee who despised the Publican, whom he considered a great sinner,
while, in reality, the man was justified before God on account of his repentant
spirit.
What should we do
before entering a Church?
We should reflect that we are going
into the house of God, should therefore think what we are about to say to Him,
and what we wish to ask of Him. That we may make ourselves less unworthy to be
heard, we should humble ourselves as did Abraham, (Gen. 18, 27) remembering
that we are dust and ashes, and on account of our sins unworthy to appear
before the eyes of God, much less to address Him, for He listens to the prayers
of the humble only (Ps. 101, 18) and gives them His grace, while He resists the
proud (James 6, 6).
Was the Pharisee's
prayer acceptable to God?
No, for it was no prayer, but boasting
and ostentation; he praised himself, and enumerated his apparent good works.
But in despising others and judging them rashly, he sinned grievously instead
of meriting God's grace.
Was the Publican's
prayer acceptable to God?
Yes, for though short, it was humble
and contrite. He stood afar off, as if to acknowledge himself unworthy of the
presence of God and intercourse with men. He stood with downcast eyes, thus
showing that he considered himself because of his sins unworthy to look towards
heaven, even confessed himself a sinner, and struck his breast to punish, as
St. Augustine says, the sins which he had committed in his heart: This is why
we strike our breast at certain times during Mass, for by this we acknowledge
ourselves miserable sinners, and that we are sorry for our sins.
OFFERTORY:
Ps. 24.
To
Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust, let
me not be disappointed, neither let my enemies laugh at me; for none of them
that wait on Thee shall be confounded.
SECRET:
Let the
appointed sacrifices, O Lord, be paid to Thee, which Thou hast given to be
offered at once to the honor of Thy name, and likewise as the remedy of our
ills. Through our Lord, etc.
Set
hearts on fire with the heavenly flame of this sacrifice unto an odor of
sweetness, O Lord Jesus Christ; who didst grant to blessed Alphonsus Mary to
celebrate these same mysteries, and through them to offer himself as a holy
victim unto Thee. Who livest and reignest, etc.
By the offered gifts we beg Thee,
O Lord: enlighten kindly Thy Church: so that Thy flock everywhere may be
increased, and the Shepherds, under thy direction, may be pleasing to thy
Name. Through our Lord, etc.
COMMUNION:
Ps.
50. Thou
wilt accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations and holocausts upon Thy altar,
O Lord.
POSTCOMMUNION:
We pray
Thee, O Lord our God, graciously not to deprive of Thy aids those whom Thou
ceasest not to renew with Thy sacraments.
Through our Lord, etc.
O God, who didst make blessed
Alphonsus Mary, Thy Confessor and Bishop, a faithful dispenser and preacher of
the divine mysteries, grant through his merits and prayers that Thy faithful
may partake of them often and in partaking may give Thee unceasing praise.
Through our Lord, etc.
Being appeased, O Lord, guide Thy
Church, which has been nourished by holy refreshment, that under Thy direction
and powerful rule it may receive increase of liberty and may continue in
religious integrity. Through our Lord,
etc.
I say to you, this man went down to his house
justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself shall
be humbled: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
PROPER OF THE SAINTS FOR
THE WEEK OF AUGUST 2nd:
Date Day Feast
Rank Color F/A
Mass Time/Notes
|
2
|
Sun
|
10th Sunday after
Pentecost
St. Alphonsus, BpCD
St. Stephen, I, PM
|
sd
|
G
|
|
9:00 AM; Members Ss. Peter
& Paul; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM; Confessions 8:00 AM
|
|
3
|
Mon
|
Finding of the Body of St.
Stephen,
1st martyr
|
sd
|
R
|
|
Mass
8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
|
|
4
|
Tue
|
St. Dominic, C
|
dm
|
W
|
|
Mass
8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
|
|
5
|
Wed
|
Dedication - Church of Our
Lady of the Snows
|
dm
|
W
|
|
Mass
8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
|
|
6
|
Thu
|
Transfiguration of Our
Lord
Ss. Xystus II, P & Companion Martyrs
|
d2cl
|
W
|
|
Mass
8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass
|
|
7
|
Fri
|
St. Cajetan, C
St. Donatus, BpM
First Friday
|
d
|
W
|
A
|
Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of
Reparation & Confession 8:00 AM; Benediction & Holy Hour after Mass
|
|
8
|
Sat
|
Ss. Cyriacus & Companions,
Mm
Vigil of St. Lawrence
(anticipated)
|
sd
|
R
|
|
Mass 9:00 AM; Rosary of
Reparation & Confession 8:30 AM
|
|
9
|
Sun
|
11th Sunday after
Pentecost
St. John Mary Vianney, C
St. Romanus, M
|
sd
|
G
|
|
9:00 AM; Members Ss. Peter
& Paul; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM; Confessions 8:00 AM
|
In the
whole Gospel, then, there was no teaching more appropriate than this, as a
sequel to the history of Jerusalem’s fall.
The children of the Church, who, in her early years, saw her humbled in
Sion and persecuted by the insulting arrogance of the Synagogue, now quite
understand that word of the Wise Man: ‘Better is it to be humbled with the
meek, than to divide spoils with the proud (Prov. 16:19)! According to another Proverb, the tongue of the
Jew – that tongue which abused the publican and ran down the poor Gentile – has
become, in his mouth, as ‘a rod of pride’ (Prov. 14:3), a rod which, in time,
struck himself, by bringing on his own destruction. But, whilst adoring the justice of God’s vengeance
and giving praise to His mercy, the Gentiles must take care not to go into the
path wherein was lost the unhappy people whose place they now occupy. Israel’s offence, says St. Paul, has brought
about the salvation of the Gentiles; but, his pride would be also their own
ruin; and whereas Israel is assured, by prophecy, of a return to God’s favour
when the end of the world shall be approaching (Rom. 11:25-27), there is no
such promise of a second call of mercy to the Gentiles, should they ever apostatize
after their baptism.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Again, in the Office
for the feasts of our Lady, the Church applies the words of Sirach to
the Blessed Virgin and thus gives us to understand that in her we find all
hope: In me is all hope of life and of virtue. In Mary is every
grace: In me is all grace of the way and of the truth. In Mary we
shall find life and eternal salvation: Those who serve me shall never
fail. Those who explain me shall have life everlasting (Sir. 24:25,
30, 31--- Vulgate). And in the Book of Proverbs: Those who find me find life
and win favor from the Lord (8:35). Surely such expressions are enough to
prove that we require the intercession of Mary.
St. Alphonsus de
Liguori, The Glories of Mary
By the love of
concupiscence we love God, but we love Him chiefly as our good, as the source
of our happiness; we love Him for the help and assistance we expect from
Him. Charity, on the contrary, makes us
capable of loving God for Himself, because He is goodness, beauty, infinite
wisdom – in a word, because He is God.
Although the love of concupiscence which accompanies hope is very
precious, it is still imperfect, because by it we love God not for Himself
alone, but for the benefits which we hope to receive from Him. The love of charity, however, is perfect
because it is pure love of complacency, of benevolence, that is, love which
takes complacence in the infinite good of God, and desires this good, not for
any personal advantage, but for God Himself, for His felicity, His glory. …St.
Teresa of Avila prayed, “O Lord, be pleased to grant me this love before You
take me from this life. It will be a
great comfort at the hour of death to realize that I shall be judged by You
whom I have loved above all things. Then I shall be able to go to meet You with
confidence, even though burdened with my debts, for I shall not be going into a
foreign land but into my own country, into the kingdom of Him whom I have loved
so much and who likewise has so much loved me.”
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary
Magdalen, Divine Intimacy, On Charity
Among the Scholastic doctors, the chief and master of all, towers St.
Thomas Aquinas because he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a
certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.
Thomas Cardinal Cajetan, the most important commentator on the Summa of
St. Thomas
“Prepare for more trouble….
Authority is to serve Truth. It has no
other purpose…. Truth is the purpose of authority.”
Bishop Richard Williamson,
June 28, 2015
If we would completely rejoice the heart of God, let us strive in all
things to conform ourselves to His divine will. Let us not only strive to
conform ourselves, but also to unite ourselves to whatever dispositions God
makes of us. Conformity signifies that we join our wills to the will of God.
Uniformity means more. Uniformity means that we make one will of God's will and
our will. In this way we will only what God wills. God's will alone is our
will.
St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori
You have
seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish
in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you
is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace…. Pray, pray very
much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they
have no one to make sacrifices and pray for them.
Blessed
Virgin Mary to the children at Fatima
Immediately, one ought
to resists in facie, a pope who
is publicly destroying the Church; for example, to want to give ecclesiastical
benefits for money or charge of services. And one ought to refuse, with all
obedience and respect, and not to give possession of these benefits to those
who bought them.
Thomas Cardinal
Cajetan, O. P.
ON PRIDE AND VAIN GLORY
We should learn from this gospel that God looks upon the humble and exalts
them, but is far from the proud (Ps. 137, 6). The Pharisee went to the temple entirely
wrapt up in himself, and the good works which he thought he had performed, but
returned empty and hated by God; the Publican, on the contrary, appearing
before God as a public but penitent sinner, returned justified. Truly, an
humble sinner is better in the sight of God than a proud just man!
He who glories in his own good works,
or performs them to please men, or to win their praise, loses his merit in the
eyes of the most High, for Christ says: Take heed that you do not your justice
before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you shall not have a reward of your
Father who is in heaven (Matt. 6, 1).
In order that we may learn to despise
vainglory, these doctrines should be well borne in mind. We should consider
that it will happen to those who seek after vainglory, as to the man who, made
many toilsome journeys on land and sea in order to accumulate wealth, and had
no sooner acquired it than he was shipwrecked, and lost all. Thus the ambitious
man avariciously seeking glory and honor will find, when dying, that the merit
which he might have had for his good works, is now lost to him, because he did
not labor for the honor of God. To prevent such an evil, strive at the
commencement of every good work which you undertake, to turn your heart to God
by a good intention.
But that you may plainly recognize
this vice, which generally keeps itself concealed, and that you may avoid it,
know that pride is an inordinate love of ostentation, and an immoderate desire
to surpass others in honor and praise. The proud man goes beyond himself, so to
speak, makes far more of himself than he really is, and, like the Pharisee,
despises others; the humble man, on the contrary, has a low estimate of
himself, looks upon himself as nothing and, like the Publican, despises no one
but himself, and thus is pleasing in the sight of God.
ASPIRATION O God,
who hearest the prayers of the humble, but dost resist the proud, I earnestly
beseech Thee to give me an humble heart, that I may imitate, the humility of
Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and thereby merit to be exalted
with Him in heaven.
INSTURCTION ON GRACE
In
the epistle of this day the Apostle St. Paul speaks of the different gifts of
the Holy Ghost which He distributes as He pleases. These extraordinary graces
which the apostle mentions, are not necessary for salvation. But the Church
teaches, that the grace of the Holy Ghost is necessary for salvation, because
without it we could neither properly believe, nor faithfully observe the
commandments of God. For the holy religion of Jesus teaches, and experience
confirms, that since the fall of our first parents we are weak and miserable,
and of ourselves, and by our own strength, we cannot know or perform the good
necessary for our salvation. We need a higher aid, a higher, assistance, and
this assistance is called grace.
What, then, is grace?
Grace is an inward, supernatural gift
which God through infinite goodness, and in consideration of Christ's merits,
grants us to enable us to work out our salvation. Grace is a gift, that is, a
present, a favor, a benefit. It is an inward and supernatural gift; an inward
gift, because it is bestowed upon man's soul to distinguish it from external
gifts and benefits of God, such as: food, clothing, health; grace is a
supernatural gift, because it is above nature. In creating our souls God gives
us a certain degree of light which enables us to think, reflect, judge, to
acquire more or less knowledge: this is called natural light. In the same way
He gives our souls the power in some measure to overcome sensual, vicious
inclinations; this power is called natural power (virtue). To this natural
light and power must be added a higher light and a higher power, if man would
be sanctified and saved. This higher light and higher power is grace. It is,
therefore, called a supernatural gift, because it surpasses the natural power
of man, and produces in his understanding and in his will wholesome effects,
which he could not produce without it. For example, divine faith, divine love
is a supernatural gift or grace of God, because man of his own power could
never receive as certain God's revelations and His incomprehensible mysteries
with so great a joy and so firm a conviction, and could never love God above
all things and for His own sake, unless God assisted him by His grace.
God grants us grace also through pure
benevolence without our assistance, without our having any right to it; He
grants it without cost, and to whom He pleases; but He gives it in
consideration of the infinite merits of Christ Jesus, in consideration of
Christ's death on the cross, and of the infinite price of our redemption.
Finally, grace is a gift of God, by which to work out our salvation, that is,
it is only by the grace of God that we can perform meritorious works which aid
us in reaching heaven. Without grace it is impossible for us to perform any
good action, even to have a good thought by which to gain heaven. From this it
follows that with the grace of God we can accomplish all things necessary for
our salvation, fulfill all the commandments of God, but without it we can do
nothing meritorious. God gives His grace to all, and if the wicked perish, it
is because they do not cooperate with its divine promptings.
How is grace divided?
Into
two kinds, actual and sanctifying grace.
Actual grace is God's assistance which we always need to accomplish a
good work, to avoid sin which we are in danger of committing, or that grace
which urges us on to good, and assists us in accomplishing it; for it is God,
says the Apostle Paul (Phil. 2, 13), who worketh in you both to will and to
accomplish. If a good work is to be performed by us, God must enlighten our
mind that we may properly know the good and distinguish it from evil; He must
rouse our will and urge it on to do the known good and to avoid the evil; He
must also uphold our will and increase our strength that what we wish to do, we
may really accomplish.
This actual grace is, therefore,
necessary for the just, that they may always remain in sanctifying grace, and
accomplish good works; it is necessary for the shiner that he may reach the
state of sanctifying grace.
What is sanctifying grace?
It is the great benefit which God
bestows upon us, when He sanctifies and justifies us; in other words:
sanctifying grace is the love of God, given to us by the Holy Ghost, which love
dwells in us and whose temple we become, or it is the advent and abiding of God
in our hearts, as promised in the words of Jesus: If any one love me he will
keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will
make our abode with him (John 16, 23). He who possesses sanctifying grace,
possesses the greatest treasure that a man can have on earth. For what can be
more precious than to be beautiful in the sight of God, acceptable to Him, and united
with Him! He who possesses this grace, carries within himself the supernatural
image of God, he is a child of God, and has a right to the inheritance of
heaven.
How is this sanctifying grace
lost?
It is lost by every mortal sin, and
can only be regained by a complete return to God, by true repentance and
amendment. The loss of sanctifying grace is in fact a greater injury than the
loss of all earthly possessions. How, terrible, then, is mortal sin which
deprives us of this treasure!
But love must not be
wrought in our imagination but must be proved by works… Oh Jesus, what will a
soul inflamed with Your love not do? Those who really love You, love all good,
seek all good, help forward all good, praise all good, and invariably join forces
with good men and help and defend them. They love only truth and things worthy
of love. It is not possible that one who
really and truly loves You can love the vanities of earth; his only desire is
to please You. He is dying with longing for You to love him, and he would give
his life to learn how he may please You better… O Lord, be pleased to grant me
this love before You take me from this life. It will be a great comfort at the
hour of death to realize that I shall be judged by You whom I have loved above
all things.
St. Teresa of Avila
Ecumenism of St. Paul
I wonder that you are
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another
gospel. Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would
pervert the gospel of Christ. 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.
St. Paul, Apostle, Galatians 1, 6-9
I believe in
God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth...
If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are
contained in it, both spiritual and corporal, as regards their whole substance,
have been created by God from nothing, let him be anathema. Vatican I, Canon 5
CHARITY AND
HUMILITY TENTH
SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
PRESENCE
OF GOD ‑
Give me, O Lord, humility with love; let humility guard charity in me, and may
charity increase according to the measure of Your will.
MEDITATION:
I.
In the texts of today's Mass, the liturgy sketches the features of the
Christian soul in its fundamental lines. First St. Paul shows us in the Epistle
(I Cor. 12: 2‑11) a soul vivified by the Holy Spirit, who diffuses His
gifts in it. The Apostle mentions charismatic gifts, that is, those special
graces, such as the gift of tongues, of knowledge, of miracles, bestowed by the
Holy Spirit with great generosity upon the primitive Church. Although these are
very precious gifts, they are inferior to sanctifying grace and charity, which
alone give supernatural life to the soul. Whereas charismatic gifts may or may
not accompany sanctifying grace, they neither increase nor decrease its
intensity thereby. St. Thomas notes that while grace and charity sanctify the
soul and unite it to God, these miraculous gifts, on the contrary, are ordered
for the good of another and can subsist even in one who is not in the state of
grace. St. Paul also‑ and in the same letter from which the passage in
today's Mass is taken‑ after enumerating all these extraordinary gifts,
concludes with his famous words: " . . . all this, without charity, is
nothing." Charity is always the "central" virtue, the
fundamental characteristic of the Christian soul, and is also the greatest gift
the Holy Spirit can give us. If the divine Paraclete did not vivify our soul by
charity and grace, no one, not even the most virtuous, could perform the
slightest act of supernatural value. "No man can say the Lord Jesus but by
the Holy Ghost," the Apostle says. Just as a tree cannot bring forth fruit
if it is deprived of its life‑giving sap, so the soul which is not
vivified by the Holy Spirit cannot perform acts of supernatural value. Note
once again the great importance of grace and charity; the smallest degree of
them is worth more than all the extraordinary gifts which, although they can
dispose souls to good, can neither infuse nor increase divine life in us.
2.
The Gospel (Lk. 18: 9‑14) presents us with another fundamental
characteristic of the Christian soul: humility. Charity, it is true, is
superior to it because it gives us divine life; yet, humility is of great
importance because it is the virtue which clears the ground to make room for
grace and charity. Jesus gives us a vivid and concrete example of this truth in
today's parable of the Pharisee and the publican. The Gospel tells us
explicitly that Jesus was speaking to some who "trusted in themselves as
just and despised others." The
Pharisee is the prototype, the perfect representative of this group. See him!
how convinced of his justice, how puffed up by his own merits: I am neither a
thief nor an adulterer, I fast and pay tithes. What more can one expect? But
this proud man does not see that he lacks the greatest of all things, charity,
so much so that he inveighs against others, accuses and condemns them: "I
am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this
publican." Having no charity for his neighbor, he cannot have charity
toward God. In fact, having gone into the Temple to pray, he is incapable of
making the least little act of love or adoration, and instead of praising God
for His blessings, he does nothing but praise himself. This man is really
unable to pray because he has no charity, and he cannot have any because he is
full of pride. "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the
humble" (Jas. 4: 6). Therefore, the Pharisee returns home condemned, not
so much by God who always loves to show mercy, as by his own pride which
impedes the work of mercy in him.
The attitude of the publican id entirely different.
He is a poor man who knows he has
sinned, and he is aware of his moral wretchedness. He does not possess charity
either, because sin is an obstacle to it, but he is humble, very humble, and he
trusts in the mercy of God. "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" And
God who loves to bend down to the humble, justifies him at that very moment;
his humility has drawn down upon him the grace of the Most High. St. Augustine
has said: "God prefers humility in
things that are done badly, rather than pride in those which are done
well!" We are not justified by our virtues and our good works, but by
grace and charity, which the Holy Spirit diffuses in our hearts, "according
as He wills," yes, but always in proportion to our humility.
COLLOQUY:
"O good Jesus, how often after bitter
tears, sobs, and indescribable groanings, You have healed the wounds of my
conscience by the unction of Your mercy and the oil of Your joy! How often
after I have begun my prayer without hope, I have found my joy again in the
hope of forgiveness! Those who have experienced this know that You are a real
physician, who heals contrite hearts and solicitously tends their wounds. Let
those who as yet have not had this experience, believe, at least, in Your
words: 'The Spirit of the Lord hath anointed Me; He hath sent Me to preach to
the meek, to heal the contrite of heart.' If they still doubt, let them
approach You and learn, and they will understand what Your words mean: 'I will
have mercy and not sacrifice.'
"O Lord, You said, 'Come to Me, all you
that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you.' But what path should I
take to reach You? The path of humility, for only then will You console me. But
what consolation do You promise to the humble? Charity. In fact, the soul will
obtain charity in proportion to its humility. O what sweet, delicious food is
charity! It sustains us when we are weary, strengthens us when we are weak, and
comforts us when we are sad. O Lord, give me this charity which makes Your yoke
sweet and Your burden light" (St. Bernard).
Philip
Trower, in his 2003 book Turmoil & Truth: The Historical Roots of the
Modern Crisis in the Catholic Church, wrote, "The number of outsiders
that the reforms [of Vatican II] have succeeded in attracting to the Church is
still small compared with the numbers of the faithful whom revolution and
dissent have been sweeping away from Catholic belief." The Pew Survey
bears this out: The depressing flipside of the loss of one-third of the native
U.S. Catholic population is that only 2.6 percent of current U.S. Catholics are
converts.
New Oxford Review, The
U.S. Catholic Church Is Sinking Fast
Julian the
Apostate, Emperor of Rome, attempts the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem
The lone dissenting voice was St. Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem; who
according to St. Eusebius predicted dire consequences for the day lime was
mixed to make mortar for the foundation stones.
The Jews scorned Cyril’s prediction.
The enthusiastic effort went smoothly for a while. Rubble that covered the site for centuries
was removed, exposing the original foundation.
But when new construction was about to begin, things started to go
wrong. “During the night,” says
Eusebius, “there arose a huge storm, the earth shook, and huge balls of fire
burst forth from the ground and continued to do so through the next day. Instruments melted, workers were burnt to
death, strange crosses appeared on the clothes and bodies, a luminous cross
shone in the sky, and the enterprise had to be abandoned. A violent tremor caused a portico to collapse
killing a number of workers.”
According to St. John Chrysostom, Julian “overlooked nothing but worked
quietly and a little at a time to bring the Jews to offer sacrifice, in this
way he expected that it would be easy for them to go from sacrifice to the
worship of idols.” The emperor’s
construction crew was about to start construction of the new temple, “when
suddenly fire leaped forth from the foundations and completely consumed not
only a great number of workmen but even the stones piled up there to support
the structure.
St. Gregory of Nazianzen says the Jewish women “carried the dirt in
their lap with no consideration for their robes and for the tenderness of their
bodies, because they say in all this is a work of piety, as they carried
everything downward” from the Temple foundations to a nearby valley. “But,” St.
Gregory continues, “a sudden whirlwind and the convulsion of the earth caused
them to move to a nearby church… as they (the Jewish women) reached the door of
the church which was open, suddenly those doors closed, as if by an invisible
hand, which filled with fear the impious and protected the devout. It is reported unanimously and held for
certain that when they tried to open the door of the church, flames that burst
forth from the inside prevented them from forcing the door open. The flames then burnt some of them and
destroyed others… Still others lost various limbs of their bodies to the flames
that burst from inside the church and burnt some of them to death”….
Ammianus Marcellus, Julian’s pagan biographer, reports “frightful balls
of flame kept bursting forth near the foundations of the temple” which “make it
impossible to approach the place,” even though “Alypius pushed the work forward
energetically” and “was assisted by the governor of the province.” Alypius ordered men to their deaths by
ordering them into the flames from the Temple’s foundations, but he eventually
conceded defeat because “the elements (of fire) persistently drove them back.” Ammianus noted, “Julian gave up the attempt.”
St. John Chrysostom says, “This did not happen in the times of the good
emperors; no one can say that the Christians came and prevented the work from
being finished. It happened at a time
when our religion was subject to persecution, when all our lives were in
danger, when every man was afraid to speak, when paganism flourished. Some of the faithful hid in their homes,
others fled the marketplaces and moved to the deserts. This is when these events occurred… So the
Jews have no excuse left to them for their impudence… They were men who
constantly resisted the Holy Spirit, revolutionaries bent on stirring up
sedition. After the destruction under
Vespasian and Titus, these Jews rebelled during the reign of Hadrian and tried
to go back to the old commonwealth and way of life. What they failed to realize was that they
were fighting against the decree of God, who had ordered that Jerusalem remain
forever in ruins.”
E. Michael Jones, PhD, The
Jewish Revolutionary Spirit
Rev. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, S.J was one of
the most distinguished pioneers of the original Jesuit mission in Paraguay, and
a remarkable linguist; (b. at Lima Peru, on 13 June, 1585, d. there 11 April,
1652). After a youth full of wild and daring pranks and adventures he entered
the Society of Jesus on 1 November, 1606. In the same year he accompanied
Father Diego Torres, the first provincial of Paraguay, to the mission, where he
laboured for thirty years as one of its most capable and successful apostles.
Father Ruiz de Montoya was one of the true type of great Spanish missionaries
of that era, who, as if made of cast-iron, united a burning zeal for souls with
an incredible fewness of wants and great power of work. In co-operation with
Fathers Cataldino and Mazeta he founded the Reductions of Guayra, brought a
number of wild tribes into the Church, and is said to have baptized personally
100,000 Indians. As head of the missions he had charge from 1620 of the
"reductions" on the upper and middle course of the Paraña, on the
Uruguay, and the Tape, and added thirteen further "reductions" to the
twenty-six already existing. When the missions of Guayra were endangered by the
incursions of marauders from Brazil in search of slaves, Father Mazeta and he
resolved to transport the Christian Indians, about 15,000 in number, to the
Reductions in Paraguay, partly by water with the aid of seven hundred rafts and
numberless canoes, and partly by land through the mazes of the primeval forest.
The plan was successfully carried out in 1631 after the suffering of incredible
hardships and dangers. "This expedition", says the Protestant von
Ihering, "is one of the most extraordinary undertakings of this kind known
in history" [Globus, LX (1891), 179]. In 1637 Montoya on behalf of the
governor, of the Bishop of Paraguay, and of the heads of the orders laid a
complaint before King Philip IV as to the Brazilian policy of sending marauding
expeditions into the neighboring regions to enslave the Indians. He obtained
from the king important exemptions, privileges, and measures of protection for
the Reductions. He was a fine scholar in the beautiful but difficult language
of the Guaraní Indians, and has left works upon this language which were
scarcely exceeded later. Soon after his
return to America from Spain, Montoya died in the odor of sanctity in
Lima. Archbishop of Cuzco, Pedro de
Contreras y Sotomayor, said, “Ruiz de Montoya is no ordinary saint; he is a
giant in holiness, a great saint of the highest order.” Ruben Vargas Ugarte, historian of the Jesuit
Province of Peru, said, “His name deserves to be on the list of those explorers
and discovers of hitherto unknown lands who stretched the limits of the known
world. As a geographer he was one of the
first, if not the first, to map that vast region; as a linguist, in his Arte
y Vocabulario de la Lengua Guarani, he explored the structure of that
difficult tongue, and his work remains unsurpassed to this day; as a mystic, no
less than a man of action, he left us in his Firestone of Divine Love a
finished guide to the paths followed by souls in the search of God, a work
unpublished but one that won the praise of other mystics.” His Jesuit superior summed up his evaluation
to the Society General saying, “(He was) a perfect man, one of great
prayer. In converting the pagans he
performed works at risk to his life.
Very good as a superior. It was a
shame to deprive him of studies, since he could have been provincial. In work and wisdom, he imitated the footsteps
of our St. Francis Xavier.” His beloved
Guarani Indians traveled from the Loreto Reduction to Lima, Peru and back, a
linear distance of over 3,200 miles through difficult and hostile jungle and
mountain paths to bring his remains home for burial.
Through the Intercession of
Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, may God grant us this Grace,
the return of the Hispanic
population of York to the Catholic faith.
Catholic doctrine tells
us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false
ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical
indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged
. . . Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray,
He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared.
He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save
them.
Pope St. Pius X, Our
Apostolic Mandate
Another
“a gross accretion,” another “evident distortion” eliminated from the Bugnini reformed
Missal of 1962 because he discredited miracles as evidence of Catholic Truth
Through the intermediary of the priest Lucian, John, Bishop of
Jerusalem, received from St. Stephen the first martyr and his companions in the
tomb a message couched in these terms: ‘Make haste to open our sepulcher, that
by our means God may open to the world the door of His clemency, and may take
pity on His people in the universal tribulation.’ The discovery, accomplished
in the midst of prodigies, was published to the whole world as the sign of
salvation. St. Stephen’s relics,
scattered everywhere in token of security and peace, wrought astonishing
conversions; innumerable miracles, ‘like those of ancient times,’ bore witness
to the same faith of Christ which the martyr had confessed by his death four
centuries earlier. St. Augustine said,
“Though dead, St. Stephen raises the dead to life, because in reality, he is
not dead. But as heretofore to his mortal life, so now, too, he acts solely in
the name of Christ; all that ye see now done by the memory of Stephen is done
in that name alone, that Christ may be exalted, Christ may be adored, Christ
may be expected as Judge of the living and the dead.”
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Feast of Finding of St. Stephen
The present age glories
in a liberalism which has given proofs of its power by multiplying ruins, and
which rests on no better philosophical basis than a strange confusion between
license and liberty; only such intellectual groveling could have failed to understand
that, in a society which has faith for the basis of its institutions as well as
the principle of salvation for all, no crime could equal that of shaking the
foundation on which thus rest both social interest and the most precious
possession of individuals…. Who could be truer knights than those athletes of
the faith, taking their sacred vow in the form of allegiance, and choosing for
their Lady her who, terrible as an army, alone crushes heresies throughout the
whole world?
Dom Gueranger, The
Liturgical Year, Feast of St. Dominic
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
…and they shall not leave in
thee a stone upon a stone,
because thou hast not known
the time of thy visitation. Luke 19:41
Our Lady of the
Snow
The Church of St. Mary Major was built, on
Mount Esquiline, in the fourth century during the pontificate of Pope
Liberius. In the middle ages a graceful
and popular tradition ascribed its foundation to a noble patrician who, having
been favored with a vision of Mary, caused it to be erected on as pot covered
by a miraculous fall of snow.
This sanctuary was rebuilt in the following
century and dedicated by Sixtus III in 432, to Mary, whom the Council of
Ephesus (431) had just proclaimed the Mother of God. The mosaics of the triumphal arch glorify
this divine maternity, and the representations of the two cities of Bethlehem
and Jerusalem, recall the birth of Christ in the city of David, and that of the
Church in the Cenacle of the Last Supper.
These mosaics were restored in 1931-1934. The Basilica is also called St. Mary of the Crib,
because portions of the crib are preserved there.
St. Mary's, called Major, because it is the
largest and most important of the churches dedicated to the blessed Virgin, is
a patriarchal basilica. The great nave
is formed by two rows of forty-four columns of white marble and the ceiling is
covered with the first gold brought from America.
In this church, whose dedication is
solemnized on this day, takes place the inauguration of the liturgical year on
the first Sunday in Advent, there are held the Stations at Christmas, on the
feast of St. John, at Easter, on Rogation Monday, and on all Wednesdays in
Ember Weeks.
The father of the
Preachers (St. Dominic) established his principle on the light, by making it
his aim and his armour; he took upon him the office of the Word My Son, sowing
My word, dispelling darkness, enlightening the earth; Mary, by whom I gave him to the world, made him
the extirpator of heresies.
Eternal Father to St.
Catherine of Siena, Dialogue of St. Catherine
Our Lady of
the Rosary and St. Dominic
Legend assures us that the soldiers of the Count Simon de Montfort, a
great friend and supporter of St. Dominic, said the Rosary on the eve of the
Battle of Muret fought on September 12, 1213, the feast of the Holy Name of
Mary, during the Albigensian Crusade. The crusaders called a council at Muret
attended by St. Dominic. On his way to
Murat, St. Dominic, in a driving rain, stopped to stay with the collegiate
canons of Castres and venerate the relics of the Spanish martyr, St. Vincent. St. Dominic sent his companions to dry
themselves by the fire while he went to the chapel to pray. Here St. Dominic was seen in ecstasy elevated
high in the air before the altar. The prior, Abbot Matthew, was so impressed
that he left the priory and his benefice to embrace the poverty and discipline
as one of the first members of the Order, the celebrated Matthew of France, who
established the first Dominican house at the University of Paris. It was at the council at Muret when
Montforts' small Catholic force of 870 including 270 knights where confronted
by King Peter of Aragons' army of 40,000 men plus 4000 cavalry. Montfort vowed, "I consecrate my blood
and life for God and His faith."
With the blessing of the Bishop of Toulouse and the prayers of St.
Dominic and his first companions, Montfort made a direct assault on the enemy
lines and driving to their center, killing King Peter and his retainers,
wrecked havoc and great slaughter among the confused and retreating forces.
The Origin of the Third Order of St. Dominic - A
Military Order
At this period, while St. Dominic
was struggling with spiritual arms against the heretics of southern France, he
conceived the idea of establishing an order of men who, making use of material
weapons, should protect the faithful and defend the goods of the Church. As
time went on , he found that in other countries also the Church was the victim of the cruelty and rapacity of
its enemies, and the idea grew into a strong desire and a fixed purpose.
Finally, in 1218, an appeal from the bishops of Poland for protection against
the idolatrous people of the North having been received at Rome, while St.
Dominic was there, he made know his design to Pope Honorius III, who blessed it
and bade him carry it out with his accustomed zeal. To his call men quickly
responded. Clothing those who were of
exemplary life with white tunics and black mantles to which were fastened black
and white crosses, he gave them a rule obliging them to bear arms in defense of
the Church and to recite daily the Rosary.
The organization thus brought into being he called "The Militia of
Jesus Christ."
Do not receive Christ
in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may use him as you judge best, but give
yourself to him and let him receive you in this Sacrament, so that he himself,
God your Saviour, may do to you and through you whatever he wills.
St. Cajetan, founder of
the Theatines
“Dearly beloved brothers,
this is the inheritance which I leave to you as my true children - Have charity
one for another; Guard humility; Make your treasure out of voluntary
poverty.... To serve God is to reign, but you must serve Him in love and with a
whole heart. It is only by a holy life and by fidelity to your rule that you
can do honor to your profession.”
St. Dominic, as he lay dying
That in this transfiguration, equally as in the Baptism of Christ, the
Trinity was symbolically represented. The Holy Ghost was represented by the
cloud, the Father by the voice, the Son by the Divine glory and brightness, by
which likewise was set forth the Incarnation of the WORD. For Christ was seen
as man, and by the splendour and the voice of God the Father it was signified
that He was also God. The Holy Ghost was adumbrated by the cloud, because He,
like a bright cloud, enlightens man, protects him, and makes him fruitful to
every good work. He also blesses and glorifies. Hence in the Baptism of Christ,
the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, because in Baptism He gives
innocence. But in the Transfiguration, which is a type of the resurrection, He
came under the appearance of a cloud, because He gave then, and will give in
the resurrection security from all evils. [....] "When they has lifted up
their eyes, etc." This signified symbolically that the Law and the
Prophets had disappeared now that Christ was present, and that He Who brought
to men the true light of the Gospel alone remained. Again: this glory and
delight of the Transfiguration quickly passed away, but Christ would show that
all things in this world—even those that are lofty and divine—are transient,
but that in Heaven they will be eternal, so that we may pant after it; for on
earth all things are measured by time, but in heaven they possess an enduring
eternity.
Fr. Cornelius a Lapide, Great Commentary, Transfiguration
On The Necessity Of The
Sacrament Of Baptism
A devout elderly woman fell ill. Reaching the hour of death, she had received
the sacraments and was in her last agony.
I did not think she would last a quarter of an hour. Her voice hoarse and her breast heaving, she
remained in this condition for more than a month. She would often send for me but had nothing
to confess. This caused considerable
wonder. A devout Indian told me why he
thought death was not taking her: he suspected that she was not a Christian. The reason for the uncertainty was that she
was a newcomer and had joined us during the migration of the towns already
described, claiming to be a Christian. I
discovered that she was not and baptized her.
She was in full possession of her senses and answered all the questions
well. Once she received the sacrament
she expired.
Rev. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, S.J., The
Spiritual Conquest - On the Founding and Early Years of the Jesuit Paraguay
Reductions
Ah, my God and Lord, how many there are who seek
in You their own consolation and pleasure, and desire favors and gifts from
You; but those who long to give You pleasure, please You and to give You
something at their own cost, setting their own interests last, are very few.
Give me the grace, O God, to follow You with a real love and a spirit of
sacrifice, so that I may never seek for consolation or pleasure either in You
or in aught else. I do not desire to
pray to You for favors, for I see clearly that I have already received enough
of these, and all my anxiety is set upon rendering You some service such as You
merit, although it cost me much. O my
Beloved, all that is rough and toilsome I desire for myself, and all that is
sweet and delectable I desire for You.
St. John of the Cross
Every day new sects are created and what Saint
Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw
those into error (Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed
of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism,
which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”,
looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving
towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise anything as for
certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Homily of the
Dean of the College of Cardinals, 2005
The reason why we love You, O Lord, is Your sovereignly
high and infinite goodness, and the reason why we love men is because they have
all been created to Your image and likeness, so that we love them as holy,
living images of Your divinity. The same
charity with which we love You, O Lord, is the source of the acts with which we
love our neighbor. One same love holds
for You, my God, as for our neighbor; it elevates us to union of our spirit
with You, my God, and it brings us back to loving society with our neighbor,
but in such a way that we love him because he is created to Your image and
likeness, created to share in Your divine goodness, to participate in Your
grace and enjoy Your glory.
St. Francis de Sales
Ecumenism the
Mother of Indifferentism
86% of Catholics hold that “many religions can lead
to eternal life.” Only 10% of Catholics hold that the Catholic Church “is the
one true faith.”
Pew Poll
Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever,
find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation. –
Condemned.
Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Modern Errors, Dec. 8,
1864
“Vices against nature are….. more grievous than the
depravity of sacrilege.”
Wherefore
just as in speculative matters the most grievous and shameful error is that
which is about things the knowledge of which is naturally bestowed on man, so
in matters of action it is most grave and shameful to act against things as
determined by nature. [. .
.] just as the ordering of right reason
proceeds from men, so the order of nature is from God Himself, wherefore in sins
contrary to nature, thereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is
done to God, the Author of nature. Vices against nature are also against God,
as stated above, and are so much more grievous than the depravity of sacrilege,
as the order impressed on human nature is prior to and more firm than any
subsequently established order.
St. Thomas, ST, II-II, Q 154, a
12, ad 1& 2
God is the motive for loving the neighbor which
proves that the act by which we love God is the same as that by which we love
the neighbor. Hence the virtue of
charity does not stop at the love of God, but it also includes love of
neighbor…. Love of neighbor is not meritorious if the neighbor is not loved
because of God.
St. Thomas Aquinas
O dear souls, let me repeat to you:
Sanctity will cost you no more; do what you are doing; suffer what you
are suffering: it is only your heart that need be changed. By the heart we mean the will. This change consists in willing what comes to
us by the order of God. Yes, holiness of
heart is a simple fiat, a simple
disposition of conformity to the will of God.
And what is easier? For who could
not love so adorable and merciful a will?
Let us love it, then, and through this love alone all within us will
become divine.
Fr. F. X. Lasance, Peace, Not as
the World Gives
The
End of Catholic Education in America
“To perform its teaching and research
functions effectively the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and
academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical,
external to the academic community itself.”
Land O’ Lakes Conference 1967, directed by
Fr. Hesburgh of Notre Dame, statement on the nature of the Catholic University
“What is the worst thing that can happen to
us? John Paul II will tell the world that Notre Dame is not a Catholic
university. Who will believe him?”
Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, former president of
Notre Dame University, in response to concerns that Ex Corde Ecclesiae (On
Catholic Universities) would impose Catholic standards on the Catholic
universities.
"For
He must reign." (1 Cor. 15, 25)
A striking instance of how the
saints conceived the right of Jesus Christ to reign over society and over all nations
is had in the beautiful episode that took place at the court of the king of
France in the year 1429 shortly before the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc, saved
that country from alien dominion and led Charles to Rheims, there to be
solemnly crowned.
"Gentle Dauphin,” she asked him one day, in presence of the
lords of the realm and of the nations, “will you promise to grant me what I
shall ask you?" The king at first hesitated, but at last answered:
"Certainly, Joan, ask me what you will."— "Gentle Dauphin,"
she then said, "I ask you to give me your kingdom."
The king, stupefied at such a request, for a time remained silent.
At last, however, bound by his promise and conquered by the supernatural charm
of Joan, he took his resolve:
"Joan," he said, "I give you my kingdom."
But the Maid was not satisfied with these words, though uttered in
the presence of many witnesses. She requested that a solemn act should be drawn
up and signed by four royal notaries. This done, she looked at the king with a
pitiful smile, saying: "There is the poorest of all the knights of France.
I pity him."
Being now herself sovereign and mistress of France, she did not
stop here. Turning to the secretaries, Write, she said, "'Joan gives the
kingdom to Jesus Christ.'" And soon after: "Write again: 'Jesus gives
the kingdom back to Charles.'"
Herein surely lies a great lesson. It implies that the kings of
this world are but tributaries of Christ and it is their duty to give over to
Him the scepter which they received either from their ancestors or by the
election of the people. They should consider themselves as but the lieutenants
of the King of kings, Jesus Christ. "They have called the people happy,
that hath (the goods of this world) : but happy is (only) that people whose God
is the Lord."
Very Rev. Alexis M. Lepicier, O.S.M., Jesus Christ, The King of Our Hearts
Fact:
When the state recognizes the right of an individual person to solve
their personal problems by abortion and euthanasia, the individual person must
reciprocally recognize the right of the state to solve their social problems by
abortion and euthanasia.
Prediction: The MediCare system is financially
insolvent. The generation that is
responsible for the murder of countless children in the wombs of their mother's
by the crime of abortion will be, against their wills, mercilessly
euthanized. The American hospital will
become a death center that will rival the Nazi camps and the Communist
Gulag.
Recommendation: If you are
sick, don't tell your doctor.
We
still wait for those “errors” to be identified, condemned and ‘abandoned.’
Unfortunately,
the “errors adopted after the council” were the errors of the council!
“We can therefore affirm that
there will be no renewal in the Church until there is a change of course and an
abandonment of the errors adopted after the council.” Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, Bishop of Munich
Ingratitude is the
enemy of the soul, the destroyer of merit and virtue, causing the loss of
favors. It is a burning wind which dries
up the fountain of piety, the dew of mercy, the torrents of grace…. Every gift
of God, whether great or small, should be gratefully acknowledged; not even the
least grace should be forgotten.
St Bernard of Clairvaux
“Some shall
depart from the Faith, giving heed to spirits of error and doctrines of devils,
speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their conscience seared.”
St. Paul (1
Tim. 4: 1-2)
Nothing to thee is impossible, O thou who canst restore hope to those
who have lost all hope. Moreover, it is possible to suppose that thou canst not
but be favorably heard, since for all, with all and in all God obeys thee as
His tender and Immaculate Mother!
St. Peter Damian
“Atheists were
anomalies and exceptions, as the blind among men.”
A knowledge and belief of the existence of God has never been
extinguished in the reason of mankind. The polytheisms and idolatries which
surrounded it were corruptions of a central and dominant truth, which, although
obscured, was never lost. And the tradition of this truth was identified with
the higher and purer operations of the natural reason, which have been called
the intellectual system of the world. The mass of mankind, howsoever debased,
were always theists. Atheists were anomalies and exceptions, as the blind among
men. The theism of the primeval revelation formed the intellectual system of
the heathen world. The theism of the patriarchal revelation formed the
intellectual system of the Hebrew race. The theism revealed in the incarnation
of God has formed the intellectual system of the Christian world. “Sapientia aedificavit sibi domum.” The
science or knowledge of God has built for itself a tabernacle in the intellect
of mankind, inhabits it, and abides in it. The intellectual science of the
world finds its perfection in the scientific expression of the theology of
faith. But from first to last the reason of man is the disciple, not the
critic, of the revelation of God: and the highest science of the human
intellect is that which, taking its preamble from the light of nature, begins
in faith; and receiving its axioms from faith (i.e.: DOGMA), expands by the
procession of truth from truth. […..]
Of all the superstitious and
senseless mockeries, and they were many, with which the world wagged its head
at the Vatican Council, none was more profoundly foolish than the gibe that in
the nineteenth century a Council has been solemnly called to declare the
existence of God. In fact, it is this truth that the nineteenth century needs
most of all. For as St. Jerome says, “Homo
sine cognitione Dei, pecus.” But what the Council did eventually declare
is, not the existence of God, but that the existence of God may be known with
certitude by the reason of man through the works that He has created. This is
the infallible light of the Natural Order, and the need of this definition is
perceived by all who know the later Philosophies of Germany and France, and the
rationalism, scepticism, and naturalism which pervades the literature, the
public opinion, and the political action of the modern world. This was the
first dominant error of these days, demanding the action of the Council. The
second was the insidious undermining of the doctrinal authority of the Holy
See, which for two hundred years had embarrassed the teaching of the Church,
not only in controversy with adversaries without, but often in the guidance of
some of its own members within the fold. The definition of the Infallible
Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff has closed this period of contention The
Divine certitude of the Supernatural Order completes the twofold infallibility
of the knowledge of God in the natural and supernatural revelation of Himself.
This was the work of the Vatican Council in its one memorable Session, in which
the Councils of the Church, and especially the Councils of Florence and of
Trent, culminated in defining the certitude of faith.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning,
writing the introduction to Scheeben’s Dogmatic Theology in the English
translation
Let the reader accept the
reasonable fact that the Pontiffs who pronounced these decrees (on No Salvation
Outside the Church) were perfectly literate and fully cognizant of what they
were saying. If there were any need to soften or qualify their meanings, they
were quite capable of doing so..... Dogmas of the faith, like Outside the
Church There is No Salvation, are truths fallen from heaven. The very point of
a dogmatic definition is to DEFINE PRECISELY and EXACTLY what the Church means
by the very words of the formula. If it does not do this by those very words in
the formula then it has failed in its primary purpose – to define – and was
pointless and worthless. ANYONE who says that we must interpret or understand
the meaning of a dogmatic definition, in a way which contradicts its actual
wording, is denying the whole point of Papal Infallibility and dogmatic
definitions. They who insist that infallible DEFINITIONS must be interpreted by
non-infallible statements (e.g., from theologians, catechisms, etc.) are
denying the whole purpose of these infallible truths fallen from heaven. They
are subordinating the dogmatic teaching of the Holy Ghost to the re-evaluation
of fallible human documents,thereby inverting their authority, perverting their
integrity and denying their purpose”.
Fr. James Wathen, Who Shall Ascend?
“The springs of action are to be found in belief, and conduct ultimately
rests upon conviction.”
St. Francis of
Assisi
“There are many who if they commit sin or suffer wrong often blame their
enemy or their neighbor. But this is not right, for each one has his enemy in
his power, - to wit, the body by which he sins. Wherefore blessed is that
servant who always holds captive the enemy thus given into his power and wisely
guards himself from it, for so long as he acts thus no other enemy visible or
invisible can do him harm.”
St. Francis of
Assisi, on mortification
“How much interior patience and humility a servant of God may have cannot
be known so long as he is contented. But when the time comes that those who
ought to please him go against him, as much patience and humility as he then
shows, so much has he and no more.”
St. Francis,
on patience
“And let no man be bound by obedience to obey any one in that where sin
or offence is committed.”
St. Francis of
Assisi, Letter to all the Faithful
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
Catholic
Faith:
Physical substances come into being through the
union of substantial form and primary matter. The Soul is the Substantial Form
of the Human Body; it is immortal and will be judged after the death of the
person and directed to Heaven or Hell for all eternity awaiting to be joined
again to its Body at the Resurrection of the Dead for the Last Judgment.
“In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and
all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to
assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not
the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a
heretic.”
Council of Vienne
Neo-Modernists
Ideology: [Ratzinger quotes provided by James Larson, War Against Being]
“The medieval concept of substance has long since become inaccessible
to us.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Faith
and the Future
“The proper Christian thing, therefore, is to speak, not of the soul’s
immortality, but of the resurrection of the complete human being [at the Final
Judgment] and of that alone… The idea that to speak of the soul is unbiblical
was accepted to such an extent that even the new Roman Missal (i.e.: the Novus
Ordo) suppressed the term anima in its liturgy for the dead. It also
disappeared from the ritual for burial.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
“‘The soul’ is our term for that
in us which offers a foothold for this relation [with the eternal]. Soul is
nothing other than man’s capacity for relatedness with truth, with love
eternal.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
“The challenge to traditional theology today lies in the negation of an
autonomous, ‘substantial’ soul with a built-in immortality in favor of that
positive view which regards God’s decision and activity as the real foundation
of a continuing human existence.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
And
those who have denied the reality of substantial
being are those who are responsible for the “dictatorship of relativism.”
“Every day new sects are created and what Saint
Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw
those into error (Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed
of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas,
relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind
of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards.
We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise
anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and
one’s own desires.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Homily of the
Dean of the College of Cardinals, 2005
Direct your prayer to one thing only; that is, to conform your will
perfectly to the Divine Will. Be assured
that there is no greater perfection attainable than this conformity, and that
they who most earnestly strive for it will receive from God the richest graces
and most quickly advance in the interior life.
Believe me, this is the secret.
Upon this point alone rests our sanctification.
St. Teresa of Jesus
An
insight that applies so perfectly to the Novus Ordo Cult
“The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions
than that they are in fashion… since vanity and credulity cooperate in its
favour.” Samuel Johnson, 1745
Sacrament of
Baptism: Significance of the Baptismal Character and why it is absolutely
necessary for salvation. Explains why St. Ambrose said, regarding catechumens who
die before receiving the sacrament of Baptism, they are “forgiven but not
crowned.”
To be baptized is to become one with the Church, and one with Christ. Thus the ritual can say: “enter
into the temple of God, that you may have part with Christ, unto life
everlasting.” The two ideas are correlative: to be baptized into the
Church and to be baptized into Christ; they are the visible and invisible
aspects of the same real effect. [….]
The effecting this incorporation into Christ, Baptism marks the soul as
permanently His; it stamps upon the soul a spiritual “character”, or, as
antiquity more commonly called it, a “seal”.
For this reason, and putting the cause for the effect, the rite of
Baptism was itself called “the seal”, or “the seal of faith”, or “the seal of
water”, or “the seal of the Trinity” (which last appellation endures still in
the liturgical prayers for the dying, wherein God is asked to remember His
promises to the soul that in its lifetime was “stamped with the seal of the
Most Holy Trinity”).
The word “seal” derives from a group of texts in St. Paul, which
suggest this stamping of the soul at Baptism: “And in Him (Christ), you too,
when you had heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and
believed in it, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise” (Eph. 1:13);
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). However, nowadays we are accustomed to speak rather
of the baptismal “character”, a term that suggests the text wherein Christ is
called “the brightness of His (the Father’s) glory and the image (in Greek,
character) of His substance” (Hebr. 1:3).
Basically, two words give the same meaning: a seal imprints an image,
and a “character”, in the original sense of the word, means image. Baptism,
therefore, stamps the soul with the image of Christ, Who is Himself the image
of the Father. And in the Scripture, this stamping is attributed to the Holy
Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Christ. The fact that we are stamped with such a
character is clearly defined by the Council of Trent:
“If anyone says
that by the three Sacraments, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation and Orders, there
is not imprinted in the soul a Character, that is a certain spiritual and
indelible sign on account of which they cannot be repeated; let him be
anathem.” (Denz. 852).
The Council of Trent teaches that this seal, once stamped on the soul,
is indelible. Just as Baptism irrevocable makes one a member of the Church, so
also it irrevocably makes one a member of Christ. Not the gravest sin, nor even
final impenitence and self-condemnation to eternal separation from Christ in
Hell, can avail to erase this baptismal seal. And the indelibility of the seal
is the immediate reason why Baptism can never be repeated, once it has been
validly received. [….]
The sense in which Baptism stamps us with the image of Christ is
suggested in the rite itself, by the anointing which follows the ablution. It
is done with Sacred Chrism, a mixed unguent of oil and balm, specially consecrated
by the bishop on Holy Thursday. Kings and priests in antiquity (and even today)
were anointed with chrism in token of their royal and priestly dignity. And the
baptism anointing signifies, therefore, that the new Christian has entered into
the “royal priesthood” of the Christian people, and shares in the royal
Priesthood of Christ Himself. He bears the image of Christ, inasmuch as Christ
was the Priest of all humanity, Who offered Himself in sacrifice on the Cross.
The baptismal seal or character, therefore, endows the Christian with a
priestly function, and a priestly power. It is not that special power and
function given by the Sacrament of Holy Orders to certain selected members of
the Church, who are made her official ministers, and authorized to offer her
sacrifice and dispense her Sacraments. But it is the priestly function and
power which is common to all the members of the Body of Christ. As He was born
as Priest, His whole life orientated toward the Passion and Death which was His
priestly Sacrifice, so too, they are priests from their birth into the
Christian life at Baptism; and their lives are essentially orientated toward
sacrifice, in a double sense.
First of all, they receive a function and a power with respect to the
ritual Sacrifice of the Church, which is the Mass. [….] They are empowered to
assist actively in the offering of the Mass, as members of the Church, in whose
name her specially qualified members, priests and bishops, offer the Mass,
which is the sacrifice of the whole Church through her official ministers. In
union with the Priest, the Christian offers up Christ as a Victim Who belongs
to him and to Whom he belongs. An unbaptized person cannot do this….
Secondly, the baptismal character consecrates the Christian to sacrifice
in a wider sense: it gives him the function, the duty, the power to lead a life
of sacrifice, since He is in the image of Christ whose life was one long
sacrifice – a life of complete obedience to the will of His Father: “I seek not
My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me” (Jn. 3:50).The will of the Father
is the supreme law of the Christian’s life; it is all embracing and all
pervasive; and constant and total obedience to it necessarily gives a
sacrificial quality to the whole of life, since it demands the renunciation of
many ideas, and a steady refusal to be led by one’s own emotions or to seek
one’s own pleasure and profit – in a word, it demands the sacrifice of
selfishness in all its forms. St. Peter, therefore, was thinking of Baptism
when he wrote:
“Lay aside
therefore all malice and all deceit, and pretense, and envy, and all slander….
Be you yourselves as living stones, built thereon (i.e., on Christ) into a
spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God
through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:1,5).
Rev. John J. Fernan, S.J., Theology, Christ Our High Priest, Baptismal
Seal
THE OLDEST ICON OF THE BLESSED
VIRGIN MARY IN ROME
Eight hundred years ago, a
barefoot St. Dominic carried an icon of the Virgin Mary attributed to St. Luke
across Rome to entrust the Marian image to a new community of cloistered
Dominican nuns, who have safeguarded the icon within the walls of their convent
to this day. The icon, Maria Advocata was the oldest and most famous
icon in Rome since the 6th century: she was the only one painted on
a gold background, occupied a privileged position in the August processions and
more early copies were made of her than of any other Marian icon in Rome.
The icon, also known as, “Madonna del Rosario,” can be found
today in a small chapel on Rome’s highest hill, in the Church of Santa Maria
del Rosario on Monte Mario. As St. Dominic carried the limewood icon on the
night of Sunday, February 28, 1221, two cardinals delegated by Pope Honorius
III accompanied the founder of the Dominican Order, and 42 nuns, former
Benedictines, followed in procession behind on their way to their new Dominican
convent. In their 800-year history, this Roman Dominican community of sisters
has only moved twice: once in the 16th century and once in the 20th century.
The nuns have been based at the Monte Mario convent since 1931. Today there are
eight Dominican nuns in the convent, who participate in Sunday Mass from behind
a grille to the left of the altar. Next to them, lies their treasured Marian
icon, also behind a grille. Visitors can venerate the icon immediately after
Mass.
"Moreover, theologians who have written ex professo on the subject, declare that there is mortal sin in
anyone who has a cure of souls if he does not proceed to exorcise the
possessed. It is therefore clear that there is mortal sin in opposing an exorcism and in preventing help from
reaching the unfortunate souls who have to suffer such a terrible spiritual and
physical ordeal."
Abbe Auguste Saudreau, Director of the Mother-House of the Good
Shepherd at Angers, The Mystic State and
the Extraordinary Facts of Spiritual Life.
Abbe Auguste Saudreau (1859-1946) was ordained for the Diocese of
Angers in 1883. He was parish priest in Saumur until 1895, when he was
appointed chaplain at the mother-house of the Good Shepherd Sisters, at Angers,
where he remained until his death. When he became chaplain, Msgr. Saudreau
began to write on spiritual theology. He was a prolific writer and soon acquired
an international reputation as a spiritual director through his books and his
articles in periodicals. Many of his books were translated into several
languages.
Saudreau followed the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of
the Cross on the structure of the spiritual life and the growth of the soul in
grace. He taught that the mystical state embraced infused contemplation, which
proceeds from faith illumined by the gifts of knowledge, understanding, and
wisdom, and also an infused love, the fruit of a special, operating grace, to
which the gift of piety renders the soul increasingly docile. The mystical life
thus described is not an extraordinary phenomenon, but the normal development
of the virtues and the gifts.
Two of his classics, The Way that
Leads to God and The Degrees of the
Spiritual Life, are available on line at the Internet Archive.
God commands us to fast, but He does not command us to fast all the
time, because we would die. He commands us to keep vigil, but He
does not command us to keep vigil at all times, because we would die if we
never slept. However, God does command us to pray without ceasing,
because the mind was created to pray.
St. Evagrius of Pontus (345-399), Church desert father
Stand in the
multitude of ancients that are wise and join thyself from thy heart to their
wisdom: that thou mayst hear every discourse of God.
Ecclesiasticus
6:35
Excommunication decreed for
Lefebvrite episcopal ordinations
A document signed by
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of
the Faith, defines the rite celebrated on 1 July as an “act of a schismatic
nature,” with an explanatory note providing details of the grave canonical
sanction of excommunication.
Vatican News
The
bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, Alfonso de Galarreta and
Bernard Fellay—respectively principal consecrator and co-consecrator—and the
newly consecrated bishops Pascal Schreiber, Michael Goldade, Michel Poinsinet
de Sivry, and Marc Hanappier have incurred “ipso facto” the “latae sententiae”
excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See for having carried out “an act of
a schismatic nature”: the “episcopal consecration of four presbyters, without
pontifical mandate and against the will of the Supreme Pontiff.”
This was stated in a decree
released on July 2 and signed by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect of
the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and countersigned by the two
Secretaries of the same Dicastery.
The
decision came twenty-four hours after the solemn ceremony celebrated in Écône,
Switzerland, on the morning of July 1, 2026.
The
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s decree establishes that, in the act
of carrying out the consecration, both the consecrators and those consecrated
incurred the prescribed excommunication.
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 “Explanatory Note,” published by the Dicastery at
the same time as the decree of excommunication.
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, “such disobedience—which implies in practice the
rejection of the Roman primacy—constitutes a schismatic act” (cf. John
Paul II, Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei, 3).
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 § 1 CIC).
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 have placed themselves in an indefensible
position by failing to hold dogma as their proximate rule of faith. They have
been compromising with Novus Ordo Church heretics for the past thirty years
that culminated in their making the 1989 Profession of Faith, where they have
sword unconditional obedience to the person of the pope, to obtain concessions
of ordinary jurisdiction. During the
entire pontificate of the heretic Francis/Bergoglio, they followed the
conditions of this regularization and said nothing regarding his heresy and
immorality. That being said, the decree of excommunication is problematic for
all Catholic faithful.
The illicit consecration of bishops is not canonically
under the 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, “such disobedience—which implies
in practice the rejection of the Roman primacy—constitutes a schismatic act.”
Consecrations of bishops may “imply” a rejection of the “Roman primacy” but it
does not prove anything! Proof can only be obtained by the open declaration of
rejection of the Roman primacy as the motive for the act! That requires a
canonical hearing which never happened. Lacking a canonical hearing, the decree
becomes nothing more than the moral subjective opinion of Cardinal Víctor
Manuel Fernández, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and
Pope Leo XIV.
There is one and only one act that always and
everywhere is necessarily schismatic, that is, manifest heresy. St. Thomas says that “all
heretics are schismatics” and he says that heresy can be manifested by acts as
well as words. 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 praying 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 councilor 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 “the lay faithful, those who
formally adhere to the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X are to be considered
schismatics and excommunicated” and the bold assertion that ”the sacrament of penance
administered by them and marriages assisted by them are invalid”. 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 “lay faithful.”
The Novus Ordo has inadvertently ruined their case by referring to those
who adhere formally to the “schism” as the “lay faithful.” The “faithful” are
baptized Catholics who profess the Catholic faith without compromise or
qualification of any sort. You cannot be a member of the “faithful” and a
heretic and/or schismatic at the same time.
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 “My Church.” He endowed His Church with the
divine attributes of Authority, Infallibility and Indefectibility. In His
Church, He established the office of the papacy and conferred directly upon His
vicar universal jurisdiction. This is the ordinary jurisdiction of the pope and
he delegates this jurisdiction to all the bishops throughout the world. The
purpose of this jurisdiction is to rule the Church of Jesus Christ for the
salvation of souls. Any attempt to exercise ordinary jurisdiction for the ruin
of souls is impossible. It is entirely illegitimate and invalid. It can be said
without the possibility of error that any Catholic in name who adheres formally
to the Novus Ordo Church cannot obtain salvation because the Novus Ordo Church
formally adheres to heresy and schism. By their fruits they are known.
Jesus Christ provides for the needs of His faithful
with “supplied jurisdiction” fails. The pope, in his ordinary jurisdiction, has
no authority over the supplied jurisdiction that Jesus Christ provides for His
Church for the care of His faithful. For example, if God’s providence permits a
faithful Catholic to be fatally injured in an accident, a priest who happens by
in God’s providence and has no ordinary jurisdiction can licitly and validly
hear the victim’s confession and administer the sacrament of Extreme Unction
because of the need of that faithful Catholic. Leo/Prevost is claiming that his
ordinary jurisdiction permits him to make God’s supplied jurisdiction illegal
and invalid. Catholics possess the divine right to sacraments of the Church
administered according to the “received and approved” rites of the Church. When
the ordinary jurisdiction provides corrupted service, the faithful are free to
request these sacraments from othes and it is God who provides the supplied jurisdiction.
Leo/Prevost believes that he can overturn God’s law. Regarding marriage, it is
a sacrament conferred by a man and a woman exchanging their vows publically to
marry according to the laws of the Catholic Church. The Church requires that
the parish priest of the woman who has jurisdiction and therefore 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.
Remember in your charity:
Remember the welfare of our expectant mother: Nao Miyata,
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.
"Not
a stone upon a stone" - 9th Sunday after Pentecost
The 'Western Wall' (Wailing Wall) in Jerusalem
is held by Jews as a remnant of Herod's Temple destroyed by the Romans in 72
A.D. Yet, Jesus prophesized not only that the Temple would be destroyed but
also that there would not remain a "stone upon a stone." So how is it
that there remains a large wall on the western side at the south end of the
'Temple Mount'? Some Catholics claim the prophecy of Jesus was referring only
to the edifice itself and not the entire foundation for the Temple. Jesus words
must be taken in literally unless there it is clearly manifest that the
metaphorical sense is intended exclusively. Therefore, the 'Wailing Wall' where
the Jews worship is not a remnant of the ancient Temple, and the 'Temple
Mount', on which is currently situated the Al-Aqsa mosque and the "Dome of
the Rock", is not the location of the Temple destroyed in 72 A.D. The 36
acre 'Temple Mount' is actually the location of the Roman fortress Antonia
built by Herod.
What is the evidence for this? The current popular claim is the
fortress Antonia was located on a five-acre section on the north-west side of
the 'Temple Mount' while the Temple occupied the remaining 30 acres. Five acres
is far too small to accommodate a Roman legion (6,000 soldiers plus auxiliary
staff) which we know from the writings of Flavius Josephus that the fortress
Antonia did in fact hold. Many Roman fortresses have been examined by
archeologists and they typically are between 45 and 55 acres but some are as
small as 36 acres. As far as the area needed for the Temple of Herod itself, consider
this, the ancient pagan temple complex at Baalek in Lebanon built by the Romans
is less than six acres in total area and encloses the largest temple to Jupiter
in the Roman Empire as well as a smaller temple dedicated to Bacchus and
another to Venus. The Temple built by Herod was a single temple and much
smaller in overall dimensions.
Furthermore, when Solomon was designated by King David to succeed him
(3 Kings 1), King David directed the prophet Nathan and the high priest Sadoc
to take Solomon on the king's mule to be anointed king at the "Gihon
spring" with oil taken from the tabernacle. The Gihon spring is located in
the City of David directly south and adjacent to the present-day 'Temple
Mount'. There Solomon was anointed with oil taken from the Tabernacle,
proclaimed king and celebrated by the populace with great jubilation and the
sounding of trumpets that could be heard outside the city. The Temple built by
Solomon was in the same location as the Tabernacle established by King David on
the threshing floor of the land he purchased Areuna the Jebusite as God had
commanded by the mouth of Gad (2 Kings 24 and 2 Paralipomenon 3:1).
The water from the Gihon spring was essential for the sacrificial
offerings of the Temple. There is no living water source on the 'Temple Mount'
which was required in the washing of the priests and the sacrifices offered.
The water source for the Antonia fortress was provided by large cisterns
located just north of the Antonia fortress and under the 'Temple Mount' that are
still present today.
There is a Catholic tradition the there was a church called the Church
of the Judgment that was built over and enclosed the Rock that is now enclosed
under the Dome of the Rock built by the Moslems in 692 A.D. The Dome of the
Rock is located directly north of the Al-Aqsa mosque on the 'Temple Mount'. The
Church of the Judgment was destroyed either by the Persians who conquered
Jerusalem in 614 A.D. with the help of 26,000 Jewish allies during the
Byzantine-Sasanian War 602-628 A.D. (during which many churches were destroyed
including the Church of the Ascension on Mount Olivet), or the church was
destroyed by the Moslems who conquered Jerusalem in 637 A.D. No living Jew at
the time would have knowledge of the exact location of Herod's Temple because
the Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem by the Romans since the Bar Kokhba
revolt in 135 A.D. on the pain of death. Two hundred years later, the Catholic
emperor Constantine permitted the Jews to enter Jerusalem once a year on the
feast of Tisha B'Av (the ninth of Av) which is regarded as the saddest day in
the Jewish calendar because it is the anniversary of the destruction of both
the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of Herod! Be that as it may, many of the
pillars used in the construction of the interior of the Dome of the Rock have
Christian markings indicating that they were salvaged from a destroyed Catholic
church.
The Rock itself is regarded (WIKI) as The Foundation
Stone (Hebrew אֶבֶן
הַשְּׁתִיָּה, romanized: ʾEḇen
haŠeṯīyyā, lit. 'Foundation Stone'), or the Noble
Rock (Arabic:الصخرة
المشرفة, romanized: al-Saḵrah
al-Mušarrafah, lit. 'The Noble Stone') is the rock enclosed by the
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It is also known as the Pierced Stone,
because it has a small hole on the southeastern corner that enters a cavern
beneath the rock, known as the Well of Souls. Traditional Jewish sources
mention the stone as the place from which the creation of the world began.
Jewish sources also identify its location with that of the Holy of Holies. Yet,
it is not possible for a threshing floor to be around a large rock or stone.
Before the Muslim conquest, the Rock was enclosed in the Catholic
church known as the Church of the Judgment (destroyed by the Persians) because
it is believed to have been the place where the condemned stood to hear the
judgment against them by the Roman authorities. The Rock is held to be where
Jesus stood when His official condemnation was decreed by Pontius Pilate and
thus, if it is the stone where the "creation of the world began," it
is the stone from which the creation of the world began anew. John 19:13 says:
"Now when Pilate had heard these words, he brought Jesus forth, and sat
down in the judgment seat, in the place that is called Lithostrotos, and in
Hebrew Gabbatha." Lithostrotos in Greek refers to a stone and Gabbatha in
Hebrew an elevated place. According to St. Mary Agreda after Jesus was
condemned by Pilate the decree of condemnation, which she quotes in its
entirety, was then formally read to the Jewish mob assembled outside the north
entrance to Fortress Antonia where Jesus was taken to bear His cross.
Of the Temple of Herod destroyed in 72 A.D. there does not remain a
"stone upon a stone".
Can
Theology Be Measured? Groundbreaking Study Measures a 270-Year Shift in
Catholic Teaching
Wim Varnaes | July 22, 2026
It’s a well-known mantra that Modernists manipulate language to subtly
alter our beliefs… but this researcher used computer analysis to prove it. By
analyzing the frequency of thousands of theological words across thirty papal
encyclicals spanning nearly three centuries, Mr. Vanraes 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’CONNOR wrote that in 1961. Robert Morrison’s May 1, 2026
article, Terror of Tenderness Detached from the Faith,
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’Connor and Morrison diagnosed what happened, but one of the
questions that remain is about ‘how’. The corpus data I assembled confirms the
diagnosis empirically, and opens a window to see how the new ideas traveled all
the way to the top of the Church, often through the words of people who would
never consciously reject the faith.
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 Gutiérrez, who went on to teach theology
at the University of Notre Dame. They, side by side with the many materialist
professors in Western universities, shaped the next generation of priests,
religious and lay people, especially those interested in activist or mission
work. As these driven people ventured out and reached positions of authority in
the Church, parishes, NGOs, charities, schools, and so on, whole new
generations were educated with a specific worldview.
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’ 2017
Peace Message, including, as John Dear gloated, “our main points, even some of
our exact language.” And suddenly non-Catholic ideas made it to papal
statements, now cited as foundational, and the cycle is complete.
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’Connor’s stark words on tenderness uncoupled from Christ and truth,
Caritas in Veritate warned of charity without truth becoming sentimentality.
The data, making O’Connor’s diagnosis measurable, shows this is happening in
the period after Benedict XVI.
At the same time, under Francis the ‘transcendence’ cluster, with the
words hope, eternal, kingdom, heaven, resurrection, and hell, scores the very
lowest. Hope reaches the second lowest level, while all other words almost
disappear. Love without truth is as dangerous as a hope without an eternal
focus.
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
‘controversial issues’ with ‘emerging issues.’ The vocabulary substitution is
no longer beneath the surface; it is being proposed as method.
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 ‘Church’ stands alone, stripped of its authority-defining
companions, becoming more of a community than a teaching office. [.....]
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 ‘either/or’, and can no longer hold multiple
realities, at different levels, at the same time, in the very traditional
Catholic ‘both/and.’
Where Catholic teaching gave rise to both Fr. Ryan, looking at the
immediate needs of the poor, and also to Cardinal O’Connell, looking at the
wider picture, long term, the either/or framework demands to pick one: Ryan OR
O’Connell. Love OR truth. Mercy OR justice. Mystery OR scientific fact. Nature
OR grace.
Notice also how O’Connor’s “tenderness detached from the source of
tenderness” is indeed the love-only failure mode, but the inverse holds the
truth-only failure mode, or ‘being right alone is not enough, as without
love…’. [.....]
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 12th; 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 “excommunication” by Rome is damaging to the traditional cause
and the defense of the Catholic faith. It is also damaging to the Church and
its rule of law.
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 “authentic magisterium” was
introduced into a Church document where the faithful are called upon to submit
unconditionally their mind and will, or as Lumen
Gentium says, “religious submission of will and mind…. religious
assent of soul,” to the “authentic magisterium” of the pope. The
Congregation for the doctrine of the faith under Ratzinger declared that this
“obedience” reflected the correct sensus
fidei for all Catholics. The proposition of unconditional obedience to the
“authentic magisterium” was made an addendum to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed in 1989 Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity where every other
proposition in the creed is a dogma. They thus, by association, elevated a
non-dogmatic proposition into the level of a Catholic dogma! They then made the
1989 Profession of faith the one and only necessary requirement to be
reconciled with the Novus Ordo Church. This was followed by creating a canon
law that makes any disobedience to the “authentic magisterium” a canonical
crime with an unspecified penalty.
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, “authentic
magisterium.” Fr. Fenton provides the definition of the term and attributes its
origin to the respected theologian Fr. Joachim Salaverri of the Jesuit faculty
of theology in the Pontifical Institute of Comillas in Spain. The “authentic
magisterium” is more properly translated into English as the “authorized
magisterium.” Either way, the term refers only to the person of the pope and
whatever he does personally. Thus anything the pope does is an act of his
authentic magisterium. Pope Leo can employ his “authentic (authorized)
magisterium” to define a Catholic doctrine as a dogma of faith by engaging the
Magisterium of the Church in an Extra-ordinary manner as Pope Pius XII did with
the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or he can employ his
“authentic (authorized) magisterium” to arrange the seating assignments at a
papal dinner. What he cannot do is demand unconditional, unqualified obedience
to his “authentic (authorized) magisterium” in and of itself. To make an oath
of unconditional obedience to a man is idolatry. Unconditional obedience can
only be given to God and God alone.
Archbishop
Marcel Lefebvre, who had his own problems with Neo-modernism, recognized that
the insertion of the addendum of unconditional obedience to the “authentic
magisterium” in a Catholic creed was idolatry. He rejected it calling it
a "dangerous formulation" and "sheer
trickery." He said, “They (Modernist Rome) are no doubt going to
have these texts (1989 Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity) signed by the
seminarians of the Fraternity of St. Peter before their ordination and by the
priests of the Fraternity, who will then find themselves in the obligation of
making an official act of joining the Conciliar Church."
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 “authentic magisterium” of the pope. They also
followed the declaration of the Congregation for the doctrine of the Faith,
when it was headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, that forbade any public criticism of
the pope. Even before 2015 and during the entire pontificate of Pope Francis,
the SSPX said nothing to defend the faith and Catholic worship. They were
content to have a seat at the Novus Ordo circus. They even declared after the
death of Bishop Williamson in January of 2025 that he had sinned grievously by
consecrating bishops because there no longer existed a state of necessity! Then
only 15 months after the death of Bishop Williamson, they discovered that a
state of necessity exists. The only “state of necessity” was that SSPX itself
wanted a bishop. That, in itself, is insufficient grounds to consecrate bishops
and by proceeding with the consecrations, they have made all traditional
Catholics look like mindless ideologues. They muddied the defense of the
Catholic faith by their oath of unconditional obedience to the “authentic
magisterium” of the pope and then 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, “A truth fallen from
heaven.” Once that is done, they will be able to say unequivocally that Vatican
II, a pastoral council that treated Catholic doctrine with grossly imprecise
terminology and taught heresy because heresy IS the denial of the literal
meaning of Dogma. They will recognize that the one and only act that is
invariably associated with schism is manifest heresy! Pope Francis was and, his
protégé, Pope Leo is schismatic because they are heretics. No Catholic can make
an act of unconditional obedience to the “authentic (authorized) magisterium”
of any pope because that is idolatry, but to make it to a manifest heretic is a
double crime. No one can be excommunicated by canon law ipso facto in the external forum without canonical due process
simply because the pope says so in his personal “authentic (authorized)
magisterium.” This is not the first time but just the most egregious example of
the extension of the “obedience” claimed by the “authentic magisterium” to
corrupt canon law in the Church. The entire purpose of the corruption of canon
law and due process is to impose the Neo-modernist will by the appearance of
legal formality. It in the end is perfectly Pharisaical.
“Only take heed to yourself and guard your soul diligently.” Deut 4:9
"It is a sin to believe there is salvation outside the Catholic
Church!"
Blessed Pope Pius IX
PREVIOUS
BULLETIN POSTING WORTH REMEMBERING:
Comments from those who have read the Third Secret of
Fatima:
Ø “I
cannot say anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the third Secret,
but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope. The other,
logically – although I must say nothing – would have to be the
continuation of the words: In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith
will always be preserved.” [3] [emphasis
added] – Joseph Schweigel, S.J., d. 1964 (interrogated
Sister Lucia about the Third Secret on behalf of Pope Pius XII on Sept. 2,
1952)[4]
Ø “In
the period preceding the great triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
terrible things are to happen. These form the content of the third
part of the Secret. What are they? If
‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved,’ … it can be
clearly deduced from this that in other parts of the Church these dogmas are
going to become obscure or even lost altogether. Thus it is quite
possible that in this intermediate period which is in question (after
1960 and before the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text
makes concrete references to the crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the
negligence of the pastors themselves.” [5] [emphasis
added] – Fr. Joaquin Alonso, C.M.F., d. 1981 (Cleratian
priest and official Fatima archivist for over sixteen years; had unparalleled
access to Sister Lucia)
Ø “The
Secret of Fatima speaks neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads,
nor Pershing missiles, nor SS-20’s. Its content concerns only our
faith. To identify the Secret with catastrophic announcements or with
a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. The loss
of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of a nation;
and it is true that faith is continually diminishing in Europe.” [6] [emphasis
added] – Bishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral, d. 2005
(former bishop of Fatima-Leiria; remarks made in Vienna, Austria on Sept. 10,
1984)
Ø “It
[the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin
was alerting us against apostasy in the Church.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Silvio Oddi, d. 2001 (Vatican
diplomat and personal friend of Pope John XXIII, from whom he knew certain
details concerning the Third Secret) [7]
Ø “In
the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great
apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996
(personal theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]
Frère Michel de la
Sainte Trinité, The Whole Truth about Fatima,
[2], Volume 3.
Posted by OnePeterFive
The
Providence of God is unfailing!
“If you wish to be a Catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to
teach that they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be snatched
away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them
which the Almighty has predestined. There is in such a dogma more power than I
can tell assigned to chances in opposition to the power of God, by the
occurrence of which casualties that which He has predestinated is not permitted
to come to pass. It is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in
cautioning the man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of
confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently meet the
case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to receive correction
against the threatening mischief.”
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.
As
time goes by, there are fewer and fewer Novus Ordo Catholics every year!
St. John himself, the Apostle of
love, who seems in his Gospel to have revealed the secrets of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress upon the memory of his disciples the
new commandment “to love one another,” nevertheless strictly forbade any
intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt form of Christ’s
teaching: “If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not
into the house, nor say to him, God speed you” (II John 1:10). Therefore, since the foundation
of charity is faith pure and inviolate, it is chiefly by the bond of one faith
that the disciples of Christ are to be united. A federation of
Christians is inconceivable in which each member retains his own opinions and
private judgment in matters of faith, even though they differ from opinions of
all the rest. How can men
with opposite convictions belong to one and the same federation of the
faithful: those who accept sacred Tradition as a source of revelation and those
who reject it; those who recognize as divinely constituted the hierarchy
of bishops, priests and ministers in the Church, and those who regard it as
gradually introduced to suit the conditions of the time; those who adore Christ
really present in the Most Holy Eucharist through that wonderful conversion of
the bread and wine, Transubstantiation, and those who assert that the body of
Christ is there only by faith or by the signification and virtue of the
Sacrament; those who in the Eucharist recognize both Sacrament and Sacrifice,
and those who say that it is nothing more than the memorial of the Lord’s
Supper; those who think it right and useful to pray to the Saints reigning with
Christ, especially to Mary the Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and
those who refuse such veneration as derogatory to the honor due Jesus Christ,
“the one mediator of God and men” (I Tim 2:5).
Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos
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: ‘AI is not just another tool…It has the ability to lie and
manipulate’ and will take over all world religions
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’s more than that. And he doesn’t say it has the potential to be more
than that. It already is.
So, AI can “lie and manipulate.” That’s what some of us have been warning from
the start, and yet so many of our brothers and sisters rely on it every day to
inform their work, their businesses, their personal lives. They will become
dependent on it, and at some point they will be deceived by it.
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’s evil or you think he’s good, he doesn’t water down his
message like so many corporate CEOs in the tech world do. The CEOs and analysts
in the business world have lied to us and said AI will not replace human work;
it will only enhance human work. That was a lie and they knew it, but they also
knew that if they told us the truth it would cause a mass uprising.
Well, now Harari is letting the cat out of the bag, probably because he knows
it’s too late to do anything to stop this beast system from fully rising up and
taking over the world.
Harari stated:
“Four billion years of
evolution has 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. “Now,
one big open question about AI is, whether it can think. I think, therefore I
am, as René Descartes said. We rule the world because we can think better than
anyone else on the planet. Will AI challenge our supremacy in the field of
thinking. That depends on what thinking means…”
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.
“Some people argue AI is just
glorified auto speech. It barely predicts the next words in a
sentence,” Harari said. “But is that so different from what the human
mind does? As far as putting words in order, AI already thinks better than many
of us. Therefore, anything made of words will be taken over by AI. If
laws are made of words, then AI will take over the legal system. If books are
just combinations of words, then AI will take over books. If religion is built
from words, then AI will take over religion. This is particularly true of
religions made up of books like Islam, Judaism and Christianity.”
He does hint that if your religious faith is real, you may want to find out if
it’s based solely on words you have memorized or if it’s something real that
you have internalized in your heart.
A preview of our AI dominated world
He asks:
“What happens to the holy
books when the greatest expert of the book is an AI? Everything made of words
will be taken over by AI.”
My overall response to Harari’s speech about
AI being more than a tool, and that it’s fully capable of lying and
manipulating, is that AI is an automated version of what George Orwell
presented in his famous dystopian novel, 1984.
Winston, the main character in Orwell’s novel, held a middle-management
position in the Ministry of Truth. His job was to sift through all of the news
of the day, all of the history books, science books, legal analyses, everything
that people referred to for information, and weed out that which the
all-powerful state did not want people to know. He dropped the forbidden
information down the “memory hole” and he advanced up the chain to be
distributed the information which jibed with the official narrative of Big
Brother.
How is this different from the algorithms used by today’s AI?
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’t understand anything about the spiritual battles raging in the
world.
He says that, “If we continue to define ourselves by our ability to think in
words, our identity will collapse.”
As followers of Jesus Christ, we must, if we want to retain our humanity, get
our identity from God the Father, our Creator, and his Son Jesus. All else will
be overwhelmed by the coming beast system.
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 ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day.
He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and
its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine truth
clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by a
divine authority. There are many things which follow from this. First, it
proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that 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,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the world
reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is the
Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is a
tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the consciences of men by
human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the
long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not
both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic
Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other
sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon
divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.
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 Écône 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 — not only
for the world of Catholic Tradition, of which the Society of Saint Pius X has
been a part since its foundation on November 1, 1970, by Archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre, but also for Pope Leo XIV. The Pontiff has indeed identified the
internal reconciliation of the Church as one of the principal objectives of his
pontificate, and he would find himself, barely more than a year after his
election, having to confront a new tearing of the ecclesial fabric, with the
risk of aggravating divisions that have been awaiting a resolution for decades.
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 — and now taken up again by the Society of Saint
Pius X to justify episcopal consecrations without a pontifical mandate — the
argument from the state of necessity of the faithful in the face of the gravity
of the ecclesial crisis is, at one and the same time, both the weakest and the
strongest argument.
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 — which, in the case of the Church, is the salvation of souls.
But who has the authority to verify the existence of such a state and to
determine its beginning and end? It is evident that this assessment cannot be
left to the judgment of the Society of Saint Pius X itself. Were that the case,
one would have to conclude that the state of necessity ceases when the Society
deems it to have ceased — effectively attributing to it a power of judgment
over the Holy See that is incompatible with the hierarchical and visible
constitution of the Church. The result would be a situation in which a
particular body sets itself up as the ultimate criterion for evaluating the
actions of the supreme authority.
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 — or even
morally obligated — to consecrate other bishops without a pontifical mandate,
in order to ensure the continuity of the faith and the sacraments. The
consequence would be a proliferation of parallel jurisdictions and 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 — one of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988
and subsequently expelled from the Society of Saint Pius X — shows concretely
how the logic of the state of necessity, once detached from a higher principle
of authority capable of delimiting and regulating it, can generate further
divisions. 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 — so fragile on the
theological and canonical level — presents itself as the strongest on the
pastoral level. Archbishop Lefebvre was not a speculative theologian or a
canonist, but a missionary and a pastor of souls. In his letter to priests of
April 27, 1987, he wrote:
"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 — thereby embracing that very primacy of pastoral practice which
is a foundational mandate of Vatican II. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the
Faith, by contrast, invokes Vatican II, yet does not acknowledge the weight of
the pastoral argument and employs against the Society the terms and concepts of
pre-conciliar theology, in the name of the binding force of doctrine and law.
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 — "In cases of
doubt, one must hold to the existing state of affairs, until certain proof
demonstrates the contrary." Reason suggests that each person remain in the
position in which he finds himself, continuing to do what he does,
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 century that profoundly
marked the destiny of the Church and of the contemporary world.
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 — ten years before the
apparitions at Fatima — the great Pontiff denounced with prophetic clarity the
process of self-dissolution of the decades that would follow. 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 — with its apostasies, its
persecutions, and its acts of heroism.
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 — the reigning Pope, Leo XIV. No
solution to the grave problems afflicting the Mystical Body of Christ will be
found outside of him or against him.
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 the pope 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’s canon law
from that time until the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law in 1917.
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": ‘Hujus culpas redarguere præsumit mortalium nullus, quia cunctos
ipse judicaturus a nemine est judicandus, nisi deprehendatur a fide devius
(dist. XL, C. 6)’. This is the professed law of the Church from time immemorial
until 1917. When the revised Code of Canon Law (Codex 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:
‘Canon 1404 – The First See is
judged by no one.‘
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’s faith is to fall from his chair."
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.
Right of the Faithful to Appeal Directly to
the Judgment of the Pope
The holy Roman Church holds the highest and
complete primacy and spiritual power over the universal Catholic Church which
she truly and humbly recognizes herself to have received with fullness of power
from the Lord Himself in Blessed Peter, the chief or head of the Apostles whose
successor is the Roman Pontiff. And just
as to defend the truth of Faith she is held before all other things, so if any
questions shall arise regarding faith they ought to be defined by her judgment. And to her anyone burdened with affairs pertaining to the ecclesiastical
world can appeal; and in all cases looking forward to an ecclesiastical
examination, recourse can be had to her judgment.
Second Council of Lyons, Denz. 466
And since the Roman Pontiff is at the
head of the universal Church by the divine right of apostolic primacy, We teach
and declare also that he is the supreme judge of the faithful, and that in all cases pertaining to
ecclesiastical examination recourse can be had to his judgment.
First Vatican Council, Denz. 1830
Not only do we know God through Jesus Christ, but we only know
ourselves through Jesus Christ; we only know life and death through Jesus
Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ we cannot know the meaning of our life or our
death, of God or of ourselves. Thus without Scripture, whose only object is
Christ, we know nothing, and can see nothing but obscurity and confusion in the
nature of God and in nature itself.
Blaise Pascal, Pensées
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.
“As A subsists in B” usually means A is (in some manner) realized,
embodied, or found within B—not that they are numerically identical. For
identity you need a strong equivalence claim: that they have exactly the same
being/existence and are the very same entity.
So:
If A subsists in B, it’s consistent that A is distinct from B even if A
is present in B (e.g., a part in a whole, an instance in a substrate, a
property inhering in a thing).
Only under additional premises—often something like “A subsists in B
and B subsists in A” plus an argument that this forces sameness—would identity
follow.
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 passage… [By contrast to] the consistent practice of the
Gothic style in the old town… the structures of the new town (of 1880) are
uniform only in their harsh, monotonous ugliness… [A] vast jail… occupies what
used to be open land available for the enjoyment of all. The peaceful old
churchyard has been enclosed and converted into ‘Pleasure Grounds’ for the
family at the new parsonage. The river-banks have been turned into wharfs, the
trees felled… the bridge is closed by a toll-gate… [T]he marks of a free and
generous community have disappeared; the evidence here is for social
exclusiveness, a competing proliferation of [religious] sects, mechanized,
dirty and noisy industry, the pursuit of money, the advent of madness and
crime… [W]arehouses 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.
Remember in your prayers the welfare of Bishop Michel
Stobnicki and his apostolate throughout Poland and central Europe.
“By their fruits you shall know them”.
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
“shrinking number of priests.” The Archdiocese is consolidating from 160
to 80 parishes and these 80 parishes with be consolidated into 24 “pastorates”
which means that most priests will cover three parishes and a few will cover
four. The consolidation is
because of a “46% decline in Mass attendance”… “over the last 20 years.”
There are four dioceses in the State of Iowa and Dubuque is the Archdiocese and
the metropolitan see for the State of Iowa because it is the first diocese in
the area, established in 1837. It was initially part of the diocese of St.
Louis which itself was established in 1826 from the Diocese of 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
If
men are “obligated” to a “right faith” then “Religious Liberty” is lie!
That by Divine
Law Men are obliged to a Right Faith
As sight by the bodily eye is the principle of the bodily passion of
love, so the beginning of spiritual love must be the intellectual vision of
some object of the same. But the vision of that spiritual object of understanding,
which is God, cannot be had at present by us except through faith, because God
exceeds our natural reason, especially if we consider Him in that regard under
which our happiness consists in enjoying Him.
a.) The divine law directs man to be entirely subject to God. But as
man’s will is subjected to God by loving Him, so his understanding is subjected
to Him by believing Him,—but not by believing anything false, because no
falsehood can be proposed to man by God, who is the truth: hence he who believes
anything false does not believe God.
b.) Whoever holds an erroneous view about a thing, touching the essence
of the thing, does not know the thing. Thus if any one were to fix on the
notion of irrational animal, and take that to be man, he would not know man.
The case would be otherwise, if he was mistaken only about some of the
accidents of man. But in the case of compound beings, though he who errs about
any of the essentials of a thing does not know the thing, absolutely speaking,
still he knows it in a sort of a way: thus he who thinks man to be an
irrational animal knows him generically: but in the case of simple beings this
cannot be,—any error shuts out entirely all knowledge of the thing. But God is
to the utmost degree simple. Therefore whoever errs about God does not know
God. Thus he who believes God to be corporeal has no sort of knowledge of God,
but apprehends something else instead of God. Now as a thing is known, so is it
loved and desired. He then who errs concerning God, can neither love Him nor
desire Him as his last end. Since then the divine law aims at bringing men to
love and desire God, that same law must bind men to have a right faith
concerning God. Hence it is said: Without faith it is impossible to please God
(Heb. xi, 6); and at the head of all other precepts of the law there is
prescribed a right faith in God: Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one Lord
(Deut. vi. 4).
St. Thomas Aquinas, Of God and
His Creatures
The Absolute Necessity of “Prayer And Penance”
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. …..The Divine Heart of Jesus
cannot but be moved at the prayers and sacrifices of His Church, and He will
finally say to His Spouse, weeping at His feet under the weight of so many
griefs and woes: "Great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou
wilt" [Matth. 15, 28.]. Pope Pius
XI, Charitate Christi Compulsi, On the Sacred Heart
