.....
this missal is hereafter to be followed absolutely, without any scruple of
conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgment or censure, and may freely
and lawfully be used ..... Nor are
superiors, administrators, canons, chaplains, and other secular priests, or
religious, of whatever title designated, obliged to celebrate the Mass
otherwise than as enjoined by Us.
..... Accordingly, no one whatsoever is permitted to infringe or rashly
contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept,
grant, direction, will, decree and prohibition. Should any person venture to
do so, let him understand he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the
Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Pope
St. Pius V, Papal Bull, QUO PRIMUM,
Tridentine
Codification of the “received and approved” traditional Roman Rite of the Mass.
Twenty-first Sunday after
Pentecost
Within the
Octave
November 2, 2025
The
Lessons in the divine office for this Sunday are often taken from the Book of
Machabees. The Book of Machabees is
particularly relevant to the problems in the Church today in the ecumenical
effort to corrupt true worship.
As St. John Chrysostom says: “Antiochus
surnamed Epiphanes, having invaded Judea and ravaged wholesale, forcing many
Jews to give up the holy traditions of their fathers, the Machabees remained
steadfast and uncorrupted, amidst all these trials. Traversing the whole country they gathered
together all the faithful and loyal citizens whom they met, and even a great
number of those who had allowed themselves to be discouraged or led astray,
urging them to return to the true faith and religion of their fathers.
“For they remembered that almighty God is
full of indulgence and mercy, never refusing to repentance the gift of
salvation.
“These exhortations resulted in the raising
of an army composed of men of the utmost bravery who were fighting not so much
for their wives and children and servants; not to ward off slavery and ruin
from their country, but for the laws of their fathers and the rights of their
nation. God Himself was their
leader. Moreover, when they went into
battle to sacrifice their lives, this alone was enough to put the enemy to
rout; in fact they trusted less in their arms than in the cause for which they
had armed, which they considered sufficient to secure victory even if armor
were altogether lacking. When on the
march, they did not, like the people of some races, fill the air wither with
curses or profane songs; but they prayed God to send them aid from on high, to
help and keep them, and to give them His strength, since they made war for His
sake and not for their own glory” (Fourth Sunday in October, 2nd
Nocturn).
God’s primary care in the world is for His
own people, i.e. Christ and His Church who together make only one. Everything else is of secondary importance. “Lord,” says the Gradual, “Thou hast been our
refuge from generation to generation.”
While the Alleluia psalm relates that “When Israel went out of Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea was made His sanctuary,” and
“Israel His dominion.” And then having
recounted all the wonders wrought by God for the preservation of His people,
the psalmist adds: “But our God is in heaven: He hath done all things
whatsoever He would…The house of Israel hath hoped in the Lord: He is their
helper and protector.”
The psalm, from which the Communion and the
verse of the Introit are borrowed, repeat the cry of hope raised by just souls
to heaven. “My soul is in Thy
salvation…When wilt thou execute justice on them that persecute me? The wicked have persecuted me: help me, O
Lord my God.”
In the same sense the Church prays in
today’s Collect: “Lord, we pray Thee, keep Thy household the Church in
continual godliness; that through Thy protection it may be free from all
adversities, and devoutly given to good works, to the glory of Thy holy name.”
The ancient people of God and His people
today, have the same end in view, to glorify God and to assert His rights; and
both have the same adversaries, the devil and his agents. Today the Church draws on the breviary lessons
of the preceding Sundays, reminding us of Satan’s onslaught upon Job and the
treatment of Mardochai by Aman who was “a slanderer like the devil” (See
Introit psalm). God delivered these two
just men, as He freed His people from the bondage of Egypt, and as He came to
the aid of the Machabees who were fighting in His cause.
In the same way Catholics are attacked by
evil spirits, for the persecutors of the Church, like those of Israel under the
Old Law, are really stirred up by the devil.
“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness,
against the spirits of wickedness in high places” (Epistle). Moreover, like the Machabees, who, valiant
soldiers as they were, trusted more in God than in their arms, the means of
defense used by Catholics must by chiefly of a supernatural kind. “Be strengthened in the Lord,” says the
apostle, “and in the midst of His power…Take unto you the armor of God…that you
may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one.”
St. Paul’s Roman guards (and the Machabees
were accoutered like them) here served the apostle as a model for the detailed
description which he gives us of the mystic panoply of the soldiers of
Christ. Its defensive armor consists of
justice, peace and faith, while its weapons of offense are the inspired words
of the Holy Ghost whom the Church received at Pentecost.
Now that portion of the divine Word which
we have in today’s Gospel sums up the whole Christian life in the practice of
that virtue of charity which makes us treat our neighbor as almighty God has
treated us. He has forgiven us great
sins; let us in turn, learn how to forgive our brethren their infinitely less
important offenses against us. The devil
in his jealousy drives men to act like the wicked servant who seized by the
throat one who owed him a trifling sum and cast him into prison because he
could not pay at once. In the Day of
Judgment God will treat us as we have treated our neighbor. Of that day this Sunday’s Mass warns us in
our Lord’s words: “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king who would take
account of his servants.” At that time
of justice pure and simple, He will be merciless like us if, during this life
when He is all mercy to us, we have not learned to be merciful like Him. The wicked servant was delivered to the
torturers. “So,” says our Lord, “shall
my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from
your hearts.”
The executioners, to whom we shall be
delivered by our Lord in His just anger against us, will be the powers of hell
from whom He has protected us on earth, but whom He will then leave to indulge
their hatred against us. It is enough to
recall their rage against holy Job. Let
us be on our guard against them, the more so, that this Sunday reminds us of
the time when the devils will use their power against men with greater violence
since they will soon lose it altogether.
If we seek strength from God, whose will
none can resist (Introit), we shall be victorious over the devils even in those
troublous times, and we shall have no fear of the judgment to come.
INTROIT:
Esth. 13, 9-11: All things are
in Thy will, O Lord; and there is none that can resist Thy will: for Thou hast
made all things, heaven and earth, and all things that are under the cope of
heaven: Thou art Lord of all.
Ps. 118: Blessed are the
undefiled in the way: who walk in the law of the Lord. Glory be, etc. All things are, etc.
COLLECT:
Keep, O Lord, we pray, Thy family by Thy continued goodness, that,
through Thy protection, it may be free from all adversities, and devoted in
good works to the glory of Thy name.
Through our Lord, etc
Almighty
and eternal God who hast given us to honor, on this festival day, the merits of
all Thy saints, we pray that through their manifold intercessions Thou wouldst
confer upon us the fullness of Thy desired mercy. Through our Lord, etc.
From all perils of soul and body defend us, O Lord, we beseech Thee,
and by the intercession of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
of blessed Joseph, of Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the Saints,
graciously grant us safety and peace, that all adversities and errors being
overcome, Thy Church may serve Thee in security and freedom. Through
our Lord, etc.
EPISTLE: Ephes. 6, 10-17
Brethern, Be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of his power.
Put you on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits
of the devil: for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness,
against the spirits of wickedness in high places. Therefore take unto you the
armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in
all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth,
and having on the breast-plate of justice, and your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace: in all things taking the shield of faith,
wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked
one: and take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God.
EXPLANATION The apostle teaches the Ephesians how hard and dangerous a struggle
every Christian has to make, not against human enemies of flesh and blood, but
against spiritual, invisible enemies, who were at one time powerful princes in
heaven, but through sin became princes of the darkness of this world, who
govern the adherents of the world, and exercise their evil influence in the air
as well as on the earth, as far as God permits them, for our chastisement or
trial.
He
shows us also the manner in which we can gain the victory in the evil day, that
is, the time of temptation, and particularly at the hour of death, when he
admonishes us to have confidence in God and gives us the weapons for the
contest. We should, therefore, gird ourselves with the girdle of truth, which
shows us that honor, concupiscence and riches are vain and useless; we should
put on the breast-plate of justice which is made of good works: the shoes, by
regulating our lives according to the precepts of the gospel, which alone can
give us true peace; the shield of faith, which teaches us how richly God
rewards virtue and how terribly He punishes those who succumb to temptation and
sin; the helmet of salvation, namely, confidence in God and the hope of heaven;
the sword of the word of God, by making use, when violently tempted, of
consoling and strengthening expressions of Holy Scripture, by which we can put
the devil to flight, according to the example of Christ (Matt. 4) and the
saints. - Let us diligently use these weapons, and we shall be victorious in
this spiritual combat, and be crowned with eternal glory in heaven.
GRADUAL:
Ps. 89: Lord, Thou hast been our
refuge, from generation to generation.
Before the mountains were made, or the earth and the world was formed;
from eternity and to eternity Thou art God.
Alleluia, alleluia. Ps. 113:
When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people. Alleluia
GOSPEL: Matt. 18, 23-35
At that time, Jesus spoke to his
disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who would
take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account one
was brought to him that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not
wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife
and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. But that servant
falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee
all. And the lord of that servant, being moved with pity, let him go, and
forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his
fellow-servants that owed him a hundred pence: and laying hold of him, he
throttled him, saying: Pay what thou owest. And his fellow-servant falling down
besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he
would not; but went and cast him into prison till he paid the debt. Now his
fellow-servants, seeing what was done, were very much grieved: and they came
and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him, and said to
him: Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest
me: shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellowservant, even
as I had compassion on thee? And his lord being angry, delivered him to the
torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to
you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.
Who
are understood by the king, and the servants?
The
King is God, and the servants are all mankind.
What
is meant by the ten thousand talents?
The
ten thousand talents, according to our money more than ten million dollars,
signify mortal sin, the guilt of which is so great that no creature can pay it;
even all the works of the saints cannot make atonement, because by every mortal
sin the infinitely great, good, and holy God is offended, which offence it is
as impossible for any creature to cancel as it is for a poor servant to pay a
debt of ten million dollars. Nevertheless God is so merciful that He remits the
whole immeasurable debt of sin, on account of the infinite merits of Christ, if
the sinner contritely begs forgiveness and amends his life.
Why
did the master order, not only the debtor, but also his wife and children to be
sold?
Probably
because they assisted in contracting the debt, or gave occasion for its
increase. This is a warning to those who in any way make themselves partakers
of others' sins, either by counsel, command, consent, provocation, praise or
flattery, concealment, partaking, silence and by defending ill-done things.
What
is understood by the hundred pence?
By
the hundred pence are understood the offences committed against us, and which,
in comparison with our debt against God, are very insignificant.
What
does Jesus intend to show by this parable?
That
if God is so merciful and forgives us our immense debts, we should be merciful
and willingly forgive our fellow-men the slight faults and offences, which they
commit against us; he who does not this, will not receive pardon from God, in
him will be verified the words of the apostle St. James: Judgment without mercy
to him that hath not done mercy (James 2, 13).
Who
are those who throttle their debtors?
These
are, in general, the unmerciful, but particularly those who have no compassion
for their debtors; those who immediately go to law and rest not until the
debtor is left without house or home; those who oppress widows and orphans, if
they owe them anything, thus committing one of the sins which cry to heaven for
vengeance (Ecclus. 35, 18-19); those who even in just lawsuits act harshly and
severely with their opponent, without the slightest inclination to come to an
agreement with him; finally, rulers and landlords who overburden their subjects
with excessive tithes and taxes, and exact their share with the greatest rigor.
Who
are those who accuse these hardened men before God?
They
are the guardian angels and their own conscience; the merciless act itself
cries to God for vengeance.
What
is it to forgive from the heart?
It
is to banish from the heart all hatred, ill-will and revengeful desires, to
treasure a true and sincere love towards our offenders and enemies not only in
our hearts, but also manifest it externally by deeds of charity. Therefore
those have not forgiven from their hearts, who, indeed, say and believe, that
they have no ill-will against their enemy, but everywhere avoid him, refuse to
salute him, to thank him, to pray for him, to speak to him, and to help him in
necessity, even when they might do so, but who rather rejoice at his need.
OFFERTORY:
Job 1: There was a man in the
land of Hus, whose name was Job, simple and upright, and fearing God: whom
Satan besought that he might tempt; and power was given him from the Lord over
his possessions and his flesh: and he destroyed all his substance and his
children; and wounded his flesh also with a grievous ulcer.
SECRET:
Graciously receive, O Lord, this offering whereby Thou hast wished to
be appeased, and restore our souls to health by the power of Thy loving
kindness. Through our Lord, etc.
We offer Thee, O Lord, the gifts of our devotion; may they be well-pleasing to Thee as presented in honor of all Thy saints, and mercifully let them avail also for our salvation. Through our Lord, etc.
Hear us, O God, our salvation, that through the power of this sacrament
Thou mayest defend us from all enemies of soul and body and bestow upon us
grace here and glory hereafter. Through
our Lord, etc.
COMMUNION:
Ps. 118: My soul awaits
deliverance, and in Thy word have I hoped: when wilt Thou execute judgment on
them that persecute me? The wicked have
persecuted me: help me, O Lord my God.
POSTCOMMUNION:
Having been given the food of immortality, we pray, O Lord, that what
we have received with our mouth we may cherish with a pure heart. Through our Lord, etc.
Grant, we
pray, O Lord, that Thy faithful people may ever rejoice in venerating all Thy
saints and may be aided by their unceasing prayers. Through our Lord, etc
May the offering of this divine sacrament cleanse and protect us, O
Lord, we beseech Thee; and by the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary,
Mother of God, of blessed Joseph, of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and
all the saints, may it purify us from all sin and free us from all
adversity. Through our Lord, etc.
And his lord
being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also
shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother
from your hearts.
PROPER OF THE
SAINTS FOR THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 2nd:
Date Day
Feast
Rank Color F/A Mass Time
|
2 |
Sun |
21st Sunday after Pentecost Within the Octave |
sd |
G |
|
Mass 9:00 AM;
Confessions 8:00 AM; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM |
|
3 |
Mon |
All Souls Day |
d |
B |
|
Mass 5:45, 7:00 &
8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass |
|
4 |
Tue |
St. Charles Borromeo, BpC Within the Octave Ss. Vitalis & Agricola, Mm |
d |
W |
|
Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass |
|
5 |
Wed |
Within the Octave |
|
W |
|
Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass |
|
6 |
Thu |
Within the Octave |
|
W |
|
Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of Reparation before Mass |
|
7 |
Fri |
Within the Octave First Friday |
|
W |
A |
Mass 8:30 AM; Rosary of
Reparation before Mass: Benediction and Holy Hour of Reparation after Mass |
|
8 |
Sat |
Octave Day of All Saints Four Holy Crowned Martyrs |
dm |
W |
|
Mass 9:00 AM; Confessions 8:30; Rosary before Mass |
|
9 |
Sun |
Dedication of the Archbasilica of Our Saviour 22nd Sunday after Pentecost St. Theodore, M |
d2cl |
W |
|
Mass 9:00 AM;
Confessions 8:00 AM; Rosary of Reparation 8:30 AM |
United to her divine Lord,
warriors the most valiant stand about her [the Church]; they merit that
privilege by their well-proved sword and their skill in war; each one of them
has his sword ready, because of the night-surprises which the enemy may use against
this most dear Church. For until the
dawn of the eternal day, when the shadows of this present life are put to
flight by the light of the Lamb, who will then have vanquished all His enemies,
power is in the hands of the rulers of the world of this darkness, says St.
Paul, in our today’s Epistle; and it is against them that we must take to
ourselves the armour of God, which he there describes; we must wear it all, if
we would be able to resist, in the evil day…This armour consists of many parts,
because of its varied used and effects; and yet, whether offensive or
defensive, all of them have one common name, faith.
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical
Year, Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
Satan has a horror of the
Christian who, though he may be weak in other respects, is strong in this
divine word. He has a greater fear of
that man than he has of all the schools and professors of philosophy; he knows
well that at every encounter he will be crushed beneath his feet, and with a
rapidity akin to what our Lord tells us He Himself witnessed : ‘I saw Satan
like lightning, falling from heaven.’
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, 21st Sunday after Pentecost
“It is a sin to believe there is salvation outside the Catholic
Church!”
Blessed Pope Pius IX
“For combat is the normal state
of every man here below. The Most High
is pleased at seeing a battle well fought by His Christian soldiers. There is no name so frequently applied to Him
by the prophets as that of the God of hosts.
His divine Son, who is the Spouse, shows Himself here on earth as the
Lord who is mighty in battle. In the
mysterious nuptial canticle of the forty-fourth Psalm, He lets us see Him as a
most powerful Prince, girding on His grand sword, and making His way, with His
sharp arrows, through the very heart of His enemies, in order to reach, in fair
valiance and beautiful victory, the bride He has chosen as His own. She, too, the bride, whose beauty He has
vouchsafed to love, and whom He will to share in all His won glories, advances
towards Him in the glittering armour of a warrior, surrounded by choirs singing
the magnificent exploits of the Spouse, while she herself is terrible as an
army set in array ….Happy are those who shall fight the good fight, and win
victory!”
Dom Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, 21st Sunday after Pentecost
INSTRUCTION ON
THE VIRTUE OF PATIENCE
Have
patience with me (Matt. 18, 26).
Since
God has such great patience with us, ought not this to move us to have patience
likewise with the faults and weaknesses of our fellow-men, and to resign
ourselves patiently in all the sufferings and tribulations sent us from God?
What will your impatience avail you? Will you thereby change or ease your
sufferings? Do you thereby correct the faults of your neighbor? No; on the
contrary, it makes suffering more oppressive, misfortune greater, and the
erring neighbor more obstinate, so that he will ultimately refuse even mild and
patient corrections. Besides impatience leads to many sins, to cursing,
raillery, quarrelling,. contention, and murder. The pious Job gives us a good
example of true patience and resignation to the will of God. He was a wealthy,
respected, God-fearing man in the land of Hus, the father of seven sons and
three daughters, and lived peacefully and happy. God wished to try him and
permitted the devil to vent his entire rage upon him. Job was deprived of his
children and all his property, and, finally, he was himself afflicted with the
most painful disease of leprosy. But in the midst of all these dreadful
misfortunes he remained calm. Naked, covered only with a few patches, he sits
on a dunghill, a picture of misery, and yet no sound of murmuring comes from
his lips, he does not curse, does not blaspheme God, but says resignedly: The
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it
done: blessed be the name of the Lord. To all this misery was added the
baseness of his own wife, who came and mocked him, and of three intimate
friends, who instead of consoling him, judged him falsely and said, that his
misery was a just punishment from heaven. Still Job did not murmur against
God's wise dispensations; with unshaken patience he faithfully confided in God,
and he was not forsaken. God rewarded him well for his fidelity and patience;
for He restored him to health, and gave him greater wealth than he had
previously. See what patience can do, what reward is in store for it! And thou
a Christian, a follower of Christ, the patient, crucified Lamb, art immediately
irritated, become angry and morose at every little cross which you meet! Be
ashamed of your weakness, and learn from the pious Job, to practice the virtue
of patience, for patience proves hope, and hope permits us not to be put to
shame. Patience always gains the victory, and will be rewarded in heaven.
If
you find yourself inclined to impatience, make every morning a firm resolution
to battle bravely against this vice and often ask God for the virtue of
patience in the following prayer: O God who by the patience of Thy
only-begotten Son hast humbled the pride of the old enemy, vouchsafe that
devoutly considering what He has suffered for us we may cheerfully bear our
adversities, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, etc.
Was
Paul VI so successful that there is no problem when Pope Francis admitting
those in mortal sin to their communion?
The intention of Paul VI with
regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in
such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy — but
what is curious is that Paul VI did that to get as close as possible to the
Protestant Lord’s supper ... there was with Paul VI an ecumenical intention to
remove, or least to correct, or at least to relax, what was too Catholic, in
the traditional sense, in the Mass and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass
closer to the Calvinist Mass.
Jean Guitton, journalist, close
friend and confidant of Pope Paul VI
The Church is One, Holy,
Catholic Apostolic, and Roman : unique, the Chair founded on Peter. Outside her fold is to be found nether the
true faith nor eternal salvation, for it is impossible to have God for a Father
if one does not have the Church for a Mother.
Blessed Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quidem
J.A. Jungmann, one of the truly
great liturgists of our century, defined the liturgy of his time, such as it
could be understood in the light of historical research, as a “liturgy which is
the fruit of development”.... What happened after the Council was something
else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came
fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and
development over the centuries, and replaced it--as in a manufacturing process--with
a fabrication, a banal on- the-spot product.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, from
the preface to Reform of the Roman Rite
The priest, in reciting the
prayers of the Mass, speaks in the person of the Church, in whose unity he
remains; but in consecrating the sacrament he speaks in the person of Christ,
whose place he holds by the power of his Orders. Consequently, a priest severed
from the unity of the Church celebrates Mass, not having lost the power of
Order, he consecrates Christ’s true body and blood; but because he is severed
from the unity of the Church, his prayers have no efficacy.
St. Thomas Aquinas
“Europe will return to the
faith or…. perish.”
Hilaire Belloc
The more you pray the more you
will be illumined; the more you are illumined, the more profoundly and
intensely you will see the Supreme Good, the supremely good Being; the more
profoundly and intensely you see him, the more you will love him; the more you
love him, the more he will delight you; and the more he delights you, the more
you will understand him and become capable of understanding him. You will
arrive successively to the fullness of light, because you will understand that
you cannot understand.
Blessed Angela of Foligno
FORGIVENESS TWENTY‑FIRST
SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
PRESENCE
OF GOD‑
O Lord, as You are so generous in forgiving me, teach me to forgive others
generously.
I . “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king
who would take an account of his servants.” Today’s Gospel (Mt 18, 23‑35)
refers to the account which all men will one day be called upon to give. It is
a serious thought, which makes us reflect, as we did last Sunday, on the state
of our conscience. Yet, as we continue the reading of this parable, our hearts
are comforted. God, represented by the king, manifests such kindness, mercy,
and compassion to the poor servant who cannot pay his debt; He forgives him
everything and sets him free.
The debt of that servant was not a trifling
one: ten thousand talents; our debts to God are much greater and cannot be
computed in talents, nor in silver and gold; they must be reckoned according to
the price of our redemption, the most precious Blood of Jesus. Our debts are
our sins which needed to be washed away in the Blood of a divine Victim. In
spite of our good will, we increase these debts each day, to a greater or
lesser extent, if only by faults of frailty and weakness. Is there one who can
say at the day’s end that he has not contracted new debts with God? If, at the
end of life, God should place before us an exact account of our deficit, we
should find ourselves in a much more embarrassing position than that of the
servant in the parable. But God, being infinite goodness, knows and has pity on
our misery; each time we place ourselves before Him and humbly acknowledge our
faults with sincere repentance, He immediately pardons us and cancels all our
debts. God is magnificent when He pardons: He does not reproach us for the
faults over which we have already wept, nor does He keep any account of them;
His pardon is so generous, so great and complete, that it not only annuls our
debts, but destroys even the memory of them, as if they had never existed. It
is enough for Him to see us repentant; then every wound, even the most grievous
and repugnant, is completely healed by the precious Blood of Jesus. Christ’s
Blood is like an immense sea which has the power to cleanse and destroy the
sins of all mankind, provided they are sincerely repented of. Every minute of
every day we can take the burden, heavy or light as it may be, of our sins and
infidelities and make it disappear in this ocean of grace and love, certain
that not one trace of it will remain.
2.
The second part of the parable speaks of our forgiveness of others. Returning
home, the fortunate servant whose debts had all been cancelled, met one of his
fellow servants, who owed him a hundred pence, a very small sum compared with
the ten thousand talents which had been cancelled for him. Yet he who had been
treated with so much mercy, showed none to his fellow servant; he would neither
listen to his pleadings, nor heed his tears, but “went and cast him into
prison, till he paid the debt.”
A few moments ago we were moved by the
master’s kindness; now the servant’s cruelty makes us indignant. Yet, even though we blush, we ought to
recognize that, just as the kindheartedness of the master is the image of the
mercy of God, ever ready to pardon, so the cruelty of the servant is the figure
of our own hardheartedness and miserliness in forgiving our neighbor. Unfortunately, it is all too true: we need
our daily bread, are so hard, so demanding toward our fellow men; we find it
difficult to be indulgent and forgiving.
Yet what are the debts that our neighbor may owe us compared with what
we owe to God? Certainly, infinitely
less than a few pence compared with ten thousand talents, since it is a matter
of an offense committed against a mere creature compared with one committed
against the infinite majesty of God. But
what a contrast! God pardons, forgets,
and entirely cancels all our heave debts; He does not cease to love us and
bestow favors upon us in spite of our continual want of fidelity. We, on the contrary, find it very difficult
to forgive some little slight; even if we do forgive, we cannot entirely forget
it, and we are ready to reproach the other person at the first
opportunity, How would we act if our
neighbor committed against us each day the numerous infidelities and faults
that we commit against God? Oh! Haw
miserable and constrained is our way of pardoning others!
The parable describes the punishment
inflicted on the cruel servant by his master: “And his lord being angry,
delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt”; and the conclusion
follows: “So also shall My heavenly Father do to you if you forgive not your
brothers from your hearts.” If we wish
God to be generous in pardoning us, we must be generous in forgiving others; we
shall be forgiven according to the measure in which we forgive, which means
that we ourselves give to God the exact measure of the mercy He is to show to
us.
COLLOQUY:
“Is there anyone, O Lord, who is not in
debt to You? Is there anyone who has not
someone in debt to Him? In Your justice
You have determined that Your rule of conduct toward me, Your debtor, should be
that followed by me in regard to my debtors.
Therefore, because I also have sinned - and how often! – I must be
indulgent with him who seeks my pardon.
In fact, when the time of prayer comes, I should be able to say to You,
‘Forgive me, O Lord, my trespasses,’ and how?
The condition is laid down by me, I myself fix the law; ‘Forgive me my
trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me.’
“O Lord, You have set down in the Gospel
two short sentences: ‘Forgive and it shall be forgiven you: give and it shall
be given to you.’ This is my prayer; I
ask pardon of You for my sins, and You will that I should pardon others.
“Just as the poor beg from me, so I, Your
poor little beggar, stand at the door of my Father’s house; rather, I prostrate
myself there, begging and groaning, longing to receive something, and this
something is You. The beggar asks me for
bread, and what do I ask of You, if not Yourself, for You have said, ‘I am the
living bread that came down from heaven?’
“In order to obtain forgiveness, I shall
forgive; I shall pardon others, and I shall be pardoned. Because I wish to receive, I shall give, and
it shall be given to me.
“If it is hard for me to forgive someone
who has offended me, I shall have recourse to prayer. Instead of repaying insults with more
insults, I shall pray for the guilty one.
When I feel like giving him a harsh answer, I shall speak to You, O
Lord, in his favor. Then I shall
remember that You promise eternal life, but You command us to forgive
others. It is an if You said to me, ‘You
who are a man, forgive other men, so that I, who am God can come to you’” (St.
Augustine).
If we wish to make any progress in the service of God we must begin every day of our life with new eagerness. We must keep ourselves in the presence of God as much as possible and have no other view or end in all our actions but the divine honor.
St. Charles Borromeo
Devotions to the Holy
Souls in Purgatory
Requiem aeternam dona eis
domine; et lux perpetual luceat eis.
Requiescant in pace. Amen.
(Eleternal rest grant unto
them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.)
· Sunday O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the
Precious Blood, which Thy divine Son Jesus shed in the Garden, deliver the
souls in purgatory, and especially that one which is the most forsaken of all,
and bring it into Thy glory, where it may praise and bless Thee for ever.
Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary, Eternal
rest, etc.
· Monday O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the
Precious Blood which Thy divine Son Jesus shed in His cruel scourging, deliver
the souls in purgatory , and among them all, especially that soul which is
nearest to its entrance into Thy glory, that it may soon begin to praise Thee
for ever. Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary,
Eternal rest, etc.
· Tuesday O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the
Precious Blood of Thy divine Son Jesus that was shed in His bitter crowning
with thorns, deliver the souls in purgatory, and among them all, particularly
that soul which is in the greatest need of our prayers, in order that it may
not long be delayed in praising Thee in Thy glory and blessing Thee for
ever. Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary,
Eternal rest, etc.
· Wednesday
O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech
Thee by the Precious Blood of Thy divine son Jesus that was shed in the streets
of Jerusalem whilst He carried on His sacred shoulders the heavy burden of the
Cross, deliver the souls in purgatory and especially that one which is richest
in merits in Thy sight, so that, having soon attained the high place in glory
to which it is destined, it may praise Thee triumphantly and bless Thee for ever.
Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary, Eternal
rest, etc.
· Thursday O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the
Precious Body and Blood of Thy divine Son Jesus, which He himself on the night
before His Passion gave as meat and drink to His beloved Apostles and
bequeathed to His Holy Church to be the perpetual Sacrifice and life-giving
nourishment of His faithful people, deliver the souls in purgatory, but most of
all, that soul which was most devoted to this Mystery of infinite love, in
order that it may praise Thee therefor, together with Thy divine Son and the
Holy Spirit in Thy glory forever. Amen.
Our Father, Hail Mary, Eternal rest, etc.
· Friday O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the
Precious Blood which Jesus Thy divine Son did shed that day upon the tree of
the Cross, especially from His Sacred Hands and Feet, deliver the souls in
purgatory, and particularly that soul for whom I am most bound to pray, in
order that I may not be the cause which hinders Thee from admitting it quickly
to the possession of Thy glory where it may praise Thee and bless Thee for
evermore. Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary,
Eternal rest, etc.
· Saturday O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the
precious Blood which gushed forth from the sacred Side of Thy divine Son Jesus
in the presence and to the great sorrow of His most holy Mother, deliver the
souls in purgatory and among them all especially that soul which has been most
devout to this noble Lady, that it may come quickly into Thy glory, there to
praise Thee in her, and her in Thee through all the ages. Amen. Our Father, Hail Mary, Eternal rest, etc.
Instruction On The Feast Of All Souls, November 2nd (translated to November 1st)
All Souls’ Day is the annual commemoration of all those souls who departed this life in the grace and favor of God but who are still detained in purgatory. Purgatory is that third place in the other world in which the souls of the departed suffer the temporal punishment of those sins for which in life they have not sufficiently atoned, and in which they are purified until they are worthy to appear in the presence of God.
Is there a purgatory?
Yes; it is a doctrine of our
faith.
1. Even under the Old Law the Jews held to this belief, and accordingly
Judas Machabeus sent twelve thousand silver drachmas to Jerusalem to procure
the offering of sacrifices for the dead.
2. Under the New Law Jesus Christ seems to point to such a place
(Matthew 5, 26; 12, 32). The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians:
"The fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon [upon Christ], he shall receive a reward; if any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss [by the fire of purgatory], but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire" (I Corinthians 3, 13-15).
A fire from which a man may be
saved cannot be the fire of hell; for from hell there is no redemption. The
words of Saint Paul, therefore, can only be understood of purgatory.
What souls are they that go to purgatory?
The souls of all those who, though dying in the grace of God, have yet
something to atone for. Those persons dying in the grace of God are still
friends of God, and certainly God does not cast those who are His friends into
hell. It is, therefore, as suitable to the idea of God's mercy as it is
consonant to reason that such souls should be first purified in purgatory.
How can we assist the souls suffering in purgatory?
1. By our prayers. The Holy Scripture says: "It is a holy and a
wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins"
(II Machabees 12, 46). The Catholic Church has therefore always taught that the
prayer of the faithful for the departed is holy and wholesome.
2. By the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the fruits of which are most
beneficial to the souls in purgatory. For this reason holy Church has always,
from the time of the apostles, remembered the dead in the holy Mass.
3. By gaining indulgences, and other good works, by which we supplicate
God to show mercy to the souls of the suffering, to accept what is performed by
us in satisfaction for the punishment to be endured by them, and to bring them
into the kingdom of everlasting peace and light (Ecclesiasticus 7, 37).
When and how was this yearly commemoration of the departed
introduced?
The time of the introduction of this commemoration cannot be
determined; for as early as the time of Tertullian he mentions that the
Christians of his day held a yearly commemoration of the dead. Towards the end
of the tenth century Saint Odo, abbot of the Benedictines, at Cluny, directed
this feast to be celebrated yearly, on the 2nd of November, in all
the convents of his Order, which usage was afterwards enjoined upon the whole
Christian world by Pope John XVI. The feast of this day was probably established
in order that, after having one day before rejoiced over the glory of the
saints in heaven, we should this day remember in love those who are sighing in
purgatory for deliverance.
The sins of my youth and my ignorances,
remember not, O Lord. Would to God that we now
examined our conscience as seriously as we shall be forced to do in the place
of expiation, in order to repair our present negligence in that respect! Ignorance, which is now considered so
excusable, will be a sad thing for those whose neglect to seek instruction has
darkened their faith, lulled their hope to sleep, cooled their love, and
falsified on a thousand points their Christian life. Then, too, must be paid, to the last
farthing, the debts of penance accumulated by so many sins, which have been
forgiven, it is true, as to the guilt, perhaps long ago, and as long ago
entirely forgotten. O God, see my
abjection and my labour!
Don Gueranger, All Souls Day
Heroic Act of
Charity for the Souls on Purgatory
An "Heroic Act of
Charity" is the offering of the satisfactory value (not the merits)
of all of our sufferings and works of our rest of our lives and of
any time we may spend in Purgatory for the relief of the souls in Purgatory. We
do this by first deciding to do so, and then praying (using our own words or
the more formal prayer below) to offer these things to God through Mary's
hands.
Doing this is not a matter of taking a vow; it doesn't bind under pain of sin,
and it is revokable (unless one vows never to revoke the Act). But it is a
tremendous sacrifice, hence the name. It is truly heroic, a giving up of one's
own earned relief from the temporal effects of sin -- even relief of the
sufferings of Purgatory -- for the good of others.
In addition to asking God to use their satisfactory works for the souls in
Purgatory, those who make this Act also receive a plenary indulgence (under the
usual conditions) for the souls in Purgatory each time they receive Communion,
and each time they hear Mass on Mondays for the sake of the departed. Words to
a formal Act of Heroic Charity are as follows:
O Holy and Adorable Trinity, desiring to aid in the relief and release
of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, through my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary,
I cede and renounce, on behalf of these souls, all the satisfactory part of my
works, and all the suffrages which may be given to me after my death. In their
entirety, I offer them to Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God, that she may use
them, according to her good pleasure, for those souls of the faithful departed
whom she desires to alleviate their suffering. O my God, deign to accept and
bless my offering which I make to Thee through the most august Queen of Heaven
and Earth. Amen.
The first suffering which the
damned endure is that they are deprived of seeing Me. This suffering is so great that, if it were
possible, they would choose to endure fire and torments, if they could in the
meantime enjoy My vision, rather than to be delivered from other sufferings
without being able to see Me. This pain
is increased by a second, that of the worm of conscience, which torments them
without cessation. Thirdly, the view of
the demon redoubles their sufferings, because, seeing him in all his ugliness,
they see what they themselves are, and thus see clearly that they themselves
have merited these chastisements. The
fourth torment which the damned endure is that of fire, a fire which burns but
does not consume. Further, so great is
the hate which possesses them that they cannot will anything good. Continually they blaspheme Me. They can no longer merit. Those who die in hate, guilty of mortal sin,
enter a state which lasts forever.
Our Lord to St. Catherine of
Siena, Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena
In the building constructed upon
Christ, good works are compared to gold, to silver, to precious stone. Venial sins are compared to wood, to hay, to
stubble. The day of the Lord is that on
which He manifests His judgment, first of all during tribulation on earth, then
at the particular judgment after death, finally at the last judgment. The fire which tests and purifies is that of
tribulation on earth, then that of purgatory, lastly that of universal
conflagration at the last judgment. In
truth, many tests of Scripture speak of the purifying fire under these three
different forms.
St. Thomas, Commentary on the
First Epistle to the Corinthians
To
“see” “intelligent design” presupposes intelligence & good will - so much
for “Roman Catholic scholars”
It is worth noting that in all
of the major court challenges to creationism, Roman Catholic scholars—biblical
specialists, theologians and scientists— have been witnesses against
creationism and the fundamentalist understanding of intelligent design.
Fr. Michael Guinan, ‘Creationism’ What’s a Catholic to Do?, in
which he defends modern evolution and naturalism against the literal
interpretation of Holy Scripture and the unanimous teaching of the Church
Fathers and Catholic DOGMA.
Catholic
DOGMA: God created the world and everything in and about it ex nihilo.
God…creator of all
visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His
own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature
from nothing, spiritual and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally
the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body. Lateran
Council IV, (D.428).
Bossuet, speaking of
the Council of Trent, which owed its completion to St. Charles Borromeo, says
that it brought the Church back to the purity of her origin as for as the
iniquity of the times would permit. And
when the sessions of the First Vatican Council were opened, the bishop of
Poitiers, the future Cardinal Pie, spoke of "that Council of Trent, which
deserved, more truly even than that of Nicaea, to be called the great
Council, that Council, concerning which we may confidently assert that
since the creation of the world no assembly of men has succeeded in introducing
among mankind such great perfection; that Council whereof it has been said
that, as a tree of life, it has for ever restored to the Church the vigour of
her youth. More than three centuries
have elapsed since its labours were completed and its healing and strengthening
virtue is still felt."
Dom Gueranger, The
Liturgical Year, St. Charles Borromeo
"St.
Charles Borromeo as the pattern, and the mind... of sacerdotal
perfection."
Wheresoever
there are souls to be saved, there is the pastor's work; and there will be the
life of St. Charles Borromeo as the pattern, and the mind of St. Charles as the
rule, of sacerdotal perfection. How profoundly he was penetrated and inflame by
the pastoral love of souls may be seen in the following words of his address to
the Bishops and Priests in the second Provincial Council of Milan :—
"Fathers,
this is our duty, and our office, placed as we are in the exalted seat of
episcopal dignity, to look out for dangers as from a watchtower, and to repel
them when they threaten those who are resting under our charge and care. As parents
we ought to have a fatherly oversight of our sons; as pastors never to take our
eyes off the sheep which Jesus Christ has delivered by His holy death from the
mouth of hell; and if any are being corrupted by the impurity of vice, to heal
them with the sharpness of salt: if any be wandering in moral darkness, we
ought to hold the light before them; for as the Supreme Creator of all things,
when in the beginning He made the heavens which we behold, adorned them with a
multitude of stars illuminated by the splendour of the sun to shine by
night upon the earth, so in the spiritual renewal of this world He has placed
in the Church, as in the firmament of heaven, prophets and apostles, pastors
and doctors, who, like stars, illuminated by the light of Christ our Lord, the
everlasting Sun, preside over the darkness of this clouded world, to drive away
darkness from the minds of men by the splendour of a noble and holy discipline.
These, then, the Wisdom of heaven has willed to be pastors, and to succeed in
the place of the apostles as fathers; as the prophet says, 'For thy fathers
there are born unto thee sons.' Why is it then that we do not imitate them as
fathers, guides, and teachers? They in the first constituting of the Christian
commonwealth, and in the greatest stress of difficulties, used to meet in
council, and while they illuminated the face of the world involved in the
darkness of error by the light of evangelical discipline,' they also set to us
the example how to restore order to the world."
Again,
after describing the inflexible constancy of those who are on fire with a
burning ardour for the salvation of souls, he adds, "But if we act
otherwise, at the fearful judgment of God, when we shall give an account of the
souls entrusted to our charge and care, we shall hear their accusing cries, and
the anger of the Judge sharply upbraiding us, and saying: If you were watchmen,
why were you blind? If pastors, why did you let the flock committed to you
wander? If the salt of the earth, how did you lose its savour? If you were the
light, why did you not shine to them that 'sat in darkness and the shadow of
death'? If apostles, why did you not use apostolic power, why did you do all
things for the eyes of men? If you were the mouth of the Lord, why were you dumb?
If you knew yourselves to be unequal to this burden, why so ambitious? If equal
to it, why so careless and neglectful? " — (Orat. in 2d Cone. Prov., pp.
77, 80)
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, introduction
to the life of St. Charles Borromeo
When St. Charles Borromeo was appointed to
the archbishopric of Milan no Archbishop had resided in that see for eighty
years. His decision to leave Rome, and all the honours and offices of the
Pontifical Court, was instantaneous. No remonstrances could restrain him. In
his own person he set a prompt example of the Tridentine Reform In September
1565 he entered Milan, and except to go to Rome, he never left his flock until
November 1584, when he passed to his eternal rest.
When the plague broke out in 1 576, the laity
fled in multitudes, and of the clergy great numbers followed them. St. Charles
called upon all priests who had the will to face the perils of the plague to
come to him. He formed round himself a body of volunteers who offered
themselves, and were ready, if need were, to lay down their lives for their
Master's sake. This was a return to the early days when Bishop and Priest
offered themselves a living sacrifice to God. So far the salt in Milan had
regained its savour. The person and presence of St. Charles attracted men of
like mind to himself. One by one they came to him and offered themselves to
serve him in the spirit of his own self-oblation to his Divine Master. They
became, in the midst of a clergy, such as Giussano (Rev. Giovanni Pietro Giussano, author of the biography of St.
Charles) describes, a principle of the highest
sacerdotal and pastoral perfection, working and assimilating others to itself.
The law of their life was the imitation of our Divine Redeemer, "who by
the Spirit offered Himself without spot to God" (Oblatus est quia ipse
voluit). His oblation was by His own will. His own will was the
offering. He came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father. Not as I
will, but as Thou wilt. This oblation or offering of the will is the most
perfect obedience, and the surest test of perfection. It was this that the
threefold enemy of the soul had striven to destroy in priests; and it was to
revive this, as in the beginning, that St. Charles laboured. His whole life was
in the spirit of the words of the Incarnate Son at His coming, "Ecce
Venio," "Behold I come," and these were his last words
in the hour of death.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning on St. Charles
Borromeo
"Reflective of the primacy
of prayer over understanding is the semantic development of the term
‘orthodoxy’ in the Christian context. The Classical Greek compound noun
orthodoxia originally signified ‘right opinion’. However, since the second
component doxa had also the secondary meanings of ‘glory’ and ‘praise’, the
word came, in the usage of Greek speaking Christians, to mean ‘right worship.’
Hence the Old Slavonic loan-translation pravoslavie (‘orthdoxy’, but literally
‘right praise’) adapted the secondary (Christian) rather than the primary
(classical) meaning of orthodoxia."
Geoffrey Hull, The
distinguished linguist and author of Banished
Heart
A true Catholic is he who loves the truth
revealed by God, who loves the Church, the Body of Christ, who esteems
religion, the Catholic faith, higher than any human authority, talents,
eloquence, and philosophy; all this he holds in contempt, and remains firm and
unshaken in the faith which, he knows, has always from the beginning been held
by the Catholic Church; and if he notices that anyone, no matter who he may be,
interprets a dogma in a manner different from that of the Fathers of the
Church, he understands that God permits such an interpretation to be made, not
for the good of religion, but as a temptation, according to the words of St.
Paul: “For there must be also heresies; that they also, who are reproved, may
be made manifest among you” (I Cor. xi. 19). And indeed, no sooner are novel
opinions proclaimed, than it becomes manifest what kind of a Catholic a man is.
St. Vincent of Lerins, Commonit.
INSTRUCTION ON THE FOLLY OF HUMAN RESPECT
Thou art a true speaker ‘neither carest thou or any man, for thou
dost not regard the person of men (Matt. 22, 16).
In this Christians ought especially to follow the Saviour, and not permit themselves to be deterred from piety, and the practice of virtue by fear or human respect. What matters it, what people think and say of us, if we only please God? He alone can truly benefit or injure us; therefore he alone is to be feared, as Christ says: Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt. 10, 28).
How foolishly, therefore, do
those act who through fear of displeasing certain people, are afraid to serve
God and practice piety; who even go so far as to commit sin; who in order to be
pleasing to others, oppress innocent, poor and forsaken people; who adopt the
latest and most scandalous fashions and customs; those who eat meat on days of
abstinence, or give it to others; those who sing sinful songs, or what is still
worse, do not hesitate to ridicule sacred things to give others occasion to
laugh, or in order to be considered strong-minded. Implore God daily and
sincerely, that He may take from you this vain fear of men and give you instead
the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
INSTRUCTION ON THE VALUE AND DIGNITY OF THE SOUL
Whose image is this? (Matt. 22, 20)
Thus we should often ask ourselves with respect to our soul, particularly when we are tempted to stain and ruin it by sin, Whose image is this? We should then say to ourselves, “Is it not the likeness of God, a likeness painted with the blood of Jesus, an image for which the Saviour gave His life? Should I defile and deform this by sin and voluptuousness? God forbid!” For in truth, what among all created things, except the angels, is more beautiful and more precious than a human soul, which is in the state of grace? “Could we,” says St. Catherine of Sienna, “behold with our corporal eyes a soul in the state of grace, we would see with astonishment that it surpasses in splendor all flowers, all stars, the whole world, and there is probably no one who would not wish to die for such beauty.” It is a dwelling of the Blessed Trinity! Christ did not give His life for all the goods and treasures of this earth, but for the human soul. And yet many estimate their soul at such little value that they sell it for a momentary pleasure, for a present not worth a penny! For shame! The body we estimate so highly that we take all pains to decorate it and keep it alive, and the soul the image and likeness of God, we take no pains to keep in the state of grace, and adorn with virtues! What folly!
There is an amazing and
scarcely fathomable depth in this sentence of St. Thomas Aquinas: false
prudence and excessive cleverness are derived from and essentially tied to
covetousness…. “Covetousness” here means more than the disordered love for
money and property. Covetousness is to
be understood here as the immoderate striving after all “possessions”, through
which the person thinks he can assure his own greatness and worth. Covetousness thus signifies the anxious
senility of a frantic self-preservation bent on only its own assurance and
security. Is further explanation needed
on how greatly all this is contrary to the innermost direction of prudence; how
impossible it is for one to have that silence that knows and recognized the
truth of objective realities; and how impossible it is to have any conformity
to reality in knowing and deciding, without the youthfulness of a courageously
trusting and, as it were, prodigal renunciation of the conditions of anxious
self-preservation and of all selfish “interest” in mere self-confirmation; how
simply impossible, then, is the virtue of prudence without the constant
readiness for disregarding oneself and without the detachment and tranquility
of authentic humility and objectivity?
Dr. Josef Pieper, Virtues
of the Human Heart
The Word of God willed
to make use of our nature, when in excruciating agony He would redeem mankind;
in much the same way throughout the centuries He makes use of the Church that
the work begun might endure… Not only the sacred ministers and those who have
consecrated themselves to God in the religious life, but also all the other
members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ have the obligation of working
hard and constantly for the upbuilding and increase of this Body… A tremendous
mystery and one which can never be sufficiently mediated upon: that the
salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary mortifications
undertaken for this end by the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and
on the cooperation of the pastors and of the faithful.
Pope Pius XII, Mystici
Corporis
This demonstrats the fruit of the “New Evangelization” -
which is shameless apostasy!
Brazil: Catholic Church on the decline
Catholic Church loses followers to Evangelicals
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Brazilians describing themselves
as Catholics has dropped by 12.2%. This record fall brings the proportion of
Catholics down to 65% – the lowest share since religious affiliations was first
surveyed in 1872. In 2000, 74% of the population had classified themselves as
Catholics.
Brazilian census: Catholic
population falls to 57%
Catholic News Agency | Nathália
Queiroz | Sao Paulo,
Brazil, Jun 9, 2025
The percentage of
Brazilians who identify as Catholic fell to 56.75% in 2022, a reduction of 8.4%
compared with 2010, according to data from the 2022 demographic census released
by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. [....]
If only the
“New-Evangelization” by the laity was modeled upon the Old-Evangelization by
the laity
“Everyone can help his neighbor if he does his duty. There would be no pagans if Christians were
real Christians, if they really kept the commandments. A good life sounds clearer and louder than a
trumpet.”
St. John Chrysostom
Jesuits
Missionary, Fr. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, Emissary to the King of Spain on
behalf of the Indians
Ruiz de Montoya’s task in
Madrid was, in brief, to secure a remedy for hazards besetting the missions. On
the journey, being eminently a man of action, he spent countless hours writing
out specific proposals to present to King Philip V. According to Ruiz de
Montoya’s own summary, these were that the king should:
1.
Enforce the law established in 1611 in Lisbon
(Philip IV being then king of both Portugal and Spain) against enslaving
Indians
2.
Confirm decrees of Paul III and Clement VIII
against enslaving Indians
3.
Make the capture of Indians a case for the
Inquisition
4.
Give the governor of Rio de Janeiro
responsibility over south Brazil, since the capital in Bahia was too remote to
be effective
5.
Invest the bishop with the power of a papal
nuncio to repress members of religious orders who harm the Indians
6.
Give authorizes power to stop boats setting
out for slave raiding
7.
Forbid the transporting of Indians or other
criminals to Brazil
8.
Free all captive Indians, men and women, and
send them to Buenos Aires, where the Jesuits will undertake to return them to
their homes, even if they have to sell their chalices and vestments to pay for
it
9.
Have bishops excommunicate those who fail to disclose
what Indians they are holding
10. Punish
the guilty and the magistrates who have allowed these abuses also “to dispel
the shame brought on the holy gospel, which has been defamed in the eyes of
pagans and recent converts”
11. Allow
Indians who no longer have homes or relatives to settle in the Indian villages
around Rio de Janeiro
12. Send
a serious person zealous for God’s service, with armed support to ensure that
the royal orders are carried out
“In this way,” he adds, “two
things will be assured: firstly, the liberty of so many persons who are being
captured, bought, and sold in their own lands; secondly, the security of Your
Majesty’s realms in Peru, which they are trying so hard to hand over to the
rebels, and where the road is already open from São Paulo to the borders of
Potosi. And I protest that my intention
is not the death of anyone nor the shedding of any blood.”
Fr. Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, Spiritual Conquest, from the
introduction. Fr. Montoya after he
secured these provisions from the government of Spain on behalf of the Indians
of the Jesuit Missions wrote the historical narative, Spiritual Conquest. After
this he returned to South America to the port of Lima where he died. The Indians from his mission in Paraguay
traveled more than 2500 miles across hostile territory, jungles and mountains
to return his body to the Missions.
“The
Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field of
battle.”
… The decadence which exists in the world is without any doubt the
consequence of the lack of the spirit of prayer. Foreseeing this
disorientation, the Blessed Virgin recommended recitation of the Rosary with
such insistence. And since the Rosary is, after the holy Eucharistic liturgy,
the prayer most apt for preserving faith in souls, the devil has unchained his
struggles against it. Unfortunately, we see the disasters he has caused.
… We must defend souls against the errors which can make them stray
from the good road. … We cannot and we must not stop ourselves, nor allow, as Our
Lord says, the children of Darkness to be wiser than the children of Light …
The Rosary is the most powerful weapon for defending ourselves on the field of
battle. Sr. Lucy of Fatima, Letter to
Dom Umberto Pasquale
Mercy
and Gratitude
So also will My Heavenly Father
do likewise unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother
their trespasses; namely, He will recall all your past sins which have been
already forgiven, even as the lord recalled the past debt of his servant which
had been already remitted. This remitted
debt, therefore, and sin is said to be recalled and to return, through that
subsequent mercilessness and ingratitude. 1) Because this want of mercy is a
deadly sin; for to be unwilling to forgive our neighbour a fault, is to cherish
hatred, anger, and revenge against him, which is clearly mortal sin. And thus by this means the former state of
sin and liability to hell returns. For
he who will not forgive is a debtor to the wrath of God in the same way that he
was previously, on account of other sins.
For this sin is irremissible, because so long as a man will not forgive
his neighbour for a trespass against himself, so long will not God forgive him
his own faults.... 2) Because ingratitude is a great aggravation of sin, and
that withdraws the more in a deadly manner.... For this ingratitude attaches
itself to all sin. Theologians teach
that it is especially to be discerned and taken account of in four kinds of
sins; namely, hatred, apostasy, obstinacy and impenitence. For these four are directly repugnant to the
very essence of the remission of sins; that is to say, either to faith, or
charity, or repentance. 3) Because this
ingratitude although be not in itself a mortal sin, yet it is often the cause
of mortal sin. For God, on account of
the ingratitude, withdraws the more plentiful supply of His grace from the
sinner, and permits him to be more severely tempted by the flesh and the
devil. Hence it comes to pass that he
falls into more dreadful mortal sins, by which that former multitude of faults
returns, which is signified by the ten
thousand talents. God will require of him as much as the former debt
amounted to, because of his want of mercy.... “He shall have judgment without
mercy, who hath shewed no mercy.” (James 2:13)
Rev. Cornelius a’ Lapide, The
Great Commentary
We must strip from our Catholic
prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a
stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Protestants.
Msgr. Annibale Bugnini,
L'Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965
We take the side of science in
spite of the absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to
fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the
tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories,
because we have a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and
institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of
the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to
create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce
material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how
mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for
we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.
Professor Richard Lewontin,
leading evolutionist and geneticist, Billions
and Billions of Demons
To tell the truth, it is a
different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the
Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed!
Rev. Joseph Gelineau, S. J., a
member of Msgr. Bugnini’s Concilium, on the Novus Ordo
CATHOLIC
PROPHECY
May 13, 1820: I saw also the relationship between the two popes. . . I
saw how baleful would be the consequences of this false church. I saw it
increase in size; heretics of every kind came into the city (of Rome). The
local clergy grew lukewarm, and I saw a great darkness. . . Then, the vision
seemed to extend on every side. Whole Catholic communities were being
oppressed, harassed, confined, and deprived of their freedom. I saw many
churches close down, great miseries everywhere, wars and bloodshed. A wild and
ignorant mob took to violent action. But it did not last long.
Once more I saw that the Church of Peter was undermined by a plan
evolved by the secret sect, while storms were damaging it. But I saw also that
help was coming when distress had reached its peak. I saw again the Blessed
Virgin ascend on the Church and spread her mantle [over it]. I saw a Pope who
was at once gentle, and very firm. . . I saw a great renewal, and the Church
rose high in the sky.
Sept. 12, 1820: I saw a strange church being built against every rule.
. . No angels were supervising the
building operations. In that church, nothing came from high above. . . There
was only division and chaos. It is probably a church of human creation,
following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome,
which seems of the same kind. . .
I saw again the strange big church that was being built there (in
Rome). There was nothing holy in it. I saw this just as I saw a movement led by
Ecclesiastics to which contributed angels, saints and other Christians. But
there (in the strange big church) all the work was being done mechanically
(i.e. according to set rules and formulae). Everything was being done according
to human reason. . .
I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something
proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very
successful. I did not see a single Angel nor a single saint helping in the
work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed
with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: “Do build it as solid as
you can; we will pull it to the ground.”
Blessed Anna Katherina Emmerich, Catholic Prophecy by Ives DuPont
“Necessity
Knows No Law”
In 1976, the head of the UGCC, Cardinal Josef Slipyj, living in exile
in Rome after 18 years in the Soviet gulag, feared for the future of the UGCC.
Would it have bishops to lead it, given that Slipyj himself was now over 80? So
he ordained three bishops clandestinely, without the permission of the Holy
Father, Blessed (sic) Paul VI. At the time, the Holy See followed a policy of
non-assertiveness regarding the communist bloc; Paul VI would not give
permission for the new bishops for fear of upsetting the Soviets. The
consecration of bishops without a papal mandate is a very grave canonical
crime, for which the penalty is excommunication. Blessed (sic) Paul VI—who
likely knew, unofficially, what Slipyj had done—did not administer any
penalties.
Fr. Raymond J. DeSouza
John
Henry Newman: A Novus Ordo Saint and, fittingly, a Doctor of the Novus Ordo
Church
"I see much danger of an English
Catholicism of which Newman (Cardinal John Henry Newman) is the highest type.
It is the old Anglican, patristic, literary, Oxford tone transplanted into the
Church. It takes the line of deprecating exaggerations, foreign devotions,
Ultramontanism, anti-national sympathies. In one word, it is worldly
Catholicism."
Cardinal Manning, Primate of England, Letter
to Monsignor Talbot, written in 1866, the second year of his reign as
archbishop
THE NATURE OF
GOD'S CHRUCH - “The kingdom of heaven”
In the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew there are several parables
recorded, commencing with the words, “The kingdom of heaven is likened,” etc.
Now, this cannot be the kingdom of God’s glory, for there are no tares or bad
fishes to cast out in that kingdom. It must of necessity be the Church of Jesus
Christ on earth, the new-chosen children of God, who have superseded the people
of the ancient law.
It is called “the kingdom,” in the singular number, not in the plural
number, kingdoms, for Jesus Christ founded but one Church, which is His
kingdom; “and of His kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:33). He does not
call it a republic, but a kingdom, thus describing the monarchical form of
government which He gave to His Church. A kingdom is a country governed by a
king; and if the king does not preside over it in person, he governs it by
means of a viceroy, who in everything represents the king, and governs the
country according to the powers and laws received from the king. If nowadays we
have so many Christian sects, each one calling itself the true Church of
Christ, it is not because He founded them, but because “many revolted and did
not remain in the doctrine of Christ” (II John 9).
To say that all churches are good and pleasing in the sight of God,
since they all believe in the same God and in His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He
has sent, is the same as to say that provinces and individuals originally of
the same kingdom, but revolting against their lawfully-constituted authorities
and forming laws for themselves not sanctioned by the king, are just as
agreeable to the king as those who were always faithful and submissive to him
and to his ministers, and that it is enough to say to Jesus Christ, “Lord,
Lord!” in order to be saved, no matter how many of His doctrines one rejects,
nor how many of His laws and ordinances are despised. He Himseif answers “Not
every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doth the will of My Father, who is in heaven, he shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in Thy name?” (and to prophesy does not only mean to foretell future
things, but also to explain and discourse on religious matters), “and cast out
devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then will I profess
unto them, I never knew you : depart from Me, you that work iniquity” (Matt
7:21). If the Apostle St. Paul says, “There must be also heresies,” it is not
because Jesus Christ approves of them, but He permits them only “that they also
who are approved may be made manifest” (l Cor. 11:19). They are, as it were,
the shades which serve to make what is light still clearer and more visible to
the world. But shade is darkness, and nothing dark or defiled will ever be
admitted into the kingdom of glory. “Take heed, therefore, that the light which
is in you be not darkness” (Luke 11:35).
If, then, Christ has established but one Church, which is His kingdom —
“the kingdom of heaven” — and this Church has a monarchical form of government,
behold here already a main feature of the holy Catholic Church.
JOSEPH PRACHENSKY, S.J., TIlE
CHURCH OF THE PARABLES - TRUE SPOUSE OF THE SUFFERING SAVIOR, 1880
Remember in your charity:
Remember the welfare of our expectant mother: Cecilia Zepeda, Victoria Dimmel, Vanessa
LoStrocco, and Elizabeth Allen,
Thomas Soul,
a
nursing home patient who has suffered a stroke,
Donna Kallal, a dear friend of the
Schiltz family who is dying,
Philip Thees requests our prayers for the heath of Mary Glatz and Lenny and Agnus Messineo,
For the welfare of Aaron, a York resident in need of conversion,
For the spiritual welfare of Margaret Connelly is the petition of Camilla Meiser,
Linda Boyd, for her health,
Pete
Schiffbauer, a cousin of Monic Bandlow who is gravely ill,
Joan R.
Barr,
the widow of F. Donald Barr who died March 7, they were married 70 years
Cole
Schneider, prayers for his welfare are requested by Camilla Meiser,
JoAnn
Niekrewicz,
for her recovery from a recent fall and shoulder injury,
The Drews ask prayers for the spiritual and physical
welfare of Robert Carballo,
Conversion of Jack
Gentry, the nephew of Camilla Meiser,
For Sr.
Maria Junipera, who took her final vows as a nun with the Slaves of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary in Richmond, New Hampshire April 8,
Stephen
Bryan,
the brother of a devout Catholic religious, for his spiritual welfare,
Marie
Kolinsky,
for her health and spiritual welfare is the petition of her family,
Gene Peters requests our prayers for the conversion
of Shirley Young and Carl Loy who are dying, and the
conversion of Dawn Keithley,
Rev. Leo Carley, an eighty-nine year old
priest faithful to Catholic tradition, who is seriously ill,
For the recovery of Hayden Yanchek, the grandson of Francis Yanchek, injured in
a farming accident,
Maureen
Nies, for
the recovery of her health is the petition of Camilla Meiser,
Daniel
Vargs, for
his health is the petition of his parents,
Art Noel, for the restoration of his
health,
For the welfare of Peg Berry and her husband, Bill,
Marianne Connelly asks prayers for Chris Foley, who is gravely ill,
and the welfare of his wife, Mary
Beth,
The spiritual welfare of the Sal & Maria Messineo family is the petition of the
Drew’s,
Liz Agosta, who is seriously ill, for her
spiritual and temporal welfare,
Warren
Hoffman, a
long time member of our Mission who is in failing health,
Patrick
Boyle,
for the recovery of his health and his spiritual welfare,
For the spiritual welfare of the Drew children,
Monica Bandlow request our prayers for the welfare of
Ray who is recovering from a
MVA, and his daughter, Sonya,
and Tera Jean Kopczynski, who
is in failing health, and for a good death for Mr. Howald, Kathy
Simons, Regina Quinn, James Mulgrew, Ruth Beaucheane, John Kopczynski, Roger
& Mandy Owen
The health and spiritual welfare of Nate Schaeffer is the petition
of Gene Peters,
Peg Berry requests our prayers for her brother, William Habekost,
For the recently widowed, Maike Hickson, and her children,
For the spiritual welfare of the Carmelite nuns in Fairfield, PA,
Geralyn
Zagorski, recovery of her health and spiritual welfare and
the conversion of Randal Pace is the petition of Philip Thees,
For the grandson of
Joe & Liz Agusta,
Fr. Waters requests our
prayers for the health and spiritual welfare of Elvira Donaghy,
For the health and
conversion of Stephen Henderson,
Fr. Paul DaDamio requests
our prayers for the welfare of Rob Ward, and his sister, Debra
Wagaman,
For the health and
spiritual welfare of Peggy Cummings, the neice of Camila Meiser,
who is gravely ill,
Kaitlyn McDonald, for the recovery of her
health and spiritual welfare,
Roco
Sbardella,
for his health and spiritual welfare,
The Vargas’ request our prayers for the spiritual
welfare of their son, Nicholas,
Family, for the welfare of Lazarus Handley, his mother, Julia, and his brother, Raphael, with Down’s Syndrome,
Fr. Waters requests prayers for the spiritual and
physical welfare of Frank McKee,
Nancy
Bennett, for the recovery of her
health,
For the spiritual welfare of Mark Roberts, a Catholic faithful to tradition,
Joe Sentmanet request prayers for Scott Nettles (who is in need of
conversion), who is gravely ill,
Michael Brigg requests our prayers for the health of John Romeo,
The health and welfare of Gene Peters and his sons,
Conversion of Anton
Schwartzmueller, is the paryer request of his children,
Christine
Kozin, for
her health and spiritual welfare,
Teresa
Gonyea,
for her conversion and health, is the petition of her grandmother, Patricia
McLaughlin,
For the health of Sonya Kolinsky,
Jackie Dougherty asks our prayers for her brother, John Lee, who is gravely ill,
For the health and spiritual welfare, Meg Bradley, the granddaughter
of Rose Bradley,
Timothy
& Crisara, a couple from Maryland have requested our prayers for their spiritual
welfare,
Celine
Pilegaard, the seven year old daughter of Cynthia Pilegaard, for her recovery from
burn injuries,
Rafaela de
Saravia, for
her health and welfare,
Mary Mufide,
requests our prayers for her family,
Abbe Damien
Dutertre,
traditional Catholic priest arrested by Montreal police while offering Mass,
Francis
(Frank) X. McLaughlin, for the recovery of his
health,
Nicholas
Pell,
for his health and spiritual welfare is the petition of Camilla Meizer,
Mary Kaye
Petr,
her health and welfare is petitioned by Camilla Meizer,
The welfare of Excellency Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò,
The welfare of Rev.
Fr. Martin Skierka, who produces the traditional Ordo in the U.S.,
For the health and welfare of Katie Wess, John Gentry, Vincent Bands, Todd Chairs, Susan Healy and
James O’Gentry is the petition of Camilia,
Marieann
Reuter, recovery of her health, Kathy Kepner, for her health, Shane Cox, for his health,
requests of Philip Thees,
The Joseph
Cox Family, their spiritual welfare,
Luis Rafael
Zelaya, the
brother of Claudia Drew, spiritual welfare,
For the health of Kim Cochran, the daughter-in-law of Joseph and Brenda
Cochran, the wife of their son Joshua,
Louie
Verrecchio,
Catholic apologist, who has a health problem,
John
Minidis, Jr. family, for help in their spiritual
trial,
Joann
DeMarco, for her health and spiritual
welfare,
Regina
(Manidis) Miller, her spiritual welfare and health,
Melissa
Elena Levitt, her conversion, and welfare of her children,
For the grace of a holy death, Nancy Marie Claycomb,
Conversion of Annette
Murowski, and her son Jimmy,
Brent Keith from Indiana has petitioned our prayers
for the Keith Family,
The welfare of the Schmedes Family, and the Mike and Mariana Donohue Family,
The spiritual welfare Robert Holmes Family,
For the spiritual and temporal welfare of Irwin Kwiat,
Fr. Waters asks our prayers for Elvira Donaghy,
Kimberly Ann, the daughter of John and
Joann DeMarco, for her health and spiritual welfare,
Mufide Rende, a traditional Catholic from
India has asked our prayers for her welfare and he family members, living and
deceased,
Mary Glatz, her health and the welfare
of her family,
Barbara
Harmon,
who is ill, and still cares for her
ailing parents,
Jason Green, a father of ten children,
recovery of his health,
For the health and welfare of Sorace family,
Fr. Waters asks our prayers for the health and
spiritual welfare of Brian Abramowitz,
Thomas
Schiltz family, in grateful appreciation for their contribution to the beauty of our
chapel,
Welfare of Bishop
Richard Williamson, for strength and courage in the greater battles to
come,
John Rhoad, for his health and
spiritual welfare,
Kathy Boyle, requests our prayers for
her welfare,
Joyce
Laughman and Robert Twist, for their conversions,
Michael J.
Brigg & his family, who have helped with the needs of the Mission,
Nancy Deegan, her welfare and conversion
to the Catholic Church,
Francis Paul
Diaz,
who was baptized at Ss. Peter & Paul, asks our prayers for his spiritual
welfare,
The conversion of Rene McFarland, Lori Kerr, Cary Shipman
and family, David Bash, Crystal and family, Larry Reinhart, Costanzo Family,
Kathy Scullen, Marilyn Bryant, Vicki Trahern and Time Roe are
the petitions of Gene Peters,
For the conversion of Ben & Tina Boettcher family, Karin Fraessdorf, Eckhard Ebert,
and Fahnauer family,
Fr. Waters requests our prayers for Br. Rene, SSPX who has been ill,
and for Fr. Thomas Blute,
For the health and conversion of Kathryn Lederhos, the aunt of David Drew,
For the welfare of Fr. Paul DaDamio and Fr. William T. Welsh,
The Drew’s ask our prayers for the welfare of Joe & Tracey Sentmanat family, Keith
& Robert Drew, Christy Koziol & her children, Fred Nesbit and Michael
Nesbit families, and Gene Peters Family,
the John Manidis Family, the Sal Messinio Family, Michael Proctor Family,
Ryan Boyle grandmother, Jane Boyle, who is failing health,
Mel Gibson
and his family, please remember in our prayers,
Rev. Timothy A. Hopkins requested our prayers for the
welfare of his Fr Jean-Luc Lafitte,
Ebert’s request our prayers for the Andreas & Jenna Ortner Family,
Joyce Paglia has asked prayers for George Richard Moore Sr. & his
children, and her brother, George
Panell,
Philip Thees asks our prayers for his family, for McLaughlin Family, the welfare
of Dan & Polly Weand, the
conversion of Sophia Herman,
Tony Rosky, the welfare Nancy Erdeck, the wife of
the late Deacon Erdeck, John Calasanctis, Tony Rosky, James Parvenski, Kathleen Gorry, health of mind and body of Cathy Farrar.
Pray for the
Repose of the Souls:
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.
EXPLANATION OF THE EIGHT
BEATITUDES.
1.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven. (related to the virtue o Temperance and the gift of Fear
of God)
THEY are poor in spirit who, like the apostles, leave all temporal things for Christ's sake and become poor; they who have lost their property by misfortune or injustice, and bear this loss with patience and resignation to the will of God; they who are contented with their poor and lowly station in life, do not strive for greater fortune or a higher position, and would rather suffer want than make themselves rich by unlawful means; they who though rich do not love wealth, nor set their hearts upon it, but use their riches to aid the poor; and especially they who are humble, that is, who have no exalted opinion of themselves,' but are convinced of their weakness and inward poverty, have a low estimate of themselves, therefore, feel always their need, and like poor mendicants, continually implore God's grace and assistance.
2.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess
the land. (related to the virtue of Justice and the gift of Piety)
He is meek who represses every rising impulse of anger, impatience and desire of revenge, and willingly puts up with every thing that God, to prove him, decrees or permits to happen to him, or men inflict upon him. He who thus controls himself, is like a calm and tranquil sea, in which the image of the divine Sun is ever reflected, clear and Unruffled. He who thus conquers himself is mightier than if he besieged and conquered strongly fortified cities (Prov. 16, 32), and will without doubt receive this earth, as well as heaven, as an inheritance, enjoying eternally there the peace (Ps. 36) which is already his on earth.
3.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall
be comforted. (related to the virtue of Hope and the gift of Knowledge)
The mourners here mentioned are not those who weep and lament over the death of relatives and friends, or over misfortune or loss of temporal riches, but those who mourn that God is so often offended, so little loved and honored by men, that so many souls, redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, are lost. Among these mourners are also those who lead a strict and penitential life, and patiently endure distress; for sin is the only evil, the only thing to be lamented, and those tears only, which are shed on account of sin, are useful tears, and are recompensed by everlasting joy and eternal consolation.
4.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
justice, for they shall have their fill. (related to the virtue of Fortitude
and the gift of Fortitude)
Hunger and thirst denote the ardent longing for those
virtues which constitute Christian perfection. He who seeks such perfection
with ardent desire and earnest striving, will be filled, that is, will be
adorned by God with the most beautiful virtues, and will be abundantly rewarded
in heaven.
5. Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. (related to the virtue of
Prudence and the gift of Counsel)
They are merciful who assist the poor according to their
means, who practice every possible spiritual and corporal work of mercy, who as
far as they can, patiently endure the faults of others, strive always to excuse
them, and willingly forgive the injuries they have received. They especially
are truly merciful, who are merciful to their enemies, and do good to them, as
written: Love your enemies, and do good to them that hate you (Matt. 5, 44).
Well is it for him who is merciful, the greatest "rewards are promised
him, but a judgment without mercy shall be passed on the unmerciful.
6. Blessed
are the clean of heart, for they shall see God. (related to the virtue of Faith
and the gift of Understanding)
They are clean of heart, who carefully preserve the innocence which they received in baptism, and keep their heart and conscience free not only from all sinful words and deeds, but from all sinful thoughts and desires, and in all their omissions and commissions think and desire only good. These while yet on earth see God in all His works and creatures, because their thoughts are directed always to the Highest Good, and in the other world they will see Him face to face, enjoying in this contemplation a peculiar pleasure which is reserved for pure souls only; for as the eye that would see well, must be clear, so must those souls be immaculate who are to see
7. Blessed
are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God.(related to
the virtue of Charity and the gift of wisdom)
Those are peace-makers who guard their improper desires, who
are careful to have peace in their conscience and regulated tranquility in all
their actions, who do not quarrel with their neighbors, and are submissive to
the will of God. These are called children of God, because they follow God who
is a God of peace (Rom. 15, 33), and who even gave His only Son to reconcile
the world, and bring upon earth that peace which the world does not know and
cannot give (Luke 2, 14; John 14, 27).
8. Blessed
are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.
Those suffer persecution for justice' sake who by their words, writings, or by their life defend the truth, the faith and Christian virtues; who cling firmly to God, and permit nothing to turn them from the duties of the Christian profession, from the practice of their holy religion, but on its account suffer hatred, contempt, disgrace, injury and injustice from the world. If they endure all' this with patience and perseverance, even, like the saints, with joy, then they will become like the saints and like them receive the heavenly crown. If we wish to be crowned with them, we must suffer with them: And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution (II Tim. 3, 12).
SUPPLICATION. How lovely, O Lord, are Thy
tabernacles! My soul longeth for Thy courts. My body and soul rejoice in Thee,
most loving God, Thou crown and reward of all the saints, whose temporal pains
and sufferings Thou dost reward with eternal joy, filling them with good! How
blessed are they who have faithfully served Thee, for they carry Thy name on
their forehead, and reign with Thee for all eternity. Grant us, we beseech
Thee, O God, by their intercession, Thy grace that we, after their example, may
serve Thee in sanctity and justice, in poverty and humility, in meekness and
repentance, in the ardent desire for all virtues, by mercy, perfect purity of
heart, in peacefulness and patience, following them, and taking part, one day,
with them in heavenly joy and happiness. Amen.
Salvation by
“Implicit” Faith?
But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to
God, must believe that he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him. Heb. 1,
6
Of course charity itself is
impossible without faith and hope. Could
anyone love a man if he did not believe it was possible to be or become his
friend? Or if he despaired of ever
gaining his friendship? So it is with man
in relation to God as He is in Himself.
Man must believe it is possible to attain a perfect friendship with God
in Heaven and he must hope to attain this friendship through God’s power before
he can love God as his supernatural destiny.
Fr. Walter Farrell, O. P. and
Fr. Marin Healy, My Way of Life – The
Summa Simplified for Everyone
Looming ahead is the
Great Apostasy predicted by St. Paul to the Thessalonians when the Antichrist, “the
man of sin” (2 Thess. 2: 3), will engage mankind in wholesale flight from God
and reality. From him can be expected
perfect acquiescence to the three temptations by which the devil failed to
seduce Christ in the desert. Turning
stones into bread by substituting false teaching for true doctrine, he will
confirm the satanic religion by false miracles, (that is “lying wonders”), as
it were casting himself down from the pinnacle of the temple to be borne up by
spiritual hands. Given “all the kingdoms
of the world and all their glory” (Matt. 4: 8-9) in return for falling down and
adoring Satan, Antichrist the King will establish a universal empire in the
fallen angel’s name. Aping as closely as
possible Christ’s consummation of the law and the prophets, he will capitulate
in his person the whole of the world’s apostatic tradition.
Solange Strong Hertz, Apostasy
in America
The Reason the
Message of LaSalette is Rejected or Unknown? They Are NOT 'Her People'!
It was 1846
and France was suffering social and political upheaval. Catholic churches had
been abandoned and the Sacraments neglected… On the eve of the Feast of Our
Lady of Sorrows, eleven-year-old Maxim Giraud and fourteen-year-old Melanie
Mathieu beheld a luminous sphere, radiating like the sun, curiously unfolding
before their eyes. Gradually they made out a woman seated with her face in her
hands, weeping. She slowly arose and crossed her arms on her breast, her head
some what inclined.
The children
were drawn immediately to the lady's tears that adorned her face like perfectly
cut diamonds glimmering the in the sun's rays. Her dynamic features were framed
delicately in a white-satin headdress, on which rested a crown of roses, a
bouquet in all shades of reds and pinks. A crucifix with pincers on one end and
a hammer on the opposite end hung over her satin shawl, which was lined with
more roses. The Madonna wore a long ivory dress embroidered in precious pearls
and a yellow apron tied neatly to her waist. Wearing pearl slippers that peeked
out from underneath her satin robe, she sheltered herself atop a bouquet of
roses.
"Come to
me, my children," she tenderly addressed the two who stood afar,
motionless. "Be not afraid. I am here to tell you something of the
greatest importance."
As soon as they
were in touching distance of her, she began to speak with the urgency of an
ending world:
"If my
people will not obey, I shall be compelled to loose my Son's arm. It is so
heavy, so pressing that I can no longer restrain it."
She told the children that her Son was especially
concerned that people were not keeping holy Sunday, and that religion had lost
its place in their country…. "You will make this known to all my people;
you will make this known to all my people," she repeated to them. Solange
Hertz, Our Lady of LaSalette
"It is a sin to believe there is salvation outside the
Catholic Church!"
Blessed Pope Pius IX
The Church is One, Holy, Catholic Apostolic,
and Roman : unique, the Chair founded on Peter. Outside her fold is to be
found nether the true faith nor eternal salvation, for it is impossible to have
God for a Father if one does not have the Church for a Mother.
Blessed Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quidem
The Great Error of Vatican
II –
The “pastoral” blunder that
there exists a disjunction between Divine Revelation and Dogma
The greatest concern of the
Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine
should be guarded and taught more efficaciously….. the authentic doctrine…
should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the
literary forms of modern thought. The
substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the
way in which it is presented is another. And it is the latter that must
be taken into great consideration with patience if necessary, everything being
measured in the forms and proportions of a Magisterium which is predominantly
pastoral in character. Pope John XXIII,
Opening Speech for Vatican II
“The New Evangelization”
– Without a foundation of repentance, prayer, and penance there will be no
fruit for, “The Interior Life is the Soul of the Apostolate.”
The purpose of the struggle
against our passions, the practice of the virtues, recollection, prayer, the
practice of the presence of God, and frequent reception of the Sacraments, is
to foster union with God and the growth of charity. The interior life is a secret hearth where a
soul in contact with God is inflamed with His love, and precisely because it is
inflamed and forged by love, it becomes a docile instrument which God can use
to diffuse love into the hearts of others.
Therefore, it is very important to recall frequently this great
principle: the interior life is the soul
of the apostolate. A deep interior
life therefore, from it will spring a fruitful apostolate, a true sharing in
Christ’s work of saving souls… Where there is little or no interior life,
charity and friendship with God are in danger of being extinguished; and if
this interior flame be extinguished, then the apostolate will be emptied of its
substance and reduced to mere external activity which may make a great noise,
but will not bring forth and fruit.
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary
Magdalen, O.C.D., Divine Intimacy
Efforts must therefore
be made to bring about an organization of society in which the life of the
people will not be subordinate to and at the mercy of Stock Exchange operations
and financial coups by the few. Already, in the great Encyclical Rerum
Novarum, May 15th, 1891, Pope Leo XIII had alluded to the havoc wrought by
usury. “For the ancient working-men's guilds were abolished in the last century
and no other organization took their place. Public institutions and the very
laws have set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees, it has come to
pass that workingmen have been surrendered, all isolated and helpless, to the
hard-heartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The
mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once
condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with the
like injustice still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be
added … the concentration of so many branches of trade in the hands of a few
individuals, so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon
the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of
slavery itself.”
Rev. Denis Fahey, The
Kingship of Christ According to the Principles of St. Thomas
“The Novelty of “Religious Liberty” is elevated to a
“Catholic Church….. Demand”
The Catholic Church
firmly advocates that due recognition be given
to the public dimension of religious adherence. In an overwhelmingly pluralist
society, this demand is not unimportant. Care must be taken to guarantee
that others are always treated with respect. Mutual respect grows only on the
basis of agreement on certain inalienable values that are proper to human
nature, in particular the inviolable dignity of every single person. Such
agreement does not limit the expression of individual religions; on the
contrary, it allows each person to bear witness explicitly to what he believes,
not avoiding comparison with others.
Pope Benedict XVI to
the Muslims in Germany, 10-2011
Peace Plan of Our Lady of
Fatima
1.
WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA REQUEST?
At Fatima Our Lady said that God wished to
establish in the world devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady said
that many souls would be saved from Hell and the annihilation of nations
averted if, in time, devotion to Her Immaculate Heart were established
principally by these two means:
A. the Consecration of Russia to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary by the Pope together with the world's bishops in a solemn public
ceremony, and
B. the practice or receiving Holy Communion (and
other specific devotions of about 1/2 hour in duration) in reparation for the
sins committed against the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the first Saturdays of five
consecutive months--a practice known to Catholics as "the First
Saturday" devotion.
2.
HAVE THESE REQUESTS OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA BEEN HONORED?
No, not entirely. A
number of the Faithful practice the "First Saturday" devotion, but
Russia has yet to be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in a solemn
public ceremony conducted by the Pope together with the world's Catholic
bishops.
In 1982 the last
Fatima seer, Lucia, when a cloistered nun living in Coimbra, Portugal, was
asked if an attempted consecration by Pope John Paul II had sufficed. She
replied that it did not suffice, because Russia was not mentioned and the
world's bishops had not participated. Another attempted consecration in 1984
likewise did not mention Russia or involve the participation of many of the
world's bishops, and Sister Lucia stated immediately afterwards that this
consecration, too, had failed to meet Our Lady's requirements.
3. WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA WARN?
It warns that if the
requests of Our Lady of Fatima for the Consecration of Russia and the First
Saturday devotion are not honored, the Church will be persecuted, there will be
other major wars, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and various nations
will be annihilated. Many nations will be enslaved by Russian militant
atheists. Most important, many souls will be lost.
4.
WHAT DOES THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA PROMISE?
The Message of
Fatima promises that if the requests of Our Lady of Fatima are carried out
"My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will Consecrate Russia
to Me, which will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to
mankind."
Prayer
Before Confession
MAY the blessed Angels
and Saints of God, who rejoice in the conversion of a sinner; and above all,
may thou, O Blessed Virgin, the refuge of the penitent and the Mother of
Mercies, intercede for me, that the Confession which I am now going to make may
not have the effect of rendering me more criminal than I am, but may procure
for me the happiness of a reconciliation with my long-offended God and the
grace never more to offend Him mortally.
And do thou, likewise,
my good Angel, the faithful guardian of my soul and the witness of my past sins
and infidelities---do thou, by thy prayers, assist me to rise again and beg
that, in this holy Sacrament, I may obtain those helps which may enable me to
lead a new life for the time to come. Amen.
The
United States is, as much as Israel, guilty for the Genocide of the Palestinian
People.
“I love Israel. I’m with you all the way...... Thanks to
the bravery and incredible skill of the Israeli Defense Forces and Operation
Rising Lion, the forces of chaos, terror, and ruin now stand weakened,
isolated, and totally defeated.”
“The story of fierce Israeli
resolve and triumph since October 7 should be proof to the entire world that
those who seek to destroy this nation are doomed to bitter failure.”
President Donald Trump, addressing the Israeli Knesset with Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“Donald Trump is the greatest friend that the State of Israel
has ever had in the White House. No American president has ever done more for
Israel, and, as I said in Washington, it ain’t even close. It’s really not a
match.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Israeli Knesset
with President Trump
"It is sentiments like these (from President Trump) – backed by a long list of pro-Israel actions
over two terms, including moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing
Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, recognizing Jewish claims in Judea
and Samaria for a 'Greater Israel', brokering the Abraham Accords, striking
Iran alongside Israel, decapitation strikes against Iranian and Hamas peace
negotiators, and directly supporting the Israeli genocide of Gaza with over $30
billion direct aid, billions more in indirect air with military, intelligence,
logistical and political support both in the United States and at the United
Nations including censorship in mainstream media and suppression of free speech
at college campuses."
Catholic political commentary
“For the Jews, ‘Anti-Semitism’ is anything that is in
opposition to the naturalistic Messianic domination of their nation over all
the others.”
Rev. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., B.A., D.Ph., D.D.
On the Charge of Anti-Semitism
in Our Time
“…Two reasons can be assigned to the fact
that Our Lord’s faithful members will often be betrayed by those who should be
on the side of Christ the King. Firstly, many Catholic writers speak of Papal
condemnations of Anti-Semitism without explaining the meaning of the term, and
never even allude to the documents which insist on the Rights of Our Divine
Lord, Head of the Mystical Body, Priest and King. Thus, very many are
completely ignorant of the duty incumbent on all Catholics of standing
positively for Our Lord’s Reign in society in opposition to Jewish Naturalism.
The result is that numbers of Catholics are so ignorant of Catholic doctrine
that they hurl the accusation of Anti-Semitism against those who are battling
for the Rights of Christ the King, thus effectively aiding the enemies of Our
Divine Lord. Secondly, many Catholic writers copy unquestioningly what they
read in the naturalistic or anti-Supernatural Press and do not distinguish
between Anti-Semitism in the correct Catholic sense, as explained above, and
‘Anti-Semitism’ as the Jews understand it. …”
Fr. Fahey’s Preface in Grand Orient
Freemasonry Unmasked: As the Secret Power Behind Communism by Monsignor George
F. Dillon, D.D.
Jews have
hated & persecuted the Catholic Church from the time of Jesus Christ to
this very day!
[The Jews are] a people who,
having imbrued their hands in a most heinous outrage [Jesus’ crucifixion], have
thus polluted their souls and are deservedly blind. . . . Therefore we have
nothing in common with that most hostile of people the Jews. We have received
from the Savior another way . . . our
holy religion. . . . On what subject
will that detestable association be competent to from a correct judgment, who
after that murder of their Lord . . .
are led… by. . . their innate fury?
Council of Nicaea, 325 AD
Jewish
Power is inversely proportional to the spiritual health of the Catholic Church
“Jews should not be placed in public
offices, since it is most absurd that a blasphemer of Christ should exercise
power over Christians.”
Fourth Lateran Council
Good Night, Sweet Princeton! By Fr. Leonard Feeney, 1952
Maritainism is a system of thought which
allows Catholics to be both Catholic and acceptable in the drawing rooms of
Protestant and Jewish philosophers. Maritainism is not a seeking and a finding
of the Word made flesh. It is a perpetual seeking for un-fleshed truth in an
abstract scheme called Christianity. Maritainism is the scrapping of the
Incarnation in favor of a God Whose overtures to us never get more personal or
loving than the five rational proofs for His existence. This plot to encourage
only pre-Bethlehem interest in God takes its name from its perpetrator, that
highly respected religious opportunist, Jacques Maritain.
The slightest acquaintance with Maritain’s
history is sufficient to indicate how awry he must be in his Catholicism. He is
a former Huguenot who married a Jewish girl named Raïssa. During their student
days in Paris, both Jacques and Raïssa felt a double pull in the general
direction of belief. Intellectually they were attracted to the religious
self-sufficiency of a Jewish intuitionist named Henri Bergson. Sociologically
they were attracted to the spurious Catholicism of Leon Bloy, a French
exhibitionist who made a liturgy of his own crudeness and uncleaness and tried
to attach it to the liturgy of the Church. At some point in their association
with an unbaptized Bergson and an unwashed Bloy, the Maritains figured out that
there was a promising future ahead of them in Catholicism.
Jacques Maritain is noted for his
solemn-high, holier-than-thou appearance. For this reason, more than one priest
reports that by the time a Maritain lecture is over, any priest who is present
has been made to feel that the Roman collar is around the wrong neck and that
perhaps he, the priest, ought to put on a necktie and kneel for Maritain’s
blessing.
One explanation of Maritain’s distant
expression is that he fancies himself to be the Drew Pearson of the Christian
social order. Judging by Maritain’s passion for the abstract, the fulfillment
of all his prophecies will come in an era when mothers can sing such songs as
“Rock-a-bye Baby, on the Dendrological Zenith,” and children recite such
bedtime prayers as “The Hail Mariology.”
Jacques Maritain prefers Thomism to Saint
Thomas Aquinas and, similarly, he much prefers the notion of the papacy to the
person of the Pope. He could not, however, turn down the prestige of an appointment
as French ambassador to the Vatican. Maritain went to Rome, but he protected
himself against over exposure to Italian faith by visits to Dr. George
Santayana. In Maritain, Santayana recognized a brother, the kind of European
intellectual cast-off that is annually being grabbed-up by American
Universities.
That Jacques Maritain should now be found
preaching at Princeton University is not so strange. It did not require too
much insight on Princeton’s part to see that a Catholic who hates Franco, speaks
at Jewish seminaries, and favors “theocentricity” in place of Jesus, would be a
bizarre, but harmless, addition to anybody’s faculty club.
Perhaps Princeton realized also that a
Catholic’s admirers are a good measure of his militancy. Among Maritain’s more
prominent sympathizers are John Wild, Charles Malik and Mortimer Adler (N.B.
Adler was converted and received into the Catholic Church in 1999 only 18
months before he died at 98 years of age), who are, respectively, an Anglican,
a Greek schismatic, and a Jew. Naturally Maritain could not insult
intellectuals like these by telling them that although they are outside the
Church they can get into Heaven because of their “invincible ignorance.” It was
necessary that Maritain concoct a new way of getting around the dogma, “No
Salvation Outside the Catholic Church.”
After a lot of abstract deliberation,
Maritain decided that a man could be “invisibly, and by a motion of his heart,
a member of the Church, and partake of her life, which is eternal life.” According
to Maritain’s new covenant, the important salvation-actions in our world are no
longer a head bowed to the waters of Baptism, a hand raised in Absolution, a
tongue outstretched to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. “A motion of his
heart,” says Maritain, is all that is required before a man may partake of
eternal life.
The Sacred Heart might have saved Himself a
lot of inconvenience had He only known this, one Friday afternoon on Calvary.
COMMENT: Jacques Maritain was Paul VI’s favorite philosopher. Maritain's reputation as a great philosopher is based on his supposed integration of the Scholastic principles of St. Thomas with the modern world. He had a world-wide reputation and following that extending beyond his
native France to hold visiting professorships
at Princeton and the University of Chicago, as well as a visiting lecturer at Notre Dame, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Toronto. Pope Paul VI publicly confessed his
profound respect and influence by
Maritain’s thought on his Credo of the People of God (1968). At
the close of the Second Vatican Council on December 8, 1965, the pope’s “Address
to Men of Thought and Science” was dedicated to his “dear friend and mentor, Jacques Maritain.” Pope Paul offered Maritain a cardinal’s hat, but the philosopher declined
it. Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom—Dignitatis Humanae—which teaches that the dignity of man is so exalted
that he possesses the inalienable right to neither conform his mind to God’s
revealed truth nor obey God’s commandments, drew as its inspiration Maritain’s book Man and the State (1951) which is an
articulation of the language
of “rights” that Dignitatis
Humanae employs.
“By
their fruit you shall know them!”; & by their fruit you had better well
know them!
For such false
apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of
Christ. And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of
light. Therefore it is no
great thing if his (Satan's) ministers be transformed as the ministers of
justice, whose end shall be according to their works.
II Corinthians
11:13-15
The order of divine justice exacts that
whosoever consents to another's evil suggestion, shall be subjected to him in his punishment; according to II Peter
2:19: "By whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the
slave."
St. Thomas Aquinas
The proper literal understanding of this dogma from the
Council of Trent:
Canon 4 on the sacraments in
general: If anyone says that the sacraments
of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, and that without
them or without the desire of them men obtain from God through faith alone
the grace of justification, though all are not necessary for each one, let him
be anathema.
The Dogma defines two revealed doctrinal truths:
1.
If anyone says: that the sacraments of the
New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, let him be
anathema.
2.
If anyone says: that without the
sacraments or (if anyone says) without the desire of the sacraments
men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, let him be
anathema.
Both the Sacrament of Baptism and the will to
receive the Sacrament are necessary for salvation!
“But
God desired that his confession should avail for his salvation, since he preserved him in this life until the
time of his holy regeneration.” St. Fulgentius
“If anyone is not baptized, not only in
ignorance, but even knowingly, he can in no way be saved. For his path to salvation was through the confession,
and salvation itself was in baptism.
At his age, not only was confession
without baptism of no avail: Baptism
itself would be of no avail for salvation if he neither believed nor
confessed.” St. Fulgentius
Notice,
both the CONFESSION AND THE BAPTISM are necessary for salvation, harkening back
to Trent’s teaching that both the laver AND the “votum” are required for
justification, and harkening back to Our Lord’s teaching that we must be born
again of water AND the Holy Spirit.
In fact, you see the language of St. Fulgentius reflected in the Council of
Trent. Trent describes the votum (so-called “desire”) as the PATH
TO SALVATION, the disposition to Baptism, and then says that “JUSTIFICATION
ITSELF” (St. Fulgentius says “SALVATION ITSELF”) follows the dispositions in
the Sacrament of Baptism.
Yet another solid argument for why Trent is teaching that BOTH the votum
AND the Sacrament are required for justification.
“Hold
most firmly and never doubt in the least that not only all pagans but also all
Jews and all heretics and schismatics who end this present life outside the
Catholic Church are about to go into the eternal fire that was prepared for the
Devil and his angels.” St. Fulgentius
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes
and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only
pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life
eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was prepared for
the devil and his angels.’” Pope Eugene
IV, Cantate Domino
Ladislaus, CathInfo
We will see
the same from Pope Leo!
The
end of dialogue is to produce opinion. The purpose of logical argument is to
appeal to the intellect to arrive at truth.
Rhetoric appeals to the will and poetry to the imagination. The emphasis
of the Novus Ordo Church since Vatican II on dialogue is therefore a
repudiation of any claim to truth offering in its place only the opinions of
churchmen. It is the debasement of Jesus Christ’s gospel from Truth to just
another opinion, from historical fact to mythology. It is only incidental that
Novus Ordo Church, having turned its back against the truth, has also turned
away from rhetoric and poetry which explains why it is both effeminate and
ugly.
“The Church will have to opt for dialogue as her style and method,
fostering an awareness of the existence of bonds and connections in a complex
reality. . . . No vocation, especially within the Church, can be placed outside
this outgoing dynamism of dialogue . . . . [emphasis added].”
Pope Francis’ Instrumentum
Laboris, XV ORDINARY GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF SYNOD OF BISHOPS: YOUNG
PEOPLE, THE FAITH AND VOCATIONAL DISCERNMENT
And
thus, the 'spirit of Vatican II' - dialogue so that everyone can reach an
accomodation of error and the repudiation of logical argument appealing to
truth!
“Don’t proselytize; respect others’ beliefs. We can inspire others
through witness so that one grows together in communicating. But the worst
thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyzes: ‘I am talking with you
in order to persuade you,’ No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her
own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytizing.”
Pope Francis
Explicit
Supernatural Faith in God’s Revealed Truth is Necessary as a Necessity of Means
for Salvation.
If you do not
believe this, you do not possess Supernatural Faith!
Responses of the Holy Office under Pope Clement XI, 1703:
Q. Whether a minister
is bound, before baptism is conferred on an adult, to explain to him all the
mysteries of our faith, especially if he is at the point of death, because this
might disturb his mind. Or, whether it is sufficient, if the one at the point
of death will promise that when he recovers from the illness, he will take care
to be instructed, so that he may put into practice what has been commanded him.
Resp. A promise is not
sufficient, but a missionary is bound to explain to an adult, even a dying one
who is not entirely incapacitated, the mysteries of faith which are necessary by a necessity of means, as
are especially the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Q. Whether it is
possible for a crude and uneducated adult, as it might be with a barbarian, to
be baptized, if there were given to him only an understanding of God and some
of His attributes, especially His justice in rewarding and in
punishing, according to this passage of the Apostle "He that
cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder' [Heb . 11:23],
from which it is inferred that a barbarian adult, in a certain case of urgent
necessity, can be baptized although he does not believe explicitly in Jesus
Christ.
Resp. A missionary should not baptize
one who does not believe explicitly in the Lord Jesus Christ, but is bound to
instruct him about all those matters which are necessary, by a necessity of
means, according to the capacity of the one to be baptized.”
COMMENT: The infamous 1949 Holy Office Letter, sent privately to
Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston for the purpose of censoring Fr. Lenard
Feeney for his belief in the Dogma that there is no salvation outside the
Catholic Church, affirmed the novel doctrine of 'salvation by implicit desire'.
The "implicit desire" was to be a "member of the Church"
and the evidence of this "implicit desire" was an explicit belief in
a 'god who rewards and punishes'. The Letter teaches that the only requirement
for salvation is found in St. Paul's Letter to the Hebrews 11:13. No longer
were the belief in any revealed truth, the reception of any sacrament, or being
a subject of the Roman Pontiff necessary as necessities of means for salvation.
This Letter teaches that any "good-willed" Jew as a Jew, Hindu as a
Hindu, Mohammedan as a Mohammedan, Protestant as a Protestant, etc., etc. can
be members of the Church and can obtain salvation because they believe in a
'god who rewards and punishes'. The Holy Office response of 1703 makes it clear
that the belief in a God who rewards and punishes is only the natural
philosophical prerequisite for receiving the gospel good-news of salvation and
of itself is insufficient grounds for receiving the sacrament of Baptism.
After
40 Years of Dialogue, Rabbi identifies papal “conundrum.”
The real conundrum that faces Benedict XVI on his visit to Israel… is should
he be loyal to the Gospels which claim that only acceptance of Christ can bring
the messianic age, or should he endorse Vatican II which acknowledges that
Jews… can find the kingdom of God via a different route? Should he look inwards, backwards or
forwards?
Rabbi Jonathan Romain, The Pope’s Jewish Dilemma, The Guardian
There is yet a time of stillness and indifference. Liberalism is a
twilight state in which all errors are softened, in which no persecution for
religion will be countenanced. It is the stillness before the storm. There is a
time coming when nothing will be persecuted but truth, and if you possess the
truth, you will share the trial.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster
Remember
, O man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.
"An excessive desire for liberty at the expense of everything else
is what undermines democracy and leads to the demand for
tyranny." Plato
In a 2022 lecture at Notre Dame, Alasdair MacIntyre argued that the
claims and conceptions of universal and inalienable human dignity as reflected
in documents such as the 1948 United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and in various post-war European constitutions are puzzling, since this
dignity requires a duty of respect to everyone just for being human, no matter
their behavior or character, so Stalin the mass murderer has as much dignity
and deserves as much respect as Mother Teresa. Aquinas’ view
of dignitas as interpreted by Charles De Koninick is a challenge to
this view, for it assigns human dignity, not to the mere fact of being human,
but to the end to which we are called, which is supernatural, union with God,
which might not be attained due to one’s choices on earth against those common
goods which enable our attainment of the supernatural end, and so human
dignitas could be lost. According to this view, the 20th-century concept of
human dignity is much too individualistic, and because it is not based in
justice and the common good, can only provide negative prescriptions against
the undignified treatment of humans. It is unable to provide positive
prescriptions that enable persons to obtain the common goods and the virtues
they need to attain their supernatural end. For MacIntyre, we need to speak of
human dignity in terms of justice, what we owe to each other for the sake of
enabling persons to attain their personal and common goods and final end, which
is the knowledge and love of God in this life and the next.
Thaddeus Kozinski, PhD, Introduction to Article entitled, From Liberal
Democracy to Global Totalitarianism, September 26, 2023
Pope Leo calls for unity in climate action on 10-year anniversary of
Laudato si’
Pope Leo XIV appealed to all of humanity to unite, overcome
differences, and work together to respond to climate change and ecological
destruction
The Tablet | Aili Winstanley Channer | 02
October 2025
He was speaking to climate activists and
religious leaders commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the encyclical Laudato si’ at Castel Gandolfo
yesterday.
It was the opening of the three-day
“Raising Hope for Climate Justice” conference organised by the Laudato si’
Movement in collaboration with ecclesial and institutional partners. Pope Leo reiterated Pope
Francis’ concern about “those who deride climate change” in the 2023
Apostolic Exhortation Laudate
Deum, and asserted, “there
is no room for indifference”.
He asked, “What must be done now to ensure that caring for our common
home and listening to the cry of the earth and the poor do not appear as mere
passing trends or, worse still, that they be seen and felt as divisive
issues?”
Attendees at the conference include
Christine Allen of Cafod. Bishop John Arnold, the lead bishop for the
environment for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said, “Pope Leo reminded us that Pope
Francis had emphasised that ‘the most effective solutions will not come from
individual efforts alone, but above all from major political decisions on the
national and international levels’. More than ever, we need to work together,
to think of future generations, and take urgent action if we are to truly
respond to the scale of this climate crisis: a crisis which affects those who
are poorest and most vulnerable and have done least to cause it.”
This view reflects Pope Leo’s call for ecological conversion at all
levels of society, including by strengthening democracy: “Citizens need to take
an active role in political decision-making at national, regional and local
levels. Only then will it be possible to mitigate the damage done to the
environment.”
Pope Leo was joined by Marina Silva,
Brazil’s minister of the environment and climate change and the head of the
United Nations Global Ethical Stocktake, an initiative to foster societal
reflection on ethical responsibility for climate change ahead of the 2025 UN
Conference of Parties (COP30), which will be held in Belem, Brazil, in
November. Pope Leo expressed his hope that COP30 and other upcoming
international summits “will
listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor, families, indigenous peoples,
involuntary migrants and believers throughout the world”.
But Pope Leo also emphasised that although these challenges are “of a
social and political nature”, they are “first and foremost of a spiritual
nature: they call for conversion”. He reaffirmed the spiritual
importance of caring for the Earth as God’s creation and its inseparability
from our responsibility towards the poor and vulnerable: “We cannot love God, whom we
cannot see, while despising his creatures. Nor can we call ourselves disciples
of Jesus Christ without participating in his outlook on creation and his care
for all that is fragile and wounded.”
The film star Arnold Schwarzenegger, known for his roles in
high-profile action films as well as his climate activism as Governor of California
and head of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, spoke alongside Pope Leo and
called him an “action hero” for his message on the environment. Pope Leo
smiled as he began his address. He affirmed the crucial and diverse
contributions made to mitigating the crisis by every individual at the
conference: “There is
indeed an action hero with us this afternoon: it is all of you, who are working
together to make a difference.”
As he closed, he said: “God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared
for the world that he created, for the benefit of all and for future
generations, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters. What will
be our answer?”
Pope Leo XIV Blesses Huge 20,000-Year-Old Chunk Of Greenland Ice
Forbes | Leslie Katz | Oct 06, 2025
Pope Leo XIV stood on stage at a climate
conference in Rome last week and laid his right hand on a massive chunk of ice,
blessing it.
This wasn’t just any ice. It had broken off
the vast Greenland Ice Sheet, a key regulator of global climate that’s
shrinking quickly as it melts due to climate change. The resulting rise in
global sea levels could flood many tens of millions of homes, scientists warn.
Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson
transported the ice to the Raising Hope Conference with the help of Danish
geologist Minik Rosing to serve as a stark symbol of how quickly the world’s
glaciers are disappearing.
“Lord of life, bless this water,” the pope
said after touching the dripping ice. “May it awaken our hearts, cleanse our
indifference, soothe our grief and renew our hope through Christ our lord.”
Eliasson is known for his installation
art using light, water, and air. Eliasson called it “striking” to
witness the pope bless the 20,000-year-old piece of Greenlandic glacial ice.
“We felt the presence of the fragile ice underscored the importance of
recognizing that nature is not separate from humanity,” the artist wrote on
Instagram.
COMMENT: Pope Leo,
celebrating the 10th anniversary of Laudato si', the earth worshiping
encyclical of Pope Francis, blessed a block of Ice to counteract the diabolical
forces of global warming striking a grave and focused posture that was in
marked contrast to the stupidity of the gesture. The act says a lot more about
Leo than it does about climatology. Leo, like Francis, is believer in the pagan
Gaia cult of Mother Earth worship. Leo refers twice in his sermon to the
"Cry of the Earth, the Cry of the Poor." Leo took this phrase from
Francis' Laudato si' and Francis took
the quote without attribution from Leonard Boff's Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. Boff is a former Franciscan
priest who was censored by the liberal Cardinal Ratzinger when he headed the
CDF under the liberal JPII for his extreem Marxist liberation theology. Boff is
famous for his development of an integrated theology of Marxism, Gaia cult
earth worship and "social justice." He was admired by Francis and he
is admired twice as much by Leo.
If
the ice block is 20,000 years old then the Genesis creation account and the
global flood of Noe is reduced to mythology and not divine revelation. The fact
is, ancient mythology ended with the Christian revelation of Jesus Christ but
the modern scientific world is doing its best to resurrect the cult of
mythology. The world likes to talk about the scientific fables of Big Bang,
primordial soups with lightening bubbling forth proteins that congeal into
cellular life with the teleological purpose of producing the DNA of Darwinian
man. These fables are believed and shamelessly pandered by our neo-modernists
popes. The absurdity is that the neo-modernists popes have embraced the myths
of scientology when science itself has discredited their claims. Scientists
have been predicting global flooding of coastal areas for the last fifty years
with no evidence of rising sea levels. Global warming is not science. It is
liberal ideology applied to climatology that always calls for a one-world
governance to enforce its dictatorial and anti-Catholic mandates. The alleged
global warming is always without exception a man made assault on Mother Earth
that requires the ritual murder of 6.5 billion people for a world
"sustainable" population of 500 million for expiation. Never is it
considered in their calculus that the
increase of global temperature would make available millions of more
acres of arable land and lengthen the growing season in millions of additional
acres creating a massive increase in the food supply and areas of habitable
land. Scientists have no idea whatsoever if global warming, if it is in fact
happening at all, would have overall beneficial or harmful effects. While Pope
Leo is a resident in Rome he might ask what became of Rome's ancient Port City
of Ostia which was at the time of Jesus Christ located directly on the sea at
the mouth of the Tiber River. It is today three kilometers from the coast.
Citizens of Ostia may have lost their beach front property but they are not
under water.
“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
Exsurge Domine - USA; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
The Association Exsurge Domine is committed to provide assistance, support and material aid for
clerics, religious and consecrated persons who are victims of the Bergoglian Regime.
It is of highest importance to act, to defend the immutable Tradition of the
Catholic Faith, to preserve and promote the Apostolic Mass, and to save
Christendom. In this decisive moment, we must choose to counter evil, or be
swallowed up by its most pestilent breath. Only those who fight as the
Maccabee’s did shall merit victory.
DEFENDE
ECCLESIAM TUAM
In many nations that are no longer
Catholic-such as England, Germany or the Netherlands, for example-you can still
see small chapels carved out of attics and cellars, or home altars hidden in
invisible closets or niches: they were used for the clandestine celebration of
Mass in times of persecution, when it was a crime to be faithful to the Church
of Rome and priests had to hide to avoid imprisonment or the death sentence.
Without going back to Diocletian, even in the 16th and 17th centuries “papists”
were considered a threat, and were barely tolerated as long as they had no
churches, convents, seminaries, or schools.
These
persecutions are recurring today, in perhaps a less bloody form, and the
perpetrators are not Lutherans or the thugs of Olivier Cromwell, but Cardinals,
Bishops and Prelates of the Conciliar sect, infiltrated into the Vatican and
well determined to wipe out all traces of the “old religion” and the “old Mass”
that they have replaced with the religion of ecology, of welcome, of
inclusiveness, of the New World Order.
The
apostasy we are experiencing is not very different from that of the bishops who
swore allegiance to Henry VIII in order not to lose rents and benefits: the
difference is that today the act of obedience is required toward Bergoglio, the
Second Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo, the “synodal church,” Pachamama.
Those
who do not yield, those who remain faithful to the Priesthood or Religious Vows
are ostracized, mocked, vilified, persecuted and above all deprived of
ministry, a dwelling place and means of livelihood. Without mercy, without
charity, without humanity.
Exsurge Domine is the response of those who do not
surrender to this betrayal of the modernist Hierarchy: it joins us to our
brothers of past ages, to the faithful who gave hospitality to the monk wanted
by the soldiers of Elizabeth I, a hot meal to the nun with no convent left in
revolutionary France, a hiding place to the Mexican priest pursued by the
soldiers of the Masonic government. We can help those persecuted priests,
religious men and women who in anonymity, silence, and humble acceptance of
trials show us the suffering face of Christ ascending Golgotha.
Let
us therefore prove that we know how to accompany the Faith we profess with good
works, with prayer, with charity and almsgiving. For these priests, these
friars, these nuns can stop the arm of divine Justice and give hope for the
future in our children.
“Exsurge Domine – USA”
Address: PO Box 121, Rice Lake, WI 54868
Email: info@exsurgedomineusa.org
501(c)3 approved Tax Code: 93-3884604
EXCERPT: The Vatican has been covering-up the crimes of homosexual pederasts
since 1922 but the practice became actively enforced policy since 1962!!!
The total payouts by the
Catholic Church for sex abuse claims in the United States have exceeded $5
billion over the past two decades with almost all of this for homosexual
crimes.
FROM FORGIVENESS, TO
SILENCE... TO BETRAYAL, By Michael Kenny
THE FEAR OF
SCANDAL: A DEEPENING MOTIF
As the Church gained public visibility and institutional structure, the
fear of scandal – that is, anything that could bring shame or doubt upon the
Church – grew proportionally. This concern is not without biblical foundation.
Apparently Christ Himself warned that:
“Scandals must come, but woe to the one through whom they come.”
In a world where the Church was often maligned, the temptation to
protect its reputation – even at the cost of truth – grew strong.
This approach reached its most formal expression in the
20th century.
CRIMEN
SOLICITATIONIS: CODIFYING SECRECY
In 1962, the Vatican issued a secret instruction titled CRIMEN
SOLICITATIONIS. Which laid out procedures for dealing with priests accused
of using the confessional to solicit sexual acts (an update of canon 904 in
1741). While its original focus was on confessional abuse – a particularly
grievous offense – it extended its protocols to cover ALL sexual misconduct by
clergy, including child abuse.
This document mandated
strict secrecy:
“Cases of this nature
are subject to the strictest pontifical secret – under pain of
excommunication.”
This meant the victims, witnesses, and Church authorities were all
bound by silence, ostensibly to protect the sacrament and the dignity of the
Church. But in practice, this secrecy protected the perpetrators and silenced
the victims.
The same theological instinct that once prompted Origen to counsel
forgiveness now found its legal expression in institutional concealment.
The Church fathers were not wrong to value forgiveness. But forgiveness
without justice is not sanctity – it is surrender. And the Church must never
surrender the innocent to the sins of the powerful.
THE COST OF
MISAPPLIED MERCY
What unites the early Christian response to personal violation with the
institutional culture of silence centuries later is a tragic misapplication
mercy – a prioritizing of the Church's image, or of the offender's soul, over
the immediate demands of justice and the protection of the innocent.
In the name of forgiveness, the Church failed to act.
In the name of avoiding scandal, it created a greater one.
In the name of unity, it tolerates wolves among the sheep.
The very teachings of Christ – meant to uphold truth, protect the weak,
and heal the broken – were twisted into realizations for secrecy and inaction.
TOWARD A NEW ETHOS
OF ACCOUNTABILITY
The path forward must involve more than policy reform. It requires
a re-examination of the Church's spiritual instincts – a return to the full
Gospel, where mercy and justice walk hand in hand.
Forgiveness does not mean the abandonment of truth.
Compassion does not mean the protection of the predator.
The Church must rediscover the moral courage to expose evil, even when
it dwells in its own house.
EPILOGUE: A WAR ON
INNOCENCE
There is a deeper layer to this crisis. Darker than secrecy. Worse than
betrayal. It is diabolical.
Satan hates God. This hatred is total, consuming and unrelenting. But
Satan can't hurt God directly – God is beyond his reach. So he strikes where it
hurts most: at what God loves – CHILDREN.
Jesus told us to let the children come to Him. Jesus warned about the
millstone. So, what then is a perfect way for Satan's followers to do his
bidding and please him, and hate God at the same time...
VIOLATE A CHILD,
and do it wearing the robes of Christ
In this perverse inversion of the priesthood, the altar becomes a
hunting ground, and the confessional, a trap. [....]
COMMENT: The problem was magnified in the 1983 Code of Canon Law
protecting homosexual predators. Their hypocrisy is evident when compared to
the treatment given to Fr. Samuel Waters. Homosexual predators are given the
full canonical rights of due process while Fr. Waters was denied canonical due
process for the "crime" of offering the "received and
approved" immemorial Roman rite of Mass.
COMMENT: From the 1917 Code of Canon Law, clerical homosexual predators
and other sex offenders who were found
guilty were laicized and turned over to the state for suffer criminal
penalties. Such a response was necessary to restore justice, protect the
faithful, and begin the hard work of rebuilding. Everything changed in 1922
with a new canon law which required all bishops of the world to violate
mandatory reporting laws of the state by concealing child abuse and
homosexuality by clerics from criminal state law enforcement. This document, Crimens
Sollicitationis, was included in the 1983 Code of Canon Law and remained
in force until 2001.
Abp. Vigano the former apostolic nuncio to the United States was
required first by Crimens Sollicitationis and then by Sacramentum Sanctitatis Tutela of
2001 and then by Graviora Delicta of 2010 to conceal any knowledge of
sexual crimes by clergy from public disclosure. The “Spotlight” investigation
of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in 2002 revealed that many clerics found
guilty of child sexual abuse were repeatedly returned to Catholic ministry
where they repeated their crimes on new children. Following this investigation,
the United States was the only country that received an exemption from the
Vatican policy to conceal sexual abuse from state criminal law enforcement.
Canon 1341 of the current 1983 Code of Canon Law, requires bishops
whenever possible to ask priests to stop committing crimes, instead of punishing
them for their actions. What is perhaps worse, Canon 1324 in the 1983 Code is
used to decrease punishment for pedophiles on the grounds that pedophiles have
less freedom than non-pedophiles to control their perverse passions. Thus, a
diagnosis of pedophilia lessens culpability and imputability of the crime of
pedophilia. As a result, bishops have concluded pedophiles should receive a
lesser punishment for pedophilia than other sex offenders.
The SSPX follows the 1983 Code and has used it cover up sexual
offenders within the SSPX. This includes the former district superios in the
United States for the SSPX, Fr. Arnaud Rostand who was sentenced to a French
prison after conviction of homosexual pederasty in France, Spain and
Switzerland against seven boys on scouting trips between 2002 and 2018. The
purpose of this is not detraction of the SSPX but to point out an ugly fact
that every faithful Catholic should be aware of when receiving their
sacraments, attending their schools or participating in their supervised camps
and other summer activities. They as an organization follow the Vatican policy
to cover up any crimes of sexual abuse of children.
"Only the Prudent man can be brave."
Josef Pieper
Pro-abortion Sen. Durbin
says he’s ‘overwhelmed’ by Pope Leo’s apparent defense of his award
‘It is amazing to me. It’s
quite a moment,’ Durbin said about Pope Leo appearing to support the
pro-abortion and pro-LGBT senator’s ‘lifetime achievement award’ from Cdl.
Blase Cupich.
LifeSiteNews | Emily Mangiaracina | Oct
2, 2025 — Pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin said he is “overwhelmed” by
Pope Leo XIV’s apparent support for his “lifetime achievement award” from
Cardinal Blase Cupich.
Leo
on Tuesday appeared to imply that he was not opposed to Cupich’s decision to
give the award to the radically pro-abortion and pro-LGBT Durbin, when asked
about the matter by a journalist.
“I
think that it is very important to look at the overall work that a senator has
done during … 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” he stated. “I
understand the difficulty and the tensions but I think, as I myself have spoken
to in the past, it is important to look at many issues that are related to what
is the teaching of the Church.”
“Someone
who says I’m against abortion but says I’m in favor of the death penalty is not
really pro-life. Someone who says I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement
with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don’t know if
that’s pro-life,” Leo then said. He went on to conclude, “So, they are very
complex issues, I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them.”
On
the same day Leo appeared to defend Sen. Durbin receiving the lifetime award
from Cupich, the pro-abortion politician announced that he will decline the
award from the Archdiocese of Chicago after facing a strong backlash, including
criticism from several U.S. bishops.
Durbin
told NBC News he was surprised by “the level of controversy” over the award,
and that he declined it “because the reaction has been so controversial against
the cardinal who proposed it, and I see no point in going forward with that.”
Commenting
on the pope’s defense of his award, Durbin said, “It is amazing to me. It’s
quite a moment. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know it was gonna happen.”
As
the Lepanto Institute has pointed out on X, Durbin’s award violates the very
laws of Cupich’s archdiocese. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield has
affirmed, “The U.S. bishops have clearly taught that support for abortion
disqualifies individuals from receiving honors from Catholic institutions.”
Durbin’s
award, and Leo’s failure to denounce his award, is even more shocking
considering that since his election to the U.S. Senate in 1997, Durbin has
supported every possible brutal method of abortion, as well as even
post-abortion infanticide: He voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act,
the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, and the Born-Alive Abortion
Survivors Protection Act.
He
also supported legislation aimed at codifying and expanding Roe v. Wade – the
“Women’s Health Protection Act” – despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that it
was unconstitutional.
COMMENT: Pope Leo is defending the pro-abortion Sen. Durbin while at the same
time slandering faithful Catholics. His appeal to the 'seamless garment,'
subsequently called the "consistent ethic of life," is grounded on
the Vatican II novelty that the dignity of the human person is so great that he
is not obligated to believe the truths that God has revealed or obey the
commandments God. The novelty was developed by his Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of
Chicago in 1984 who was a notorious and clever homosexual who did as much
damage to the Church as the notorious Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. To say as
Leo has that Catholics who oppose abortion are not really pro-life if they do
not oppose the death penalty for convicted murderers is to claim that a
murderer has a greater right to life than his victim. As for opposing unjust
wars the homosexual crowd and their liberal Catholic supporters have done
precious little over the last 35 years.
Vatican
Council I listing the beneficial Fruits of the Council of Trent which are in
every detail exactly the opposite which we have seen from Vatican Council II
Now this redemptive providence
appears very clearly in unnumbered benefits, but most especially is it
manifested in the advantages which have been secured for the Christian world by
ecumenical councils, among which the council
of Trent requires special mention, celebrated though it was in evil
days.
Thence came:
1. a closer definition and more fruitful
exposition of the holy dogmas of religion and
2. the condemnation and repression of errors;
thence too,
3. the restoration and vigorous strengthening
of ecclesiastical discipline,
4. the advancement of the clergy in zeal for
·
learning and
·
piety,
5. the founding of colleges for the training
of the young for the service of religion; and finally
6. the renewal of the moral life of the
Christian people by
· a more accurate instruction of the faithful, and
· a more frequent reception of the sacraments. What is more, thence also
came
7. a closer union of the members with the
visible head, and an increased vigour in the whole Mystical Body of Christ.
Thence came:
1. the multiplication of religious orders and
other organisations of Christian piety; thence too
2. that determined and constant ardour for the
spreading of Christ’s kingdom abroad in the world, even at the cost of shedding
one’s blood.
While we recall with grateful hearts, as is
only fitting, these and other outstanding gains, which the divine mercy has
bestowed on the church especially by means of the last ecumenical synod, we
cannot subdue the bitter grief that we feel at most serious evils, which have
largely arisen either because
o the authority of the sacred synod was held in contempt by all too many,
or because
o its wise decrees were neglected.
First Vatican Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Faith, listing some of the manifold beneficial fruits from
the Council of Trent!
Regarding the Sin of Schism
and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
There are no manifest acts of schism with one
and only one important exception which will be identified below. This means there
are no acts that are necessarily always and everywhere evidence of a schismatic
motive in the internal forum excepting one. Contrasted, for example, with
abortion and blasphemy which are acts that are manifest sins because they can
never be done with a morally right intention; the act itself reveals the intent
of the internal forum as being vicious. These are always and everywhere
necessarily mortal sins. As St. Paul says, "Some
men's sins are manifest, going before to judgment: and some men they follow
after" (1Tim 5:24). St. Paul gives specific examples of "manifest
sins": "Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind
(sodomites), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor
extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 6:10). What exactly
is the schismatic motive that a contentious canonical process must discover for
conviction and attribution of imputability of the crime?
The canonical definition for both heresy and
schism are taken directly almost verbatim from St. Thomas Aquinas:
"Schismatics are those who refuse to submit to the Sovereign Pontiff, and
to hold communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his
supremacy." Schism is the repudiation of the universal jurisdiction of
Sovereign Pontiff and communion with those who accept it. It is the burden of
the canonical trial to prove the schismatic intention for all schismatics are
disobedient to the Sovereign Pontiff but not all who are disobedient to the
Sovereign Pontiff are schismatics. St. Thomas' in his examination identifies
schism as a specific species of sin.
St. Thomas says, "Hence the sin of schism is, properly speaking, a special
sin, for the reason that the schismatic
intends to sever himself from that unity which is the effect of charity:
because charity unites not only one person to another with the bond of
spiritual love, but also the whole Church in unity of spirit." The genus to which schism belongs is acts
opposed to peace which is the fruit of "that unity which is the effect of charity."
Regarding peace, St. Thomas continues: "Peace implies a twofold union...
The first is the result of one's own appetites being directed to one object;
while the other results from one's own appetite being united with the appetite
of another: and each of these unions is effected by charity." All acts
that disturb the fruit of peace are directed against the cause of peace which
is charity."
Acts of disobedience against properly
constituted authority are only acts of schism when the intention is to overturn
the peace of unity caused by charity. This intention constitutes the species difference of schism from other
acts opposed to peace, as St. Thomas says, the schismatic "intends to separate
himself from the unity that charity makes" (Q.39, a.1.) among the faithful. St.
Thomas is offering an essential
definition of schism which is the best of all definitions because it is the
most intelligible because it identifies the essence.
Schism, just as other acts opposed to peace enumerated by St. Thomas, which
include discord, contention,
war, strife and sedition, requires contextualization. Specifically for the case
of Archbishop Viganò, St. Thomas says that morality of contention, which is the opposition to
another in speech, is determined by the intention: "As to the intention,
we must consider whether he contends against the truth, and then he is to be
blamed, or against falsehood, and then he should be praised." Archbishop
Carlo Maria Viganò's "contention" against Pope Francis is the
contention of truth against falsehood and is therefore praiseworthy and not
schismatic. This is why a canonical trial is called "contentious" for
it is intended to reveal who is contending for truth.
The poles of contention are truth-falsehood
which is the same for dogmas of faith. As St. Jude admonishes: "I was
under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for
the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3). Schism is the
rejection of the divinely revealed truth of papal universal jurisdiction, a
dogma of faith since Vatican I. Schism is manifested by disobedience but all
disobedience is not schism. Obedience to God is unqualified. All other acts of
obedience are morally good only to the degree that they are properly regulated
by the virtue of Religion which is the primary subsidiary virtue under Justice.
Any act of obedience that violates the virtue of Religion is a sin. The virtue
of Religion above all requires that we "give unto God the things that are
God's." This first and necessary act of obedience is to believe all that
God has revealed and to keep his commandments. Without this first necessary
condition, it is impossible to keep the greatest commandment to love God above
all things and it is impossible to have "the unity that charity
makes."
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was
administratively "excommunicated" for "schism" because the
administrative process avoided the canonical requirement to prove that his
intent was to "separate himself from the unity that charity makes"
among the faithful. They denied the right of Archbishop Viganò to defend
himself in a contentions
forum against the charge which would obviously have included discussing the
heretical acts of Pope Francis which are manifest. The ultimate purpose of the
canonical process is to determine truth and bring those who have deviated from
truth back from error. But for many the contention itself irrespective of truth
or falsehood is the manifest evidence of schism. The reason for this will
become clearer after discussing the relationship in the context of faith and
charity, and heresy and schism.
Schismatics "refuse to submit to the
Sovereign Pontiff" because they deny that the pope possesses universal
jurisdiction conferred by God for the
legitimate exercise of the papal office which produces unity and peace.
Universal jurisdiction of the pope is a divinely revealed truth that was
dogmatized at Vatican I Council. St. Thomas says:
"Heresy and schism are distinguished in
respect of those things to which each is opposed essentially and directly. For
heresy is essentially opposed to faith, while schism is essentially opposed to
the unity of ecclesiastical charity. Wherefore just as faith and charity are different virtues, although
whoever lacks faith lacks charity, so too schism and heresy are different
vices, although whoever is a heretic is also a schismatic, but not
conversely."
Since the universal jurisdiction of the pope
has become a dogma at Vatican Council I, a schismatic is now also conversely
always a heretic. Importantly, faith precedes charity. "Without faith, it
is impossible to please God" (Heb 11-6) because "whoever lacks faith lacks charity."
The keys of universal jurisdiction were promised to St. Peter after his
profession of faith which is its proximate material cause. Many Church Fathers,
such as St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom, describe an analogical identity
of the rock (petra) with divine faith, with St. Peter, with Jesus Christ the
"cornerstone," and the Church itself. The faith proceeds and is the proximate cause of the
universal jurisdiction conferred by Jesus Christ because faith is indispensible
to the bond of unity which is charity.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning wrote:
“The
interpretation by the Fathers of the words ‘On this rock; etc. is fourfold, but
all four interpretations are not more than four aspects of one and the same
truth, and all are necessary to complete its full meaning. They all implicitly
or explicitly contain the perpetual stability of Peter’s faith...:’
“In
these two promises [i.e. Lk 22:32, Mt 16:18] a divine assistance is pledged to
Peter and to his successors, and that divine assistance is promised to secure
the stability and indefectibiity of the Faith in the supreme Doctor and Head of
the Church, for the general good of the Church itself.”
Cardinal
Henry Edward Manning, “The Vatican Council and Its Definitions: A Pastoral
Letter to the Clergy”, p. 83-84, 1870
All
this is nicely summed up by St. Paul who admonishes "that you walk worthy
of the vocation in which you are called; With all humility and mildness, with
patience, supporting one another in charity. Careful to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one
Spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one
baptism" (Eph. 4:1-5). The primary
and essential cause and sign of the unity in the Church is the faith. The pope
is only secondarily and accidentally the sign and cause of unity in the Church.
If the pope falls from the faith he is to be confronted as St. Paul did to St.
Peter when he "walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel" and
accommodated the Judaizers leading others into "dissimulation" (Gal.
2:11). If the pope is a heretic he "lacks faith (and) lacks charity".
Without charity he breaks the bond of unity in the Church and necessarily
becomes schismatic. Manifest Heresy is the one and only sin that identifies a
schismatic because it manifests a schismatic intent.
Tikkun olam (Hebrew תיקון
עולם, literally, 'repair of the world') is a
concept in Judaism, often interpreted as aspiration to behave and act
constructively and beneficially. Documented use of the term dates back to the
Mishnaic period (ca. 10-220 AD), (that is, the time when the oral traditions of
the Jews were committed to the written form in the Mishna, also called the Oral
Torah). Since medieval times, kabbalistic literature has broadened use of the
term. In the modern era, among the post-Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment,
1770-1880) movements, tikkun olam is the idea that Jews bear responsibility not
only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the
welfare of society at large. For many contemporary pluralistic rabbis, the term
refers to "Jewish social justice" or "the establishment of Godly
qualities throughout the world". Wikipedia
COMMENT: Jews
repeatedly since the time of Jesus Christ are the passionate creators and
principle instigators of ideological movements conceived as necessary for the
moral and material improvement of political and social order. When one after
the other proves to be a political and social failure, it is simply dropped and
they move on to another. They recognize a ‘fall from grace’ because they
recognize the ‘world needs to be repaired.’ Since they have rejected Jesus Christ,
the incarnate Logos, the eternal Wisdom of the Father, they have rejected His
divine plan for the ‘repair of the world’ and in its place offer what Fr. Denis
Fahey, C.S.Sp. described as “Organized Naturalism” in opposition to the
Supernatural Order of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is
that whoever is not working for God is working for the Devil. There is no
middle ground. As Jesus said, “He that is not with me, is against me: and he
that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Matthew 12:30).
Where
Tikkun Olam can lead
OPINION:
Stalin’s Jews
We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were
Jewish
Israel News |
ynetnews | Sever Plocker
Here's
a particularly forlorn historical date: More than 100 years ago, between the
19th and 20th of December 1917, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution and
civil war, Lenin signed a decree calling for the establishment of The
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and
Sabotage, also known as Cheka.
Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest
state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few
years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to
KGB.
We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was
responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at
least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger,
large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at
Gulags.
Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic
minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals,
artists, labor movement activists, "opposition members" who were
defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party
itself.
In his new, highly praised book "The War of the World,"
Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind
devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution.
In his book on the Stalinist purges, Tel Aviv University's Dr. Igal Halfin
writes that Stalinist violence was unique in that it was directed
internally.
Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their
deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined "terror
officials," cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges,
perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western
Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with
a kosher certificate.
All these things are well-known to some extent or another, even though
the former Soviet Union's archives have not yet been fully opened to the
public. But who knows about this? Within Russia itself, very few people have
been brought to justice for their crimes in the NKVD's and KGB's service. The
Russian public discourse today completely ignores the question of "How
could it have happened to us?" As opposed to Eastern European nations, the
Russians did not settle the score with their Stalinist past.
And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever
hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of
the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of
the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is
responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies
established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him
favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman
in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf."
Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In
his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag
Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist
killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young
Jewish women.
Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central
Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the
"first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine,
an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi
horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich.
Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the
Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention
just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the
organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist.
In
1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most
senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They
too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating
lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the
waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy
of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too,
when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers,
among the greatest known by modern history.
The
Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and
abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but
rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we
find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have
to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it
unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when
he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does
amazingly despicable things.
Even
if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who
served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After
all, others will always remind us of their origin.
“Don’t Jews still believe in a Messias to come?” asks
the credulous Christian. “And don’t they believe in the same Biblical Heaven
and Hell that we do?”
The answer to both these
questions is — no. And it is an emphatic “No!” as the subsequent Jewish
testimony will verify.
Concerning the Messias: The Jews of today reject the notion of a
personal redeemer who will be born of them and lead them to the fulfillment of
the Old Testament prophecies. The Jews believe that the whole Jewish race is to
be elevated to a position of prosperity and overlordship and that, when this
happy day arrives (the Messianic Age), they will have achieved all that is
coming to them by way of savior and salvation. In his recent book, The Messianic Idea in Israel, Jewish
theologian Dr. Joseph Klausner explains: “Thus the whole people Israel in the
form of the elect of the nations gradually became the Messiah of the world, the redeemer of
mankind.”
Concerning Heaven and Hell: A succinct summary of Jewish
teaching on “life after death” was given in the May, 1958 issue of B’nai
B’rith’s National Jewish Monthly. Under the caption, “What Can A Modern Jew Believe?” there
appeared: “Judaism insists that ‘heaven’ must be established on this earth. The
reward of the pious is life and happiness in this world, while the punishment
of the wicked is misery on earth and premature death … By hitching its star to
the Messianic future on this earth, Israel became the eternal people.” The
article goes on: “The best Jewish minds have always held that a physical
hereafter is a detraction from mature belief.” And the conclusion: “There is
neither hell nor paradise, God merely sends out the sun in its full strength;
the wicked are consumed by its heat, while the pious find delight and healing
in its rays.”
Fr. Leonard Feeney, MICM, The
Point, October 1958
Mons. Carlo
Maria Viganò: Replies to the claim that obedience is unqualified even when the
faith itself is in question!!
NON SEQUITUR
Further Clarifications in Response to the Reply of
Prof. Daniele Trabucco
I can only agree with almost everything that Professor Trabucco has stated in
response to my comment [1]. As he writes at the Duc in Altum blog [2]:
A saint who obeys
a disciplinary measure that is unjust but not contrary to faith (as in the case
of Padre Pio) performs an act of heroic self-denial, because he recognizes that
even in harshness and iniquity, a command does not break the bond with the
revealed deposit of faith. The situation, however, is different when an
ecclesiastical authority commands something that contradicts faith: in that
case, the order is no longer authentically disciplinary but is transformed into
a deviation that strikes at the very rationale of the authority. Here, refusal
is not rebellion, but fidelity.
Given that this principle is valid – and which I agree with sine glossa
– I find it difficult to accept as valid the exception that Trabucco adds
immediately afterwards:
However […] such
refusal can never translate into schismatic acts, nor into attitudes that cause
public scandal. For if it is true that discipline and faith complement each
other, it is equally true that discipline, as a visible order, also serves to
preserve the unity of the Church. And unity is part of the supernatural common
good of the Mystical Body. Therefore, the truth of faith cannot be defended at
the cost of tearing apart ecclesial communion.
It is true that “discipline, as a visible order, also serves to
safeguard the unity of the Church. And unity is part of the supernatural common
good of the Mystical Body.” But the unity achieved through obedience is the
effect, not the cause, of the profession of the same Faith: the faithful are
united in the Church under the authority of the Roman Pontiff because they
believe the same doctrine, not the other way around. And this is the error that
undermines Professor Trabucco’s argument on obedience. The refusal to obey an
ecclesiastical authority, when that authority commands something that
contradicts the Faith, cannot constitute an attack on unity, because it is the
illegitimate order of the Superior that is schismatic and scandalous in nature,
not the disobedience of the subject who remains faithful to God.
If the refusal to obey an illegitimate authority or order “is not rebellion,
but fidelity”; if the Regula Fidei is the supreme principle that finds its
rationale in the Truth coessential and consubstantial with God [3]; if
obedience itself, as a moral virtue, is ordered toward the good and therefore
toward the Truth – because Faith and discipline, as Professor Trabucco states,
“though different in object, are united in purpose: the glory of God and the
salvation of souls” – how can the Professor affirm: “Therefore, one cannot
defend the truth of faith at the cost of tearing apart ecclesial communion”?
Given an absolute principle, how is it possible to derogate from it with an
exception that makes unity in obedience absolute while the Truth becomes
relative and secondary to obedience?
In fact, just the opposite is true: ecclesial communion cannot be defended at
the cost of tearing apart the Truth of the Faith, because it is obedience that
is ordered to the Faith, and not vice versa [4].
I would add that anyone who contradicts, adulterates, or silences the Faith is
the first to cause scandal, especially if he finds himself in the position of
exercising coercive force as an ecclesiastical Superior over a priest or
religious. It is the duty of every baptized person to defend and proclaim sound
doctrine and to denounce anyone in authority who abuses it, causing grave
scandal to the common people. They are rightly accustomed to
obeying—instinctively, I would almost say—the authority of the Hierarchy and
consider its deviation unthinkable under normal circuмstances. This is
especially true for the priest subject to the jurisdiction of his Superiors and
the sanctions they can impose: dutiful disobedience to an abusive and illicit
order entails canonical sanctions for anyone who dutifully resists, as Trabucco
hopes. This punishment of the disobedient is the scandal – not the act of
denouncing the corruption of ecclesiastical authority. Just as it is a scandal
that heretics, schismatics, corrupt individuals, and notorious fornicators are
not prosecuted but rather encouraged, while anyone who denounces the crisis,
identifies its causes, and identifies those responsible, who have fraudulently
held power for sixty years and can abuse it at will, is declared schismatic and
excommunicated.
The Communion of Saints—which is the archetype and model of ecclesial
communion—is founded in God, who is Truth, not obedience. God is not obedient,
because that would presuppose an authority superior to Him. The obedience of
the Son—factus obœdiens usque ad mortem (Phil 2:8)—is a unity of will (idem
velle) between the Three Divine Persons, without an internal hierarchical
relationship between Them [5]. At the same time, God is the primary recipient
of all obedience, because by obeying the Superiors to whom He has granted
authority, we also obey God. But obedience cannot exist if the Superior who
asks to be obeyed does not in turn recognize God’s authority over himself. Such
obedience would accept the premise, even if only theoretical, of being able to
disobey God in order to obey men, contravening the precept of Saint Peter (Acts
5:29) and making earthly authority self-referential and therefore potentially
tyrannical. In this, the concept of synodality is shown to be absolutely
subversive of the order willed by God, in that it tampers with the monarchical
structure of the Church—on the model of Christ the King and Pontiff who is her
Head—by placing sovereignty in the hands of “the people” (even if in reality,
power, as in civil republics, is in the hands of an elite) and by affirming
“that Christ wanted His Church to be governed in the manner of a republic.” [6]
Only universal submission to a true and good God makes obedience a sure means
of sanctity for those who obey their Superiors. And this is why we have both
reason and the Sensus Fidei: to discern when obedience is a virtuous act and
when instead “it transforms into a deviation that strikes at the very rationale
of authority.”
If Professor Trabucco recognizes the possibility that ecclesiastical superiors
may issue orders contrary to Faith or Morals (a possibility confirmed by daily
abuses of authority against traditional Catholics and the equally daily
tolerance of unprecedented scandals), he must also acknowledge the possibility
that subordinates may reject the illegitimate orders of their superiors. The
Church’s hierarchical ladder allows for appeal to a higher authority when one
finds oneself in conflict with another authority subordinate to it. But if the
highest echelons of the hierarchical ladder—in this case, the Roman Pontiff and
the Roman Dicasteries—are themselves implicated in a general subversion of the
Faith (beginning with Leo’s recent declaration that “we must change attitudes”
before we can change doctrine [7]), it is clear that hierarchical recourse is
impracticable and that no earthly authority can remedy the disobedience of
those who are Superiors.
In a nutshell: amidst the obvious general disobedience of Church Authority to
God’s law at all levels, how can a priest or a simple believer subjected to
this Authority remain obedient to it, if one is still bound to continue to obey
God rather than men?
The true h0Ɩ0cαųst of the will that the mystics speak of is
this: knowing how to be obedient unto death, even death on a cross, in
obedience to God. But never, under any circuмstances, can one even
imagine sycophantically obeying heretical and schismatic Superiors, for fear of
shattering “with acts of a schismatic nature” the apparent unity of their
church. Because the unity they claim is a simulacrum, a fiction, a grotesque
imposture hiding the indifferentism of the synodal pantheon, which includes
both the conservatives of Summorum Pontificuм as well as the LGBTQ+
progressives of James Martin, both Our Lady of Fatima as well as the Pachamama,
the Mass of the ages along with the Novus Ordo. The only inalienable dogma is
that everyone must recognize the Second Vatican Council: its ecclesiology, its
morality, its liturgy, its saints and martyrs, and above all its excommunicated
people and its heretics—that is, the “radical traditionalists” who refuse to be
tamed by the new synodal demands. As for the rest of what we believe, Leo has
explicitly said that one can safely gloss over it in the name of
ecuмenical and synodal unity, including the Filioque of the Creed. But
not Vatican II: it is the founding act of a church born in 1962 which claims
the authority of the True Church, from whose Magisterium, however, it distances
itself and opposes it.
We therefore find ourselves before an Authority—the supreme authority—that is
clearly disobedient to Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body, but which,
usurping Christ’s authority, claims to decide in what respects those subject to
it must obey it, disobeying God’s commands.
Can we even imagine recognizing this authority as legitimate and owing it
obedience, lest we tear apart the “unity” that the Hierarchy has already
shattered with its own disobedience to God? How could we possibly ratify its
abuses, making ourselves accomplices of those who are betraying the Truth?
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop, 23 September 2025
NOTE
1 – Cfr. https://exsurgedomine.it/250917-trabucco-ita/
2 – Cfr. https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2025/09/21/a-proposito-di-obbedienza-note-sulle-osservazioni-di-monsignor-vigano/
3 – Saint Augustine, De Trinitate, VIII, 2: God is truth itself – ipsa veritas
–, and everything that is true comes from Him, because He is the origin of all
truth.
4 – The decree of the Holy Office of 20 December 1949 condemning the
ecuмenical movement also recalls this: This unity cannot be achieved
except in the recognition of Catholic truth.
5 – Saint Augustine, In Joannis Evangelium tractatus, 51, 8: Christ’s obedience
is not a diminution of His divinity, but an expression of His perfect union
with the Father, for the will of the Son is one with that of the Father.
6 – Pius VI, Brief Super Soliditate of 28 November 1786 condemning
Febronianism. This doctrine fits into the context of the Enlightenment and the
tensions between the temporal power of states and the authority of the Catholic
Church, promoting a vision that limited the primacy of the Pope and
strengthened the autonomy of national Churches and local bishops. Febronius
(the pseudonym of Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, Bishop of Trier) argued that the
authority of the Pope was not absolute, but derived from the universal Church,
understood as the community of the faithful and bishops. Febronianism also
influenced the Council of Pistoia (1786), in which there appeared heretical
demands that are substantially identical to those that would re-appear in
Vatican II.
7 – Cfr. https://chiesaepostconcilio.blogspot.com/2025/09/papa-leone-parla-con-elise-ann-allen-di.html
8 – Cfr. https://youtube.com/watch?v=IkPJn2L9BBs&si=oGcPhGwR5nxQ6jva
TO KNOW THE
FAITH, YOU MUST KNOW THE RULE
The Rule of Faith was given to the Church in the very act of Revelation
and its promulgation by the Apostles. But for this Rule to have an actual and
permanently efficient character, it must be continually promulgated and
enforced by the living Apostolate, which must exact from all members of the
Church a docile Faith in the truths of Revelation authoritatively proposed, and
thus unite the whole body of the Church, teachers and taught, in perfect unity
of Faith. Hence the original promulgation is the remote Rule of Faith, and the
continuous promulgation by the Teaching Body, (i.e.: DOGMA) is the proximate
Rule.
Rev. Scheeben’s Manual of Catholic Theology
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties
of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. Which some promising, have erred concerning the faith.
Grace be with thee. Amen.” St. Paul, letter to his disciple, Bishop St. Timothy
(1 Timothy 6:20-21)
... We wish to make our own the important words employed by the
Council; those words which define its spirit, and, in a dynamical synthesis,
form the spirit of all those who refer to it, be they within or without the
Church. The word “NOVELTY”, simple, very dear to today’s men, is much
utilized; it is theirs... That word... it was given to us as an order, as a
program... It comes to us directly from the pages of the Holy Scripture: “For,
behold (says the Lord), I create new heavens and a new earth”. St. Paul echoes
these words of the prophet Isaiah (II Corinthians 5, 17); then, the Apocalypse:
“I am making everything new” (II Corinthians 21, 5). And Jesus, our Master, was
not He, himself, an innovator? “You have heard that people were told in the
past ... but now I tell you...” (Matthew 5) – Repeated in the
“Sermon on the Mount”.
It is precisely thus that the
Council has come to us. Two terms characterize it: “RENOVATION” and “REVISION”.
We are particularly keen that this “spirit of renovation” – according to the
expression of the Council – be understood and experienced by everyone. It
responds to the characteristic of our time, wholly engaged in an enormous and
rapid transformation, and generating novelties in every sector of modern life.
In fact, one cannot shy away from this spontaneous reflection: if the whole world
is changing, will not religion change as well? Between the reality of life and
Christianity, Catholicism especially, is not there reciprocal disagreement,
indifference, misunderstanding, and hostility? The former is leaping forward;
the latter would not move. How could they go along? How could Christianity
claim to have, today, any influence upon life?
And it is for this reason that
the Church has undertaken some reforms, especially after the Council. The
Episcopate is about to promote the “renovation” that corresponds to our present
needs; Religious Orders are reforming their Statutes; Catholic laity is
qualified and found its role within the life of the Church; Liturgy is
proceeding with a reform in which anyone knows the extension and importance; Christian
education reviews the methods of its pedagogy; all the canonical legislations
are about to be revised. And how many other consoling and promising novelties
we shall see appearing in the Church! They attest to Her new vitality, which
shows that the Holy Spirit animates Her continually, even in these years so
crucial to religion. The development of ecumenism, guided by Faith and Charity,
itself says what progress, almost unforeseeable, has been achieved during the
course and life of the Church. The Church looks at the future with Her heart
brimming with hope, brimming with fresh expectation in love... We can say... of
the Council: It marks the onset of a new era, of which no one can deny the new
aspects that We have indicated to you.
Pope Paul VI, General Audience
of July 2, 1969
And Then, Only Three Years Later:
Through some cracks the smoke of Satan has
entered the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problematic, anxiety,
confrontation. One does not trust the Church anymore; one trusts the first
prophet that comes to talk to us from some newspapers or some social movement,
and then rush after him and ask him if he held the formula of real life. And we
fail to perceive, instead, that we are the masters of life already. Doubt has
entered our conscience, and it has entered through windows that were supposed
to be opened to the light instead....
Even in the Church this state of uncertainty
rules. One thought that after the Council there would come a shiny day for the
history of the Church. A cloudy day came instead, a day of tempest, gloom,
quest, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism and drift farther and farther from
the others. We attempt to dig abysses instead of filling them.
How has all this come about? We confide to
you our thought: there has been the intervention of a hostile power. His name
is the Devil; this mysterious being who is alluded to even in the letter of St.
Peter. So many times, on the other hand, in the Gospel, on the very lips of
Christ, there recurs the mention of this enemy of man. We believe in something
supernatural (post-correction: “preternatural”!), coming into the world
precisely to disturb, to suffocate anything of the Ecumenical Council, and to
prevent that the Church would explode into the hymn of joy for having regained
full consciousness of Herself (!!).
Pope Paul VI, June 29, 1972
Pope Leo on
LGBTQ: ‘We have to change attitudes before we ever change doctrine’
In this first
extended interview he’s just done with Crux Now, Leo XIV has basically said that
the Church’s teaching on sexual morality could change.
LifeSiteNews
| Sep 18, 2025
Friends, you are not going to
believe this.
In this first extended
interview he’s just done with Crux Now, Leo XIV has basically said
that the Church’s teaching on sexual morality could change. He actually even
went there and implied that he could – in his words – “change the Church’s
teaching” on women’s ordination.
Take a listen to what he said
first on sexual morality. This is what he says after having been talking about
LGBT issues for a while:
People want the Church doctrine to change, want attitudes to change. I
think we have to change attitudes before we ever change doctrine.
That’s right,
he’s strongly implying – well, he’s saying – that Church
teaching could shift, if attitudes change first.
Might that be why we’ve had so
much LGBT stuff in Rome lately, from Fr. James Martin to the LGBT pilgrimage?
Are they trying to get our “attitudes to change”?
And what do you think the
so-called “LGBT Catholics” are hearing when they hear Leo saying such a thing? It’s a very clear
invitation and instruction: work to change attitudes, then we can change the
teaching. Wow.
And rather than stating such
changes were impossible, Leo said he thought it was unlikely that it would
happen soon:
I find it highly unlikely, certainly in the immediate future, that the
Church’s doctrine in terms of what the Church teaches about sexuality, what the
Church teaches about marriage [will change].
Later, instead of stating that
the Church’s teaching could not change, he merely said that
he thought that it would remain the same:
I think that the Church’s teaching will continue as it is, and that’s
what I have to say about that for right now.
You think it’s going to
continue as it is? Aren’t you supposed to be the Pope – the one responsible for
making sure that it continues as it is?
Look friends, this is just
stunning. Catholic teaching on sexual morality – including the sinfulness of
homosexual acts, as well as fornication, adultery and others – aren’t matters
of probabilities or personal conjecture, or contingent and waiting to be
changed.
They’re definitive, grounded in
both the natural law and divine revelation – and so
they’re incapable of being changed.
Reason alone tells us that
sexual activity outside marriage – and thus, obviously, all sexual activity
between two same sex couples – is contrary to the natural law.
This is also and separately
a dogma – divinely revealed in Scripture and proposed by the universal
ordinary magisterium of the Church.
Vatican I taught that such
truths which are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith.
Female ordination
Leo also talked about the
possibility of the ordination of women to the diaconate in similar terms:
What the synod had spoken about specifically was the ordination,
perhaps, of women deacons, which has been a question that’s been studied for
many years now. There’ve been different commissions appointed by different
popes to say, what can we do about this? I think that will continue to be an
issue.
Ok, so in the early Church,
there was indeed an office of “deaconess” – but everyone knows that these women
were not ordained to any sacramental holy order of the diaconate.
But Leo calls even this into
question by equating the female diaconate with that of the permanent diaconate
established after the Second Vatican Council. He gives a long anecdote about
meeting deacons and their wives in Rome before concluding:
[T]here are parts of the world that never really promoted the permanent
deaconate, and that itself became a question: Why would we talk about ordaining
women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood
and properly developed and promoted within the church?
He also expressed his willingness
for study and debate on the matter to continue, saying he was “certainly willing to continue
to listen to people,” and pointing to the study groups in Rome on the
subject. “We’ll walk with
that and see what comes,” he said.
But do you know what’s even
more shocking? Leo said this:
I at the moment don’t have an intention of changing the teaching of the
Church on the topic.
Friends, if you say a thing
like that, it’s clear what you think. You’re saying you do have the
power to “change the teaching of the Church.”
The immutability of dogma
But the teaching of the Church
says that this isn’t possible. Can that be changed too?
Vatican I denied that
the Pope could change the Church’s teaching or introduce new dogmas. It taught:
For the holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that
they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine.
It
goes on to say that the purpose of the papacy is to safeguard and preserve the
deposit of faith. Not to consider whether the time is right to change it.
Oh, some will say, we’re not
talking about changes. This is just a development of dogma.
Come on. That’s what they
always say to justify this stuff. And anyway, Leo was pretty clear: he’s the
one who was talking about changing Church teaching.
And anyway, that defense is
excluded too. There’s a legitimate sense of the development of doctrine, but
changing the meanings of dogmas to something totally different isn’t it.
Such an idea has been condemned
time and again by the Church.
Pope Pius IX condemned, in the Syllabus
of Errors, the idea that divine revelation is “subject to a continual and
indefinite progress.”
Vatican I declared that the “meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to
be maintained” and that “there must never be any abandonment of this sense
under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.”
That same Council anathematized anyone who says dogma can be
assigned “a sense different from that which the Church has understood and
understands.”
Pope St Pius X cited all these teachings in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis against
Modernism.
In his Oath Against Modernism,
he also required clergy to profess that dogma is handed down “in exactly the
same meaning and always in the same purport.”
This oath also states that the idea “that dogmas evolve and change from
one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously”
is a – get this – “heretical misrepresentation.”
Grave implications
“Heretical” is a big word. But
the truth is clear: homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, marriage is
between one man and one woman, and these teachings cannot change.
As I said above, both the
Church’s teaching on sexual morality, and the immutability of dogma are the
sorts of truths we have to believe with divine and Catholic faith.
The censure attached to the
obstinate denial or doubt of such truths is indeed heresy. (Can. 751 of
1983 CIC, Can. 1325 of 1917 CIC)
So, where does that leave us?
The hugely problematic
situation of Leo XIV raising hopes for an impossible change in the future.
And claiming the power to
change Church teaching, which he certainly does not have.
And… publicly doubting (or even
denying) these two sets of truths in a video interview – which, as I said, is
heresy.
You know what St. Paul said about
those who try to introduce new dogmas, doctrines or Gospels:
If I, or an angel from heaven, preach to you a Gospel different to that
which we have preached to you, which you have received: let him be anathema.
COMMENT: The very essence of the Modernist
heresy is the denial of immutability of dogma because they deny that dogma is
divine revelation of an immutabile truth from an immutable God. The Modernist
believe that dogma is not a truth revealed by God but rather a human expression
of the subjective religious sentiment and therefore dogma must change over time
as the human sentiment changes. Leo the Heretic professes that the
"attitudes" of Catholics will change only gradually. therefore, when
there is a sufficient number expressing the new attitude then the dogmas will
change to express the new religious attitude. It is absolutely impossible to
hold this belief and be a faithful Catholic at the same time. Leo is just
another Bergoglian who will bring ruin to himself and others.
Pope Leo is
now the CEO of the same HomoLobby his predecessor chaired! It is impossible to
be a defender of homosexuality and a Catholic at the same time.
Bishop Schneider: Vatican
‘LGBTQ pilgrimage’ an ‘abomination,’ Pope Leo must make ‘public reparation’
Pope Leo must ‘urgently’
make reparation after the Vatican endorsed an LGBT Jubilee ‘pilgrimage’ and
allowed unrepentant homosexuals to pass the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s, Bishop
Schneider said.
LifeSiteNews
| Sept 10, 2025— Bishop Athanasius Schneider expressed “horror” at the
Vatican’s endorsement of the “LGBTQ Jubilee pilgrimage,” rebuking priests who
support homosexuality as “spiritual criminals” and “murderers of souls.”
“My
reaction was a silent cry of horror, indignation, and sorrow,” the auxiliary of
Astana, Kazakhstan, said regarding the Vatican’s approval of an LGBT-themed
“pilgrimage” on its Jubilee website, in an interview with Diane Montagna, a
journalist in Rome.
Montagna
had highlighted the fact that photos captured an array of rainbow paraphernalia
in St. Peter’s Basilica, as well homosexual male couple “brazenly holding hands
there, one with a backpack saying F*** the Rules,” at the conclusion of their
“pilgrimage.”
What
took place there could be described as an “abomination of desolation standing
in the holy place,” in the words of Christ (cf. Mt. 24:15), said Bishop
Schneider.
He
pointed out that the embrace of homosexuality by these “pilgrims” contradicted
one of the very key meanings of the Jubilee Year and the Holy Door: “Leading
man to conversion and penance,” as Pope John Paul II explained in the Bull of
Indiction of the Holy Year 2000.
“There
were no signs of repentance and renunciation of objectively grave homosexual
sins … on the part of the organizers and participants in this pilgrimage,”
noted Schneider. “To pass through the Holy Door and participate in the Jubilee
without repentance, while promoting an ideology that openly rejects God’s Sixth
Commandment, constitutes a kind of desecration of the Holy Door and a mockery
of God and the gift of an indulgence.”
The
bishop had strong words for the Vatican authorities who “collaborated de facto”
in this open rejection of God’s commandment, expressed aptly in the “f*** the
rules” message.
“They
stood by and allowed God to be mocked and His commandments to be scornfully
cast aside,” said Schneider.
When
asked to compare it to the Pachamama scandal, he noted that while direct
transgression of the First Commandment is even more grave, the endorsement of
sodomy – a sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance – “amounts to a form of
indirect idolatry.”
“Both
events must be publicly repaired by the Pope himself. This is urgently needed,
before it is too late, for God will not be mocked,” said the bishop.
Bishop
Francesco Savino, vice president of the Italian Bishops Conference, welcomed
“everyone” to receive Holy Communion at a Mass for the “pilgrims,” Montagna
then pointed out. Schneider affirmed that assent to “all of the Church’s
teaching” is a precondition for receiving Christ in the Eucharist, as was
expressed by St. Paul: “Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body
eats and drinks judgment on himself. (1 Cor. 11:29).
He
added that this has been clearly stated by the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Anyone aware of having
sinned mortally must not receive Communion without having received absolution
in the sacrament of penance” (n.1415).
Furthermore,
it notes, “Sacred Scripture ‘presents homosexual acts as acts of grave
depravity, [and] tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are
intrinsically disordered.… Under no circumstances can they be approved’ (n.
2357).”
Thus,
by granting these LGBT groups passage through the Holy Door and approving their
“pilgrimage,” Vatican authorities in effect rejected “the very doctrine they
are bound to uphold.”
Schneider
said his message for participants in the LGBT “pilgrimage” is one of
compassion, and he called for all Christians to show compassion towards not just
those living homosexual lifestyles, but those who support its legitimization
and “persist in it unrepentant and even proudly.”
“For
when a person consciously rejects God’s explicit commandment prohibiting any
sexual activity outside a valid marriage, he places himself in the gravest
danger – that of losing eternal life and being eternally condemned to Hell,”
said the prelate.
“True
love for such persons consists in calling them, gently yet persistently, to
genuine conversion to God’s revealed will,” he continued, adding that such
people are “ultimately unhappy” even when they have suppressed their
conscience.
“We
must be filled with great zeal to save these souls, to free them from poisonous
deceits. Those priests who confirm them in their homosexual activity or in a
homosexual lifestyle are spiritual criminals, murderers of souls, and God will
demand a strict account from them,” Schneider declared.
To
those who defend Pope Leo XIV amid the Vatican’s approval of the LGBT
scandalous “pilgrimage” because he did not receive a delegation from them or
send them a message, Schneider said that “one cannot reasonably presume naivety
on his part,” because it was “entirely foreseeable” that an LGBT activist group
would take advantage of the Holy Door to promote their sinful lifestyle.
Furthermore,
by meeting with Father James Martin, S.J., a heretical pro-LGBT priest, as well
as pro-homosexual “marriage” Sister Lucia Caram, Pope Leo XIV has expressed
that he is not opposed to their “heterodox and scandalous teaching and behavior
– particularly since the Holy See offered no clarification afterward and did
not correct Fr. James Martin’s triumphant messages circulated on social media,”
noted Schneider.
He pointed out that in doing so, Pope Leo
XIV broke with the precedent of all popes before Francis, who “neither received
officially nor posed for photographs with those who, by word or deed, openly
rejected the doctrinal and moral teaching of the Church.”
“There
is a common saying that goes: ‘Qui tacet consentire videtur’ – ’He who is
silent is taken to agree,’” Schneider added.
The
prelate called upon all Catholics to “make a collective act of reparation for
the outrage committed against the sanctity of God’s house and the holiness of
His commandments,” and implored Pope Leo XIV to follow in the footsteps of Pope
John Paul II, who Montagna noted had denounced the first “World Pride” event in
Rome during the Great Jubilee of 2000.
“Should
Pope Leo XIV make public acts of regret and even reparation, he will lose
nothing; should he fail to do so, he will forfeit something before the eyes of
God – and God alone matters,” said Schneider.
“May
Our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV take to heart the following words of Our Lord
which He once spoke through St. Bridget of Sweden to one of his predecessors
(Pope Gregory XI)”:
Uproot, pluck out and destroy
all the vices of your court! Separate yourself from the counsel of
carnal-minded and worldly friends and follow humbly the spiritual counsel of My
friends. Get up like a man and clothe yourself confidently in strength! Start
to reform the Church that I purchased with My Own Blood in order that it may be
reformed and led back spiritually to its pristine state of holiness, for
nowadays more veneration is shown to a brothel than to My Holy Church. My son,
heed My counsel. If you obey Me in what I told you, I will welcome you
mercifully like a loving father. Bravely approach the way of justice and you
shall prosper. Do not despise the One Who loves you. If you obey, I will show
you mercy and bless and dress you and adorn you with the precious pontifical
regalia of a holy pope. I shall clothe you with Myself in such a way that you
will be in Me and I in you, and you shall be glorified in eternity (The Book of
Revelations, Book IV, chap. 149).
Argumentum ex
concessis
Notes in the Margin of an Article by Abbé Claude Barthe
For
if you live according to the flesh, you will die;
but if by the Spirit
you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.
Rom
8: 13
The
essay by Abbé Claude Barthe’s, recently published in an Italian translation at
Aldo Maria Valli’s blog Duc in altum [1], deserves some attention.
What is most interesting in it is not so much his assessment of the newly
elected Leo XIV, nor the pragmatic realism with which he recognizes Prevost’s
continuity with his predecessor or calls for a loosening of restrictions on the
traditional liturgy.
Abbé
Barthe writes:
There
is a paradox, even a risk, for those who invoke freedom for the traditional
liturgy and catechism: that of being granted a sort of “authorization” for
liturgical and doctrinal Catholicism. We have already cited as an example the
paradoxical situation that arose in the 19th-century French political system,
when the most staunch supporters of the monarchical Restoration, enemies in
principle of the modern freedoms introduced by the Revolution, continually
fought to be granted a space for life and expression, freedom of the press, and
freedom of teaching. All things being equal, in the ecclesiastical system of
the 21st century, at least in the immediate future, a relaxation of the
ideological despotism of the Reformation could be beneficial. But while it may
be advantageous in the short and medium term, it could ultimately prove
radically unsatisfactory.
What
I believe should be highlighted is the not-so-veiled warning that Abbé Barthe
addresses to those who resort to the adversary’s arguments to gain legitimacy
in the ecclesial world, applying the argumentum ex concessis [2]. In this
case, “those who invoke freedom for the traditional liturgy and catechism” –
and who condemn Bergoglian synodality – appeal to that same synodality so that
the “Summorum Pontificum communities” may be recognized as one among the
many expressions of the composite ecclesial polyhedron.
Abbé
Barthe’s denunciation reveals not a paradox, but the paradox,
the contradiction that fundamentally undermines any claim to orthodoxy on the
part of self-styled conservatives: the acceptance of the revolutionary
principles of the so-called “synodal church” as the (incomplete, moreover)
counterpart to being tolerated by it. In reality, this exchange is far from
equal. The “synodal church” merely applies to conservatives the same legitimacy
of existence it grants to any other “movement” or “charisma” present in the
multifaceted ecclesial fabric, but it carefully avoids acknowledging that their
demands might go beyond a mere aesthetic and ceremonial concession. The
unwritten contract between conservatives and the post-Bergoglian Hierarchy
stipulates that the “liturgical preferences” of a group of clerics and faithful
can be tolerated if and only if they refrain from highlighting the
heterogeneity, incompatibility, and alienation between the ecclesiology and the
entire doctrinal framework underlying the Vetus Ordo and those
expressed in the reformed Montinian rite.
Abbé
Barthe does not ignore the critical issues: referring to Leo XIV’s Electors, he
calls them “all of the conciliar menagerie,” demonstrating a certain courage,
especially considering his public role and his dependence
on those Prelates. Nor does he ignore the deception embraced by those
who exploit religious liberty to invoke for themselves a tolerance
that is not denied even to the worshippers of Amazonian idols.
The
deception is twofold: not only because of the paradox that Abbé Barthe has
rightly highlighted; but also and above all because of a much worse trap,
consisting of accepting at least implicitly the forced, unnatural, and
impossible separation between the ceremonial form of the rite and its doctrinal
substance.
This
is an operation of de-signification of the Liturgy, which consists in
being recognized with the right to celebrate in the Tridentine Rite on the
condition that the celebrant does not also accept the doctrinal and moral
implications of that rite. But if that “Summorum priest” accepts this
principle, he must also accept its inverse application. Indeed, the moment one
admits that the Liturgy can be celebrated without regard for the traditional
doctrine it expresses – a doctrine the “synodal church” does not recognize and
considers to be other than itself – one ends up accepting that even
the reformed liturgy can ignore the errors and heresies it insinuates, errors
which no Catholic worthy of the name can absolutely ratify. In doing so,
however, one plays into the hands of the adversary, under the illusion of being
more cunning than the devil. It all comes down to a question of dress and
choreography, of aesthetics and sentiment that satisfies or does not satisfy
personal taste, as Cardinal Burke’s recent words confirmed: “You don’t
take something so rich in beauty and begin to strip away the beautiful elements
without having a negative effect.” [3] Nothing could be more alien to the
mindset of the Roman Liturgy, according to which the beauty of ceremonies is
such because it is a necessary expression of the Truth it teaches and the Good
it practices.
The
“synodal church” includes conservatives in its coveted pantheon not
only because it gives them what they want – solemn pontifical liturgies
celebrated by influential prelates, without doctrinal implications – but also
because none of the Holy See’s interlocutors has the slightest intention of
demanding more; and even if someone were to dare ask for more,
the gatekeeper on duty – literally, the ostiarius –would
promptly intervene, calling for “prudence” and “moderation,” more concerned
with preserving his own prestige than with the fate of the Catholic resistance.
This is accompanied by the “Zip it” [4] policy advocated by Trad Inc. [5],
according to which the possible concessions the moderates hope to obtain from
Leo suggest they should not criticize him openly so as not to alienate him.
The
path of being persecuted, ostracized, and excommunicated do not seem to be
among the options for my brothers: it seems they are already resigned to a fate
of tolerance, in which they can neither be truly Catholic nor fully synodal;
neither friends of those who fight the enemy infiltrated into the Church, nor
of those who seek to replace her with a human surrogate of Masonic inspiration.
The Lord will hold these lukewarm priests accountable with greater severity
than He will many poor parish priests who have other, more pressing pastoral
priorities. Let us hope that Abbé Barthe’s warning does not fall on deaf ears,
for the hour of battle approaches, and to be found defenseless and unprepared,
in these circumstances, would be irresponsible.
And
it is precisely in times of persecution that we must rediscover the relevance
and validity of the words of Saint Vincent of Lérins:
In
ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod semper,
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est; hoc est etenim vere proprieque
catholicum. [6]
If
anything does not meet these three criteria – semper, ubique, et ab
omnibus – it must be rejected as heretical. This norm protects us from the
errors spread by false pastors, in the serene certainty of acting in accordance
with Tradition and thus being able to compensate, due to the present state of
emergency, for the absence of ecclesiastical authority.
+
Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
3
September MMXXV
S.cti
Pii X Papæ, Conf.
FOOTNOTES
1
– Abbé Claude
Barthe, Leone, il pompiere nella Chiesa divorata dal fuoco della
divisione. Ma quale unità ricerca?, published at Duc in Altum on
August 9, 2025 – https://www.aldomariavalli.it/2025/08/09/analisi-leone-il-pompiere-nella-chiesa-divorata-dal-fuoco-della-divisione-ma-quale-unita-ricerca/ – English translation: https://www.resnovae.fr/the-pontificate-of-leo-xiv-a-transitional-stage/
2
– Argumentum ex
concessis is a rhetorical and logical technique in which an interlocutor
uses the premises, arguments, or claims accepted by an opponent to construct
their own argument, often to refute them or demonstrate the inconsistency of
their position. This strategy is based on the idea of temporarily accepting the
opponent’s claims (the “concessions”) and using them to draw conclusions that
either challenge them or support their own thesis.
3
– Cfr. https://x.com/mljhaynes/status/1954919906492747838
5
– “Trad Inc.” is the
American expression which refers to conservative believers and blogs organized
like companies, which operate according to market logic and are dependent on
their shareholders.
6
– Commonitorium, 2. “In
this same Catholic Church, we must take the greatest care to maintain what has
always been believed, everywhere and by all; this is in fact truly and properly
Catholic.”
COMMENT: It is encouraging for us who have refused the compromises of
faith that conservative Catholics have made in return for their privileged
Indult to have a man of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's stature agree and defend what we have been
doing at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission for the last 25 years. We
hope and pray that he may have a greater influence on other resistance bishops
and priests.
The
proper understanding of this dogma from the Council of Trent:
Canon 4 on the sacraments in general: If anyone says that the
sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous,
and that without them or without the desire of them men obtain from God
through faith alone the grace of justification, though all are not necessary
for each one, let him be anathema.
The Dogma
defines two revealed doctrinal truths:
3.
If anyone says: that the sacraments of the
New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, let him be
anathema.
4.
If anyone says: that without the
sacraments or (if anyone says) without the desire of the sacraments
men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification, let him be
anathema.
Both
the Sacrament of Baptism and the will to receive the Sacrament
are necessary for salvation!
“But God desired that his
confession should avail for his salvation, since he preserved him in this life until the time of his holy
regeneration.” St. Fulgentius
“If anyone is not baptized, not only in
ignorance, but even knowingly, he can in no way be saved. For his path to salvation was through the confession,
and salvation itself was in baptism.
At his age, not only was confession
without baptism of no avail: Baptism
itself would be of no avail for salvation if he neither believed nor
confessed.” St. Fulgentius
Notice, both the CONFESSION AND
THE BAPTISM are necessary for salvation, harkening back to Trent's teaching
that both the laver AND the “votum” are required for justification, and
harkening back to Our Lord's teaching that we must be born again of water AND
the Holy Spirit.
In fact, you see the language of St. Fulgentius reflected in the Council of
Trent. Trent describes the votum (so-called “desire”) as the PATH
TO SALVATION, the disposition to Baptism, and then says that “JUSTIFICATION
ITSELF” (St. Fulgentius says “SALVATION ITSELF”) follows the dispositions in
the Sacrament of Baptism.
Yet another solid argument for why Trent is teaching that BOTH the votum
AND the Sacrament are required for justification.
“Hold most firmly and never
doubt in the least that not only all pagans but also all Jews and all heretics
and schismatics who end this present life outside the Catholic Church are about
to go into the eternal fire that was prepared for the Devil and his angels.”
St. Fulgentius
“The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes,
professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church,
not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share
in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was
prepared for the devil and his angels.’”
St. Eugene IV, Cantate Domino
Ladislaus,
CathInfo
John Cardinal Newman,
another Novus Ordo "saint" soon to be declared a "Doctor" of
the Novus Ordo Church, comments following the dogmatic declaration of papal
infallibility.
“But we must hope, for one is obliged to hope
it, that the Pope (Pius IX) will be driven from Rome, and will not continue the
Council (Vatican I), or that there will be another Pope. It is sad he should
force us to such wishes.”
John H. Newman, Letter to his companion, Fr.
Ambrose St. John, 22 August, 1870
“We have come to a climax of tyranny. It is
not good for a Pope to live 20 years. It is anomaly and bears no good fruit; he
becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, and does
cruel things without meaning it.”
John H. Newman, The Letters and Diaries of
John Henry Newman, v. XXVI by Charles Stephen Dessain
"This
(Divine) law, as apprehended in the minds of individual men, is called
"conscience;" and though it may suffer refraction in passing into the
intellectual medium of each, it is not therefore so affected as to lose its
character of being the Divine Law, but still has, as such, the prerogative of
commanding obedience."
John
Henry Cardinal Newman
"It seems, then, that there are extreme cases in which Conscience
may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite
of that word."
John Henry Cardinal Newman
COMMENT: Pope Gregory XVI said, "This shameful font of
indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims
that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone." Conscience is
not the Divine Law. St. Thomas says that, "Conscience is nothing else than
the application of knowledge to some action." He is referring to the
knowledge of the Law of God. The Law of God, whether the eternal law or the
positive revealed law of God, is the objective criteria by which the conscience
is obligated to use as the standard by which any judgment regarding the moral
goodness or evil of any particular act is made.
All men are obligated to obey their conscience because they are
obligated to apprehend the objective Divine Law as the proper criteria. They
are not free to invent their personal subjective criteria in determining what
is the right or the wrong thing to do.
Liberalism claims the exact opposite. It is a fundamental axiom of
liberalism that the conscience is free to establish its own moral criteria.
This has been condemned by popes Gregory XVI, PiusIX and Pius X. John Henry
Cardinal Newman can be identified as the "Spirit of Vatican II."
Hermeneutics of Continuity/Discontinuity
The woman saith to him: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our
fathers adored on this mountain, and you say, that at Jerusalem is the place
where men must adore. Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me, that the hour
cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the
Father. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also
seeketh such to adore him. God is a spirit; and they that adore him, must adore
him in spirit and in truth.
John 4:19-24
Novus Ordo Doctrine: Moslems and Novus Ordo Catholics
Worship the same God!
CCC 841, quoting the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium 16, from Vatican II, declared:
"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the
Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold
the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God,
mankind’s judge on the last day."
CCC 841 also references Vatican II’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church
to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate,
3, that makes the teaching of the Council perhaps even clearer:
"The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the
one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the
Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit
wholeheartedly to even his inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the
faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to
God."
Catholic Church Doctrine: Catholics and Moslems DO
NOT worship the same God.
“Now
the Samaritans had a false idea of God in two ways. First of all, because they
thought He was corporeal, so that they believed that He should be adored in
only one definite corporeal place. Further, because they did not believe that
He transcended all things, but was equal to certain creatures, they adored
along with Him certain idols, as if they were equal to Him. Consequently, they
did not know Him, because they did not attain to a true knowledge of Him. So
the Lord says, you adore that which you do not know [John 4:22], that is, you do not adore God
because you do not know Him, but rather your imagination, by which you
apprehend something as God, just as the Gentiles also walk in the foolishness
of their mind (Eph 4:17).” St.
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary On John 4:22
“How
then did the Samaritans know not what they worshipped? Because they thought
that God was local and partial; so at least they served Him, and so they sent
to the Persians, and reported that the God of this place is angry with us [2
Kings 26], in this respect
forming no higher opinion of Him than of their idols. Wherefore they continued
to serve both Him and devils, joining things which ought not to be joined.” St. John Chrysostom, Homily 33 On The Gospel
of John
COMMENT: When
Jesus said to the Samaritan Woman, " You adore that which you know
not," He is not saying that they adore the One True God that they are
ignorant of. He is saying, that in their ignorance they do not know who they
are adoring meaning that they are adoring in ignorance a devil, for "all
the gods of the gentiles are devils" (Psalm 95:5). Jesus then says, that
"true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth..... they that
adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth." To adore in
"spirit" means that to adore God you must be baptized and made sons
of God for as Jesus said: "Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born
again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God That
which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit, is
spirit" (John 3:5-7). And to adore in "truth" means who must
believe what has been revealed by God. Without the true faith it is
"impossible to please God" (Hebrews 11:6). As such, right knowledge
of God is essential to true worship. This is the great sin of Modernism and
Neo-modernism: They make a right knowledge of God impossible!
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
Catholic
Faith:
Physical substances come into being through the union of substantial
form and primary matter. The Soul is the Substantial Form of the Human Body; it
is immortal and will be judged after the death of the person and directed to
Heaven or Hell for all eternity awaiting to be joined again to its Body at the
Resurrection of the Dead for the Last Judgment.
“In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and
all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to
assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not
the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a
heretic.”
Council of Vienne
Neo-Modernists
Ideology: [Ratzinger quotes provided by James Larson, War Against Being]
“The medieval concept of substance has long since become inaccessible
to us.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Faith and the Future
“The proper Christian thing, therefore, is to speak, not of the soul’s
immortality, but of the resurrection of the complete human being [at the Final
Judgment] and of that alone… The idea that to speak of the soul is unbiblical
was accepted to such an extent that even the new Roman Missal (i.e.: the Novus
Ordo) suppressed the term anima in its liturgy for the dead. It also
disappeared from the ritual for burial.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
“‘The soul’ is our term for that
in us which offers a foothold for this relation [with the eternal]. Soul is
nothing other than man’s capacity for relatedness with truth, with love
eternal.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
“The challenge to traditional theology today lies in the negation of an
autonomous, ‘substantial’ soul with a built-in immortality in favor of that
positive view which regards God’s decision and activity as the real foundation
of a continuing human existence.”
Rev. Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology:
Death and Eternal Life
And
those who have denied the reality of substantial
being are those who are responsible for the “dictatorship of relativism.”
“Every day new sects are created and what Saint
Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw
those into error (Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed
of the Church, is often labelled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas,
relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind
of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards.
We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognise
anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and
one’s own desires.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Homily of the
Dean of the College of Cardinals, 2005
Sacrament of
Baptism: Significance of the Baptismal Character and why it is absolutely
necessary for salvation. Explains why St. Ambrose said regarding catechumens
who die before receiving the sacrament of Baptism, they are “forgiven but not
crowned”.
To be baptized is to become one with the Church, and one with Christ. Thus the ritual can say: “enter
into the temple of God, that you may have part with Christ, unto life
everlasting.” The two ideas are correlative: to be baptized into the
Church and to be baptized into Christ; they are the visible and invisible
aspects of the same real effect. [….]
The effecting this incorporation into Christ, Baptism marks the soul as
permanently His; it stamps upon the soul a spiritual “character”, or, as
antiquity more commonly called it, a “seal”.
For this reason, and putting the cause for the effect, the rite of
Baptism was itself called “the seal”, or “the seal of faith”, or “the seal of
water”, or “the seal of the Trinity” (which last appellation endures still in
the liturgical prayers for the dying, wherein God is asked to remember His
promises to the soul that in its lifetime was “stamped with the seal of the
Most Holy Trinity”).
The word “seal” derives from a group of texts in St. Paul, which
suggest this stamping of the soul at Baptism: “And in Him (Christ), you too,
when you had heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and
believed in it, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise” (Eph. 1:13);
“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption” (Eph. 4:30). However, nowadays we are accustomed to speak rather
of the baptismal “character”, a term that suggests the text wherein Christ is
called “the brightness of His (the Father’s) glory and the image (in Greek,
character) of His substance” (Hebr. 1:3).
Basically, two words give the same meaning: a seal imprints an image,
and a “character”, in the original sense of the word, means image. Baptism,
therefore, stamps the soul with the image of Christ, Who is Himself the image
of the Father. And in the Scripture, this stamping is attributed to the Holy
Spirit, Who is the Spirit of Christ. The fact that we are stamped with such a
character is clearly defined by the Council of Trent:
“If anyone says
that by the three Sacraments, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation and Orders, there
is not imprinted in the soul a Character, that is a certain spiritual and
indelible sign on account of which they cannot be repeated; let him be
anathem.” (Denz. 852).
The Council of Trent teaches that this seal, once stamped on the soul,
is indelible. Just as Baptism irrevocable makes one a member of the Church, so
also it irrevocably makes one a member of Christ. Not the gravest sin, nor even
final impenitence and self-condemnation to eternal separation from Christ in
Hell, can avail to erase this baptismal seal. And the indelibility of the seal
is the immediate reason why Baptism can never be repeated, once it has been
validly received. [….]
The sense in which Baptism stamps us with the image of Christ is
suggested in the rite itself, by the anointing which follows the ablution. It
is done with Sacred Chrism, a mixed unguent of oil and balm, specially
consecrated by the bishop on Holy Thursday. Kings and priests in antiquity (and
even today) were anointed with chrism in token of their royal and priestly
dignity. And the baptism anointing signifies, therefore, that the new Christian
has entered into the “royal priesthood” of the Christian people, and shares in
the royal Priesthood of Christ Himself. He bears the image of Christ, inasmuch
as Christ was the Priest of all humanity, Who offered Himself in sacrifice on
the Cross.
The baptismal seal or character, therefore, endows the Christian with a
priestly function, and a priestly power. It is not that special power and
function given by the Sacrament of Holy Orders to certain selected members of
the Church, who are made her official ministers, and authorized to offer her
sacrifice and dispense her Sacraments. But it is the priestly function and
power which is common to all the members of the Body of Christ. As He was born
as Priest, His whole life orientated toward the Passion and Death which was His
priestly Sacrifice, so too, they are priests from their birth into the
Christian life at Baptism; and their lives are essentially orientated toward
sacrifice, in a double sense.
First of all, they receive a function and a power with respect to the
ritual Sacrifice of the Church, which is the Mass. [….] They are empowered to
assist actively in the offering of the Mass, as members of the Church, in whose
name her specially qualified members, priests and bishops, offer the Mass,
which is the sacrifice of the whole Church through her official ministers. In
union with the Priest, the Christian offers up Christ as a Victim Who belongs
to him and to Whom he belongs. An unbaptized person cannot do this….
Secondly, the baptismal character consecrates the Christian to
sacrifice in a wider sense: it gives him the function, the duty, the power to
lead a life of sacrifice, since He is in the image of Christ whose life was one
long sacrifice – a life of complete obedience to the will of His Father: “I
seek not My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me” (Jn. 3:50).The will of
the Father is the supreme law of the Christian’s life; it is all embracing and
all pervasive; and constant and total obedience to it necessarily gives a
sacrificial quality to the whole of life, since it demands the renunciation of
many ideas, and a steady refusal to be led by one’s own emotions or to seek
one’s own pleasure and profit – in a word, it demands the sacrifice of
selfishness in all its forms. St. Peter, therefore, was thinking of Baptism
when he wrote:
“Lay aside
therefore all malice and all deceit, and pretense, and envy, and all slander….
Be you yourselves as living stones, built thereon (i.e., on Christ) into a
spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God
through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:1,5).
Rev. John J. Fernan, S.J., Theology, Christ Our High Priest, Baptismal
Seal
Pius XII - the man responsible for planting the seed of
liturgical destruction!
Fr. Annibale Bugnini had been making clandestine visits to the Centre de
Pastorale Liturgique (CPL), a progressivist conference centre for liturgical
reform which organized national weeks for priests.
Inaugurated in Paris in 1943 on the private initiative of two Dominican priests
under the presidency of Fr. Lambert Beauduin, it was a magnet for all who
considered themselves in the vanguard of the Liturgical Movement. It would play
host to some of the most famous names who influenced the direction of Vatican
II: Frs. Beauduin, Guardini, Congar, Chenu, Daniélou, Gy, von Balthasar, de
Lubac, Boyer, Gelineau etc.
It could, therefore, be considered as the confluence of all the forces
of Progressivism, which saved and re-established Modernism condemned by Pope
Pius X in Pascendi.
According to its
co-founder and director, Fr. Pie Duployé, OP, Bugnini had requested a
“discreet” invitation to attend a CPL study week held near Chartres in
September 1946.
Much more was
involved here than the issue of secrecy. The person whose heart beat as one
with the interests of the reformers would return to Rome to be placed by an
unsuspecting (?) Pope (Pius XII) in charge of his Commission for the General
Reform of the Liturgy.
But someone in the Roman Curia did know about the CPL – Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, the acting
Secretary of State and future Paul VI – who sent a telegram to the CPL dated
January 3, 1947. It purported to come from the Pope with an apostolic blessing.
If, in Bugnini’s estimation, the Roman authorities were to be kept in the dark
about the CPL so as not to compromise its activities, a mystery remains. Was
the telegram issued under false pretences, or did Pius XII really know and
approve of the CPL? [.....]
This agenda (for liturgical reform) was set out as early as 1949 in the
Ephemerides Liturgicae, a leading
Roman review on liturgical studies of which Fr. Annabale Bugnini was Editor
from 1944 to 1965.
First, Bugnini denigrated
the traditional liturgy as a dilapidated building (“un vecchio edificio”),
which should be condemned because it was in danger of falling to pieces
(“sgretolarsi”) and, therefore, beyond repair. Then, he criticized it for its
alleged “deficiencies, incongruities and difficulties,” which rendered it
spiritually “sterile” and would prevent it appealing to modern sensibilities.
It is difficult to understand how, in the same year that he published this
anti-Catholic diatribe, he was made a Professor of Liturgy in Rome’s Propaganda
Fide (Propagation of the Faith) University. His solution was to return to the
simplicity of early Christian liturgies and jettison all subsequent
developments, especially traditional devotions.
These ideas expressed in 1949 would form the foundational principles of Vatican
II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. For all practical purposes, the Roman Rite was
dead in the water many years before it was officially buried by Paul VI.
Dr.
Carol Byrne, How Bugnini Grew Up under
Pius XII
Wisdom
is only possible for those who hold DOGMA as the Rule of Faith!
Besides, every dogma of faith
is to the Catholic cultivated mind not only a new increase of knowledge, but
also an incontrovertible principle from which it is able to draw conclusions
and derive other truths. They present an endless field for investigation so
that the beloved Apostle St. John could write at the end of his Gospel, without
fear of exaggeration: “But there are also many other things which Jesus did:
which if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be
able to contain the books that should be written.”
The Catholic Church, by
enforcing firm belief in her dogmas—which are not her inventions, but were
given by Jesus Christ—places them as a bar before the human mind to prevent it
from going astray and to attach it to the truth; but it does not prevent the
mind from exercising its functions when it has secured the treasure of divine
truth, and a “scribe thus instructed in the kingdom of heaven is truly like a
man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things
and old.” He may bring forth new illustrations, new arguments and proofs; he
may show now applications of the same truths, according to times and
circumstances; he may show new links which connect the mysteries of religion
with each other or with the natural sciences as there can be no discord between
the true faith and true science; God, being the author of both, cannot
contradict Himself and teach something by revelation as true which He teaches
by the true light of reason as false. In all these cases the householder
“brings forth from his treasure new things and old.” They are new inasmuch as
they are the result of new investigations; and old because they are contained
in the old articles of faith and doctrine as legitimate deductions from their
old principles.
Fr. Joseph Prachensky, S.J.,
The Church of Parables and True Spouse of the Suffering Saviour, on the Parable
of the Scribe
Baptism imprints
in your soul a spiritual character, which no sin can efface. This character is
a proof that from this time you do not belong to yourself, but that you are the
property of Jesus Christ, who has purchased you by the infinite price of his
blood and of his death. You are not of yourself, but you are of Christ;
wherefore, St. Paul concludes, “that the Christian should no longer live for
himself, but for Him who died and rose again for him;” that is to say, that the
Christian should live a life of grace, and that he should consecrate to his
Redeemer his spirit, his heart, and all his actions. […..]
First, is true penance; for, as the holy Council of Trent teaches,
penance is no less necessary for those who have sinned after Baptism, than
Baptism is necessary for those who have not received it. The Holy Scripture
informs us, that there are two gates by which we are to enter into
heaven—baptismal innocence, and penance. When a Christian has shut against
himself the gate of innocence, in violating the holy promises of Baptism, it is
necessary that he should strive to enter by that of penance; otherwise there is
no salvation for him. On this account, Jesus Christ, speaking of persons who
have lost innocence, says to them: “Unless you do penance, you shall all
perish.”
But in order that penance may prevent us from perishing—it must be true
Penance. Confessors may be deceived by the false appearance of conversion, and it
is too often the case; but God is never deceived. If, therefore, those who
receive absolution are not truly penitent and worthy of pardon, their sins are
not forgiven before God. In order to do true penance, it is not sufficient to
confess all our sins and to fulfill what is enjoined on us by the priest. There
are two other things which are necessary: First; to renounce sin with all your
heart, and for all your life… and second; to fly the occasions of sin, and to
use the means to avoid it.
St. John Eudes, Man’s Contract
with God in Baptism
Again, in the Office
for the feasts of our Lady, the Church applies the words of Sirach to
the Blessed Virgin and thus gives us to understand that in her we find all
hope: In me is all hope of life and of virtue. In Mary is every
grace: In me is all grace of the way and of the truth. In Mary we
shall find life and eternal salvation: Those who serve me shall never
fail. Those who explain me shall have life everlasting (Sir. 24:25,
30, 31--- Vulgate). And in the Book of Proverbs: Those who find me find life
and win favor from the Lord (8:35). Surely such expressions are enough to
prove that we require the intercession of Mary.
St. Alphonsus de
Liguori, The Glories of Mary
THE NOVUS ORDO CHURCH OF SLOTH
AND ENVY
The first effect of
charity is joy in the goodness of God. But this joy can only live through the
union of man’s will with God in charity. And charity demands that man keep all
the commandments. Charity demands a fellowship in good between God and man.
When the effort to live in this fellowship in good begins to appear too
difficult to man he begins to be sorrowful about the infinite goodness of God.
This sorrow weighs down the spirit of man and leads him to neglect good. This
sorrow is the sin of sloth, sorrow about the goodness of God. Sloth is a
capital sin. It leads men into other sins. To avoid the sorrow or weariness of
spirit which is sloth men will turn from God to the sinful pleasures of the
world.
When a man falls victim
to sloth and is sorrowful because of the goodness of God it is only natural
that he will begin to be grieved also at the manifestation of the goodness of
God in other men. He will resent good men simply because they are good. This
resentment is envy, hatred of someone else’s good. Since the love of our
neighbor flows from our love of God, it is natural that when we cease to love
God’s goodness, we will also begin to hate the goodness of men. Envy, like
sloth, is a capital sin. It will lead men to commit other sins to destroy the
goodness of their neighbors.
When a man’s heart is
filled with sloth and envy the interior peace of his soul which was the effect
of charity is destroyed. The loss of the interior peace leads to the
destruction of the peace of society. When a man’s heart is no longer centered
in God, then his life loses all proper direction. When the love of God is gone
he has nothing left but the love of himself. When a man loves himself without
loving God then he can brook no opposition to his own judgment or arbitrary
will. He can tolerate goodness in no one else. He will even, by the sin of
scandal, by his own words and example, lead other men into sin. He must
disagree with all men. He must dispute with them, separate himself from them,
quarrel with them, go to war with them, set the whole of the community at war
with itself.
Wherever the goodness
of God is most manifest, there will the heart of the man who no longer loves
God be most energetic in sowing the seeds of discord, contentiousness, strife
and war. That is why religion and the true Church of God are so viciously
attacked in the world today. Those who do not love God are driven by sloth and
envy to attack God’s tabernacle on earth.
Fr. Walter Farrell and
Fr. Martin Healy, My Way of Life, Pocket
Edition of St. Thomas
Amoris Laetitia was published in 2016. No answer or corrective action to
this "appeal" was ever made. That is because no clarification was
ever needed. Why? That is because the "numerous propositions in Amoris
Laetitia (that) can be construed as heretical upon the natural reading of the
text" is exactly what the author intended! So in 2016 these
"academics and pastors" did "not accusing the pope of
heresy", but what about now?
“Amoris
Laetitia.... scandalous, erroneous in faith, and ambiguous...”
Catholic academics and
pastors appeal to the College of Cardinals over Amoris Laetitia
A
group of Catholic academics and pastors has submitted an appeal to Cardinal
Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome, requesting that the
Cardinals and Eastern Catholic Patriarchs petition His Holiness, Pope Francis,
to repudiate a list of erroneous propositions that can be drawn from a natural
reading of the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia. During the coming weeks this submission will be
sent in various languages to every one of the Cardinals and Patriarchs, of whom
there are 218 living at present.
Describing the exhortation as containing
“a number of statements that can be understood in a sense that is contrary to
Catholic faith and morals,” the signatories submitted, along with their appeal,
a documented list of applicable theological censures specifying “the nature and
degree of the errors that could be attributed to Amoris laetitia.”
Among the 45 signatories are Catholic prelates, scholars, professors, authors, and clergy from various pontifical universities, seminaries, colleges, theological institutes, religious orders, and dioceses around the world. They have asked the College of Cardinals, in their capacity as the Pope’s official advisers, to approach the Holy Father with a request that he repudiate “the errors listed in the document in a definitive and final manner, and to authoritatively state that Amoris laetitia does not require any of them to be believed or considered as possibly true.”
“We are not accusing the pope of heresy,” said a spokesman for the authors, “but we consider that numerous propositions in Amoris laetitia can be construed as heretical upon a natural reading of the text. Additional statements would fall under other established theological censures, such as scandalous, erroneous in faith, and ambiguous, among others.” [......]
Atheists are really
anti-theists. They oppose the God who is God with an idol of their own making.
No atheist chooses
merely to deny God. For the atheist’s spiritual posture against God is at the
same time his posture in preference for some other Being above God. As he
dismisses the true God he is welcoming his New God. Why must this be so?
Because every personal commitment of man presupposes, deep in the metaphysical
core of his being, a hunger for being as truth and goodness. Man is
intrinsically burdened with an incurable hunger for transcendence. If being
abhors a vacuum, the vacuum it most violently shrinks from is the total absence
of Infinite Being. And history demonstrates that man is inconsolable without
the True God.
Fr. Vincent Miceli,
S.J., The Gods of Atheism
‘When
men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing,
they believe in anything.’
There are men who will
ruin themselves and ruin their civilization if they may ruin also this old
fantastic tale (of the Catholic faith). This is the last and most astounding
fact about this faith; that its enemies will use any weapon against it, the
sword that cuts their own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own
homes. … (The atheist fanatic) sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the
non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to
assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready
to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and
eternal vengeance upon some one who (he affirms) never lived at all.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
“Cultivate a great
desire to be firmly rooted in the sublime virtue of confidence. Do not fear, but be courageous in
serving and loving our Most Adorable and Amiable Jesus, with great perfection
and holiness. Undertake courageously great tasks for His glory, in proportion
to the power and grace He will give you for this end. Even though you can do
nothing of yourself, you can do all things in Him and His help will never fail
you, if you have confidence
in His goodness. Place your entire physical and spiritual welfare in His
hands. Abandon to the paternal solicitude of His Divine Providence every care
for your health, reputation, property and business, for those near to you, for
your past sins, for your soul’s progress in virtue and love of Him, for your
life, death, and especially for your salvation and eternity, in a word, all
your cares. Rest in the
assurance that, in His pure goodness, He will watch with particular
tenderness over all your responsibilities and cares and dispose all things for
the greatest good.”
St. John Eudes, The Life and Kingdom of Jesus in Christian
Souls
Cardinal Burke
offers the correction for two mistranslations in the English publication of the
Motu proprio of Pope Francis, “TRADITIONIS CUSTODES”
Art. 1. The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI (sic) and Saint
John Paul II (sic), in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are
the unique only expression of
the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.
Art. 4. Priests ordained after the publication of the present Motu
Proprio, who wish to celebrate using the Missale Romanum of 1962, should must submit a formal
request to the diocesan Bishop who shall consult the Apostolic See before
granting this authorization.
"Not a
stone upon a stone" - 9th Sunday after Pentecost
The 'Western Wall' (Wailing Wall) in
Jerusalem is held by Jews as a remnant of Herod's Temple destroyed by the
Romans in 72 A.D. Yet, Jesus prophesized not only that the Temple would be
destroyed but also that there would not remain a "stone upon a
stone." So how is it that there remains a large wall on the western side
at the south end of the 'Temple Mount'? Some Catholics claim the prophecy of
Jesus was referring only to the edifice itself and not the entire foundation
for the Temple. Jesus words must be taken in literally unless there it is
clearly manifest that the metaphorical sense is intended exclusively. Therefore,
the 'Wailing Wall' where the Jews worship is not a remnant of the ancient
Temple, and the 'Temple Mount', on which is currently situated the Al-Aqsa
mosque and the "Dome of the Rock", is not the location of the Temple
destroyed in 72 A.D. The 36 acre 'Temple Mount' is actually the location of the
Roman fortress Antonia built by Herod.
What
is the evidence for this? The current popular claim is the fortress Antonia was
located on a five-acre section on the north-west side of the 'Temple Mount'
while the Temple occupied the remaining 30 acres. Five acres is far too small
to accommodate a Roman legion (6,000 soldiers plus auxiliary staff) which we
know from the writings of Flavius Josephus that the fortress Antonia did in
fact hold. Many Roman fortresses have been examined by archeologists and they
typically are between 45 and 55 acres but some are as small as 36 acres. As far
as the area needed for the Temple of Herod itself, consider this, the ancient
pagan temple complex at Baalek in Lebanon built by the Romans is less than six
acres in total area and encloses the largest temple to Jupiter in the Roman
Empire as well as a smaller temple dedicated to Bacchus and another to Venus.
The Temple built by Herod was a single temple and much smaller in overall dimensions.
Furthermore,
when Solomon was designated by King David to succeed him (3 Kings 1), King
David directed the prophet Nathan and the high priest Sadoc to take Solomon on
the king's mule to be anointed king at the "Gihon spring" with oil
taken from the tabernacle. The Gihon spring is located in the City of David
directly south and adjacent to the present-day 'Temple Mount'. There Solomon
was anointed with oil taken from the Tabernacle, proclaimed king and celebrated
by the populace with great jubilation and the sounding of trumpets that could
be heard outside the city. The Temple built by Solomon was in the same location
as the Tabernacle established by King David on the threshing floor of the land
he purchased Areuna the Jebusite as God had commanded by the mouth of Gad (2
Kings 24 and 2 Paralipomenon 3:1).
The
water from the Gihon spring was essential for the sacrificial offerings of the
Temple. There is no living water source on the 'Temple Mount' which was
required in the washing of the priests and the sacrifices offered. The water
source for the Antonia fortress was provided by large cisterns located just
north of the Antonia fortress and under the 'Temple Mount' that are still
present today.
There
is a Catholic tradition the there was a church called the Church of the
Judgment that was built over and enclosed the Rock that is now enclosed under
the Dome of the Rock built by the Moslems in 692 A.D. The Dome of the Rock is
located directly north of the Al-Aqsa mosque on the 'Temple Mount'. The Church
of the Judgment was destroyed either by the Persians who conquered Jerusalem in
614 A.D. with the help of 26,000 Jewish allies during the Byzantine-Sasanian
War 602-628 A.D. (during which many churches were destroyed including the
Church of the Ascension on Mount Olivet), or the church was destroyed by the
Moslems who conquered Jerusalem in 637 A.D. No living Jew at the time would
have knowledge of the exact location of Herod's Temple because the Jews were
forbidden to enter Jerusalem by the Romans since the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135
A.D. on the pain of death. Two hundred years later, the Catholic emperor
Constantine permitted the Jews to enter Jerusalem once a year on the feast of
Tisha B'Av (the ninth of Av) which is regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish
calendar because it is the anniversary of the destruction of both the Temple of
Solomon and the Temple of Herod! Be that as it may, many of the pillars used in
the construction of the interior of the Dome of the Rock have Christian
markings indicating that they were salvaged from a destroyed Catholic church.
The
Rock itself is regarded (WIKI) as The Foundation Stone (Hebrew אֶבֶן
הַשְּׁתִיָּה, romanized: ʾEḇen
haŠeṯīyyā, lit. 'Foundation Stone'), or the Noble
Rock (Arabic:الصخرة
المشرفة, romanized: al-Saḵrah al-Mušarrafah, lit. 'The
Noble Stone') is the rock enclosed by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It is
also known as the Pierced Stone, because it has a small hole on the
southeastern corner that enters a cavern beneath the rock, known as the Well of
Souls. Traditional Jewish sources mention the stone as the place from
which the creation of the world began. Jewish sources also identify its
location with that of the Holy of Holies. Yet, it is not possible for a
threshing floor to be around a large rock or stone.
Before
the Muslim conquest, the Rock was enclosed in the Catholic church known as the
Church of the Judgment (destroyed by the Persians) because it is believed to
have been the place where the condemned stood to hear the judgment against them
by the Roman authorities. The Rock is held to be where Jesus stood when His
official condemnation was decreed by Pontius Pilate and thus, if it is the
stone where the "creation of the world began," it is the stone from
which the creation of the world began anew. John 19:13 says: "Now when
Pilate had heard these words, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the
judgment seat, in the place that is called Lithostrotos, and in Hebrew
Gabbatha." Lithostrotos in Greek refers to a stone and Gabbatha in Hebrew
an elevated place. According to St. Mary Agreda after Jesus was condemned by
Pilate the decree of condemnation, which she quotes in its entirety, was then
formally read to the Jewish mob assembled outside the north entrance to
Fortress Antonia where Jesus was taken to bear His cross.
Of
the Temple of Herod destroyed in 72 A.D. there does not remain a "stone
upon a stone".
Leo XIV Reinstates Convicted
Child-Porn Priest who was protected by Francis
Carlo Alberto Capella was
Vatican diplomat who was convicted by a Vatican tribunal of possessing and
sharing child pornography. Capella admitted guilt to the charges. He is the
only one who has served a prison sentence in the Vatican jail for this crime or
for any sexually related crime against minors.
Monsignor
Capella was ordained a priest in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Milan. After
studies of canon law he entered the Vatican diplomatic corps. He was
assigned to the papal nunciature in India in 2003 and to the nunciature in Hong
Kong in 2007. In 2008 he was created Chaplain of His Holiness, which entitled him to the title
of Monsignor. In 2011 he was transferred to the Vatican to serve in
the Secretariat of State. In 2016 he was assigned to the papal nunciature to
the United States.
In
2017, Capella was recalled to the Vatican by Pope Francis after United
States officials informed the Vatican that he was under investigation for
possession and sharing of child pornography. The government of Canada has
issued a warrant for his arrest, alleging that during his time in Canada in
December, 2016 he had possessed and shared child pornography. He was returned
to the Vatican which claimed diplomatic immunity for Capella protecting him
from prosecution in the United State or Canada.
In
2018, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, which he served
in the Vatican jail. As of 2021, he was allowed out during the day to work in
an office that sells papal blessings. In 2023, following the end of his prison
sentence, Capella was permitted to return to work in the Vatican Secretariat of
State. Now Pope Leo XIV has reinstated
Msgr. Capella to a senior diplomatic position in the Vatican Secretariat of
State.
COMMENT: Pope Leo is protégé of Francis to whom he owns his promotions
to bishop and cardinal. It was Francis who protected this pervert from criminal
charges in the United States and in Canada and now it is Francis' protégé who
has restored him the a high level position in the Vatican. This does not
portend well for any serious reform of the Novus Ordo Church which has become a
sinecure for homosexuals and others perverts.
From Tradition
In Action:
You don't have
to be a liturgical EXPERT to see that there is no essential difference in the act!
The question
is: Is there any essential difference
in the actors?
Top: St. Patrick Catholic Church, Chatham, New Jersey, August 22, 2021
Bottom:
First Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 6, 2025
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