Invincible ignorance is a punishment for sin.
St. Thomas Aquinas (De Infid. q. x., art. 1.)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Now I know that true charity consists in bearing all my neighbors’ defects,
in not being surprised at mistakes, but in being edified at the smallest
virtues.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, shortly before her
death
They knew only too well the intimate bond which unites
faith with worship, ‘the law of belief with the law of prayer,’ and so, under
the pretext of restoring it to its primitive form, they corrupted the order of
the liturgy in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators.
Pope Leo XIII, Apostolicae
Curae, September 13, 1896
ON THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF EXTREME UNCTION
He bound up his wounds pouring in
oil and wine (Luke 10, 34).
The conduct of the Samaritan in
regard to the wounded man may be viewed as a figure of the holy Sacrament of Extreme
Unction, in which Christ, the true Samaritan, by means of the holy oil and the
prayer of the priest, His representative, dispenses His grace to the sick for
the welfare of the soul and often of the body, provided the sick place no
obstacle in His way.
Is Extreme Unction a Sacrament?
Yes; because it was instituted by
Christ, and by it grace is conveyed to the sick through an outward sign.
Did Christ institute this
Sacrament?
He did, for He sent His disciples
to anoint the sick with oil and heal them, as the Evangelist writes: Going
forth they preached that men should do penance: and they cast out many devils,
and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them (Mark 6, 12-13). We
must believe that this unction was not invented by the apostles, but ordained
by the Lord. This is confirmed by the Council of Trent, which says: (Sess. XIV.
C. I) “This sacred Unction of the sick was instituted by Christ our Lord, as
indicated by St. Mark, but recommended to the faithful and promulgated by the
Apostle St. James, a relative of our Lord.” “Is any man,” he says, “sick among
you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him,
anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall
save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they
shall be forgiven (James 5, 14-15). St. James could not have said this, if he
had not known the institution and command of Christ: to it apostolic and
uninterrupted tradition also gives testimony.
What is the external sign of
this Sacrament?
The anointing with holy oil, which
is blessed by the bishop on Holy Thursday, and the prayer of the priest.
What graces does this Sacrament
produce in the sick man?
The Catechism of the Council of
Trent enumerates the following: first, it remits sins, especially venial sins.
Its primary object is not to remit mortal sin. For this the Sacrament of
penance was instituted, as was that of baptism for the remission of original
sin; secondly, it removes the languor and infirmity entailed by sin, with all
other inconveniences. The time most seasonable for the application of this cure
is, when we are visited by some severe malady, which threatens to prove fatal;
for nature dreads no earthly visitation so much as death; and this dread is
considerably augmented by the recollection of our past sins, particularly if
the mind is harrowed by the poignant reproaches of conscience; for it is
written: “They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins, and their
iniquities shall stand against them to convict them.” A source of alarm still
more distressing is the awful reflection, that, in a few moments, we shall
stand before the judgment-seat of God, whose justice will award that sentence,
which our lives have deserved. The terror inspired by these considerations
frequently agitates the soul with the most awful apprehensions; and to calm
this terror nothing can be so efficacious as the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.
It quiets our fear, illumines the gloom in which the soul is enveloped, fills
it with pious and holy joy, and enables us to await with cheerfulness the
coming of the Lord; thirdly, it fortifies us against the violent assaults of
Satan. The enemy of mankind never ceases to seek our ruin: and if it be
possible to deprive us of all hope of mercy, he more than ever increases his
efforts, when he sees us approach our last end. This Sacrament, therefore,
enables the recipient to fight resolutely and successfully against him;
fourthly, it effects the recovery of health, if advantageous to the sick
person.
What intentions must the sick
man have, in order to gain these graces?
Since the Sacraments work the more
powerfully the better the preparation made by those who receive them, and since
by this Sacrament those sins are remitted which we have forgotten, or have not
sufficiently known, the sick man should, therefore, receive beforehand, if it
be possible, the holy Sacrament of Penance and the blessed Eucharist; or if
this cannot be done, he should make an act of perfect contrition, and have the
wish to confess if possible. He should, therefore, not defer the reception of
this Sacrament to the last moment, when the violence of sickness has already
taken away the use of his reason and senses, but he should ask for this
Sacrament whilst yet enjoying the use of reason, so that he may receive it with
devotion and salutary result.
Is this Sacrament necessary for
salvation?
No; yet we should not neglect in
case of sickness to partake of the excellent fruits of this Sacrament since the
Council of Trent teaches: “To despise so great a Sacrament would indeed be a
great sin, an insult to the Holy Ghost” (Sess. XIV. C. 3).
Can we receive this Sacrament
more than once?
We can receive it as often as we
are in danger of death by sickness; but we must bear in mind that we can be
anointed only once in the same sickness.
Why is this Sacrament called
Extreme Unction?
Because among all the Sacraments
which our Lord and Saviour ordained in His Church,
this one is the last we are to receive. But from this it does not follow, as so
many believe that one who receives this Sacrament must die soon, but it will
rather become a means of salvation for their souls, and if it be for their
eternal welfare, will also restore their bodily health.
What does the priest do when he
enters the house of the sick person?
He wishes peace to the house, and
prays that God may send His angels to protect its inmates, that He may drive
away the enemy, console the sick, strengthen and give him health.
Why does the priest sprinkle
the sick person with holy water?
To remind him that he should
implore of God the forgiveness of his sins, with tears of contrition, in order
to dispel the influence of the evil spirit.
Why does the priest exhort
those present to pray while he administers the Sacrament?
That God may grant through their
prayers whatever may contribute to the welfare of the sick man’s body and soul.
For what does the priest pray
when he imposes his hands on the head of the sick person?
He begs that God, through the imposition
of hands and by the intercession of all the saints, may take the sick person
under His protection, and destroy the power of the devil, who attacks one
particularly in the hour of death.
What does the priest say at the
anointing with oil?
He begs that God, through this
unction and through His gracious mercy, may forgive the sick of the sins which
he has committed with his five senses. At the same time the sick person should,
in a spirit of humility and with a repentant and contrite heart, implore of God
the forgiveness of all his sins.
Why does the priest present the
sick person a crucifix to kiss?
To remind him that, like Jesus, he
should suffer with patience, and place his whole confidence in the infinite merits
of the Crucified, and be willing to suffer and die for love of Him. For this
reason the crucifix ought to be presented often to the dying person.
What should the sick person do
after he has received the Sacrament of Extreme Unction?
He should use all his remaining
strength to thank God sincerely for the benefit he has received, commend
himself to the wounds and the blood of Jesus, and meditate with quiet
recollection on death and eternity.
How consoling does our holy
Catholic Church appear in the continual use of this Sacrament! Having, like a
tender mother, received man by holy Baptism under her maternal care; by holy
Confirmation given him the necessary weapons against sin, heresy, and
infidelity; by the holy Sacrament of Penance purified him from stains and sins;
and by the blessed Eucharist nourished him with the bread of life, enriched him
with virtues, and secured him against falling, she does not desert him even in
the last, all-important moment of death. In that dangerous hour when the dying person,
forsaken by all, often by his most intimate friends, or looked upon with fear,
lies on his bed of pain, when behind him time ceases and before him a certain,
though unknown eternity opens itself, when Satan brings all his resources into
play, in order to ruin his soul, and the thought of the coming judgment makes
the heart tremble, - in this terrible hour the faithful mother, the Catholic
Church, does not abandon him; she sends the priest, her servant, like a
consoling angel to his couch, to encourage the sufferer and strengthen the
fearful with the divine word, to cleanse the sinner and reconcile him with God
by the Sacrament of Penance, to fortify the weak and nourish him with the bread
of life, to strengthen the combatant with the holy oil, thus providing him with
all the means of grace which Jesus obtained for His Church, to conduct his soul
before the face of the eternal Judge, there to find grace and mercy.
Considering this, dear Christian,
should you not feel happy to be a member of this Church, should you not thank
God continually, and adhere faithfully to a Church, in which it is indeed not
so pleasant to live, as in the bosom of irreligion, but in which it is good to
die!
O Lord, the surest sign
of my love for You is the degree of perfection with which I keep the
commandment of charity toward my neighbor… If on my side I use my best
endeavors and strive after this love in every way I can, doing violence to my
own will so that the will of others may be done in everything, even foregoing
my own rights; if I forget my own good in my concern for theirs, however much
my nature may rebel; if I try to shoulder some trial, should the opportunity
present itself, in order to relieve my neighbor of it, You certainly will give
me even more than I can desire. But I
must not suppose that it will cost me nothing.
Besides, Lord, did not the love You had for us cost You, too? To redeem us from death, You died such a
grievous death as the death of the Cross.
St. Teresa of Avila
THE GOOD SAMARITAN TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
PRESENCE
OF GOD ‑
O Lord, impress upon my heart Your commandment of charity and the example You gave
of it.
MEDITATION:
I.
“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who
also stripped him, and having wounded him, went away, leaving him half dead” (Lk 10, 23‑37). That unfortunate man represents each one
of us. We too have encountered robbers on our way. The world, the devil, and
our passions have stripped and wounded us. Who can say that he does not have in
his own soul some wound, more or less deep, left by temptation or sin? But, on
our route, there was also a good Samaritan, rather the Good Samaritan par
excellence, Jesus, who, moved by compassion for our state, brought us help. With
infinite love He bent over our open wounds, curing them with the oil and wine of
His grace. The oil represents its gentleness and the wine its vigor. Then He took
us in His arms and brought us to a safe place, that is, He entrusted us to the
maternal care of the Church, to which He has consigned the price of our ransom,
the fruit of His death on the Cross.
The parable of the good Samaritan thus delineates
the story of our redemption, a story which is ever in action and which is
renewed every time we draw near to Jesus, humbly and regretfully showing Him
the wounds of our souls. It is actuated in a very special way in the Mass,
where Jesus presents to the Father the price of our salvation, and renews His
immolation for our benefit. We should go to Mass in order to meet Him, the Good
Samaritan, to invoke and receive His sanctifying action. The more we recognize
our own misery and our need of redemption, the more will Jesus apply the fruits
of redemption to us. When He comes to us in Holy Communion, He will heal our
wounds, not only our exterior wounds, but our interior ones also, abundantly
pouring into them the sweet oil and strengthening wine of His grace.
This is how Jesus treats us, this is how He has
treated mankind, which, by sin, had become a stranger, yes, an enemy to Him and
even rejected Him, the Son of God!
2.
Jesus, who by His redemptive work, had given us the highest example of a most merciful
and compassionate charity, could fittingly conclude the parable of the good
Samaritan with these words: “Go, and do thou in like manner”; and He might have
added, as He did to His Apostles on the evening of the Last Supper: “For I have
given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also” (Jn 13, 15).
To the scribes and Pharisees, the word neighbors
meant friends, or at most, the Israelites, but never the pagans or the Samaritans.
However, the Savior went beyond this narrow interpretation and suggested an act
of charity to an enemy as a concrete example of the charity which was commanded
by the law. The good Samaritan brought help to a poor Jew who had been left
unaided and abandoned by a priest and a levite, his
own fellow countrymen; he did not take into account the hatred the Jews had for
his people. This universal charity is to be the distinctive mark of the new religion
established by Christ. St. James wrote: “Religion clean and undefiled before
God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation”
(1, 27). There is no true religion without charity toward our neighbor,
and above all toward a suffering neighbor. The scribes and Pharisees, and even
their priests, who had reduced religion to mere exterior formalism while
neglecting the duties of charity with such unconcern, found themselves condemned
by the parable of the good Samaritan. Unfortunately, even among Christians,
there are found devout persons who are scrupulous about omitting a single
exercise of piety but have no hesitation about abandoning those who suffer;
they have not grasped the real inner meaning of religion, but have stopped at
the exterior practices. Religion gives us an intense realization of our
relationship with God: He is our Father and we are His children; but if we are
all children of the same Father, how is it that we do not consider ourselves
brothers? True piety consists in the realization of our divine sonship and of our brotherhood with all men, without
exception. And he who truly feels himself a brother will never be heedless of
the needs and sufferings of others.
COLLOQUY:
“O Lord, the more I understand the love You have
for us, the more shall I be willing to put aside my own pleasure and profit in
order to please You by serving my neighbor.
“Then I shall not consider at all what I may lose:
I shall have my neighbor’s good in mind and nothing else. In order to give You
greater pleasure, my God, help me to forget myself for others, and if need be,
even give up my life as did many martyrs” (T.J. Con, 7).
“O charity, you are the sweet, holy bond uniting
the soul to its Creator: you unite God to man and man to God. You kept the Son
of God nailed to the wood of the holy Cross. You unite those whom discord keeps
apart. You enrich with virtue those who are poor, because you give life to all
the virtues. You bring peace and suppress hatred and war. You give patience,
strength and perseverance in return for every good and holy work. You are never
weary, you never turn aside from the love of God and neighbor, either because
of weariness, pain, contempt, or insult.
“O Christ, sweet Jesus, give me this holy charity,
that I may persevere in doing good and never give it up; for he who possesses
charity is founded on You, the living rock, and by following Your example, he
learns from You how to love His Creator and his neighbor. In You, O Christ, I
read the rule and doctrine which are right for me, for You are the way, the
truth, and the life. If I read You, I shall follow the right path and shall
occupy myself solely with the honor of God and the salvation of souls” (St.
Catherine of Siena).
The Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
Why does it require new theological terms to explain
that there is not a new theology?;
or does the question imply just another “highly
reductive ideological view”?
Rev. Guido Marini, Pope
Benedict’s Master of Ceremonies revealed that Pope Benedict is looking to a “mutual enrichment between the two forms
of the Roman rite.”
Marini also confirmed that the practice of giving out the Novus Ordo communion in the hand would remain, as the national
bishops’ conferences have asked for it. Marini said that there is no difference in the traditional Church
before Vatican II (1962-1965) and after. He stated: “Terms like ‘preconciliar’ and ‘postconciliar,’
it seems to me, belong to an outdated language, and if they are used with the
intention of indicating a discontinuity in the Church’s journey, I maintain
that they are mistaken and typical of highly reductive ideological views.”
Marini said, “In this regard it is necessary
not to forget that the distribution of Communion in the hand remains,
even now, from the juridical standpoint, an indult
from the universal law, conceded by the Holy See to those bishops conferences
which requested it. The method adopted by Benedict XVI
tends to underscore the force of the norm valid for the whole Church. In
addition, one could perhaps also note a preference for using this
method of distribution which, without taking anything from the
other, better sheds light on the truth of the Real Presence in the
Eucharist, it helps the devotion of the faithful, introduces them more
easily to a sense of mystery. The aspect, which in our time, speaking
pastorally, is urgent to highlight and recover.”
Msgr. Guido Marini, Master of Pontifical Ceremonies, L’Osservatore Romano
You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.
To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate
Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there
will be peace…….Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners, for many
souls go to Hell because they have no one to make sacrifices and pray for
them.
Blessed Virgin Mary to the children at Fatima
Those therefore who after
the manner of wicked heretics dare to set aside Ecclesiastical Traditions, and
to invent any kind of novelty, or to reject any of those things entrusted to
the Church, or who wrongfully and outrageously devise the destruction of any of
those Traditions enshrined in the Catholic Church, are to be punished thus: IF
THEY ARE BISHOPS, WE ORDER THEM TO BE DEPOSED; BUT IF THEY ARE MONKS OR LAY
PERSONS, WE COMMAND THEM TO BE EXCLUDED FROM THE COMMUNITY.
Second Council of
Nicaea 787 A.D.
When Zaccheus thought only of usury and oppressing the poor,
when Magdalen filled Jerusalem with scandal, when
Paul cursed and persecuted the Christian religion, who would have imagined that
they would ever have become Saints? And on the other hand, who would have
believed that Solomon, the oracle of Divine wisdom, would die in the midst of
wantonness and idols? That Judas, one of the Apostles, would betray his Divine
Master and then give himself up to despair? Or that many holy men advanced in
sanctity would have become apostates? These are examples which should make us
tremble when we reflect upon the unfathomable mystery of the judgment and mercy
of God: “One He putteth down, and another He lifteth up” (Ps. 74, 8). “He hath put down the mighty from
their seat, and hath exalted the humble” (Luke 1, 52).
Fr. Cajetan
Mary da Bergamo, Humility of Heart
It must be held as a
matter of faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church no one can be saved,
that the Church is the only Ark of Salvation, and that whoever does not enter
it will perish in the Flood.
Blessed Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quadem
For, as the Vatican
Council teaches, "the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of
Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine,
but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully
propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of
faith." Thus, from the universal agreement of the Church's ordinary
teaching authority we have a certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the
Blessed Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into Heaven-----which surely no faculty
of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly
glorification of the virginal body of the loving Mother of God is
concerned-----is a truth that has been revealed by God and consequently
something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the
Church. For, as the Vatican Council asserts, "all those things are to be
believed by Divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word
of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn
judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as Divinely revealed
truths which must be believed."
Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, Defining the Dogma of
the Assumption
There are three things
that render death bitter: attachment to the world, remorse for sins, and the
uncertainty of salvation. The death of Mary was entirely free from these causes
of bitterness, and was accompanied by three special graces, which rendered it
precious and joyful. She dies as she had lived, entirely detached from the
things of the world; she died in the most perfect peace; she died in the
certainty of eternal glory.
St. Alphonsus
Mary de Liguori on the Assumption
Ecclesiasticus teaches us that we ought to praise our fathers in
their generation; what great honour and veneration
ought we then to render to St. Joachim and St. Anne, who begot the Immaculate
Virgin Mother of God, and are on that account more glorious than all
others.
Pope Leo XIII, Urbi et Orbi
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
“The Church
has adopted his philosophy for her own.”
We so heartily approve the magnificent tribute of praise bestowed upon
this most divine genius (St. Thomas Aquinas) that We consider that Thomas
should be called not only the Angelic, but also the Common or Universal
Doctor of the Church; for the Church has adopted his philosophy for her own, as
innumerable documents of every kind attest. It would be an endless task to
explain here all the reasons which moved Our Predecessors in this respect, and
it will be sufficient perhaps to point out that Thomas wrote under the
inspiration of the supernatural spirit which animated his life and that his
writings, which contain the principles of, and the laws governing, all sacred
studies, must be said to possess a universal character……..His teaching with
regard to the power or value of the human mind is irrefragable. “The human mind
has a natural knowledge of being and the things which are in themselves part of
being as such, and this knowledge is the foundation of our knowledge of first
principles” (Contra Gentes, II, 1xxxiii). Such
a doctrine goes to the root of the errors and opinions of those modern
philosophers who maintain that it is not being itself which is perceived in the
act of intellection, but some modification of the percipient; the logical
consequence of such errors is agnosticism, which was so vigorously
condemned in the Encyclical Pascendi.
Pope Piux XI, Studiorum ducem, On St. Thomas Aquinas, June 23,
1923
We therefore desired that all teachers of philosophy and sacred
theology should be warned that if they deviate so much as a step, in
metaphysics especially, from Aquinas, they exposed themselves to grave risk.
[……] For just as the opinion of certain ancients is to be rejected which
maintains that it makes no difference to the truth of the Faith what any man
thinks about the nature of creation, provided his opinions on the nature of God
be sound, because error with regard to the nature of creation begets a false
knowledge of God; so the principles of philosophy laid down by St. Thomas
Aquinas are to be religiously and inviolably observed, because they are the means
of acquiring such a knowledge of creation as is most congruent with the Faith;
of refuting all the errors of all the ages, and of enabling man to distinguish
clearly what things are to be attributed to God and to God alone.
St. Pius X, Doctoris Angelici
“(His) crystal-clear logic
seemed to me to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made.”
This encounter with personalism (in the
thought of Martin Buber, Jewish Existentialist Philosopher, the Philosophy of Dialogue)
was for me a spiritual experience that left an essential mark, especially since
I spontaneously associated such personalism with the
thought of St. Augustine, who in his Confessions had struck me with the
power of all of his human passion and depth. By contrast, I had difficulty
penetrating the thought of Thomas Aquinas, whose crystal-clear logic seemed to
me to be too closed in on itself, too impersonal and ready-made.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Milestones
But
Modernism and Neo-modernism are heresies professed by those who still call
themselves “Catholic”? How
about calling those who hold dogma in its literal sense as their proximate rule
of faith, “Faithful Catholics”
and those who do not, “Faithless
Catholics”?
It is... Our will that Catholics should abstain from certain
appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group
of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as 'profane
novelties of words,' out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because
they give rise to great trouble and confusion among Catholics. Such is the
nature of Catholicism that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held
as a whole or as a whole rejected: 'This is the Catholic faith, which unless a
man believe faithfully and firmly; he cannot be saved' (Athanasian
Creed). There is no need of adding any qualifying terms to the profession of
Catholicism: it is quite enough for each one to proclaim 'Christian is my name
and Catholic my surname,' only let him endeavour to
be in reality what he calls himself.
Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum
St. Hyacinth
(1184-1257) founded communities at Sandomir, Cracow,
and at Plocko on the Vistula in Moravia. He extended
his missionary work through Prussia, Pomerania, and Lithuania; then crossing
the Baltic Sea he preached in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. He came into Lower
or Red Russia, establishing a community at Lemberg
and at Haletz on the Mester;
proceeded into Muscovy, and founded a convent at Dieff,
and came as far as the shores of the Black Sea. He then returned to Cracow,
which he had made the center of his operations…..No other saint, we make bold
to say, with the exception of St. Vincent Ferrer,
ever surpassed him in the number and character of miracles wrought. The mere enumeration of Hyacinth’s miracles
fills thirty-five pages of the Acta Sanctorum. The bull of his canonization, issued on April
17, 1594, declared his miracles to be “almost countless”….in Cracow alone fifty
dead persons had been raised to life and seventy-two dying restored to perfect
health…to whom our Blessed Mother said, “Have great courage and be joyful, my
son Hyacinth! Whatsoever thou shalt ask in my name shall be granted thee.”
St. Hyacinth, pray for
us and for thy fellow Dominicans to our Blessed Mother. Dominican Saints
The Answer is
Now Evident
There is a good deal of talk (but
without the necessary clarity of concept), about a ‘new theology’, which must
be in constant transformation, following the example of all other things in the
world, which are in a constant state of flux and movement, without ever
reaching their term. If we were to accept such an opinion, what would become
of the unchangeable dogmas of the Catholic Faith; and what would become of the
unity and stability of that Faith?
Pope Pius XII, Discourse in
L’Osservatore Romano, Dec. 19, 1946
Reparation
for the Sacrilegious Treatment of the Blessed Sacrament
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I offer Thee
the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in
all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges
and indifference by which He Himself is offended. And by the infinite merits of
His most Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the
conversion of poor sinners. Prayer
taught by the Angel to the children at Fatima
Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - August 15
This feast is so-called because on this day, according to a very old and pious
belief, the Blessed Virgin was, in body and soul, taken up into heaven. This
feast is of very great antiquity; it was fixed on the 15th of August at the
request of the Emperor Maurice, and afterwards, by Pope Leo IV, was extended to
the whole Church.
In the Introit of the Mass the Church
invites us to universal joy by singing,
"Let us all rejoice in the
Lord, celebrating this festival in honor of the most blessed Virgin Mary, on
whose assumption into heaven the angels rejoice and give praise to the Son of
God. My heart hath uttered a good word; I speak my works to the King."
Glory be, etc.
Prayer
Pardon, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the sins of Thy servants, that we, who are not
able to please Thee by our deeds, may be saved by the intercession of the
Mother of Thy Son. Who livest, and reignest, forever and ever. Amen.
Epistle: Ecclesiasticus 24:11-20
In all things I sought rest, and I shall abide in the inheritance of the Lord.
Then the Creator of all things commanded, and said to me: and He that made me
rested in my tabernacle. And He said to me: Let thy dwelling be in Jacob, and
thy inheritance in Israel, and take root in My elect. From the beginning, and
before the world, was I created, and unto the world to come I shall not cease
to be, and in the holy dwelling-place I have ministered before Him. And so was
I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise
I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem. And I took root in an honorable
people, and in the portion of my God His inheritance, and my abode is in the
full assembly of saints. I was exalted like a cedar in Libanus,
and as a cypress-tree on Mount Sion. I was exalted
like a palm-tree in Cades, and as a rose-plant in Jericho; as a fair olive tree
in the plains, and as a plane-tree by the water in the streets, was I exalted.
I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon, and aromatical
balm; I yielded a sweet odor like the best myrrh.
Gospel: Luke 10:38-42
At that time Jesus entered into a certain town: and a certain woman named
Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who
sitting also at the Lord's feet, heard His word. But Martha was busy about much
serving. Who stood and said: Lord, hast Thou no care that my sister hath left
me alone to serve? speak to her therefore, that she help me. And the Lord
answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled
about many things. But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part,
which shall not be taken away from her.
Why does the Church read this
gospel today?
Because it readily admits of being
applied to Mary, the Mother of God, since she, far more worthily and lovingly
than Martha, chose the best part, and thereby obtained the most glorious
reward, which no one shall ever take from her.
What is the one thing
necessary?
The glory of God and the salvation
of the soul. Let a man, therefore, fulfil the duties
which are binding upon him; but in so doing let him look only to God, avoid all
uneasiness and distraction, all extravagance and excess, all that is unjust,
and sooner sacrifice everything than suffer injury to his soul.
When the Spirit of God is at work, there is no need to go about looking
for was of inducing humility and confusion; for the Lord Himself reveals these
to us in a very different manner from any which we can find by means of our
puny reflections, which are nothing by comparison with a true humility
proceeding from the light given us in this way by tyhe
Lord. The bestowal upon us of this knowledge by God so that we may learn that
we are selves have nothing good is a well-known experience, and the greater are
the favors we receive from Him, the better we learn it.
St. Teresa of Jesus
NOVENA to the IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY
begins August 13, 2018
V. In the Name (✠) of
the Father... R. Amen.
V. O God, come unto my assistance; R. O Lord, make haste to help me.
V. Glory be to the Father (☨) ... R. As it was in the beginning...
V. Sweet Heart of Mary, R. Be my salvation.
V. Immaculate Heart of Mary, R. Convert sinners, save
souls from hell!
Prayer to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary
V. Immaculate Virgin, who being conceived without sin, didst
direct every movement of thy most pure heart toward God, and wast always submissive to His divine Will;
R. Obtain for me the grace * to hate sin with all my heart
* and to learn from thee * to live in perfect resignation to the will of
God.
V. O Mary, I wonder at that profound humility, which troubled thy
blessed heart at the message of the Angel Gabriel, that thou hadst been chosen to be the Mother of the Son of the most
high God, the while thou didst profess thyself His lowly handmaiden;
R. Ashamed at the sight of my own pride, * I beg of thee the
grace of a contrite and humble heart, * so that, acknowledging my misery, * I
may come to attain the glory * promised to those who are truly humble of heart.
V. Blessed Virgin, who didst keep in thy heart the precious
treasure of the words of Jesus (☨) thy Son and, pondering over the
sublime mysteries therein contained, couldst live only for God, how am I
confounded by the coldness of my heart!
R. Ah, dear Mother, * obtain for me the grace of meditating
always on the holy Law of God, * and of seeking to follow thine
example * in the fervent practice of all the Christian virtues.
V. O Glorious Queen of Martyrs, whose sacred heart, in the Passion
of thy Son, was cruelly pierced by the sword foretold by the holy and aged
Simeon;
R. Obtain for my heart true courage and holy patience * to bear
well the tribulations and trials of this wretched life; * may I show myself to
be thy true child * by crucifying my flesh and all its desires * in following
the mortification of the Cross.
V. O Mary, Mystic Rose, whose lovable heart, burning with the
living fire of love, adopted us as thy children at the foot of the Cross,
becoming thus our most tender Mother,
R. Make me experience the sweetness of thy motherly heart * and
the power of thine intercession with Jesus (☨), *
in all the dangers that beset me during life, * and especially at the dread
hour of my death; * in such wise may my heart be united to thine,
* and love thy Son, Our Lord, * both now and through endless ages. * Amen.
Atonement for Neglecting to
Honor Mary
V. Lord, forgive all reviling of Mary's name! R. We beseech
Thee, hear us!
V. Lord, forgive all contempt of her Immaculate Conception! R. We
beseech Thee, hear us!
V. Lord, forgive all coldness in the honoring of Mary! R. We
beseech Thee, hear us!
V. Lord, forgive all contempt of Mary's pictures! R. We beseech
Thee, hear us!
V. Lord, forgive all neglect of the Holy Rosary! R. We beseech
Thee, hear us!
V. Lord, forgive all indifference to Mary's motherly love! R. We
beseech Thee, hear us!
An Act of Reparation
V. O blessed Virgin, Mother of God, look down in mercy from
Heaven, where thou art enthroned as Queen, upon me, a miserable sinner, thine unworthy servant.
R. Although I know full well my own unworthiness, * yet in
order to atone for the blasphemies, sacrileges, insults and offenses * that are
done to thee by impious and blasphemous men, * from the depths of my heart I
praise and extol thee * as the purest, the fairest, the holiest creature of all
God's handiwork.
V. I bless thy holy Name,
R. I praise thine exalted privilege
of being truly Mother of God, ever Virgin, * conceived without stain of sin,
gloriously assumed body and soul into heaven, * Co-Redemptrix
of the human race, * and Mediatrix of all graces.
V. I bless the Eternal Father,
R. Who chose thee in an especial way for His daughter;
V. I bless the Word Incarnate,
R. Who took upon Himself our nature in thy bosom and so made
thee His Mother;
V. I bless the Holy Ghost,
R. Who took thee as His bride.
V. All honor, praise and thanksgiving to the ever-blessed Trinity,
R. Who predestined thee and loved thee so exceedingly from all
eternity * as to exalt thee above all creatures to the most sublime heights.
V. O Virgin, holy and merciful,
R. Obtain for all who offend thee the grace of repentance, *
and graciously accept this poor act of homage from me thy servant, * obtaining
likewise for me from thy Divine Son * the pardon and remission of all my sins.
* Amen.
Novena Prayer
V. O glorious and immaculate Heart of Mary, thy soul was pierced
by a sword of sorrow at the sight of the Passion of thy divine Son. Intercede
for me and obtain for me from Jesus (☨) (state your intentions), if
it be for His honor and glory and for my good.
R. Amen.
V. O heart most pure of the Blessed Virgin,
R. Obtain for me from Jesus (☨) a
pure and humble heart.
Magnificat
V. My soul * doth magnify the Lord
R. And my spirit hath rejoiced * in God my Savior.
V. Because He hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaid: * For,
behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
R. For He that is mighty hath done great things to me: * And
holy is His Name.
V. And His mercy is from generation unto generations, * To them
that fear Him.
R. He hath showed might with His arm: * He hath scattered the
proud in the conceit of their heart.
V. He hath put down the mighty from their seat, * And hath exalted
the lowly.
R. He hath filled the hungry with good things: * And the rich
He hath sent empty away.
V. He hath received Israel His servant, * Being mindful of His
mercy:
R. As He spoke to our fathers, * To Abraham and to his seed
forever. Amen.
V. Glory be to the Father (☨) ...
R. As it was in the beginning...
V. In the Name (✠) of
the Father... R. Amen.
The
faithful who offer prayers or other acts of piety in honor of the Immaculate Heart
of Mary, on any day during the month of August, may gain: an indulgence of 5
years, once. Those who persevere in such a devout exercise daily throughout the
month of August, may gain plenary indulgence on the usual conditions. (S.C.
Holy Off., March 13, 1913; S. P. Ap., June 2, 1935)
He who does not keep
the true Catholic faith whole and without error will undoubtedly be lost. He who is separated from the Catholic Church
will not have life.
Pope Gregory XVI, Perlatum Ad Nos
That the Mystical Body
of Christ and the Catholic Church in communion with Rome are one and the same
thing is a doctrine based on Revealed Truth. That we must necessarily belong to the true
Church if we are to attain everlasting salvation is a statement which some
people reduce to meaningless formula.
Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis
Nature
of DOGMA - “A genuine supernatural
message or communication from the living God Himself” -
and
its Denial by Modernists
Thus,
We have reached one of the principal points in the Modernists’ system, namely
the origin and the nature of dogma. For they place the origin of dogma in
those primitive and simple formulae, which, under a certain aspect, are
necessary to faith; for revelation, to be truly such, requires the clear
manifestation of God in the consciousness. But dogma itself they apparently
hold, is contained in the secondary formulae.
To ascertain the nature of dogma (for the modernist), we must
first find the relation which exists between the religious formulas and the
religious sentiment. This will be readily perceived by him who realises that these formulas have no other purpose than to
furnish the believer with a means of giving an account of his faith to himself.
These formulas (for the modernist) therefore stand midway between the believer
and his faith; in their relation to the faith, they are the inadequate
expression of its object, and are usually called symbols; in their
relation to the believer, they are mere instruments.
Hence it is quite impossible (for the modernist) to maintain that
they express absolute truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the
images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sentiment in its
relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must
therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious
sentiment. But the object of the religious sentiment, since it embraces
that absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects of which now one, now
another, may present itself. In like manner, he who believes may pass through
different phases. Consequently, the formulae too, which we call dogmas, must be
subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the
way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. An immense collection of
sophisms this, that ruins and destroys all religion. Dogma is not only able,
but ought to evolve and to be changed.
St.Pius X, Pascendi
If the teaching proposed by the Church as dogma is not actually and
really the doctrine supernaturally revealed by God through Jesus Christ Our
Lord, [........] then there could be nothing more pitifully inane than the work
of the Catholic Magisterium. [........]
This common basis of the false doctrinal Americanism and of the Modernist
heresy is, like doctrinal indifferentism itself, ultimately a rejection of
Catholic dogma as a genuine supernatural message or communication from the
living God Himself. It would seem impossible for anyone to be blasphemous
or silly enough to be convinced, on the one hand, that the dogmatic message of
the Catholic Church is actually a locutio
Dei ad homines, and to imagine, on the other
hand, that he, a mere creature, could in some way improve that teaching or make
it more respectable. The very fact that a man would be so rash as to attempt to
bring the dogma of the Church up to date, or to make it more acceptable to
those who are not privileged to be members of the true Church, indicates that
this individual is not actually and profoundly convinced that this dogmatic
teaching of the Catholic Church is a supernatural communication from the living
and Triune God, the Lord and Creator of heaven and earth. It would be the
height of blasphemy knowingly to set out to improve or to bring up to date what
one would seriously consider a genuine message from the First Cause of the
universe.
Fr. Joseph C. Fenton, AER, The Sacrorum Antistitum
and the Background of the Oath Against Modernism
Whether
in the Ordinary or Extra-ordinary flavor: The “Assembly…Celebrates.”
General
Instruction on the Novus Ordo Mass
The Lord’s supper or Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the
people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, in order to celebrate
the memorial of the Lord. For this
reason, Christ’s promise applies supremely to such a local gathering of the
Church: “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their
midst.”
Article 7(1969)
COMMENT: “Almost any believing Protestant of whatever denomination would be
able to assent to such a definition.”
Msgr. Klaus Gamber
The Cross was necessary not
just to redeem from sin,
but to make those redeemed,
by grace, “share in the friendship of God,”
the “power to be made the sons of God.” John 1:12
He is known to have shed,
not a little drop of blood,- though this would have sufficed for the redemption
of the entire human race, because of the (Hypostatic) Union with the Logos, - but
streams of it, like unto a river… That the mercy involved in such a large
effusion (of blood) be not rendered vain, empty, and superfluous, He laid up
for the Church militant a copious treasure, which the good Father desires to
dispense to his children, in order that it may become an infinite store-house
for men, and that those who make use of it may share in the friendship of
God.
Pope Clement VI, Unigenitus, 1343
Some say that fraternal
correction does not extend to the prelates either because man should not raise
his voice against heaven, or because the prelates are easily scandalized if
corrected by their subjects. However, this does not happen, since when they
sin, the prelates do not represent heaven, and, therefore, must be corrected.
And those who correct them charitably do not raise their voices against them,
but in their favour, since the admonishment is for
their own sake.... For this reason, according to other (authors), the
precept of fraternal correction extends also to the prelates, so that they may
be corrected by their subjects.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, O.
P., IV Sententiarum, D. 19, Q. 2, A. 2
There
being an imminent danger for the Faith, prelates must be questioned, even
publicly, by their subjects. Thus, St. Paul, who was a subject of St.
Peter, questioned him publicly on account of an imminent danger of scandal in a
matter of Faith. And, as the Glossa of St. Augustine
puts it (Ad Galatas 2.14), “St. Peter himself gave
the example to those who govern so that if sometime they stray from the right
way, they will not reject a correction as unworthy even if it comes from their
subjects....”
St.
Thomas Aquinas, O. P.
We have divided the one path into many, so the witness we should give
has been obscured. I think we should first
be thankful that there is so much unity. It’s nice that we can pray together today, sing the same
hymns together, hear the same word of God together, that we can interpret and
try to understand it together.
Pope Benedict XVI addressing Lutheran congregation in Rome, March 14,
2010
Historical Note: Only Catholics are
Christians. The Thirty Years’ War was
fought between Catholics and those who rejected the revelation of Jesus Christ
for a religion of their own making.
There are so many divisions among us Christians, if we look at the
history of the Church! Even now we are divided. In history, as Christians, we waged wars among ourselves
because of theological differences; let us think of the Thirty Years’ War.
But this is not Christian. We are divided
even now: we must ask for unity among all Christians, the unity that Jesus
wants, because he prayed for this. Pope
Francis, General Audience, 8/27/2014
“I seek for nothing more; I have made the sacrifice of everything and
of everyone to God; now I prepare to die. Now it is indeed true that nothing
more remains to me, Jesus. I recommend
my poor soul to Thee … Jesus!”
St. Gemma Galgani,
Last Words
Both
the Sacrament of Baptism itself 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
Thus
the proper understanding of the passage from the Catechism 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.
“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
If (the Pope)
gives an order contrary to good customs, he should not be obeyed; if he
attempts to do something manifestly opposed to justice and the common good, it
will be licit to resist him; if he attacks by force, by force he can be repelled,
with a moderation appropriate to a just defense.
Fr. Francisco Suarez,
S. J.
The
Novus Ordo is “irreversible” only because it lost its way long ago. There can be no
retracing of its steps. The fruit of the
Novus Ordo is apostasy. It is a memorial meal with an
ever changing menu. Pope Francis does not possess the authority to overturn
Dogma, therefore, he cannot overturn God's liturgical laws any more than he can
overturn God's laws regarding Sodomy, Fornication and Adultery.
“After
this magisterium, after this long journey, we can
affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform
is irreversible.”
Pope Francis the Destroyer, addressing the 68th Italian National
Liturgical Week, August 24, 2017
“If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites
of the Catholic Church accustomed to be used in the solemn administration of the
sacraments may be disdained or omitted by
the minister without sin and at pleasure, or may be changed to other new rites by any pastor of the churches
whomsoever : let him
be anathema.”
Council of Trent,
Den. 856
Only
non-dogmatic truths can be ranked in order of importance. All Catholic dogmas
rank equally, because to deny just one is to deny God’s authority which is
behind them all.
Bishop Richard
Williamson
We cannot be sure if we are loving God, although we may have good
reason to believe that we are, but we can know quite well if we are loving our
neighbor. And be certain that, the
farther advanced you find you are in this, the greater the love you will have
for God.
St. Teresa of Avila
Do you know how we have to read the Holy Scriptures? Like someone who
reads letters which have come to him from his native land; to see what news we
have from Heaven and what they tell us of our fatherland, where we have our
parents and brethren and friends and acquaintances, and where we are wishing and longing to go.
St. Augustine
“In Freemasonary
it is allowed to kill.”
Nedeljko
Čabrinović, 1895 –1916, one of seven young men of a Masonic secret society known
as the Black Hand who conspired to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria in Sarajevo in June 1914, on October 12, 1914 at his trial for the
murders.
It is erroneous to conceive of graces of state as helps which will
automatically fill in for deficits of temperament, aptitude, and preparation,
as if the mere fact of being assigned to a task would make us able to
accomplish it, as if God were bound to grant us graces of state that would
compensate for our deficiencies. The grace of state is not a guarantee of
infallibility to a superior; it is not a conferment of knowledge to the
ignorant to become teachers, and so on; it is not a panacea... We must prepare
ourselves to receive the graces of state like all graces, to merit them as much
as possible, through an entire and continual docility to the invitations of the
Holy Ghost. Indeed, this would be an illusion that imagines God granting graces
of state mechanically. If God always offers these graces, they would only be
received in the measure of the disposition of the subject.
Dictionary of Spirituality, quoted by Fr. Olivier Rioult,
The Impossible Reconciliation
We are in a full crisis of faith! Therefore, in order to stop the divisions
now in progress, the Pope [i.e., Pope Francis] — like Paul VI in 1967, faced
with the erroneous theories that were circulating shortly after the conclusion
of the Council — should make a Declaration or Profession of Faith, affirming
what is Catholic, and correcting those ambiguous and erroneous words and acts —
his own and those of bishops — that are interpreted in a non-Catholic manner.
Otherwise, it would be grotesque that, while seeking unity with
non-Catholic Christians or even understanding with non-Christians, apostasy and
division are being fostered within the Catholic Church.
Msgr. Nicola Bux, interview with Edward Pentin, June 2017
Jesus never manifests himself nor lets me hear his voice. He teaches me
in secret, but he has shown me the only path which leads to the divine furnace
of his love. It is the complete abandonment of a baby sleeping without fear in
its father’s arms…. Jesus does not demand great deeds. All he wants is
self-surrender and gratitude…. O Jesus, if only I could tell all little
souls of your immeasurable condescension! I feel that if you found a soul
feebler than mine — though that’s impossible — you would delight in heaping
even greater favors on it if it abandoned itself with supreme confidence to
your infinite mercy.
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy
Face, The Story of a Soul
Amnesty International reported that now that Chile's pro-life law has
fallen, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and
Suriname are the only countries left that completely protect pre-born babies
from abortion.
At
least we won't have to hear about the “Cardinal
Keeler Center” any more, but do
not expect it to be renamed in honor of Rev. Enrique Tomas Rueda
who warned the Church about the “Homosexual
Network” in 1982. Does the bishop have a plan to cleanse the
diocese from all the homosexual clerics?
Bishop Gainer
Makes Building Naming Policy Retroactive
Bishop Ronald W. Gainer announced on
Wednesday, Aug. 1, that a new Building Naming Policy has been approved,
effective immediately, for the Diocese of Harrisburg. Under the new policy, the
name of every Bishop since 1947 will be removed from any building, facility,
room or other position of honor in the Diocese. This move is in response to the
extensive investigation by the Dioceses into reports of and inadequate response
to allegations of child sexual abuse.
The investigation caused the
Diocese to take a frank look at its past as well as its present. Part of that
assessment was an evaluation of whether any lingering symbols of the sad
history revealed in the investigation should remain.
Bishop Gainer directed a
“Committee on Names” be formed, to advise him on whether any of the persons criticized
in the investigation should have their names removed from the Diocese’s
facilities.
As a result of the investigation,
it was clear the leadership of the Church did not in every case take adequate
measures when handling matters related to offending clerics. This information
was reviewed by the Diocese’s legal counsel and along with the unanimous
recommendation of the “Committee on Naming,” the decision was made to approve
the new policy.
“I agree with the recommendations
that I have received from my advisors on these matters and have instructed
Diocesan Staff to begin efforts to change names, effective immediately,” said
Bishop Gainer.
Bishop McDevitt
High School will not have its name changed because there are no records of
these matters during the tenure of Bishop McDevitt
and the investigation only extended back to 1947, twelve years after his death.
Truth
always bears repeating. Unless the problem is properly defined, there can be no
solution!
Cardinal Bertone correct in linking clerical sex abuse and
homosexuality, says psychiatrist
West Conshohocken, Pa., Apr 16,
2010 / 04:38 pm (CNA News)
Following Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone’s comments in Chile about a link existing between
homosexuality and pedophilia in cases of clerical sexual abuse, both Church
officials and secular figures clarified his statement. But Dr. Richard
Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist with experience treating sexually abusive
priests, told CNA that the cardinal’s statement is accurate.
At a press conference last Monday evening at the Pontifical Seminary of
Santiago, Chile, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone said, “Many psychologists and psychiatrists
have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia.” Instead,
they have found a “relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia,” he
added.
Many gay rights organizations reacted vehemently to Cardinal Bertone’s statement, leading Fr. Federico Lombardi,
director of the Vatican Press office, to assert
that “it obviously refers to the problem of abuse by priests and not in
the population in general.”
A statement from the French Foreign Ministry calling the linkage
“unacceptable” was followed by a statement by Fr. Marcus Stock, the General
Secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. “To the
best of my knowledge, there is no empirical data which concludes that sexual
orientation is connected to child sexual abuse,” he said.
“The consensus among researchers is that the sexual abuse of children is
not a question of sexual ‘orientation,’ whether heterosexual or homosexual, but
of a disordered attraction or ‘fixation,’” Fr. Stock added.
However, a U.S. psychiatrist with experience in treating priests with
pedophilia disagrees that there is no link between homosexuality and sexual
abuse of children. “Cardinal Bertone’s comments are supported completely by the John Jay
study report and by clinical experience,” Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons told CNA. “In
fact, every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had
previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships.”
Fitzgibbons, who has been the director of Comprehensive Counseling
Center in West Conshohocken, Penn. since 1988, has worked extensively with individuals
suffering from same sex attraction (SSA) and priests accused of pedophilia. He
also presently serves as a consultant to the Congregation for the Clergy at the
Holy See.
In his 2002 “Letter to
Catholic Bishops,” Fitzgibbons identified priests prone to sexual abuse as
having suffered “profound emotional pain” during childhood due to loneliness,
problems in their relationships with their fathers, rejection by their peers,
lack of male confidence, and poor self image or body image. Fitzgibbons said
that these experiences lead priests especially to direct their sadness and
anger towards the Church, her teachings on sexual morality, and the Magisterium.
He also noted that priests who
have engaged in sexual misconduct with minors suffer from a “denial of sin in
their lives.” “They consistently refused to examine their consciences, to
accept the Church’s teachings on moral issues as a guide for their personal
actions, or regularly avail themselves of the sacrament of reconciliation.
These priests either refused to seek spiritual direction or choose (sic) a
spiritual director or confessor who openly rebelled against Church teachings on
sexuality,” the letter said.
When asked what sort of new
information has become available since the publication of the letter,
Fitzgibbons put an emphasis on narcissism. “This epidemic personality weakness
in the west predisposes individuals to excessive anger, the worship of self,
rebelliousness against God and His Church particularly in regard to sexual morality
and sexual acting-out,” he said.
The psychiatrist also
reviewed the findings of the John Jay researchers, who reported that 81 percent
of the victims of clerical sexual abuse were male, 51 percent of whom were age
11-14, 27 percent were aged 15-17, 16 percent between 8-10, and 6 percent were
under 7 years of age, emphasized Fitzgibbons.
For priests who do suffer from SSA, “I would recommend that they become
more knowledgeable about the emotional origins and healing of same-sex
attractions, as well as the serious medical and psychiatric illnesses
associated with homosexuality,” advised Fitzgibbons. “We have observed many
priests grow in holiness and in happiness in their ministry as a result of the
healing of their childhood and adolescent male insecurity, loneliness and anger
and, subsequently, their same-sex attractions.”
Because of the link between homosexuality and clerical sexual abuse
mentioned by Cardinal Bertone, priests and
seminarians with same sex attraction have a solemn responsibility to seek
help and to protect the Church from further shame and sorrow, said Fitzgibbons.
Make no mistake, my brothers, if anyone joins a schismatic he will not
inherit God’s Kingdom. If anyone walks in the way of heresy, he is out of
sympathy with the Passion. Be careful, then, to observe a single Eucharist. For
there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one cup of his blood that
makes us one, and one altar, just as there is one bishop along with the
presbytery and the deacons, my fellow slaves. In that way whatever you do is in
line with God’s will.
St. Ignatius of Antioch
Remember in your charity the following pray requests:
Please remember our expectant mothers: Victoria Dimmel,
Erika Zepeda, and Carmen Carrol,
Fr. John
Murphy,
for his spiritual and physical welfare, and Fr. Collins,
Charles Muldowney, who is terminally ill,
Luis Rafael
Zelaya, for his conversion,
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,
John and Joann DeMarco, for
their health and spiritual welfare,
Regina (Manidis) Miller, her spiritual welfare and health,
Melissa
Elena Levitt, her health and conversion, and welfare of her children,
For the spiritual and temporal welfare of Irwin Kwiat,
Fr. Waters asks our prayers for Elvira Donahy, who is recovering
from a stroke,
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,
Mary and
Bill Glatz, the welfare of their family,
Barbara
Harmon,
who is gravely ill, and still cares for her
ailing parents,
For the health and welfare of Kolinsky and Sorace families,
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,
Angelina
Montesano family & Helen Snyder, for their health and spiritual welfare,
Michael J.
Brigg & his family, who have helped with the needs of the Mission,
The conversion of David Keithley and the welfare of the
Nathaniel Miller family, 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 welfare 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 & Tracy 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,
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,
For the welfare of Anthony & Joyce Paglia, who
are responsible for the beautiful statuary in our chapel,
Philip Thees asks our
prayers for his family, for McLaughlin
Family, the conversion of Bruce
Heller, & Janet Gardner,
the welfare of Dan Polly Weand, the conversion of Sophia Herman, Tony
Rosky, and Carl Ropeter, the welfare Nancy Erdeck,
the wife of the late Deacon Erdeck, and the welfare of Frank D’Agustino who
is ill, the health of Charles Kanaskie, and the health of his brother, Thomas Thees,
John Calasanctis,
Stephen Cagorski,
Tony Rosky,
John Bogda, and Maryann Reutter.
Pray for the
Repose of the Souls:
Auxiliadora de
Gomez, died July
4, the Godmother and aunt of Claudia Drew, and her husband, Eduardo Gomez Lopez, February
28,
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 17, 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,
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 Haigh, died October 21, 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,
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,
Cecelia Thees, died February 24,
Elizabeth Marie Gerads, a nineteen year old, the oldest of twelve children,
who died February 6,
Michael Schwartz, the co-author with Fr. Enrique Rueda
of “Gays, Aids, and You,” died February 3,
Stanley W. Moore, passed away in December 16, and Gerard (Jerry) R.
Pitman, who died January 19, who attended this Mission in the past,
Louis Fragale, who died December 25,
Fr. Luigi Villa, Th.D. author of Vatican II About Face! detailing the
heresies of Vatican II, died November 18 at the age of 95,
Rev. Michael Jarecki, a faithful traditional Catholic priest who died
October 22,and Rev. Hector Bolduc, who died September 10,
Jennie Salaneck, died September 19 at 95 years of age, a devout and
faithful Catholic all her life,
Dorothy Sabo, who died September 26,
Cynthia (Cindy) Montesano Reinhert, the
mother of nine children, four who are still at home, died August 19,
Regina Spahalsky, who died June 24, and for the soul of Francis
Lester, her son,
Julia Atkinson, who died April 30,
Antonio P. Garcia, who died January 6, 2012 and the welfare of his
teenage children, Andriana and Quentin,
Helen Crane, the aunt of David Drew who died February 27,
Fr. Timothy A. Hopkins, of the National Shrine of St. Philomena, in Miami,
November 2,
Frank Smith, who died February 7, and the welfare of his wife,
Delores,
Eduardo Cepeda, who died January 26,
Larry Young, the 47 year old father of twelve who died December
10 and the welfare of his wife Katherine and their family,
Sister Mary Bernadette, M.I.C.M., a founding member of the Slaves of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, died December 16,
Joeseph Elias, who died on September 28,
William, the brother of Fr. Waters, who died September 7,
Donald Tonelli, died August 1,
Rev. Fr. Gregory Hesse, of Austria, a great defender of Catholic Truth, died
January 25, 2006,
Emma Colasanti, who died May 29,
Mary Dullesse, who died April 12, a Catholic convert who died
wearing our Lady’s scapular,
Ruth Jantsch, the grandmother of Andre Ebert, who died April 7,
Derrick and Denise Palengat, his godparents,
Philip D. Barr, died March 5, and the welfare of his family,
Judith Irene Kenealy, the mother of Joyce Paglia,
who died February 23, and her son, George Richard Moore, who died May 14,
For
Joe Sobran
who died September 30,
Fr. Hector Bolduc, a great and faithful priest, died, September 10,
2012,
John
Vennari asks our prayers for Dr. Raphael Waters who died August 26,
Stanley Bodalsky, the father of Mary Ann Boyle who died June 25,
Mary Isabel Kilfoyle
Humphreys, a former York resident
and friend of the Drew’s, who died June 6th,
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. James Francis Wather, 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 Sonya Kolinsky.
According
to Francis the Most Merciful, the Catholic Church has approved, as morally
permissible for the last two thousand years, the 'intrinsically evil' act of
capital punishment!
Heresy in the
Catechism. Wolf in the Vatican. No Shepherds in Sight.
OnePeterFive | Steve Skokec | August 2, 2018
Just as the latest round of
homosexual network and sex abuse allegations in the Church are reaching a fever
pitch, Pope Francis – who has been eerily quiet of late – dropped a nuclear
theological bomb into our midst.
From CRUX:
According to the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, the death penalty now is no longer admissible under any
circumstances. The Vatican announced on Thursday Pope Francis approved changes
to the compendium of Catholic teaching published under Pope John Paul II.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the
inviolability and dignity of the person,” is what the Catechism of the Catholic
Church now says on the death penalty, adding that the Church “works with
determination for its abolition worldwide.”
As I have previously attempted to
demonstrate, this is simply theologically wrong. There’s no way around that.
But I wanted the opinion of an expert – which I am not – so I reached out this
morning to a trustworthy theologian who is well versed in the finer
distinctions of Magisterial authority and its limits. This was the response I
received:
“The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on the intrinsic
morality of the death penalty is irreformable dogma.
To deny this or assert the contrary is formally heretical. Catholics remain
obliged to believe and accept this doctrine regardless of any changes to the
Catechism.” [.....]
COMMENT: This is just further proof that
the doctrine of Religious Liberty is heresy and, like all heresy, leads to
objective sin. Religious Liberty is based
upon the belief that the dignity of man is so great that he is free to ignore
the truths God has revealed and disobey His commandments. It leads to the moral error of religious
indifferentism in the practical order. This teaching on capital punishment is
just another extension of this doctrinal error.
Here Francis/Bergoglio claims that the dignity
of man is so great his life cannot be forfeited regardless of his crimes. If
this were true understanding of natural law, which in creation is a manifestation
of the mind of God, it would apply to God as well. This explains why the modernist Novus Ordo heretics who profess religious liberty deny the
eternal punishment of hell.
Unfortunately for them, this denial will only provide them with the
opportunity to learn by experience.
Francis/Bergoglio in practice affords greater right to life to the
abortionist than his victim!
What's Going
on in Bergoglio's Pontifical Academy for Life Anyway?
Is there no end to the anti-life
scandals at Pontifical Academy for Life? Or is it Death?
Karolinska
Institute is NOT a “Medical University.” It’s a Big
Auschwitz for unborn children.
In the selection of its
members, the Vatican must also consider the institution that the member
represents. In the case of Katarina Le Blanc that institution is the Karolinska Institute – one of the world’s foremost
promoters of abortion and abortifacients. The
Institute also is involved in non-therapeutic fetal experimentation and the
provision of fetal tissues from aborted babies. Its eugenic mind-set is
illustrated by its pioneer promotion of human embryo pre-implantation diagnosis
and in-vitro Fertilization.
Either remove Le Blanc and
all the other anti-life characters which infest the “academy” or just shut the
growing hell-hole down! Enough is enough!
Randy Engel, U.S. Coalition for Life, July 19, 2017
Building
Bridges to Hell – The homosexual agenda does not seek to be left alone in their
vices but rather seeks to have their vices recognized and approved as normal
moral behavior!
Many of the gay persons who I met that week
revealed a deep spirituality and faith. And most interesting of all, the people
I met asked that we, as ministers of the Church, be people of compassion and
understanding, and not be afraid to teach the message of the Gospel and the
Church with gentleness and clarity even in the midst of ambiguity of lifestyle,
devastation, despair and hostility. As a Church and as pastoral ministers, we
still have a long journey ahead of us as we welcome strangers into our midst
and listen to them.
Over the past weeks, I read many of the critical comments of Jesuit Fr.
James Martin’s book, Building a Bridge. I shook my head in bewilderment several
times as I read venom and vitriol in some of the critiques. It is one thing to
critique and raise questions. It is another to condemn, disparage and dismiss.
I sensed palpable fear and anger in some of the negative commentaries. I made
it a point to read the book in one sitting last weekend. I was astounded that
what I read in commentaries, blogs, some bishops’ messages, had very little to
do with what I considered to be very mild, reflections offered by a well-known
Jesuit priest who simply invited people to build bridges with those who are on
distant shores. Fr. Martin’s book is not dogma or doctrine. It is by no means
revolutionary. It is merely an invitation to sit down and talk, face-to-face
with people we consider to be different.
Whereas Fr. Martin and Pope Francis invite us to build bridges and
become instruments of dialogue, critics of both Fr. Martin, the Pope, and many
of us who support Pope Francis thrive in erecting high, impenetrable walls and
noisy echo chambers of monologue.
Fr. Thomas Rosica, Vatican spokesman for
English speaking people, addressing the homosexual haven Most Holy Redeemer
Church in San Francisco. Fr. Rosica is defending to homosexuals the homosexual friendly
book by the Jesuit, Fr. James Martin.
Homosexuals cannot praise each other too highly. Martin’s book does not endorse any Catholic
ministries that support conversion, repentance, chastity. He endorses only those organizations that
reject Catholic morality, such as, New Ways Ministry.
The National Catholic Reporter said:
It was a real-life horror story that galvanized Martin to write this
manuscript. Just weeks after the massacre of 49 people at Pulse, a gay
nightclub in Orlando (by a conflicted Moslem Homosexual), he was offered the
Bridge Building award from New Ways Ministry, a longtime Catholic advocacy and
ministry organization for LGBT Catholics and their families. Building a Bridge
is an expansion of his acceptance speech. […..] Part of what motivated Martin
to accept the Bridge Building Award was the inadequate response offered by
Catholic bishops to the Pulse tragedy. Although many church leaders expressed
both horror and sorrow, only a handful of the more than 250 Catholic bishops
used the words gay or LGBT,” Martin writes. “I found this revelatory.”
I am glad that we are talking about “homosexual people” because before
all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people
should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that
God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love.
Pope Francis
It is not the position of the Roman Catholic Church that a pope is
incapable of leading people astray by false teaching as a public doctor…. He
may be the supreme appeal judge of Christendom… but that does not make him
immune to perpetrating doctrinal howlers. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so
surprisingly, given the piety that has surrounded the figures of the popes
since the pontificate of Pius IX, this fact appears to be unknown to many who
ought to know better…. (There is now) a danger of possible schism… (but, not as possible as) an immediate danger
as the spread of a moral heresy.
Fr Aidan Nichols, O.P., author of over 40 books of philosophy,
theology, apologetics and criticism who has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge
and the Angelicum in Rome, speaking at the annual
conference in Cuddesdon of an ecumenical society, the
Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius, to a largely
non-Catholic audience
All
this applies as well to the Deep State, that thinks itself a king, that
President Trump has exposed.
A Power without limits is an essentially Anti-Christian Power and it is
simultaneously an outrage done the majesty of God and the dignity of man. A
Power without limits can never be a ministry or a service, and political Power
under the imperatives of Christian civilization can never be anything less.
Unlimited Power is also an idolatry lodged within both subject and king:
idolatry in the subject because he adores the king; idolatry in the king
because he worships himself.
Donoso Cortes, Catholic diplomat and apologist
“The words of Jesus Christ,” says (Bishop Jacques) Bossuet, “reflect something of the divine in their
simplicity, in their depth, by a certain gently authority with which they issue
forth. Never has man spoken like this man, because man has never been God, like
him. Nor has man had over all spirits that natural authority which pertains to
truth, and which speaks to the soul so sweetly and so intimately.” But this
Word, absolutely divine - divine by its own character, divine by its effects,
always subsisting - whose should it be if not Jesus Christ's? Who should be the
inventor of the wisdom of Jesus Christ? At a distance of nearly two thousand
years the Word of Jesus Christ remains the only true light of man on himself an
don God. It upholds the Catholic world, encompassed by fanatical enemies; it
sustains the natural law, infested and crushed by a man philosophy; it upholds
human reason, subject to madness and error; it not only preserves and repairs,
but it brings forth; it begets both priests and saints; it begets faith, and
from the most stony and sterile hearts it wrests admiration and love. Who could
have invented this Word?
Louis Veuillot, The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Opinions
opposed to reason inevitably produce actions opposed to nature.
Louis de Bonald,
French counter-revolutionary statesman
Harrisburg
Diocese Releases Names of Over 70 Priests Accused of Abuse
OnePeterFive | Steve Skojec | August 1, 2018
The Diocese of Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania has just released the names of over 70 members of its clergy who
have been accused of sexual abuse in cases spanning back to the 1940s.
At a news conference this morning,
Bishop Ronald Gainer of Harrisburg released the list, revealing that since
becoming bishop in 2014, he has overseen an effort to “verify the status of
priests” accused of abuse going back more than half a century. He told the York
Daily Record that he wanted to release the list sooner but that the office of
the attorney general had requested that the diocese refrain from doing so to
avoid interference with the state investigation of clerical abuse throughout
Pennsylvania.
With the pending release of an
interim grand jury report detailing findings of some 300 priests accused of
abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s eight dioceses, including Harrisburg, the
diocese decided to move forward with disclosure of the names. According to
the Record:
“Gainer said he has learned that
some survivors who had confidentiality agreements with the diocese have felt
constrained by those agreements. He is waiving those confidentiality
agreements. This is expected to be huge for survivors who want to tell their
stories.” [....]
The customs of God’s people and the institutions of our ancestors are
to be considered as laws. And those who throw contempt on the customs of the
Church ought to be punished as those who disobey the law of God.
St. Augustine, Ep. ad Casulan. xxxvi
"Only take heed to yourself and guard
your soul diligently" (Deut 4:9)
“It is a sin to believe there is salvation
outside the Catholic Church!”
Blessed Pope Pius IX
PREVIOUS
BULLETIN POSTS BELOW THAT REMAIN TIMELY:
Stand in the
multitude of ancients that are wise and join thyself from thy heart to their
wisdom: that thou mayst hear every discourse of
God.
Ecclesiasticus 6:35
Homosexual
network has infested the entire Church hierarchy to the very top. The only way to clean house will be a divine
fumigation, a cleansing from God which will separate the hirelings from the
shepherds. One thing is certain, McCarrick's network of those who protected him and those he
protected will expose a host of perverts that has been covered up for
years.
Revelations of
US cardinal sex abuse will force pope’s hand
VATICAN CITY (AP) | Nicole Winfield | July 21, 2018— Revelations
that one of the most respected U.S. cardinals allegedly sexually abused 
both boys
and adult seminarians have raised questions about who in the Catholic Church
hierarchy knew — and what Pope Francis is going to do about it.
If the accusations against
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick bear out — including a
new case reported Friday involving an 11-year-old boy — will Francis revoke his
title as cardinal? Sanction him to a lifetime of penance and prayer? Or even
defrock him, the expected sanction if McCarrick were
a mere priest?
And will Francis, who has already
denounced a “culture of cover-up” in the church, take the investigation all the
way to the top, where it will inevitably lead? McCarrick’s
alleged sexual misdeeds with adults were reportedly brought to the Vatican’s
attention years ago.
The matter is now on the desk of
the pope, who has already spent the better part of 2018 dealing with a
spiraling child sex abuse, adult gay priest sex and cover-up scandal in Chile
that was so vast the entire bishops’ conference offered to resign in May.
And on Friday, Francis accepted
the resignation of the Honduran deputy to Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, who is one of Francis’ top advisers. Auxiliary
Bishop Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, 57, was accused of
sexual misconduct with seminarians and lavish spending on his lovers that was
so obvious to Honduras’ poverty-wracked faithful that Maradiaga
is now under pressure to reveal what he knew of Pineda’s misdeeds and why he
tolerated a sexually active gay bishop in his ranks.
The McCarrick
scandal poses the same questions. It was apparently an open secret in some U.S.
church circles that “Uncle Ted” invited seminarians to his beach house, and
into his bed.
While such an abuse of power may
have been quietly tolerated for decades, it doesn’t fly in the #MeToo era. And there has been a deafening silence from McCarrick’s brother bishops about what they might have
known and when.
Fraternal solidarity is common
among clerics, but some observers point to it as possible evidence of the
so-called “gay lobby” or “lavender mafia” at work. These euphemisms —
frequently denounced as politically incorrect displays of homophobia in the
church — are used by some to describe a perceived protection and promotion
network of gay Catholic clergy.
“There is going to be so much
clamor for the Holy Father to remove the red hat, to formally un-cardinalize him,” said the Rev. Thomas Berg, vice rector
and director of admissions at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, the seminary of
the archdiocese of New York.
Berg said the church needs to
ensure that men with deep-seated same-sex attraction simply don’t enter
seminaries — a position recently reinforced by the Vatican at large and by
Francis in comments to Chilean and Italian bishops.
Berg said the church also needs to
take action when celibacy vows are violated.
“We can’t effectively prevent the
sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults by clergy while habitual and
widespread failures in celibacy are quietly tolerated,” he said.
McCarrick,
the 88-year-old retired archbishop of Washington and confidante to three popes,
was ultimately undone when the U.S. church announced June 20 that Francis had
ordered him removed from public ministry. The sanction was issued pending a
full investigation into a “credible” allegation that he fondled a teenager more
than 40 years ago in New York City.
The dioceses of Newark and
Metuchen, New Jersey, simultaneously revealed that they had received three
complaints of misconduct by McCarrick against adults
and had settled two of them.
Another alleged victim, the son of
a McCarrick family friend identified as James, came forward
in a report in The New York Times and subsequently in an interview with The
Associated Press. James said he was 11 when McCarrick
first exposed himself to him. From there, McCarrick
began a sexually abusive relationship that continued for another two decades,
James told AP.
“I was the first guy he baptized,”
James told AP. “I was his little boy. I was his special kid.”
McCarrick
has denied the initial allegation of abuse against a minor and accepted the
pope’s decision to remove him from public ministry.
Asked Friday about James, a
spokeswoman said McCarrick hadn’t received formal
notice of any new allegation but would follow the civil and church processes in
place to investigate them.
Even now, Francis could take
immediate action to remove McCarrick from the College
of Cardinals, said Kurt Martens, a canon lawyer at the Catholic University of
America.
He recalled the case of the late
Scottish Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who recused himself
from the 2013 conclave that elected Francis pope after unidentified priests
alleged in newspapers that he engaged in sexual misconduct. In 2015, after a
Vatican investigation, Francis accepted O’Brien’s resignation after he
relinquished the rights and privileges of being a cardinal.
O’Brien was, however, allowed to
retain the cardinal’s title and he died a member of the college.
“I think that is totally
unsatisfactory,” Martens said, noting that just as the pope can grant the title
of cardinal, he can also take it away. “O’Brien resigned, the pope accepted it.
Isn’t that the world upside down that someone picks his own penalty?”
O’Brien was never accused of
sexually abusing a minor, however, as McCarrick now
stands.
The stiffest punishment that an
ordinary priest would face if such an accusation is proven would be dismissal
from the clerical state, or laicization.
The Vatican rarely if ever,
however, imposes such a penalty on elderly prelates. It also is loath to do so
for bishops, because theologically speaking, defrocked bishops can still
validly ordain priests and bishops.
Not even the serial rapist Rev. Marcial Maciel was defrocked
after the Vatican finally convicted him of abusing Legion of Christ
seminarians. Maciel was sentenced to a lifetime of
penance and prayer — the likely canonical sanction for McCarrick
if he is found guilty of abusing a minor in a church trial.
The
Ties that B(l)ind
McCarrick has long been said to be close to Francis.
As I wrote the other day, McCarrick's longtime friend
and protege, Bishop Kevin Farrell, was made a
cardinal by Francis and made head of the Vatican's office in charge of family
policy for the worldwide church. Farrell has endorsed Father James Martin's
book advocating affirmation of LGBTs in the Catholic Church, and is overseeing
next month's world family meeting in Dublin, where Father Martin will give a
keynote speech. ..... And what about Cardinal Tobin? As I wrote the other day, McCarrick's influence with Francis is believed to have been
behind the swift rise of Archbishop Joseph Tobin on (sic) Indianapolis, who was
created a cardinal by Francis, then moved to Newark, McCarrick's
old see..... Farrell, Tobin, and one more big one. Cupich.
McCarrick is a main reason Cupich
is in Chicago. The last three American cardinals all owe something to the
patronage or intervention of McCarrick.
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
Rome,
under Novus Ordo Saint JPII, was warned about McCarrick long ago!
Back then (in 2000), I received a tip from a priest who had gone on his
own dime to Rome, along with a group of prominent US Catholic laymen, to meet
with an official for the Roman Curial congregation that names bishops. It had
been rumored at the time that Theodore McCarrick, the
Archbishop of Newark, was going to be moved to Washington, DC, and to be made a
cardinal. This group traveled to Rome to warn the Vatican that McCarrick was a sexual harrasser
of seminarians. The story this priest shared with me was that McCarrick had a habit of compelling seminarians to share
his bed for cuddling. These allegations did not involve sexual molestation, but
were clearly about unwanted sexual harassment. To refuse the archbishop’s
bedtime entreaties would be to risk your future as a priest, I was told.
Rome was informed by these laymen — whose number included
professionally distinguished Catholics in a position to understand the kind of
harm this would cause –that McCarrick was sexually
exploiting these seminarians, but it did no good. McCarrick
received his appointment to the Washington archdiocese in 2000.
Rod Dreher, The American Conservative
“It will never
be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking
sufficiently progressive.”
Charles Péguy, French poet and Catholic apologist
Fr.
Enrique Rueda, who helped in the formation of our
Mission, wrote about the Homosexual Network and its infiltration of the
Catholic Church back in 1982. That was
36 years ago and he was persecuted by the Homosexual Network in the Church for
the rest of his life. Don't expect his canonization under Pope Francis/Bergoglio.
Veteran
Catholic Journalist: All Bishops Involved in Sex Abuse Scandal Must Resign
OnePeterFive | Maike Hickson |
July 17, 2018
Christopher Manion, a veteran journalist and political analyst, makes
the striking call that all U.S. bishops should resign who knew about the
ongoing abuse crisis within the U.S. hierarchy for years and yet did not
intervene. He also now reveals some painful aspects of the role of Rome in this
regard – namely, the lame response from Pope John Paul II to this crisis.
Writing on 30 June for the
Catholic newspaper The Wanderer, Dr. Manion picks up
on the McCarrick scandal and the fact that the
gravely immoral behavior of this prelate had been known to many in the U.S.
hierarchy for many years. As an example, he refers to the work of Paul Likoudis, the now deceased courageous editor of The
Wanderer, who was among the first to reveal the homosexual network within the
U.S. episcopacy. (Here we
might also remember Father Enrique Rueda’s early 1982
book on the homosexual network in the Church.) In a cutting tone, Manion comments, as follows:
Long before The Boston Globe published its “exposé” in
early 2002, Paul reported on one instance after another of abuse and cover-up
in chanceries nationwide. For his yeoman efforts, he was ridiculed, hectored,
threatened, bullied, and, above all, studiously ignored whenever possible by
one guilty bishop after another.
When, in 2002, the crisis became
better known, says this journalist, the U.S. bishops claimed to have it
“under control.” “‘It’s over,’ Auxiliary Bishop (now Vatican Cardinal) Kevin
Farrell told the Knights of Malta in February 2002.”
In one of the most pertinent parts
of his article, Manion speaks about the role of Rome
(emphasis added):
That April [of 2002], USCCB officials told the Vatican
not to worry. Our bishops could handle the situation themselves, they insisted.
Days later, Pope John Paul summoned every American cardinal to the Vatican. He
could have demanded serious changes, but he didn’t. Nor did he condemn the
profound malfeasance of America’s hierarchy. Instead, he accepted the plaintive
excuses that they had been repeating for years. They had been misled by
“clinical experts” who thought that homosexual child rape was an illness, not a
crime. It wasn’t their fault.
The cardinals then went home, Manion adds, promising “to do better.” Cardinal Mahoney
went home “to spend a billion dollars of the faithful’s
money to cover up for abuse and evading prosecution (he even insisted that
priests’ personnel files were protected by the secrecy of the confessional!).”
This comment alone revealed how ineffective the papal words were. “Not one of
the American prelates offered his resignation. Nor did any demand the
resignation of any of their colleagues in the bishops’ conference.”
Before continuing to present Manion’s article, we should consider this summary of the
handling of the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church in America as a scandal
in itself. It shows the deep failure of the whole Church’s hierarchy, beginning
at the top, to punish and eradicate abusers from the ranks of the clergy. It is
heart-rending, especially considering the damage to so many souls. (In the new
Austrian scandal, there is one woman who was sexually harassed by a priest. He
is still active, even though he left his parish. She has now left the Faith,
blaming the priest and his responsible bishop, Alois
Schwarz.)
Continuing with Manion’s history of the abuse scandal in the U.S., in June
of 2002, when meeting in Dallas, the U.S. bishops were confronted with an
article that showed that half of them had been involved in the cover-up of
abuse cases. “Thus, when they issued their ‘Protection’ charter,” Manion says, “they exempted themselves on national TV and
went home to circle the wagons. Not one [of them] quit (Cardinal Law, now
deceased, fled to Rome).” One wonders why Cardinal Law was even received in
Rome.
Concerning Rome, Manion reveals the painful fact that McCarrick
received from Pope John Paul II the red hat, in spite of the fact that by then,
there was sufficient information sent to Rome against such a decision. Manion writes:
Another prelate attending the meetings in Rome and Dallas
2002 was Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. In
his previous posts in Newark and Metuchen, he had already privately settled two
lawsuits involving his sexual assaults on adult males. Rod Dreher
reports that a group of Catholics had gone [in 2000] to Rome to warn the Pope
about McCarrick – to no avail: Pope John Paul
appointed him archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2000, and named him a cardinal
the following year.
It is after this painful
description of sustained unworthy conduct, in light of a history of many
cover-ups, that Manion calls for the resignation of
every single bishop who was somehow involved in it. After first quoting a
Jesuit who explains that “[b]ishops do not
fraternally correct one another, because they do not want to be fraternally
corrected,” he asks, “So what is to be done?”
Now is the time. The laity has to set those wagons on
fire. The bishops have followed Ben Franklin’s adage – “either we hang
together, or we hang separately.”
Enough! Every bishop who covered up for McCarrick and other abusers so they could all stay in power
has to quit – right now. Their credibility is shredded – why do they stay?
In light of these strong and much
needed words from a veteran journalist who has witnessed the last decades of episcopal failure with regard to the abuse crisis, it is
noteworthy that now one of the victims of Cardinal McCarrick
speaks up in public, for the New York Times. In that article, the New York
Times refers to Boniface Ramsey as another source – a priest who now reveals
that he had, early on in 2000, warned Rome about McCarrick.
With this revelation, we shall end this piercing report:
At least one priest warned the Vatican against the
appointment [of McCarrick]. The Rev. Boniface Ramsey
said that when he was on the faculty at the Immaculate Conception Seminary at
Seton Hall University in New Jersey from 1986 to 1996, he was told by
seminarians about Archbishop McCarrick’s sexual abuse
at the beach house. When Archbishop McCarrick was
appointed to Washington, Father Ramsey spoke by phone with the pope’s
representative in the nation’s capital, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo,
the papal nuncio, and at his encouragement sent a letter to the Vatican about
Archbishop McCarrick’s history. Father Ramsey, now a
priest in New York City, said he never got a response.
Update: In light of the serious
effects this McCarrick case has had on many Catholic
faithful in the U.S., we shall quote here the witness of Bart Aslin, a former priest who left the priesthood because of
this scandal:
“The things I witnessed in the seminary and as a priest
ultimately led me to leave the priesthood after five years. It was the
hypocrisy of McCarrick and my fellow (gay) priests
that led me to leave. In some ways, I was forced out because I did not fit the
mold of a Newark diocesan priest. It was difficult enough to live a celibate
life, but knowing that my ‘brothers in Christ’ were not following the Church’s
teachings caused me great strife and spiritual pain. […]
“I conclude by saying that it pains me that the Church
took over 30 years to remove this reprehensible man. They knew all about his actions
and turned a blind eye. I observe each Sunday how few young people and families
attend Mass. Is there no wonder? The sin and hypocrisy of its servants has
turned off and away its people. How the Lord must weep!”
“Anyone can be born a
pedophile”, The
Homosexual Network wants to normalize all sexual perversion. They want your
children! The admission fee for a TED talk is $6,000.00. That’s the price liberals pay to have their groupthink
validated.
TEDx speaker: ‘Pedophilia is an
unchangeable sexual orientation,’ ‘anyone’ could be born that way
LifeSiteNews | WÜRTZBURG, Germany | July 18, 2018 – A German medical
student sparked online backlash after she was filmed telling an audience that
“pedophilia is an unchangeable sexual orientation, just like… heterosexuality.”
Mirjam
Heine gave a lecture in defense of pedophiles during the “independently
organized” TEDx Talk at the University of Würtzberg in Germany in May. The title given to Heine’s
talk was “Why our perception of pedophilia has to change.”
Introducing her theme with the
“story” of “Jonas,” a 19-year-old pedophile who studies law and plays soccer,
she asked her listeners to put aside their revulsion for pedophiles.
“Anyone could be born a
pedophile,” she told them.
According to the medical student,
pedophilia is just another “unchangeable sexual orientation just like, for
example, heterosexuality.” Heine asked her audience to differentiate between
sexual attraction to children, which she believes should be accepted and
tolerated as involuntary “feelings,” and child sexual abuse, which she
underscored was always wrong.
“The difference between pedophilia
and other sexual orientations is that living out this sexual orientation will
end in a disaster,” she said.
Meanwhile, Heine made the
surprising assertion that “scientific studies” show that only 20 to 30
percent of all child molesters are pedophiles.
“The vast majority of perpetrators
are not pedophiles but are sexually interested in adults,” she stated. Her
example was a man who sexually abuses his step-daughter because he’s angry at,
or jealous of, her mother.
At times Heine’s ideas were
confused. She said heterosexuality and pedophilia were both orientations, while
saying pedophilia can be “heterosexual,” “homosexual,” and “bi-sexual.” She
intimated that a non-pedophile could sexually abuse a child, but also included
within her definition of pedophiles people attracted, to a lesser extent, to
adults. And although she seems to think people are “born” pedophiles, she also
said pedophilia has biological, social, and psychological factors.
For Heine, pedophilia is not
something that someone actually does but something that someone would like to
do, as a sexual preference that they would “live out freely,” if only it
weren’t contrary to leading “an upright life.”
Heine stressed that social
isolation of pedophiles is an important factor in how likely they are to
sexually assault children. But to her, “social isolation” didn’t mean being
without parents or friends – it meant the pedophile’s reluctance to tell them
about his sexual inclinations.
“For example, they can’t tell
their children they can’t go to the beach because children in swimsuits may be
there as well,” Heine said. “They can never be completely frank with someone
else.”
Openness about one’s sexual
feelings is crucial to Heine. She believes that a pedophile’s ability to be
“frank” and have his “orientation” acknowledged, tolerated, and accepted is key
to preventing child sexual assault.
“We shouldn’t increase the
sufferings of pedophiles by excluding them, by blaming and mocking them,” Heine
said. “By doing that, WE increase their isolation and WE increase the chance of
child sexual abuse.”
Central to Heine’s argument is
that pedophiles are not to blame for their feelings and thoughts, only for
their actions. She does not, however, address the topic of deliberate
fantasizing or the use of pornography. And, at the same time, while arguing
that pedophiles cannot change their “feelings,” she encouraged her audience to
change their own feelings of revulsion for pedophiles.
“Just like pedophiles, we are not
responsible for our feelings,” she said. “We do not choose them...but it is our
responsibility to...overcome our negative feelings about pedophiles and to
treat them with the same respect we treat other people with.”
According to Breitbart,
once it was posted to YouTube, Heine’s lecture resulted in a massive online
backlash. In response, the organizers of the independent TEDx
event removed the video, and the founding TED Talks media organization has been
trying to remove “illegal copies” from the internet. Representatives for TED
Talks made a statement defending the censorship.
“After reviewing the talk, we
believe it cites research in ways that are open to serious misinterpretation.
This led some viewers to interpret the talk as an argument in favor of an
illegal and harmful practice,” they wrote.
TED Talks continued, “Furthermore,
after contacting the organizer to understand why it had been taken down, we
learned that the speaker herself requested it be removed from the internet
because she had serious concerns about her own safety in its wake.”
“Our policy is and always has been
to remove speakers’ talks when they request we do so. That is why we support
this TEDx organizer’s decision to respect this
speaker’s wishes and keep the talk offline.”
The springs of action are to be found in belief, and conduct ultimately
rests upon conviction.
St. Francis of Assisi
There are many who if they commit sin or suffer wrong often blame their
enemy or their neighbor. But this is not right, for each one has his enemy in
his power, - to wit, the body by which he sins. Wherefore blessed is that
servant who always holds captive the enemy thus given into his power and wisely
guards himself from it, for so long as he acts thus no other enemy visible or
invisible can do him harm.
St. Francis of Assisi, on mortification
How much interior patience and humility a servant of God may have
cannot be known so long as he is contented. But when the time comes that those
who ought to please him go against him, as much patience and humility as he
then shows, so much has he and no more.
St. Francis, on patience
And let no man be bound by obedience to obey any one in that where sin
or offence is committed.
St. Francis of Assisi, Letter to all the Faithful
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
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
“Muslims adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful
and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men.”
Vatican II, Nostra Aetate
“Be Thou King of all those who are still involved in the darkness of
idolatry or of Islamism, and refuse not to draw them all into the light and
Kingdom of God.”
Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart before Vatican II
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 now 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
Hermeneutics
of Continuity/Discontinuity
Pope
Francis in Evangelii Gaudium Smears Faithful Catholics as
"Neo-pelagians":
Catholics faithful in keeping
God's moral law and believing His revealed truth are "self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism
[who] observe certain
rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style
[characterized by a] narcissistic
and authoritarian elitism [which is a]
manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is
impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these
adulterated forms of Christianity."
94. This worldliness can
be fuelled in two deeply interrelated ways. One is the attraction of
gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain
experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console
and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own
thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those
who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others
because they observe
certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style
from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads
instead to a narcissistic
and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes
and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts
his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really
concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It
is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from
these adulterated forms of Christianity.
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
While
in the same document he has this to say about the possibility of salvation for
"Non-Christinas:
254. Non-Christians, by
God’s gracious initiative, when they are faithful to their own consciences, can
live “justified by the grace of God”, and thus be “associated to the paschal
mystery of Jesus Christ”.
Pope Francis, Evangelii
Gaudium, this teaching of Pope Franics references the teaching of the
International Theological Commission.
"By
God's gracious initiative" is pure invention. God has never revealed this
fable. This is Pelagianism by definition. This is what a Pelagian heretic
affirms that salvation is possible through being "faithful to their own
consciences." Catholic dogmas, formal objects of divine and Catholic
faith, affirm that supernatural faith, the sacraments, membership in the
Church, and subjection to the Roman Pontiff are necessary as necessities of
means to obtain eternal salvation. Pope Francis is a Pelagian heretic. So where
is his source material for this error?
He cites as his authority the International Theological Commission which
teaches:
10. Exclusivist
ecclesiocentrism—the fruit of a specific theological system or of a mistaken
understanding of the phrase extra ecclesiam nulla salus—is no longer
defended by Catholic theologians after the clear statements of Pius XII and
Vatican II the possibility of salvation for those who do not belong visibly to
the Church (cf, e.g., Vatican II, LG 16; GS 22).
Christocentrism accepts
that salvation may occur in religions, but it denies them any autonomy in
salvation on account of the uniqueness and universality of the salvation that
comes from Jesus Christ. This position is undoubtedly the one most commonly
held by Catholic theologians, even though there are differences among them.
International Theological Commission, Christianity and the World
Religions, 1997
The
is the fundamental doctrine of Neo-Modernism that holds that Dogmas need not be
taken in a literal sense because they are always undergoing evolutionary
development in an effort to achieve a closer approximation of truth. Catholics
believe, as St. Pope Pius X said, dogmas are "truths fallen from
heaven." Pope Pius XII never denied the dogma that there is no salvation outside
the Catholic Church. Those who claim he
did are simply liars. Vatican II on the other hand did, and Vatican II cites as
its authority for the denial of the dogma that there is no salvation outside
the Catholic Church, the heretical 1949 Holy Office Letter that teaches that
the one and only thing necessary for salvation is the 'desire to do the will of
a god who rewards and punishes'. This can be known by natural philosophy and is
simply a necessary presupposition to receiving the Gospel message. The 1949
Holy Office Letter and Vatican II are teaching Pelagianism. The very error that Pope Francis attributes
to faithful Catholics who believe the revealed truths of our faith and keep our
immemorial traditions. Is it any wonder that Pope Francis who denies the
necessity of faith, the sacraments, membership in the Church, and submission to
the Roman Pontiff as necessary for salvation as necessities of means would then
thoroughly corrupt the definition of "genuine evangelization"?
Catholics who "observe certain rules (like
keeping the Ten Commandments or believing Catholic dogma) or remain
intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style (the
"received and approved rites customarily used in the solemn administration
of the sacraments" Trent)" are guilty of "self-absorbed
promethean neopelagianism... narcissistic and authoritarian elitism [that is a]
manifestation of an anthropocentric immanentism... [whereby, it is] impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust
could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity."
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium
What
is "Genuine
evangelization"? Pope Francis said: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.
We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our
knowledge of the world around us. ..... I believe I have already said that our goal is not to proselytize
but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope"
(Interview with Italian journalist and atheist Eugenio Scalfari). He also said
in answer to a question from a Lutheran girl, "It is not licit that you convince them of your
faith; proselytism is the strongest poison against the ecumenical path."
On another occasion he said, "Proselytism
among Christians, therefore, in itself, is a grave sin."
How
is this possible? Proselytism means to seek converts. A "proselyte"
is a convert. It was the Great Commission given by Jesus Christ to His Church:
"Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that
believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be
condemned." (Mark 16:15-16) The goal of "preaching" is to bring
other to "believe" the revealed truth and become members of the
Church through "baptism" so that they may become a
"proselyte," like one of the first deacons of the Church, Nicolas in
Acts 6:5, and be "saved."
"Genuine
evangelization" is the act of proselytism and the fruit of evangelization
is proselytes. "By their fruit you shall know them." In South America
alone there have been more than 40 million Catholics lost to the faith since
Vatican II. This is the fruit of the "new evangelization" of Pope
Francis which does not seek converts at all because he sees no reason to
convert.
So
who in end is "self-absorbed promethean neo-pelagian"? Prometheus was
eternally punished for his hubris of defying the gods while Pope Francis does
the same thing by "intransigently" overturning God's revealed
truth. His heresy is the fruit of his
own "narcissistic and authoritarian elitism" to believe that he is
better than God. He proposes an
"adulterated form of Christianity" which explains why he promotes
Catholic divorce. Heretics always permit
divorce because marriage is the metaphor used by God to describe His
relationship to His Church and to each of His faithful. The heretic cannot stand the integrity of the
metaphor and always permits divorce.
This is the unmistakable sign that Pope Francis is a heretic.
Why are
Eastern Europeans hostile to Islam? Look at history
American Thinker | July 18, 2018 – Why have several Eastern
European nations been so adamant against taking in Muslim migrants? Most
recently, when Polish lawmaker Dominik Tarczyński was asked
earlier this month how many "refugees" Poland has taken in, he flatly
responded: "Zero."
When the British interviewer,
whose nation has taken in millions of Muslim migrants, scoffed, "And
you're proud of that?," he said: "We will not receive even one
Muslim, because this is what we promised [to voters] ... this is why our
government was elected; this is why Poland is so safe, this is why we have not
had even one terror attack."
Considering that "thousands
of Catholics formed a human chain along the borders of Poland" late last
year "to pray for peace and 'against the Islamisation of Europe,'" it
is clear that the Polish government is acting on behalf of the people.
What accounts for this staunchly
anti-Islamic response? The answer rests in history. Unlike most Western
European nations, which, thanks to their geographical proximity, have for
centuries been out of the reach of – and thus have forgotten all about – Islam,
Eastern Europeans are intimately acquainted with it.
Indeed, an event that occurred
this week in history sheds much light on the current situation. On July 14,
1683, the largest Islamic army ever to invade European territory – which is
saying much, considering the thousands of invasions preceding it since the
eighth century – came and surrounded Vienna, the heart of the Holy Roman Empire
and de facto nemesis of Islam.
Some 200,000 Muslim combatants,
under the leadership of the Ottomans – the one state in nearly fourteen
centuries of Islamic history most dedicated to and founded on the principles of
jihad – invaded under the same rationale that so-called "radical"
groups, such as the Islamic State, cite to justify their jihad on
"infidels." Or, to quote the leader of the Muslim expedition, Grand
Vizier Kara Mustafa, because Vienna was perceived as the head of the infidel
snake, it needed to be laid low so that "all the Christians would obey the
Ottomans."
This was no idle boast; sources
describe Mustafa as "fanatically anti-Christian." After capturing a
Polish town in 1674, he ordered all the Christian prisoners to be skinned alive
and their stuffed hides sent as trophies to Ottoman Sultan Muhammad IV.
Such supremacist hate was standard
and on display during the elaborate pre-jihad ceremony presaging the siege of
Vienna. Then, the sultan, "desiring him [Mustafa] to fight generously for
the Mahometan faith," to quote a contemporary European, placed "the
standard of the Prophet ... into his hands for the extirpation of infidels, and
the increase of Muslemen."
Once the massive Muslim army
reached and surrounded the walls of Vienna on July 14, Mustafa followed protocol.
In 628, his prophet Muhammad had sent an ultimatum to Emperor
Heraclius: aslam taslam, "submit [to Islam] and have peace."
Heraclius rejected the summons; jihad was declared against Christendom (as
enshrined in Koran 9:29); and in a few decades, two thirds of the
then-Christian world – including Spain, all of North Africa, Egypt, and Greater
Syria – were conquered.
Now, over a thousand years later,
the same ultimatum of submission to Islam or death had reached the heart of
Europe. Although the Viennese commander did not bother to respond to the
summons, graffiti inside the city – including "Muhammad, you dog, go
home!" – seems to capture its mood.
So it would be war. On the next day,
Mustafa unleashed all Hell against the city's walls, and for two months, the
holed up and vastly outnumbered Viennese suffered plague, dysentery,
starvation, and many casualties – including women and children – in the name of
jihad.
Then, on September 12, when the
city had reached its final extremity, and the Muslims were about to burst
through, Vienna's prayers were answered. As an anonymous Englishman explained:
After a siege of sixty days, accompanied with a thousand
difficulties, sicknesses, want of provisions, and great effusion of blood,
after a million of cannon and musquet shot, bombs, granadoes, and all sorts of
fireworks, which has changed the face of the fairest and most flourishing city
in the world, disfigured and ruined [it] ... heaven favorably heard the prayers
and tears of a cast down and mournful people.
The formidable king of Poland,
John Sobieski, had finally come at the head of 65,000 heavily armored Poles,
Austrians, and Germans – all hot to avenge the beleaguered city. Arguing that
"it is not a city alone that we have to save, but the whole of
Christianity, of which the city of Vienna is the bulwark," Sobieski led a
thunderous cavalry charge – history's largest – against and totally routed the
Muslim besiegers. (See Sword and Scimitar for
a detailed recounting of this pivotal battle.)
Although a spectacular victory,
the aftermath was gory: before fleeing, the Muslims ritually slaughtered some
30,000 Christian captives collected during their march to Vienna, raping the
women beforehand. On entering the relieved city, the liberators encountered
piles of corpses, sewage, and rubble everywhere.
It is this history of Islamic
aggression – beginning in the fourteenth century, when Muslims first
established a foothold in southeastern Europe (Thrace), and into the twentieth
century when the Ottoman sultanate finally collapsed – that informs Eastern
views on Islam.
As one Pole, echoing the words of
Sobieski, said during last year's human chain demonstration, "a religious war between Christianity
and Islam is once again underway in Europe, just like in the
past."
Whereas Western nations cite lack
of integration, economic disparities, and grievances to explain away the
exponential growth of terrorism, violence, and rapes that come with living alongside
large Muslim populations, Eastern nations see only a continuity of hostility.
Homosexual Heresy - The Great Vatican Silence
·
“We must
clearly, explicitly and reservedly say: yes, there is a strong homosexual
underground in the Church ... such circles in the Church strongly oppose the
truth, morality and Revelation, cooperate with enemies of the Church [and]
incite revolt against Peter of our times.
·
“It is
for [his] accuracy of opinion that he is so vehemently opposed, or even hated
by some in the Church, especially by members of the homolobby which represents
the very center of internal opposition against the Pope.”
·
“If
homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, [in Poland] in a dozen or so years
they may destroy entire congregations and dioceses — like in the USA, where
priestly vocation is more and more now called a gay profession.”
·
“The
global network of the homolobbies and homomafias must be counterbalanced by a
network of honest people. An excellent tool that can be used here is the
Internet, which makes it possible to create a global community of people
concerned about the fate of the Church, who have resolved to oppose
homoideology and homoheresy. The more we know, the more we can do.”
·
“This is about the Church’s to be or not to
be. If homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, in a dozen or so years they
may destroy entire congregations and dioceses – like in the USA, where the
priestly vocation is more and more now called a gay profession (particularly
with reference to American Jesuits), or like in Ireland, where men are hesitant
about joining the emptying seminaries for fear of being suspected of suffering
from some disorders.”
“The Church does not generate homosexuality,
but falls victim to dishonest men with homosexual tendencies, who take advantage
of its structures to follow their lowest instincts. Active homosexual priests
are masters of camouflage. They are often exposed by accident. ... The real
threat to the Church are cynical homosexual priests who take advantage of their
functions on their own behalf, sometimes in an extraordinarily devious way.
Such situations cause great suffering to the Church, the priestly community,
the superiors. The problem is indeed a very difficult one.”F. Józef Augustyn
Fr. Dariusz Oko, Ph.D., WITH THE POPE AGAINST
THE HOMOHERESIES
Cardinal
Theodore McCarrick, formal archbishop of Washington, removed from ministry
after Archdiocese of New York found that "the allegations credible and
substantiated" that he had sexually abused teenage boys. Cardinal McCarrick
was replaced in the Archdiocese of Washington by the equally homosexual
friendly cleric, Cardinal Donald William Wuerl.
John Vennari: According to a news
report, a Catholic attorney in Florida recently said, “The good priests who
keep in contact with me say that 70 percent of the U.S. bishops are
homosexual.” That statement would have shocked many Catholics, but I am sure it
did not shock you.
Randy Engel: No. The existence of a
large and dominant homosexual contingent in the American hierarchy and within
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (formerly the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference) in
Washington, D.C. is one of the dominant themes of my book.
The rise of this phenomenon, that is, the emergence of a large number of
homosexual cardinals and bishops in AmChurch (American Church), has been a
gradual process covering more than 100 years and closely parallels the rise of
the secular Homosexual Movement in the United States and abroad. It is the
presence of the Homosexual Collective within Am-Church’s hierarchy that has
made possible the wholesale homosexual colonization of many dioceses in the
United States, and the subsequent cover-up of clerical sexual abuse cases by
the American hierarchy with the co-operation of the Holy See. When shepherds
turn into wolves, not only are seminarians, priests and religious under their
care at risk, but their flock as well.
John Vennari: Is there a difference
between the Homosexual Collective within the Church and the secular Homosexual
Collective?
Randy Engel: Generally speaking, no.
Catholic homosexual clergy and religious toe the secular party line. They use
the same language, promote the same rhetoric and advance the same political
agenda. This becomes startling clear in the chapter devoted to the so-called
Catholic pro-homosexual organization New Ways Ministry.
I think there are many Catholics who think that a self declared “gay” bishop,
priest or religious doesn’t behave like other homosexuals, that is, he’s not
into sodomy, porn, drugs, or sexual seduction, etc., but this is just wishful
thinking. The odds are that he is.
Catholic Family News, excerpt of interview of Mrs. Randy Engel, author
of The Rite of Sodomy, Homosexuality, Satanism, and the Roman Catholic Church,
interview published in April 2011
The
one and only hope for Europe is to return to the Faith that formed her!
I desire you to remember that we are Europe; we are a great
people. The faith is not an accident among
us, nor an imposition, nor a garment; it is bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh: it is a philosophy made by and making ourselves. We have adorned, explained, enlarged it; we
have given it visible form. This is the
service we Europeans have done to God.
In return He has made us Christians.
Hilaire Belloc, Open Letter on the Decay of Faith, 1906
Worth recalling how the Catholic universities in the U.S.
were destroyed. This was orchestrated by
the president of Notre Dame University, Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, who divorced
Catholic education from Catholic doctrine and Catholic morality at the Land
O’Lakes Conference in 1967. These
schools have not simply been secularized but have in fact become anti-Catholic. A Catholic student is much more likely to
keep his faith in a secular university than in a “Catholic” university. This revolution by Hesburgh was unopposed by
the Catholic hierarchy!
50 years later, Catholic colleges still reeling from statement
rejecting Church authority
LifeSiteNews | DENVER, Colorado | July 26,
2017– On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Land O’Lakes statement
on Catholic education, Lincoln Bishop James Conley likened the controversial
declaration to the ultimate rejection of God.
Bishop Conley described
the statement as the “the ‘non serviam’ moment of
many of America’s Catholic universities.”
“Non
serviam,” a Latin phrase for “I shall not serve,” is typically
attributed to Lucifer’s Old Testament words expressing his rejection of serving
God. The prophet Jeremiah also used it to describe the Hebrew people’s
disobedience to God.
“The Land O’Lakes
statement proposed to redefine the mission of the Catholic university,” Bishop
Conley said. “It rejected the authority of the Church, and of her doctrinal
teaching.”
“It rejected the
idea that faith and reason work best in communion with one another,” he
continued. “It prioritized the standards and culture of secular universities
over the authentic mission of Catholic education. It was a statement of self-importance,
and self-assertion.”
This
self-importance “defies an authentically Catholic view of education,” he said.
The statement
“declared that Catholic universities would become independent from the
hierarchy of the Church, from any obligation to orthodoxy, and from the
authentic spirituality of the Church,” the bishop went on to say.
Speaking July 5 to
teachers and principals at the Regional Catholic Classical Schools Conference
at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education in Denver, Bishop Conley said, “Fifty years
ago, a ‘declaration of independence’ in Catholic education transformed the
Church.”
The document came from some 26
presidents and administrators from 10 institutions who convened at a retreat
center in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, for the North American summit for the
International Federation of Catholic Universities. Holy Cross Father Theodore
Hesburgh, Notre Dame’s president and head of the federation at the time, had
summoned the attendees.
The meeting’s purpose was to
establish a vision for Catholic higher education in the wake of Vatican II. The
“Statement on the Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University” was signed
July 23, 1967.
It is considered by many to have
devastated Catholic education because of the ensuing loss of Catholic identity
in Catholic colleges and universities. Bishop Conley spoke about the ripple
effects on the U.S. church.
“Land O’Lakes sought to make
many parts of the Catholic university indistinguishable from secular
counterparts,” Bishop Conley said. “And that has impacted the entire Church in
the United States.”
In the 50 years
since the statement, he said, secularization in Catholic universities has
caused secularization in many Catholic elementary and high schools. There are
textbooks that don’t reflect Catholic perspectives and, he said, “teachers who
have, regrettably, not been trained to think or teach from the heart and wisdom
of the Church.”
“An entire
generation of bishops, priests, religious, and lay Catholics — myself included
— were formed in the wake of Land O’Lakes,” stated Bishop Conley. “And we
formed another generation, which now forms another, all of us doing the best we
can, but regrettably, without being exposed to much of truth, goodness, and
beauty of the Church’s tradition.” […..]
God, who is the perfect and infinite intelligence—that is, the infinite
and perfect reason—created man to His own likeness, and gave him a reasonable
intelligence, like His own. As the face in the mirror answers to the face of
the beholder, so the intelligence of man answers to the intelligence of God. It
is His own likeness. What, then, is
the revelation of faith, but the illumination of the Divine reason poured out
upon the reason of man? The revelation of faith is no discovery which the
reason of man has made for himself by induction, or by deduction, or by
analysis, or by synthesis, or by logical process, or by experimental chemistry.
The revelation of faith is a discovery
of itself by the Divine Reason, the unveiling of the Divine Intelligence, and
the illumination flowing from it cast upon the intelligence of man; and if so,
I would ask, how can there be variance or discord? How can the illumination
of the faith diminish the stature of the human reason? How can its rights be
interfered with? How can its prerogatives be violated? Is not the truth the
very reverse of all this? Is it not the fact that the human reason is perfected
and elevated above itself by the illumination of faith?
Cardinal Edward Henry Manning, The
Revolt of the Intellect Against God
SSPX
leadership has betrayed every Catholic faithful to Tradition!
Regina Einig: Do you
personally trust the Holy Father Pope Francis?
Bishop Fellay: We have a very good
relationship. If we let him know that we are in Rome, the door is open to him.
He is always helping us on a smaller scale. For example, he told us, "I
have problems when I do something good for you. I help Protestants and
Anglicans - why can not I help the Catholics? "Some want to prevent the
agreement. We are a disruptive factor in the church. The Pope stands in
between.
(He smiles and shows a handwritten, French-written
letter from the Holy Father to him beginning with the address Cher frere, cher
fils - dear brother, dear son).
Bp Fellay interviewed by Regina Einig, German newspaper “Die Tagespost”
on June 28, 2018
"We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic
Church always has been and always must be dogmatic."
Now our Divine
Lord, speaking to the woman of Samaria, said, ‘You adore that which you know
not;’ because they were ‘an idolatrous people, of mixed race, partly of Israel,
partly of the nations brought and planted in a portion of the Promised Land.
They had intermarried with the people of Israel, they had received the books of
the Pentateuch, and they had a sort of fragmentary knowledge of the old
revelation; but they did not rightly know the True God; and so much as they did
know of the True God, they did not know truly. Therefore they could not worship
Him ‘in spirit and in truth.’ For this cause our Divine Lord said, ‘You worship
that which you know not;’ and He then further said, ‘We adore that which we
know, for salvation is of the Jews.’ The full and pure light of revelation is
in Jerusalem. The true knowledge of the True God is with us; and yet the time
is coming when ‘they that adore shall adore neither in this mountain nor in
Jerusalem, but everywhere in spirit and in truth.’
From these words I draw one
conclusion, namely, that knowledge is the first and vital condition of all true
worship. You will remember how S. Paul at Athens found an altar ‘to the
unknown God,’ and how he commended the people for their intentions of piety,
but reproved them for their ignorance. He said, ‘Him whom you ignorantly
worship, Him I declare unto you.’ Without knowledge there can be no adoration
‘in spirit and in truth;’ and just in the measure of our knowledge will our
adoration be more or less perfect, that is, intelligent and spiritual. If our knowledge be full and
perfect, so will our adoration be. From this let us draw two consequences, and
then pass on.
The first is this. How great is the
superstition of those who for centuries have pleased themselves by accusing the
Catholic Church of teaching that ‘ignorance is the mother of devotion.’ The
other consequence is: that the mother of all true knowledge relating to God,
and therefore the mother of all true worship, is the Holy Catholic Church
alone. Is it not a masterpiece of craft that the father of lies should have so
darkened the understandings of our adversaries as to lead them’ into the profound
superstition of believing that we keep people in ignorance in order to make
them devout? My purpose,
then, will be to trace out the connection between what the world scornfully
calls dogma and devotion, or the worship of God ‘in spirit and in truth.’
1. Now, first of all, let us see
what is dogma. In the month of the world it means some positive,
imperious, and overbearing assertion of a human authority, or of a
self-confident mind. But what does it mean in the mouth of the Church? It means
the precise enunciation of a divine truth, of a divine fact, or of a divine
reality fully known, so far as it is the will of God to reveal it, adequately
defined in words chosen and sanctioned by a divine authority.
It is the precise
enunciation of a divine truth or of a divine reality; for instance, the nature
and the personality of God, the Incarnation, the coming of the Holy Ghost, and
suchlike truths and realities of the mind of God, precisely known,
intellectually conceived, as God has revealed or accomplished them. Every divine truth or reality,
so far as God has been pleased to reveal it to us, casts its perfect outline
and image upon the human intelligence. His own mind, in which dwells all truth
in all fulness and in all perfection, so far as He has revealed of His truth,
is cast upon the surface of our mind, in the same way as the sun casts its own
image upon the surface of the water, and the disc of the sun is perfectly
reflected from its surface. So, in the intelligence of the Apostles, when, by
the illumination of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, the revelation of
God was cast upon the surface of their intellect, every divine truth had its
perfect outline and image, not confused, nor in a fragmentary shape, but with a
perfect and complete impression. For instance, that God is One in
nature; that in God there are Three Persons, and one only Person in Jesus
Christ. Next, it is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for
if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy,
the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His
truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and
His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to
mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that
truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the
choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err
in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does
not see that, if the Church wore to err in the selection of the words, the
declaration of truth must be obscured? We are conscious every day that
we know with perfect certainty what we desire to say, but, from the difficulty
of finding or choosing our words, we cannot convey our meaning to another. The
Church is not a stammerer as we are. The Church of God has a divine assistance
perpetually guiding it, to clothe in language, that is, in adequate expression,
the divine truth which God has committed to her trust. Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal
expression of the truth correctly conceived and known. But, lastly, it is not
sufficient that it be clearly understood in the intellect and accurately
expressed in words, unless the authority by which it is declared shall be
divine; because without a divine authority we cannot have a divine certainty;
without a divine authority we can have no such assurance that the doctrine
which we hear may not be erroneous. The Apostles were such a divine
authority, for they spoke in the Name of their Master. Their successor to this
day is the Church, which, taken as a whole, has been, by the assistance of the
Holy Ghost, promised by our Divine Lord and never absent from it, perpetually
sustained in the path of truth, and preserved from all error in the declaration
of that truth. Therefore ‘He that heareth you heareth Me’ is true to this day.
He that hears the voice of the Church hears the voice of its Divine Head, and
its authority is therefore divine. This, then, is a dogma: a divine
truth clearly understood in the intellect, precisely expressed in words and by
a divine authority. There are many things which follow from this.
First, it proves that the Church of God must be dogmatic: and that any body
which is not dogmatic is not the Church of God. Any body or communion that
disclaims a divine, and therefore infallible, authority cannot be dogmatic,
because it is conscious that it may err. And therefore the Catholic Church
alone, the Church which is one and undivided throughout the world, united with
its centre in the Holy See,—this, and this alone, is a dogmatic Church (as the
world reproachfully reminds us), and on that I build my proof that it alone is
the Church of God. A teaching authority which is dogmatic and not infallible is
a tyranny and a nuisance: a tyranny, because it binds the conscience of men by
human authority, liable to err; and a nuisance, because as it may err, in the
long-run it certainly will, and ‘if the blind lead the blind, shall they not
both fall into the ditch?’ We see, then, what dogma means. The Holy Catholic
Church always has been and always must be dogmatic. In this, and in no other
sense, is it dogmatic; for it delivers nothing to us to be believed except upon
divine authority, and that which it so delivers was revealed by God.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The Glories
of the Sacred Heart, Dogma the Source of Devotion, 1876
Just
when we thought at last, a homosexual predatory bishop would finally spend time
behind bars, they will seriously consider giving him "home
detention."
Pedophilia,
bishop in Australia sentenced to 12 months
Archbishop
Philip Wilson of Adelaide might be able to avoid imprisonment after the
Newcastle tribunal, north of Sydney, will evaluate his eligibility for home
detention
vatican insider | staff | rome |
July 4, 2018
Archbishop Philip Wilson of
Adelaide might be able to avoid imprisonment after the Newcastle tribunal,
north of Sydney, will evaluate his eligibility for 12-month home detention. The
decision will be taken on 14 August. The Prelate will be eligible for parole
after serving six months.
Wilson, 67, who suspended himself
but did not resign as Archbishop of Adelaide and Vice President of the
Australian Bishops' Conference, was sentenced for covering up serious crimes -
the sexual abuse of children committed by priest James Fletcher in the 1970s,
when both served in the diocese of Maitland, near Newcastle. Fletcher died in
prison at the age of 65 in 2006, one year after being sentenced to almost eight
years for nine paedophile crimes committed between 1989 and 1991.
"The whole community is
devastated in so many ways by decades of abuse and its concealment,"
magistrate Robert Stone said over pedophile abuse within institutions, in his
sentencing. Given the seriousness of the offence and the need for general
deterrence, only a custodial sentence can be imposed, whereas a suspension of
the sentence would not correspond to this need, he said. The only option is
therefore to serve a sentence in prison or at home. Given the age, mental and
physical condition of the defendant and the absence of any criminal record,
also 12 months of home detention would be an appropriate
punishment. [.....]
Vatican
pushing Gaia cult earth worship as Novus Ordo One World Religion
Cardinal warns
of ’possible collapse’ of Earth’s livability at Vatican event
Pietro Parolin
cites ’clear urgency’ in Vatican push for climate action
Vatican Insider | Joshua J. McElwee | vatican city | July 5, 2018
The Vatican’s secretary of state
warned July 5 that humanity is facing a “possible collapse” in the Earth’s ability
to sustain life, as part of a two-day conference hosted by the Catholic Church
to urge global leaders to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate
change.
In an address opening the “Saving
Our Common Home” event, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said there is a “clear urgency”
to the task and that people around the world, “as members of the common
household, need to come together.”
The Vatican’s Dicastery for
Integral Human Development is hosting the July 5-6 event among some 400 global
faith leaders, scientists and politicians with hopes to influence separate
meetings later this year of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank,
and the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
The conference is pegged to the
third anniversary of the publication of Pope Francis’ 2015 environmental
encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for our Common Home.” [....]
Comments
from those who have read the Third Secret of Fatima:
·
“I cannot say anything of what I learned at
Fatima concerning the third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one
concerns the Pope. The other, logically – although I must say nothing –
would have to be the continuation of the words: In
Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.” [3] [emphasis added] – Joseph
Schweigel, S.J., d. 1964 (interrogated Sister Lucia
about the Third Secret on behalf of Pope Pius XII on Sept. 2, 1952)[4]
·
“In the period preceding the great
triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, terrible things are to happen.
These form the content of the third part of the Secret. What are they?
·
If ‘in Portugal the dogma of the Faith will
always be preserved,’ … it can be clearly deduced from this that in other parts
of the Church these dogmas are going to become obscure or even lost
altogether.Thus it is quite possible that in this intermediate
period which is in question (after 1960 and before the triumph of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary), the text makes concrete references to the
crisis of the Faith of the Church and to the negligence of the pastors
themselves.” [5] [emphasis added] – Fr.
Joaquin Alonso, C.M.F., d. 1981 (Cleratian priest and official Fatima
archivist for over sixteen years; had unparalleled access to Sister Lucia)
·
“The Secret of Fatima speaks
neither of atomic bombs, nor nuclear warheads, nor Pershing missiles, nor
SS-20’s. Its content concerns only our faith. To identify the
Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform
the meaning of the message. The loss of faith of a continent is worse
than the annihilation of a nation; and it is true that faith is
continually diminishing in Europe.” [6] [emphasis added] – Bishop
Alberto Cosme do Amaral,
d. 2005 (former bishop of Fatima-Leiria; remarks made in Vienna, Austria on
Sept. 10, 1984)
·
“It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with
Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against apostasy in the
Church.” [emphasis added] – Cardinal
Silvio Oddi, d. 2001
(Vatican diplomat and personal friend of Pope John XXIII, from whom he knew
certain details concerning the Third Secret) [7]
·
“In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other
things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”
[emphasis added] – Cardinal
Mario Luigi Ciappi, O.P., d. 1996 (personal
theologian to Popes John XXIII-John Paul II) [8]
Frère Michel de la Sainte Trinité, The
Whole Truth about Fatima, [2], Volume 3.
Posted by OnePeterFive
God, who is the perfect and infinite intelligence—that is, the infinite
and perfect reason—created man to His own likeness, and gave him a reasonable intelligence,
like His own. As the face in the mirror answers to the face of the beholder, so
the intelligence of man answers to the intelligence of God. It is His own
likeness. What, then, is the revelation of faith, but the illumination of the
Divine reason poured out upon the reason of man? The revelation of faith is no
discovery which the reason of man has made for himself by induction, or by
deduction, or by analysis, or by synthesis, or by logical process, or by
experimental chemistry. The revelation of faith is a discovery of itself by the
Divine Reason, the unveiling of the Divine Intelligence, and the illumination
flowing from it cast upon the intelligence of man; and if so, I would ask, how
can there be variance or discord? How can the illumination of the faith
diminish the stature of the human reason? How can its rights be interfered
with? How can its prerogatives be violated? Is not the truth the very reverse
of all this? Is it not the fact that the human reason is perfected and elevated
above itself by the illumination of faith?
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, The
Revolt of the Intelligence Against God
All law proceeds from the reason and will of the lawgiver; the Divine
and natural laws from the reasonable will of God; the human law from the will
of man, regulated by reason. Now just as human reason and will, in practical
matters, may be made manifest by speech, so may they be made known by deeds:
since seemingly a man chooses as good that which he carries into execution. But
it is evident that by human speech, law can be both changed and expounded, in
so far as it manifests the interior movement and thought of human reason.
Wherefore by actions also, especially if they be repeated, so as to make a
custom, law can be changed and expounded; and also something can be established
which obtains force of law, in so far as by repeated external actions, the
inward movement of the will, and concepts of reason are most effectually
declared; for when a thing is done again and again, it seems to proceed from a
deliberate judgment of reason. Accordingly, custom has the force of a law,
abolishes law, and is the interpreter of law.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Do not work together with
unbelievers.
St. Paul, II Corinthians
6:14
The
Greatest Error of Vatican II
“It was declared at the Second Vatican Council that atheists too are
not excluded from this possibility of salvation… The only necessary condition
which is recognized here is the necessity of faithfulness and obedience to the
individual’s own personal conscience. This optimism concerning salvation
appears to me one of the most noteworthy results of the Second Vatican Council.
For when we consider the officially received theology concerning these
questions, which was more or less traditional right down to the Second Vatican
Council, we can only wonder how few controversies arose during the Council with
regard to these assertions of optimism concerning salvation, and wonder too at
how little opposition the conservative wing of the Council brought to bear on this
point, how all this took place without any setting of the stage or any great
stir even though this doctrine marked a far more decisive phase in the
development of the Church’s conscious awareness of her Faith than, for
instance, the doctrine of collegiality in the Church, the relationship between
scripture and tradition, the acceptance of the new exegesis, etc.”
Fr. Karl Rahner, The
Anonymous Christian
Planned
Parenthood pledges $1.5 million to protect pro-abortion Pennsylvania governor
LifeSiteNews | PENNSYLVANIA | June 21, 2018
– Planned Parenthood has announced it intends to spend heavily to ensure that
pro-abortion Democrat Tom Wolf remains the Governor of Pennsylvania.
“With nearly 75% of the
Pennsylvania legislature opposed to safe and legal abortion, Governor Tom Wolf
is critical to Planned Parenthood’s survival,” Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania
Advocates & PAC declares in its solicitation for online donations. The
group plans to spend $1.5 million toward his reelection this fall, the
Tribune-Review reports.
The money will also support other
pro-abortion candidates in the state, and finance door-knocking, phone calls,
text messages, direct mail campaigns, and digital advertising.
Wolf “is a brick wall against
efforts to roll back health care access and rights of Pennsylvanians,” Sari
Stevens, the PAC’s executive director, said. Republicans control both chambers
of the Pennsylvania legislature, meaning the fate of pro-life legislation
currently rests entirely with the governor.
Wolf and his wife Frances are both
former Planned Parenthood volunteers, and the governor has dutifully continued
to serve the abortion giant in office.
He has used his veto pen to block
legislation that would have banned late-term and dismemberment abortions, and
has promised to veto legislation banning abortions that target Down syndrome
children and abortions on babies with detectable heartbeats.
Pro-lifers have also hit Wolf for
refusing to hold the abortion industry accountable for its treatment of women,
noting that he praised a Planned Parenthood facility which has repeatedly
failed state health inspections, and nominated for Virginia Secretary of State
Pedro Cortes, a man who failed to take action against notorious Philadelphia
abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell while holding the same office
in a previous administration.
In 2015, the government data
analysis site InsideGov named Wolf the most liberal governor in America, as
well.
“It's no surprise that Tom Wolf is
setting records for donations taken from special interests. He is bought and
paid for by those filling up his campaign coffers,” Andrew Romeo, a spokesman
for Wolf’s Republican challenger Scott Wagner, responded.
The Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation
says Wagner, currently a state senator, holds a 100% pro-life voting record.
Wagner sponsored the late-term abortion ban Wolf vetoed, as well as legislation
to defund Planned Parenthood. As “governor he would continue to fight for the
rights of the unborn, which would include supporting the heartbeat bill,” Romeo
said last month.
Current pro-life laws in
Pennsylvania include requiring parental consent for abortion, a 24-hour waiting
period, informed consent requirements including fetal development and abortion
risks and alternatives, and abortion facility standards and inspections enacted
in the wake of the Gosnell scandal.
“The
True Challenge of the Pontiff is the Heresy of Homosexuality”
“The Holy Father has confirmed that which everyone had known for many
years. I think that the wall of omertà
that has existed for a long time is destroyed.
But now, how to demolish that other wall of omertà that exists inside
the seminaries? Who is concerned with the revolution of Benedict XVI who
forbade the ordination of homosexual priests?
The problem of the gay lobby in the Vatican is important, but
marginal. The true challenge of the
Pontiff is the heresy of homosexuality, what I call the ‘homoheresy’, that is,
the rejection of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church on homosexuality, whose
defenders are in favor of priesthood for gays. The Holy Father must combat this
heresy that has spread throughout the Church.
Who, in Italy, is interested in the current situation of the
seminaries? And there is where the
future of the Church is decided! The only way forward is to continue the
revolution of Ratzinger, who wished to ‘free’ the seminaries from gay educators
and homosexual seminarians.” ...
Fr. Dariusz Oko, theology professor, Pontifical University John Paul
II, Krakow, who has denounced the gay lobby in the Vatican
Feminism Unmasked
It’s called ‘She Guardian,’ by Russian
artist Dashi Namdakov who spent the last two years sculpting the towering
figure out of four massive tons of bronze. The statue measures 36-feet high.
Mr. Namdakov says the attention-grabbing piece is intended to express a sense
of “maternal protectiveness.” The
feminist work is “symbolic of female strength and a desire to care for the
young.” But, with a mother like this, it is not surprising that there are
no pups being cared for in the sculpture for the vast majority of feminists are
sterile. The demonic statue by an odd coincidence has been erected in a place
of precedence at the Marble Arch located opposite the North-East corner of Hyde
Park in London (Buckingham Palace opposite the South-East corner of the park).
The Marble Arch is where the infamous Tyburn gallows was located for the public
execution of common criminals along with faithful Catholics. It is to Tyburn
that Catholic recusants, such as St. Edmund Campion, Blessed Ralph Sherwin,
Blessed Alexander Briant, St. Oliver Plunkett, etc., etc., etc., were literally
dragged from Newgate Prison to be ‘hung, drawn and quartered.’ This rabid
feminist bitch is directly overlooking the hallowed ground of Catholic martyrs.
It only needs a sign warning the public not to pet or feed the animal.
The Love of God is Conditional
Upon Believing His Revealed Truth and Keeping His Commandments!
Everyone knows that John
himself, the Apostle of love, who seems to reveal in his Gospel the secrets of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress on the memories of
his followers the new commandment ‘Love one another,’ altogether forbade any
intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt form of Christ’s
teaching: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not
into the house nor say to him: God speed you.’ (II John 10).
Pope Pius XI, Mortalium Animos, Jan. 6, 1928
Consecration
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus composed by St. Margaret Mary
Adorable Heart of my most loving Jesus, what good have You found in me
to make You love me without limit, even though my heart, stained by a thousand
faults, was so cold and indifferent toward You?
The great proofs of love which You have shown me, even when I did not
love You, give me hope that You will now find acceptable the proofs of my
love. Receive then, my loving Savior, my
desire to consecrate myself entirely to the honor and glory of Your Sacred
Heart; accept the gift of all that I am.
I consecrate to You my person, my life, my actions, my pains and
sufferings, desiring to be in the future a victim consecrated to You glory, on
fire at this moment, and one day to be entirely consumed by the holy flames of
Your love. I offer You then, my Lord and
my God, my heart with all its desires, that during my whole life it may be
perfectly conformed to Yours. I belong,
then, wholly to Your Heart, I am entirely Yours. O my God, how great are Your mercies toward
me!
My adorable Savior, accept my consecration also in reparation for the
offenses which I have not ceased to commit against You until now, by
corresponding so badly to You love. I am
giving You very little, I know, but at least I wish to give You all that is in
my power and all You wish, for that You desire from me; therefore, by
consecrating my heart to You, I give it to You never to take it back.
Teach me, O loving Savior, perfect forgetfulness of self, for that is
the one way by which I can enter Your adorable Heart; and since in the future I
shall do everything for You, grant that all I do may be worthy of You. Teach me what I must do to arrive at the
purity of Your love, but also give me this love, give me a most ardent,
generous love. Give me that profound
humility without which no one can be pleasing to You, and accomplish in me all
Your holy will.
Once
again, the Novus Order Regime in Rome endorses the United Nations call for One World
Government based upon a “Genuine and Profound Humanism”!
As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of
the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the
crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater
imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament,
food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to
regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political
authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago.” […….] Here, continuity is essential, because
policies related to climate change and environmental protection cannot be
altered with every change of government. Results take time and demand immediate
outlays which may not produce tangible effects within any one government’s
term. That is why, in the absence of pressure from the public and from civic
institutions, political authorities will always be reluctant to intervene, all
the more when urgent needs must be met. To take up these responsibilities and
the costs they entail, politicians will inevitably clash with the mindset of
short-term gain and results which dominates present-day economics and politics.
But if they are courageous, they will attest to their God-given dignity and
leave behind a testimony of selfless responsibility. A healthy politics is
sorely needed, capable of reforming and coordinating institutions, promoting
best practices and overcoming undue pressure and bureaucratic inertia. It should be added, though, that
even the best mechanisms can break down when there are no worthy goals and
values, or a genuine and profound humanism to serve as the basis of a noble and
generous society.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, On
earth worship, global warming, etc.
Modernists
are Deconstructionalists - the deny the intentionality of words and thus
destroy the ability of language to convey truth! They are our modern
"sophists." They attack the revelation of God at its very source.
Plato's literary activity extended over fifty years, and time and again
he asked himself anew: What is it that makes the sophists so dangerous? Toward
the end he wrote one more dialogue, the Sophist,
in which he added a new element to his answer: "The sophists," he
says, "fabricate a fictitious reality." That the existential realm of
man could be taken over by pseudorealities whose fictitious nature threatens to
become indiscernible is truly a depressing thought. And yet this Platonic
nightmare, I hold, possesses an alarming contemporary relevance. For the
general public is being reduced to a state where people not only are unable to
find out about the truth but also become unable even to search for the truth because they are satisfied with deception and
trickery that have determined their convictions, satisfied with a fictitious
reality created by design through the abuse of language. This, says Plato, is
the worst thing that the sophists are capable of wreaking upon mankind by their
corruption of the word.
Josef Pieper, Abuse of Language- Abuse of Power, 1974
Modernism vs. Neo-Modernism: What is the Difference?
The overarching principle of post-conciliar
theology is not modernism, properly speaking. Let us get our terms straight.
Modernism is
the idea that there are no eternal truths, that truth is the correspondence of
the mind with one's lifestyle (adaequatio intellectus et vitae), and
that, therefore, old dogmas must be abandoned and new beliefs must arise that
meet 'the needs of modern man'. This is a radical denial of the traditional and
common sense notion of truth: the correspondence of the mind with reality (adaequatio
intellectus et rei), which is the basis of the immutability of Catholic
dogma.
No, the post-conciliar theological principle is
neo-modernism, and the
theology that is based on it is known as the nouvelle theologie.
It is the idea that old dogmas or beliefs must be retained,
yet not the traditional 'formulas': dogmas must be expressed and
interpreted in a new way in every age so as to meet the 'needs of modern man'.
This is still a denial of the traditional and common sense notion of
truth as adaequatio intellectus et rei (insofar as it is still an
attempt to make the terminology that expresses the faith correspond with
our modern lifestyle) and consequently of the immutability of
Catholic dogma, yet it is not as radical as modernism. It is more subtle
and much more deceptive than modernism because it claims that the faith
must be retained; it is only the 'formulas' of faith that must be
abandoned--they use the term 'formula' to distinguish the supposedly
mutable words of our creeds, dogmas, etc. from their
admittedly immutable meanings. Therefore,
neo-modernism can effectively slip under the radar of most pre-conciliar
condemnations (except Humani Generis, which condemns it
directly) insofar as its practitioners claim that their new and
unintelligible theological terminology really expresses the same faith of all
times. In other words, neo-modernism is supposed to be 'dynamic
orthodoxy': supposedly orthodox in meaning, yet always changing in expression
to adapt to modern life (cf. Franciscan University of Steubenville's mission
statement).
Take extra ecclesiam nulla salus as
a clear example of a dogma that has received a brutal neo-modernist
re-interpretation: they claim that the old 'formula' that ”there is no
salvation outside the Church” must be abandoned; rather it is more meaningful
to modern man to say that salvation is not in, but through, the
Church; people who are not in the Church may still be saved
through the Church; thus, to them the dogma that “there is no
salvation outside the Church” means that there is salvation outside
the Church. Hence see Ven. Pope Pius XII condemning those “reduce to a
meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to
gain eternal salvation.” (Humani generis 27).
Yet this mentality of reinterpreting
everything anew in order to 'meet the needs of the times' is generally tends to
be found in different degrees among different post-conciliar sources:
It tends to be (1) rampant in men like De Lubac, Von
Balthasar, Congar, etc.: it is the ultimate goal of their writings, teachings,
and activities as churchmen. To achieve this end, they employ the
technique of 'resourcement', the neo-modernist strategy of fishing for the few
dubious, questionable, or idiosyncratic teachings of some Fathers of the Church
and other authoritative writers, and gather them into a massive, heterodox
theological argument against the traditional understanding of the faith (which
they like to relativize by giving it names such as “Counter-Reformation”
Theology, “Tridentine” Theology, or “Scholastic” Theology, instead of just
admitting that it is Catholic Theology plain and simple).
This technique accomplishes three things that go hand-in-hand: (a) offers
a refutation of traditional Catholicism, (b) defends an interpretation that
meets the needs of modern times, and (c) gives it a semblance of being
traditional, because it appears to be based in the Fathers et al. This
type of argument is used, for example, by Von Balthasar in his nearly heretical
book, Dare We Hope that All Men be Saved? to 'prove', not that
Hell does not exist (that is a dogma), but that it is empty. But this
technique and its neo-modernistic underpinnings is not only practiced in
almost all of these men's writings; it is also defended in theory by
many of them, particularly in Von Balthasar's daring little book, Razing
the Bastions, where he demonstrates that “Tridentine” theology must be
rejected in our times because it is 'boring'.
It also tends to be (2) present in a more moderate way in the
non-binding statements by post-conciliar popes, since they themselves were
deeply involved in the developing of the nouvelle theologie. Just
to give one of a million possible examples, see Pope Benedict's evolutionistic
re-interpretation of the Resurrection of Our Lord. Nothing here
obviously contradicts the dogma of the Resurrection (it may be
interpreted as a simple analogy, even if a bad one, and nothing more), but it
is a novelty that can be easily understood as claiming that the Resurrection is
part of the natural development of nature (thus giving credence to some of the nouvelle
theologie's pet doctrines, such as De Lubac's heterodox notion of the
supernatural and De Chardin's pantheistic evolutionism). This happens
almost on a daily basis in what comes out of the Vatican, not to mention what
comes from local bishops.
And finally, neo-modernism tends to be
present (3) mostly implicitly or behind-the-scenes in the Council,
the Catechism, etc., even though it seldom comes out more explicitly.
Things are done at this level under the pretext
of 'aggiornamento', a euphemism for neo-modernism. That is
usually all the justification provided since at this authoritative level, there
is no need to justify things theologically. Hence, Vatican II and the
Catechism are not outright neo-modernistic. Rather, they (like most of
post-conciliar doctrine) tend in that direction and/or are inspired
by that mentality. In other words, most of the time these documents do
not explicitly teach neo-modernist errors (the kind of errors you hear
explicitly from neo-modernist theologians and priests). Rather, they are full of
dangerous ambiguities: statements that in a technical sense could be
interpreted as being in harmony with the traditional faith, but that, in their
natural, non-forced, interpretation are heterodox. One clear example of
this is Dignitatis humanae, par. 2; entire monographs have been written
in order to prove that, despite appearances, this document does not contradict
previous teaching. Maybe in fact it ultimately does not, but it is
obvious that the prima facie meaning does; otherwise there would be no
need to write so many volumes to prove it.
It must be noted that these are
general tendencies, and that in some documents (cf. Gaudium et Spes) and
every now and then in papal and episcopal statements neo-modernist principles
come out more explicitly.
For a more detailed philosophical and
theological critique of neo-modernism, and how it is nothing but a re-hashing
of modernism, see Garrigou-Lagrange's Where is the New Theology Leading
Us? and his The Structure of the Encyclical Humani Generis.
Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo, Ph.D.,
Professor of Theology and Philosophy
If
men are “obligated” to a “right faith” then “Religious Liberty” is lie!
That by Divine
Law Men are obliged to a Right Faith
As sight by the bodily eye is the principle of the bodily passion of
love, so the beginning of spiritual love must be the intellectual vision of
some object of the same. But the vision of that spiritual object of
understanding, which is God, cannot be had at present by us except through
faith, because God exceeds our natural reason, especially if we consider Him in
that regard under which our happiness consists in enjoying Him.
a.) The divine law directs man to be entirely subject to God. But as
man’s will is subjected to God by loving Him, so his understanding is subjected
to Him by believing Him,—but not by believing anything false, because no
falsehood can be proposed to man by God, who is the truth: hence he who
believes anything false does not believe God.
b.) Whoever holds an erroneous view about a thing, touching the essence
of the thing, does not know the thing. Thus if any one were to fix on the
notion of irrational animal, and take that to be man, he would not know man.
The case would be otherwise, if he was mistaken only about some of the
accidents of man. But in the case of compound beings, though he who errs about
any of the essentials of a thing does not know the thing, absolutely speaking,
still he knows it in a sort of a way: thus he who thinks man to be an
irrational animal knows him generically: but in the case of simple beings this
cannot be,—any error shuts out entirely all knowledge of the thing. But God is
to the utmost degree simple. Therefore whoever errs about God does not know
God. Thus he who believes God to be corporeal has no sort of knowledge of God,
but apprehends something else instead of God. Now as a thing is known, so is it
loved and desired. He then who errs concerning God, can neither love Him nor
desire Him as his last end. Since then the divine law aims at bringing men to
love and desire God, that same law must bind men to have a right faith
concerning God.
Hence it is said: Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb.
xi, 6); and at the head of all other precepts of the law there is prescribed a
right faith in God: Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one Lord (Deut. vi. 4).
St. Thomas Aquinas, Of God and
His Creatures
The
Four Sins that “Cry to Heaven for Vengeance” are protected acts under U.S. Law
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain
degree. The safest way to make laws
respected is to make them respectable.
When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel
alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the
law. These two evils are of equal
consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them.
The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds
of the people, law and justice are the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to
believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many
persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them
so. Thus, in order to make plunder
appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for law to
decree and sanction it. Slavery,
restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from
them but also among those who suffer from them.
Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Prophecy of St. Francis of Assisi
“Act bravely, my brethren; take courage and
trust in the Lord. The time is fast approaching in which there will be great
trials and afflictions; perplexities and dissensions, both spiritual and
temporal, will abound; the charity of many will grow cold, and the malice of
the wicked will increase. The devils will have unusual power; the immaculate
purity of our Order, and of others, will be so much obscured that there will be
very few Christians who obey the true Supreme Pontiff and the Roman Church with
loyal ears and perfect charity.
“At the time of this tribulation a man, not
canonically elected, will be raised to the Pontificate, who, by his cunning,
will endeavour to draw many into error and death. Then scandals will be
multiplied, our Order will be divided, and many others will be entirely
destroyed, because they will consent to error instead of opposing it.
“There will be such diversity of opinions
and schisms among the people, the religious and the clergy, that, except those
days were shortened, according to the words of the Gospel, even the elect would
be led into error, were they not specially guided, amid such great confusion,
by the immense mercy of God….
“Those who persevere in their fervor and
adhere to virtue with love and zeal for the truth, will suffer injuries and
persecutions as rebels and schismatics; for their persecutors, urged on by the
evil spirits, will say they are rendering a great service to God by destroying
such pestilent men from the face of the earth…
“Some preachers will keep silent about the
truth, and others will trample it under foot and deny it. Sanctity of life will
be held in derision even by those who outwardly profess it, for in those days
Our Lord Jesus Christ will send them, not a true Pastor, but a destroyer.”
St. Francis of Assisi, Works of the
Seraphic Father St. Francis of Assisi, published in 1882 by the London-based
Catholic publishing house R. Washbourne, 1882, pp. 248-250.
“Vatican II was a pastoral
council by its teachings, that is, its doctrines. In a word, Vatican II was pastoral by being
doctrinal.”
Fr. John O’Malley, Jesuit “historian and
theologian,” author of What Happened at
Vatican II, speaking at Caritas International Conference, “Vatican II,
Remembering the Future: Ecumenical, Interfaith and Secular Perspectives on the
Council's Impact and Promise.” The event was co-hosted by Georgetown, Marymount
University in Arlington, Va., and the Washington National Cathedral.
COMMENT: This is a
remarkable admission of the necessary relationship between Catholic doctrine
and Catholic practice. It is a Truth of
our Faith that has been constantly denied by the Modernists since Vatican II
because, if this Truth had been admitted, no one would have accepted the
Council’s novel teachings which were imposed by a corruption of practice. Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission
has affirmed that every Catholic possesses a right to the immemorial traditions
of our Church because we have a duty imposed by God to profess our faith openly
and publicly which these traditions perfectly signify. And thus, these immemorial traditions
constitute necessary attributes of the Faith because without them, the Faith
cannot be known or communicated to others.
And now, those who have foolishly adopted the novel practices
dictatorially imposed after Vatican II are to understand that they in fact do
signify a new doctrine, that “Vatican II was pastoral by being doctrinal.” The
Modernists want the new doctrines to be professed that the new practices
signify. No Catholic is bound by any
novel doctrine, therefore, no Catholic is bound by any novel practice which
signifies these new doctrines. The only reason that Fr. O’Malley is now
admitting this Catholic truth is to impose formally the novel doctrines which
the Novus Ordo practice signifies.
The Church again is victimized by homosexual clerics and
their lobby!
Pedophilia, Clergy abuse victims settle with US diocese
The church of St. Paul and Minneapolis will deliver $210 million to 450
people sexually abused by members of the clergy. Money to be placed in a trust
fund for the claimants
vatican insider staff | turin | June 1, 2018
Record compensation
was provided by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the United
States, which announced a 210 million dollars settlement for about 450 victims
of clergy sexual abuse. This is the second largest reparation for the scandal
that has shaken the Catholic Church of the United States, after that of 2007
when the archdiocese of Los Angeles liquidated cases of clergy sexual abuse of
508 victims paying 660 million dollars.
Most of the funds,
about $170 million, will come from insurance companies, the rest from parishes,
a pension fund and the sale of real estate.
The victim's
lawyer, Jeff Anderson, said that the money - a total of $210,290,724 - will go
in a trust fund for the claimants, survivors of the abuses perpetrated by
several priests in past decades. During the conference the lawyer also showed
the sole of his shoes where the phrase "Rise up and claim the truth"
was written.
"The victims
of the abuses will have their payments made as soon as the court approves the
plan", Archbishop Bernard Hebda assured, from 2016 at the head of the
diocese hit by the scandals, which in 2015 filed for bankruptcy.
The prelate said he
was "grateful to all those who courageously presented themselves to
denounce what had happened". "The Church", he added, "has
disappointed you and I am very sorry: the abuses have stolen so much from you,
from your childhood, from your innocence, from your security, from your trust
and in many cases from your faith".
The Homo-Lobby is so deeply imbedded it can only be
removed by persecution!
Chile, the Pope’s words on gays and Wojtyla’s forgotten directives
The Chilean case demonstrates the existence - not only in the South
American country - of serious problems of discernment in vocations in
seminaries, and in the processes of episcopal nomination
Vatican Insider | andrea tornielli | vatican city | May 31, 2018
The case of Chile
and the emergence of new scandals, following the renunciation of the entire
episcopate who has placed their fate in the hands of the Pope, shows how deeply
rooted is the disease that afflicts the Chilean Church and not only. Yet, it
also shows how much the teachings of the Popes, published in recent decades,
have been considered dead letters by the bishops.
Last week, speaking
behind closed doors with the General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal
Conference, Pope Francis, though expressing all his concern for the decline in
priestly vocations, had invited the bishop to focus more on the quality of
future priests than with quantity, citing the case of homosexual
persons who wish to enter the seminary: “If you have even the slightest doubt,
it is better not to let them in”. Francis spoke in the wake of two documents
published in recent years by the Holy See: the first is of 2005, at the
beginning of the pontificate of Benedict XVI, the second is of 2016 and was
promulgated during the pontificate of Bergoglio. In both, while deeply
respecting the people in question, it is argued that it is not possible to
admit to seminary and sacred orders “those who practice homosexuality” or “have
deeply rooted homosexual tendencies”.
In a note of the document given by Pope
Francis to the Chilean bishops who arrived in Rome, one could read a criticism
for having entrusted the leadership of the seminaries to “priests suspected of
practicing homosexuality”. The existence of branched and organized networks of
priests who lured their prey via the web, as well as cases of abuse of minors
involving eminent priests, clearly indicate that the criteria of discernment
were not well applied.
Already in 1992,
therefore more than ten years before the 2005 publication of the Instruction of
the Congregation for Catholic Education on the theme “Criteria for the
discernment of vocations with regard to persons with homosexual tendencies in
view of their admission to the seminary and to holy orders”, and more than
twenty years before the publication of the Ratio Fundamentalis of the
Congregation for the Clergy entitled “The Gift of the Presbyteral Vocation”
(these are the two documents that invite those who have a deeply rooted
homosexual tendency or practice homosexuality not to enter the seminary), John
Paul II made known the apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis on “the
formation of priests in the circumstances of the present day”.
In that document,
we read: “Since the charism of celibacy, even when it is genuine and has proved
itself, leaves one’s affections and instinctive impulses intact, candidates to
the priesthood need an affective maturity which is prudent, able to renounce
anything that is a threat to it, vigilant over both body and spirit, and
capable of esteem and respect in interpersonal relationships between men and
women. A precious help can be given by a suitable education to true friendship,
following the image of the bonds of fraternal affection which Christ himself
lived on earth”.
Pope Wojtyla also
affirmed: “Human maturity, and in particular affective maturity, requires a
clear and strong training in freedom, which expresses itself in convinced and
heartfelt obedience to the “truth of one’s own being, to the “meaning” of one’s
own existence, that is to the “sincere gift of self” as the way and fundamental
content of the authentic realization of self. Thus understood, freedom requires
the person to be truly master of oneself, determined to fight and overcome the
different forms of selfishness and individualism which threaten the life of
each one, ready to open out to others, generous in dedication and service to
one’s neighbor”.
The problem that
has emerged from recent scandals is not only that of pedophilia: in many cases
it is the abuse of children who have already entered adolescence. The widest
and deepest problem to which no adequate answer has yet been given concerns the
affective immaturity of candidates for the priesthood, who, if they are not men
mature in their affectivity - whether heterosexual or homosexual - will be
conditioned by their affective immaturity in relations with others. […….]
READ CARFULLY: Benedict/Ratzinger does not possess the
power to alter what Christ established!
Completeness or not of Fatima message is beside the point: what matters
is that what is known is unfolding
Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza Romana |
May 25, 2016
The centenary year of Fatima was
opened on Pentecost Sunday to news that caused quite a sensation.
The German theologian Ingo
Dollinger revealed to the “OnePeterFive” site that after the publication of the
Third Secret of Fatima, Cardinal Ratzinger had confided to him: “Das ist noch
nicht alles!”, “We didn’t publish everything”. The Vatican Press Office
intervened with an immediate denial in which it stated: “Pope emeritus Benedict
XVI declares never to have spoken with Professor Dollinger about Fatima’,
clearly affirming that the remarks attributed to Professor Dollinger on the
matter ‘are pure inventions, absolutely untrue’, and he confirms decisively
that ‘the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima is complete.”
The denial doesn’t convince those
like Antonio Socci who had always sustained the existence of an undisclosed
part of the secret, which would refer to the abandonment of the faith by a part
of the Church’s hierarchy. Other scholars like Dr. Antonio Augusto Borelli
Machado, think the secret disclosed by the Vatican is complete and tragically
eloquent. On the basis of the information at our disposal, today we cannot
affirm with absolute certainty, either the entirety of the Third Secret text
nor its incompleteness. What appears absolutely certain is that the prophecy of
Fatima is unfulfilled and that its fulfilment concerns an unprecedented crisis
in the Church.
Regarding this, an important
hermeneutic principle needs to be borne in mind. The Lord, through revelations
and prophecies, which add nothing to the deposit of the faith, at times offers
us some “spiritual direction” to guide us through the darkest periods of
history. Yet if it’s true that the Divine words cast light on dark times, the
opposite is also true: historical events, in their dramatic unfolding, help us
to understand the significance of prophecy.
On
July 13th 1917, when Our Lady announced at Fatima that if humanity didn’t
convert Russia would have spread its errors throughout the world, these words
appeared incomprehensible. It was the historical facts that revealed their
significance. After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, it was clear that
the expansion of Communism was the instrument God wanted to use as a punishment
to the world for its sins.
Between 1989 and 1991, the evil
empire of the Soviet Union apparently crumbled, but the disappearance of its
political packaging allowed for the diffusion all over the world of Communism,
which has its ideological nucleus in philosophical evolution and moral
relativism. The “philosophy of praxis” which according to Antonio Gramsci sums
up the Marxist cultural revolution, has become the theological horizon of the
new pontificate, outlined by theologians like the German Cardinal, Walter
Kasper and the Argentinean Archbishop, Victor Manuel Fernàndez, inspirers of
the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
In this sense it’s not the Fatima
Secret we need to start from in order to understand the reality of a tragedy in
the Church, but from the crisis in the Church[itself]in order to understand the
ultimate meaning of the Fatima Secret. A crisis which goes back to the 1960s,
but with Benedict XVI’s abdication and Pope Francis’ pontificate, has seen a
shocking acceleration.
While the Vatican Press Office was
making haste to defuse the Dollinger case, another bomb exploded with an even
greater impact. During the presentation of Prof. Don Roberto Regoli’s book,
Oltre la crisi della Chiesa. Il pontificato di Benedetto XVI (Lindau, Turin,
2016) held in the auditorium at the Gregorian Pontifical University, Monsignor Georg Gänswein
highlighted Pope Ratzinger’s act of renunciation with these words:
“From
February 11th 2013, the papal ministry is not the same as before. It is and
remains the foundation of the Catholic Church; and yet it is a foundation that
Benedict has profoundly and lastingly transformed by his exceptional
pontificate”.
According to Archbishop Gänswein, the Pope’s resignation
is “epochal” as it introduced into the Catholic Church the new institution of
“Pope emeritus” transforming the concept of munus petrinum - “the petrine
ministry”. “Before and after his abdication, Benedict intended and intends his
task as a participation in a “petrine ministry” such as this. He left the Papal
Throne and yet with his step on February 11th 2013, he did not entirely abandon
this ministry. Rather he integrated the personal office with a collegial and
synodal dimension, almost a shared ministry (...). From the election of his
successor, Pope Francis—on 13 March 2013—there are not then two Popes, but de
facto an enlarged ministry with an active and a contemplative member. For this
reason, Benedict has not renounced either his name or his white cassock. For
this reason, the correct title with which we must refer to him is still
“Holiness.” Furthermore, he has not retired to an isolated monastery, but [has
retired]within the Vatican, as if he had simply stepped aside to make space for
his Successor, and for a new stage in the history of the Papacy.(...). With
this act of extraordinary boldness he has instead renewed the office (even
against well-meaning and undoubtedly competent advisors) and in a last endeavour
has strengthened it (as I hope). This certainly will only be demonstrated by
history. However, in the history of the Church, 2013 will remain the year that
the renowned Theologian on the Throne of Peter became the first “Pope Emeritus”
in history.”
This discourse is of an explosive
nature, and, by itself, demonstrates how we are not “over” the crisis in the
Church but more than ever in it. The Papacy is not a ministry that can be
“enlarged”, since it is an “office” given personally by Jesus Christ to a sole
Vicar and a sole successor of Peter. What distinguishes the Catholic Church
from every other church or religion is precisely the existence of a unitary and
indissoluble principle in the person of the Supreme Pontiff. Monsignor
Gänswein’s discourse(it is difficult to understand where he wants to go with
it) suggests a two-headed Church and adds confusion to a situation already far
too confusing.
One sentence connects the second
and third part of the Fatima Secret: “In Portugal the dogma of the faith will
always be kept.” Our Lady is talking to three little Portuguese shepherds and
assures them that their country will not lose the faith. But where will the
faith be lost? It has always been thought that Our Lady was referring to the
apostasy of entire nations, but today is seems increasingly clearer that the
greatest loss of faith is occurring among churchmen.
A “bishop dressed in white” and
“various other bishops, priests and religious” are at the centre of the Third
Secret, in a setting of death and ruin, legitimate to imagine as not only
material, but spiritual. Before writing the Third Secret, the revelation that
Sister Lucia had at Tuy on January 3rd 1944 confirms this, and is hence
indissolubly linked to it. After the vision of a terrible cosmic catastrophe,
Sister Lucia recounts that she had heard in her heart “a soft voice that said:
‘in time, one faith, one baptism, one Church, Holy Catholic, Apostolic. In
eternity Heaven!’!”
These words represent a radical
negation of any form of religious relativism which the heavenly voice
contradicts with the exaltation of Holy Mother Church and the Catholic Faith.
In history the smoke of Satan can invade the Church, but whoever defends the
integrity of the Faith against the powers of hell will see, in time and in
eternity, the triumph of the Church and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
definitive seal of the dramatic but fascinating Fatima prophecy.
Land of the Lemmings
Ireland votes to legalize abortion: ‘a tragedy of historic proportions’
LifeSiteNews | IRELAND | May 26, 2018 – Irish citizens voted to legalize abortion
on Friday, ending Ireland’s legacy as one of the world’s most pro-life nations.
The votes are still being officially counted, but the pro-abortion
campaign is declaring victory and pro-lifers are calling this a “tragedy of
historic proportions.”
“The 8th amendment did not create a right
to life for the unborn child – it merely acknowledged that such a right exists,
has always existed, and will always exist,” the pro-life Save the 8th campaign
said in a statement. “What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic
proportions. However, a wrong does not become right simply because a majority
support it.”
Ireland has one of the lowest maternal
mortality rates in the world. The Eighth Amendment of its Constitution
guaranteed equal rights for pre-born babies and their mothers.
Repealing the Eighth Amendment was a
decades-long goal of the abortion movement. The Irish voted by 67 percent to
add the Eighth Amendment to their constitution in 1983, making the Emerald Isle
a uniquely safe place for pre-born babies in contrast to the rest of the West’s
liberal abortion regimes.
There have been five previous votes on
repealing the Eighth Amendment, all of which failed. One was in 1983, three
were in 1992, and one was in 2002.
More people in Dublin, where the majority
of residents supported the “repeal” campaign, voted in this referendum than in
2015 on same-sex “marriage” and in their general election.
One students’ union in Dublin created a
safe space-like “chill zone” where students could “de-stress” as the results
were counted. It became apparent that abortion advocates had won and only 14
students utilized the room, The Guardian reported. Exit polls showed around 87
percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for abortion.
In early 2018, the Irish government
approved putting the Eighth Amendment to a vote in May with the promise that if
passed, legislation allowing abortion on demand would be introduced. The
proposed legislation – which may be introduced next week – is expected to be
abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for healthy babies
and later throughout pregnancy for nebulous “health” reasons, for babies with
disabilities, and babies conceived in rape.
Pro-life activists responded to the
referendum with a massive canvassing and public awareness campaign about how
many lives have been saved by the Eighth Amendment, how one in five babies in
England is aborted, the fact that abortion kills a living human being, and the
many harms to women and society that come with legalizing it.
“The unborn child no longer has a right to
life recognised by the Irish state,” the Save the 8th’s defeat statement
continued. “Shortly, legislation will be introduced that will allow babies to
be killed in our country. We will oppose that legislation. If and when abortion
clinics are opened in Ireland, because of the inability of the Government to
keep their promise about a GP led service, we will oppose that as well. Every
time an unborn child has his or her life ended in Ireland, we will oppose that,
and make our voices known.”
The country once known for its strong
Catholic heritage and identity voted in 2015 to amend its constitution to
permit same-sex “marriage.” Despite Ireland’s move toward secularism and
approval of redefining marriage, polls on how the Eighth Amendment vote would
go were extremely close toward the end of the abortion vote.
In 2012, a woman named Savita Halappanavar,
who was 17 weeks pregnant, died of sepsis (blood poisoning) at Galway
University Hospital. Three official investigations found that the 31-year-old
died of a blood infection caused by “extremely virulent bacteria,” E. coli
ESBL. Under Ireland’s abortion laws, the woman would have been permitted an
abortion had doctors realized how sick she was when she came to the hospital.
They didn’t, and her death was due to medical negligence, not lack of abortion,
official investigations revealed. According to the Health Information and
Quality Authority, which investigated her death, doctors missed 13
opportunities to save her life. Irish
abortion activists exploited Savita's case and lied about her death,
culminating in Friday’s vote.
COMMENT: Ireland, forever to be known as the
land of the Lemmings, ranks close to the bottom for intelligence of all the
nations of Europe:
https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-country
This vote to introduce legalized abortion,
which naturally follows fast upon their legalization of homosexual “marriage”
three years ago, confirms these findings, for whom, after seeing the
demographic destruction of Italy, Spain, France, England and Germany, all who
have so decimated their populations by abortion that they cannot replace their
own and must import Muslim workers who will soon dominate and destroy their
native cultures, would follow them in their national folly? Yet Ireland is
the only country to legalize these perversions by popular vote. The nations of Poland and Hungry are far more
intelligent and possessing a clearer moral sense are moving to restrict as much
as possible this satanic crime. They had
abortion imposed upon them by Communism and are working to reverse this policy
of national suicide. But Ireland has no
excuse. Having kept the faith through
hundreds of years of persecution they have now returned to their Druid past where
ritual murder including that of children was part of the routine worship, for
abortion in the end is a form of ritual murder.
The dog that returns to its vomit is far different than one trying to
restore their Catholic culture after years of communist rule. Ireland is through and will suffer a
punishment that will make its inhabitants pine for the good old days of imposed
English famine. All of this is no
problem for the Catholic Novus Ordo Irish Church that has been so thoroughly
infiltrated by homosexual clergy that it can only wonder how they will
establish ecumenical relations with their Druid counterparts.
A patron in high places at last!
Medjugorje, the Pope appoints Hoser as permanent visitor
The Polish archbishop had carried out a pastoral survey on behalf of
the Pontiff. Now he will be in charge of accompanying the faithful on a
permanent basis but without entering into matters relating to the authenticity
of the apparitions
Vatican Insider | andrea tornielli | vatican city | May 31, 2018
There is
still no pronouncement regarding the supernatural nature of the Marian
apparitions that have followed one another over decades, but a significant
decision that shows Francis’ priorities: the accompaniment of the many faithful
who go to Medjugorje from all over the world.
On
31 May 2018 Pope Bergoglio appointed Monsignor Henryk Hoser, Archbishop
Emeritus of Warszawa-Prague in Poland, as “ special apostolic visitor to the
parish of Medjugorje, for an indefinite period and ad nutum Sanctae Sedis”,
that is, at the disposal of the Holy See.
The
Vatican Press Office informs that it is an “exclusively pastoral task, in
continuity with the mission of the Holy See’ special envoy of the parish of
Medjugorje, entrusted to Monsignor Hoser on 11 February 2017 and concluded by
him in recent months”.
“The
mission of the apostolic visitor - the communiqué concludes- is to ensure a
stable and continuous accompaniment of the parish community of Medjugorje and
of the faithful who go there on pilgrimage, whose needs require special
attention”.
The
director of the Vatican Press Office Greg Burke stressed the “pastoral, not
doctrinal” character of Hoser’s mission and therefore, today’s decision “does
not enter into the doctrinal questions” concerning the truthfulness of the
Marian apparitions of Medjugorje. The appointment therefore represents “not the
conclusion” of the Medjugorje affair, “but the next step” to Hoser’s first
mission. The prelate, moreover, “will have residence in Medjugorje, for a
tighter collaboration with the bishop and the local Franciscans”.
It
is well known that Monsignor Hoser, who was not in charge of overseeing the
apparitions as such, but of the pastoral care of the faithful, was personally
very much in favor of the recognition of the apparitions. [.....]
COMMENT: The apparitions on
demand to the visionaries at Medjugorge
are not from God. Either they are
demonic, from the demented, or a mere financial scam or a combination of all
three. They have been going on since
1981 and the show is from time to time taken on the road. The messages have contained heretical
judgments since the beginning. The
alleged apparitions have been investigated by the local bishop and the national
bishops conferences numerous time and have never been approved as from heaven.
In Pope Francis they find a patron for Dogma means nothing to him and the
messages are sympathetic to his world vision.
Pope Francis tells gay man: 'God made you like this'
Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused, says pontiff told him God
did not mind that he was gay
The Guardian | Stephanie Kirchgaessner |
Rome | May 20, 2018
Juan
Carlos Cruz said some of Chile’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert
as they accused him of lying about abuse.
A
survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had
made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments
about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church.
Juan
Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope two weeks ago about the abuse he
suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the
issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s
bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying
about the abuse.
“He
told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this
and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You
have to be happy with who you are,’” Cruz told Spanish newspaper El País. [.....]
Pope Francis,
an ideologue for the "new barbarians."
As Russell Kirk
wrote, ideology is political religion. And the dogmas of the political religion
by which we are increasingly ruled have displaced the teachings of Christianity
and tradition.
Since the
Stonewall Riot of 1969, homosexual relationships have gone from being seen as
indecent and immoral, to being tolerated, to being accepted, to being on the
same plane as traditional marriage, to being a constitutional right.
And if you do
not accept the new morality, you are a deplorable bigot. And if you act on your
disbelief in the equality of homosexuality, you will be ostracized and
punished.
The truths
being jettisoned built the greatest civilization known to man. Will the
invented truths of our new egalitarianism survive the arrival of the new
barbarians? It’s not looking all that good right now.
Pat Buchanan,
Can the Pope Change Moral Truth?
All Chilean bishops offer their resignation over sexual abuse cover-up
It is not yet clear whether Pope Francis will accept resignations of 34
bishops
Guardian | Harriet Sherwood | May 18, 2018
The scandal has damaged the
credibility of the church in Chile. Photograph: Vincenzo Pinto/AP
Chile’s
bishops have offered to resign en masse over a sexual abuse and cover-up
scandal that has embroiled Pope Francis and has been highly damaging to the
Catholic church.
Thirty-one
serving bishops and three retired bishops signed a letter of resignation on
Friday. “We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will
leave it to him to decide freely for each of us,” they said. “We want to ask
forgiveness for the pain caused to the victims, to the pope, to God’s people
and to our country for the serious errors and omissions we have committed.”
There
was no immediate indication of whether the pope would accept their
resignations.
The
bishops’ move came after Francis said the Chilean church hierarchy was
collectively responsible for “grave defects” in handling sexual abuse cases and
the resulting loss of credibility suffered by the church.
He
accused them of destroying evidence of sexual crimes, putting pressure on
investigators to downplay abuse accusations and showing “grave negligence” in
protecting children from paedophile priests.
“No
one can exempt himself and place the problem on the shoulders of the others,”
Francis said in a letter to the bishops.
Francis
summoned the bishops to a three-day emergency summit in Rome after he was
forced to admit he had made “grave errors in judgment” in the case of Juan
Barros, a bishop who had been accused of covering up alleged abuse by a Chilean
priest, Fernando Karadima, in the 1980s and 90s.
The
Chilean church has been rocked by the allegations of abuse by Karadima and
others, and by claims that senior figures knew about or even witnessed what was
going on.
Now
87 and living in a nursing home in Child, Karadima has always denied the
allegations. Barros has said he was unaware of any wrongdoing.
Francis
strongly defended Barros during a visit to Chile in January, accusing
Karadima's accusers of slander, in remarks that shocked Chileans and others
around the world. “There is not one piece of evidence against [Barros]. It is
calumny,” he said.
Francis’s
comments were seen as highly damaging to his reputation, compounding a
widespread view that he has failed to take a robust stance on the issue of
clerical sexual abuse since becoming pope.
The
Vatican later sent two expert on sexual crimes to investigate claims of
widespread abuse and cover-up in Chile. They delivered a 2,300-page report.
In
a 10-page letter commenting on the report, which was handed to the Chilean
bishops at the start of the summit, the pope said the church authorities had
minimised “the absolute gravity of their [priests’] criminal acts, attributing
to them mere weakness or moral lapses.”
Priests
accused of abuse were moved but “were then welcomed into other dioceses, in an
obviously imprudent way, and given … jobs that gave them daily contact with
minors.”
Francis
said he was “perplexed and ashamed” by the report’s evidence that pressure was
put on church officials tasked with investigating sexual crimes, “including the
destruction of compromising documents on the part of those in charge of
ecclesiastic archives”.
He
said: “The problems inside the church community can’t be solved just by dealing
with individual cases and reducing them to the removal of people, though this –
and I say so clearly – has to be done.
“But
it’s not enough, we have to go beyond that. It would be irresponsible on our
part to not look deeply into the roots and the structures that allowed these
concrete events to occur and perpetuate.”
In
an attempt to limit the damage caused by his comments in January defending
Barros, the pope met and apologised to three Chilean abuse survivors at his
Vatican residence, the Casa Santa Marta.
The Fruits of Vatican II - the apostasy extends to
Ireland
Ireland votes to legalize abortion: ‘a tragedy of historic proportions’
LifeSiteNews | IRELAND | May 26, 2018 –
Irish citizens voted to legalize abortion on Friday, ending Ireland’s legacy as
one of the world’s most pro-life nations.
The
votes are still being officially counted, but the pro-abortion campaign is
declaring victory and pro-lifers are calling this a “tragedy of historic
proportions.”
“The
8th amendment did not create a right to life for the unborn child – it merely
acknowledged that such a right exists, has always existed, and will always
exist,” the pro-life Save the 8th campaign said in a statement. “What Irish
voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions. However, a wrong
does not become right simply because a majority support it.”
Ireland
has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. The Eighth
Amendment of its Constitution guaranteed equal rights for pre-born babies and
their mothers.
Repealing
the Eighth Amendment was a decades-long goal of the abortion movement. The
Irish voted by 67 percent to add the Eighth Amendment to their constitution in
1983, making the Emerald Isle a uniquely safe place for pre-born babies in
contrast to the rest of the West’s liberal abortion regimes.
There
have been five previous votes on repealing the Eighth Amendment, all of which
failed. One was in 1983, three were in 1992, and one was in 2002.
More
people in Dublin, where the majority of residents supported the “repeal”
campaign, voted in this referendum than in 2015 on same-sex “marriage” and in
their general election.
One
students’ union in Dublin created a safe space-like “chill zone” where students
could “de-stress” as the results were counted. It became apparent that abortion
advocates had won and only 14 students utilized the room, The
Guardian reported. Exit polls showed around 87 percent of 18- to
24-year-olds voted for abortion.
In
early 2018, the Irish government approved putting the Eighth Amendment to a vote
in May with the promise that if passed, legislation allowing abortion on demand
would be introduced. The proposed legislation – which may be introduced next
week – is expected to be abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of
pregnancy for healthy babies and later throughout pregnancy for nebulous
“health” reasons, for babies with disabilities, and babies conceived in rape.
Pro-life
activists responded to the referendum with a massive canvassing and public
awareness campaign about how many lives have been saved by the Eighth
Amendment, how one in five babies in England is aborted, the fact that abortion
kills a living human being, and the many harms to women and society that come
with legalizing it.
“The
unborn child no longer has a right to life recognised by the Irish state,” the
Save the 8th’s defeat statement continued. “Shortly, legislation will be
introduced that will allow babies to be killed in our country. We will oppose
that legislation. If and when abortion clinics are opened in Ireland, because
of the inability of the Government to keep their promise about a GP led
service, we will oppose that as well. Every time an unborn child has his or her
life ended in Ireland, we will oppose that, and make our voices known.”
The
country once known for its strong Catholic heritage and identity voted in 2015
to amend its constitution to permit same-sex “marriage.” Despite Ireland’s move
toward secularism and approval of redefining marriage, polls on how the Eighth
Amendment vote would go were extremely close toward the end of the abortion
vote.
In
2012, a woman named Savita Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant, died of
sepsis (blood poisoning) at Galway University Hospital.
Three
official investigations found that the 31-year-old died of a blood infection
caused by “extremely virulent bacteria,” E. coli ESBL. Under Ireland’s abortion
laws, the woman would have been permitted an abortion had doctors realized how
sick she was when she came to the hospital.
They
didn’t, and her death was due to medical negligence, not lack of abortion,
official investigations revealed. According to the Health Information and
Quality Authority, which investigated her death, doctors missed 13
opportunities to save her life.
Irish
abortion activists exploited Savita's case and lied about her death,
culminating in Friday’s vote.
COMMENT: Ireland, the land of the Lemmings,
ranks close to the bottom for intelligence of all the nations of Europe.
https://iq-research.info/en/average-iq-by-country
This vote to introduce legalized abortion,
which naturally follows fast upon their legalization of homosexual
"marriage" two years ago, confirms these findings, for whom, after
seeing the demographic destruction of Italy, Spain, France, England and
Germany, all who have so decimated their populations by abortion that they
cannot replace their own and must import Muslim workers who will soon dominate
and destroy their native cultures, would follow them in their national folly? Yet Ireland is
the only country to legalize these perversions by popular vote. The nations of Poland and Hungry are
far more intelligent and possessing a clearer moral sense are moving to
restrict as much as possible this satanic crime. They had abortion imposed upon them by
Communism and are working to reverse this policy of national suicide. But Ireland has no excuse. Having kept the faith through hundreds of
years of persecution they have now returned to their Druid past where ritual
murder including that of children was part of the routine worship, for abortion
in the end is a form of ritual murder.
The dog that returns to its vomit is far different than one trying to
restore their Catholic culture after years of communist rule. Ireland is through and will suffer a
punishment that will make its inhabitants pine for the good old days of imposed
English famine. All of this is no
problem for the Catholic Novus Ordo Irish Church that has been so thoroughly
infiltrated by homosexual clergy that it is looking forward to establishing ecumenical relations with their
Druid counterparts.
The Same
Standard Applies to Conciliar Heretics!
Before
answering the accusation (that Popes Liberius and Honorius were heretics and formally
taught heresy), we must once more remind our opponents that, in order to
overturn our thesis (of papal infallibility), they must prove not merely that
Liberius or Honorius has spoken or written what is contrary to faith, or denied
it, but that he did so as Pope, teaching in matters of faith or morals, and
thereby binding the Universal Church. If
they cannot prove this, they prove nothing, for the fallibility would then be
only personal and private, and would no more affect the infallibility of the
Pope as Universal teacher, than the denial of Peter in the Court of the High
Priest injured his infallibility as Prince of the Apostles. They must, then, first produce good,
historical evidence of the fact; secondly, they must prove that it was a
definition or teaching contrary to truth in matters of faith; and, thirdly,
that the Pope intended, by his teaching, to bind the Universal Church to
believe it.
Rev. F. X.
Weninger, S.J., D.D., On the Apostolical and Infallible Authority of the Pope,
when teaching the faithful, and on his relation to a General Council
Vatican and Cardinal Dolan participates in Catholic
mockery
Pro-LGBT Vatican advisor Fr. James Martin: They called me ‘sexy’ at Met
Gala
LifeSiteNews | NEW YORK, New York
| May 10, 2018 – Fr. James Martin, a Vatican advisor and Jesuit priest
who has established himself as an 
advocate
of LGBT causes, tweeted from the Met Gala on Monday that a fellow attendee told
him “I love that you got dressed up as a sexy priest.”
Martin
listed other comments he received, including, “Funky outfit,” “I love your
costume,” and “Is that, like, for real?” in reference to his priestly suit
and collar.
Martin
also “praise[d]” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York City, for
attending the event, opining that it “was wonderful that the local ordinary
supported this historic exhibit on Catholicism.”
The
Jesuit priest has made a name for himself in recent years by making repeated
public statements undermining the Catholic Church’s doctrines on sexual
morality, particularly with regard to homosexual relations, which the Church
condemns as “intrinsically disordered.”
Martin
has spoken positively of homosexual relationships and claims that gay couples
should be able to kiss each other during the sign of peace at Mass. He claims
the Bible has been “taken out of context” in its condemnation of homosexual
acts, and has re-tweeted a complaint that Catholic priests can’t bless same-sex
unions. Hispanics condemned him in 2017 for re-tweeting an immodest image
that seemed to parody Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The
Met Gala is an annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's
Costume Institute in New York City. Numerous celebrities attend every year
dressed in often immodest and sexually provocative costumes corresponding to
that year’s theme.
This year, the Met Gala’s theme was
Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, and included a
number of women’s outfits in the style of bishops’ liturgical vestments or
sporting sacred symbols of the Catholic faith.
Pop
star Rihanna dressed in a sexually-provocative outfit made to look like papal
vestments, and Madonna Ciccone wore a dress with a cross shape carved in front
of it to reveal her chest.
The
exhibit included a sadomasochistic bondage mask covered in rosaries.
But
rather than condemning the event, the Vatican supplied vestments for an
accompanying clothing exhibit, and sent the boy’s choir of the Sistine Chapel
to sing for partygoers. Cardinal Timothy Dolan called it
a “great evening” and “the social event of the year.” He later
denied that the event was blasphemous.
However,
many Catholics condemned the event for blaspheming and insulting the Catholic
religion, as well as for its poor taste. Among them was the British journalist
and fallen-away Catholic Piers Morgan, who asked, “What the hell was the
Vatican thinking?” Others included Raymond Arroyo, Ross Douthat, Laura
Ingraham, and Matthew Schmitz at First Things.
Joseph
Sciambra, an ex-gay and former porn star who returned to the Catholic faith of
his youth, said that Martin’s apparent desire for attention is “sad and
desperate.”
“Something
very sad and desperate going on here,” wrote Sciambra on his Facebook page.
“James Martin, this doesn’t mean anything. Every time I outreach in the gay
community, I get hit on and hear meaningless compliments. But I’ve never felt
the need to reveal that fact; except now. That someone said such a thing to
Martin is not important, that he recounts the incident in detail - is very
telling.”
“Who
didn’t hug Martin when he was a boy?” asked Sciambra, who added, “It seems he
needs constant praise and reassurance – for now, he has found a deep well in
the Catholic LGBT community. . . . Too bad whatever is going on inside his mind
had to play out on the world-stage. Sometimes, I just feel kind of sorry for
him.”
“Anyone
shocked that James Martin was mixed-up in the whole Met Gala?” asked Sciambra
in another Facebook post. “That's part of the plan, and has been for a long
time - get a few gullible and greedy Bishops to mix with wealthy/well-connected
members of the LGBT community at $30,000 a pop cocktail parties - meet the
same-sex partner, listen to how uncharitable the RCC is to gay couples, approve
the dissident ministry, go back to the chancery feeling good about yourself. We
just changed the Church. It worked with Cardinal Schonborn. Easy.”
Sciambra
lamented the loss of the sense of the sacred in the Catholic Church, and
believes that this has brought about an inversion of the sacred and the
secular.
“When
the RCC [Roman Catholic Church] lost a sense of the sacred, the secular world,
in a desperate need to experience transcendence - made the sacred into
something profane. I've noticed this for many years in the gay community,” said
Sciambra.
Once in our
culture, common knowledge - “None is good
but God alone.” (Luke 18-19)
There is no
wisdom in sneering at him who truly studies words. Words, even the idlest, are
signs, and signs of things, realities, which things, realities, are to be come
at only through the signs. The term God and the adjective good, are one and the
same word; and from this we learn that our Anglo-Saxon ancestors called by one
and the same name, the supreme being, and that which it is proper to be, to
desire, to do, or to possess. Therefore, say our wise modern philosophers, our
Anglo-Saxon ancestors believed that the supreme being is good; thus proving
that Balaam’s ass, or rather that Balaam himself, yet liveth and speaketh. Say,
rather, therefore, they believed and incorporated into their every-day speech,
the great truth, the foundation and spring of all heroism, that nothing is
proper to be sought after, to be done, or possessed, which is not Godlike, or
divine. They found not God in good; but good in God. What shall I be? A God-man,
God-like. What shall I do? That which is God-like. What shall I prize? A God-ly
soul. They did not conceive of Good, independent of God,—make that conception
the standard, and bring God to it, as before a tribunal, to ascertain whether
he conformed to it, or not; but they regarded God himself as the standard, and
whatever conformed to him, they called good, and said, That be, do, possess,
live for, die for,—nothing else is worth a wish or a thought.
Orestes
Brownson, The Present State of Society
The Times of St. Athanasius:
De Mattei: The religious war of the IV Century and of our times
Roberto de Mattei | Corrispondenza
Romana | April 25, 2018
The
Church advances through history forever victorious, in accordance with the
marvelous plans of God. The first three centuries reached their peak under
Emperor Diocletian (284-305). All appeared to be lost. Discouragement was a
temptation for many Christians and among them there were those who lost the
faith. But those who persevered had the immense joy, not many years later, of
seeing the Cross of Christ blazing on the banners of Constantine at the Battle
of Saxa Rubra (312). This victory changed the course of history. The
Milan-Nicomedia Edict of 313, granting liberty to Christians, overturned Nero’s
senatus consultum, which had proclaimed Christianity a “superstitio
illicita”. The public Christianization of society had its beginnings in a
climate of enthusiasm and fervor.
In
325, The Council of Nicaea, would seem to mark the doctrinal rebirth of the
Church, with the condemnation of Arius, who denied the Divinity of the Word. At
Nicaea, thanks to the decisive role of the Deacon, Athanasius ( 295-373),
subsequently Bishop of Alexandria, the doctrine of the “consubstantiality” of
the nature among the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity was defined.
In
the years that followed, between the orthodox position and the Arian heretics a
“third party” made its way in: that of the “Semi-Arians”, in turn divided
amongst themselves into various currents, which acknowledged a certain analogy
between the Father and the Son, but denied that He had been “begotten, not
made, of one Being with the Father” as was affirmed in the Nicene Creed.
They substituted the word omousios, which means “of the same
substance” with the term omoiusios, which means “of similar substance”.
The
heretics, the Arians and the Semi-Arians, had understood that their success
would be dependent on two factors: the first was to remain inside the Church;
the second to obtain the support of the political powers, hence of Constantine
and afterwards his successors. And indeed it happened so: a crisis, until then
unprecedented, inside the Church which lasted for more than sixty years.
Nobody
has described it better than Cardinal Newman in his book The Arians of
the IV Century (1833), wherein he gathered all the doctrinal nuances of the
question. An Italian scholar, Professor Claudio Pierantoni has recently
outlined an enlightening parallel between the Arian controversy and the present
debate on the Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris laetitia. * However, even in 1973,
Monsignor Rudolf Graber (1903-1992), Bishop of Regensburg, when recalling the
figure of St. Athanasius, on the XVI centenary of his death, had compared the
crisis of the IV century to that following the Second Vatican Council
(Athanasius und die Kirche unserer Zeit: zu seinem 1600 Todestag, Kral
1973).
Athanasius
was harshly persecuted even by his confreres for his fidelity to orthodoxy, and
between 336 and 366 was five times forced to abandon the city in which he was
Bishop, thus spending long years in exile and strenuous combat in defense of
the Faith. Two assemblies of bishops, at Caesarea and Tyre (334-335) condemned
him for rebellion and fanaticism. Further, in 341, while a Council of fifty
bishops in Rome had proclaimed Athanasius innocent, the Council at Antioch, in
which more than ninety bishops took part, ratified the Acts of the Synods of
Caesarea and Tyre and put an Arian in the place of Athanasius as bishop.
The
subsequent Council of Serdica, in 343, ended with a scission: the Western
Fathers declared the deposition of Athanasius illegal and reconfirmed the
Council of Nicaea: those from the East condemned not only Athanasius, but also
Pope Julius I, (afterwards canonized), who had supported him. The Council of
Sirmium in 351, sought a middle ground between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism.
At the Council of Arles in 353, the Fathers, including the legate representing
Liberius, who had succeeded St. Julius I as Pope, signed a new condemnation
against Athanasius.
The
bishops were forced to choose between the condemnation of Athanasius and exile.
St. Paulinus, Bishop of Trier, was almost the only one in the battle for
the Nicene Creed and was exiled to Phrygia, where he died following
mistreatment at the hands of the Arians. Two years later, at the Council of
Milan, (355), more than three hundred bishops of the West, signed the
condemnation of Athanasius and another orthodox Father, St. Hilary of Poitiers,
was banished to Phrygia for his intransigent fidelity to orthodoxy.
In
357, Pope Liberius, overcome by the sufferings of exile and at the insistence
of his friends, but also driven by “a love for peace”, signed the Semi-Arian
formula of Sirmium and broke communion with St. Athanasius, declaring him
separated from the Roman Church, for his use of the term “consubstantial” as is
testified in four letters transmitted to us by St. Hilary (Manlio
Simonetti, La crisi ariana del IV secolo, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum,
Roma 1975, pp. 235-236).
Under the pontificate of the same Liberius,
the Councils of Rimini (359) and Seleucia (359), which constituted a Great
Council, representative of the West and the East, abandoned the term
“consubstantial” of Nicaea and established an equivocal “middle way” between
the Arians and St. Athanasius. It seemed as if rampant heresy had
conquered the Church.
The
Councils of Seleucia and Rimini are not numbered by the Church today in the eight
ecumenical councils of antiquity: there were, nonetheless, as many as 560
bishops present, almost the totality of the Fathers of Christianity, who were
defined as “ecumenical” by their contemporaries. It was then that St.
Jerome coined the phrase wherein "the whole world groaned and woke
astounded to find itself Arian” (Dialogus adversus Luciferianos, n. 19, in PL,
23, col. 171).
What
is important to underline is that it wasn’t about a doctrinal dispute limited
to some theologian, nor a simple clash between bishops where the Pope had to
act as an arbiter. It was a religious war in which all Christians were
involved, from the Pope down to the last faithful. Nobody closed
themselves up in a spiritual bunker, nobody stood looking out the window, a mute
spectator of the drama. Everyone was down in the trenches fighting on both
sides of the battle-lines.
It
wasn’t easy at that time to understand whether your own bishop was orthodox or
not, but the sensus fidei was the compass to orient oneself. Cardinal Walter
Brandmüller while speaking in Rome on April 7th 2018, recalled how “the ‘sensus
fidei’ acts as a sort of spiritual immune system, through which the faithful
instinctively recognize or reject any error. Upon this ‘sensus fidei’ rests
then – apart from the Divine promise – also the passive infallibility of the
Church, or the certainty that the Church, in Her totality, shall never be able
to incur a heresy.”
St.
Hilary writes that during the Arian crisis the ears of the faithful who
interpreted in an orthodox sense the ambiguous affirmations of the Semi-Arian
theologians were holier than the hearts of the priests. The Christians who for
three centuries had resisted emperors, were now resisting their own Shepherds,
in some cases even the Pope, guilty, if not of open heresy, but to say the
least, of grave negligence.
Monsignor
Graber refers to the words of Joseph von Görres (1776-1848), in his book
Athanasius (1838) written at the time of the arrest of the Archbishop of
Cologne, but it is even today of extraordinary veracity: “The earth is shaking
under our feet. We can foresee with certainty that the Church will emerge
unscathed from such ruin, but nobody can say and conjecture who and what will
survive. We, then, in advising, in recommending and raising our hands, would
like to impede the evil by showing its signs. Even the mules who carry the
false prophets, bristle, pull-back and with human language throw back the
injustice in the face of those striking them; those who do not see the
sword drawn (by God) which closes off the way to them (Numbers, XXII, 22-35).
Work then while it is day, since at night nobody can. It serves nothing to
wait: waiting has done nothing more than aggravate things.”
There
are times when a Catholic is obliged to choose between cowardice and heroism,
between apostasy and holiness. This is what happened in the IV century and it
is what is happening even today.
OnePeterFive | May 3, 2018
Michael Winerip | December 2, 2012